Isaiah 9v6 does not refer to Christ- it describes King Hesekiah.
Scholarly modern bibles – such as NAB cast considerable ‘light’ on the subject.
The verse was written in the PRESENT tense
The text does not say “he is’ it says ‘they name him.’
Christ was never called’ Everlasting Father’
The text does not refer to “God’ – it says something like “wonderful in counsel is our God Warrior’
Evangelical web-sites perform the usual contortions and gymnastics to ‘get out’ of this one – including challenging the Hebrews interpretation of their own scriptures. What a shame!
Matthew 1,v23
Again an allegedly prophetic verse which refers to contemporaty events. The truth is out there – mixed up with the persistent objections of the evangelicals. You just have to read the full chapter to see this was not Christ being referred to. I won’t labour the point but where was Christ ever called “Emmanuel”?
John Chapter 1 is completely analagous to Genesis 1.
Notice that 9 verses of Genesis 1 begin with the words “God said” – it was by his WORD that God created the heavens and the earth. No much wonder that the word was with God – it was HIS word!! Simple!

John 1 v 18 envisaged that some people might misinterpret verses 1 -17 and clarifies the situation “‘no man has ever seen God”

John Chapter 17 vv1-4 shows quite clearly that Christ’s Father is the only true God.
Note – 2 persons in this diagogue!

And finally John summarises Christs mission by stating (Chapter 20 v 31) “Now these are written that ye may come to know that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.”

I am a relative newcomer to these blogs – but almost every Trinitarian theory I encounter strikes me either as a form of modalism- or disguised tritheism.
Blessings
John

You’re interpretation of modalism is wrong. Well, not completely wrong, as there are some modalists that believe the way you describe it, but there are some that do not, just like in trinitarianism, there are are some who believe in subordination, and others who do not.

On your first point, you are actually placing yourself in a heretical position. The Bible clearly states in multiple places that Christians believe in one God, not two or three (Deuteronomy 6:4, 2 Samuel 7:22, Nehemiah 9:6, Isaiah 43:10-11, Mark 12:29-34, Romans 3:30, 1 Timothy 2:5). If Jesus is a separate entity from God the Father, then you would at least be a binitarian, or a bitheist, depending on how far you separate the Father from the Son.

We learn through the last verse I gave, 1 Timothy 2:5, that Jesus had a human component, however that looks. We also read in a few passages that Jesus was also God (Isaiah 9:6, Matthew 1:23, John 1:1-18), manifest in flesh. So, from here we have a few options. We could say that Jesus was just a very good man, or that Jesus was a perfect human mediator between humanity and God, or Jesus was fully God, or, we could have a fuller understanding of mystery and say that Jesus was the fullness of God dwelling in a man.

Of course, I would have to go with the last option, and I’d hope you would, too.

Now, how does that work into Jesus being the Son of God? Well, God is spirit, not flesh, and as the Bible says, spirit reproduces spirit, and flesh, flesh (John 3:5-6). So, is Jesus the flesh-Son of God? No, Jesus is the spiritual Son of God, which does not negate Jesus’ role as being absolutely one with the Father. In fact, we could say that Jesus’ Spirit was in fact the fullness of God the Father! Now, you could disagree, but I don’t think you could disprove that with scripture, so it’s up to you on your interpretation.

This same logic defeats your second point. Jesus’ Spirit was a “mode” of God, if that’s how you want to put it. But the flesh was just that, flesh, a man, who was obedient to the Spirit’s will unto death.

Within the constructs of my pre-supposed dual-nature of Jesus Christ, His flesh-man can certainly mediate between the Holiness of God, and the sinfulness of man.

Again, this logic also allows us to be imitators of Christ within reason. In fact, your logic for being able to emulate Jesus, in either regards to His perfect humanity, or His absolute Holiness as God, we will always fall short, because we have not been perfected yet (unless I missed something and the resurrection already happened). However, we are children of the Most High God, and no longer carry the title of sinner (although we may still fall into sin)!

Honestly, I don’t fall into the main category as a modalist, but more-so the category of Oneness theology, which is a subset of Monarchical Modalism.

Anyway, that’s my two cents, I hope you enjoy the read.
-Alex

While the Son is indeed God in the Oneness mind, He is purely the manifestation of the divine monad existing in spirit/flesh union. Thus this unique existence renders the Son capable of subject object relationship… Or so they say.

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the comment. I take it, you’re a Oneness Pentecostal? Or, just a modalist?

If Jesus is “the existence of” God, that just means, does it, not, that Jesus just is God himself? If not, what does it mean, in your view.

Yes – I’ve wondered that myself, whether or not Lateran IV of 1215 is blatantly modalist.

Based on conversations I’ve had here, I can see how they might think f, s, and h to be distinct, and yet each shares d, the simple divine nature. You think of them as modes, in the sense of ways that d is, which include more than d – the modes are like facts or events. So the f-mode would be d + something. And s-mode would be d + something else. Etc. But each would just “be” d – not identical to d, but rather, a think in which d is the only… component? Of course, then, you worry about those distinguishing somethings…

You’re certainly right – if each one = d, then each of the three just is each of the others as well. And this, of course, is wrong, if ever something’s true of one that isn’t true of the other.

Scott or JT may want to weigh in on this. Gents – how do you read Lateran IV on the Trinity?

“But we, with the approval of the holy and general council, believe and confess with Peter (Lombard) that there is one supreme entity, incomprehensible and ineffable, which is truly Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, together (simul) three persons and each one of them singly. And thus in God there is only trinity, not quaternity, because each of the three persons is that entity, namely, substance, essense, or divine nature, which alone is the principle of the universe and besides which there is no other.” (emphasis added)

I don’t know latin so I am relying for the correct meaning on the English translation. The English rendering appears to indicate the IS of identity, not of predication. This correlates each singly as the divine nature. Since the “is” of Identity is reflexive F = DN, DN = F S=DN, DN = S, H = DN, DN =H. This appears to me to indicate that each of the three ‘persons’ is a mode of the essence, in other words, it is not 3 entities IN a Divine Nature, it is the Divine nature AS three entities. The only difference between this Catholic Modalism versus Sabellian Modalism would be that CM would be coincident, yet SM was sequential.

Shedd, within his extremely detailed systematic theology article on “trinity in unity” made a similar description and claim, stating unequivocally that each of the persons were modes of the essence, even defending this term against SM. One difference between Shedd and the Lateran Council description is that he claimed that each of the persons was ALL of the Divine nature, which is pretty hard to swallow if he’s speaking simulataneously since he also upholds that the persons are distinct from each other.

Getting back to the Lateran council description, are my logical conclusions reasonable or tweeked?

What needs working out is a theory of the Incarnation in addition to a theory about the Trinity. The Incarnation is a very tricky thing to explain metaphysically. You may like to look at Richard Cross’s book _Metaphysics of the Incarnation: From Aquinas to Scotus_. That might be fodder for discussion.

To say ‘Jesus’ cosignifies two natures, human nature and a divine nature according to Athanasius and many many others (i.e. Def. of Chalcedon). That is a starting point for a much longer conversation….

You’re convicting yourself of your own trinitarianism. Jesus cannot be God without all this baggage and contradictory propositions.