Saith Sudduth,

Krishna is the all-attractive Absolute who is manifested in the different religious traditions of the world. There is merging into impersonal Brahman. There are also distinctly theistic experiences in which the self encounters a personal God.

The ultimate being is either personal or not. Thus, it can’t be that both the aforementioned experiences are veridical, i.e. represent God as God really is.

I think Sudduth agrees; he goes on to explain that “merging” experiences are something like the devotee coming in contract with what some would call the “energies” of God. Of course, Indian philosophers like Sankara would disagree. And I don’t know why we should accept Sudduth’s claim that:

…that transcendental consciousness (the aim of nearly all religious traditions) is in fact variegated in nature.

I don’t know that there is any one general sort of experience which nearly all traditions aim at. Experiences of a loving god are not at all like the sorts of experiences monistic types profess, wherein, they say, there is no subject-object duality, but one just is non-cognitively aware of  the ineffable One.

 It is most fitting that God would seek to experience the love of the devotee in much the same way that he would seek to experience the suffering of the devotee (in the person of Jesus). In Christ God suffers with us. In Chaitanya, God loves with us. In each case, there is an important identification between God and us. God tastes the suffering that distances us from Him and the love that brings us near to Him.

I’d like to hear more about this “identification“. When theologians who’ve read Moltmann start talking like this, I think that more often than not, they’re sorely confused about the various ideas of sameness/identity. I’m assuming that Sudduth, being a philosopher, is not. So, in what sense is God “the same as” (“identified” with) the devotee?

Perhaps the answer is in this part of his letter:

 …the GV tradition specifically views the relationship between God and the self as an inconceivable and simultaneous difference and non-difference (achintya bheda abheda tattva). This strikes a wonderful balance between the monism of Advaita Vedanta and the strong dualism of the Dvaita schools originating from Madhva (and also reflected in most streams of the Christian tradition). As I see it, the ways of unqualified oneness and unqualified separateness (between self and God) each tends ultimately to dissolve the love relationship between the self and God. Love requires a merging of two beings into one, yet without a loss of their individuality. This is inconceivable, but its truth is the precondition for the possibility of real love between the self and God. Consequently, I now accept a panentheistic metaphysics in which the universe and human souls are, to put it roughly, in the being of God.

If I understand him, he’s a negative mysterian about the relationship between God and devotee. It might at first appear contradictory (they’re numerically one, and they are not) but in fact the relation is something which can’t be grasped by us.

Honestly, I don’t see how this can be a “wonderful balance.” The mind has nowhere to rest; as with all negative mysterianism, a commitment has been made to simply think inconsistently, but insist that really, this is sort of just pointing at an inconceivable fact, an ungraspable one. This sort of move insulates one’s claim from refutation, but it also leaves unclear why anyone else should agree with it. (What claim?)

Moving on, Sudduth holds that

…GV has the intellectual resources for a reasonable inclusivist understanding of religion.

This needs some unpacking for non-philosophers. In philosophy of religion, “inclusivism” is the claim that the goal of religion (whatever one thinks that is) can be gotten by people outside the one true, or the one most true religion. (“Can be” – the general position is neutral about how often this happens.) The Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner famously stumps for this, and no small number of analytic Christian philosophers think this must be right.

I would be interested in why Sudduth thinks GV is particularly well off here. Is it better off on this score than Christianity? If so, why? And what sorts of religions might one gain the goal of religion through? And, what is the goal of religion? I would assume it is theistic – like, escaping the cycle of reincarnations and living in the presence of Krishna and his other devotees.

But then, Sudduth says,

…God-realization (or salvation) takes on diverse forms

But what sort of goal is this “God realization”? Is he saying that it takes monotheistic forms (like I just described) and also unitive, absolutist, “merging” forms (the ole drop of water going back into the ocean). What is the genus of which these two ends are the species, I wonder? It seem to me that there must be one, else the “cure” envisioned by his theology is weirdly ad hoc and disjunctive.

Moreover, what separates the sort of inclusivism he wants to endorse from being a type of religious pluralism (the view that the goal of religion can be acheived through all, or all major religions)? I assume there is a difference, which is why he says “inclusivism” and not “pluralism”. But what could it be? Might not Krishna also graciously offer pretty much any goal aimed at by any religious tradition? If not, why not?

Obviously I am not a fellow-traveler with him, but I wish him the best, and will be interested to see his thoughts as he says more about all of this.

Pictured here is Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone (a.k.a. St. Francis of Assisi, d. 1226 ) – my photo of a 19th c. statue from southern Arizona, probably well worn from processions and general fondling. I understand that he started, or at least popularized the building of manger scenes.

I remember reading his early biographies some years ago. I never could decide what to think: whether he was extremely holy, mentally ill, or both. Once a well known Christian philosopher who works in medieval philosophy described St. Francis to me as “a stinker” – I think the meaning was a sort of drama queen or manipulator. So that’s another option. But I remain perplexed.

Went to a Christmas eve service tonight. At one point the pastor said that the incarnation – that God became a human being – makes no sense to us, yet at some level we – i.e. all we Christians – believe it. If I were less tired, or in a different mood, this would induce a whole series of rants/lectures from me. But, not tonight. I will just say: I am grateful that God sent us his only Son, the perfect representation of him and sure way to him.

After the jump: another pic taken at the same place as the Francis pic. This time, someone indisputably both holy and sane, also celebrated Catholic-style. Merry Christmas!

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.

For those who enjoyed my previous posts (here and here) on avatars in Hinduism, here’s something I’ve done recently for a class I’m teaching – excerpts of the long (78 part!) ultra-hit Indian tv series Ramayan into movie form. (Here’s the whole series.) Yes, I watched the whole thing, over a couple of months, so you don’t have to. Grab some popcorn and check it out. My notes in the comment below will help you to bridge the plot-gaps.

This doesn’t directly have to do with Christian theology. My interest here was to illustrate the Hindu tradition for my students, specifically a popular, present-day, devotional Vaishnavite form.

Still, one can fruitfully apply philosophical analysis and comparison with Christian theology here:

• What’s presented here, despite appearances, is supposed to ultimately be monotheism. The one god is Vishnu, and the other gods and goddesses are just manifestations of him, him acting in different forms. This is clear when at one point the three functions of creation, preservation, and destruction are assigned to Vishnu. It’s modalism on a massive scale.
• The series asserts the primacy of Vishnu, even while bending over backwards to exalt Shiva as a great god and proper object of worship (and also the Great Goddess). He’s a perfect self, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, a se.
• Ram (aka Rama, pictured here – but in the movie, he’s not blue) is Vishnu’s manifestation as a human being, Vishnu incarnate, or in their terms, a descent (avatar) of Vishnu. The screenplay reflects the tensions in the various versions of the Ramayan – Does Ram know that he’s Vishnu? Is he merely feigning ignorance? Why does he keep saying he’s just a man? Is he in the end a real human being, or does he only appear to be one? Or does this not matter, since at bottom in some sense everything is Vishnu/Brahman?
• The screenplay repeatedly says that Vishnu and his descent as a man, are unfathomable, mysterious, beyond logic, etc.
• At the end, the movie presents Ram as the one god, the one ultimate being, of which the rest of the Hindu pantheon is a manifestation. (I’m talking about the worship song scene were Ram appears in the middle of a bunch of faces and bodies lined up all together.) But that’s because Ram is supposed to be numerically identical to Vishnu – they are one and the same.
• There are even parts of the series, not included here, in which Vishnu and Shiva seem to enjoy what some Christians call “perichoresis” or perfect fellowship; they worship each other, and dwell in the hearts of one another.
• The third member of the Trimurti (aka the “Hindu Trinity”) Brahma gets short shrift, like the Holy Spirit. While Brahma appears in a number of scenes (floating on a big pink lotus flower), he isn’t really worshiped, at least, not like Vishnu and Shiva are. At any rate, he’s presented as a manifestation of or attribute of Ram/Vishnu. This reflects the practice of Hinduism – my understanding is that Brahma as such (as opposed to as a member of the Trimurti) is not really a focus of devotion there.
• Ram is very much meant as a model of human behavior, an ideal human being, the way that Christians view Jesus. In many or most cases, Christians would agree with Hindus that his behavior in the Ramayana is indeed virtuous, though there would be some disagreements in the areas of filial piety, honor, and idolatry.
• As with Calvinism, here one is saved by grace, through faith. Note the ultimate fate of the villian Ravan here.

No, this doesn’t include anything from the 39-part 1989 follow-up series. I believe this features Ram un-descending back into Vishnu, but I haven’t gotten around to watching that one yet.

