First, a few clarifications. By “modalist” I do not mean “Sabellian” or “monarchian.” (Those ancient catholics probably did hold to various forms of modalism, but the term is not a historical one, and can refer to other views which probably no ancient person held.) Nor do I mean modalism by definition to be heretical relative to orthodox/catholic creeds. What I mean is that at least one of these – Father, Son, Spirit – is a mode of the one God, in some sense a way that God is. That last phrase is deliberately ambiguous.

In his recent Christmas sermon the Pope said:

In all three Christmas Masses, the liturgy quotes a passage from the Prophet Isaiah, which describes the epiphany that took place at Christmas in greater detail: “A child is born for us, a son given to us and dominion is laid on his shoulders; and this is the name they give him: Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace. Wide is his dominion in a peace that has no end” (Is 9:5f.). … A child, in all its weakness, is Mighty God. A child, in all its neediness and dependence, is Eternal Father. …

God has appeared – as a child. It is in this guise that he pits himself against all violence and brings a message that is peace. (emphases and link added)

This last phrase, X has appeared as S, is ambiguous. It could mean that X has manifested as it really is, really being S. Or it could mean that X appeared to be (whether or not X really is) S. But given the Catholic theological tradition, I assume the first is meant here. God has appeared as a human baby, meaning, at least at that time, he really was a baby. This is not to comment on a quality or property he has; rather, the idea is that he was numerically identical to this baby. This baby, this little human self – was the same self as God. The one true God, that is, the Father, just was certain baby.

But doesn’t the Father differ from the Son, and from the Spirit? Sure. The child just is the Son. And this is a “guise” of God/the Father. The Son is a different guise than the Father, and both are different guises from the Spirit. Which is just to say, these three ways God acts are really three such ways.

The view seems to be this: God is a single self: the Father/Son/Spirit – call him what you will. Any two of those are the same god as one another, and so the same self as one another. If considered as guises, as ways of appearing to us, then they are different – the Father-guise is not the Son-guise, etc. But it is one and the same self who may, as it were, put any of them on.

Coincidentally, the Pope brings up St. Francis, saying that

Francis loved the child Jesus, because for him it was in this childish estate that God’s humility shone forth. God became poor. His Son was born in the poverty of the stable. In the child Jesus, God made himself dependent, in need of human love, he put himself in the position of asking for human love – our love. (emphases added)

Again, the baby (and so, the Son) is a guise of God – a way God appears and is. He continues with a bit of traditional human-reason-bashing, and then back to his main point:

…if we want to find the God who appeared as a child, then we must dismount from the high horse of our “enlightened” reason. We must set aside our false certainties, our intellectual pride, which prevents us from recognizing God’s closeness. … We must bend down, spiritually we must as it were go on foot, in order to pass through the portal of faith and encounter the God who is so different from our prejudices and opinions – the God who conceals himself in the humility of a newborn baby. (emphases added)

Suppose that a priest named Len is very learned. Yet when among simple folk, he adopts the persona of a simple man, so as to relate better to them. Learned Len conceals himself in Simple Len – for there is far more to Len than we see in Simple Len. In those moments, Len really is Simple Len – that’s really him, using simple words, eschewing the airs and manners of a scholar – he is really acting in that way. And yet, that way, that guise, is inherently misleading; it would naturally lead one to think Len to be unlearned. One could call Learned Len a “guise” of Len too, though it doesn’t tend to mislead about how he really is.

Simple Len and Learned Len aren’t two men any more than the Father and Son, in the Pope’s view, are two gods. They “are” the one God. Or more accurately, he thinks that God, the Father, appears as a human – the Son, the human being, is a guise of God. Of course, there’s more to God that we see in this baby (child, man) but that’s while God conceals himself, that is, certain features of himself, by appearing to us in this way.

This view of God and Jesus is arguably a theological disaster.

But am I right that this is the current Pope’s view? Can anyone point us to some other relevant statements by him?

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!

(continued) Unbeknownst to Brian and Rich, powerful aliens from Alpha Centuri were listening in on their conversation. The aliens thought it a shame that Rush was not a musician. After some discussion, they decided to make a band which was otherwise just like Rush, but which was itself, or rather, himself, a musician – a power trio who was a virtuoso. For starters, they copied the patterns of Peart, Lee, and Lifeson, ensuring they could duplicate their musical abilities. Then, they set about making a power-trio-man.

It seemed to them that Lee was the font of Rush. So first they created the new Lee. But they made him with an unstoppable urge to rock, and a power, like theirs, to create things from nothing. He automatically gave rise to the new Lifeson, who immediately knew that while a guitarist and a bassist may jam together, the band would take on a whole new qualitative dimension were it to get an excellent drummer. And so Lee and Lifeson cooperated to bring into existence the new Peart. The three immediately knew that they had all it took to rock mightily, and so had no overriding motive to bring about a fourth band member. All of this happened in an instant, the moment Lee was made – he gave rise to Lifeson, and the two of them gave rise to Peart. Given the existence and nature of Lee (that is, the new one), it was inevitable that the new Lifeson and the new Peart should also exist. Thus was Rush 2.0 born.

If that were all the aliens had done, you’d probably think that this was the genesis of a band, but not of a power-trio-musician. But the aliens did more. First, they assured that Lee was a perfect musician, and that the other two were as well. Second, they built the three so that they could not but cooperate. None could grandstand, go his own direction, or lose concentration; when Rush 2.0 played, the three played perfectly together. Finally, they did this by tying the wills together in an odd way. Each was unable to make a choice unless each of the others consented; and all of this happened as quickly as one agent normally makes a decision. Truly, they played as one.

