Farewell to Tuggy’s Divine Deception Argument

In “Divine Deception, Identity, and Social Trinitarianism” Dale argues that if Social Trinitarianism (ST) were true, the Father, Son, and Spirit would be guilty of a blameworthy act of deception. But because the Father, Son, and Spirit are ex hypothesi morally perfect, ST must be false. By offering a moral objection to ST, Dale’s argument has the lovely virtue of sidestepping the tired tri-theist objections usually hurled at ST.

Dale motivates his argument with the following analogy: orphan Annie is one day adopted by a man named Fred who claims to be her father. Fred lovingly raises Annie over the years, but for unknown reasons will not see her in person. But, at long last, Fred finally does meet her. Much to her surprise, however, Annie meets not one man but three men—Don, Jon, and Ron—who explain the elaborate effort to appear as one, “Fred.” Dale thinks their act of deception is morally blameworthy. They could have let poor Annie in on the “tri-parent” situation rather than maintain the “Fred” charade. Mutatis mutandis, the Father, Son and Spirit would be guilty for similarly deceiving the ancients, leading them to believe God is one person and not three.

But have the Father, Son, and Spirit acted like Don, Jon, and Ron? The answer is no. To see this, consider what exactly the deception is in each case. In Annie’s case, you might think the deception is intentionally leading Annie to believe that Fred is a person. But that can’t be quite right. For suppose it is possible that there be group persons—a group whose members collectively meet sufficient conditions of personhood. Would the men be any less guilty? No! For even if there could be group persons, it’s preposterous to suppose Annie believed Fred could be a group person. The deception, then, is leading Annie to believe that Fred is an individual person; the kind of person that cannot be a group person. The question, therefore, in the Trinity case is this: did the Father, Son, and Spirit lead the ancients to believe that God is an individual person, the kind of person that cannot be a group person?

Before suggesting an answer, it is important to note that this is an empirical question that is reasonably settled only by historical investigation into what the ancients believed about God and personhood. Arm-chair answers will not do here. We cannot naïvely assume, as Dale does, that there is no epistemic gap between ancient conceptions of God and personhood and our own (i.e., Annie’s). Dale implicitly acknowledges this when he provides a “sampling of scriptural evidence” for the claim that God was believed by the ancients to be “a wonderful person, not a wonderful thing (or quasi-thing), community of divinities” [“Divine Deception,” p. 280].

Now to our suggested answer: the ancients did not share our modern, unduly individualistic conception of personhood. They were a collectivist culture and readily acknowledged the reality of collective or corporate persons and personalities, and may at times have viewed God as a corporate person (for tidy defense, see here, § “The Ancients and Corporate Personality”). But if that is so, then the Father, Son, and Spirit cannot be guilty of an act of deception similar to Don, Jon, and Ron’s, thus rebutting Dale’s claim to the contrary. A more modest conclusion is available as well. Even if we cannot say the evidence favors the claim that the ancients believed God might well be more than just an individual person as modernly conceived, the evidence is sufficient to undercut the claim that the ancients believed God to be the kind of person that cannot be a group person.

Sadly, for all its lovely virtues, this seems to be the death of Dale’s divine deception argument against ST.