Which of these is false?

1. The Christian God is a self.
2. The Christian God is the Trinity.
3. The Trinity is not a self.

One option is to vote that none are false, since all are true. As I write this, 27% have picked this option. But this is a poor pick. This “is” here is the “is” of numerical identity throughout. Given this, it is impossible that all three be true; they are demonstrably inconsistent. (The logical form is: 1. g=s, 2. g=t, 3. -(t=s).)  At least one must be false.

• If 1 & 2, then not-3. If this God is a self, and is the Trinity, and it must be false that the Trinity is not a self.
• If 1 & 3 then not-2. If God’s a self, and the Trinity isn’t, then it must be false that God just is the Trinity.
• If 2 & 3 then not-1. If God’s the Trinity, but is not a self, then it is false that the Christian God is a self.

Why then do 27% opt for inconsistency (affirming all three)? I’m not sure.

• It could simply be desire for orthodoxy being stronger than the desire to avoid believing falsehoods.
• Or perhaps some imagine that “human logic” can be ignored; inconsistent claims may each be true, at least about God.
• Maybe it’s clinging to the mysterian hope that this must be a merely apparent contradiction, though no one can make that appearance recede.
• Or perhaps they’re misreading 1, as if it said only that the Christian God is personal - not a self, but somehow self-like or closely related to at least one self. (Compare: being a king vs. being kingly.) If this is the case, then when tutored on how “is” is meant here, such folk should probably pick another option. To avoid this confusion, we could rephrase the inconsistent triad thusly:
  1. The Christian God is a certain self.
  2. The Christian God is the Trinity.
  3. The Trinity is not any self.

  This triad has a different logical form (1. Ex (x=g & Sx)  2. g = t, 3. -Ex(x=t & Sx)), but the three are still demonstrably inconsistent. It’s just that the proof is harder. I think this is actually a better way to formulate the inconsistent triad. (Reading the logic I just gave: 1.  There exists some x which just is God and which is a self. 2. God just is the Trinity. 3. It’s not the case that there exists some x such that it just is the Trinity and it’s a self.)

Let’s run through the other options briefly. I list the poll percentages as of the writing of this post.

• If you deny 1 (29%), you’re probably some sort of “social” trinitarian. You think God is a group, a community, communion, a quasi-family, consisting of three divine selves.
• If you deny 3 (11%), you’re probably some sort of modalist. You think that God, that is, the Trinity, has a first-person point of view. He’s a self all right, though he operates in three different ways, as Father, Son, and Spirit, or maybe Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier. He’s group-like perhaps, but is not literally a group. He’s a god, and the only god.
• If you deny 2 (33%), you’re probably some sort of unitarian. You think the one god is the Father, and that the Trinity isn’t a god, but is rather God, God’s Son, and God’s Spirit.

And since one can always tell what is true by consulting simple, tiny-sample internet polls, this shows that unitarianism is true… today.

And they add: the Word is God, and the Word became flesh.

Sounds like a change, doesn’t it? First, the Word is simply divine, and a moment later, he’s entered into a “hypostatic union” with a “complete human nature.”

Reformed philosophical theologian James Anderson takes a crack at this one. (HT: Triablogue.) I much like his set-up. I’m less keen on the solution. Short answer: it’s a mystery (apparent contradiction). You’ll have to read his post to see why I chose this pic.

A few quick comments: first, I’m with Craig. I don’t think his position implies any change in God. Rather: if God hadn’t created, he’d be timeless. But given that God has created, he’s “in time.” It seems to me that if there is time, there’s no where else to be. Our spatial metaphors (“outside” time, “above” time) are wrongheaded. So are the trapping metaphors (e.g. “bound by” time). If God freely chose to create, then he freely chose to operated “in time” and he’s not been “trapped” by anything other than logical consistency. Anderson wants there to be paradox (apparent contradiction) in Craig’s view, but I don’t see it.

Like many Christian philosophers, I agree with this crucial point by Anderson:

…the biblical statements about God not changing needn’t be taken in a way that rules out change in any sense. The focus in these texts is on God’s character and his faithfulness to his promises.

That’s right. So the “fathers” never had any good scriptural grounds for their belief in divine timelessness. It was all based on philosophical reasons, and I would say bad ones at that. But that’s another post.

The line that God only appears to change, but doesn’t really change, implies that he cannot ever genuinely respond to human beings. He does not open himself to be influenced either way by us. And arguably, that makes a real friendship with God impossible. But that such is possible, is at the very heart and soul of the whole Bible.

On to qua-stuff:

…we should say that Jesus was omniscient with respect to his divine natureand gained wisdom with respect to his human nature. On this basis, it seems natural to say that God the Son is timeless and unchangeable with respect to his divine nature but temporal and changeable with respect to his human nature.

The problem with this is that it seems that what you know-in-a-nature, you know. And what you don’t-know-in-a-nature, you don’t know. So this seems no improvement on just saying that Jesus knows and doesn’t know something, or that he knows all, and doesn’t know some. Oddly enough, I think James would agree.

Again, if some self has an essential nature which requires X, then he himself must be X. So with the two-natured Jesus, if the divine nature requires the impossibility of change, then Jesus can’t change. And if his human nature requires the possibility of change, then Jesus can change. So he can and he can’t.

But, he did. So, he can. Ergo, he was not divine and/or divinity doesn’t require the impossibility of change. Ergo, “classic” incarnation theory appears to be inconsistent with itself.

Again, I think James would agree! But maybe he’ll set me straight.

It depends on what it takes to be a real god…

Hindus who believe in avatars, and catholic Christians say: yes, this is possible, for it has been actual.

In Hinduism, this is particularly emphasized in Vaishnavite traditions, in Christianity, Roman Catholicism.

They of course differ about which god this was.

For other Christians, the answer is no.

In a previous post, I commented that there is something pleasing about the idea that a mighty god stooped to become a small, weak baby.

This time: story of Vishnu incarnate has been updated.

My edit, with comments, after the break.

(On the youtube page, the times below are clickable – click “Show more” there.)

• 0:01 To everything, there is a season…
• 0:31 This looks like a job for… Vishnu!
• 0:42 King Dashrath was almost killed in battle. Now, he’s concerned that his line should continue. He and his three queens consult with his the royal guru.
• 1:18 It’s nothing a little Vedic ceremony won’t fix.
• 1:47 But not just anyone can perform that rite…
• 2:33 A theophany of Vishnu as an electric ball of light.
• 4:41 Rite time, rite place.
• 5:00 That was quick! Better stock up on diapers.
• 5:52 Shiva, Brahma, and misc. divinities, gurus etc. acknowledge that something important is about to go down.
• 6:41 An out-of-body experience. Meet your future baby, Queen Kaushalya (Lord Vishnu). He reminds me of a young Paul Stanley.
• 7:52 She gets her wish: a son like Vishnu. But only Vishnu himself is qualified.
• 8:39 “Om” a holy syllable, expressing God’s essence – “namo” hail – “Narayana” an old divine title, applied to Vishnu.
• 8:45 Heavenly and earthly beings celebrate the birth of Ram (Rama) and his brothers. Ram = Vishnu.
• 10:40 The wrath of God.
• 11:00 A paradoxical musical number. God gets a bath, is dressed by Mommy, takes a nap, gets fed, and so on.
• 12:16 God is very cute.
• 13:03 God toddles.
• 14:16 Moms love that, even the mother of God.

(click for image credit)

Last Christmas season I posted in a slightly Grinch-like way about catholic Incarnation theories, and about some Christians’ lack of critical thinking about them.

There’s an interesting human impulse observable here. The best analogy I can think of right now is posters like the one to the left. The ladies love them.

Why? There’s the sex appeal of the dude. And the cute baby. Everyone likes a cute baby.

But there’s something else, something affecting about a big, strong, tough manly man, stooping to gently cradle a teeny, vulnerable baby. He’s made himself so vulnerable. Of course, that adds to the “sexy” part. My point is, the affecting nature of the man’s condescension is a distinct element of the appeal.

Now imagine that God, big strong God, becomes an ignorant, weak, dependent little baby. There’s a similar, recognisable emotional tug there. What an amazing idea! Of course, it may be amazing in part because it’s contradictory. But I’ll not argue that here.

Instead, a bit of cross-cultural comparison. Christians aren’t the only ones who go in for the idea of a god who comes down from his mighty position, to be a cute, puny little baby.

