The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Trinitarian Christianity leads to Universalism? (Or not?)

Theology Philosophical
#29

Jason,

I said I prefer shorter posts because I believe any meaningful topic can be discussed at multiple levels, complexity doesn’t necessarily require long posts! Orthodox Trinitarianism, as I understand it is expressed by the Nicene Creed, the benchmark of Christianity, which, sorry Aaron, rules out Unitarianism. For excellent doctrinal summary of what I believe personally Article one of the 39 Articles is nearly perfect (a little Western in it’s emphasis of unity over distinction):

Like I said earlier I don’t buy into one characteristic or model such as “love/loving” being the dominate definition of God. I don’t mean to be rude by saying this, but given finite time and energy, you haven’t shown succinctly why this shouldn’t be the case. But maybe I’ve misunderstood you and we can debate why the Trinity leads naturally to Universalism.

Tom,

At the end of your last comment you affirmed the Trinity as a starting point so why should we take one of Augstine’s [suggested] models as the preferred one?

#30

Luke,
To clarify, is it your opinion that a Unitarian is not a Christian?

Sonia

#31

Yes, the Trinity is one of the first and clearest boundaries of orthodoxy. (I don’t say this to insult people, but simply describe Christianity.)

#32

Interesting… personally I’d place following Christ as the defining principle of Christianity, as our Lord says, “Whosoever would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

But that’s a discussion for another topic. I don’t want to derail this one!
Sonia

#33

Tom: I honestly can’t conceive of the triune relations in terms other than mutually affirming and loving relations.

Luke: At the end of your last comment you affirmed the Trinity as a starting point so why should we take one of Augstine’s [suggested] models as the preferred one?

Tom: Everybody MEANS (or OUGHT to mean) something when they say God is triune. To start with the Trinity (or whatever one starts with) is not to start with a vacuum. It is rather to make some meaningful claim about God. I’m just trying to give the most plausible and consistent meaning I can to that claim (in light of the biblical/theological, philosophical, traditional, & experiential evidence).

Tom

#34

Sonia,

My knowledge of history is full of holes, but I think a firm denial of the Trinity would have placed a person outside the “Church” (traditionally speaking, i.e. re: orthodoxy). For my part, I wouldn’t identify Unitarianism as a “Christian” faith. But then neither would I necessarily deny that Unitarians are “saved.” It’s tricky. Creeds and such help us manage the traffic that comes through the doors so far as the earthly expression of the Chrisitan faith and “identity” goes. But whose to say how God negotiates within people’s hearts outside the confines of the Creeds? Jesus is at the center, yes–but then again orthodoxy has placed a particular Jesus at that center, so there’s the rub. I don’t have final answers on the status of Unitarians before God, and I’m glad about that. I’d hang out and chill with Aaron any day of the week and love it. But that doesn’t mean I think a body of Christian believers ought to open their pulpit and Sunday School classes to, say, a Unitarian to promote Unitarianism as a viable/orthdox “Christian” option. But that’s not to make the claim that I ‘know’ Unitarians aren’t saved, or that were I a pastor I’d shew them out of the Church building. Not at all. It’s about responsibly maintaining an enduring identity. See what I mean?

I’m fine with defining Christianity as an open set with, say, the Trinity (and other defining matters) at the center and then view a person’s involvement/participation relative to their movement toward or away from this center. That might not help when it comes to Unitarians. I’m not sure. I’m just trying to say that making the Trinity a defining feature of “Christianity” per se doens’t necessarily mean we have to consign Unitarians to hell-fire.

Hey, if God = Love then we can trust that whatever belief states minimally define “being saved,” God’ll know that. But if God does not = Love, then… :smiling_imp:

Tom :wink:

#35

Hmm…I’ve always considered the Bible to be the “benchmark of Christianity” (or at least of Christian doctrine) rather than an uninspired creed written more than 250 years after the last book of the NT was written. :confused:

focusmagazine.org/Articles/creedproblems.htm

#36

Hi Aaron,

Yes, the Bible as ultimate source. But it’s an agreed upon understanding of that text which is a community’s only way to shape (or express) their identity in terms of that same text. How could it be otherwise?

But onto dispositions!

Talk of ‘dispositions’ goes way back. I think the first to really hammer away on them was Aristotle who defined them in terms of ‘powers’ or ‘capacities’ to act. Some dispositions, he said, are ‘passive’ in their subsisting, a kind of sheer potentiality. Others are ‘active’ and only exist as dispositions as they are exercised in the realization of some actual state. There has been interesting work in modern times done on the ontology of dispositions.

