The Challenge to Jesus-is-God apologists points out, in effect, that in Scripture Jesus and God differ from one another, and so seemingly can’t be the same god. But then, if there’s only one god, then only one of them can be that god. Interestingly, some trinitarians can affirm with me that the argument is sound, while others must find some fault with it, declaring it unsound. This argument was directed against evangelical apologists who seem to simply collapse together Jesus and God. But the argument will also be a challenge to Oneness Pentecostals. I recently asked Oneness scholar Dr. Marvin Sanguinetti on Facebook what his response to the argument is, and he replied at some length, which I’ll comment on in this post. Just to review, here is the argument:
- God and Jesus differ.
- Things which differ are two (i.e. are not numerically identical)
- Therefore, God and Jesus are two (not numerically identical). (1, 2)
- For any x and y, x and y are the same god only if x and y are not two (i.e. are numerically identical).
- Therefore, God and Jesus are not the same god. (3,4)
- There is only one god.
- Therefore, either God is not a god, or Jesus is not a god. (5, 6)
- God is a god.
- Therefore, Jesus is not a god. (7,8)
I’ll put Dr. Sanguinetti’s comments in italics, with my meta-comments below.
1. I deny (1). If two things are numerically identical then they cannot differ, but this premise does not account for what we should consider as “differences”, nor does it say to “what” should classical identity be applied. On this premise, you are applying classical identity to God and Jesus (1) as *persons* but would need to explain what happen if such is applied to *nature* or *action* performed by God and Jesus, especially using the formula which indicates the “indivisibility of nature and actions” between Father and Son. I apply classical identity to natures and not to person.
Any trinitarian is committed to 1, so I didn’t worry too much about the formulation. I left it in the present-tense, so that the divine timelessness people could take it that way if they want. 1 doesn’t say anything about “persons,” as (for a trinitarian) it will be true either if “God” there is the Trinity or if “God” there refers to the Father.
Dr. Sanguinetti, I suggest that you don’t really want the concept of numerical identity to apply to natures but not to persons. Suppose you think about the Father. Now, you think about Jesus. Did you just think of the same thing twice? Or did you think of one thing, then another? (In other words, did those two successive thoughts of yours co-refer?) It’s an intelligible question. But then, it seems like the concept same-thing-as is applicable to persons, however you answer the question. (I assume you would say that you just referred to one and the same reality twice.)
In response to your query about what counts as a “difference,” let me make that more precise in a way that should be accepted by any theologian who thinks that (given that there is time) God is “in” time. If God can change, e.g. from not having forgiven me to having forgiven me, then just conceptually, he is such that temporal concepts do apply to him, so he is “in time,” whether or not you think God is “limited by” time. Having had a difference then will be explicated as: there is a feature F such that at some time t (point or span of time – it doesn’t matter) the one thing had F but the other thing lacked F. Let’s change 1 to this, then:
- There has been a time t and there is an intrinsic or relational property F, such that at t God had F but Jesus lacked F, or at t Jesus had F but God lacked F.
I will stipulate that F can’t be a property which depends on someone have a certain conscious state, such as believing, knowing, or seeming to perceive; such generate the only known counterexamples to 2 below – e.g. the famous “masked man” thought experiment. I would say that clear New Testament examples for F here would include: being dead, being the Father of Jesus, being the god over Jesus, being subject to the authority of God, being tempted to do wrong.
And let’s change 2 to:
2. Any two things such that there has been a time t and an intrinsic or relational property F (which doesn’t depend on someone having a certain conscious state) such that one had F at the same time the other lacked F are two (i.e. are not numerically identical).
I suggest that if Dr. Sanguinetti thinks Jesus and God to be one and the same, he should agree with 2 (since it is self-evidently true – nothing can be and not be some way at some one time) while denying 1. A price for identifying any x and any y is that you can’t then think that x and y have ever differed, in the sense explained. So what I claimed were clear God-Jesus differences above–by committing to the identity of God and Jesus (if that is his position) he would be committed to denying those differences too.
