Just in time for Christmas: 25% off at trinities books. Use the coupon code: BUYMYBOOK305. Coupon expires December 14, 2011. $50 Max Savings.  Update: misc. daily coupons up till Christmas. Some notable reprints, in no particular order:

• Moses Stuart, Letters on the Eternal Generation of the Son of God. - leading 19th c. American evangelical Bible scholar and theologian takes aim at what he thinks is a mistaken speculation, long before this was cool.
• Nathaniel Lardner, Lardner on the Trinity. - some short works by a super-heavyweight patristic scholar and one of the greatest Christian apologists of all time. Makes a case for humanitarian unitarian theology against various rivals.
• Thomas Belsham, A Calm Inquiry Into The Scripture Doctrine Concerning The Person of Christ. - unique, non-polemical but opinionated survey of various christologies, ultimately arguing for humanitarian christology. Very useful.
• Joseph Pohle, The Divine Trinity: A Dogmatic Treatise. - a thorough but pretty readable Roman Catholic account of trinitarian doctrine; a good place to start in sorting out dark talk of subsistent relations, perichoresis, eternal generation, and so on. Or, if you want to know about the hypostatic union, there’s this.
• Joseph Priestley,  A History of the Corruptions of Christianity – interesting polemic by bold but reckless polymath Joseph Priestley. Not always historically accurate, but worth a read.
• Samuel Clarke’s The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity & Related Writings. - a lost classic by one of the greatest philosophical theologians of the early 18th century. This Anglican minister puts forward a strong case for subordinationist unitarianism based on scripture and the pre-Nicene “fathers.” Classifies and intelligently discusses all New Testament passages that have to do with the Trinity.
  
• William Christie, Dissertations on the Unity of God. - essays by a serious, talented amateur theologian and sometime minister who moved from trinitarianism, to subordinationist unitarianism, to humanitarian unitarianism.
• David James, A Short View of the Tenets of Tritheists, Sabellians, Trinitarians, Arians, and Socinians. - a short, irenic survey of various Christian theologies, in the end making a case for mutual tolerance, and for subordinationist unitarianism. Here’s a post with some quotes.
• William Jones,  In Defense of the Trinity. - popular 18th c.  trinitarian apologist, rebutting several unitarian opponents. Often not well argued, but it is interesting to see what he does and does not say. Some of these went through many editions, well into the 19th c.
• Thomas Emlyn, The Works of Mr. Thomas Emlyn - short controversial theological works by a virtuous, careful, thoughtful Christian who literally went to jail because of his convictions. The included An Humble Enquiry into the Scripture Account of Jesus Christ is an amazing little book. Includes an account of his life and works by his son.
• Edward Stillingfleet, A Discourse in Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity - very sophisticated trinitarian apologetic by prominent public intellectual, Anglican bishop, and theologian. Provides a mysterian defense of catholic trinitarian formulas against unitarian charges of unintelligibility and poor fit with the Bible, rebutting various late 17th c. “Socinian” sources.
• Friedrich Schleiermacher, On the Discrepancy Between the Sabellian and Athanasian Method of Representing the Doctrine of the Trinity - a short but dense work by Schleiermacher on ancient “monarchian” theologies – one of the very best things I’ve read on that obscure subject. Translated by Moses Stuart.
• John Wilson, Scripture Proofs and Scriptural Illustrations of Unitarianism. - amazingly comprehensive source, in some ways summarizing a lot of unitarian-trinitarian arguments of the early modern era. Anyone who thinks unitarian theologies are based on off-the-wall, obviously wrongheaded misreadings of the Bible, or on “rationalism” should give this a read!

Stephen Prothero

His latest book, God is Not One, is possibly the best introduction to a variety of religious traditions for the general reader. It’s well-written, informative, humorous, apt at comparing religions, and I would say pretty fair. I recommend it overall. The book is worth it just for his bashing of the soft-headed pluralism that infects so many popular books on religion. (Ch.1)

Less positively, Prothero’s outlook on religion is colored in many ways by the fact that he is an ex-Christian, having been raised as a mainline church. He sports of whole range of attitudes I see as deriving from this, or from this plus our present intellectual scene. Also, it strikes me that his childhood faith he left behind was just that. In any case, he has a nice way of wearing his inclinations on his sleeve. An author should be opinionated.

Here I want to ask: Is Prothero both fair and accurate in how he presents Christian belief? He says:

…the Christianity… of my childhood… was all about the doctrine of the Incarnation, which to me was as mysterious as adult life in general. According to this core Christian teaching, at the fulcrum of world history God took on the form of a helpless baby, born of a frightened young woman and held in the rough hands of a carpenter. “What if God was one of us?” asks the Joan Osborne pop song. Christianity responds, “He was!” (p. 68)

Well, is.

Again, at one level, 

There is the story of Jesus Himself, the God who is born in a manger… and dies on a cross… (p. 72, emphasis added)

So, “God,” presumably the only God (p. 68), is the man Jesus. The painting above is a portrayal of the day God himself died.

But given that Christianity’s is a “soft” monotheism (pp. 68-9), also

…Christians see God as a mysterious Trinity: there persons in one godhead, or as novelist J.C. Hallman brilliantly put it, “triplets perched on the fence between polytheism and monotheism.” (p. 69, emphasis added)

Prothero dutifully summarizes the Nicene creed on that page, but this discussion may confuse. If Jesus is God, and God is the Trinity, then don’t Christians think that Jesus is the Trinity? Or rather: why don’t they think that?

Given how much Christians care about doctrine (pp. 69-70) it would’ve been better say a bit more about, the fully evolved doctrine of Christ’s two-natures, and perhaps generation and procession, and the catholic view that the pre-human Jesus created the cosmos. Probably more too about why many Christians think that because of the atonement, Jesus must be “fully divine.” These things should get a least a mention, if you’re going to devote a couple of pages to Mormonism in the chapter.

He refers often to mystery, but not to the paradoxical beliefs which have so motivated Christians to employ the tools of philosophy and logic to exorcise apparent contradictions. For example, that the all-knowing God was an ignorant baby, or that an essentially immortal divine person died.

Finally, he’s happy to leave things unclear; but it would be worth pointing out, consistent with his emphasis on the “staggering” diversity in Christianity (p. 66) that some Christians understand the Trinity modalistically – as three ways one divine self lives – and others tritheistically – as three divine selves living in harmony.  To others, yes, as an mostly unintelligible mystery – but many thinking Christians are driven to come up with a more articulated view.

To answer my own questions:

• Fair? Yes, I would say fair enough. He’s more concerned to present Christianity at the popular level, than as believed by theorists. Nothing his says me strikes me as a misrepresentation, much less a malicious misrepresentation. 
• Accurate? It could be more accurate, I would say. He tends towards the view that too much interest in doctrine, in theological theories, in finely articulated and true religious beliefs, is… twisted, unhealthy, weird, maybe perverse. I see this attitude constantly popping up in the book. As someone who does philosophical theology and philosophy of religion for a living, I of course don’t agree! But I suggest he should correct for this, including at least the ideas noted above.

A few minor corrections: It’s no longer true that most Catholic Bibles do, but most Protestant Bibles don’t have explanatory notes. (p. 80) About his assertion that the Bible nowhere so much contemplates lesbianism (p. 95), that probably needs qualifying, in light of Romans 1. Mentioning “suburban megachurches and their confident sermons about how Jesus would vote” (p. 99) – that is, I think, largely an unfortunate stereotype based on exceptions rather than the rule. In my experience, which yes, includes some evangelical megachurches, pastors tend to be circumspect and generally non-partisan about politics, especially in the pulpit. Such culture-war rhetoric is out of place in the chapter.

Finally, I emphasize that it’s a very good book, packed with information, in world full of crappy books about religion. He loves his subject, and it shows. And he shows a proper sympathy for the traditions, and for the people within them. Reading it is like taking that good class on world religions or comparative religion that you wished you’d taken in college.

Last time I said that I thought Waterland was a social-mysterian-trinitarian. But I’m not so sure about the “social” part! He’s very unclear on whether the “Persons” are selves. They’re different somethings, in any case. But in this series, I’m sticking to an exegetical issue.

Here are excerpts of Waterland’s second salvo about the “only God” texts.

[Clarke] had produced John 17:3, 1 Cor. 8:6, Eph. 4:6, which prove that the Father is styled, sometimes, the one God, or only true God; and that he is the God of the Jews, of Abraham, etc. I asked how those texts proved that the Son was not? You say… “very plainly… Can the Son of the God of Abraham (Acts 3:13) be himself that God of Abraham, who glorified his Son?” But why must you here talk of that God, as if it were in opposition to this God, supposing two Gods; that is, supposing the thing is question. …I tell you that this divine Person is not that divine Person, and yet both are one God… (A Second Vindication of Christ’s Divinity in Waterland’s Vindications of Christ’s Divinity, 422-3, original italics, bold added, punctuation slightly modernized)

This is wheel-spinning. Clarke does, and Waterland does not take the passages in question to identity (assert to be numerically identical) the Father and Yahweh.

Clarke had asked whether Waterland thought that the term “Father” in these texts actually includes, i.e. refers to, the Son as well. Waterland clarifies,

…we do not say, that in these, or the like instances, both persons are included in the term Father; but that the exclusive terms, alone, or only, are not to be so rigorously interpreted, as to leave no room for tacit exceptions. To make this a little plainer to you.