The Ramayana is an epic poem, and a sort of scripture in Hinduism. Parts of it go back perhaps to the 400s BCE, though it comes in many versions, some of which are from the high middle ages. The clip below is from a wildly popular Indian television series from 1986 called Ramayan. If you’re interested in Hinduism, I recommend it, but it’s a real time commitment to watch the whole thing. I’ve edited some bits of  it, to include the more theological parts, and to get it down to youtube length. It’s here, Ram or Rama, is supposed to be an avatar of the god Vishnu.

My point is not that Christians copied the idea of incarnation from Hindu avatar theories. I don’t think that is true, nor can I rule out some amount of Christian influence is some latter day avatar theorizing. My main point is the common human reaction to the image of a baby god. Also like Christians, the characters wonder whether or not this is contradictory. See how they dismiss the worry, or rather, how a major Hindu god does.

For the record, I do not claim, but I do deny that the Trimurti has anything to do with Christian Trinity theories. I’m aware of no evidence of causal influence either way. Perhaps in a future post I’ll explore what these facts about Hinduism may have to do with Christian theology.

Below is a play-by-play commentary, so you know who is who, and what is going on.  Enjoy!

• The scene starts in Vishnu’s heaven; he’s the blue guy relaxing on the couch. He’s called the Preserver, and is a god of grace and compassion.
• :16 – On behalf of many, Brahma the Creator god beseeches Vishnu to come to earth, which is oppressed by the demon King Ravan. Others join in.
• 1:37 – that’s Ravan, rocking that mustache and literally treading the earth under foot. He has a good bad guy laugh.
• 2:08 – Shiva (“the Destroyer” – though he’s not a bad or purely negative deity) appears, in leopard skin, to urge Vishnu to descend and take birth as a human avatar. (Aside: he’s the third of the so-called “Hindu Trinity” (Triumurti) along with Vishnu and Brahma.) Vishnu greets him as “God of gods;” I’m not sure if that’s flattery, or if the source here assumes him to be the one high god. One might assume that Vishnu, not Shiva would be in that position in the Ramayana… In some Vishnu-centered texts, Shiva is actually a manifestation of Vishnu, but that’s not going on here.
• 2:24 – The “Trinity” (it’s not really a Trinity, but that’s another post) is now on the left of the screen, together with Vishnu’s wife, the popular goddess Lakshmi.
• 3:03 – A very hairy guru takes up the argument. Shiva says he’s the guru of the gods.
• 3:57 – That circular saw blade on Vishnu’s finger is a “divine weapon.” His other hand holds a conch shell to blow like a horn. Why is he blue? It’s the color of the sky, is the common explanation.
• 4:24 – Vishnu, sympathising with oppressed humanity, decides to be born as a man to conquer Ravan, restoring balance to the earth. He’ll be born as a prince to King Dasarath.
• 4:52 – Here he is in human form, the baby Ram (Rama). It seems that Lord Vishnu / Ram needs a diaper! He cutes it up, to the delight of the king, his queens, and Shiva, viewing from his holy mountain. The god, possibly the high God, is a cute toddler. Is this patently contradictory nonsense, or a wonderful, almost unthinkable truth?
• 9:00 – Shiva and his wife or consort Parvati delve into this question. They observe little Ram having a temper tantrum, and she wonders how a/the god could do this. It is “The deepest of mysteries, my Lady.” Yes, Shiva here is a mysterian! He adds that God must become a man to show man the true path, by example. The view here seems to be that Vishnu has really become a human being, with all the limitations thereof, and not that he merely appears to be a human. In other words, this is not a docetist avatar theory being presupposed. There is only the briefest flash of worry here about whether this story is self-consistent or self-contradictory.
• 10:52 – WWRD – “What Would Ram Do?” Ram is presented throughout the Ramayana as an ideal human, a paragon of virtue.
• 11:19 – Shiva decides he wants in on this salvific action; he’ll descend as an avatar too (for the 11th time), as Hanuman, to help Ram in his quest to defeat Ravan.

Daniel Waterland (1683-1740) was by all accounts the most important disputant of Samuel Clarke about the Trinity.

Waterland spent his career at Cambridge, where he rose through the ranks, eventually becoming Vice-Chancellor, and also serving as a Chaplain to the King, and as an Anglican clergyman in a number of cities.

He had a good reputation, and was an energetic, but normally cool-headed controversial/polemical writer (aganist Clarke, and other other theological topics, against other respected men), and he gained somewhat of a reputation in Anglican circles as a defender of catholic orthodoxy.

Many, including himself, contemplating his becoming a bishop, but in 1740 he died after complications, seemingly, from surgeries on an ingrown toenail in one of his big toes! He was survived by his wife of 21 years. (His only children were his books.)

I’d describe Waterland’s views on the Trinity as social, with a liberal dose of negative mysterianism. Like Clarke, he insists that his is the ancient catholic view, and much of the dispute concerns pre-Nicene fathers. Like Clarke, he wants to stick to those fathers and to the Bible, and takes a dim view of medieval theology.

About the pre-Nicene catholic “fathers,” I’d say both Clarke and Waterland somewhat bend the material to their own ends (I mean, they tend to see those authors as supporting their view, and being perhaps more uniform than they were), but I think Waterland bends the materials more. In his view, catholics had always believed the Three to be “consubstantial” in a generic sense, yet which, somehow, together with their differences of origin, makes them but one god. Like Swinburne and Clarke, he agrees that the Father is uniquely the “font of divinity.” He continually hammers Clarke with the claim that there’s no middle ground between the one Creator and all creatures.

In this series, I’ll examine the way he deals with some favorite unitarian proof-texts, which, unitarians think plainly assert the numerical identity of the Father with the one true God, Yahweh. According to Waterland, these unitarians are making a mistake like the one I made.

You [i.e. Clarke] next cite John 17:3, 1 Cor. 8:6, Eph. 4:6, to prove, that the Father is sometimes styled the only true God; which is all that they prove. But you have not shewn that he is so called in opposition to the Son, or exclusive of him. It may be meant in opposition to idols only, as all antiquity has thought; or it may signify that the Father is primarily, not exclusively, the only true God, as the first Person of the blessed Trinity, the Root and Fountain of the other two.

You observe that “in these and many other places, the one God is the Person of the Father, in contradistinction to the Person of the Son.”

It is very certain, that the Person of the Father is there distinguished from the Person of the Son; because they are distincly named: and you may make what use you please of the observation against the Sabellians, who make but one Person of the two. But what other use you can be able to make of it, I see not; unless you can prove this negative proposition, that no sufficient reason can be assigned for styling the Father the only God, without supposing that the Son is excluded.

…As to 1 Cor. 8:6, all that can be reasonably gathered from it, is, that the Father is there emphatically styled one God; but without design to exclude the Son from being God also: as the Son is emphatically styled one Lord; but without design to exclude the Father from being Lord also. Reasons may be assigned for the emphasis in both cases; which are too obvious to need reciting.

…observe… that the discourse there, v. 4, 5, is about idols, and nominal gods and lords, which have no claim or title to religious worship. These the Father and Son are both equally distinguished from: which may insinuate at least to us, that the texts of the Old or New Testament, declaring the unity and excluding others, do not exclude the Son, “by whom are all things…” (Daniel Waterland, A Vindication of Christ’s Divinity: Being A Defence of Some Queries, Relating to Dr. Clarke’s Scheme of the Holy Trinity [1719]  in Van Mildert, ed. The Works of the Rev. Daniel Waterland, Vol. I., pp. 279-80, broken into shorter paragraphs, bold added)

Next time: Is he right about this?

A while back I posted on a short, popular piece by Biola theologian Fred Sanders. He’s now responded. I’m going to continue the conversation, I hope shedding light on the differing assumptions and methods of present-day academic theologians and philosophers. I agree with Fred that responses-to-responses are usually boring. Here’s a greater crime: a (long) response to a response to a response.

I guess what set me in motion was his claim, which struck me as unreasonable, that it’s a good thing that there’s no “Trinity verse” in the Bible – i.e. one which explicitly and clearly  states the doctrine.

In fact, up until I think some time in the late 19th c., trinitarians thought they had something pretty close: 1 John 5:7. (Compare the KJV with any modern translation.) This was shown by Isaac Newton and a number of others to be a late corruption. Needless to say, this verse was much appealed to – none of the trinitarians were wishing it gone, so they could instead appeal to the whole Bible.

Surely, I argue, it’d be better if there were such a verse (assuming there is a true Trinity theory), because then Christians wouldn’t spend so much time puzzling and fighting about the matter, as we fairly frequently have through church history.

