What do you mean by "Trinity"?

[Hoghead1]

Yes, I would agree with you. That you would be modalist, though possibly not by intention. The PCUSA document I referred you to, while a complete summary of the Trinity, was a response to a tendency to replace "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" with "Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer," in order to avoid gender-specific language. I think that's equivalent to what you mention. The document notes that while God is creator, redeemer and sustainer, if this is taken as a definition of the Trinity it's a problem, because all three persons of the Trinity are involved in creation, sustaining and redeeming. That issue prompted our General Assembly to request a general review of the Trinity and terminology. The paper accepted Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, but not as a replacement for Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for the reason noted.

(I'm sure there's some place in the PCUSA where this is still an issue, but I haven't seen this problem for a while.)

I hate analogies for the Trinity. They typically lead to misconceptions.

As I said before and will say again, analogize we must. Our knowledge of reality is always analogous knowledge. Also, some analogies fro the trinity do not work but some do.

Also, I don't think teh PCUSA is particularly worried about modalism. Almost every ministerial candidate I went to seminary with and ev ery Presbyterian pastor I have ever knows would fit the description of modalism.

 

[Hoghead1]

Hedrick thanks for the post, and alway well thought out. The only issues I would say I have with it, is that I never claimed "modes of existence". Modalism as I understand it (I was once a oneness Pentecostal) is that God is one in both Being and Person, and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are what God is referred to when performing different "modes of operation". God is the Father as creator, the Son as the redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as the sanctifier, for example. An analogy would be a man who is a father to his children, and husband to his wife, and a son to his parents.

The other issue, is that I didn't claim that Protestants are modalists, that is for all intents and purposes the proposal of Hoghead1. I pray that he is not right in his assessment.

Why? What is your objection to modalism? The only objection I can see that you can raise is that it challenges the notion that there are three subjectivities, three minds, within the Godhead. Well, that's what modalism is supposed to do: grant you one mind, one God, not a cosmic committee of three. You and other here seem to forget that the original Trinitarian concept of a "person" was not at all like the modern one, which you keep unduly reading into the equation.

 

[Hoghead1]

Where they not deemed false gods even then?

That depends on what you mean by false gods. The Ten Commandments do not deny the existence of other gods, just that the Israelites should not worship them.

 

[Hoghead1]

This post raises a number of separate issues.

First, I don’t think the term “modes of existence” necessarily reflects modalism. Because the term isn’t used in any official definitions, it can be used in different ways. You’d need to see how a given writer is using it. One could, for example, say that it refers to God’s three ways of existing, as uncreated, begotten and proceeding.

Indeed the whole issue of modalism is complex, for reasons I’ve only realized while watching this discussion. Lots of people have been accused of it, and they’re not all saying the same thing. The essence of it seems to be denying an actual distinction of person within the Trinity, something that can happen in various ways.

Is modern Protestant theology modalist? I think that’s hard to judge. First, one of the characteristics of modern theology, going back for at least 200 years, is that it tends to avoid the metaphysical language in which Trinitarian theology has often been expressed. If that’s enough to make something heretical, then most modern Protestant theology is heretical. If not, you have to look at what’s being said and decide whether it’s trying to get at the same thing as the traditional definitions.

There I think you’ll find two basic strands, which are often mixed.

There’s a fair amount of modern theology that tries to maintain continuity with traditional theology, using modern concepts but trying to say the same thing. Most of it is not intentionally modalist.

The second strand starts from Scriptural scholarship, and is suspicious of doctrine that strays too far from it. Many of these people think that NT discussion of the logos and other ways of speaking of preexistence are referring to something that’s not ontologically equivalent to the Father, but is more a way of speaking of God’s way of being present with his people. These approaches may be closer to the original Monarchians, though it appears that even the Monarchians had probably lost some of the Jewish background to the NT language.

However these folks may still, as I do, think that if Jesus shows us God, then that God can’t be thought of as a pure monad, but there has to be some kind of personal relationship within his existence.

The following is the most recent official statement on the Trinity by my church: https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/theologyandworship/pdfs/trinityfinal.pdf. I believe it’s a representative of the first approach. Whether it actually manages to avoid modalism you’ll have to judge. Here is probably the most critical paragraph from that point of view:

“When we confess with the creeds of the universal church that God is “one in substance, and yet distinct in three persons” (The Scots Confession, BC, 3.01), we use terminology that is strange and perhaps off-putting to many members of the church today. However, the intent of these words is to declare that the mystery of the Trinity cannot be reduced either to a solitary individual or to a close-knit group of individuals. Trinitarian faith witnesses to the divine reality as living, active, dynamic, and relational. Relationship is at the heart of God’s being. One yet richly differentiated, God’s being is in communion. God lives and acts in mutual, self-giving love.”

I agree with this document, including the paragraph just quoted. But it avoids a review of the NT evidence, which I think would lead to a good deal of circumspection in how one asserts the Trinity.

