The Evangelical Universalist Forum

JRP addresses recent metaphysical crits of trinitarianism

Theology Philosophical
#11

•• If there is a hierarchy among the Persons, then the Father must be discriminating against the other two. This implies schism, therefore… ••

The short answer to this objection, is that this is a category error: a hierarchy does not necessarily involve discrimination against other persons.

Some trinitarians deny a hierarchy among the Persons, too; but I don’t. Metaphysically I would be expecting it, for reasons I cannot briefly summarize here; and scripturally it’s an obvious piece of data that the Father is considered hierarchically superior not only to but by the Son: the Son Himself testifies to the hierarchical superiority.

Trinitarians, as well as most other kinds of Christians (including those relatively few trinitarians who do not believe this data counts as a hierarchical distinction), note that this necessarily involves some kind of distinction of the Persons. But a distinction of is not necessarily a discrimination against.

#12

•• Jesus calls “the Father” his God; if Jesus was also God but distinct in Person from the Father, He would not call the Father His God; therefore… ••

Spelling out the middle element of this argument, which is often excluded, reveals its paucity. It may seem peculiar for one Person of the Godhead to acknowledge a Person of higher authority to be His God, or even the only true God; but it isn’t logically contradictory to the doctrinal set which this objection is aiming against, and it would be properly humble as to fact. (Eglatarian trinitarians may not like it much, but that isn’t my problem. :wink: )

Beyond this, orthodox trinitarian theism involves the two-natures doctrine of Christ. It would be even more proper for the fully human Christ to acknowledge the Father as His God, as non-trinitarians themselves are well aware. (Though modalists and some docetists might not like acknowledging that this happens.) However, I do dissent from those trinitarians who would try to schism the two-natures in this regard, that the Son in His divine nature would not also regard the Father as greater than He and even as His own God.

This could lead to some interesting discussion on what the statement of the so-called Athanasius Creed is supposed to mean, that the Son is equal to the Father in regard to His Godhead, but inferior to the Father in regard to His humanity. The equality being spoken of is an ontological equality, though; not a denial of personal hierarchy. And the ontological equality is not simply flat in itself either, as the AthCreed illustrates when it speaks of the distinctions within the unity of “substance” among the Persons: the Father is neither created nor begotten; the Son is not created but begotten; the Spirit is neither created nor begotten but proceeding.

#13

•• If the Son is consubstantial with the Father, why is there a Father/Son distinction at all? Or, why is the Son “sired”? ••

Part of the answer to this question is that the language predicated of the Father and Son in their eternal relationship is understood to be analogical; but the analogical language of “begetting” does get across the notion of the generation of something that is substantially of the same kind as that which is doing the generation. For an actively self-existent entity, what is being generated is the ultimate possible example of ‘generation of the same kind’, as this entity’s most fundamental action of self-existence is to generate itself. (Or Himself, to use personal pronouns of a personal entity.)

Insofar as one Person, considered to be the living action of God, is conceived as a baby within a woman by the Person of God Who sends the power of God, then obviously that would count as a unique siring of the Son by the Father, too; as even most non-trinitarians acknowledge (when they aren’t modalists).

#14

•• Jesus was tempted by Satan, but how could God be seriously tempted to do evil? ••

Sometimes trinitarians (and some other deific Christians like modalists) answer along the lines that it was no real temptation; but I would agree with critics that this runs against the gist of the passages in GosMatt and GosLuke (much moreso EpistHeb, where it is stressed that He was tempted in all things as we are–a factor the Hebraist believes is crucially important for our own salvation.)

Trinitarians have also tended to answer that the humanity of Christ was tempted but not His divinity. While I don’t think that’s impossible, in principle, the narrative thrust of the temptations is certainly not aimed toward seducing a schism of the humanity away from the divinity of Christ.

The temptation of the Son still makes sense, however, within trinitarian theism, especially for those of us trinitarians who are positive aseitists i.e. who believe that God is an actively interpersonal self-begetting self-begotten unity, Who depends on the Persons each choosing to maintain this compound unity for His continuing existence. Any of the Persons could, potentially, choose to act against the other Persons or try to act in independence from the other Persons. That’s potentially true for privative aseity trinitarianism, too (where God does not even depend upon His own action for self-existence), but the stakes aren’t as high because God’s self-existence would not be threatened by schism between the Son and the Father.