But the aliens decided that Rush 2.0 was not one musician. It was much like a musician – it was a unified source of actions, and one could imagine that it, like its parts, had a will of its own. But it had neither consciousness, nor knowledge, nor will, though it could be, confusingly, described as such, because each of its parts had those features.

But a few among these creative alien rock fans were not willing to give up. They modified Rush 2.0 into Rush 3.0, by giving the band’s members perfect access to one another’s thoughts, breaking down a sort of mental privacy that normally separates persons one from another. They thought that functional unity was not enough; what was needed to make the three one musician was “mutual interpenetration.” This involved the sort of telepathic transparency noted, but also required that the being of each should somehow overlap. First, they partially merged the bodies of the three so that they all shared a foot. This seriously complicated Peart’s drumming, but their virtuosity remained intact. But this seemed to make them just three cooperating, intimate musicians sharing a foot – not a musician. So they made the body overlap total.

In the end, Rush 3.0 looked like a one-man band. On stage, one observed just one figure with oddly incoherent features furiously playing some very odd instruments. But this one body was shared by three souls; three agents, their wills unbreakably tied together as described, and with total access to one another’s thoughts, continued to play together. As Rush 3.0 took the stage, the aliens observed that each man would introduce himself, taking turns with the one mouth, but no fourth musician would introduce himself.

The aliens decided that Rush 3.0, though it looked from the outside like a musician, was not itself a musician. A musician was a man, not a body, and Rush 3.0 consisted, for all their efforts, of three men, three very intimate and unified men sharing a body. The aliens couldn’t imagine any way to make them further overlap short of annihilating two of the there souls, and so, two of the three musicians. So, they gave up. At best, they could produce a mutant which could be mistaken for a power-trio-musician. Being scrupulously honest, they wouldn’t consider presenting this mutant to the masses and telling them that it was a musician. They decided that a guitar-bass-drums power trio would always be a trio of musicians, and never itself a musician. 

“Is this your first Rush concert?”

“Yes, I’m so excited.”

Rich and Brian had been talking about this for months. Like geeky hard rock fans worldwide, they had long been in awe of Neal Peart’s furious and precise drumming, Geddy Lee’s dancing bass and soaring vocals, and the rich textures and screams of Alex Lifeson’s electric guitar. This was their first Rush concert, and they crowded towards the entrance with thousands of other fans, many decked out in concert t-shirts.

But Rich and Brian had an edge over nearly all of them: backstage passes. “I can’t wait to meet him,” said Rich.

“Who?”

“Rush.”

Brian gave him a strange look but said nothing.

Rich continued, “I want to ask him how he came up with the lyrics for 2112, how many classical guitar lessons he took, and how he keeps his voice in shape.”

“You mean, you want to ask Neal the first question, Alex the second, and Geddy the third?”

“Sure – they’re all Rush. But I do think that Rush is the greatest rock musician ever.”

“Rich… Rush isn’t a musician. Rush is a band.”

“Yes, I know, but they play so well together, it is as if they were one musician – one musician playing three instruments at once – sometimes four, when Geddy uses the bass pedals and plays keyboard too. Man, Rush is the best. He’s so talented.”

“You mean, they’re so talented, right?”

“Strictly, yes. I think Rush is a real thing, with three musicians for parts, but it is not literally a person, much less a musician. But we can say, without confusion, that Rush plays a mean guitar, is an awesome drummer, and sings in a high, spacey way.”

“No, we can’t! If you said that, say, to your little brother, you would only confuse him. Remember, he thinks Pink Floyd is a guy whose first name is ‘Pink!’”

The concert was a memorable one, and Rich and Brian much enjoyed their brief backstage meeting with their heroes. To Brian’s relief, faced with the band itself, Rich seemed to drop his strange speculations, and only addressed questions to one musician at a time. Perhaps he realized that Rush itself would have no voice to reply, nor any thoughts to express. “A band,” thought Brian to himself, “is made of musicians, but is not itself a musician.”

Surely Brian’s last point is correct. We may disagree about whether the band Rush a thing in its own right or merely a collection of things, but all should agree that it is not a musician. And even if it is a thing, just because it is composed of musicians, just because it has musicians as parts, it doesn’t follow that it is a musician itself. It isn’t. When Rush is on stage, only three musicians are playing, not four – even when four instruments are being played.

(to be continued…)

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.

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?

This time, the second and final part of our tale. (Part 1.) It features staggering scientific breakthroughs and moderate fool-pitying, so it should be suitable for all audiences. 

Bill went on to serve for several decades at the Central Police Station, and often enjoyed regaling guests or fellow employees with tales of the two most confused polygamists he’d run across. “Probably too much of the firewater,” he’d opine, “or else, too much metaphysics!” He even gussied up the stories a bit, making the first feature identical triplets, and the second, two sets of conjoined twins. (In the improved version, the man insisted that he’d only two wives, but plainly, he had four – just, in pairs).

