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trinitarian or unitarian? 11 – a trinitarian passage in Hippolytus?

mrs-butterworthsWas Hippolytus a trinitarian or a unitarian? In the last two posts, I’ve argued that he was the latter.

In the most recent translation of his Against Noetus, though, the translator thinks he is a trinitarian. He entitles this section, “The three Persons of the Trinity are One God”. (p. 74) Is he right? Here’s the passage, pretty much the whole chapter:

Well then, brethren, all this is what the Scriptures point out to us. This economy that blessed John, too, passes on to us through the witness of his Gospel, and he maintains that this Word is God… [John 1:1]

But then, if the Word, who is God, is with God, someone might well say: “What about this statement that there are two gods?” While I will not say that there are two gods – but rather one – I will say there are two persons; and that a third economy is the grace of the Holy Spirit. For though the Father is one, there are two persons – because there is the Son as well: and the third too, – the Holy Spirit. The Father gives orders, the Word performs the work, and is revealed as Son, through whom belief is accorded to the Father. By a harmonious economy the result is a single God. Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 11 – a trinitarian passage in Hippolytus?

Bill Maher on God and Jesus

I consider comedian Bill Maher to be a fairly funny guy. I don’t care for his politics. But I watched his movie Religulous, and I thought it had some funny and interesting moments. He’s not as smart as he thinks he is. He’s typical of kids who were raised Catholic, who didn’t pay too much attention, and who later sloughed off the whole thing as… Read More »Bill Maher on God and Jesus

trinitarian or unitarian? 10 – Hippolytus on the identity of the one God

hippolytusIncredibly, in 1551 they discovered an intact statue of Hippolytus (pictured here). This may exist because he was revered as a martyr shortly after his lifetime.

In the previous post, we saw that in his theology, the divine (but less divine than God) Logos came to exist from God a finite time ago, so that God could create the cosmos by means of him. On two counts, then, this makes him not a trinitarian – that the “persons” are neither co-equal nor equally divine. But is he a unitarian?

In the most important work we have from him, he says,

The first and only (one God), both Creator and Lord of all, had nothing coeval with Himself… Therefore this solitary and supreme Deity, by an exercise of reflection, brought forth the Logos first… Him alone He produced from existing things; for the Father Himself constituted existence, and the being born from Him was the cause of all things that are produced. The Logos was in the Father Himself, bearing the will of His progenitor, and not being unacquainted with the mind of the Father. For simultaneously with His procession from His Progenitor… He has, as a voice in Himself, the ideas conceived in the Father. …when the Father ordered the world to come into existence, the Logos one by one completed *each object of creation, thus pleasing God.   …[God, via the Logos] formed the ruler of all [creation, i.e. Adam]… The Creator did not wish to make him a god, and failed in His aim; nor an angel… but a man. For if He had willed to make thee a god, He could have done so. Thou has the example of the Logos. Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 10 – Hippolytus on the identity of the one God

trinitarian or unitarian? 9 – Hippolytus’s two-stage logos theory

lonely tree in the snow Hippolytus (c. 170-236) is an interesting, if obscure character. He was a presbyter in Rome, and on some reports, was a bishop of Rome – either a pope on an anti-pope, depending on how you look at it (he would have been a rival bishop, if this is true, to either Zephyrinus or Callistus). (See the entry on him in this book, pp. 164-5)

He was especially concerned to combat “monarchian” theology. In my view, it is a huge undertaking to get clear what on just what “monarchian” theology was all about. In any case, it is clear that the Hippolytus re-asserts the two-stage logos theory against it, the same sort of theory we saw  in Ireneaus. He may have been a disciple of Irenaeus.

God, subsisting alone, and having nothing contemporaneous with Himself, determined to create the world.Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 9 – Hippolytus’s two-stage logos theory

trinitarian or unitarian? 8 – Origen on “God” vs. “a god”

wordOrigen, many other ancient catholics, takes the Word (logos) of John 1 to be the pre-human Jesus.

For the record, I don’t think that is correct. But I won’t contest it here.

In the quotes here, he’s commenting on “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is from an long commentary on John, this portion of which was probably written in 231-2 AD.

Many people who wish to be pious are troubled because they are afraid that they may proclaim two Gods and, for this reason, they fall into false and impious beliefs. They either deny that the individual nature of the Son is other than that of the Father by confessing him to be God whom they refer to as “Son” in name at least, or they deny the divinity of the Son and make his individual nature and essence as an individual to be different from the Father. (Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel According to God, trans. Robert E. Heine, p. 98, bold added)

Permit me to paraphrase: people think that this Word who is with God and yes is God must be another God, a second God. But that seems wrong – isn’t monotheism true? Thus, they either think Father and Son to be numerically one (the same God) or they deny that the Word, that is, the pre-human Jesus to be divine – to be such that the word “God” applies to him.

