Here.
On the whole, a well done piece. Craig is indeed a fearsome debater, and a bold and insightful scholar. His devotion to apologetics makes him a bit uncool among professional philosophers. But I would guess that his work is probably read by more average people – Christians, atheists, Muslims, and who-knows-what – than any living philosopher. The reason is that it has many good qualities, being typically clear, packed with arguments, and dealing with incredibly important matters, like the existence of God, or moral realism, human nature, free will, or the meaning of life.
I offer a brief comment and clarification on this bit of the Chronicle piece:
His inquiries have even led him into minor unorthodoxies, including a disagreement with the Nicene Creed on the details of the Trinity. Yet these serve as exceptions that prove the rule: His investigations might thus seem all the more rigorous, together with his commitment to the bulk of old-time religion. Just following his curiosity has made Craig an ever-abler defender of the faith. (emphasis added)
Bill will tell you that he’s simply a defender of the historic Christian belief in the Trinity. However, he defends it as understood in his new-fangled “social” way, which scholars have called “Trinity monotheism.” (Also see this summary, and this recent paper, pp. 5-8 for critical discussion of Craig’s theory.) He won’t tell you it’s new-fangled, though it is.
About the “unorthodoxies,” I assume the author has in mind Craig’s view that the traditional doctrines of eternal generation of the Son by the Father, and of the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from either Father only, or from Father and Son, have no basis in the New Testament, rightly understood. (See here.) Being Protestant, his attitude is that the old catholic creeds are to be accepted only and because they truly summarize the teaching of the Bible.
“Details”? “Minor“? Many Catholic and Orthodox Christians would disagree strongly. Of course, those traditional generation and procession claims don’t appear in Biola’s doctrinal statement. But yes, the author the Chronicle piece is right that judged by the traditional understanding of the “Nicene” Creed (i.e. this one), his view is unorthodox.
(It is also possible that the author had in mind this brief exchange; BTW it is Rea, not Rae.)
Back to generation and procession: How dare he? Well, he’s right that the ancient “fathers” simply misread the gospels, reading into them issues from then-current disputes. Really, they don’t teach the eternal generation and procession doctrines. The relevant words (begotten, proceeds) just don’t mean to the gospel writers what they meant to feuding 2nd-5th c. catholic bishops. Many scholars, of many theological persuasions, have concluded this (e.g. this earlier evangelical scholar.).
Craig is also, in my view correctly, worried about this. If the Son and Spirit exist because the Father eternally emanates them, he’s the cause or source of them, and they depend on him for their existence and deity, and it seems to follow that he would be greater than them. But then, it would be false, as trinitarian traditions have it, that the Three are equally divine. The Father, but not the Son or Spirit, would exist and be divine independently of and uncaused by anything else. As the aforementioned scholar put it,
…I can easily admit that it is philosophical, to suppose that God, who has existed from eternity, may have acted from eternity. There can be no objection to this. But is it philosophical, first to lay down the position, that it is an essential characteristic of God to be independent and self existent, and then to say that an emanated, derived, generated being is or can be really God, in this high and only true sense? (p. 154, original emphases)
Having basically defended Craig thus far, I end on the negative note that his view, despite his intentions, is inconsistent with the New Testament, which assumes and asserts the identity of the Father and the one God – which is inconsistent with Craig’s Trinity theory. Although he would like to have both full historic catholic orthodoxy and best fit with the New Testament, it seems he can’t have either one.
Yes, there can be conflicts between Trinity theories which try to be orthodox and implications for Incarnation theory. If the Son of God ends up being a mode – something like an event or action involving God – then how can this be the same self as the man Jesus, since it is not and can not be a self? A self is not an event, but a thing which can be involved in events.
Nestorianism? I’m not sure what you have in mind regarding contemporaries. The old tradition gets around that by saying, surprisingly that the incarnate Son is “man” but NOT a man. That is, the predicate “man”applies to him, because he’s in a hypostatic union with a complete “human nature” (body and rational soul) but he’s not a man, because a man is when that human nature is a self – but it isn’t one, because of that mysterious one-self-making-union it has with the eternal Son.
Dale, I hope I am able to articulate my question so that it makes sense…
When you study the ways theologians try to make sense of the trinity and create different ontic distinctions and various concepts, do they unknowingly, end up procalming if they hold their concept or idea consistently, some sort of heretical view of the incarnation?
For instance, if a theologian tries to create a specific definition of “person” that if consistently held would make nesotrianism if applied to the incarnation?
Chad, that is an excellent point, and it sounds like a good paper idea. Send me a draft, if you want some comments.
“many of the “lay” trinitarians are actually partialists or modalists” Quite true. I used to be be there myself.
“I think educated theologians try to stay away from these”
It depends. Some go for a sort of modalism which they consider non-heretical, where the “persons”/modes are intrinsic and essential to God. But generally, they do stay away from those, by avoiding saying very much that is clear about the Trinity. :-/ Some take this to an extreme: https://trinities.org/blog/archives/1246
The last thing you describe is a sort of modalism, or what I think should be called a one-self version of the Trinity. The Father is a great self, and the Son and Spirit are ways he is, lives, or acts.
I had never realized the diversity of views regarding the trinity until I started talking to hardcore trinitarians. From my experience many of the “lay” trinitarians are actually partialists or modalists due to their use of analogies to better help them understand, though, since heresy is the logical conclusion of many of these analogies I think educated theologians try to stay away from these. One interesting kind of trinitarian is the one the believes that Jesus and the Hs are attributes of the Father, which I discovered quite recently, Dale, do you know what this kind of trinitarianism is called? I think this “YHWH attribute” trinitarianism has a host of issues… Jesus would necessarily be worshipping himself by worshipping the Father, and if the Word’ and spirits attributes are limited then necessarily, all three persons are limited in some way.
It is not clear that Craig’s mereological account of the Trinity avoids the aseity concerns. E.g., if we understand the Trinity as a whole distinct from the persons individually, then either the whole is prior to and dependent on the parts or the parts are prior to and dependent on the whole. Craig reserves the proper title “God” as a designation of the whole Trinity. So either God is a se and the Persons are not, or the Persons are a se and God is not.
I have an unpublished paper where I explore how Craig might respond to this worry.
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