But Dr. Sanguinetti has chosen to deny my original premise 2:
2. I deny (2). Things can be numerically identical without being numerically the same thing. So X can be identical with Y in “this sense”, but not the same in “that sense”. This is so irrespective of any incompatible properties, since classical identity would be applied to this or that sense on my model of (1).
I’m not sure what to make of his second sentence here. (Examples?) I wonder if with some clarifications he would actually decide to affirm 2, as I think he should. Keep in mind that “thing” here is being used in the thinnest possible sense, so that it could cover any sort of reality metaphysicians have concocted, e.g. modes, properties, tropes, events, processes, states of affairs, propositions, substances, essences, individual essences, etc. If we can think of some a, and we can think of some b, we can ask if we’ve just thought of the same whatever twice, or whether we’ve instead thought successively of this, then of that. Keep in mind also that when it is true that “a = b” that is just to say and there are not really two whatevers here, but only one whatever, a thing which we’ve labeled “a” and we’ve also labeled “b”. Just conceptually, it can’t be that two anythings are ever = (numerically identical). Put differently, if a = b, then the terms “a” and “b” there are being used co-referentially.
If by = we mean qualitative identity (i.e. similarity) then some a and b may be “identical” (similar) in one sense or respect but not in another sense or respect. E.g. these two people are similar as regards their facial shape, but different as to height. This sort of sameness comes in kinds and degrees. But the concept of numerical sameness–it seems to be a simple concept which doesn’t admit of kinds or aspects or senses or degrees. If I ask a Hindu friend whether or not Vishnu = Shiva and he says they are the same in this sense but not that sense, then I’m pretty sure he is thinking of qualitative sameness (similarity), not of numerical sameness.
I humbly suggest that Dr. Sanguinetti should not want to deny my revised 2. In fact, we all frequently assume the truth of something like 2. (I can give examples if called upon.)
3. I affirm (3) with caveats. Yes, Jesus and God are two. But two what? On my reading, God is a divine being with a divine nature and has all the properties associated with ‘Godness’. When God became incarnate, he shared those properties with Christ, in addition to becoming a bonifide human being. The sharing of the divine properties with Christ secures the numerical identity of the divine nature between the two subjects (God and Jesus), without numerical sameness of the two ‘persons’.
3 logically follows from 1 and 2. If I’m right that 1 and 2 are true, then 3 must be true as well. Dr. Sanguinetti’s comments on step 3 lead me to think that in fact he is already committed to 1. The difference between God and Christ that he presupposes here is that God “originally” or just not because of anyone else, has divinity, whereas Christ has that same divinity because of God. When he says “sharing,” I think he’s expressing an assumption that these (God and Jesus) really are two, specifically, two persons or “subjects” (of experience, I take it). The divine nature had by God = the divine nature had by Christ. The first (at some times or in eternity) gives that one nature to the second. So, a person is a sort of thing, and it would seem that our friend agrees that God and Jesus are two things (namely, two persons), and we can see that they are indeed two when we realize that God is supposed to be divine but not because of anyone else, whereas Jesus is supposed to be divine because of God.
All of this seems perfectly clear to me, but then I’m not clear on what he means by God becoming incarnate – that sounds like one and the same being who at an earlier time is not incarnate, and then at some later time he (that same one) becomes incarnate. To put it one way, the concept of change presupposes the numerical sameness of the one before with the one after. Here, God would go from not being human to being human (while still being divine). Could it be that Dr. Sanguinetti is thinking that the name “God” applies to this one for his whole (eternal) career, while the same “Jesus” applies to him only from the moment of Incarnation forward?
4. I deny (4) You said: “For any x and y, x and y are the same god only if x and y are not two (i.e. are numerically identical)”. X and Y can the same G without being the same F. Example, a lump of clay on a Monday, which was made into a statue on Tuesday remains clay, and this type of hylomorphism is certainly possible. Two things can be the same G but different Fs. Educated Trinitarians hold a different position from Oneness Pentecostals and would find it easier to reject “relative identity”. I am yet to find any solid reason why such should be rejected, aside from hearing that it doesn’t jive with classical identity.