But the young Bill never expected the amazing advances in science that took place throughout his career, and for the most staggering alleged polygamy case he could imagine. In brief, it’d been discovered that Aristotelian-Thomist dualists were correct. A human self, it turned out, was the combination of a body and a substantial form, or soul. Both physicalists and Cartesian dualists now receded to the shadows for good, along with phylogiston chemists, ether physicists, and phrenologists. People now laughed at the bad old days when people dismissed souls out of hand as undetectable. Now, souls could easily be detected, and it could now be observed, via instruments, for example, that the soul leaves the body about five minutes and forty seconds after brain waves have ceased. And the rough date of “quickening” was known as well. Early fetuses, it turned out, lacked souls, and so were not human persons, until about mid-way through the third month.

It had been awhile since Bill had seen a polygamy prosecution, but on this particular day, officer Young brought him a distraught young man named Mr. Gill Tea.

“Mr. Tea,” queried Bill, “I see that you’re charged with polygamy.”

“I’m guilty as sin,” bawled the young Mr. Tea.

This is a new one, thought Bill. I guess they don’t all deny it. “Guilty, eh. How many wives do you have?”

“Two, sir. But I didn’t know.”

“What, you couldn’t tell them apart?”

“Yes, well, no. Well, sort of.”

It turned out that Gill had married what he thought was a young woman named Sue. Sometimes, Sue was mellow, slack, almost depressed. And at other times, her life was a manic whirl of activity, and she was the life of the party. At these times, she called herself “Suzie.”

“I thought it was just her style, to use that zippier, more upbeat sounding name when she was ‘up’. And she responded so well to the meds.”

“Medicine?”

“Yes, for manic-depression. When she took that, she was always Sue. Little did I know!”

It turned out that what looked like one woman was in fact two women sharing a body. A human being, everyone now knew, was a soul combined with a body. But thanks to the new soul-detection technology, it was known that this body contained two souls, only one of which could “drive” the body at a time. The medicine in question, it turned out, simply prevented the Suzie-soul from taking the driver’s seat. But it still composed Suzie all along, just as the same body plus a different soul composed Sue.

And the pitiable Mr. Tea had unknowingly married both. After inadvertently courting the both of them, he married Sue is a lovely traditional ceremony. Then, on a trip to Vegas, he was surprised when Suzie insisted on hitting a drive through wedding chapel, and redoing the paperwork and everything with the name “Suzie.” He called this event re-affirming their vows, but he eventually noticed that Suzie simply called it their wedding.

As Bill knew, this was actually a well-known phenomenon. It had turned out that what used to be called “multiple personality disorder” victims (a diagnosis now discarded) fell into two camps: malfunctioning selves, and multiple selves sharing a body. Gill’s wives Sue and Suzie were examples of the latter – their souls two, but with only a body between them.

“I wouldn’t be too worried, Mr. Tea,” said Bill. You’ll just have to divorce one. Society is very tolerant of adultery these days, especially if your spouse has no objection to it.”

“I’m a good Mormon!” blurted Gill.

“I’m sure you are, son. Say, have you ever thought of refuting the charge?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re a polygamist only if Sue and Suzie are not the same wife.”

“Yes.”

“But, what if you argued that they are the same wife?” suggested Bill.

“That’s nonsense. A wife just is a certain woman. And we all know that they’re not the same woman, for a woman is a soul-body compound, and Sue is one such compound, and Suzie’s another.”

“Not so fast. What if you admit that a woman just is a certain soul-body compound, but argue that different women can be the same wife?”

“I don’t understand. A wife just is a certain woman. I pity the fool who relies on that argument.”

“Mr. Tea, stop your fool-pitying. I’ve seen a lot of cases like this. Bear with me.”

“I’m listening.”

“See, you admit that Sue is not Suzie, and Suzie isn’t Sue. But you urge that they should be counted as one.”

“What does that mean, though?”

“It means that they share a single body.”

“Yeah, well… that seems like, I don’t know, an abuse of language. I mean, Sue’s a good wife. Suzie is not such a good wife. So, they just can’t be the same wife. If they were, they’d be equally good or bad at wifing.”

“I see your point,” conceded Bill. He gave up his attempt to coach the pitiable Mr. Tea. In the end, Mr. Tea too was convicted, but only of involuntary polygamy, and the judge suspended his fine.

Bonus internet nonsense here.

 Here’s a bit of fresh fiction, possibly part of a future paper or book some day. Of course, there is purpose behind the madness. (See 2.2.2 here.) It is dedicated to philosopher Bill Hasker. Enjoy.

It was a quiet day at the Salt Lake City Central Police Station. Bill looked at the clock and fiddled with his pen. Two hours till quitting time, and he’d only booked two new arrests. Little did he know, it would still turn out to be an interesting day.

“Bill, wake up.” It was officer Smith, escorting a bearded man in handcuffs. “Book this fellow, would you?”

It was a polygamy case. Bill had seen these from time to time. Although the state of Utah had always outlawed polygamy, and the Mormon church had stopped the practice in 1890, ever since, there had been holdouts, people the media called “Mormon Fundamentalists” who insisted on practicing the old Brigham Young lifestyle, usually out in the boondocks.

“But I’m innocent,” insisted the accused, whose name was Mr. Dienay.

“That’s what they all say,” mumbled Bill, filling out a form.

“Seriously, I have but one wife. But they say I have two.”

“Well, Mr. Dienay, you’ll have you chance to prove that in court. Now, who lives with you?”

“There are my children Alma, Nephi, Ether, and Moroni.” Bill recorded their names, dates of the birth, sexes.

“And there’s my wife Polly. And there’s my wife Molly.”

“I thought you said you only had one wife.”

