My discovery that highly respected Christian philosopher William Lane Craig does not believe the Persons of the Trinity to be identical to God (because of the absurdities involved in the notion of three things being identical to a fourth thing but not to each other) is quite liberating. It’s good to know that my own views on the Trinity are scarcely less orthodox than those of such a highly respected Christian apologist. However, Craig’s view does leave open some important questions. For example, if he doesn’t think the Persons of the Trinity are identical with God, what does he think they are? And if the Persons can be referred to as God in a non-identity way, “such as ascribing a title or office… or ascribing a property”, does this mean that they really are God? If so, does Craig then think that the Godhead consists of one supreme God (the Trinity) and three lesser Gods (the Persons)? If Craig doesn’t think the Persons really are God then whatever he is defending, surely it is not the doctrine of the Trinity as traditionally understood by the Church, either protestant or catholic.
In my opinion, the reason why it is appropriate and meaningful to refer to the Son as God is that He fully reveals and represents God for us; the reason it is appropriate and meaningful to refer to God's Spirit as God is the fact that it is by His Spirit that God is present with us - and the fact that neither is strictly identical with God means that the word is best understood as being applied to them in a figurative or symbolic way.
Thursday 21 May 2015
Wednesday 20 May 2015
William Lane Craig, the Trinity and me
In my first post on this blog I explained that, because of the impossibility of three Persons being the same God and yet distinct from each other, I have come to the conclusion that the doctrine of the Trinity (DOT) is not true literally, but true in a figurative or symbolic way.
One of the possibilities I have considered in the past, though, is the idea that when we say that the Persons are God, we mean the word ‘God’ in a different sense to that in which we mean it when we say that there is only one God.
The traditional way to understand the DOT is the idea of there being one Divine Nature (or Being) that is shared by three Divine Persons. The problem is caused by the fact that not only the one Nature, but also the Persons, are referred to as God. If the word God has only one meaning, this would lead one to conclude that God is both something that there is only one of, and also something that there are three of. Cue cognitive dissonance!
However, if we take the word God to have one meaning when referring to the Divine Nature and a different meaning when referring to the Persons then the problem (at least the aspect of it under discussion) is resolved. There is only one God (in the Nature sense) and there are three Gods (in the Person sense).
I assumed that this way of looking at the DOT would not pass muster as being orthodox, as effectively it seems to imply that either the Persons are not God in the true sense of the word, or that there is actually more than one God, in which case Christianity would be a polytheistic religion – which it has certainly always claimed not to be!
However, after re-reading and considering the model of the Trinity posited by the well known and highly respected (at least among protestants) Christian apologist and philosopher William Lane Craig, I have come to the conclusion that this is exactly the model of the Trinity that he espouses – and, as far as I am aware, no one calls him a Unitarian or a Tritheist!
In Craig’s article, A Formulation and Defense of the Doctrine of the Trinity, in which he outlines his proposed description of the nature of God – a model which he calls Trinity Monotheism, "according to which God is a soul endowed with three sets of cognitive faculties, each sufficient for personhood" – he makes the following statements (my own comments are in italics):
‘We turn finally to Trinity Monotheism, which holds that while the persons of the Trinity are divine, it is the Trinity as a whole which is properly God. If this view is to be orthodox, it must hold that the Trinity alone is God and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while divine, are not Gods.‘
When Craig states that, for his view to be orthodox, it must hold that the Persons ‘are not Gods’, you might think he is merely stating that they are not God in the plural but that they are indeed God in the singular. But this is not the case, as we shall see.
‘The persons of the Trinity are not divine in virtue of exemplifying the divine nature. For presumably being triune is a property of the divine nature (God does not just happen to be triune); yet the persons of the Trinity do not exemplify that property. It now becomes clear that the reason that the Trinity is not a fourth instance of the divine nature is that there are no other instances of the divine nature. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not instances of the divine nature, and that is why there are not three Gods. The Trinity is the sole instance of the divine nature, and therefore there is but one God. So while the statement “The Trinity is God” is an identity statement, statements about the persons like “The Father is God” are not identity statements. Rather they perform other functions, such as ascribing a title or office to a person (like “Belshazzar is King,” which is not incompatible with there being co-regents) or ascribing a property to a person (a way of saying, “The Father is divine,” as one might say, “Belshazzar is regal”).’