Now to Sanders’s response:

Tuggy the analytic philosopher working on trinitarianism was interesting to me… Tuggy the analytic philosopher working on anti-trinitarianism drops several notches on my scale of interestingness. Arguments are still arguments, and need to be dealt with on their own merits, of course. But research programs are motivated, and knowing the motivation helps me decide where to invest my study time.

The assumption here, it seems to me, is that all this unitarian-trinitarian stuff was settled long ago, and so anything Tuggy says will only be a tiresome rehash of crummy arguments. I used to assume this, but then I went back and looked at the arguments, the arguments, that is, on both sides. On some core points, the unitarians come out better, as I see it. And I found out that their arguments were not so much answered as smugly forgotten by the mainstream. Don’t take my word for it, by all means; weigh the arguments for yourself.

As to motivations, Fred seems to suggest that my motive all along has been to promote my present views. Not true. I started thoroughly confused (like most evangelicals). Then I was a social trinitarian. Then, a subordinationist unitarian (but sort of thinking this was really trinitarian). Finally, my present view. I’ve been motivated all along to make some orthodox theory or other fly! This is why I set off trying to find a workable version of the doctrine – which is what most evangelical philosophers do. (I’m referring to the theories in the main body of my SEP entry.) Frankly, it was an embarrassment to me that the mainstream did not seem to have a coherent, believable view in mind, in asserting those famous formulas.

I think we disagree already: I think trinitarianism is a spiritual reality, owned by the people of God since the Father sent the Son and the Spirit, and confessed rightly by those without special training. Philosophers and theologians are allowed to work at the task of clarifying and refining it, but they didn’t invent it.

So from the beginning, Christian have “owned” (interacted with?) the Trinity – sure – if there is such a thing. But Fred here seems to assume that they also (imprecisely) believed it all along, i.e. since biblical days. But this is demonstrably not so – by the standards of 500 CE, there were no “orthodox” trinitarians in 170CE. What there were (in the catholic mainstream)  were unitarians of various sorts! Pretty clearly for many of them, not even that vague picture was there.

Tuggy thinks there is no such thing as “the” doctrine of the Trinity, and that there couldn’t even be one until thought rises above a certain threshold of analytic clarity and terminological precision. I’m all for clarity and precision, and I need collegial help attaining it in my doctrinal thinking. But when I say Trinity, I am not pointing to a successful thought project or mental model. I’m pointing to something real, something given by God, something that Christian devotion and orthodox categories pick out, but sub-trinitarian theologies fail to.

If I understand Fred here, the “something real” is sort of like a mental image or a vague way of thinking, expressed by the standard formulas. I think there is something to this – roughly, that God is somewhat like three selves but those are somehow unified – which often does accompany use of the traditional words. But it is not the sort of thing that can be true or false, or for which one could seek evidence in any form. I think – and please correct me if I’m wrong – Sanders is in the Negative Mysterian camp, which it comes to interpreting the traditional formulas. Yes, to me, this is just one way to read them, a way which must be weighed against the others, others which have been suggested by smart, sincere, and faithful men.

Compare: the claim that God is provident. The Calvinists, Arminians, open theists, Molinists, Thomists, process theists – they’re all understanding divine providence in incompatible ways. I think one can be a mysterian too here, either positive or negative… and perhaps that’s a fairly popular way of interpreting “providence.” Yes, I think that for many purposes, just sticking with the vague idea that “God is in charge” is enough. But some of us are compelled to get more precise.

About “logic,” no I got the point; like a lot of philosophers, I get a bit grumpy with logic-rhetoric. I didn’t meant to offend, or to suggest that Sanders knows no logic. By “logic” here, I think he just means something like structure, not what he says – “principles of demonstration that are appropriate to a subject” – but maybe a point of structure could be a source/principle from which to argue, i.e. the grounds for some premise.

Here’s the pattern, the flow of thought, the drift, of my little article: I wasn’t just “quoting a few passages in which the three are mentioned.” Instead, I was building a pattern of expanding scope. From 3 verses, to 5 verses, to 12 verses, to 6 chapters, to 16 chapters, to a whole gospel, to the whole Bible.

Right – in Sanders’s view, the whole Bible shows a pattern of the members of the Trinity at work together. I don’t think this is true, and if we’re careful with what we mean by “members of the Trinity” here, many through church history would also demur.

In any case, I criticized Sanders is “spinning” an obviously bad thing as a good thing – this lack of any clear statement in the Bible about the Trinity, as opposed to it being (supposedly) discernible diffused through the whole Book.

But I think that in Scripture, God succeeded in revealing the Trinity the way he wanted to. I understand why that seems like “merely spin” to Tuggy, but I mean it in earnest.

Now, I wasn’t accusing him of being insincere. But I think if there was a secure verse like 1 John 5:7, or more specific, Fred would gladly use it as a lead proof-text, and never lament its presence. The key point here is “the way he wanted to.” Because it is this way, and because God is all-provident, Sanders holds this to be the best way. This, in my view, is a serious intellectual vice in present-day theology. Assuming, in theology, that things are as they are because they’re supposed to be that way. This is in practice an all-purpose reason to stay mentally “in the box.”

To be clear: I believe wholeheartedly in divine providence. I’m an open theist, so for me the mechanics of providence will be different, but I think nothing occurs without God’s permission, and that he constantly guides the course of events, above all, those involving the followers of Jesus. But I think lots of things happen that go against his will. For whatever reason, he seems to govern, on a grand scale, with a loose hand.

Think about how this sort of providential conservatism would’ve hurt you in the past:

• What? Who’s this Jesus guy, teaching all this new stuff. WE KNOW Judaism, buddy. God himself has evolved us Pharisees just how he likes us. This Jesus is a PUNK!
• What? Who’s this off-the-reservation clown trying to interpret scripture apart from the magisterium of the one holy, catholic church. Why, all Christians are catholic (i.e. Catholic or Orthodox), or, nearly so. Who does he think he is? We have no tradition of reasoning on one’s own – and this is plainly how God intended it.
• What? This fellow thinks churches should be autonomous? That’s crazy-talk. God himself ordained the system of bishops. If you are not under a catholic bishop, you are not under the headship of Christ, and you are out of God’s will. Opposing the bishop is opposing God.

God is who he is. He’s the same God in charge c. 30 or 1520 CE, and this is but a later stage in the same cosmos. So, we have to leave a mental door open to the possibility that mainstream theology has gotten fairly off track, even on core things. To a Protestant, this should be a trivial point. And yet, this safe, assuring assumption that one’s theories are guaranteed by divine providence is rampant among conservative, Protestant theologians.

Now, this is accompanied by the idea that their own ideas, e.g. about providence, church structure and government, or the Trinity are just sitting right there, obviously in the texts. We thinking Christians should maybe get this verse tattooed on our bodies somewhere, preferably not the face.

The first person to speak in court always seems right until his opponent begins to question him. (Pr. 18:17)

You’ve got to read all sides (or better, the best representatives of what seem the most plausible, well-motivated sides), if you want to really think through any issue: free will, universals, justice, arguments for God’s existence. This is the only way to seriously pursue the truth.

But I don’t see this drive in a lot of theologians. Instead, I see a complacent assurance that they’ve got the truth (about, e.g. the Trinity) and many of them just want to sort of play with it - to celebrate it, talk it up, apply its insights, allegedly, to new fields, such as politics or marriage. All the while, we’re none the clearer about what “it” is – it’s just whatever those traditional creeds were getting at. The text- and history- focused theologians, generally, are more clear-headed about what the Bible does and doesn’t say, and are alive to at least some disputes. And they “play” a lot less.

He really does think there’s never been such thing as coherent trinitarianism, just “trinities” all the way back, and none of them doing justice to the New Testament as Tuggy (and Samuel Clarke) interpret it.

Sorry – this isn’t quite fair. I’m no Ehrman. I think there were humanitarians who more or less got it right, from NT times up through the 2nd c. And I think the unitarian subordinationists still got it right on what’s most important (who the one true God is), from about the 130s up past 325. For a lot of this time, there weren’t nearly as many “trinities” (Trinity theories) as there are now. In sophisticated catholic circles c. 200, as best I can tell, it was basically subordinationist unitarians vs. “monarchians,” at least some of whom where humanitarian unitarians. (In the polemical lingo of the day – “psilanthropists” – mere-man-ers, who thought Jesus had only a human nature.)

There a little hint of sarcasm here – how can this silly Clarke and Tuggy think that only in these latter days, in the early 18th or early 21st c., the truth about the Trinity first came to light? What’s the chance of that? Of course, neither of us thinks that for a moment. Both our views, Clarke’s and mine (which again, are not the same, though both unitarian) are represented in the 2nd c., and by various later folk.