Either way, though, the question is whether the Son will try to act for His own sake apart from permission from the Father. As some Christian exegetes have noted over the years (the 19th century trinitarian universalist George MacDonald being my favorite example), on the face of it each of the temptations could be said to be a temptation to good. The saving of a good man from starvation, the rule of a good man over the nations of the earth, the revelation of a good man to the people he has come to serve and to save–are these not good things?!

Not if they’re being done apart from the Father, though. The Father had made that stone a stone–indeed had done so through the Son if trinitarian (among some other kinds of) Christianity is true! The Father (and the Son) had not made it bread. If the Father gives permission for the Son to make it bread, then fine. But better to starve than to act apart from the Father–better even for that stone’s own existence, whether as a stone or anything else!

Bowing down to Satan and receiving kingship from him instead of from the Father would be obviously wrong. But Christ’s remonstrance to Satan exactly parallels His rebuke to Simon Peter later when Peter prayed as an exclamation oath “that be far from you, Lord!” In regard to what? In regard to the upcoming crucifixion. Consequently, even non-trinitarians have often regarded the path being tempted toward by Satan here, as involving a conquest lordship without the submissive humility of the crucifixion. Jesus can pray for that cup to be passed by, if at all possible, without sinning in asking for it: but only if He submits with the qualification, “Thy will be done”. To insist otherwise, to go His own way regardless of the Father’s intention, would be a schism against the Father.

To do any sign for purposes of proving to anyone that He is the Son of God, without instruction from the Father, would again be schism from the Father. If the Father says go, then the Son would do so–whether to be saved from death or not, whether to give evidence to others for belief or not. But for Satan to tempt Jesus to do so is (one way or another) to tempt the Lord his God.

GMacD puts the matter beautifully in his remarks on the temptation to rule under Satan:

#15

•• Jesus was sent by the Father and does nothing of himself but only what the Father does. If Jesus was also God but distinct in Person from the Father, He would not be sent by the Father and would do something of Himself and maybe even what the Father doesn’t do. Therefore… ••

Again, stating the typically hidden middle element of the argument reveals its paucity. There is no logical problem with one Person being sent by another Person and doing faithfully only as the other Person does and doing nothing of Himself. On the contrary, evidence otherwise would tend to count against trinitarian theism! (For example, the scriptural-based complaint about the Father supposedly abandoning Jesus on the cross.)

#16

•• The Father abandoned Jesus on the cross, which for trinitarianism would be tantamount to schism. Therefore… ••

If this was actually true, then it would surely not be any kind of selling point for Christianity, whether trinitarian or non-trinitarian! That God would abandon an innocent man to die an unjust death, is no good news.

(To which I would add, against some trinitarians unfortunately, that for God to abandon an innocent man to die an unjust death while pretending that the innocent man was a sinner so that the sinners deserving the death could get off scot-free, is even less of good news; expediently convenient though it might be for the sinner so unjustly treated. But then the sinner is placing his own convenience over against justice: the kind of action for which he was regarded as a sinner in the first place!)

Even non-trinitarian Christians consistently agree, however, that God did not in fact abandon Jesus, but raised him from the dead in vindication. So much for the complaint that the Father abandoned the Son on the cross: opponents to trinitarianism cannot have it both ways (even if trinitarian scholars have a bad habit of agreeing with the abandonment on the cross). If God really did abandon Jesus in a cursed death, then there would be no resurrection, even in spirit. It would in fact mean that Jesus was only a Satanic pretender after all.

As to what Jesus’ declaration really meant (which in its profession of “My God” is at least not the abandonment of the Father by the Son), that will be discussed over in the scriptural complaints thread.

Note that my response here is not ‘Jesus couldn’t have been abandoned by the Father because that would involve a substantial schism and so trinitarianism must be false’. That answer would be fine when discussing the matter with trinitarians, but would be begging the question hugely in a discussion with non-trinitarians.

There is, however, a more fundamental metaphysical question at issue here, regarding whether any existent entity can continue to exist ‘in separation from’ the Father. This topic will be addressed later.

#17

•• Would YHWH not be disrespecting Persons of Himself to use singular grammar in regard to Himself if He is a compound unity? ••

No, not if there is a singular unity of Persons. Trinitarians are not tri-theists; we recognize and affirm and profess only one ultimate God, and speak of God as singular ourselves, including with singular pronouns when that seems more immediately convenient.

It would of course be inaccurate (or incompletely accurate, rather) for God to speak of Himself without ever any reference at all to multiple persons. But there are plenty of such references in the OT (see the 76 page digest), and I am not aware of any metaphysical reason why God would not have the perrogative to speak of Himself in singular terms; especially if that helped avoid leaving the impression of multiple powers in heaven.

