After my 2004 piece in which I gave three arguments against “social” trinitarianism, I had the privilege of being taken to Hask refuted twice by the excellent veteran Christian philosopher William Hasker.
This last summer, I finally got around to replying. I wrote a long piece and sent it to Religious Studies, who had published my original article and one of Hasker’s replies. They generously agreed to take it – it seems, they’d about had a belly full of social Trinity discussions – but only on the condition that I cut it way back. So I took out the axe and hacked off 2/3 of it.
I hope to use some of this other material elsewhere – it gets into some really interesting early modern material, tries to further negotiate the divide between Hasker and I, and delves more into the issue of defining monotheism.
My reply, then, is short and sweet tart. I stick pretty closely to Hasker’s arguments.
My thanks to Bill for a lot of very helpful correspondence, on this, and on other papers we’ve (separately) written. It turns out that Religious Studies also granted him a short reply to my reply in that same issue – but you’ll have get that counter-punch from him in the March 2011 issue.
Hasker says that “God” refers to a group of three divine persons, which together are *somewhat like* a person, in that they act in a unified way. Yes – a main concern is that this is tritheism, just with co-operating deities, giving off the appearance of (but not being) one deity.
Hi Dale,
I suppose that I “might” finally understand the semantics of this argument. If I correctly understand this, then some proponents of ST such as Hasker never clarify if God is one substance or three interpenetrating substances. If that’s the case, then I agree that these proponents of ST never clarify if the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God or three Gods.
Do I correctly understand the implications of your criticism that Hasker always avoids clarifying whether God is one substance or three substances?
Hi James,
Yes – sorry about the unclarity – I’m using “self” and “person” as synonyms. I used to use “person” more, but now shy away from it, for two reasons. First, when you say “person” many think “human being”. But the concept of a self is more general than that – E.T., were he real, would be a self. Second, in the context of traditional, catholic Trinity theories, “person” sometimes means roughly – “something-remotely-like-a-human-self” or “whatever it is there’s three of in God” – neither of which is what I mean, when e.g. posing the question: “Is God a self?” (In contrast, sometimes “social” trinitarians say that for them, the Persons are really so many persons – that is, selves.
So on the face of it, in the Bible God is a self. So is Jesus. Moreover, it’s assumed that they’re two selves. They speak to one another, one sends the other, they cooperate, etc. Not so when it comes to the Trinity per se; we could say there’s no such character there which is tripersonal, or a triune god. Thus it’s unclear whether the Trinity, assuming there’s such a thing, should be thought of as a self.
The Holy Spirit / holy spirit is a unique case. In some places, this seems to mean a self, but it’s unclear if this is a different self than God, i.e. the Father. In other places, it seems to be something closely related to God, but not personally related to him, i.e. in a friendship with him – like a power or the exercise of a power.
Dale, after two readings of your article, I thought you implied that the persons of God aren’t each a self. After a third reading, I see you equated self/person. So perhaps my above comments make no sense.
Dale, I also suppose that you imply that Jesus isn’t a self. Also, you imply that Jesus is the only human who isn’t a self. Are my above suppositions correct or do I misunderstand you?
Dale, I’m still working on trying to understand the debate about ST. At this point, my biggest struggle is trying to understand the difference between “person” and “self.” You evidently propose that at least some persons are not selves. Would you be kind enough to clarify the difference between a person and a self? Or have you already done that elsewhere and I missed it?
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