Rev. 19:12 it is said to the Son, “He had a name written, which oudeis, no person, knew but himself.” This was not said in opposition to the Father, or as excluding him from that knowledge; for, it is still tacitly supposed,  that he knew as much as the Son… (A Second Vindication of Christ’s Divinity in Waterland’s Vindications of Christ’s Divinity, 424, original italics, bold added, punctuation slightly modernized)

Clarke pounds the table, insisting that if something is the only F, then there can’t also be other F’s. This is correct, and yes, it is obvious.

But Waterland is also making an important point, though he’s unable to put it clearly. This is that quantitative statements (all, none, at least one, exactly one, etc.) are always relative to some domain of entities, and this is almost never explicitly stated.

Thus, one may truly say: “There is only one redhead” when one is assuming the domain: kids in my class. Of course, it’s false that there’s just redhead in all the universe. But when the teacher asks, “How many red-haired children are here?” it is clear that the domain in which we’re quantifying is: kids in this class. So Waterland’s point is that not all quantification has to be universal, i.e. within the domain of all things whatever, a wholly unrestricted domain. So there can be “exceptions” to true “only” statements. But here’s where he’s muddled. They are not exceptions at all to the assertion, when they are outside the assumed domain.

Thus, in our classroom scenario, if a kid yelled out “What about Carrot Top?” he’d be missing the point. That is not an exception to the truth “There is only one redhead [in our class].”

And in the Revelation passage, the assumed domain should exclude the Father. There’s a background assumption, Waterland correctly points out, that God knows all. And so, if Christ is the only one who knows the name given to him, this must be the only one in the domain including all intelligent beings other than God.

Waterland thinks that Clarke cannot allow these sorts of  ”exceptions” to only-statements, and so will have trouble interpreting various passages.

But Clarke can and does. (e.g. There’s nothing God didn’t create – Clarke doesn’t think this implies, absurdly, that God created himself.) It’s just that in these instances, in the three passages above, unlike the cases Waterland gives, he’s assuming an unrestricted or maximal domain – that is, that the Father is the only God period  - not the only God in Romania, or the only God out of this set: Jimmy Carter, Yahweh, Mickey Mouse, Zeus, Hera, Elvis.

Now, concerning this issue, either Clarke or Waterland is correct; the three texts above either do or do not assume a universal domain. We’ll return to this point eventually.

 In the next post, I’ll try to parse some points Waterland makes about the Father “emphatically” or “primarily” being called “the only God.” 

It is obvious that there were plenty of wordy hotheads back then too, and yet it was in some ways, because of the Enlightenment, less of a reason-hating era. So, there were many interesting, sometimes even mutually respectful arguments, and David James, a Baptist minister, had read most of them. And, he pulled this off without coming to hate any of those involved.

It’s a bit depressing how little has changed since then, except for the worse! Obfuscation and confusion abound, for many reasons, and the positions James clearly lays out are oftentimes not clearly distinguished in people’s minds. The book is a testament to plain speaking, brevity (102 pages!), real and not feigned modesty, and unpretentious reasoning.

Eventually, you find out what his view is. Put you have to read carefully for it, and it comes towards the end. He explains his fairly simple, scriptural grounds for rejecting the other views, but he rejects those views without trashing them or those who believe them.

In a way, he thinks that these theories make less of a practical difference to the Christian life than some suppose. (pp. 72-6) And he has an interesting Appendix on worship and idolatry. (77-102) In the end, he thinks that scripture is sufficient to guide Christian worship, and that Christians should be careful in going beyond what is written. (40, 102) Like many early modern Protestants, he’s wary of appeals to mystery, the memory being fresh of Catholics appealing to mystery in defense of transubstantiation. (49, 68)

Is it a perfect book? No. For my part, I’m not persuaded by all of his arguments, and he doesn’t consider all the possible views, or all the views which are out there nowadays. Still, it’s a worthy little book, and deserves to be read. Here are some of his words from near the start of the book:

It is well known, that the doctrine of the Trinity, from the fourth century to the present time, has been the occasion of much debate and enmity among Christians.

…Christians are not yet agreed whether the one God whom the worship be one person, or three persons, or neither, but one essence; whether Jesus Christ be a mere man, or Almighty God and Man united in one person; or neither, but a super-angelic spirit made flesh; whether the Holy Ghost be a distinct spirit from the Father and the Son, or a mere attribute and energy of the Father.

Perhaps the divine being has permitted these differences as a part of men’s trial; that the lazy and implicit believer might be discriminated from the serious and inteligent enquirer, and that christians, in maintaining their several opinions of the trinity, might have an opportunity of exercising the virtues of meekness and candour, toleration and benevolance towards each other. To accomplish this desirable end, [in this book] the several tenets of Tritheists, Sabellians, Trinitarians, Arians, and Socinians are made to pass in review before the reader. The advantage proposed from this review is the attainment of a precise and determinate idea of what the doctrine of the trinity is in itself, as received by those who have been generally approved for their learning and soundness; and what the extremes are on either side of it. It is certain, there are many among the unlearned who are very zealous for the doctrine itself, without any specifick idea of what it is; while those who have such ideas… run into the extremes… many of those who use the same orthodox terms to express the doctrine, entertain opposite notions of it.

…The great difficulty is to keep clear of these several extremes in our ideas of the Trinity. If this difficulty were perceived, in a perspicuous manner, it seemed probable to the author, it would do more towards promoting a spirit of candour and benevolence among christians of different opinions on the subject under consideration, than a thousand pious exhortations, however just and proper, to that end. …In the apprehension of the author, it seems hardly possible for a person of an ingenious, unbigotted, and intelligent mind, who clearly perceived the facility of erring… could seriously believe that all who were not of his persuasion were either fools, or knaves, and that, without doubt, they should perish everlastingly.

The controversy relating to the Trinity is become very voluminous. …the truth of God needs not passionate invectives and malignant reproaches for its support and defence. The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. The end of the commandment is charity. Every man is to examine and judge in the best manner he can for himself, as every man is to stand or fall to his own master. “The lowest understanding,” (to use the words of Dr. Dodderidge) “the meanest education, the most contemptible abilities, may suffice to give hard names, and to pronounce severe censures; a harsh anathema may be learnt by heart, and furiously repeated by one that could scare read it, and as was in the truth the case in some ancient councils, may be signed by those that cannot write their Names.” (David James, A Short View of the Tenets of Tritheists, Sabellians, Trinitarians, Arians, and Socinians: Intended to assist plain Christians in forming a general Idea of the principal Opinions held on the Trinity, and of the Difficulties attending them, and to promote Candour and Charity among those who differ in their Apprehensions of that Subject, pp. 5-11, bold added)

How’s that for a title?

I recently read, and profited much from his “Classifying Mormon Theism.“ Check it out.

It’s part of a book dedicated to the work of the unique Mormon philosopher of religion David Paulsen.

Mosser’s paper is of interest for several reasons:

First, is Mormonism a sort of polytheism, monotheism, or what? You’ll have to read the paper to get Mosser’s answer. But here’s a teaser: “It is inappropriate to classify Mormonism as a polytheistic religion. To do so conveys highly misleading connotations.” (p. 23, emphasis added)

Second, what is monotheism anyway? What is a god?

Third, how did the ancients, including the authors of the Bible use “God” and related terms? For example, how was the Greek theos used? And how does this compare to our usage?

I don’t think I agree with all of Mosser’s conclusions; but there is a lot going on here, and there is much that is useful.

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More from Christian sage Dallas Willard:

The Kingdom Among Us is simply God himself and the spiritual realm of beings over which his will perfectly presides – “as it is in the heavens.”

That kingdom is to be sharply contrasted with the kingdom of man: the realm of human life, that tiny part of visible reality where the human will for a time has some degree of sway, even contrary to God’s will. “The heavens are the heavens of the Lord,” the psalmist said, “but the earth He has given to the sons of men” (115:16, NAS). And as things now stand we must sigh, “Alas for the earth!”

To become a disciple of Jesus is to accept now that inversion of human distinctions that will soon or later be forced upon everyone by the irrestible reality of his kingdom. How must we think of him to see the inversion from our present viewpoint? We must, simply, accept that he is the best and smartest man who ever lived in this world, that he is even now “the prince of the kings of the earth” (Rev. 1:5). Then we heartily join his cosmic conspiracy to overcome evil with good.

Human life certainly resists the great inversion. To it, the very idea of any such inversion is an insult and an illusion. …The “real” world has little room for a God of sparrows and children. To it, Jesus can only seem “otherworldly” – a good-hearted person out of touch with reality. Yes, it must be admitted that he is influential, but only because he affirms what weak-minded and fainthearted individuals fantasize in the face of a brutal world. He is like a cheerleader who continues to shout, “We are going to win,” though the score is 98 to 3 against us in the last minute of the game.

When this cheerleading approach to the “real world” triumphs among those who profess Christ, they may then have faith in faith but will have little faith in God. For God and his world are just not “real” to them. They may believe in believing but not be able to rely on God – like many in our current culture who love love but in practice are unable to love real people. They may believe in prayer, think it quite a good thing, but be unable to pray believing and so will rarely, if ever, pray at all.

I personally have become convinced that many people who believe in Jesus do not actually believe in God. By saying this I do not mean to condemn anyone but to cast light on why the lives of professed believers go as they do, and often quite contrary even to what they sincerely intend. (Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, pp. 90-1, emphases and links added)

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I recently mentioned the big impact of Dallas Willard’s work on my thought and spiritual life. I can’t help but share the passage below, which is part of what I had in mind when writing this paper.

