Trinity Monotheism part 2: their set-up, part 1

Before going into objections to “Trinity Monotheism”, I thought it’d be a good idea to say a bit more about their long, meaty chapter in which they (eventually) set out their own theory, in this book. This’ll take a couple of posts, and we’ll allow time for discussion between them. Theologians in particular should find a lot to chew on here;they’re pretty out of step with the theological world on these issues, as we’ll see.

In section 1 (575-7), Moreland and Craig give what has become a standard evangelical apologetics account of the biblical basis of trinitarianism. Basically, Jesus “put himself in God’s place”, and there’s one God, but the name “God” is applied to each of the three. So “God is not a single person… but is tripersonal.” (575) This is pretty boiler-plate stuff, so even though I think it bristles with exegetical and other problems, here I’ll let it slide.

In section 2.1, they discuss the Philo-influenced logos-Christology as propounded just Justin Martyr and other 2nd century apologists. On this theory, “certain aspects of [God’s] mind become expressed as distinct individuals.” (578) They seem to not notice that this is a variety of modalism, which is odd, as in section 2.2 they discuss modalism, although they stick to the serial, Sabellian kind. (578-9) They also plunge into the murky realm of Tertullian interpretation, claiming that “Tertullian clearly thinks of the the, Son, and Spirit as individuals capable of employing first-person indexicals [e.g. “I”], which entails that they are self-conscious persons.” (580) They also think, though, that we should concede that his doctrine was implicitly Arian. (ibid.)

Section 2.3 is a pretty decent, though one-sided account of the Arian controversy of the 4th century. Bottom line – Arians made Christ a creature, and that’s bad. Their take on the emerging orthodoxy has a marked social trinitarian spin.

While hypostasis does not mean “person” [in the modern, psychological sense] nevertheless a rational hypostasis comes very close to what we mean by a “person.” …Gregory of Nyssa’s illustration of three hypostaseis having one substance is Peter, James and John, all exemplifying human nature. (582)

Even Athanasius, we’re told, was a social trinitarian (583), the central claim of which is that “in God there are three distinct centers of self-consciousness, each with its proper intellect and will.” (583) In a feisty mood, they try to counter Leftow by re-labeling what he calls “Latin trinitarianism” with their term “anti social trinitarianism”! (583) This is a little silly, but they can use whatever terms they want. At least the “Latin” term highlights that fact that this sort of (at very best close to modalist) view increasingly became mainstream within Catholicism. And although they quote Gregory approvingly at first, later on they (I think) destroy his approach, showing that his moves to block tritheism just don’t work. (583-4) This section is worthy of more unpacking, be we should do that when we’re focusing on social trinitarianism per se. (Hey Tom McCall – you out there? Want to post on that section?)

Augustine, they claim, is commonly misinterpreted. He doesn’t, they say, identify the persons of the Trinity with features of God’s mind. (memory, understanding, will, etc. – 584-5) And although the persons’ mutual relations may be essential to them, on their reading Augustine doesn’t identify the divine persons with any “relations subsisting in God”. (585) Theologians interested in Augustine would find some interesting claims to chew on here. While Augustine, in their view, isn’t quite an anti social trinitarian, Aquinas is, however, they argue that his view is self-contradictory. (585-7) In sum, “Anti social trinitarianism seems to reduce to classical modalism.” (587) Well no, gents, not Sabellianism, but rather another kind of modalism, where the persons are eternal, intrinsic properties or aspects of God.

Next time, their interactions with Brian Leftow’s arguments against various kinds of social trinitarianism.

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