“Oh, they’re the same wife!”

Bill adopted an uncomprehending stare. “The same wife,” he flatly echoed.

“Absolutely.”

“Mr. Dienay,” continued Bill, “please describe them.”

“Well, Molly is a brunette, about as tall as me, and fair-skinned. Polly is a redhead, very short, and has freckles.”

“And they’re the same wife.”

“Yes.”

“If they were the same wife, wouldn’t they be exactly… the same?”

“Oh no, sir. But they’re one wife, all right. I’m a monogamist.”

“That means that you have only one wife, I mean, at a time.”

“I know what “monogamist” means! A monogamist is a man who is married to some woman, and any wife he has is the same wife as her.”

“So, a monogamist can have more than one wife?”

“You’re not listening. Polly and Molly are one wife.”

“Um… what do you mean, what you say that they are one wife.”

“They’re to be counted as one.”

“Yes, I get that… but why?”

“Because, they have exactly the same DNA. Polly and Molly are identical twins. And when the DNA is the same, the wife is the same. They differ, yes, and are two women, but when you understand how to count them, you’ll get the right count, my friend: one. One wife.”

“Good luck with that defense,” laughed Bill. With that, he sent Mr. Deinay to his cell.

As Bill pondered this interesting way of counting wives, officer Smith returned with another arrestee to book. His too was charged with being married simultaneously to two women, and like Mr. Deinay, he denied the charge. His name was Mr. Joyner.

“Mr. Joyner, I need your wives’ names, please.”

“I only have just one wife, sir.”

Bill paused and squinted. “Mr. Joyner, if your one wife puts on a hat, how many hats does she put on?”

“Two.”

“Mr. Joyner, how many full names does your one wife have?”

“Two – Mrs. Jill Joyner and Mrs. Jane Joyner.”

Bill was on to him. “Mr. Joyner, are your wives… I mean, are Jill and Jane identical twins?”

“No, sir. But they are twins.”

“When your one wife puts on a pair of pants, how many pairs does she put on?”

“One – but it’s a special one, with three legs! My wife Jill and Jane are conjoined twins. They share a leg.”

“That’s interesting. I’ve heard of conjoined ladies marrying, but usually it is two two different gentlemen. Anyway, Mr. Joyner, you have two wives. I assume you’re going to plead guilty.”

“No – I’m innocent! How can a monogamist like me confess to bigamy?”

“Mr. Joyner, what do you think a monogamist is?”

“A monogamist, sir, is a man who is married to a woman, and any woman that is his wife has a body not wholly distinct from that woman’s body.”

“So you think that Jill and Jane are one wife.”

“Yes, can you not count?”

“They’re different, so they’re two!”

“Well, two ladies, sure. But you count wives by discrete bodies. If some ladies share a body, or a part of a body, they are exactly one wife. Different wives have non-overlapping bodies.”

Bill had heard enough. “That’s ridiculous. Don’t you know what a wife is?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” shot back Mr. Joyner.

“A wife just is a certain woman, a person, a being with feelings, knowledge, free will.”

“Your point being…?”

“You’ve got two of those. It’s just that they can’t be separated, and they share a body part or two.”

“You’re begging the question,” protested Mr. Joyner.

Both Mr. Joyner and Mr. Deinay lost their cases, and both spent time in Utah low-security penitentiaries.

To be continued…

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?

This is my last entry in the discussion; I may or may not comment, but no more posts.

Again, this is what I hear from him:

• Yes, the divine nature is a universal, shared by the Three. But let’s not make any Platonic assumptions about forms/universals being in some other realm than what has them, or being more fundamental.

Indeed, let’s not.

Are the persons parts of the Trinity, for him?

He brings up the Mandelbrot set. This is an abstract object. It doesn’t have parts, but rather members. Is he suggesting that the Trinity is a set, with members rather than parts? That it has infinite members? I don’t know.

Then, a digression about analogy. Of course, my point was: don’t you think God is literally a self? (Not: Is God analogous to a self?)

Perhaps he assumes that all terms that apply to God do so only analogically. I think that’s obviously false; we have terms that express concepts abstract to be satisfied by either God or a creature. e.g. “exists,” “conscious,” “similar to God.”

Or maybe he’s just worried about painting himself into the Quaternity corner.

I think Tuggy is now insinuating that the Trinity devolves into the Quaternity.

There goes that Tuggy again, insinuating things about the doctrine! No, the subject is just: what Steve Hays thinks.

The Trinity would not be a “self” in the same sense that the constituent members are “selves.” The Trinity is not a fourth person, over and above the three persons. Rather, each person is conscious of what the other two are conscious of. Not just that each person is conscious of the other two persons, but conscious of their consciousness.

So no, the Trinity isn’t a self in the same sense each person is. This conveniently leaves it an open question whether or not it is a self in any other sense, and whether it’s literally a self, or only analogous to a self.

But perhaps his final answer is that it (the Trinity) really is an it, not a he.

The “owner” of the “corporate viewpoint” is each member of the Trinity. That’s because each person not only has his own first-person viewpoint, but is also privy to the viewpoint of the other two.

I conclude, then, that in his view there are three, not four conscious beings here, and three points of view. It’s just that each also can (and always does, I assume) adopt the viewpoint of both the others.

About his “data” of revelation; he’s unable to see that some of these are precisely what are at issue. In other words, he begs the question, because he’s not able to adopt the perspective of those he would refute.