#18

•• God does not copy anyone or anything or is counseled or advised by anyone or anything, but does only as His will counsels. ••

The critic doesn’t notice that this phraseology (borrowed from Eph 1:11, among other places) tacitly implies some kind of multiple personage in God anyway: God does only as God counsels! This actually has strong links back to Old Testament notions of the visible YHWH representing the invisible YHWH as the Angel of the Presence. (See the scriptural digest elsewhere for examples.)

Be that as it may. Trinitarians (including myself) usually affirm a hierarchy of the eternal Persons; where one of these is God in action, sent by God Who does the acting. (Notice that we’re back to the concept of positive aseity again: God’s most fundamental action is the being of God Himself.) As long as there are distinct Persons being recognized, there is no logical problem with one of them subordinately representing and obeying another one.

See also a more in-depth discussion of one particular scriptural complaint along this line, in my collected answers to recent scriptural complaints vs. trinitarianism (which can be found in the Biblical Theology section of this forum).

#19

•• God has supreme authority, but that does not logically mean that all who have supreme authority are God. ••

This could be put another way: that those who are not God do not really have God’s supreme authority. Trinitarians certainly agree with that. The question is a compound one: can a not-God entity really have God’s supreme authority? Trinitarians say no. (As do practically all non-trinitarians, when they come down to it.) Does Jesus Christ really have the supreme authority of God? Trinitarians, from scripture, think the answer is yes. Oddly, so do most non-trinitarians! (Which, incidentally, is why this critical retort, quoted above, was tried.)

Besides which, the person of the Father delegating authority to the person of the Son within the unity of deity, is not a logical problem for trinitarianism. (It would be a logical problem for modalistic Christians.)

#20

•• The fullness of God cannot exist in the limitations of a natural entity. ••

Aside from the fact that even some non-trinitarians agree that it can (though not in the way that trinitarians and modalists believe), this claim if pressed would prove too much: any purported action of God in Nature could be denied on the same ground!

The proper debate on this point is settled (or not) a long time before getting to the debate of trinitarianism: can God, as He Himself, interact in any way with Nature? If the answer is yes, then nothing logically stands in the way of God interacting as God in some other ‘limited’ way within Nature either, such as in an incarnation or even a mere manifestation of Himself in various modes (which most non-trinitarian Christians are willing to accept in principle, too).

#21

•• Why could the portion of Christ that was YHWH not be the Father in distinction from Christ the Son? ••

Well, among other reasons, then this would not be “the portion of Christ”! If Christ is not YHWH, then stick with the notion that Christ is not YHWH.

That being said, there is nothing logically incoherent about the Father cooperating with a human internally, either; or maybe even dwelling in a human (as the tabernacle did not become God by virtue of God’s dwelling in the tabernacle, leaving aside the question of what was happening otherwise with God dwelling in the tabernacle.)

This proposition is not really an argument against trinitarian theism, though; it is only a different propositional option. Whether scriptural testimony is giving evidence of it, in exclusion of other options, and whether metaphysically this kind of thing is what we ought to be expecting instead, are further questions for analysis. But if the answers either way turn out to be something else, then there isn’t any point coming back to this as an option.

(Although in any case I would recommend against identifying any portion “of Christ” as YHWH if there is also supposed to be a hard “the Father not the Son” distinction concerning YHWH and if “the Son” is supposed to refer to Christ. Notably, this particular critic usually tries to have “the Son” actually mean “the Father” instead!–which at least has the novelty value of avoiding this counter-criticism. But it also voids this critical attempt–the critic cannot have it both ways.)

#22

•• God is admittedly His own Word. Jesus is admittedly the Word of God. Jesus is not Himself God Himself. ••

The relation of these propositions, if all three are trying to be affirmed (as one recent critic does), bears no further comment, I think.

Trying to get around this by elsewhere identifying the Word as not being Jesus, but as being the Father instead (or the power of the Father or anyway not Jesus) is at best self-refuting. It would be better to be consistent and deny that God is His own Word, and/or that Jesus is the Word of God. (But even some non-trinitarians agree that one or, along with trinitarians, even both these concepts are scripturally testified.)

#23

•• Multiple titles or descriptions of God do not of themselves mean that God is multiple persons. ••

Trinitarians agree with that, actually. But this goes back to a scriptural-exegetical argument, concerning whether there are instances where multiple descriptions of God also involve multiple persons, not merely modalistic descriptions (which trinitarians as well as practically all other Christians also affirm are found in scripture).