Incidentally, I think think this is entirely compatible with the views that God hates evil, and that his wrath is to be feared. His happiness is so vast that despite his perfect sympathy, none of the billions of evils he witnesses ruins his life, which remains an immovably and immeasurably happy one. He is happy to be sure, but his tolerance his its limits.

Still, I agree with Dallas that it is crucial to understand and imagine God to be a being who is thoroughly well off, having as his prized possession a magnificent physical universe populated by an astounding menagerie of creatures. I would add that he doesn’t need it; he’d be well off even without any of it. This is one way in which God is self-sufficient.

From his Divine Conspiracy:

Central to the understanding and proclamation of the Christian gospel today… is a re-visioning of what God’s own life is like and how the physical cosmos fits into it. It is a great and important task to come to terms with what we really think when we think of God. Most hindrances to the faith of Christ actually lie, I believe, in this part of our minds and souls.

…We should, to begin with, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe.

…While I was teaching in South Africa some time ago, a young man… took me out to see the beaches near his home in Port Elizabeth. I was totally unprepared for the experience. I had seen beaches, or so I thought. But when we came over the rise where the sea and land opened up to us, I stood in stunned silence and then slowly walked toward the waves. Words cannot capture the view that confronted me. I saw space and light and texture and color and power. . . that seemed hardly of this earth.

Gradually there crept into my mind the realization that God sees this all the time. He sees it, experiences it, knows it from every possible point of view, this and billions of others scenes like and unlike it, in this and billions of other worlds. Great tidal waves of joy must constantly wash through his being.

It is perhaps strange to say, but suddenly I was extremely happy for God and thought I had some sense of what an infinitely joyous consciousness he is and of what it might have meant for him to  look at his creation and find it “very good.”

We pay a lot of money to get a tank with a few tropical fish in it and never tire of looking at their brilliant iridescence and marvelous forms and movements. But God has seas full of them, which he constantly enjoys. (I can hardly take in these beautiful little creatures one at a time.)

…This is what we must think of when we hear theologians and philosophers speak of him as a perfect being. This is his life.

…Now, Jesus himself was and is a joyous, creative person. He does not allow to continue thinking of our Father who fills and overflows space as a morose and miserable monarch, a frustrated and petty parent, or a policeman on the prowl.

One cannot think of God in such ways while confronting Jesus’ declaration “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” One of the most outstanding features of Jesus’ personality was precisely an abundance of joy. This he left as an inheritance to his students, “that their joy might be full” (John 15:11).

…So we must understand that God does not “love” us without liking us – through gritted teeth – as “Christian” love is sometimes thought to do. Rather, out of the eternal freshness of his perpetually self-renewed being, the heavenly Father cherishes the earth and each human being upon it. The fondness, the endearment, the unstintingly affectionate regard of God toward all his creatures is the natural outflow of what he is to the core – which we vainly try to capture with our tired by indispensable old word love. (pp. 63-4, bold emphases added)

I find that I’m still stuck in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was in the late 1990s that I discovered two Christian authors who were to have a big effect on my thinking. In both cases, I’m still processing their thoughts, still going back to them, still re-reading.

In this post, I’ll discuss the first of these: Dallas Willard, professor of Philosophy and USC, and well-known writer on Christian spirituality. While at Biola I’d heard him talk at an SCP, and was vaguely aware that some profs at Biola had studied with him, such the man who introduced me to philosophy, Del Hanson. His philosophical work that I’ve read is well done and helpful. But his magnum opus is his Divine Conspiracy, clearly the product of many, many years of studying and reflecting on the Bible, and learning to live it out as a disciple of Jesus.

I found this book staggering for many reasons. It took me a long time to read it the first time; each chapter required a lot of thought to process, and I’d read one, then stop to think about it for several days or weeks. To call it a book a Christian spirituality is to shortchange it. It is that, but it’s also a theology of the Kingdom of God, and a practical one at that.It is dripping with insights about the New Testament, about Jesus and God, about human psychology and relationships. Name a Christian classic – Augustine’s Confessions. The Imitation of Christ. C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. I hold that Willard’s book is far superior, and affords far more insight.

Back in the winter of 1999-2000, based on my study of this book, and taking its advice, I went on a spiritual retreat, alone at a Catholic retreat house in Massachusetts. I read through all four gospels, and rededicated my life to God, to discipleship to Jesus. It gave me a huge boost in faith, in trust in God, which saw me through the process of job hunting, c. Oct 1999-April 2000. Most find this process terrifying, but I thought it was fun!

I’ve read it maybe five times or so (I’m reading it again now), and I’ve worked through it with about three groups of people. But I wouldn’t say that I’ve really learned and lived its message. I’m still working on that. Other Christians I’ve read it with have usually either (1) pooped out before the end, or (2) thought it was really neat, but they seemed to go on understanding the message of Jesus and Christianity as they always had – like, in one ear and out the other. These responses, I could never understand.I’d be a happy man if I could be a part of a group of Christians who really got the good news of the Kingdom, and who would throw aside all tradition, if that’s what it took, to get it.

The content of the book is hard to summarize. But he expounds on the good news of the Kingdom of God, which was Jesus’ central message. He shows, I think, how this fits with Paul’s emphases, and with the Old Testament. He provides a reading of the Beatitudes on which they make sense! He expounds at great length on the theme of discipleship to Jesus. He devastatingly critiques the theological Right as well as the theological Left in contemporary America as inadequate “gospels of sin management”. Although Willard writes as an evangelical to evangelicals, in many ways he’s profoundly out of step with them. I don’t think he always realizes to what extent this is so – or at least, he never draws attention to these issues.

Someone – I think it might have been J.P. Moreland – once described Dallas as a sort of Christian Jedi Master. That’s not far off the mark!

One big theme Willard hits is the centrality of God to Jesus’ world view.

Now God’s own “kingdom,” or “rule,” is the range of his effective will, where what he wants done is done. The person of God himself and the action of his will are the organizing principles of his Kingdom, but everything that obeys those principles, whether by nature or b y choice, is within his kingdom. …the kingdom of God is not essentially a social or political reality at all. Indeed, the social and political realm, along with the individual heart, is the only place in all of creation where the kingdom of God, or his effective will, is currently permitted to be absent. (p.25)

You can tell here that he’s no Calvinist. In fact, it turns out later that he’s a sort of open theist, though he doesn’t advertise it. He also, much of the time, sounds like a unitarian – someone who thinks God just is a certain self, namely the Father. It’s  important, he argues, that we think rightly about this magnificent self.

You cannot call upon Jesus Christ or upon God and not be heard. You live in their house… We usually call it simply “the universe.” But they fully occupy it. …Only as we understand this, is the way open for a true ecology of human existence, for only then are we dealing with what the human habitation truly is. And the God who hears is also one who speaks. He has spoken and is still speaking. Humanity remains his project, not its own, and his initiatives are always at work among us. (pp. 32-3)

To [Jesus'] eyes this is a God-bathed and God-permeated world. …Until our thoughts of God have found every visible thing and event glorious with his presence, the word of Jesus has not yet fully seized us. …We should, to begin with, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. (pp. 61-2)

Here, as through the book, God isn’t Jesus – rather, Jesus is someone else, someone other than God, a go-between relating humans to God. He’s quite far from the Jesus-is-God-himself strain of thinking that is so prominent in American evangelicalism. When you go to look at the New Testament, you see that this is how it is – Jesus and God are, as it were, two characters. And God is held up as fundamental and central, although Jesus is exalted to his right hand, to sit on his throne with him.

Just like in the New Testament, Willard often uses “God” to refer to the Father. But totally unlike the New Testament, eventually it becomes clear that Willard is a social trinitarian! For him, God is a group, a society which is a close-knit community of divine persons. (e.g. pp. 382-4)

What? How can God be both a group (so, not a self) and a “He” (a self)? Clearly, Willard thinks the one God is both. If he’s a self, though, he must be a thing, a concrete entity, an individual substance. But at times, Willard describes this “God” community as neither a thing nor a self. He seems to think that the fundamental reality is really a group of three realities, a group which isn’t itself a thing.

…the advantage of believing in the Trinity is that we then live as if the Trinity were real… a self-sufficing community of unspeakably magnificent personal beings… In faith we rest ourselves upon the reality of the Trinity in action – and it graciously meets us. For it is there. And our lives are then enmeshed in the true world of God. (p. 318)

What gives with those last two “it”s? I don’t know! Is the one God an it, or a he? It matters! I see the unfortunate influence of late 20th c. “social trinitarian” theologians here, injecting incoherence into what is otherwise a magnificent scriptural picture. It’s pretty hard to read the New Testament and come away thinking that the Father is either a member or a proper part of the one God. The New Testament is firmly on the “he” side, and assumes that the God of Jesus (the Father) is one and the same as the God of Israel.

If you’ve read my philosophy papers, it’ll probably come as a surprise that my favorite Christian book (outside the Bible) is by a social trinitarian. But I’ve found that subtracting the confused social Trinity theorizing from the book leaves it as valuable as it was; in other words, those theories are inessential to nearly all that Willard says. Even Jedis have their bad days.

Next time, another Christian classic which changed my life.