Now, finally: I switch to brief criticism:

This looks to me basically like a poorly developed “social” Trinity theory

We have three beings here, each of which fully has the property of divinity. Thus, it looks like we have three gods. Yes, I know that surely he intends it to be monotheistic. So, the theory seems inconsistent.

What is the Trinity? A group? A composite thing? A set with members? A quasi-self? He doesn’t know. But it seems that he wants to deny the one God to literally be a self. If so, he goes hard against the Bible, throughout. God knows, acts, gets mad, makes and carries out plans, stands in an I-thou relationship to Jesus, as well as to disciples of Jesus. Further, I’m willing to bet that like just about all Christians, he interacts with God as a self to a self.

Evidently, Steve hopes that positing perfect mental access between the three deities will somehow imply their being one god. But, that has not been shown. It looks like a picture of three gods with perfect access to each others’ minds.

I think this is all a poor fit with the Bible.

But laying aside that, is it creedally orthodox? Not clear. While the creeds say that all three must be “homoousios”, they also say that the Son is true God from true God. In Steve’s theory, does the Son derive his existence or divinity from the Father? I don’t know. All he’s said is that all three equally and fully possess divinity. So, I don’t know if his theory is orthodox by (small-c) catholic standards.

Update: as of 7/5/11, lots more long posts, with lots of accusations, flailing away to find some obvious confusion in my own views, but never addressing this monotheism objection. To the creedal worry, his answer is that being a Protestant, he doesn’t care if it is creedal or not. Fair enough. I’ve commented quite a bit over there, probably too much.

In sum, the one God is a perfect being, a perfect self, who is the Trinity. He has within himself three parts – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each of these parts fully has the (universal) divine nature, and so, each of the essential divine attributes. Each is a divine self. And these three parts are indistinguishable from one another, or nearly so, though they be numerically distinct.

Steve has now responded twice, here and here. These contain a lot of extraneous material, which I’ll pass by. My question is, what did I get wrong above? Here’s what I hear (bulleted):

• No, the Persons are not exactly alike. Each has a property the other two lack.
• “they share a “numerically identical” nature”

Right – “nearly so.”

Because he says this nature is shared, I’m going to infer that it is a universal – something capable of being had by multiple subjects.

• He wonders why I’m hearing things in terms of part and whole.

Steve, it’s not because you think God has multiple attributes. (Yes, I too reject the classical doctrine of simplicity, though I don’t think God has parts.) Rather, I’m trying to figure out what the relation is, in your view, between God/The Trinity and those three Persons. If it isn’t whole-parts, help me out!

• The Persons are so alike that any one “represents” either of the others.
• I don’t know what Tuggy means by “self.”

Sure you do - this is a rough, vague concept we all have. It is a thing which is conscious (yes, of self as well as other things), which can act for a reason (can choose, has a will), which is intelligent (has knowledge), and which can engage in friendship. If you speak to something, and think it may understand, even speak back, you think it is a self. Thus, I submit that you think God is a self, as I assume you speak to him. You sort of say that any divine person will be only analogous to a human self. Well, sure. But we have a more abstract concept of a self (which doesn’t imply being a human, or even being created, or having a body) which we should both agree is satisfied by, e.g. the Father.

I think I basically got his view right: there are four divine selves: God (The Trinity), the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This is confirmed by what he says after noting that in his view, each  Person of the Trinity has a first-person point of view:

Finally, wouldn’t their individual viewpoints include a corporate viewpoint? If God is a Trinity, then I’d expect the Son (to take one example) to have both an individual viewpoint (“I’m the Son”) and a corporate viewpoint (“We’re the Trinity”). The constituent members would also have a Trinitarian viewpoint, for they collectively constitute the Trinity.

This “corporate viewpoint” must have an owner, a subject, and that can only be the Trinity – that complex self. Why? e.g. the Son is not a we, but a he. But he adds,

Sorry, but I think this is confused. If I think, as an American, that football beats the crap out of soccer, that’s just another first-person point of view. It is just that the explanation for my having it, we’re assuming, is that I’m an American. The analogy would rather be this: just as each American has a first person perspective, so does America. So in his view, if e.g. the Son has a viewpoint as member of the Trinity, that just means that some subjective state of his is caused or explained by his relations to the Father and Spirit. This would be a three-self view of the Trinity, not a four-self view, which I think Steve holds to. But I’m sticking with the four-self interpretation, which is what I take it he thinks, or usually thinks.

He emphasizes that this is theological speculation, which it surely is. But I was asking what this Trinity theory is, which makes such great sense out of the Bible, better sense than any rival theory. I take it that this is it. If he wants to clarify further the relation between Trinity and the members of it, I’m all ears.

At the end of a recent exchange, I basically said: Dude, I don’t know what you think “the” doctrine of the Trinity is. What, in your view, does it mean to say that God is a Trinity?

He’s now responded here.

In this post, I try to understand just what he’s claiming, in other words, what he takes trinitarianism (rightly understood) to be.

This is a bit risky, because I think he’s confused about the concept of identity, and I’m trying to hear a self-consistent view here.

The first job in critical thinking is carefully listening to what the source at hand is saying. Here I listen carefully, editing out a lot of his methodological musings and terminological quibbles, trying to get to the meat of his view.

I think the meat starts here:

A conventional list of divine attributes would be something like the following: existence, omnipotence, omniscience, timelessness, spacelessness, aseity, love, wisdom, will, justice, mercy, goodness, speech, truth, unity, unicity, triality.