So Craig does not think that the Persons are identical to God, although we may CALL them God, in a sense which is not meant to imply that they are instances of the Divine Nature.
‘…we could think of the persons of the Trinity as divine because they are parts of the Trinity, that is, parts of God. Now obviously, the persons are not parts of God in the sense in which a skeleton is part of a cat; but given that the Father, for example, is not the whole Godhead, it seems undeniable that there is some sort of part/whole relation obtaining between the persons of the Trinity and the entire Godhead.’
‘…if we think of the divinity of the persons in terms of a part/whole relation to the Trinity that God is, then their deity seems in no way diminished because they are not instances of the divine nature.’
‘…the part/whole relation at issue here does not involve separable parts. It is simply to say that the Father, for example, is not the whole Godhead. The Latin Church Father Hilary seems to capture the idea nicely when he asserts, “Each divine person is in the Unity, yet no person is the one God” (On the Trinity 7.2; cf. 7.13, 32).
‘On the other hand, it must be admitted that a number of post-Nicene creeds, probably under the influence of the doctrine of divine simplicity, do include statements which can be construed to identify each person of the Trinity with God as a whole. For example, the Eleventh Council of Toledo (675) affirms, “Each single person is wholly God in Himself,” the so-called Athanasian Creed (eighth century) enjoins Christians “to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord,” and the Fourth Lateran Council, in condemning the idea of a divine Quaternity, declares, “each of the Persons is that reality, viz., that divine substance, essence, or nature. . . . what the Father is, this very same reality is also the Son, this the Holy Spirit.” If these declarations are intended to imply that statements like “The Father is God” are identity statements, then they threaten the doctrine of the Trinity with logical incoherence. For the logic of identity requires that if the Father is identical with God and the Son is identical with God, then the Father is identical with the Son, which the same Councils also deny. ‘
I’m a bit flabbergasted by this! Craig, who considers himself a Trinitarian – and who regularly debates with Unitarians in defense of the Trinitarian cause – just came right out and stated plainly that if the creeds are taken to mean that the Persons of the Trinity are identical with God then they are logically incoherent! Well… yes! That’s the whole point, that’s the problem I’ve spent many long hours trying to surmount in the hope of avoiding being a heretic. But Craig seems to think it’s simply not an issue.
‘Protestants bring all doctrinal statements, even Conciliar creeds, especially creeds of non-ecumenical Councils, before the bar of Scripture. Nothing in Scripture warrants us in thinking that God is simple and that each person of the Trinity is identical to the whole Trinity. Nothing in Scripture prohibits us from maintaining that the three persons of the Godhead stand in some sort of part/whole relation to the Trinity. Therefore, Trinity Monotheism cannot be condemned as unorthodox in a biblical sense. Trinity Monotheism seems therefore to be thus far vindicated. ‘
‘In other words, God is not a single, isolated person, as unitarian forms of theism like Islam hold; rather God is a plurality of persons, as the Christian doctrine of the Trinity affirms. On the unitarian view God is a person who does not give Himself away essentially in love for another; He is focused essentially only on Himself. Hence, He cannot be the most perfect being. But on the Christian view, God is a triad of persons in eternal, self-giving love relationships. Thus, since God is essentially loving, the doctrine of the Trinity is more plausible than any unitarian doctrine of God.’(End of quotations.)
Basically, Craig believes that the one God is the Trinity itself, and that each of the Persons is something less than God. He describes them as being (at least in some sense) parts of God but clearly not identical to God, and therefore distinct from Him (It?).
Craig's model escapes the charge of being unitarian because God clearly exists as three Persons rather than merely one. However, I am surprised that he considers himself - and is considered by many others - to be orthodox when he believes that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit may be called God only in some secondary sense - denoting office or indicating possession of the quality or attribute of divinity (which he compares to the quality of being feline possessed by the parts of a cat). He clearly does not think that any of the Persons is actually the one true God, for his whole claim to monotheism rests on the fact that only the Trinity itself (ie. the combination of all three persons together) is to be ascribed that title.
