Trinitarian Christianity leads to Universalism? (Or not?)

[Aaron]

Hi Tom,

You wrote:

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?

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?

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 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?

[TGB]

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

[TGB]

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

[Aaron]

Tom: I thought you agreed with Luke that God is NOT essentially love (never mind the trinity). My bad.

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

CS Lewis says in Mere Christianity that: “All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that ‘God is love’. But they seem not to notice that the words ‘God is love’ have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, he was not love.”

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.

[Aaron]

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.

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.

[TGB]

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!

Tom

[Aaron]

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!

Tom

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. Maybe I’ll start a new thread entitled, “Unitarian Christianity: An Oxymoron? And if not, does it lead to Universalism? (Or not?)”

[JasonPratt]

I think it’s important to note that Robin Parry doesn’t make the case for Universalism based on the confusing statement “God = love.”

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

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… )

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.

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. )

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. Which you may already be aware of.

[TGB]

Luke,

You ruled out Unitarianism as unorthodox because you know and believe that God essentially and necessarily (not contingently) personal (three personed God, right?). But now it seems like you don’t think God is essentially personal?

I get the whole limitation of human language thing. The word ‘person’ doesn’t function univocally between divine and human persons. There are differences. But if our theological language is to meaningfully describe God (as the object of worship and study and what have you), there has to be some shared context of being that grounds the truth of our language as it points toward and appropriates God. So I don’t see how you can deny the essentiallly personal nature of God and still hold to the orthodox belief in three divine persons. So, what do you mean when you say God is three persons? Anything at all? If you fill the word “person” with content, where do you get the content from if not our own experience of what it means to be persons?

Tom

[Luke]

Jason,

Now we’re getting somewhere, your post is still too long, but it’s made the most sense so far, thanks for sticking with it!

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!

I can agree with that, God’s essential existence is God.

Do you agree with me that God is essentially personal?

Not really sure what you mean by “person”, but for the sake the debate I’ll cautiously say yes. I’m taking it in the sense of the Nicene creed, person = identity. eg “The Father” also in an Exodus 3 “I AM” sense.

theism

Theism is valid but not true, it’s a stage on the journey to the Trinity.

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?

Yes.

TGB,

You ruled out Unitarianism as unorthodox because you know and believe that God essentially and necessarily (not contingently) personal (three personed God, right?). But now it seems like you don’t think God is essentially personal?

See my comment to Jason, but haven’t you read the Nicene Creed?

So I don’t see how you can deny the essentiallly personal nature of God and still hold to the orthodox belief in three divine persons.

Where did I deny that?

If you fill the word “person” with content, where do you get the content from if not our own experience of what it means to be persons?

Again, church tradition has gone some way towards this, why abandon it now?

[TGB]

You lost me Luke. Sorry. I’m gonna take a time out on the sidelines to sit and watch a while.

Tom

[Luke]

So no comment then on the Nicene creed as an orthodox starting point for a definition of God?

[TGB]

Sorry Luke. You asked me if I have read the Nicene Creed. Didn’t know you wanted that kind of comment on it.

I’ve read the Creeds. The Nicene is the first of the Orthodox Ecumenical Creeds. Yep. Good stuff. As the first, it is the starting point for saying what the Church’s faith-content consists of.

Like Jason, I’d like to know if you think God is essenitally personal. You seem extremely hesitant to concede it, though the one God’s being three persons is the heart and soul of the Creeds. I was just wondering why the hesitancy. For myself, I’d love to know what you mean when you say the F, S, and Sp are “persons.” You offered “identity.” Can I ask you to unpack that a bit? You seem to be using “identity” as a synonym for “person,” but it leaves me wondering what you mean by “identity.” After all, “identity” isn’t equivalent to “person.” “Identity” (depending on the context) just refers to the fact of “sameness” over time in various conditions. I can speak of the identity of a thing, of this or that, without necessarily talking about human persons at all. “Person” is a particular KIND of “identity,” which is why we speak of “personal identity.” What makes ‘identities’ personal? I mean, do you think personal identity entails cognition, consciousness, volition, rationality, relatedness, aesthetic appetite? Any of these? Could you throw any of these out and still identity a thing as a fully realized “person” in your view? What would you toss? What would you add? Do you think these questions are illegitimate because God is categorically other than us, hence our categories don’t apply at all?

Tom

[TGB]

Take five and enjoy!

youtube.com/watch?v=-WybvhRu9KU

[Luke]

TGB,

God is a person. But are we heading into selective question territory?

You said:

So I don’t see how you can deny the essentiallly personal nature of God and still hold to the orthodox belief in three divine persons.

And then I asked “Where did I deny that?”

…

I’m cautious of course because the interpreters of church history are cautious in defining ‘personhood’. But if you’ve got a better grasp of what “person” means than the framers of the creeds and the interpreters of church history then I’d like to hear it, but what’s wrong with using the Nicene Creed as our starting point?

[james.goetz]

God is a person. But are we heading into selective question territory?