I think the differentiation between passive and active dispositions makes great sense and I don’t know how to falsify the distinction. After all, actualities (a tree, a rock, a bird, a human being, and presumably a divine being) exist by actualizing some state of affairs through the exercise of some disposition (power, capacity). Whether or not an entity has some passive dispositions (dispositions that an entity can be said to possess without having to exercise it throughout its career), actual entities nevertheless must possess some ‘active’ dispositions (dispositions exercised throughout the career of the entity and thus which constitute or define that entity’s essence as the sort of thing it is). Hence, necessary existence must by definition be the actual exercise of some disposition(s).

That brings us to God—the greatest actuality imaginable. And the question is, as a ‘necessary’ being what ‘active’ dispositions constitute God’s being essentially? Not what potentialities (or passive dispositions) may be rightly attributed to God, but what exercised dispositions constitute the essence of divine being?

This is where you and I will part, because you understand the divine disposition to love as a passive disposition, a mere potentiality in God which is exercised contingently when some appropriate non-God entity comes along to “be loved.” For me, this disposition is an active or definitional disposition constitutive of divine being per se.

I’ll just leave it there for now and try to return later. I would absolutely love for you to read Greg Boyd’s PhD dissertation “Trinity in Process” (a Trinitarian reconstruction of Charles Hartshorne’s process metaphysic). Greg actually used to be a passionate Unitarian. Don’t worry, I’m not evangelizing ya! Ha. But I really think you’d be able to follow and appreciate his arguments. Available on amazon for only $60! Ouch.

Tom

#37

The problem I have with Luke’s comment is one I think we all share on this board.

If God’s loving nature does not define who God is toward man in any sense that we understand love, then it seems to me Jesus was wasting his time telling us not to fear God for he cares for us (humans) far more than many sparrows.

If God caring for us as children does not define his love for us (ala John 3:16) then who can prove anything scripture says about God except exactly what the Atheist says; “makes no sense at all”.

Aug

#38

Auggy: If God’s loving nature does not define who God is toward man in any sense that we understand love, then it seems to me Jesus was wasting his time telling us not to fear God for he cares for us (humans) far more than many sparrows.

Tom: Precisely. There has to be some shared context between divine being and human being if our langauge of God is to speak truthfully of God (or if the incarnation is to be possible!). After all, the incarnation is the ULTIMATE anthropomorphism isn’t it? Or perhaps it’s US who are theomorphic. Hmmm.

Tom

#39

Aaron,

What I’m asking is just what exercise of dispositional powers defines God necessarily. No ‘actuality’ can exist in an entirely passive state dispositionally speaking. By that I mean, no ‘actual’ entity can exist apart from some ‘actual’ exercise of dispositional power or capacity. So in your view what dispositions define God’s actuality? Whatever these dispositions are they define God ‘essentially’.

From what I gather you don’t think the disposition to love is exercised necessarily by God. Cool. Can you tell me what active dispositions you think are exercised necessarily (and which thus define God essentially)? Volition? Reason? Self-consciousness?

What Greg (and behind him Hartshorne) argues beginning with simple a priori truths is that the disposition to realize or fulfill ‘aesthetic pleasure’ (hence, the aesthetic a priori or the a priori of aesthetic subjective aims) defines necessary existence. God is necessarily the disposition to realize aesthetic pleasure, and from THAT it’s a hop, skip and a jump to ‘love’.

I’m letting all my aces show!

Tom

#40

I think it’s important to note that Robin Parry doesn’t make the case for Universalism based on the confusing statement “God = love.” I’ve ordered his book on the Trinity: Worshipping the Trinity to confirm my hunch that his argument for universalism is based on God’s words and actions and not some sort of definition of who God is essentially.

Aaron,
Everyone is biased, there is no such thing as a pure reading of Scripture. But this isn’t a problem because Sola Scriptura says Scripture has authority over the church and we interpret Scripture from within Church tradition! At least we know where the bias is then and it’s all codified into documents known as the creeds and agreed to as truth by the majority of the Christianity, past and present, furthermore I believe this is the process of interpretation the Holy Spirit has ordained.

auggybendoggy,
I want to both affirm the loving character of God and avoid reductionism. Yes, we can talk of God being loving but we also love and respect his entire revelation, otherwise our talk of love is hollow, because we want to pick and choose what suits our circumstances.