#24

•• The offspring of a cat is the same as a cat; the offspring of a fly is the same as a fly. Jesus was the offspring of God, therefore Jesus…••

…is the same kind of thing as God the Father, by this argument! But this critic was trying to say that Jesus was only like us, in being sons of God, i.e. not really the same kind of thing that God is. To be “just like God in every detail” would be to be self-existent as only God is, to have honor due only to God and not to any creature, to be the creator of all not-God creation as only God is, to be unchangingly God as only God is. But this critic denies any of this is or was true of Jesus, ascribing those characteristics properly to the Father instead (and then calling the Father “the Son of God” in order to make that synch up somehow with the Son obviously having those qualities in scripture).

#25

•• God could not act in Nature, as an incarnated human for example, without ceasing to be fully God. ••

This objection is often put a little differently; but when the underlying gist is spelled out like this, it becomes obvious that this kind of principle argument would prove far too much: it would mean that God cannot act in regard to Nature at all! An atheist or a cosmological dualist or maybe a minimal deist could try this argument, but not any supernaturalistic theist who affirms that God continually sustains the existence of Nature and so Who can act in regard to Nature–in other words, a God Who can do miracles.

The simple answer to this objection, then, is that if God can do miracles in Nature (including sustaining Nature’s existence at all) without ceasing to be fully God, then God can act within Nature as an incarnated human without ceasing to be fully God. The more complex answer to this question involves going back much further metaphysically than any question of God incarnating Himself, though.

(Indeed, it goes back to the question of God’s relationship to the evident system of Nature at all, specifically God’s creation of Nature and what God would have to do to accomplish this. But while this is a very worthwhile discussion, and one with vast relevance to what we could principally expect afterward of an incarnation of God, it’s far too lengthy for me to summarize in a comment.)

#26

••The Father was causally prior to the Son, but not temporally prior. The early Christians taught that the Father begat His Son “as the first of His acts of old”, and that He begat Him “before all ages”. Consequently, the Son cannot be eternally begotten but was begotten at a particular natural time, specifically as the first event of natural time.••

Over in the complaints based on scriptural data, I have noted that the scriptural data does not indicate that the Son is only begotten at any one particular point in natural time. Be that as it may.

From a metaphysical perspective, this complaint would be answered after a consideration of the existence of God: does God merely exist statically, not even dependent upon His own action for existence? Or does God depend upon His own action for existence, being thus actively self-generating, self-begetting and self-begotten? If the latter is true, and if this involves a personal distinction between God self-begetting and God self-begotten, then the answer is made in a fashion consonant with trinitarian (or at least binitarian) theism. If the former is true, then something else other than trinitarian (or at least binitarian) theism might be true. (In fact I would argue that an intrinsically ‘static’ God would not only be tantamount to atheism but would not be intrinsically capable of being the ground of the behavioral existence around us, especially including our own action capabilities.)

The issue would have to be carefully hashed out at length over a number of connected and progressing topics; which I don’t know how to summarize here for a comment, other than to give an inkling of how the logical resolution ends up running.

#27

•• How can the Son be eternally begotten “today” and also have this begetting be specially associated with the Resurrection and/or the Ascension? ••

This was something I never understood myself, until I spent several months meticulously working my way forward through a progressing metaphysical argument arriving at trinitarian theism (though this element doesn’t require reference to a 3rd Person of God). This leaves me at something of a disadvantage: trying to give people who haven’t gone through the same exercise with the same results, an idea of how I found the topics to link together.

The most I can say for now, is that I found that the submission of God self-begotten to God self-begetting completes the circuit of God’s self-existence; while the Father isn’t begotten from the Son, the unity of God’s own self-existence does depend on the choice of the Son to submit to the Father in love. As Jesus says in the scriptures (especially in GosJohn), the Son goes forth from the Father and returns to the Father. Analogically, the raising of the Son by the Father becomes linked to the Son being the very power of God the Father, seated analogically (on a single throne, notice) at God’s right hand. The Ascension of the risen Christ fulfills in a ‘minor key’ what the Father is always doing for the faithful Son in the faithfulness of the Son.

The same is true of the Resurrection, but here we begin delving into the mystery of creation itself. No system exists beside God (ontologically speaking, at the same level of ultimate existence) for God to create into, and God cannot even create a not-God system of that sort without there being a shared overarching system on which they both must be dependent. Whatever not-God entity or system that God generates must be wholly dependent upon God; and in the absence of any field of endeavor already existing in some independent fashion, the field must be made by God through God’s own self-sacrifice.