…philosophy can be used for doubting and dissolving as much as for clarifying (which of course philosophers already knew), that chasing definition can be an exercise in chasing the horizon. Once you turn a word plural to indicate that its content is essentially disputed, you’re on the roads to irresolutions. After exploring theologies of the trinities, Tuggys will have to move on to doctrines of the incarnations, and to atonements, by which gods accomplished salvations for humanities from sinses. That’s not a good way forward for theology that answers to God’s self-revelation in Scripture.

I’m not sure what to make of this… Part of the worry seems to be the idea that philosophy, something about its procedure or methodology, is inherently destructive, or leads inexorably to doubt, or to unbelief. I don’t think that is so. It does tend to breed epistemic humility, perhaps. But philosophers, I think, passionately commit to all sorts of things, just as I am passionately committed to being a disciple of Christ. To me, adopting unitarian views has opened up the New Testament, to where I suddenly see what’s going on there. They authors are not, as so many read them, constantly throwing out hints that Jesus is the same self as God, even while treating them as two selves; they are two, and are importantly related. They are not the same god, or parts of the same god, or personalities, etc. They are a man, the most important man, and his God, who is also his Father. This is hard to a explain, but there’s a whole texture to the NT which is obscured by traditional catholic theorizing.

Honestly, I picked “trinities” because it was easy to remember, the domain was available, and it seemed a decent short hand to refer to the various competing theories. But I did not thereby signal that the dispute was irresolvable. Indeed, I don’t think it is! I can see why Sanders might read more into it, though, based on how terms like “Christianities” get used by some.

There’s also a concern, I think, that somehow philosophy must involve not properly submitting to what God has revealed. But that is indeed my aim. Nothing about philosophy traps me in a hopeless plurality of incompatible viewpoints. Just as I have firm views on, say, free will, so I have them here – at least, I have them now, after a lot of painful thinking and mind-changing.

Samuel Clarke (1675-1729) was one of the all-time great philosophical theologians. He was a greatly respected Anglican minister, and probably would have become archbishop of Canterbury if he hadn’t published on the Trinity. He was a younger friend of the famous scientist Isaac Newton, and became the main expositor of Newton’s science and the metaphysics and theology underlying it. He was also a wily metaphysician and an impressively learned scholar, capable of wielding a thousand textual facts to mount an argument.

In 1705 Clarke became famous for his still studied classic, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. This is a big, developed presentation of a cosmological argument for the existence of exactly one “necessary” and moreover perfect being. In my view, it is not entirely successful, but it is impressive, and the most developed cosmological argument ever.

For whatever reasons, though probably in part, his interactions with his friends Newton and William Whiston, Clarke plunged into the Bible and patristics, and came up with finely honed views on the Trinity, along the lines of the early (c. 150-350) “fathers.”  This he published in his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, the first edition of which was in 1712. This is his other, neglected, lost classic. It created quite a stir in early 18th c. England. Clarke narrowly avoided losing his job over the controversy. But here I’ll stick to its effect on my thinking.

In the first 35 pages, Clarke lays out some 441 passages in the NT, in which the Father either “is stiled the one or only God” (1), or “wherein he is stiled ‘God’ absolutely, by way of eminence and supremacy” (6), or “wherein he is stiled ‘God’ with some peculiar high titles, epithets, or attributes; which… are (generally, if not) always by way of supreme eminence, ascribed to the person of the Father only” (24). (In this post I’ve modernized Clarke’s words, omitting his early 18th c. use of italics and capitalization.)

After examining all passages concerning the Son and Spirit, and how they related to the Father, as well as all mentions of Father, Son, and Spirit together, Clarke gets theological. There’s a lot I could say about this, but in brief,

There is one supreme cause… of all things [i.e. the Father]; one simple, uncompounded, undivided, intelligent agent, or person; who is the alone author of all being, and the fountain of all power. (122)

And, appealing to some 45 NT texts, he asserts that

The Father alone, is, absolutely speaking, the God of the universe; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of Israel; of Moses, of the Prophets and Apostles; and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He defends all these claims by quoting (in the original language, then translating) numerous church fathers, especially Athanasius, Novation, Origen, Justin, and Tertullian. In short, he believes in 3 divine persons, but only one, the Father is autotheos – divine through or because of himself. This one, is the one God of whom the OT speaks, i.e. Yahweh. In a most manly fashion, without yielding an inch, and yet without ungodly nastiness, he defends these ideas against all comers – people I would call mysterians, tritheists (aka Social Trinitarians), modalists, “Latin” trinitarians, and humanitarian unitarians (“Socinians”) – who, interestingly, he takes to be basically modalists. He does this in nine thick follow up pieces, responses to those few of his many critics Clarke thought worthy of an answer.

This is all a lot to digest. But the main effect all this had on me was to drive me back to the New Testament, to see if what Clarke says about it is true. I found that all the New Testament authors very clearly distinguish between God, a.k.a. the Father, and Jesus. With a few exceptions, “God” refers to the Father, and generally in Paul, “the Lord” is Jesus. (This last can be confusing to us.) But what could hardly be clearer is that Father and Son there are different selves. Clarke also shows that for just about any favorite proof text supposedly showing that Jesus “is God,” in the immediate context, we find that the author seems to assume them to be two.

Now the standard answer to Clarke’s point that Father and Son are different selves is this: Sure, they are two persons, but that’s compatible with their being one God. But Clarke explodes this defense numerous times. A “god” in the Bible is always a self – not a substance, nature, or whatnot. Thus, if Father and Son were the same god, they’d also be the same self, which Clarke would explain, is unacceptable modalism, and just makes nonsense of the New Testament. Just to take one point, the Son can’t be the same person he mediates for – if he’s the mediator between God and man (which the NT says he is), then that precludes his being the same self as God.Further, if you think that “sharing a substance” (whatever that amounts to) makes them one god, you need to say why it is that two gods couldn’t share one substance – and Clarke bets that you can’t show this. Keep in mind that he agrees with the claim of Nicea (325) that Father and Son are homoousios – but he argues that we should accept just the original meaning, which is, essentially, that the two are similar, i.e. both divine. Indeed, that very document plainly assumes them to differ, and so to not be numerically identical. (So, not one self, and not one god – for in either case, they would have to be numerically identical.)

Is this “Arianism“? No. For Clarke, Son and Spirit are uncreated, and there are eternally dependent on God.

Is it Social Trinitarianism? No. It has a number of similarities to it, but the one God isn’t any group, but rather the Father. It was Clarke who cured me of “social” Trinity confusions.

Is it monotheism? Clarke argues that it is. Still, it is not obvious that it is. This is a tortured question, and I’m going to dodge it here – I’ll just say that he and his interlocutors had quite an argument about this.

Is this theory orthodox (i.e. consistent with the creeds, or at least, the creeds which truly summarize the Bible)? Clarke thinks so, and enlists a large number of ancient catholic theologians on his side, such as the great Origen. This too is a tortured question – I’ll only say that it depends on just what traditions you take as normative.

Is it trinitarianism? I would say not, although Clarke urges that this is the best and only biblical way to understand the mainstream catholic tradition on God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. It isn’t trinitarian because the Trinity is not the one God, or any sort of god at all. Rather, the one god is (numerically identical to) the Father, and this is the characteristic, defining thesis of unitarianism, be it ancient, early modern, or present day. So, while Clarke has no intention of being “anti-trinitarian,” and while he has no love at all of Socinus and later unitarians, he is in fact one of the most important unitarian Christian thinkers of all time. I call Clarke a subordinationist unitarian, because for him the Son and Spirit are divine but ontologically subordinate to, eternally dependent for their existence and perfections on the Father. They are not, that is, absolutely co-equal, and that is another reason why, arguably, Clarke is not a trinitarian. Of course, for these same reasons, neither are all the other ancient “fathers” mentioned in this post!

(click for image credit)

Most importantly, is his the best reading of the Bible, and is it true? In my view, not quite – more on that in future posts.

But his key points are true, and are the key to a non-confused reading of the Bible. The one God of both testaments is none other than (i.e. same self, same god, same being as) the Father. And this Father is supposed to be someone other than Jesus. You can take that to the bank.