The only place I got into was the Claremont Graduate University, then called the Claremont Graduate School. At the time the core faculty there was Al Louch, John Vickers, and Charles Young, and D.Z. Philips for half a year. I was accepted as an M.A. student, who could then be admitted to the Ph.D. if they thought I was up to it. (As it turned out, they did.) I was at CGU for two years (1993-1995), and what I mainly did was plow through yet more early modern philosophy – Locke, Hume, Kant, and now Reid. For me, Thomas Reid was a revelation after reading Hume and Kant. I actually became very interested in the history of the so-called “Common Sense” school, and sought out and read material by thinkers as obscure as Buffier, Oswald, Beattie, and McCosh. But I found that Reid was the best philosopher among them. Around that time Keith Lehrer came out with a book on Reid, but I can say that I was into Reid just a little before it was cool. I bought a reprint of his complete works which is now thoroughly marked up.

I took two rigorous seminars (Locke, Hume) with Edwin McCann of USC, who had also been doing courses at CGU. His knowledge of early modern philosophy was truly impressive, and his empiricist and Wittgensteinian leanings were an interesting counterpoint to my own zeal for traditional metaphysics.This zeal met another critic in Jill Buroker, in a seminar wholly devoted to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.

D.Z. Phillips I avoided. I’d read real epistemology (Chisholm, Plantinga, etc.) and was always unimpressed with the later-Wittgenstein approach, especially to the epistemology of religion. Anyway, I heard it all repeatedly from some of my fellow students, who also said that every Phillips class was basically the same line over and over. I never could identify with the quasi-conversion stories some of them related about reading Wittgenstein’s On Certainty.

Another part-timer, who also did computer work for the college, was Dr. Joel Smith, who had been a student of the famous Wilfrid Sellars at Pittsburgh. I took an interesting History of the Philosophy of Science course with him, and he kindly  encouraged my forays into the dense work of Sellars and others.

Finally, one day I marched over to the adjoining Claremont McKenna campus ad introduced myself to Stephen T. Davis. He was as nice as could be, and I ended up taking his undergrad Philosophy of Religion class. This, I gobbled down like a cop eating doughnuts. I sat on the front row, took copious notes, and tape recorded it all to review later. He spent a lot of time on arguments for God’s existence – probably some material that later made it into this book – and I have fond memories of wandering around the Claremont campuses enjoying the metaphysical high after that class, as I pondered whether, say the ontological argument was sound. He was very helpful in his advice, and very kind to me later when I was on the job market. And he was tough- but broad-minded, non-polemical, and properly appreciate of historical philosophy – a good model for me.

What, at this time, did I think about the Trinity? Not much. By listening to some popular apologetics, I was at least a little familiar with the standard evangelical apologetics, I call it, Walter Martin way of arguing:

The Bible sez Jesus is God, the Father is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there is only one God. See: there is the Trinity!

(The cleanest version I’m aware of is this, by Francis Beckwith.) Briefly, I see this way of arguing as just confused and confusing. First, it isn’t clear at all that any creedal Trinity doctrine would follow. Second, it’s not clear that it is consistent (three different things, each being numerically identical to one thing??). It superficially follows a patristic mode of argument, but I don’t think it is the same as any of those ancient arguments. I suspect that Beckwith would not today maintain this way of arguing.

I also remember some basic defensive points, to the effect of: Why would we be surprised if the God of the Universe turned out to by greater that we can comprehend, or to have many persons in him? As I related once before, I tried some of this out on my fellow grad student Ed Feser, and he was unimpressed. (He wasn’t Catholic at that point.) Feser (rightly) not being impressed by my lazy points, I noted that I should think about this issue more some day.

Finally, I do remember privately speculating some about the subject, along the lines of modalism. See, the Holy Spirit would be God’s immanence – the Father his transcendence, and the Son his mercy. Thus, the Trinity would really be three attributes of God. See, I saved monotheism! Actually, I just added a theory to the modalist junk heap. But at least I didn’t air my thoughts in public.

D’oh!

Like many, I had read and been profoundly impressed with Alvin Plantinga’s first two Warrant books. Then I found that my fellow student Dan Speak was applying to Notre Dame for his Ph.D.. Though I had been admitted to CGU’s Ph.D. program, I too caught the Plantinga fever, and also decided that I might as well apply to a bunch of other places too. My CGU profs totally supported me in this. As it turned out, neither Dan nor I got into Notre Dame, but thanks to my recs from CGU, my applications were a little more fruitful this time around.

Next time: other coast.

Forthcoming in Faith and Philosophy: my review of

Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? Philosophical and Systematic Theologians on the Metaphysics of Trinitarian Theology, by Thomas McCall.

Thanks to Tom for his feedback on my first draft of this, which saved me from several errors.

This is a unique, stimulating and yet unsatisfying book which should be widely read. The answers to the questions in the title, respectively: (1) either a “social” or a constitution theory, (2) Richard Bauckham’s. McCall is a theologian well versed in analytic philosophy. This book attempts, with some success, to bridge the cultural, intellectual, and institutional divides between Christian philosophers and theologians. McCall notes that the book “will at points be less than satisfying to partisans in both camps.” (8)

In chapter 1, he nicely summarizes much recent positive work on Trinity theories by Christian philosophers, as well as some anti-“social”-theory arguments. In the next two chapters he sets out to correct the oversights and misunderstandings of various of these philosophers by endorsing Richard Bauckham’s thesis that the earliest Christians “understood [Jesus] to be included in the identity of the one God” (57). New Testament era Judaism was “strictly monotheistic”, and yet Christians properly worshiped Jesus. In my view McCall is too confident that the New Testament supports all these claims. His treatment of the source material (56-72) is perfunctory, and will be unsatisfying to those familiar with competing interpretations. The last part of chapter 2 gives helpful expositions of what ancient Arianism and modalism really amounted to (as contrasted with the ways some philosophers have thrown around those heresy-terms).

In chapter 3 McCall rejects the apparent modalism of Barth and Rahner (87-9), and returns to the theories of chapter 1. Utilizing the fruits of chapter 2, McCall rebuts Leftow’s charge that a “social” theory is “Arianism”. (95-8) McCall admits that it is unclear how well this “social” approach coheres with the Western tradition, especially the “Athanasian” creed and theories of divine simplicity. (98-103) He rejects relative identity theories because in his view they don’t get us far enough from modalism and metaphysical antirealism, while he dubs the Rea and Brower “constitution” theory “promising” (109); in his view it faces no theological problems, but a few philosophical ones. He rejects Leftow’s “Latin” theory on the grounds of unclarity, misfit with the Bible, and that it likely can’t avoid modalism. (111-21) In chapter 3 and later in the book, McCall defends what most would call a “social” theory; we’ll return below to this positive thrust.

Chapter 4 sympathetically critiques theologian Robert Jenson’s Trinity theory, founded on this non sequitur (in Jenson’s words): “…since the biblical God can truly be identified by narrative, his hypostatic being, his self-identity, is constituted in dramatic coherence.” (132) Thus, “the one God is an event; history occurs not only in him but as his being” and “God is the event of the world’s transformation by Jesus’ love…” (ibid.) McCall points out what is plausibly a confusion about identity underlying Jenson’s project. (132-55) Jensonians will want to take a close look at McCall’s friendly suggestions for amending the theory.

Chapter 5 sympathetically critiques the theological font of much recent social-trinity theorizing, Jurgen Moltmann. McCall convincingly argues that Moltmann’s doctrine of “perichoresis” (applied by him both to intra-Trinity relations, and to God-world relations) “either does ‘not enough’ or does ‘too much’ (157) – that is, it doesn’t do enough to show how the three divine persons amount to one god, and it amounts to a God-world relation that is too close. To help, McCall urges that there are two kinds of perichoresis – one for inter-Trinity relations, and the other for God-cosmos relations, which he defines. (170, 172) This reader was unable to see how these constitute two species under any shared genus.

Chapter 6 enters the recent debate among evangelical theologians concerning whether or not the Son is eternally “subordinate to” the Father. This thesis, he argues, is either trivial or inconsistent with the creedal claim that the two are homoousios. (175-80) Further, proponents like Grudem and Ware on unclear about which version they really want to defend. (188). In the end McCall pleads that this issue be held separate from debates about the proper roles of women in church life.

Chapter 7 discusses Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas’s claims that “nothing in existence is conceivable in itself… since even God exists thanks to an event of communion” (190), “there is no true being without communion” (191), and “love … is constitutive of his [God’s] substance”. (192) McCall discusses these startling claims under the banner “Being as Communion”. They seem to entail that it is metaphysically impossible that there be only one thing, and that it is impossible for there to be a self not in a personal relationship with at least one other self. McCall might have demanded arguments to back these claims up, discussing prima facie counterexamples (respectively: God, a lifelong human hermit atheist – say, Christopher Hitchens raised by wolves).