I too believe in one God, though I believe that the one God is the Father (as taught by the Bible here and here and by the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds) rather than the Trinity. However, I do believe God's creative, rational energy (Logos) of which Jesus is the human incarnation, and also God's Spirit are, in a sense, parts of God and thereby share in His nature. And I do think Jesus and the Holy Spirit can be called God in a symbolic way (because of this participation in the divine nature and because they mediate God's presence for us). I had thought that my beliefs were technically heretical and perhaps they are in terms of the historic understanding of, particularly, the Roman Catholic and possibly also Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches (although see this article and also this podcast - both by Eastern Orthodox priests) but if William Lane Craig is generally considered to be perfectly orthodox and sound in his Trinitarianism by the mainstream protestant community then perhaps there is hope for me yet!
One of the possibilities I have considered in the past, though, is the idea that when we say that the Persons are God, we mean the word ‘God’ in a different sense to that in which we mean it when we say that there is only one God.
The traditional way to understand the DOT is the idea of there being one Divine Nature (or Being) that is shared by three Divine Persons. The problem is caused by the fact that not only the one Nature, but also the Persons, are referred to as God. If the word God has only one meaning, this would lead one to conclude that God is both something that there is only one of, and also something that there are three of. Cue cognitive dissonance!
However, if we take the word God to have one meaning when referring to the Divine Nature and a different meaning when referring to the Persons then the problem (at least the aspect of it under discussion) is resolved. There is only one God (in the Nature sense) and there are three Gods (in the Person sense).
I assumed that this way of looking at the DOT would not pass muster as being orthodox, as effectively it seems to imply that either the Persons are not God in the true sense of the word, or that there is actually more than one God, in which case Christianity would be a polytheistic religion – which it has certainly always claimed not to be!
However, after re-reading and considering the model of the Trinity posited by the well known and highly respected (at least among protestants) Christian apologist and philosopher William Lane Craig, I have come to the conclusion that this is exactly the model of the Trinity that he espouses – and, as far as I am aware, no one calls him a Unitarian or a Tritheist!
In Craig’s article, A Formulation and Defense of the Doctrine of the Trinity, in which he outlines his proposed description of the nature of God – a model which he calls Trinity Monotheism, "according to which God is a soul endowed with three sets of cognitive faculties, each sufficient for personhood" – he makes the following statements (my own comments are in italics):
‘We turn finally to Trinity Monotheism, which holds that while the persons of the Trinity are divine, it is the Trinity as a whole which is properly God. If this view is to be orthodox, it must hold that the Trinity alone is God and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while divine, are not Gods.‘
When Craig states that, for his view to be orthodox, it must hold that the Persons ‘are not Gods’, you might think he is merely stating that they are not God in the plural but that they are indeed God in the singular. But this is not the case, as we shall see.
‘The persons of the Trinity are not divine in virtue of exemplifying the divine nature. For presumably being triune is a property of the divine nature (God does not just happen to be triune); yet the persons of the Trinity do not exemplify that property. It now becomes clear that the reason that the Trinity is not a fourth instance of the divine nature is that there are no other instances of the divine nature. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not instances of the divine nature, and that is why there are not three Gods. The Trinity is the sole instance of the divine nature, and therefore there is but one God. So while the statement “The Trinity is God” is an identity statement, statements about the persons like “The Father is God” are not identity statements. Rather they perform other functions, such as ascribing a title or office to a person (like “Belshazzar is King,” which is not incompatible with there being co-regents) or ascribing a property to a person (a way of saying, “The Father is divine,” as one might say, “Belshazzar is regal”).’
So Craig does not think that the Persons are identical to God, although we may CALL them God, in a sense which is not meant to imply that they are instances of the Divine Nature.
‘…we could think of the persons of the Trinity as divine because they are parts of the Trinity, that is, parts of God. Now obviously, the persons are not parts of God in the sense in which a skeleton is part of a cat; but given that the Father, for example, is not the whole Godhead, it seems undeniable that there is some sort of part/whole relation obtaining between the persons of the Trinity and the entire Godhead.’
‘…if we think of the divinity of the persons in terms of a part/whole relation to the Trinity that God is, then their deity seems in no way diminished because they are not instances of the divine nature.’