The price is that you must reject any theory inconsistent with those two points. But any Trinity theory which is self-consistent is not compatible with them. In the end, it is the Bible vs. catholic tradition. For me, the Bible had to win. So, reading Clarke led me to see the unitarianism (again, just the thesis that the Father is one and the same as the one God) in the Bible, and this  made me a unitarian, though I had no desire to be one, and many reasons to not want either that label or that belief. Without going into details, I’ve had some painful life experiences with cranks and conspiracy theorists, and I have no desire whatever to become one, or even to be thought one. That unitarianism is, at least post 4th c. , a minority report is a strike against it, in my view, a barrier it must overcome.

I was fully aware that my evangelical brethren would consider me a traitor and a non-Christian. I knew I’d be accused of arrogance, of thinking I was smarter than so many Great Christians, while in fact being about as smart as that goldfish in the picture above.

I get a sick feeling reading the ancient “fathers” viciously verbally attacking the so-called “Arians” in furious contempt, accusing them of blasphemy, assaulting Jesus, being sub-human, being closet Jews, and so on. (Not because I’m an Arian, although they are unitarians too – another species of subordinationists.) These words are, to be blunt, a disgrace and an offense against the Lord they claimed to be defending; it’s not to strong to say that many of them hated their subordinationist opponents. This is all about theories, mind you – well, about that plus politics – those “fathers” I’m referring to were catholic Bishops desperate to maintain control over their churches, and to enlist the Empire to help them smash their rivals.

Today, while the rhetoric is somewhat less brutal, many Christian thinkers are quite proud of their various Trinity theories, and many hold “the” Trinity doctrine to be the pride of Christianity, its shining jewel and most distinctive and central thesis. And many react harshly to those who would, as it were, show their theories to be theories, and multiple (and mutually incompatible). That is really what most of my published work has been so far, and I’ve been less than clear about my own views. (This because those views were (1) not strictly relevant to the task at hand and (2) still in the process of being formed, and (3) honestly, I was not eager to start taking fire, as it were. Call this last prudence or cowardice – you be the judge.)

But I have decided in recent months that to be ashamed of these truths would be disloyalty to Jesus, whose disciple I endeavor to be. He too taught that the one God, who is both his God and my God, was the one he called “Father.” (John 17:3, 20:17) So did Paul, John, and Peter. So, kick me in the shins and call me a heretic, but I know to whom I must answer. For the record, no, I don’t think I’m smarter than everyone else, and yes, I admit that it’s possible that I’m mistaken. And no, I’m not a “rationalist.” It is the texts which drive me to unitarianism.

Are there difficult texts for this view? A few, yes. But far fewer than for the common evangelical view that Jesus is numerically the same as God (and, of course, also: he’s someone else). This view makes every NT book self-contradictory.

While Clarke convinced me that the one God is the Father, I wasn’t sure that I was a subordinationist unitarian, as described above. There are another class of Christian unitarians, what I call “humanitarian” unitarians. That’s where I find myself. More on that next time.

A lesson in epistemic humility from a great master of 20th century literature:

‘You are a slow learner, Winston,’ said O’Brien gently.

‘How can I help it?’ he blubbered. ‘How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.’

‘Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.’

(George Orwell, 1984)

Winston here doesn’t get it. It seems to him that 2 + 2 = 4 – always! And always, because it is necessarily so; it seems to Winston impossible that adding two to two not result in four. He can see that it is with his eyes, and “see” that it must be with his mind. Or, so he thinks.

O’Brien explains that the Magisterium of the Party is to be trusted above one’s own intuitions. If they say it is three, then it is three. And should that say it is five, it would be five. If they say it is 3 and 4 and 5 – then so be it. Sanity involves trusting their judgements over your own; theirs trump yours. You must know your place, citizen. Only an extreme individualist would disagree.

Is it an apparent contradiction (aka positive mystery)? Sure. Winston seems to think this is somehow a problem.

But is it any surprise that the collective wisdom of The Party should surpass that of a puny, recently born creature like yourself? After all, the Party consists of humans like you, many of them smarter than you. Surely it is sheer arrogance to think you’ve magically become wiser than the Party – the Mother who birthed you, provided for all your needs, and taught you everything you know. Honestly, what is the chance of that? We should expect that some things she tells us do no make sense to us. Thus, that the Party asserts apparent contradictions is evidence that she speaks only truth.

Poor Winston – he thinks he’s sane. But, that’s how a lot of insane people think of themselves.

Winston might try to argue that he really loves the Party, and would like to reform it for the better. Insanely, he doesn’t realize that the Party is just as it should (now) be. Big Brother has seen to it, and we all trust him – at least, those of us who are sane. If he wants to change the Party, he will, and it will be the right change at the right time. Winston is a citizen, and the place of a citizen is to serve and obey the Party, which requires trusting her judgements, which are of course His judgements as well. Winston keeps forgetting that. Thank Big Brother that we have O’Briens to gently remind us.

Below the fold, a bit more therapy:

Here’s the whole BBC production, starring a young Peter Cushing. It’s good.

This council said that we must confess that the Son is homoousion with the Father.
What did it mean? Same ousia. Does that clear it up?

OK, here’s more: same being-or-substance-or-essence-or-nature-or-something!

Whatever it was supposed to mean the “Arians” didn’t like it, and at the time, that was good enough. It was supposed to imply that Son, like Father, was “true God”, of divine status – however, unlike the Father, from true God.

Some were concerned in the immediate aftermath that the new formula was somehow modalistic (“Sabellian”). Aside from that fact the the word was first used by a modalist in the 3rd century, you can see why. If ousia is taken to mean individual entity, then it can be read as asserting Father and Son to be numerically identical – so that anything true of one has to be true of the other. However, it’s far from clear that at the time most took it that way.

When they translated the Nicene creed into Latin, homoousion became consubstantialem. In older English translations of the Catholic missal, this was “consubstantial“. But in the post-Vatican II era, there was an urge to clean up, modernize,  and clarify liturgical language. Thus, since 1970 they’ve been saying (in English language masses) “one in Being with the Father”.

Some criticize this for suggesting modalism. (Nothing new under the sun, people!) In any case, this translation is on its way out.

For some time, they’ve been fighting over how traditional liturgical language should be. For the obsessive, here’s a whole blog devoted to the missal-update.

The new version will go back to the old rendering:”consubstantial”.

People are criticizing this as being unfathomable to the average Catholic in the pew. Maybe so. But what translation isn’t?

A priest quoted in the New York Times story is more optimistic:

Father Hilgartner said, “We know that people aren’t going to understand it initially, and we’ll have to talk about it. I’ve said to priests, we will welcome and crave opportunities for people to come up and ask us about God. It’s a catechetical opportunity.” (emphasis added)

This, of course, supposes that the priest knows what it means!

One attempt I’ve seen, doesn’t inspire confidence. Here’s the exposition on “consubstantial”:

The Eternal Son, who was born of the Virgin Mary, is neither “like” the Father nor “practically the same substance” as the Father. The Eternal Son enjoys the very same substance as the Father. The Son possesses fully the Godhead of the Father.

Ehh… so it means that the Son isn’t like the Father? But he completely has the Father’s… “Godhead”? Clear as mud, I’m afraid.

Here’s a none-too-convincing argument that the new translation is better. Yes, much, much better.

And here’s an odd argument that the old “one in Being” just had to go.

“‘One in being’ is vague and open to misinterpretation,” said Father Roy. “The Father is the source of all being. He is the sole Being whose essence is his existence, and he gives all of us our being and existence. So, to a certain extent, we’re all ‘one in being’ with the Father. That doesn’t say anything unique about Christ.”

But if God is the source of all being, why would it follow that we’re “one in Being” with him? Unless, we’re talking about pantheism!

From the same piece, a priest makes a better point, though I’m not sure it really supports the change in question:

“Just because ‘one in being’ is three simple words in a row doesn’t mean that the average person understands what the phrase means.” (emphasis added)

That’s right. Apples noodle currency.

Maybe they should just be glad they didn’t change it to “of the same substance”.

But wait – if that phrase is even less intelligible, maybe it’d be all the more suitable! Check out another priest’s argument:

“When people first hear they’ll be saying ‘consubstantial,’ their first response is, ‘I don’t know what that means. Why can’t we use a word I understand?’” said Father Hilgartner. “But we’re talking about a mystery that no one fully understands and that can’t be fully articulated. In some ways the use of the word helps us confront the mystery, to stand before the mystery.”

I sort of agree with the spirit of this remark. Some initial confusion can be a good thing, if it stimulates inquiry and learning. But that “initial” is important!

Dear new Christians – beware. Patton is sincere, but misinformed. He thinks the Bible obviously teaches what he’s asserting, and reasons that any prior Bible-loving Christians must’ve thought likewise.

