trinitarian apologist embraces subordinationist unitarian theology

Watch this short video by evangelical apologist Michael Jones before you read the rest of this post.

Does John 17:1-3 assume something inconsistent with the one God being the Trinity? Yes, it does, as I explain in detail here. Briefly, if the one God just is the Father alone, then the one God can’t be the Trinity, as the Trinity (were there to be such a thing) would be numerically distinct from the Father.

Of course, that Muslim apologist is mistaken. Pointing out that Trinity theories conflict with the New Testament doesn’t refute Christianity, because Christianity has no need of Trinity theories, as proved by how well it did prior to such (that is, until the second half of the 300s AD). Now, some comments on the video.

:18 Right, if the Father is the only true God, then no one else is. No, not even Jesus. (Which by the way is fine with him.) So much for there being two, each of which are “true God,” as the Nicene creed says. If you’re a committed trinitarian and are having trouble seeing the force of “only” here, this may help. But our apologist Michael Jones, happily, is not having that trouble. Why? Because he agrees with the unitarian understanding of John 17:1-3!

:26 Jones then asserts the falsehoods that (1) there is one Trinity doctrine, (2) which”builds on” what is in Scripture (I assume he means, is deducible from the claims made there), and (3) that all coherent “models of the Trinity” (i.e. Trinity theories, doctrines trying to make sense of the creedally required language) assume that f = g, the numerical identity of the Father with the one God (and vice-versa) and his “headship,” or the derivation of the Son and Spirit from him. These are all demonstrably false claims, but they’re not what I want to highlight in this video.

:34 He confidently tells us what version of “the doctrine of the Trinity” he adheres to, showing us a 2021 journal article by Dr. Sijuwade, expounding what Dr. Branson has (misleadingly) dubbed “monarchical trinitarianism.” According to this, paraphrasing, “Trinity” is a plural referring term which refers to three beings. First, there is the one God himself, a.k.a. “the Father.” He somehow eternally emanates out of himself two lesser divine beings, the Son and the Spirit. These can be called “God” but they are not divine in the highest way, a way which includes aseity. Only the Father is “God” in the highest sense. God causes these two lesser deities to exist by “eternal generation” and “eternal procession.” (Which he fails to mention are nowhere taught or even mentioned in Scripture.)

Where is the triune God, the tripersonal god in all of this? Nowhere! This is a pre-trinitarian theology, what I call a unitarian subordinationist theology, like that of Origen and Novatian in the 3rd century, and like the theology of the famous English unitarian Samuel Clarke in the early 1700s. There is no “Trinity” here in the sense of a tripersonal God, but only an interestingly related collection of three beings, one of whom, the Father, is the only true God. So yes, this is (1:39) an ancient sort of view, going back at least to the early to mid 3rd century (i.e. the 200s AD). Of course in that some time, there were modalists, and people we would now describe as biblical unitarians, as Origen and Novatian often complain. (But tripersonal-god people? Didn’t exist yet.)

2:00 A silly swipe at “anti-trinitarians” for not reading past John 17:3 till they get to 17:5. This is an ignorant complaint; all the folks with developed unitarian views have a plausible take on John 17:5, but that needn’t detain us here.

2:14 Does he not know that many famous unitarian Christians, such as William Ellery Channing, Noah Worcester, and some present-day members of the UCA have believed in the pre-human existence of Jesus?

2:19 The Keener quote is really not to the point, though I think Keener is right in saying that Jesus bears some important relation to God’s wisdom in the New Testament.

2:43 Jones argues that not only does John 17:1-3 not refute “the Trinity,” but rather, “it confirms the trinitarian doctrine of Christianity.” This assumes two falsehoods: first, that there is one trinitarian doctrine of mainstream Christianity, and second, that this is the subordinationist unitarian view he describes. What mainstream Christianity has insisted on since about 381 AD are vague formulations about God being three hypostases and one ousia, that God is in some unclear sense tripersonal.

Still, I applaud his newfound clarity. Michael Jones is absolutely correct that the one God just is the Father; this is a clear New Testament teaching, and Christians ought to prefer it to confused and confusing later traditions.

Speaking of confused and confusing, given his new insight, I call upon Michael Jones to unpublish his speculative “The Trinity Explained” video, which compare the tripersonal God to a four-dimensional cube (!). The negative-mysterian fireworks just are unnecessary and misleading, if in fact the one God just is the Father alone. I also call upon him to unpublish his many videos in which he eisegetes the fourth-century-and-later idea of a tripersonal God idea back into Scripture, like “The Trinity in the New Testament” and “The Trinity in the Old Testament.”

Michael, if you care about truth more than clicks and popularity, you will take these videos down ASAP. Then you can undo the damage you’ve done by making videos debunking the idea that God is tripersonal, which clashes with the clear New Testament teaching that the one God just is the Father himself.

Also: welcome to the unitarian team. 🙂 To be more specific, Michael has moved to stage 5 here. Might as well go on to stage 6 then, my friend.

Update: as of September 2022, Michael Jones did not seem to have a settled view about “the Trinity,” even though he says that “monarchical trinitarianism” in his view. At least at that time, he seemed not to fully understand the significance of this theory’s claim that the one God just is the Father alone, as he also seems to endorse a tripersonal God.