‘…the part/whole relation at issue here does not involve separable parts. It is simply to say that the Father, for example, is not the whole Godhead. The Latin Church Father Hilary seems to capture the idea nicely when he asserts, “Each divine person is in the Unity, yet no person is the one God” (On the Trinity 7.2; cf. 7.13, 32).
‘On the other hand, it must be admitted that a number of post-Nicene creeds, probably under the influence of the doctrine of divine simplicity, do include statements which can be construed to identify each person of the Trinity with God as a whole. For example, the Eleventh Council of Toledo (675) affirms, “Each single person is wholly God in Himself,” the so-called Athanasian Creed (eighth century) enjoins Christians “to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord,” and the Fourth Lateran Council, in condemning the idea of a divine Quaternity, declares, “each of the Persons is that reality, viz., that divine substance, essence, or nature. . . . what the Father is, this very same reality is also the Son, this the Holy Spirit.” If these declarations are intended to imply that statements like “The Father is God” are identity statements, then they threaten the doctrine of the Trinity with logical incoherence. For the logic of identity requires that if the Father is identical with God and the Son is identical with God, then the Father is identical with the Son, which the same Councils also deny. ‘
I’m a bit flabbergasted by this! Craig, who considers himself a Trinitarian – and who regularly debates with Unitarians in defense of the Trinitarian cause – just came right out and stated plainly that if the creeds are taken to mean that the Persons of the Trinity are identical with God then they are logically incoherent! Well… yes! That’s the whole point, that’s the problem I’ve spent many long hours trying to surmount in the hope of avoiding being a heretic. But Craig seems to think it’s simply not an issue.
‘Protestants bring all doctrinal statements, even Conciliar creeds, especially creeds of non-ecumenical Councils, before the bar of Scripture. Nothing in Scripture warrants us in thinking that God is simple and that each person of the Trinity is identical to the whole Trinity. Nothing in Scripture prohibits us from maintaining that the three persons of the Godhead stand in some sort of part/whole relation to the Trinity. Therefore, Trinity Monotheism cannot be condemned as unorthodox in a biblical sense. Trinity Monotheism seems therefore to be thus far vindicated. ‘
‘In other words, God is not a single, isolated person, as unitarian forms of theism like Islam hold; rather God is a plurality of persons, as the Christian doctrine of the Trinity affirms. On the unitarian view God is a person who does not give Himself away essentially in love for another; He is focused essentially only on Himself. Hence, He cannot be the most perfect being. But on the Christian view, God is a triad of persons in eternal, self-giving love relationships. Thus, since God is essentially loving, the doctrine of the Trinity is more plausible than any unitarian doctrine of God.’(End of quotations.)
Basically, Craig believes that the one God is the Trinity itself, and that each of the Persons is something less than God. He describes them as being (at least in some sense) parts of God but clearly not identical to God, and therefore distinct from Him (It?).
Craig's model escapes the charge of being unitarian because God clearly exists as three Persons rather than merely one. However, I am surprised that he considers himself - and is considered by many others - to be orthodox when he believes that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit may be called God only in some secondary sense - denoting office or indicating possession of the quality or attribute of divinity (which he compares to the quality of being feline possessed by the parts of a cat). He clearly does not think that any of the Persons is actually the one true God, for his whole claim to monotheism rests on the fact that only the Trinity itself (ie. the combination of all three persons together) is to be ascribed that title.
I too believe in one God, though I believe that the one God is the Father (as taught by the Bible here and here and by the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds) rather than the Trinity. However, I do believe God's creative, rational energy (Logos) of which Jesus is the human incarnation, and also God's Spirit are, in a sense, parts of God and thereby share in His nature. And I do think Jesus and the Holy Spirit can be called God in a symbolic way (because of this participation in the divine nature and because they mediate God's presence for us). I had thought that my beliefs were technically heretical and perhaps they are in terms of the historic understanding of, particularly, the Roman Catholic and possibly also Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches (although see this article and also this podcast - both by Eastern Orthodox priests) but if William Lane Craig is generally considered to be perfectly orthodox and sound in his Trinitarianism by the mainstream protestant community then perhaps there is hope for me yet!
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