#41

Hi Tom,

You wrote:

My head is still spinning from the thought of a rock or tree existing “by actualizing some state of affairs through the exercise of some disposition!” While I think I see what you’re talking about, I confess to not having thought much about this (especially not in terms of active vs. passive dispositions)! So if my response is not what you’re looking for, I’ll try again.

I do think God is necessarily rational, and (assuming God thinks sequentially) that there has never been a time when God has not thought rationally. So if that makes reason an active disposition that is exercised necessarily by God, then I guess we can count reason as one such active disposition that I think defines God’s existence. I also believe God has always been self-aware, so I suppose the same can be said for this as well.

As far as love goes, I’m not sure I would say that the disposition to love is not exercised necessarily by God, as I believe God has always loved every finite person he has or ever will bring into existence. That is, before God created our world, I believe God loved each and every human being that will ever exist, and that he has always loved us. This, I believe, is true regardless of whether God’s existence is timeless, or whether there is sequence in his thoughts and experience. I don’t think there has ever been a time (or timeless moment) in God’s existence when God has not loved every finite person he has or ever will create.

So if God loves because his rational nature necessarily inclines him to do so, and there has never been a moment of God’s existence when God hasn’t loved every finite person he has or ever will create, then wouldn’t God’s love be an active disposition that is necessarily exercised by him?

I think I’d be ok with affirming that God is necessarily disposed to “realize aesthetic pleasure.” But you’ll have to unpack how this would entail a multi-personal God. Or do I just need to go ahead and shell out $60 to read Boyd’s dissertation? :slight_smile:

#42

Aaron: So if God loves because his rational nature necessarily inclines him to do so, and there has never been a moment of God’s existence when God hasn’t loved every finite person he has or ever will create, then wouldn’t God’s love be an active disposition that is necessarily exercised by him?

Tom: I thought you agreed with Luke that God is NOT essentially love (never mind the trinity). My bad. It sounds like you agree that God is essentially love, that the disposition to love in its actual exercise defines God essentially. So that’s good. You just don’t think this requires other divine persons. But you seem to agree that love is an interpersonal relation, for to explicate divine love you posit the presence of all those who will exist (but don’t exist eternally) as present to God (as possibilities, since they are not yet actualities) and as loved by God. You seem to agree that where there’s no appropriate interpersonal relations, love can’t get off the ground.

I’ll jump back in later. Gotta run.

Hugs,
Tom

#43

I got an extra moment…

I don’t think God ‘loves’ possible human beings in quite the same way as he does ‘actual’ human beings. The distinction between ‘possible’ and ‘actual’ inclines me to assume that loving potential persons is quite different than loving actual persons when it comes to that act defining one’s own existence essentially and in turn grounding our own actual love. I’d say that it’s possible to love potential persons in the sense of heightened expectation and regard for possibilities, yes. But I wouldn’t call this regard for possible persons the same as loving actual persons. If the two are equivalent in value one might ask why God would actualize these possibilities at all. Let all creation remain a contemplated possibility in God’s mind. But surely the coming into being of actualities makes a difference to God, and thus to love.

Tom

#44

Well upon further reflection I have modified my position somewhat (hope that’s ok! :slight_smile: ). As I was thinking about the quote by CS Lewis that Luke posted:

I realized Lewis was mistaken for concluding that God must be multi-personal in order for him to have been love before the world was made. If “love is something that one person has for another person,” and if each and every finite person has always been certain to exist - and has thus always been known and loved by God as such - then God was love before the world was made even without being multi-personal. That is, if the coming into existence of every created, finite person who ever will exist has always been a certainty with God (rather than something that may or may not happen), and God has always known everything about us and loved us perfectly, even before we were born - then it would mean that God has always been love, even if God has always been a unipersonal being.

#45

But I’m positing that there has never been a time when every human being was not certain to be brought into existence. For God (who knows the end from the beginning), there was never a time when we might or might not have existed. We have always been certain to exist, and, as such, God has always loved us. We were loved by God just as much before we were born as after. Yes, the coming into being of actualities makes a “difference” to God. But the difference was not a change in God’s love for us, only the expression of his love. God’s love for us has always been an “active disposition.” God didn’t begin to love us after we were brought into existence, and he didn’t love us more after our existence was actualized than he did before. He was simply able to manifest to us the love he’s always had for us. I believe his love for us was just as perfect and unchanging before our existence was actualized as it was after.