I don't think that is a very solid POV at all. God is neither a solitary individual or a committee? That what is God? If there is only one God, then, yes, God is a solitary individual? If God is not a cosmic committee, then no, there are not three subjectivities in the Godhead and tritheism is avoided.
As to being "solitary," no, I don't think of God as solitary. I think of God as a social-relational being, who, to be compete, needs others. However, there is but one mind here, one God.

 

[Hoghead1]

I don't think so. They believed in one only God. They may have recognized gods or godly persons that were in tune with the attributes of their God.

No, no. As t3eh Bible makes plain, the ancient Israelites were subject to falling into polytheism.

 

[Hoghead1]

Ok, I just did. He hasn't gotten back to me yet.

Oh, baloney.

 

[Hoghead1]

Sorry, it can't be easily done. I am convinced, and I was not trying convince or debate others at that time. Large number of people accept many bogus as truth including the man-made extrapolated concept of Trinity. I am least bothered about your ignorant assumption without any merit.

Yes, from what I know about the Apocrypha , they are ignorant assumptions. Also, arguing that such-and-such is the cases , because you think you read something about it in some source you can't remember is a not a solid way to make a point. It's like arguing "they say." "Who are the they?" I ask.

 

[Hoghead1]

We cannot expect the Jews to understand what was implied earlier when they had difficulty in recognizing Him during His ministry.

Oh, c'mon. They wrote the OT.

 

[Hoghead1]

Nonetheless, providence belongs to God.

What does this post have to do with anything here?

 

[Hoghead1]

Look obviously you have no understanding of classical concepts of being, and the Church's understanding, or lack thereof, of what a Divine Person is. The whole issue I see with your confusion, is that you want to equate person with being. They are not the same.

The Church really hasn't defined what a Divine Person is as far as I know, and there is an understanding that personhood when it comes to the divine is not identical as personhood in man or angel. What they have stated that the divine Persons are distinct due to their relation, not to their mode. So modalism is a heresy, and will remain one.

I'm hoping that you are wrong in your assessment that Protestants are moving away from trinitarianism to modalism. That would be a huge tragedy.

Look, I don't think you understanding the church's understanding, either. I never said that person and being are the same. I said that persons are in fact beings. You claimed that persons are not beings and that makes absolutely no sense. The church never claimed that.

 

[ScottA]

What does this post have to do with anything here?

How soon we forget:

No, no. it's not a matter of confusion here. It's simply a matter that language changes over the years. That's why, for example, there's a difference of about 20,000 changers between our KJV and the 1611KJV.

As I was saying:

Nonetheless, providence belongs to God.

 

[Hoghead1]

How soon we forget:

As I was saying:

I still don't follow you here. Maybe we should come back to this later on. I sensed we are getting off track.

 

[Cappadocious]

Oh, baloney.

Ever read this, by the way?

http://fordham.bepress.com/dissertations/AAI8219248/

 

[hedrick]

I don't think that is a very solid POV at all. God is neither a solitary individual or a committee? That what is God? If there is only one God, then, yes, God is a solitary individual? If God is not a cosmic committee, then no, there are not three subjectivities in the Godhead and tritheism is avoided.
As to being "solitary," no, I don't think of God as solitary. I think of God as a social-relational being, who, to be compete, needs others. However, there is but one mind here, one God.

They never said there's more than one mind in God.

Why? What is your objection to modalism? The only objection I can see that you can raise is that it challenges the notion that there are three subjectivities, three minds, within the Godhead. Well, that's what modalism is supposed to do: grant you one mind, one God, not a cosmic committee of three.

To my knowledge, classical Trinitarian thought does not claim that there are three minds. The Catholic Encyclopedia, which represents traditional Catholic view in the early 20th Cent, says there's one mind. "Granted that in the infinite mind, in which the categories are transcended, there are three relations which are subsistent realities, distinguished one from another in virtue of their relative opposition then it will follow that the same mind will have a three-fold consciousness, knowing itself in three ways in accordance with its three modes of existence." (article on the Trinity, Catholic Encyclopedia, newadvent.org)

The things that we normally think of as constituting a person actually go with the nature, not the Person. The only thing that isn't one is the relations. That's one reason we've all agreed that "Person" in Trinitarian theology is not the same as the common-language use of "person."

Also, I don't think teh PCUSA is particularly worried about modalism. Almost every ministerial candidate I went to seminary with and ev ery Presbyterian pastor I have ever knows would fit the description of modalism.

I don't think I trust your evaluation of whether a theology is modalist.

Look, I don't think you understanding the church's understanding, either. I never said that person and being are the same. I said that persons are in fact beings. You claimed that persons are not beings and that makes absolutely no sense. The church never claimed that.

I'm with Erose on this one. I agree that persons in the common-language sense are beings, but God is one being. (Except of course when we get to the Incarnation, when the Logos is one being, but that's a different problem.)

 

[Colter]

Jesus speaks clearly as having personality, mind and will subject to the Fathers will. In that regard he is a revelation of the Father. A Trinity would be indistinguishable, however we could perceive something of the Trinity through the Son of a Trinity.