If one is committed to a metaphysical theory of “relative identity,” then yes, one should deny 4. It’s not clear to me, though, that our friend needs or wants God and Jesus to be the same F while being different Gs. I don’t see that such an idea was mentioned above in discussing steps 1-3. Is he thinking that God (i.e. the Father) and Jesus are the same god but different persons? That is suggested by his comment on step 5:
5. I deny (5) God and Jesus are the same “God” as it relates to “divine nature” (G) but not the same person as it relates to humanity in the incarnation (F).
Note that 5 logically follows from 3 and 4, so to deny 5, one must deny at least one of: 3, 4. It seems then that to deny 5 he is also denying 4. If I’m following correctly, then, Dr. Sanguinetti does think, like some trinitarians, that there are cases of “relative identity.” He wants to say that God the Father and Jesus are god-same but person-different, that is, the same god but not the same person, but rather two different persons.
Here, I can only point out what seem to be correct conceptual analyses of sentences like “a and b are the same F” and “a and b are different Gs.” If the first is true, that seems to require the truth of: 1. a is an F, 2. b is an F, and 3. a = b. And if the second is true, that seems to require the truth of: 1. a is a G, 2. b is a G, and 3. not-(a=b) (i.e. it’s not the case that a=b). But if this is right then being the same god implies being =, and being different persons implies not being =. Then our friend would be committed to the claim that God and Jesus are and are not =. But such a claim, surely, is false.
He can of course deny the above analyses of what it is to be the same F or to be different Gs. But then I would ask what he means in saying that God and Jesus are the same god (if not those three claims above) and what he means in saying that God and Jesus are not the same person (if not the other three claims above).
6. I affirm (6) Agreed!
7. I deny (7) because of my denial of (1) (2) (4) and (5). Since I affirm that God is a God essentially, and Jesus is a God by nature and incarnation.
8. I affirm (8.)
9. I deny (9) on the basis of my rejection of (1) (2) (4) (5) (7).
In sum, there are really two thrusts here, two lines of attack. Any one attack, if successful, is enough. One is to deny premise 4. I don’t think that Dr. Sanguinetti would deny 4 on some general grounds, such as that talk of the notion of “absolute” (non-relative) identity is unintelligible. Such talk is understandable, as came out in our discussion of steps 1-3 above. But if 4 is to be denied, is this because there is something special about the concept of a god? What would that be? When monotheists say “There is only one god,” the analysis of this involves the concept of numerical sameness. The analysis is: there is an x such that x is a god, and for any y whatever, y is a god only if y = x. Here we are, using the concept of = together with the concept of a god, and there doesn’t appear to be any problem with it.
The other attack was on steps 1-3 (or the revised 1, the revised 2, and 3) in the argument. One of course can’t just deny 3, as it has been proven, allegedly, from 1 & 2 (or the new 1 & 2) together. It seems to me that Dr. Sanguinetti wants to affirm the (absolute) sameness of God and Jesus, which is a motivation for denying 1. But then, listening to what he says about being divine, it seemed to me that our friend was affirming 1.
I’m not sure, then, what his response to the Challenge argument ought to be. I believe he is granting that the argument is logically valid. If so, then he needs to deny at least one premise in order to avoid the unwanted conclusion 9. He agrees with 8 and 6. That leaves premises revised 1, revised 2, and 4. Each of those is exceedingly hard to deny, for different reasons.
I hope that the discussion has been helpful so far and that it can continue. I have urged that 2 and 4 should not be denied, that if 4 is denied then we need a good reason (other than disliking 9), and that on Dr. Sanguinetti’s own views, the revised 1 is true. If he’s really committed to both revised 1 and revised 2, that commits him to 3, and then 4 would be the only place left to get off the bus in time, as it were.