But having studied a vast amount of historical writings by Christians, I can assure you that this is demonstrably not so, even if we stick to “mainstream” Christians (so ignoring, e.g. “Arians”, Marcionites, etc.) I take no pleasure in pointing this out, and I wish it were as simple as Patton says. But facts are facts.

I’ve discussed his sort of take on the Trinty before. It is not, as Patton says in a comment, “what the Bible teaches and Christians for 2000 years have believed.” It is what (some? many?) theologians at Dallas Theological Seminary think about the Trinity. How widespread these views are, I’m not sure. But the many evangelical and other theologians riding the “social trinitarian” bandwagon would not agree with what Patton says.

Regarding what Patton holds forth as “the best we can do”, take care lest you fall into inconsistency.

You should know that some of the most brilliant Christian thinkers in the last 100 years have held many different views on just how “the” doctrine should be understood. Unfortunately, these theories are, for the most part, not consistent with one another.

Patton asserts that

The doctrine of the Trinity has been held by all orthodox Christians throughout all of church history

This is either trivial or false.

If by “orthodox” we mean, ones accepting the “ecumenical creeds”, and “the doctrine” here is what those creeds say, then it is true by definition, and also trivial.

But whatever “the doctrine” is thought to be, if  “orthodox” here means all mainstream Christians (proto-orthodox/catholic, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, anabaptist, pentecostal), then it is false. He’d like to think that only spoil-your-Saturday-morning-by-knocking-on-your-door cults have opted out, but this is not so. Some mainstream Christians have basically ignored creedal Trinity claims. Others deny them, on the grounds that the Bible doesn’t really teach them. Others never heard of them, and literally never thought about them. Other emphasize them, but interpret them in various ways.

But don’t take my word for it! I’m just some random guy you found on deh internets, right?

Pick up any catholic (proto-orthodox, mainstream Christian) theologian from c. 150-200 CE. You could start with Justin Martyr. You can read all we have from him in maybe a week. Is he selling what Patton is selling? Or take Irenaeus, Athanagoras, Origin, Tertullian. (Hint: review what Patton says about “subordinationism”.)

Too hard? No problem. Read this guy; he shows in great detail what these folk were up to, and why it is a mistake to count them as trinitarians. It’s a good read.

Don’t trust him, because he’s a unitarian?

Fine. Then, read Roger Olson, a respected and fairly mainstream evangelical theologian, on Justin Martyr, et. al. Do they teach thee co-equal divine persons within one God? You be the judge. Don’t just trust any cool cat you come across.

About divine attributes: reading Patton’s chapter, you’d never guess that many generations of theologians firmly believed a doctrine of divine simplicity, according to which (roughly) God is utterly simple (without parts or components), doesn’t have any non-essential attributes, and it’s a mistake to think that God has multiple intrinsic attributes at all. (Yes – these are dark sayings, and many Christian philosophers, including me, deny them. But others defend them.)

Actually, Patton’s whole list of “non-essential” attributes is idiosyncratic. Does he hold it possible for God to be non-gracious, non-loving, not a Trinity? Normally in philosophy nowadays, a non-essential attribute is one which a thing could possibly exist without. In ancient times, the idea was more that a non-essential attribute wasn’t a defining one (though some were such that you couldn’t be without them). But in ancient and medieval times, as I said, God was thought to be utterly simple (partless and without any internal multiplicity). Yes, it’s a mystery how anyone thought this was compatible with thinking of God as tri-personal.

If you’re a new Christian – great! You should love God with all you’ve got, and follow Christ in all things. There’s no other way to live. About the Trinity, I don’t have any simple answers for you. Patton is certainly right in holding that we must all follow as best we can, knowing that there’s a lot we don’t know, and that there are countless truths about God which we’ll never know. Part of loving God is devoting your mental energies long term to carefully thinking through these things when you can, as best you can. Keep going!

“We’re not saying that God is exactly one A and exactly three A’s. That would be a contradiction. We’re saying that God is one A and three B’s. Where’s the contradiction?”

On the face of it, this is a good and reasonable reply to the charge that the doctrine of the Trinity includes or implies a contradiction (and so is false). In general, we must be careful with facile charges of contradiction; often, such claims are easily rebutted.

But it is only an opening move, and it is a shallow one, as I’ll explain. In fact, it leaves you as exposed as our friend with the raised leg here.

Suppose you say that right now there are ten on the field, and also exactly two on the field. By this, you mean ten players and two teams. This is consistent.

How about ten bugs and two players. No problemo.

Now suppose you say that there are now ten players on the field and exactly two human beings? That is not consistent, for each player just is a certain human being.

Thus, the sort of logical point I made at the outset of this post works sometimes, but sometimes it fails. It all depends on what the terms are, and how they are related.

But does this work or not, in the case of the Trinity?

With creedal Trinity claims, as often understood, A = divine being, and B = divine person/self. So we’d be saying that God is one divine being who is (or maybe, in some sense contains) three divine persons.

Now any self just is a certain being; the concept of a self just is the concept of a certain sort of being. So if there are exactly three persons, each will be a certain being, and they can’t be the same being, for we’ve said there are three selves (hence, three beings). Thus, if there are three divine persons/selves, this seems to imply that there are three divine beings. But the creedal doctrine is supposed to include monotheism – that there is exactly one divine being.

D’oh! Not consistent.

Thus, it is not clear that this defense works; it seems to sweep the dirt under the carpet, leaving a large lump showing.

But maybe something’s gone wrong. Let’s try again. Maybe we used the wrong terms.

Here’s another way, much tried: A = divine being, B = personal mode of a being / way of living.

So the doctrine would be: God is one divine being which has exactly three personal modes of being / ways of living.

Consistency achieved. But Houston, we have a problem! Jesus Christ is, in the catholic tradition, identical to the second person of the Trinity. Here, a “person” of the Trinity is understood to be a way or mode in which the one God lives. But wait - Jesus is a self, a living, knowing, agent – a being with intelligence and will. And it appears that such a thing isn’t and can’t be a mode of some being – a way some being lives; no, a self is a being in its own right. Leaving aside that metaphysical point, we seem to have made a loving, interpersonal relationship between Father and Son impossible, replacing it with one self (God) in a certain mode (Father) interacting with himself in a different mode (Son). Arguably, this flies in the face of the New Testament. In short, we’ve lept into a boiling pot of modalism. Bad move!

Here’s another try: A = divine being, B = something, I know not what

So the doctrine would be: God is one divine being in which there are exactly there something-we-know-not-whats.

And yet one of those something-or-others, you hold, is the Lord Jesus Christ. And you think he’s a great and glorious self, and so not some sort of inconceivable thing. Sorry: not consistent.

Which way to go? Unclear. There have been suggested other ways out, but in these two popular second moves I’ve just outlined, one runs straight into a contradiction – not in the resulting Trinity theory itself, but rather, between that theory and something else any Christian is, as such, committed to.

There may well be laziness on the part of the objector here; he hopes for a quick knock-out blow against the Trinity, a proof (compelling, knock-down argument) that it’s self-contradictory. Good luck finding one of those.

Maybe the best I can say for this opening move is that it’s a lazy reply which may fit a lazy objection. I call the reply lazy because it leaves unclear just what the doctrine is. It merely makes a point about the creed using different terms. Moreover, it merrily ignores some other inconsistencies which lie right around the corner, as soon as one tries to clearly say what the doctrine is supposed to be.

One way a doctrine can be patently false is to be formally inconsistent – in terms of propositional logic, asserting P and not-P.

But another way a doctrine can be patently false is for it to include claims P and Q, while it is obviously true that: if P then not-Q. Here, there’s no formal contradiction between the component claims (P, Q), for neither is the negation of the other (e.g. P, not-P). Yet, if it is true that if P then not-Q, the doctrine (P, Q) implies a falsehood, and so includes a falsehood, for it can’t be that both P and Q are true.

Any Trinity doctrine worth is salt ought to be such that its component claims can be understood and examined to see if they’re all consistent each other, and with other things we all know. If so, then the doctrine would appear to be consistent, and so, may appear true, if supported by our sources. But if the claims contradict one another, or if by adding some self-evident truth to the mix we can logically derive a contradiction, then the doctrine would be patently false, whether self-contradictory, or inconsistent with something else which is evidently true.

Who is willing to pony up such a Trinity theory? In my experience: Many a Christian philosopher. Fewer theologians. Even fewer apologists. For the non-lazy, there’s a lot to consider.

In my forthcoming “On Positive Mysterianism“, I first locate what I can “mysterianism” within a classification of various ways religious thinkers respond to apparently contradictory religious doctrines, i.e. ones which in their view they have some reason to believe.