He then points out that in his view, God shares some attributes with other beings, while others are uniquely his. So,

…if a subject possesses even one uniquely-divine attribute, then, by implication, he must posses every uniquely-divine attribute. Likewise, he will posses the unique set of divine attributes.

The divine attributes include psychological attributes, like love, mercy, will, wisdom, justice, and omniscience. This implies a rational, personal agent.

Right. So, the one God is a perfect self – a being with will and intelligence. I agree.

…what does it mean to believe in three persons who are one God?

1) One elementary formula says God is three in person, but one in nature.

2) What is meant by God’s “nature”?

God’s nature is defined by the divine attributes (see above).

3) What is mean by “person”?

A subject possessing the psychological attributes which the Bible ascribes to God (see above).

4) What is mean by “one” in nature?

On God’s nature – we’re in the dark about whether it is a universal (shared by the Persons) or whether it is an individual thing, a component which could only by had by one thing. As the persons of the Trinity, I assume that he wants to say that they each have all the divine attributes, not merely the psychological or mental ones.  Later he says,

…each member [of the Trinity] possesses the sum-total of the divine attributes.

And I’m going to assume that he holds the divine nature to be a universal which is possessed equally by each of the Three.

After 4) he goes on an excursion about monotheism and the Bible. Eventually, of a text in Deuteronomy:

It says only Yahweh can be the true God, but it doesn’t say who can be Yahweh

and on the famous monotheistic passages in the middle of Isaiah:

They contrast Yahweh’s unique knowledge, power, and control with the idol-gods of paganism–who are false gods precisely because they lack these attributes.

But, of course, the Father, Son, and Spirit in Trinitarian theology possess these attributes. Therefore, the exclusive claims of Yahweh in Isa 40-48 don’t exclude the Trinity. They don’t create any presumption against the Trinity. They don’t speak to that issue one way or the other.

We can ask here, of whom is Isaiah speaking? Who is this YHWH? We might well think it is the Father, since the NT plainly presupposes that the Father of Jesus and the one true God Yahweh are one and the same. Of course then anyone else, would not be the one true God.

But if I understand him, Steve thinks Isaiah there speaks of the one perfect Self, who later, we learn, is the Trinity. Isaiah of course doesn’t say anything about whether or not this perfect Self contains or is somehow composed of other selves.

What is more, the NT applies Isaian monotheistic passages to Christ. That’s something he shares in common with the Father.

So in Steve’s view, both Father and Son are taught to “be” Yahweh, that is, to be parts (members?) of this one great Self which is the Trinity. He’s none too clear about this part-whole relationship. But he says,

Bottom line: Trinitarian Protestants are only required to affirm the unicity of God as Scripture describes the unicity of God. Scripture doesn’t tell us that the Father, Son, and Spirit can’t be the “one” God if some things are true of the Father that are not true of the Son and Spirit, or vice versa.

The “unicity of God” I take it stands for the claim that there is exactly one true God, this being YHWH/The Trinity.

Finally, a flurry of three dollar words:

…if I were attempting to explain how it’s possible for God to be three-in-one, I’d invoke enantiomorphism to model the one-over-many relation. The persons of the Godhead mirror each other, in point-by-point correspondence. The internal structure of the Godhead exhibits self-similarity.

Yet mirror symmetries are not interchangeable, for chirality is irreducible. Their interrelation is equipollent, yet irreducibly distinct.

Is a mirror symmetry one or many? That’s a false dichotomy. Enantiomorphism exhibits both properties.

In plain English, I think this amounts to: The Trinity (“the Godhead”) is a complex whole, a compound Self who has three parts (the three divine selves), and these three parts are exactly alike one another.

In sum, the one God is a perfect being, a perfect self, who is the Trinity. He has within himself three parts – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each of these parts fully has the (universal) divine nature, and so, each of the essential divine attributes. Each is a divine self. And these three parts are indistinguishable from one another, or nearly so, though they be numerically distinct.

Steve, is this right? I await correction here or at your blog, before putting forth any objections.

The way that the catholic Athanasius addressed this syllogism was to ask what might we mean by saying ‘ungenerated’. Perhaps we mean ‘does not come into existence’. If that is what we mean by ‘ungenerated’, then (says Athanasius) we can say that the Son is ‘ungenerated’ in just this sense. Hence, the syllogism doesn’t go through.

Now, Dale has (for awhile) raised the question, ‘is God a self?’ And, if we answer in the affirmative, then it looks like there is just one God-self, and that’s the Father. It seems to me that this question that Dale has been asking (again and again) is analogous, for the catholic Christian at least, to Arius’s apparently straightforward syllogism (i)-(iii). Athanasius’s response is to deny (ii) if by (ii) we mean “the Son comes into existence.”

Athanasius had to work out some possible definitions or meanings of the term ‘ungenerated’ in order to figure out which premise of Arius’s syllogism to reject. Along these lines I’ve wondered, ‘what does Dale, or anyone, mean by the term “self’?”‘ I hope in the future to write something about this. It seems to me that in addition to exegetical concerns of the NT, Dale is transfixed by this question, at least from my catholic point of view, much like Arius was transfixed by his syllogism.

Here, and here.

There’s some heat in addition to light, but it gets better as it goes on, and the inimitable James Anderson weighs in.

We discuss probably the favorite unitarian proof-text, John 17:3, as well as contradictions and methodological things.