McCall too is entranced by this picture of God as fundamentally an eternal, perfect, three-way friendship. Thus he accepts “Being as Communion” but argues that it is in conflict with another thesis to which Zizioulas is committed, what McCall dubs the “Sovereignty-Aseity Conviction”. This is the claim that God and only God exists a se – independently, or solely through himself, everything else depending on him. In Zizioulas’s view, only God – that is, the Father – exists a se, and he is radically free – not only creation, but even the existence of the Son and Spirit depend on his free choice. Thus, the Trinity exists contingently, and dependently on the Father. (193, 196)

McCall argues that this ascription of aseity only to the Father amounts to an objectionable subordinationism. In his view, “Traditional affirmations of subordination have revolved around the ‘function’ of the Son.” (198) He argues that Zizioulas should keep the “Being as Communion” thesis, as it is “central to the teaching of Scripture and the Christian tradition.” (205) But he should ascribe aseity not to the Father alone, but rather to the Trinity, holding it to be implied by the property divinity. (207) Further, the notion of aseity should be clarified – we should re-define it to mean a lack of dependence on anything which is not divine. (209) Thus, both the Trinity and each of the Persons exist a se. But, preserving the “Being as Communion” theme, each person depends for his existence on the other two – existing as a person only because of their relation to another.

What happened to the patristic “generation” and “procession” claims, which seem to entail that the Son and Spirit both exist because of the Father? McCall’s response is to redefine the sentence “the Father eternally generates the Son”:

…eternal generation refers us to (a) the incompleteness of the persons as individuals and (b) their complete and irreducible uniqueness in relation to the other persons. Seen this way, the doctrine of eternal generation emphasizes that to be a person – even a divine person – is to be incomplete “alone” or in oneself. (212-3)

Chapter 8 is McCall’s manifesto for trinitarian theology, some “theses for scholastic disputation”. (219) I’ll highlight just a few. We should think critically about alleged social and political implications of trinitarian doctrine. (225-7) Appeals to mystery can’t atone for doctrines which are “obviously inconsistent” (228); Trinity doctrines must be “coherent (or at least not obviously incoherent)” (229) as well as biblically and creedally kosher. But theologians “need not undertake to show how God is three and one. Indeed, to attempt to do so reeks of hubris.” (232) This seems inconsistent with his friendliness towards any attempt to construct a coherent metaphysical model of the Trinity. Doesn’t a response to the threeness-oneness problem entail an answer to the “how” question?

Another important assertion is that “Christian theological commitments should receive priority… if our intuitions about “theism” and “monotheism” conflict with the central elements of Trinitarian doctrine, then so much the worse for our intuitions about such things!” (233) It is hard to argue that if something is known to be divine revelation, it may be reasonably believed even if it conflicts with our prior commitments. But exactly what are these central elements?

McCall nowhere explicitly advances his preferred Trinity theory. But the outlines are clear enough. “The” Trinity theory, for McCall, involves three distinct “centers of consciousness and will” (12, 87-9, 236) – what I would call so many selves – capable of personal relationships with one another. Their status is absolutely (ontologically) equal, and each depends for his existence as a self on the others. These, in some sense are the one, triune God. This “God” is not a self, though it is “truly personal” (93-4), and so it has personal properties – or at least, it has parts which do. (Misleadingly, but following other recent social theorists, McCall refers to it throughout using personal pronouns.) But are not three equally divine selves three gods? No, for it is only Bauckham’s idea (which McCall agrees is also the first century Jewish idea) of monotheism which is relevant and Bauckham thinks it (this special New Testament era ‘monotheism’, the content of which is never spelled out) is consistent with trinitarian developments (233-6), we assume, even “social” ones.

Here most philosophers will balk; Bauckham’s claim cries out for clarification. Is not Jesus portrayed in the New Testament as someone other than God, someone who prays to and depends on God, who does God’s bidding? On the other hand, isn’t Jesus supposed to be “God incarnate”, God himself, in human form? Is God who Jesus is? Bauckham often writes as if God and Jesus are the same self. And yet, Jesus is in his words “included in the identity” of God, which suggests that they are not. He sometimes suggests that the Father is also so included. Through this cloudy lens, McCall would have us view the New Testament witness about God and Christ. But this claim, no less than speculative flights about perichoresis, is in need of careful analysis and evaluation. McCall himself, not holding God to be a self, won’t say that God and Jesus are the same self. In what sense, then, is Jesus “in God’s identity”?

McCall makes some excellent points about monotheism and the Trinity. It won’t imply monotheism, he says, to say merely that there’s one generic divine essence, that there’s only one divine “family”, that there’s only one font of divinity (the Father), or that the Three are united by a mysterious relation of “periochoresis”. (241-2) Amen to all that.

My biggest criticism of the book is its friendliness towards theoretical solutions which crucially depend on bold, arguably ad hoc redefinitions. Yet it is clearly written, sober, insightful, and rich with argument. As intended, it gives theologians and philosophers some important things to argue about together.

He noted that one may easily have a false belief about what one believes, and he noted that there can be strong social pressures to believe that one has beliefs one doesn’t (and that one lacks beliefs one in fact has). As an example, he noted that every Biola University employee’s continuing employment requires that they yearly affirm, I assume in writing, Biola’s doctrinal statement.

As an aside, here’s the core part of their statement on the Trinity:

There is one God, eternally existing and manifesting Himself to us in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

This sounds like an expression of modalism - one great self, with three aspects or personalities (“Persons”), and yet Biola’s statement  goes on to describe Jesus as a man, and surely no man is a mode of anything, but is instead an entity/substance, and no mode is a substance or vice versa. Surely, they’re assuming the identity of the second member of the Trinity (the Son) with Jesus. So, it looks paradoxical.

But that isn’t what concerns me here. In our recent debate coverage, we noted that  most evangelicals assert that Jesus is God. And by that, it seems that most mean that Jesus and God are numerically one being, one magnificent self, one divine person. They confess and assert this. But do they believe it?

I wonder (seriously – I really wonder – this is not a sarcastic pseudo-question). See, I assume that most hold the two to qualitatively differ. How they differ depends on one’s views on the Trinity. God has three persons, or centers of consciousness, or rational faculties in him. Jesus doesn’t. God has never not been omniscient; Jesus has. God sent his Son. Jesus didn’t. God is like a loving community, Jesus is not. So, when it is time to confess, they say “Jesus is God”. But their actions – specifically, the way they talk about Jesus and God in various non-argumentative contexts – show that they don’t believe that. Or do they?

Is this self deception (falsely believing yourself to believe Jesus to be God) or is it inconsistent belief (you believe they are one, and that they are two)? Or does it vary by person?

Here’s one angle on it. Consider these three claims:

1. Jesus and God are numerically one.
2. Numerically one things can’t differ.
3. Some things are true of Jesus which are not true of God, and vice-versa.

If you believe all 3, you have inconsistent beliefs. I would guess that a lot of evangelicals hold 1 as a central belief, don’t notice too often that they also believe 3, and actively ignore 2. I think that’s were I stood, before I started reading the recent philosophical literature on the Trinity.

But how does one tell three inconsistent beliefs from two consistent ones and an imaginary third (which is inconsistent with the conjunction of the first two)?

Go back to Gregg’s example of the old lady who falsely believes that she believes all races to be equal. That she’s self-deceived is one interpretation of what we observe.

But maybe in church she thinks that, but out about town, she doesn’t. If a belief is a tendency to think a certain way, maybe she believes both that blacks are inferior and that blacks are as good as whites – but different circumstances trigger each tendency in her, and she conveniently ignores the obvious inconsistency of the resulting thoughts and claims. (It helps that everyone at her church is white.)

But back to 1 – Could it be that many believe both 2 and 3, and believe that they believe 1, even though they do not?  Given that they know 2 and 3, they’re also aware at some level that 1 is false. And yet there is tremendous social pressure to verbally affirm the words of 1.

Imagined train of thought:

But of course I believe 1 – anything less is denying Christ. And I don’t deny Christ. I believe him, and in him. If were a Christ-denier, I wouldn’t be a Christian, but I am. And I’d be going to Hell – but I’m not. So, surely I do believe 1. How could I not?

Christian philosophers (philosophy PhDs), interestingly, are different. They’re trained to ferret out inconsistencies – at least, to expunge inconsistencies from their statements and thoughts. (But I reckon we’re about as prone to self-deception about our beliefs as people generally.) A good many, I would guess most conservative Christian philosophers, deny 1. (In fact, while I was an undergraduate at Biola I distinctly remember a philosophy professor clearly and firmly denying 1 in class.) This is surprising, but I think they are able to do this because they continue to say the words “Jesus is God” meaning something other than 1. (But, disconcertingly, they are aware that others understand those words as 1.) Others deny 2. I think the average evangelical pew-dweller would be befuddled by this, but at least on the surface, it is consistent (accepting 1 and 3 while denying 2.) I’m not aware of any who deny 3; both the Bible and the catholic tradition imply it.

In any case, for those of you who like me are offspring of the American evangelical world – are either of my diagnoses above accurate,when it comes to evangelicals in the pew, in your experience? I confessed to having had inconsistent beliefs (having believed 1-3 above), but I suspect that some more mature, more reflective evangelicals are forced into self-deception as described above.

(Commenters: If you comment anonymously, I will respect your anonymity. I don’t have the slightest interest in endangering jobs or reputations.)

While you’re thinking about it, here’s some more gratuitous Styx.

I’ve been reading I Told Me So (review) by Gregg Ten Elshof, a USC PhD who who teaches and chairs the Philosophy Department at my undergraduate alma mater. He’s been thinking about this topic for a long time (part 2) and so far, I really like the book. It is clearly written, insightful, and he trains his guns on self-deceptions by Christians in particular. Some of it is directly relevant to things we’ve been discussing here.