In that paper I was discussing apparently contradictory beliefs about the Incarnation and Trinity doctrines, but it seems to me that this scheme is applicable to any religion.

The chart is just below.

(See pp. 1-5 here for the definitions.)

I recently read a fascinating little interdisciplinary book by Matthew Bagger, a professor at Auburn, called The Uses of Paradox: Religion, Self-Transformation, and the Absurd. Though I don’t agree with some of his main theses, I highly recommend this book. While I treat “mysteries” (apparent contradictions) as epistemic problems to be solved, or at least responded to, he hits the issue from a different angle, discussing thinkers such as Kierkegaard and Nagarjuna, who view apparent contradictions as an opportunity to get some distinctively religious benefit. They too see them as an epistemic problem, but for precisely that reason, they think them spiritually beneficial. An important part of his book is his distinction between “cognitive ascetics” like Kierkegaard and “mystics” like Nagarjuna. Essentially, the former view paradoxes as an opportunity for salvific suffering, whereas the latter view paradoxical beliefs as a ladder to some supra-rational gnosis.

Where do they fit on my chart? They’re both Resisters – they acknowledge the logical tension between the beliefs in question, but they think it should be upheld – neither ignored nor resolved by belief-revision.

I might call “cognitive ascetics” Reveling Resisters and Bagger’s “mystics” Reunifying Resisters. He doesn’t get into this too much, but it seems to me that all his examples (Daoist, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Neoplatonist) of the latter fit this broad schema: there’s a transcendent Source from which (in some sense or other) all is. By means of the apparently contradictory thoughts and beliefs, one can (in some sense) be Reunified with this Source.

Both, I think, are importantly different from the main Resister I discuss in my paper – Reformed philosophical theologian James Anderson. He thinks that it is intrinsically (epistemically) bad that one’s set of beliefs appears to be inconsistent. It may be that there are certain spiritual benefits to our being in this situation – primarily, humility, and seeing the vast gulf between God and oneself – which would make it overall a good idea for God to put us in this plight. But Anderson shows none of the profound desire to suffer by having paradoxical beliefs that is so prominent in Kierkegaard (Bagger, ch 2). Salvation is by grace, though faith – not by intellectual pain. Nor does Anderson hope to merge with the divine in some trans-rational meditative experience. So I think Mysterian Resistance is different from anything Bagger discusses.

I could come up with an all “R” synonym for Mysterian Resistance: maybe – Rational Resistance. I think James wouldn’t mind that. More importantly, it seems to me that those I’ve called Negative and Positive Mysterians provide an epistemic response to this issue – roughly, that it is reasonable for us to expect that in thinking of the transcendent God (or Ultimate Reality) we should meet with paradoxes which in the end turn out to be barely intelligible claims (Negative Mysterians) or with firm and steady apparent contradictions (Positive Mysterians).  Then I’d have: Rational, Reveling, and Reunifying Resistance.

Or maybe I’ll go all “M” for the species of Resistance: Mysterian, Merging, and Monkish Resistance.

What do you folks think? I’m inclined to go all “R”, especially since it was the letter “R” which sponsored this post.

Why the mania for alliteration? Just a heuristic device. But it could be argued that it’s evidence of a sick obsession with details on my part.

God, is that you?

Sam Storms, in a post at Parchment and Pen:

Conception: God became a fertilized egg! An embryo. A fetus. God kicked Mary from within her womb!

Birth: God entered the world as a baby, amid the stench of manure and cobwebs and prickly hay in a stable. Mary cradled the Creator in her arms. “I never imagined God would look like that,” she says to herself.

…Some are bothered when I speak of Jesus like this. They think it is irreverent and shocking!

But his purpose is not to shock, but to amaze.

The Word became flesh! Amazing! Merry Christmas!

It certainly is shocking and amazing, this claim that God (or a divine person within God) became a man. But why?

• Not just because it is unusual. (It certainly is – I haven’t met any human claiming to be a god, although claims like this are found in many polytheistic religions.)
• Not just because it involves a miracle. (i.e. the miraculous conception of Jesus without a human father)
• Not just because it involves a change in God. (i.e. not being human, to being human)
• Not just because it involves God having surprising qualities.

No, the reason the claim shocks is that it seems contradictory, and for that reason, it seems false.

But it takes some effort to see this. Storms simply bombards us with claims that sound a little off. e.g.

…the invisible became visible!

the untouchable became touchable!

…the unlimited became limited!the infinite became finite!

the immutable became mutable!

…spirit became matter!

…the almighty became weak!

He wishes to produce amazement, but not disbelief (which would result from straight up saying the contradiction). Thus, the reader is left to discern – and be amazed by – the contradiction which is always just out of view.

Take the last one – the omnipotent God becomes a weak fetus or baby. That’s just a change – no contradiction there.

Problem: most careful, reflective theists – Christian and not – think that God is essentially omnipotent. It is a contradiction to say that a being which is essentially omnipotent became weak, for what is to any degree weak is not omnipotent. Again, the ancient, classical view of God has him being essentially immutable – not something which happens to be immutable, but might have been mutable. It is a contradiction to say that something which is essentially immutable changes.

I humbly suggest that we ought not indulge in amazement that a contradiction is true, for we all know that no contradiction is or can ever be true. No, not even on Christmas, and not even if this sort of mystery-mongering is traditional, which it is.

There are orthodox/catholic theories which attempt to solve these problems – kenosis theory in particular, and unitarians (who chime in with dismayed comments on Storms’s post) have their own solutions. But apparently “Reclaiming the Mind” is put on hold this time of year. Kenosis theory, as developed by recent Christian philosophers, holds that what are usually thought of as essential divine features – e.g. omnipotence, omniscience – are not essential to a divine being after all.Thus, the divine Word can at least temporarily be, e.g. to some degree ignorant, weak.

Interestingly, this move – demoting a traditional divine attribute from essential to non-essential doesn’t work in the case of immutability. The concept of any being changing from being immutable (unchangeable) to being mutable (changeable) is a contradiction – even if at the start it was only contingently (non-essentially) immutable. It looks like if something’s unchangeable, it must be essentially inchangeable. Interesting.

(Don’t get it? Suppose that a thing changes from being unchangeable to being changeable. That’s a change, right? So, it wasn’t, at the start, unchangeable. And yet – we stipulated that it was. The scenario as a whole is contradictory.)

This is why sophisticated contemporary proponents of kenosis theory like Stephen T. Davis simply deny that God is immutable in the classical sense. In their view, God can and does change – not in his character, but in some of his other features. In patristic times, they would have dismissed this out of hand, but I think theists are on strong grounds to think that God changes in some respects. Any real response, any free action on God’s part, is going to involve him changing, is it not? e.g. His creating the cosmos from nothing.

So this Christmas, do be amazed that God sent his one and only Son to redeem sinners like us. But, don’t be amazed that God makes contradictions true, ’cause he doesn’t. And if you agree that Jesus is the most important and interesting man in history, make it your project in 2011 to find for yourself a consistent and biblical christology.

Kudos to theologian James Anderson (blog) for significant correspondence – he’s intellectually honest, smart, tough-minded, and humble – a pleasure to discuss things with. Thanks also to my colleagues for enduring multiple drafts and re-writes.

In this paper, my main task is evaluating the mysterianism of James’s book. My view may be more nuanced that some would guess, based on my earlier work. I concede that in principle it can be reasonable to believe an apparent contradiction. I’m not optimistic about the actual prospects of having such beliefs, though.

It seems that James and I mostly disagree about the Bible, not about epistemology – he strongly endorsing, and me eschewing apparently contradictory interpretations of it regarding God and Christ.

The paper, especially the first part, has a lot to do with this long series here at trinities, though it is more focused.

I hope it’ll be a book chapter some day.

Not having seen the book, I can’t be sure what is going on here. Here are some options:

1. The writer is terribly uninformed.
2. The writer is feigning ignorance in a misguided attempt to instill delight and wonder into science.
3. The writers is feigning ignorance in an attempt to multiply “mysteries”. If there are a lot of “mysteries” (realities we don’t understand) in nature, then any theological mysteries will be unproblematic. Call this “innocence by association” apologetics.
4. The writer is ham-handedly trying to make a (controversial) Kantian point about science – that it only reveals how things appear and not how they really are.

I’d like to believe that 1 is unlikely. It could be that all of 2-4 are going on here. Either way, this is clearly educational malpractice, especially the “All anyone knows is that…” part.

Anyone out there have the actual book?