You said:

So I don’t see how you can deny the essentiallly personal nature of God and still hold to the orthodox belief in three divine persons.

And then I asked “Where did I deny that?”

…

I’m cautious of course because the interpreters of church history are cautious in defining ‘personhood’. But if you’ve got a better grasp of what “person” means than the framers of the creeds and the interpreters of church history then I’d like to hear it, but what’s wrong with using the Nicene Creed as our starting point?

Luke, I think that I understand you. You affirm that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons who are equally God, but you shy to say that the trinity is a person. Is something along those lines correct?

[Stephen]

My apologies for appearing out of nowhere. I registered and posted a little on this forum a few months ago, but stopped (My introduction is here). Sadly, I had to deprogram from my previous denominational tenets (ultra-fundamentalist) and letter myself on the subject of EU before I could properly receive all this new wine.

My view on the question posted at the beginning of this topic is simply that I don’t see how any hypostatic difference of God being One Person or Three could be the sole cause of leading one to Universalism. Socinian theology in itself could possibly lean one closer to Universalism, as Socinian theology dissented from Reformation orthodoxy, by teaching annhilationism, which is one step away from eternal torment. I’m not Trinitarian myself, I do believe in Christ’s Deity however.

[TGB]

I appreciate the responses and the chance to chat, Luke.

I don’t think we’re heading into ‘selective questioning territory’ though I admit I’m not sure what you mean.

Luke: God is a person.

Tom: God is three persons, right? God is “one _____,” yes, but it’s not “person” that goes in the blank.

---

Tom: So I don’t see how you can deny the essentiallly personal nature of God and still hold to the orthodox belief in three divine persons.

Luke: Where did I deny that?

Tom: My apologies. If you grant that God is essentially personal, I’d love to hear you say what you think being persons entails.

Jim: Luke, I think that I understand you. You affirm that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons who are equally God, but you shy to say that the trinity is a person.

Tom: But as trinitarians we don’t say the Trinity is “a person.”

Luke: I’m cautious of course because the interpreters of church history are cautious in defining ‘personhood’. But if you’ve got a better grasp of what “person” means than the framers of the creeds and the interpreters of church history then I’d like to hear it, but what’s wrong with using the Nicene Creed as our starting point?

Tom: Nothing wrong with NC. It’s fine. I’m not claiming to be superior to anyone. I’m very cautious as well about how our language is used to describe God, but there’s no avoiding such speech. So I’d be grateful, Luke, to know what you think it means to be a person. Can you unpack the concept of ‘person’ you believe to be that of the framers of the creeds? What characteristics or attributes or dispositions are definitive of person for you? When you say God is a personal being, what do you mean?

Tom

[TGB]

Just in case there are doubts about the orthodoxy of viewing God as essentially loving:

Prof Andrew Louth (Professor of Patristics, University of Durham).

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31oEzpE0AqL.SS500.jpg

Synopsis: Here is an entirely original approach to the theology of love, a subject little covered in too much recent theology in the West. In the New Testament, Love is the principle of God’s action and man’s response. The word agape was introduced by New Testament writers to express the meaning of their understanding of love. In its full sense, love in Christian theology is not only the motive principle of the perfect relationship between God and man but also constitutes the essential nature of God Himself. In the Eastern theological tradition, writing on this subject has been much richer—indeed it continues to be so in the writings of such 20th century theologians such as Lossky, Evdokimov and Olivier Clement. Louth who is himself Orthodox draws heavily on this tradition and shows how much people in the West have to learn. Examining also Augustine, St Francis and Therese of Lisieux, Louth has written an ecumenical book in the best sense and has written it in a way that will compel the interest of those who seldom darken the doors of a Church.

On my to-buy list!

Tom

[Luke]

The Council of Chalcedon declared hypostasis and persona (the Latin word from which we get person) to be synonymous, therefore it’s now entirely legitimate to say the three persons of the Trinity. At Chalcedon the Church fathers determined that Jesus was one person of two natures, human and divine. The closest we get to a definition of a person begins with Augustine who said persons were “modes of being.” So in defining person I’d only go as far as Bray or Letham below:

Bray

The term ‘person’ has therefore to be understood as a substantial reality in its own right, not merely as an aspect or mode of the divine being. … The will therefore belongs to the nature, so that the divine will is common to all three persons of the Trinity.

(The Doctrine of God, 179)

True co-inherence [how each person is divine] must apply to all three persons, so that their shared essential attributes are not merely the result of generic affinity (as human attributes are) but the substance of numerical identity, since God is one. Each person of the Godhead must possess all the attributes of God’s essence, as well as the particular attributes which define their personhood.

(The Doctrine of God, 224)

Or Letham

Each person, with respect to essence, is fully, completely, and identically God. But each person, in relation to the others, differs according to the particular properties of each, entailing sending and being sent, begetting and being begotten, and emitting and proceeding. Indeed, no person exists in respect to himself alone - each exists relatively, one to the other. Thus, the Father and the Son are together one essence, but they are not together one Word.

(The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, Theology and Worship, 192)