Perhaps the most interesting point is Steve’s & James’s desire to somehow separate concern with consistency from exegesis. I think that isn’t, can’t, and ought not be done.

Check it out.

Update: some 4 posts so far. Have left lengthy comments.

Update: next to last installment.

Update: last.

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.

Thanks be to God, later in the Spring of 2000, I was hired for a tenure track teaching job. I paid my dues prepping numerous classes, bought a more serious winter jacket, and really learned how to shovel snow.

In the Spring of 2001, I wrote the first version of what eventually became my “Unfinished Business” paper, and presented it at an SCP meeting in Rochester, NY. I must have sent this at some point to my friend Stephen Davis, because later in the Spring I received an unexpected email from Richard Swinburne saying he’d been told I had a good paper on the Trinity, and asking me if I wanted to attend an SCP conference in, of all places, Moscow, Russia! My paper was a bit… un-Orthodox. (Short synopsis – social theories don’t work, “Latin” theories don’t work… What gives?) Even the old ladies who translated my paper into Russian said, “Duh, it’s a mystery!”, so I decided I needed to think more about that.

At the end of “Unfinished Business” I allude to a theory that I take to be a neglected, but arguably orthodox Trinity theory. I had in mind a view like Clarke’s (who I discussed briefly last time). But that didn’t work out – more on that next installment.

In Russia I had a few interesting conversations with Swinburne. In one, standing in Red Square, not far from Lenin’s tomb and the Kremlin, I objected that if he was right, then God would have deceived the Jews. He replied that evidently, I hadn’t read his book Revelation. I admitted that I had the book on my shelf, but hadn’t read it. I later did. It’s now in a 2nd edition, and I must say that I don’t entirely know what I think about it.

But regarding the OT, his view is that the meaning of a text is context relative. The Church having accepted the old Jewish scriptures into its canon, for the Church, those books mean what they were understood to mean upon being accepted.

His favorite example, which he told me then, and which I’ve heard him give since, is:

O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us - he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. (Ps 137:8-9, NIV)

For the Church, he says, this means that we should mercilessly kill off our sins or bad habits, or something like that. It is irrelevant, he argues, what the author may have meant when he wrote it.

I can’t bring myself to agree with this, for many reasons. But even granting this, I couldn’t see how it should soothe my worry, which was that in the OT, God revealed himself to be a great and good person, a god, a self. And if social theorists are right, this was evidently a lie, told  by three co-equal, always co-operating divine selves. What the Jews thought was a god, was really a tightly knit group (of divine persons, a.k.a. gods).

I don’t think all lies are wrong (“Yes ma’am, I do think your daughter makes a lovely bride.”)  - but this one appears to be wrong. I’m still thinking off and on about this issue, because of some helpful interactions with philosopher Bill Hasker, and it is clear to me that this sort of argument doesn’t count against all Trinity theories, and that it depends on the claim that the three always act in concert together – a claim which a trinitarian arguably needn’t hold (though it is a popular and much trumpeted assumption, in theological circles).

In any case, this concern about deception was one thing which pushed me away from any “social” Trinity theory. But a more important factor was that when I really dug hard into the Bible, I couldn’t find this wonderful fellowship, this quasi-family of divine persons there. It’s certainly not taught outright there, and I came eventually to think that it isn’t implied there either.

It’s easy to get off track on this point, because the personal relationship between Father and Son is a central theme of all the four gospels. Conspicuously absent are any portrayal of friendship with the Holy Spirit, and the idea that God just is this perfect community or fellowship.

This statement by John is telling in what it leaves out:

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 1 John 1:3, NIV

I also found that historically, this idea of the Trinity as a loving community basically isn’t there, isn’t represented in the mainstream catholic (Catholic-Orthodox-Protestant) tradition. The closest things are the Cappadocians’ occasional use of an analogy of three people, and Richard of St. Victor’s arguments in the high middle ages. But in the many Trinity wars – I mean, theological disputes – of the modern era (c. 1550-1850) this idea just isn’t in play. Maybe something like this view was held by the noted early medieval Christian philosopher John Philoponus, but it was quickly condemned as tritheism.

Back to the deception concern, I also found, in reading early modern philosophical theology after my “Deception” paper was done, that I wasn’t the first to raise sort of objection. More on that reading, including Clarke, and its influence on me, next time.

I remember going out for a walk one day around our neighborhood in Claremont; it was probably the dead of winter, but, you know, 55 degrees, since this was Southern California. I was praying, and I saw in someone’s front yard a sapling that had been tied of straight with a couple of stakes and cables, forcing it to grow straight. I knew that my own mind was enthusiastic but undisciplined, and I prayed that God would send me teachers to make me grow straight.

Of my twelve applications, I got into to three places, and I ended up  going to Brown University for my Ph.D. I had a great time there; no complaints at all. I’ll cover my time there in two posts.

The two who most influenced me were my dissertation adviser James Van Cleve and Victor Caston.