John 1 makes a philosophical concession for purposes of illustration of the ancestral relatedness of Jesus and his Paradise parents.

 

[ScottA]

I still don't follow you here. Maybe we should come back to this later on. I sensed we are getting off track.

No need. I see from another thread that you do not believe that the scriptures are the word of God. So, then, if it is all men's nonsense to you - there is nothing to discuss: your word against mine in a godless exchange. No thank you.

 

[hedrick]

Jesus speaks clearly as having personality, mind and will subject to the Fathers will. In that regard he is a revelation of the Father. A Trinity would be indistinguishable, however we could perceive something of the Trinity through the Son of a Trinity.

John 1 makes a philosophical concession for purposes of illustration of the ancestral relatedness of Jesus and his Paradise parents.

This isn't a problem. Standard theology says there's a separate human will. Personality in the modern sense wasn't a category in their metaphysics, but I think it's clear that in classic theology there's a separate human personality.

I'm not sure you should understand John 1 as a philosophical statement. Logos was an equivalent of Wisdom and in some cases even Torah. It was God's way of being present with us. If you look at the structure of John, you'll see that Jesus replaces the Temple, and all the other major symbols used in 1st Cent Judaism for God's presence, so John 1 is an introduction, summarizing what the rest of the Gospel is going to show.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Jeremiah 25:6 links other gods with works of mankind kindling anger in God. That seems to be the basic analogy of the Bible. Probably the best diagram of that is in 1 Samuel where the Philistines captured the ark to place it before their god Dagon.

He said "in the evolution of Judaism." The OT certainly makes it appear that during the earliest periods many accepted the existence of more than one God but worshipped only the Lord. That's not true of Judaism by NT times, of course.

Unambiguously, false in the sense that Israel wasn't to worship them. Non-existent, probably not.

First, I think there’s no doubt that many, probably most, people in Israel worshiped more than one God. Many places in Samuel through Kings you’ll see people who worship both God and Baal or other gods of Canaan. So it’s clear that Israel wasn’t monotheistic until near or after the Exile. See Jer 44:15 ff

However the prophets were always monotheistic, and opposed this kind of polytheism.

The more debatable matter is whether the Bible shows any evidence that its editors, or any of the patriarchs acknowledged the existence of more than one god. A lot of evidence is from talk about God speaking to the council of gods, and references to sons of god. The conventional view is that these are angels and not actual gods.

Then we have statements like Jeremiah 25:6, "and do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands, and I will do you no harm.'" Or Deuteronomy 6:14, "You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you"

This doesn’t say other gods don’t exist, but don’t serve them. But this is also subject to debate, Maybe the authors weren’t careful enough to say “supposed other gods.”

Ex 12:12 is a bit harder “For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD,” How can you execute judgement on someone who doesn't exist?

Or Ex 18:10 Jethro said, “Blessed be the LORD, who has delivered you from the Egyptians and from Pharaoh. 11 Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods, because he delivered the people from the Egyptians, when they dealt arrogantly with them.”

One can always say that in every case where other gods are referred to the intent is other so-called gods, or demons pretending to be gods. But at some point you begin to suspect that there was a stage when people thought there were other gods, but that God was superior, or that Israel was committed to worshipping only him, or both.

One thing I think is quite clear is that Israel as a whole often worshipped other gods, even though they weren’t supposed to.

Agree

That depends on what you mean by false gods. The Ten Commandments do not deny the existence of other gods, just that the Israelites should not worship them.

So let me clear this up somewhat as to your beliefs on this particular topic. You'all are saying that other Gods existed according to what the one true God expresses in the OT writings? I beg to differ that is not His meaning at all. And to say that the language did not extend to the NT seems bizzarre too since that is the one place where emphasis is placed on gods of this word, where gods are not meant at all but are actually fallen angels.

 

[Colter]

This isn't a problem. Standard theology says there's a separate human will. Personality in the modern sense wasn't a category in their metaphysics, but I think it's clear that in classic theology there's a separate human personality.

I'm not sure you should understand John 1 as a philosophical statement. Logos was an equivalent of Wisdom and in some cases even Torah. It was God's way of being present with us. If you look at the structure of John, you'll see that Jesus replaces the Temple, and all the other major symbols used in 1st Cent Judaism for God's presence, so John 1 is an introduction, summarizing what the rest of the Gospel is going to show.

I say philosophical concession because John uses the term "in the beginning" but there was no beginning of God, howerver there would be a beginning of the creator Son.

 

[Job8]

How about your belief in the Trinity? How do you define what Trinity is?

Rather than "define Trinity" we can go directly to Scripture and confirm that:

THE FATHER IS GOD
THE SON IS GOD
THE HOLY SPIRIT (HOLY GHOST) IS GOD

THE FATHER IS GOD
Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor 1:3).

THE SON IS GOD
But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: (Heb 1:8-10).

THE HOLY SPIRIT IS GOD
But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. (Acts 5:3-4).

So, because all three Divine Persons are God, we have the triune Godhead (or Trinity). WE could list numerous other passages to establish this doctrine.