#46

So Aaron and I agree God is essentially loving, i.e., God’s very existence is constituted in an act of loving some ‘other’. We just define the other differently.

So let’s gang up on Luke now! :smiling_imp:

Tom

#47

I’m glad we’re in agreement regarding God’s being essentially loving! As for ganging up on Luke, I think he’s probably got his hands full with you and Jason already, so I’ll prob just bow out of this discussion. :slight_smile: Maybe I’ll start a new thread entitled, “Unitarian Christianity: An Oxymoron? And if not, does it lead to Universalism? (Or not?)” :laughing:

#48

Or even based on a complex and highly detailed statement of “God = love”. :wink:

My point being that I’m not the one “reductivising” that statement. It’s one thing to claim that you can’t see how the doctrinal details of trinitarian theism involve God essentially being love, or to say it’s confusing in that sense; it’s another thing to treat people who go this route as though we’re simplifying “God = love” into some vaguely suggestive whasiwhosis that we can promote as God’s “dominant trait” (apparently over “God = hate”?!–which ought to be treated as an equal trait of God instead?? I’m sure Auggy would like to say some things about tacit implications there… :wink: )

That’s true, in this thread I haven’t gotten that far yet. (Though in my initial post I pointed back to another thread where I succinctly got that far–as succinctly as any set of statements recounting trinitarian doctrinal positions can be! Which, practically “by definition”, isn’t going to be very succinct. :unamused: )

But that’s largely because we seem to be stuck far back theologically, long before I would arrive at trinitarianism.

Your reply was still again unclear about whether you agree God is essentially personal. The Creedal statements tend to imply this more than not (or so it seems to me anyway), but I can’t just assume you agree with that because eventually you deny God is essentially X.

I’ve been trying to identify where the disagreement about what God essentially is starts; and so far I can’t say for sure it doesn’t start at a disagreement over God’s existence essentially as God!

So I will ask yet again, and I’ll use fonting to emphasize the question even more this time than the several previous times I’ve asked it: do you believe God is essentially personal?! Or not?

If you don’t, then there’s our first and logically most prior disagreement. Obviously I am never going to arrive at trinitarian universalism if we can’t even agree whether mere theism is essentially true!

Because the question of whether God is essentially personal or not is very important.

Is God essentially impersonal instead?! That would be atheism. Is God non-essentially personal instead?! That could be one of several things: to give three different examples, it could be an atheistic panpsychism which processionally develops into theism; or it might be a Early Stoic quasi-theism where Reason impersonally exists and never acts; or it might be a naturalistic vitalism where fundamental reality is alive and could be said to actively behave, but it doesn’t have rational intentions per se (though it might develop those later, or in some declined form.) But it couldn’t be fundamental theism, much less supernaturalistic theism, much much less the supernaturalistic trinitarian theism of the Creeds.

You can affirm the propositions of the Creeds (none of which use the word “essence” or “ousia”), but that doesn’t count for much if you deny, or even only refuse to affirm, God is essentially personal. Is God atheistic instead of theistic? Does or could God stop being God at the level of God’s own fundamental reality while still remaining in existence (or even still remaining God)? Does some kind of Schroedinger’s God exist, in an indeterminate state of potentially being personal or impersonal, until that state collapses into reality by the intentional observation of a different real person? Do we create God as God; is “being itself” not personal or impersonal until we say so?!

Do you agree with me that God is essentially personal?

If you agree with that, we can go on. If not, we can’t, because we will be disagreeing over whether theism (compared to numerous other philosophies) is fundamentally true or not.

Or, if you want to start at the Trinity instead: do you agree that God, as the single substantial ground of all existence, is essentially an inter-personal relationship continually acting at the level of God’s own self-existence (Self-Begetting and Self-Begotten Persons) to fulfill mutually supporting relationships between distinct persons?

Or, do you deny that God is essentially this? (Essentially something other than this? Non-essentially this? Essentially some of this but essentially other than some of this? Essentially some of this but non-essentially the rest of it? If you deny God is essentially this, we’re going to be back to many numerous details to identify where we actually disagree.)

I can go the short route or the long route–although the short route implies the long route has already been covered! But we’re either going to end up in agreement here or not.

If not, we’ll be in disagreement about some point prior. Which logically means I can’t continue in discussion with you on the topic of why I find universalism to follow as a corollary to trinitarian theism.

If so, then it won’t be many more steps to get there. :slight_smile: Which you may already be aware of.