Immediately following the passage above, Origen gives his solution.

Their problem can be resolved in this way. Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 8 – Origen on “God” vs. “a god”

Credo House Ministries’ Inaccuracies about the Trinity and the Council of Nicea

I’ve blogged about these folks before. I do not enjoy criticizing apologists, because I think Christian apologetics is important. And the folks at Credo House Ministries seem like good-hearted and hard working Christians who are doing their best to help Christians love God with their minds. And I think Patton is an excellent blogger and writer. But I feel compelled to correct some of their… Read More »Credo House Ministries’ Inaccuracies about the Trinity and the Council of Nicea

Dan Wallace: 5 Myths About Bible Translation

Check out this post by Dan Wallace over at Parchment and Pen. I teach religious studies, and regularly encounter this one: Myth 1: The Bible has been translated so many times we can’t possibly get back to the original. Wallace’s answer is absolutely right. #2 is also an important point. Wallace might have added that quotation marks are never in the Greek manuscripts; they didn’t… Read More »Dan Wallace: 5 Myths About Bible Translation

John Biddle’s unitarian confession of the Holy Trinity

go to jailJohn Biddle (1615-62) (also spelled “Bidle”) has been called “the father of English Unitarianism.” (But he didn’t use the word “unitarian” – that had yet to be coined, as a more descriptive, less polemical alternative to “Socinian.”) When he taught his theology publicly, he ran afoul of the the law, and eventually died in jail, imprisoned for his beliefs.

Here are three of the six articles of his A Confession of Faith Touching the Holy Trinity, According to Scripture. (1648, reprinted in a 1691 book, itself reprinted in 2008.) I have modernized his spelling and use of capitals and punctuation, and have added emphases in bold.

Article I: I believe that there is one most High God, creator of heaven and earth, and first cause of all things pertaining to our salvation, and confessedly the ultimate object of our faith and worship; and that this God is none but the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the first person of the Holy Trinity. (p. 1)

Article II: I believe that there is one chief Son of the Most High God,Read More »John Biddle’s unitarian confession of the Holy Trinity

trinitarian or unitarian? 7 – Origen uncensored

scissorsAgainst Celsus is not the only important surviving book by Origen. Origen’s On First Principles is often called the first systematic Christian theology. It was written some time before 231. It is a bold and wide-ranging work, and in Origen’s day Christian theologians could speculate a fair amount.

But the curtain was brought down on this era of freedom by ecclesial-political events of the fourth century. While many still considered Origen a great scholar, the atmosphere was such that one might lose one’s church career if people thought you were too sympathetic to his views.

Among his admirers was the great scholar Jerome (translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible), but Jerome had do distance himself from Origen lest the heresy hunters get him. But still, people wanted to read Origen. Answering this need, Rufinus (d. 410) translated Origen’s On First Principles into Latin. Problem is, Rufinus systematically cut out and/or changed numerous passages that would not fit the new Pro-Nicene hegemony.

How do we know this? Because Rufinus tells us! He argues that heretics must have corrupted Origen’s works, since there just could not be a difference between those and the new catholic orthodoxy. Also, we have from other sources, e.g. letters of his contemporaries, the Greek texts of some of the cut and altered passages. In the excellent modern edition of the book, the editor-translator restores these to the text. Sadly, Rufinus’s Latin version is the only complete version we have of Origen’s book, so as it stands, the book is riddled with suspicious passages that don’t fit what we otherwise know about Origen, but which we have no textual grounds to correct. (On the whole crazy affair, see the above edition, pp. xxxi-lii.)

Here are some of the cut and restored passages; if you’re familiar with the “Arian” controversy and the trinitarian orthodoxy that coalesced and acquired the power of the Roman emperor at the end of the fourth century, you will not need an explanation why Rufinus cut them.

…the Saviour… is an image of God’s goodness, but Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 7 – Origen uncensored

“Subordinationism”

grammar-vaderIn the recent and ongoing series, I have been showing that famous early “fathers” are not, contrary to popular accounts, trinitarians at all, once we carefully define the term. They are unitarians, again, carefully defining the term.

But these recent comments by reader “Villanovanus” got me thinking.

He finds it outrageous that I call people like Irenaeus and Origen “unitarians,” even though I also call them “subordinationists.” Isn’t a subordinationist by definition a trinitarian? (When one reads the trinitarian authors of histories of theology, they are usually a little more modest, saying that these folks are sort of, kind of, maybe trinitarians, if not good ones, or fully developed ones, etc.)  Am I not grammatically challenged, or perversely unwilling to look up terms in a dictionary? If a “subordinationist” is by definition a trinitarian, then “subordinationist unitarian” is a contradiction in terms.