Putting it another way, any action of God at all apart from the generation of Himself, God, must necessarily involve the generation of that which is not-God: creation, distinct from begetting. And this will necessarily involve the willing self-sacrifice of the action of God. The Son’s eternal sacrifice to the Father for the sake of the unity of God’s own self-existence, obtains its first variation in the Son’s sacrifice as the foundation of the world, the natural not-God system of reality. It is a different descent into death; and from death, into life, not for God (that eternal action hasn’t ceased and still continues) but for that-which-is-not-God.

The circuit of this action must be fulfilled, not so that the not-God creation may become God: for that would be to undo the creation altogether! But it must be fulfilled so that God may be all in all; as fundamentally God already is, immanently as well as transcendently. But the raising and imbuing of non-sentient created material into derivative sentience is the first major step in this direction; and, where the derivative sentiences may rebel, their restitution and reconciliation must be acted toward as well (without merely un-creating them). Whether there is rebellion or not, however, it makes intrinsic sense for the Son, the self-begotten action of God, to participate even more intimately in this process than, as joint creator with the Father, the Son is already doing. The incarnation, the sacrificial death, and the resurrection of the Son Incarnate, fits into this larger thematic action of the Son. Where the sin of derivative children of God is a reality, this sacrifice of the Son will not only be submitted to be an occasion, the chief enactment, of such sin (for in sinning we abuse the grace of God in any case, which He permits for sake of His love for us); but the sacrifice and raising of the Son will be the cardinal point, the turning point, the deepest action of God, of His total action toward the fulfillment of creation: that God will be all in all (without the all simply un-creating back into God).

Once I realized this, then I suddenly understood why St. Paul could be inspired to say that the Resurrection and/or Ascension of the Son could be considered specially as the begetting of the Son “today” by the Father.

(The mythopoeic part of me also recognized the propriety of the Son being placed in the heart of the earth and then rising, as a completion of the “begetting” of the Son. For just the same had been done, in principle, in the womb of His mother. Even the descent of the sun beneath the land as the start of the Jewish day, in apparent contravention to all visual logic, fits this theme. The Day of the Lord has begun, even though we still have all the darkness of death yet to live and die through. But God Himself goes before us. God Himself goes down into the dust, dying as far as any person can die, not first so that we will not die, but so that our deaths may be like His.)

#28

•• The notion of three persons as one God is logically impossible unless at least two of the divine persons possess personal attributes that are not divine. ••

Which would hardly be a solution! (If two of the divine persons are not in fact divine then the notion of three persons as one God would be logically possible??)

It would be better to believe that God exists as a person with two other non-divine persons who are not one God with God, than to believe that two non-divine persons can be one God together with God.

The notion of three persons as one God might be (I expect is) mathematically impossible; but the relation is not a mathematical one, any more than the relation of various 2D planes as a 3D prism is a mathematical one. 3D objects are not comprised by adding up or multiplying together any number of 2D planes. The joint relationship of the planes is not illogical, though. (This reply is not in itself an argument that the trinitarian joint relationship is logical, of course.)

#29

•• Trinitarians commit idolatry by worshiping someone, Jesus Christ, who was and is not God. ••

Actually I would agree that if the latter part of this sentence is true, then so is the first part, and so we should stop doing that.

What I find both surprising and disturbing, speaking precisely as a devout monotheist, is how often I find Christians who deny the full divinity of Jesus Christ himself, personally, nevertheless agreeing (and even insisting) that we should worship him, personally, with the worship due to the one true God alone!

But then, this level of worship unique to God alone is routinely required of Jesus in the New Testament; as well as required of the Angel of the Presence Who is Himself YHWH in the Jewish canon. So I can understand why scripturally they believe they ought to be doing so anyway. To me, however, this is a key identity clue about Who Jesus is supposed to be, scripturally speaking.

That topic is a scriptural analysis issue. My point here, metaphysically, is that worshiping someone less than God with the worship due to God alone is, I completely agree, mistaken idolatry at best. Whereas worshiping multiple Gods as worthy of ultimate worship would be an affirmation of bi or tri or anyway some kind of multi-theism not monotheism.

Trinitarian theists, by contast, are not tri-theists: we resolutely disaffirm worship of three distinct Gods; although (unlike modalists) we do resolutely affirm the proper worship of three distinct Persons Who are One God.

#30

Jason, thank you for addressing my question!

However, you misunderstood my question. Let me clarify.

If all three persons of the Godhead are God, then this neccessarily means that each of the three persons possesses all characteristics of God. What then could possibly distinguish one person of the Godhead from the other(s)?