One point he makes in chapter one is that we can easily deceive ourselves about what we believe. He gives the plausible example – many of us have actually known people like this – of a respectable, elderly Christian woman who believes that she believes all people to be equal in God’s eyes, and yet her behavior clearly shows that she considers black people inferior to white people. (pp. 18-19) It’s hard to admit you’re an Archie Bunker when you’re part of a social group where it is unacceptable to be such.

But what might this have to do with theological beliefs? Ten Elshoff says,

Every year, I’m given a fairly detailed statement of Biola University’s doctrinal position. Each year, my continued employment is contingent upon my re-affirming belief in these various doctrines. I’ve got three small kids and a mortgage. Laurel, my wife, is a stay-at-home mom right now, and the job market in philosophy is atrocious. Of course I still believe all of this stuff! Imagine the stomach it would take to admit to myself and others that I don’t believe these things anymore! It would mean the immediate forgoing of economic stability – not to mention a kind of alienation from a significant chunk of my social group.  (p. 19, link added)

Mind you, he’s not confessing hypocrisy here. Rather, his point is that there are strong non-rational pressures on him to think and believe that he believes those things, whether or not he actually does. This is a real, and significant price that institutions like Biola pay for their apparent (and mostly real?) doctrinal uniformity, and Gregg has the guts to point out this somewhat uncomfortable fact.

Next time: Do evangelicals believe that Jesus is God?

Update: Finished the book, still liking it. It is very Willardite (Willardian? Willardesque?), and I mean that in a good way. (I can forgive the social trinitarian flourishes.) It is a great example of popular, applied philosophy, and you can confidently give it to any Christian friend. The writing was superb – not an ugly sentence in it – and it is spiced with interesting examples from literature and elsewhere. It is insightful about the human condition, and promotes both a proper understanding of and a proper pity for humanity. And, it is short. I can see occasionally re-reading this one, and I don’t normally do that.

Look at the bottom case, and how the love arrows combine; this seems to be what Richard is imagining (see the quote in the last post). I don’t think it’s coherent, really – affections, or individual love-acts can’t literally fuse. Nor do I understand any non-literal way they can be said to “fuse”.

Still, I’m inclined to agree with Joseph and with Richard Swinburne that there is a unique value in lovers cooperating to love a third party. This is something we recognize, I think, in Mom and Dad’s love for junior, or even in “best friends” graciously including an excluded girl within their circle.

Further, I think Richard of St. Victor is right that there is a relational harmony and cooperation in such cases, and a unique sort of pleasure all around.

Whether this value would provide a perfect person with a compelling reason to create mysteriously originate at least two other divine persons is a further matter.

In chapter 20, Richard makes clear that my chart here is too simple – there should be a complex combined arrow connecting each pair to the third; where my chart has one (I got lazy, OK?) it ought to have three – one pointing at each person. But there are more love-fusions than what we’ve mentioned so far.

If the creation is considered, there the cord of love is tripled so that where suspicion concerning a defect of love could arise more easily, certitude is made more firm by greater confederation. (ch. 20, p. 393)

So in their love for the cosmos, imagine three love arrows coming out of the persons, and sort of twisting together to make one thicker, three-strand love arrow. I don’t follow his point here, though I understand the fusion he’s imagining. At the end chapter, he lamely suggests that one unconvinced by all of this would seem to be insane.

1. If one person loves another and only he loves only her, there is love but not shared love.
2. If two mutually love only each other (if the affection of each goes out to the other), again there is love but not shared love.
3. Shared love exists only if a third person is loved by two persons jointly:

“Shared love is properly said to exist when a third person is loved by two persons harmoniously and in community, and the affection of the two persons is fused into one affection by the flame of love for the third.” (Richard of St. Victor, On the Trinity, p.392)

(This is as close as we ever get to a characterization of shared love.)

So, in divinity, if there is shared love, there are at least three persons. So supreme shared love requires at least three divine persons. Supreme shared love is of a kind that no creature could merit it or be worthy of it from its divine creator.

Next (B) consider further the nature of shared loved as a virtue:

1. Supreme benevolence is supremely great. Supreme harmony is also supremely great. Each such virtue is of great value.
2. Any virtue that results from the combination of each such virtue is also supremely great.
3. But supreme shared love results from the combination of supreme benevolence and harmony. Such a virtue can’t be lacking in what is perfectly good. And supreme shared love can’t exist without at least three persons.

Therefore, in divinity, if there is at least one person, there are at least three persons.

There’s a lot here. Much of it we have in effect already seen. I want to make only one comment about (A1). This doesn’t exactly say what Richard wants to say here. If one person loves another and only the first loves the second, then no one else loves the second. And if, in addition, the first loves only the second, then the first loves no one else. But it’s clear that Richard wants an example of unrequited love to contrast with his second example of mutual love between two persons alone.

For what it’s worth, I think there’s something deeply insightful here about the value of shared love. And even if we don’t think something like the following. The fact that any perfect being is essentially perfectly good is a reason to think that it must be that if there is some perfect being, then there is also another perfect being or even just some created being. Even if we don’t think this, so I say, perhaps we can agree that if there were three divine persons, there would be a distinctive kind of goodness in the world because of the existence of supreme shared love, one which wouldn’t exist if there were only two divine persons or even only one. If so, that is something for a Christian to recognize and celebrate.

That’s it for me on this series. Next up is Dale, who will bring us home: blogging on chs.20-25.

It might seem that supreme goodness can exist where one person supremely loves and receives nothing in return from the other person for full happiness. But in fact such supreme goodness can’t even exist where only two persons mutually love each other. Suppose that, in divinity, there are only two persons. Then each gives and receives love, and each gives and receives the pleasure that such love brings. If each is alone, neither receives such love nor such pleasure. So supreme generosity requires three persons. If, in divinity, there are only two, neither shares such pleasure. But each divine person, being perfect, is supremely generous. Therefore, supreme goodness requires that if there are at least two divine persons, there are at least three persons.

Note that the first sentence seems out of place and does no work here. Really the argument here only begins with the third sentence. The only new thing here is the mention of supreme generosity. Supreme generosity requires that each of two divine persons have a third divine person with whom to share love and the pleausre such love brings. Not so to share would be less than supremely generous. But I don’t see that we really have a new argument here for at least three divine persons (if God exists). So that’s ch.18. Next up will be ch.19, which will be my final post for the series.

Supreme happiness requires that if there is at least one divine person, there are at least two divine persons. Suppose, in divinity, there is only one person. Then (1) this person gives supreme love to no one and receives supreme love from no one. (2) Such a person lacks the pleasure of love that one draws from another. (3) But nothing is better than such pleasure. So such a person, who lacks such supreme pleasure, isn’t supremely happy. (4) But any divine person, being perfect, is supremely happy. Therefore, supreme happiness requires that if there is at least one divine person, there are at least two divine persons.

A few comments:

Re (1): This assumes again that with a divine person supreme love is only between divine persons, who are equally perfect.

Re (2): This assumes again that the pleasure of love requires love.

Re (3) and (4): I wonder what exactly Richard means by happiness. My guess is that he means something like Aristotle’s eudamonia where someone is happy only if overall they are a success in life. Richard seems to think that supreme happiness includes supreme pleasure so that someone who has supreme happiness couldn’t have more pleasure. Is that right? I believe that God has pleasure: just because many of his desires are satisfied. But I’m also inclined to think that God suffers, not in the sense that he is affected by things contrary to his will. But rather God suffers in the sense that some of his desires are frustrated, e.g. because we freely do things or things occur as a result of such, that God desires we didn’t do or that didn’t occur. Now just because God suffers doesn’t mean he doesn’t have supreme pleasure. But I can’t help wondering whether if things had gone differently with some of our choices and their results, God might have had more pleausure than he actually does. But I’m also pretty sure that Richard needn’t base the claim that God has the pleasure love brings on the claim that God has supreme pleasure. Couldn’t he get that from the claims that God is supremely good and that the pleasure love brings is a supreme good that God needn’t forego for some contrary good that is equally good?

That’s it. After this, ch.18. Notice again we are building our way up to three divine persons. In ch.16 we had an argument about one divine person. In ch.17 we have an argument for at least two divine persons (if God exists). And in chs.18-19 we will have an argument for at least three divine persons (if God exists).

1. Full wisdom and power can exist in only one person. If, per impossibile, there is only one divine person, he can still have fullness of wisdom and power.
2. The pleasures of wisdom and love differ. The pleasure of wisdom can be drawn from oneself. The pleasure of love must be drawn from another. Anyone who loves and desires to be so loved but doesn’t receive such love is displeased. But the pleasure of wisdom is even better when one derives it from oneself.
3. If, in divinity, there is only one person, such a person can have full wisdom. Full wisdom and full power can’t exist without each other. For suppose someone lacks omnipotence. If she doesn’t know how to obtain what she so lacks, then she lacks full wisdom. And anyone who unwillingly suffers some defect of wisdom lacks full power.  Therefore, if, in divinity, there is only one person, such a person can also have full power.

Re 1: I like the implicit distinction here between what is a real and only a conceptual possibility. There can’t really be only one divine person. For, as Richard is trying to demonstrate, there must be at least three divine persons. But the concepts of full wisdom and power don’t conceptually imply the concept of more than one divine person.