Victor is a ridiculously smart ancient and medieval specialist, interested particularly in philosophy of mind. I served as his Teaching Assistant for his ancient philosophy class, from which I learned a ton, and I attended Greek reading groups with him. Later, he would meet to read Aquinas with me in Latin. Urbane but not over-polite, with a smile he would simply call you out on your inconsistencies. He knew all the wiles of the species Homo Academicus, and he had an excellent way of ratting out bad philosophy, such as people parading a pet theory, skating by on the abuse of abstract nouns, or simply not reading a text carefully enough. This last one was a biggie. Having written his dissertation on Aristotle (and, on one of the most obscure issues in Aristotle), he was acutely aware of how medieval philosophers and 20th c. Thomists would misread Aristotle through the lenses of their own theories. He had an intense work ethic and attention to detail. I teased him about his caffeine intake, and about his paper with 400 references at the end. But I also tried to imitate his seriousness and precision. At one point, perhaps half way through, after reading a term paper of mine he informed me that I’d turned a corner in my development as a philosopher, and that meant a lot to me.

Van Cleve, who we students referred to as “JVC”, is another unique and dear man. Terrifically smart, he’s naturally humble and soft-spoken, but not easily swayed. He’ll sit there and listen through some big-shot philosopher’s paper, taking notes, then raise his hand, and without the slightest pretense puncture the whole thing with one soft spoken, sincerely asked question. He’s an early modern philosophy specialist, and honestly, I should have taken more with him than I did. One year he did a great graduate seminar on the philosophy of Thomas Reid. From a Caston course, I’d become interested in the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom, and had plunged into the literature on that problem, as well as the literature on what philosophers call logical fatalism. With Van Cleve, I read some fascinating work by logicians on temporal logics, work which was in large measure inspired by the traditional discussions. He has great patience in working through technical, dense material.

There were few Christian students at Brown (except my friend Michael Pace) and no openly Christian professors, and no philosophy of religion specialists. But I came to think this was good for me. Rather than immediately attaching myself to some great Christian philosopher and becoming his mini-me, I was forced to develop my own views. Happily, Caston and Van Cleve were both interested in many questions of philosophy of religion. And also, Brown was more theist-tolerant, I think, than some top programs, due to its most famous recent philosopher Roderick Chisholm (who retired just before I went to Brown – never met him) being somewhat of a closet theist. I think Brown’s philosophical culture at the time – tough-minded, but somewhat restrained, polite, was in large measure due to him. I’ve heard stories of other places literally making a sport of devouring visiting speakers. At Brown they’d refute you, but leave your dignity intact.

I also much appreciated Ernest Sosa. He too was an admirable intellect, a profound and original epistemologist. I took and greatly enjoyed a couple of his seminars, but ended up veering away from epistemology, and towards the history of philosophy and philosophy of religion. He too was kind and helpful to me. At the time, and I assume still, he was an ex-Christian agnostic, but being friendly with folks like Plantinga, he took the view that theists and non-theists can learn a lot from one another. I agree.

There were others who helped me too, but I’d better get to the Trinity part. Towards the end of my career at Brown, I started to think about the Trinity. At some point, two friends and I – my best Christian friend in the program and another friend who was a former Christian and agnostic, decided to read through Richard Swinburne’s The Christian God. Wow! Richard knows how to argue. These years later, this is still the most careful, most philosophically sophisticated presentation of social trinitarianism.  I was much impressed, though not entirely sure I believed it. I was soon aware that Ed Feser and Kelly James Clark had argued in print that Swinburne was a tritheist. But I thought, well, this doctrine is pretty important. So what if it is tritheism? Maybe trinitarianism just is the right sort of tritheism. I mean, his Persons necessarily cooperate, can’t disagree. They are all divine and they function as if they are one agent.

At some point, as was my habit, I was digging around in the bowels of Brown’s excellent library, and ran across a book by a theology Ph.D. named Thomas Pfizenmaier, on Samuel Clarke‘s views on the Trinity. I read it, and was fascinated. In brief, it was a lot like what Swinburne was saying; the persons of the Trinity were really persons/selves. All are called “God” in the Bible, but the Father was (in some mysterious sense) the source of the others, and Clarke argues, he’s called “God” in a higher sense of the term. Plainly, Clarke had done his homework. I obtained a copy of his massive Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, in which he numbers and sorts every verse in the New Testament that has to do with the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. He then quotes (in Greek or Latin) pre-Nicene church fathers on these, and translates those quotes, and in the end summarizes what he says is the biblical Trinity doctrine in 55 propositions. Amazing. Why is this book out of print? Why have these arguments been ignored by academic theology for the last 200+ years? The more I read, the more I wondered. Eventually I reprinted it myself.

In short, Swinburne made me a social trinitarian, though I didn’t call it that at the time. And Clarke too, I saw, had a three agent, three self view of the Trinity. I saw that this was in a sense a point of logic. If each “Person” really is a person, and some things are true of each that aren’t true of the other two, then we really do have three here. Modalism is out. I can’t remember if it was at Brown or shortly thereafter, but at some point I read articles by Cornelius Plantinga making a plausible case that “social” Trinity theories were what the 4th c. Greek fathers meant all along.

And I was becoming aware that one’s theological theories really shape how one interprets the Bible, to an alarming degree. This was an application of what I learned from Victor Caston. I realized that I needed to really revisit the whole issue, looking at the Bible on its own terms, and finding a consistent way to understand it. I’d had experiences in church of the preacher reading a text, and basically saying, with little shame, “Well, we can see here that it seems to say P. Of course, we all know that not-P is true.” And then he’d move on! There’s no integrity in that, I decided, and I just can’t be that smug, that complacent in what my tradition tells me it is supposed to say.

I also started to realize that despite the similarities, there were some pretty important differences between Swinburne and Clarke.

Next time: a book that changed my life.