Switchfoot “are one”. But they are really just five dudes, not one.
Baber observes,
Typically, aggregates of Fs are not themselves Fs. A collection of cats is not itself a cat… an aggregation of persons is not a person. (p. 7, emphasis added)
Still, she thinks this needn’t preclude three gods from themselves being a god. Some sorts of things, it seems, can have other things of that same sort for parts, such as a Sierpinski Triangle. (p. 10) Maybe, then, gods are more like triangles like cats, in that groups of god can be (temporal) parts of a god. At least, we can’t rule out that this is possible.
How many temporal parts does God, on this theory have? There’s no reason to think it is exactly three. Why not a part at each second of time? Why not a part lasting, e.g. for the year 412 CE? How many temporal parts, each of which is a god, are we talking about? Evidently, more than billions, not merely three. But, Baber, says, not all of these part will count as persons of the Trinity.
…at any given time, we count Gods by occurrent stages [i.e. by how many God-stages exist at that time]. And there is no reason why some individuals that figure in [God’s] history should not count as Persons while others do not. (p. 8)
Thus, she concludes that her fourth requirement has been met – that the Trinity, the threesome of divine Persons “is God”. (pp. 8, 2) She concludes that the “Sabellian” theory we’ve outlined in this series is “a minimally decent doctrine of the Trinity.” (p.11)
Next time: theological objections.