Re 2: Wisdom brings pleasure. If you desire wisdom and you have it and believe you have it, then you have the pleasure wisdom brings. And love also brings pleasure. If you desire love and you have it and believe you have it, then you have the pleasure love brings. That’s what you might think Richard would say. But he doesn’t say this exactly. Rather he says this. When you have the pleasure of wisdom, the object of your pleasure is not wisdom but rather yourself under the aspect of being wise. And when you have the pleasure of love, the object of your pleasure is not love but rather your beloved under the aspect of loving you. I like the implicit claim here that there is a kind of pleasure that is factive. If you have a certain kind of pleasure of wisdom, you must exist and be wise in order for you to have such pleasure. Anyone who had an intrinsically identical pleasure-state but was not wise would lack this kind of pleasure. And if you have a certain kind of pleasure of love, your beloved must exist and love you in order for you to have such pleasure. And anyone who had an intrinsically identical pleasure-state but had no beloved or had a beloved who did not love her would lack this kind of pleasure.

Re 3: This is a very interesting section. Do full wisdom and power imply each other? Does full wisdom imply full power? Richard seems to include in full wisdom knowing how to obtain what you lack. Let’s grant this. But Richard seems to assume, without argument, that if one lacks full power that can only be because one doesn’t know how to obtain it. On this assumption, it can’t be that one knows how to obtain full power but doesn’t choose to obtain it or even chooses not to obtain it. That’s not obvious. Does full power imply full wisdom? Again, Richard seems to assume, without argument, that anyone who suffers anything unwillingly lacks full power. Or to put it the other way around: anyone who has full power doesn’t suffer anything unwillingly. Arguably, full power includes irrestible will: so that it must be that what one wills is so. So, arguably, nothing is contrary to what one who has full power wills. But it’s consistent with this that something is so that one who has full power doesn’t will. One might have less than full wisdom, but not will that one have full wisdom. That’s just the kind of thing you’d expect if one really did suffer a defect of wisdom. After all, it’s not obvious that full power implies willing everything that is so. So it still might be that one who has full power suffers something unwillingly, not in the sense that it happens contrary to what he wills, but in the absence of any willing on his part concerning the matter.

Well, that’s enough on ch.16. Next is ch.17.

Richard has already argued in various ways that if there is so much as one divine person, there are at least three divine persons. But the arguments have all been a bit here and there. So to make the reasons even more evident, he plans to gather them all up into one. So here it is:

Suppose there is only one divine person: P.

1)      Then P doesn’t share his greatness.

2)      Compare two situations. In the first, P is the only divine person. In the second, P is not the only divine person; there is another: Q. In the second situation, P and Q love each other and P has the pleasure that love brings. So in the first situation, P lacks in eternity not only such love but also such pleasure.

3)      Anyone supremely good shares her greatness. (Not so to share is to retain something greedily. But anyone supremely good does nothing greedily.)

4)      Anyone supremely happy has such pleasure. (Not to have such pleasure is not to have an abundance of pleasure. But anyone supremely happy has an abundance of pleasure.)

5)      P is supremely good and happy.

So if there is at least one divine person, there are at least two divine persons.

Suppose there are only two divine persons: P and Q.

6)      Then P shares greatness. But P doesn’t share love or the pleasure that such love brings. (Only a person who has a partner and a beloved in the love shown him has the pleasure of love.)

7)      Anyone supremely happy shares love and the pleasure of love. (Nothing brings more pleasure than love.)

8)      P is supremely happy.

So if there are at least two divine persons, there are at least three divine persons.

Therefore, if there is at least one divine person, there are at least three divine persons.

There are two parts here. Let’s just briefly look at each in turn. So first let’s look at the section that aims to show that if there is at least one, there are at least two divine persons. Here I note only one thing: there’s an ambiguity in (2). It could mean that if there is only one divine person: P, then P doesn’t always love another, i.e sometimes P doesn’t love another. But it’s not clear this is right. This assumes that any creature begins to exist and so is not always around for P to love. But even if any creature does begin to exist, it still doesn’t follow that P doesn’t always love another. For it could be that at every time there is a creature that exists then and so there is someone around for P to love even if every creature begins to exist. It could also mean that if there is only one divine person: P, then P always lacks love of another divine person. This is true, in which case, Richard is not just speaking of love of another, but love of another divine person and so is relying on previous arguments for why the supreme love a divine person has includes love of another divine person.

Secondly, let’s look at the section that aims to show that if there is at least two, there are at least three divine persons. Here I comment on only one matter: a point of interpretation to do with (6). We have seen before Richard’s idea that love always involves a second person and sharing love always involves a third person. And here he seems to rely on what he said previously. I can see that, by Richard’s lights, P doesn’t love and so have the pleasure love brings unless there is a second P loves. And I can also see that, by Richard’s lights, P doesn’t share love unless there is, not only a second (Q) P loves but, a third with whom P shares his love of Q. But Richard says: “He alone possesses the sweetness of such delights who has a partner and a loved one in the love that has been shown to Him”. It’s not clear which of these two things Richard is saying. First, he is saying that P alone has such pleasure who has another to love, in which case the partner is the loved one, and then he later makes the point that to share love involves a third person. Secondly, he is saying that P alone has such pleasure who has a second to love and a third to love, in which case the partner is not the loved one. The problem with the first interpretation is that it makes the statement seem out of place coming as it does right after the claim that if there are only two divine persons, there’s no sharing of the pleasure of love. The problem with the second interpretation is that it makes the statement seem wrong by Richard’s own lights.

Well, this is enough to be getting on with for chapter 14. Next up chapter 15 on the claim that two divine persons must seek out a third divine person with equal desire and for a similar reason.

FAITH LACKING UNDERSTANDING: THEOLOGY ‘THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY’. By Randal Rauser. Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2008.

This rausing little book is a work of popular philosophical theology which exhibits uncommon intellectual honesty, courage, humor, clarity, and insight. Each chapter but the first is devoted to a doctrine of the Apostles’ Creed: Trinity, Creation, Incarnation, Atonement, Ascension, and Final Judgment (heaven and hell).

In sometimes dense but riveting, concise, and clearly written prose, Rauser explores serious difficulties facing various ways of understanding these doctrines, arguing that “every one of these doctrines violates the basic dictates of logic, our our moral sense, or minimal plausibility in light of our scientific understanding of the world.” These “provide a serious cumulative challenge to Christianity.” No chapter contains a resounding resolution of difficulties; instead, we are reminded that theology is a realm of mysteries, and that a relationship with God is compatible with this admission.

The book demands a response from the reader. Some will explore other construals of various doctrine, others will revise or deny them, and yet others will agree to settle for mysteries. While Rauser puts much weight on mystery appeals, he’s far from being a mindless mystery-monger; he would prefer doctrines not beset by the above problems. It just that he can’t find such theories. The book is widely informed by recent literature in theology, philosophy of religion, and science-and-religion. Though accessible to the general reader, would provide high-octane discussion fuel for a graduate seminary course or an advanced undergraduate course at a Christian institution.

Maria Rosa Antognazza teaches at King’s College London, where she also directs the Centre for the History of Philosophical Theology. She has written a highly praised forthcoming intellectual biography of the great Leibniz. After the break is my review of her book pictured above. The review is forthcoming in Religious Studies. Bottom line: Leibniz employs positive and negative mysterian moves, as well as rational reconstruction of the Trinity doctrine, in my view not very convincingly. I’m most bothered by his complacency about Bible interpretation. This is a very well done book, whatever the ultimate verdict is on Leibniz’s views.

Review of Maria Rosa Antognazza, Leibniz on the Trinity and the Incarnation: Reason and
Revelation in the Seventeenth Century. Trans. Gerald Parks. (London: Yale University Press,
2007). Pp. xxv+322. £ 35.00 Hbk. 978­0­300­10074­7.

This rich and welcome book is an English translation, by the late Gerald Parks, of a revised
version of Antognazza’s Trinità e Incarnazione: Il rapporto tra filosofia e teologia rivelata nel
pensiero di Liebniz (Vita e Pensiero: Milan, 1999). It is a historical­philosophical account of
Leibniz’s writings on the Trinity and Incarnation doctrines, including his mostly unpublished
comments on the controversial writings of others. The approach is historical rather than
topical, which introduces some repetition; those interested in pursuing specific arguments or
topics in detail will find themselves flipping around a lot, and frequently diving into the copious
endnotes. Those interested in the historical angle will appreciate these endnotes (occupying
112 of the book’s 322 pages), the fruits of countless hours chasing down and translating
obscure manuscripts. And those who only (or primarily) read English will appreciate her broad
scholarship, which draws on recent German, French, and Italian secondary literature. The
book sports a solid index, and is clearly written and organized. The main audience will be
those interested in historical philosophical theology, particularly readers of Leibniz’s
‘Preliminary Discourse on the Conformity of Faith with Reason’ which begins his Theodicy.
Readers of Dixon’s 2003 book Nice and Hot Disputes will be interested as well, as she also
expounds Leibniz’s thoughts on the fascinating trinitarian controversy among Anglicans in the
1690s.

Antognazza reveals a Leibniz who is a confident, but careful and tolerant apologist for
traditional Christianity. Not unlike present­day Christian analytic philosopher­apologists,
Leibniz never tires of claiming that these doctrines haven’t been proven contradictory, taking
this to be the main point of unorthodox interlocutors – that they are demonstrably
contradictory.

