Social trinitarianism is based in far more than equivocation. They want a view on which the Father and Son can have an I-Thou relationship, rather than something like a victim of multiple personality disorder having two personalities which are “friends”.

If the Latin point were that obvious, then it’d be incredible how Boethius defines “person” – “an individual substance of a rational nature”. But that definition was accepted as a standard one. Of course, the real trouble isn’t the Latin persona but rather the Greek prosopon and hupostasis – which can mean everything from mask, to person (yes, I think, in the “modern sense”), to individual thing / substance. In theological writing, I think there’s a good amount of hogwash about ancient folk not having our concept of a person, which arose with, say Descartes or someone. If a person is a thing which thinks, reasons, feels, and acts, then Jesus or Paul or Moses each thought he was one of those, just as much as we do nowadays.

Leftow, Brower and Rea, and Swinburne all have their ways of trying to avoid the consequence you mention – that if the Three are each non-modalistic persons, that is just tritheism. I don’t think those moves work as planned, but for various reasons…

I don’t expect people like Richard Swiburne to bother about things like this, but surely actual theologians know their Latin and know that persona doesn’t mean ‘person.’ So where’s the beef?

I find myself somewhat cautious in appraising the creeds, for the very reason you suggest: it’d be anachronisitic to only use tools and methods of later developments in evaluating the creeds. I’m in favor of both: what did they understand at the time and what do our tools grant us in better understanding those creeds for our day? It might be helpful to ascertain the pressure of social-political commitments of the day and determine the degree of influence alongside the “various philosophical commitments” that would have contributed to the allegation of distorted interpretations of the Bible.

I’ve also identified two major Greek influences in Western Christianity: mind-body or spiritual-physical dualism, and the belief that stasis (unchange) is good.
The “Western” worldview is based on the Greek idea of Unchanging=Good, Change=Bad. The “Eastern” worldview has the idea that Change=Good or Change=Acceptable. Thus, in the West, we prefer to worship in buildings; in the East, they worship in parks. I’ve posted an entry on this topic on my other blog, The God-Shaped Hole.

http://godsh.blogspot.com/

Can you please provide documentation for this. This is an assumption on your part, JWs, LDS, etc. You also need to show, the step from being steeped in something and having that thing effect your interpretation. For example, I can be steeped in atheistic thought (their writings, audio, etc.), but it certainly does not follow that this is going to effect my interpretation of scipture. There is much more you need to prove as as well.

Thanks for the good comments. Here are some back at ya.

(1) I’m not convinced either! But I am convinced that any kind of S-modalism is incompatible with the New Testament. Linguistic point: it’d be sheer confusion to use “modalism” as a heresy-label, and then admit that possibly, some forms of it are orthodox. As I explained here though, I’m using the term descriptively. It seems to me an apt term (set of terms) for a family of positions, and when I use it, I’m being neutral about whether it’s true or false, good or bad, heresy or sound doctrine, forbidden or allowed, traditional or not, etc. I then proceed to argue against some forms of it.

(2) It depends on what counts as a “trinitarian” theory. There are theories of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, both before and after Constatinople, which don’t respect its formulas, and are neither tritheism nor modalism. But many would object that they aren’t trinitarian either. Again, a language issue. To be a real stickler, one might insist that only what are usually called “Latin Trinitarian” theories deserve the name “trinitarian” – and I think you’d be on strong historical footing. But STers would cry foul, with justification, that they’ve been branded “Trinity deniers” whilst trying to acheive the opposite. So again, I just say, treat each position on its merits – philosophical, theological, biblical, traditional – and adopt whatever terminology is most helpful in doing that (usually neutral & descriptive – avoiding loaded and/or vague terms). This is to proceed with an eye towards truth, rather than towards boundary-drawing, heretic-exposing, or just sorting what does or doesn’t fit my highly specifc, preconceived idea of what a proper Christian theory of God must look like.

(1) I’m not convinced that what you call “noumenal” modalism is heterodox.
(2) I’m not convinced that there is any possible theory that you wouldn’t call modalism and I wouldn’t call tritheism.

How is it possible the three Persons be a single substance without running into something you are going to reject as a form of modalism? It’s no longer clear to me that this is possible.