He cites a number of dictionary type definitions of “subordinationism”, e.g.

  • [subordinationism] the doctrine that the first person of the Holy Trinity is superior to the second, and the second superior to the third. (© Random House, Inc. 2013)
  • [subordinationism] either of two interpretations of the doctrine of the Trinity, often regarded as heretical, according to which the Son is subordinate to the Father or the Holy Ghost is subordinate to both (Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition 2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
    Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009)
  • [subordinationism] the theological tenet of progressively declining essence within the Trinity. (-Ologies & -Isms. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc.)

The second definition is too narrow. But making “subordinationism” Read More »“Subordinationism”

trinitarian or unitarian? 6 – Origen’s Against Celsus – Part 2

creationThe pagan polytheistic monotheist Celsus presses the attack we looked at last time.

If you [Christians] taught them that Jesus is not his [God’s] Son, but that God is the father of all, all that we really ought to worship him [God] alone, they [Christians] would no longer be willing to listen to you unless you included Jesus as well, who is the author of their sedition. Indeed, when they call him Son of God, it is not because they are paying very great reverence to God, but because they are exalting Jesus greatly. [Origen answers:] We have learnt who the Son of God is, even that he is ‘an effulgence of his glory and the express image of his person’ …and we know that Jesus is the Son come from God and that God is his Father. There is nothing in the doctrine which is not fitting or appropriate to God, that He should cause the existence of an only-begotten Son of this nature. (Against Celsus 8.14, trans. Henry Chadwick, pp. 461-2, bold added)

Celsus pushes the point that a real monotheist would only worship God, and suggests that Christians exalt Jesus at God’s expense. (Never mind how he might reconcile this with his acceptance of traditional polytheism.)

Origen replies Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 6 – Origen’s Against Celsus – Part 2

trinitarian or unitarian? 5 – Origen’s Against Celsus – Part 1

number-one-Celsus was a pagan philosopher, essentially a cultural and religious conservative, who wrote a book attacking Christianity, perhaps around 177-80 (though some have argued that it must be no later than 161).

Decades later, it is not clear exactly why, the great Christian scholar Origen (182-254) wrote a massive refutation of this book, quoting substantial portions of it. This is the eight-book Against Celsus, which was probably written aronud 246-8.

There are many, many interesting things in the book. Here’s a quotation relevant to our present series:

[Celsus writes:] If these men [Christians] worshiped no other God but one, perhaps they would have a valid argument against the others. But in fact they worship to an extravagant degree this man who appeared recently [Jesus], and yet think it is not inconsistent with monotheism if they worship His [God’s] servant [Jesus]. [Origen responds:] Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 5 – Origen’s Against Celsus – Part 1

Linkage: Sokal Hoax 2.0

id-rather-like-you-to-know-youve-been-trolled.jpgEvery philosophy student and every theology student should know about the original Sokal hoax. Here’s the best reflection on its important lessons. (Dr. Boghossian later expanded the discussion in this book.)

Now a philosopher has pulled a similar hoax; this time it’s a naturalistic atheist vs. the Association for Reformational Philosophy. The story is at Jerry Coyne’s blog, Why Evolution is True. (Never mind that this particular post provides no such reason. 🙂 ) Coyne notes,

This shows once again the appeal of religious gibberish to the educated believer

True – for some. But Read More »Linkage: Sokal Hoax 2.0

Swinburne @ Biola

Richard Swinburne was a visiting fellow at Biola University’s Center for Christian Thought in the Fall of 2012. Here are the videos they’ve posted from that visit. Interestingly, they seem to have avoided the topic of Swinburne’s Trinity theory – at least, judging by the videos they posted. One has to wonder why. Maybe they just wanted to leave room to discuss the soul, about which… Read More »Swinburne @ Biola

Swinburne on analytic vs. continental philosophy

Here’s a gem of a passage from a little-read paper by Richard Swinburne, from this book. This is part of talk he gave at a 2001 conference in Moscow, Russia, co-sponsored by the Society of Christian Philosophers and the Russian Orthodox church. So he’s explaining the wider context of analytic philosophy to them. Sometimes, when we have to explain things to those outside the camp,… Read More »Swinburne on analytic vs. continental philosophy

Mark Edwards on Councils and the Trinity

“The” doctrine of the Trinity was established neither at Nicea (325 AD) nor at Constantinople (381 AD). In catholic lore, it is all supposed to hang on the then novel term homoousios – but it does not – that is, not only on that. This one catholic Trinity doctrine is in fact not a fully determinate doctrine at all, but only a template, a set… Read More »Mark Edwards on Councils and the Trinity