In the face of sophisticated objections, he’s quick with the logical judo, in a way which
is not always convincing. As an example, Leibniz considers this argument by Polish Socinian
Andrew Wissowatius (a.k.a. Andrew Wiszowaty) (1608-­1678):

The one most high GOD is that Father from whom all things come. The son of GOD
JESUS CHRIST is not that Father from whom all things come. Therefore the Son of
GOD JESUS CHRIST is not the one most high God. (22)
A natural way (at least, to most present­day philosophers) to analyze this argument is as
follows:

1. Fg (Fx means ‘x is that Father from whom all things come’)
2. ~Fc (g names God, and c names Christ)
3. Therefore, g ≠ c.

If something is true of God that isn’t true of Christ (or vice­versa), then it follows (by Leibniz’s
Law – that is, by the indiscernibility of identicals) that God and Christ are not numerically
identical. Alternately, we might read the premises as identity statements:

1. g = f
2. s ≠ f
3. Therefore, s ≠ g.

Here 3 follows by the transitivity of identity, a necessary truth on which Leibniz often and
rightly insists. Both arguments are valid. But Leibniz doesn’t admit either analysis. He urges
that Wissowatius’s argument should be read like this:

1. Everyone who is the one most high God is that Father from whom all things come.
2. The Son of God Jesus Christ is not that Father from whom all things come.
3. Therefore, the Son of God Jesus Christ is not the one who is the one most high God.
(25)

This argument seems valid as well. But Leibniz thinks that this formulation reveals an
ambiguity in premise 1, concerning the scope of the universal quantifier (Latin: omnia – all or
everything), which enables him to claim the argument is valid but turns out unsound however
the ambiguity is resolved. If by omnia we mean only the creatures (and thus, not the Son, who
is eternal and uncreated), Leibniz denies 2. (The Son is the source or ‘father of’ all creatures.)
But if omnia includes the Son as well, he denies 1. (The Son is the one God but isn’t the
source off all things including himself; rather, he comes from the Father.) Antognazza
observes that ‘Leibniz’s ultimate aim seems to be the denial of [premise 1]’. (26) As he says in
a later text,

…in the Trinity there is a difference between these two: to be God the father, and to
be he who is God the father. For God the son is not God the father, and yet he is the
same one who is God the father, that is, the one most high God. (26)

So the Son is not God the Father (some things are true of each, which are not true of the
other), and yet the Son is ‘the same one who’ is the Father. In short, Son and Father can be
the same being (even the same ‘who’, the same person?) without being identical. If this is his
strategy, Leibniz could simply admit either of my two analyses above as sound, but consistent
with the doctrine of the Trinity. But I wonder if Leibniz here isn’t simply failing to engage his
opponents, who probably assume there’s no difference between being the same being, and
being numerically identical.

Leibniz considers the Trinity and incarnation doctrines ‘mysteries’, which means that
they are (one or more of these): (1) not completely understandable by humans, (2) apparently
(but not really) contradictory, (3) claims the meaning of which we have but the smallest grasp,
(4) not provable or demonstrable, (5) unexplainable, (6) contrary to common notions, (7)
improbable. (It is often unclear precisely what Leibniz means by calling a claim
‘incomprehensible’ or ‘a mystery’.) The Christian theologian needn’t be embarrassed by these
mysteries, for nearly everything in the natural world is a mystery (i.e. it or its essence isn’t
completely understandable by humans in this life). Unlike some fans of mystery, Leibniz is
sensitive to the point that one cannot believe that P (at least, in the sense in which believers
should aspire to believe important revealed truths) unless one at least to some degree
understands the meaning of P. His solution is to suggest that humans may have ‘confused
knowledge’ (as he sometimes puts it, clear but not distinct knowledge, or an ‘analogical
understanding’) of the meaning of the terms occurring in these doctrines. This ought not
distress us – many philosophical terms are equally poorly understood. (56) At his most
conservative, Leibniz seems disinclined to explicate the meaning of ‘divine person’ at all. An
explication ‘of the Mysteries of religion is not necessary’, Leibniz says at one point, and ‘the
safest thing is to stay with the terms of the scriptures and of the church.’ (105)

However, the metaphysician in Leibniz will not be repressed. For one thing, one may
seek for ‘images’ of these realities in the human mind. (107­110) And in bolder moods Leibniz
will sometimes (again, like many recent philosophical theologians) suggest a seemingly
consistent rational reconstruction, interpretation, or explication (he and Antognazza often say
‘explanation’) of the doctrine of the Trinity. His favorite such move is the claim that the
doctrine posits three ‘relative substances’ (or ‘relative beings’) but only one ‘absolute
substance’ (‘absolute being’). Yet he seems to back off from this formulation, saying that only
the latter is properly called a substance, and three ‘persons’ are ‘understood through
incommunicable relative modes of subsisting’ (79), and are ‘constituted’ by their relations to
one another. (118) Then there is the undeveloped suggestion that the ‘persons’ of the Trinity
are not substances (at all?) but rather ‘active principles’ which in some sense compose the
one divine substance. (158, 110) This reader has the impression that by the time of his
mature ‘Preliminary Dissertation’, Leibniz had lost some of his enthusiasm for such
‘explanations’ (i.e. plausible metaphysical accounts of) the Trinity and incarnation doctrines,
as there he sticks almost entirely to his mysterian defenses.

How does his mysterian defense of the rationality of the Trinity and the incarnation
work? Leibniz admits in various places that these doctrines are barely understood, apparently
contradictory, contrary to appearances and to ‘common notions’, and (antecedently?)
improbable. Despite all this, Leibniz’s main strategy, in both his ‘Preliminary Dissertation’ and
in many fragmentary previous writings, is to urge that these doctrines are reasonably believed
unless demonstrated to be contradictory.

If this is the game the apologist is playing, he’ll find it relatively easy to win, for (as is
now widely agreed) there are few demonstrations (roughly, arguments which no sane and
unbiased adult human who understands them can doubt to be valid and sound) in philosophy
or theology. For nearly any alleged demonstration, one can find a doubtable premise, thus
showing the argument to not be a demonstration, even if the argument is in fact sound and
indeed convincing to many.

In any case, the above factors constitute prima facie evidence against the doctrines in
question. Leibniz accepts this, but holds this evidence to be outweighed by superior evidence
to the contrary. He thinks that atheism needn’t worry us, for the existence and perfection of
God are demonstrable. Further, there are arguments for the truth of Christianity which, while
not demonstrations, can be called ‘proofs’, as they give us ‘moral certainty’ of truth of
Christianity. A demonstration that, say, the Trinity was contradictory would outweigh any such
‘proof’, but happily there are no such demonstrations. These undefeated proofs ‘justify, once
and for all, the authority of Holy Scripture before the tribunal of reason, so that reason in
consequence gives way before it… and sacrifices thereto all its probabilities.’ (‘Preliminary
Dissertation’ s. 29) In short, these arguments are ‘incomparably stronger’ than any the
dastardly Socinians (etc.) will ever suggest. (s. 37)

His whole mysterian defense, then, rests on apologetic arguments for the inspiration of
Scripture, something like an argument from indirect testimony (to the ministry­-validating
miracles of Jesus and others). One fears that Leibniz was a better logician than
epistemologist. But even if he’s right about the strength of those arguments, does the Bible in
fact teach the (traditional, creedal) Trinity and incarnation doctrines? Many of Leibniz’s
contemporaries had argued in depth about this, notably Stephen Nye in his A Brief History of
the Socinians (1687, 1691), but Leibniz rests his case on what Antognazza calls ‘the
argument from providence’ ­ that a good God simply wouldn’t let his church go astray on
matters as central to human salvation as these. (75)

One wonders whether a Protestant like Leibniz can consistently affirm such tight
providential oversight of (mainstream or widespread) Christian teaching. But the deeper point
is that Antognazza’s book reveals a lost opportunity. Leibniz was so firmly entrenched in his
traditional apologist’s defenses that he seems to not have understood the perspective of
(usually spatially and/or temporally distant) unitarian opponents. They held the Trinity and
incarnation to be underivable from the Bible, and this was not solely because they (usually)
held the those doctrines to be contradictory, but rather because of the language and doctrines
of the New Testament considered as a whole. The English unitarians in which Leibniz was
interested (91­-110) repeatedly insist that they’re not against mysteries (in any of the above
senses) per se, but rather against mysteries which are of merely human origin. Nor did they
neglect tradition; they were eager to show their views to be compatible with elements of both
patristic and (at least some) modern theology. Leibniz does half­heartedly venture a few
conventional exegetical arguments but these would and should not have impressed his
opponents. (115­-116)

A minor complaint about the book is that Antognazza, perhaps sticking too closely to
her role in reporting Leibniz’s views, sometimes passes on his contentious, misleading, or
false claims about various ‘antitrinitarians’. For example: the Socinians are revivers of ancient
Arianism, who stupidly confuse ‘above reason’ with ‘against reason’ and incomprehensibility
with inconsistency, think that impossibility follows from improbability, and cavalierly dismiss as
textual corruptions biblical passages which affirm the creedal doctrines.

On the whole, though, Antognazza’s sympathy for Leibniz’s project helps her to
present his case with clarity and thoroughness, revealing him to be one of the greatest early
modern apologists and philosophical theologians. When push comes to shove, she and
Leibniz do carefully present unitarian inconsistency objections to the Trinity and incarnation
based on considerations about identity, omniscience, aseity, and so on. Those interested in
either metaphysical or mysterian defenses of these doctrines would do well to read this
unique and well-­crafted study.

Dale Tuggy
SUNY Fredonia

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