How do we avoid Tri-Theism

[markporter]

Well, that's the question, if we maintain that there are three persons in God, then does each person have a separate consciousness and will? What is it that prevents this from being Tri-Theism? Is it that none of them is capable of doing anything independent of the others? (in which case, how do we say that each is a person with a will) Is it just that they are united in purpose?

Well, I'm a Trinitarian, but I'm trying to understand this, any thoughts welcome.

[RoadRunner]

No, they don't have separate will's, they all possess the same will. The only thing that separates the Trinity are their relations.

[Reasonable]

Markporter,
Are you giving us the finger in your picture? :rofl:

[themuzicman]

Think of yourself. You are triune in the sense that you have a spirit, a soul and a body, all of which have their own voice within you, pushing you to do different things.

Because we are fallen, these various wills are often in conflict, and we have to choose which one to listen to, but we are still only one being.

Same thing with God, except that He is perfect, and never in conflict.

Michael

[Kenny]

Good question. The short answer is that we must find a way to coherently maintain that God is three fully divine persons yet still only one being. I think the radical inter-relational dependence model of the Trinity which I have presented here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12589) does this.

Self-consciousness is always consciousness of the self as in distinction to the other. Without distinction between self and the other, there is no basis for differentiation of the self from the all. My identification of myself as a distinctive individual with my own self-consciousness requires me to differentiate myself from that which is not myself. Consequently, the basis of all self-consciousness, even within God, is self-differentiation from the other. The expression of the Father’s personhood and the basis of the Father’s distinctive center of consciousness is the fact that the Father originates the Son, which thereby allows the Father to see Himself as a distinct Self in relationship to another. Likewise, the Son views Himself as a distinctive center of consciousness from the Father on account of the fact that He is originated by the Father. Likewise, the Holy Spirit views Himself as a distinctive center of consciousness from the Father and the Son on account of the fact that He is the necessary consequence of the loving communion that exists between the Father and the Son – the very communion which forms the basis of the Father’s and Son’s distinctive centers of consciousness.

Thus, the members of the Trinity are all radically relationally interdependent. What makes for distinction between each of the members are strictly relational qualities – that is, when the distinctive relational qualities of each person with respect to the others (and with respect to the world subsequent to creation) are set aside, the remaining set of each qualities for each member is identical. That remaining set itself is the One divine essence.

For the above reason, it is right to say that the essence of God is undivided even though it is expressed in three persons. It is not like the non-relational qualities, say, of a physical body. The qualities of my body are spatially divided between various parts of myself. The quality ‘having ten fingers’ is a quality which expresses itself strictly in my two hands and not anywhere else. Furthermore, I could chop off my two hands and the rest of me would still be recognizable, as would my hands, as a distinctive set of qualities. The qualities pertaining to the essence of God, however, are not like this at all. The qualities pertaining to divinity are necessarily an all or nothing affair. Lose one and all the rest disappear. Thus, the non-relational qualities of the divinity are not divided up between the members of the Trinity in the same way that the non-relational qualities of my physical body are divided up between its parts. They cannot be. Each member of the Trinity has all of the non-relational qualities of divinity fully. Furthermore, if (per impossible) any one member of the Trinity were severed from the others, it would no longer be possible to recognize any member as a distinctive individual as it would in the case of my hands being cut off. The whole divine community would be utterly annihilated if that were to occur such that there would not even be anything that resembled the former expression of the divine essence.

The fact that God’s essence is indivisible in this way is the philosophical basis for referring to God as one being even though in God that essence is also expressed in three fully divine persons. What makes for individuation between beings (note: I am choosing the word ‘being’ as opposed to the word ‘person’ very carefully and deliberately here) is that fact that we can separate them from each other and still recognize them as distinctive individuals. I am recognized as a distinct being from my wife because when I am apart from my wife and she is apart from me, it is still possible for both of us to be recognized. It’s nonsense, however, to say that I could be separated from myself and still be recognized as a distinctive individual. At the level where it becomes nonsensical speak of separating X from Y such that X and Y are still recognizable as distinct individuals, X and Y are the same being.

Thus, if the persons of the Trinity are radically interdependent in the way described above such that it does not make sense to separate them and still speak of them as distinct individuals, it is philosophically appropriate to say that they are all the same being. Thus, on the above model (which I think finds plenty of support in classical formulations of the Trinity as well as the Biblical text itself – if not directly, then in terms of how it makes coherent sense of other direct affirmations), Christianity remains monotheistic even though it affirms the existence of three divine persons, because you still only wind up with one divine being.

In Christ,
Kenny

[markporter]

Today @ 05:05 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271284#post271284)
Reasonable:

Markporter,
Are you giving us the finger in your picture? :rofl:

No, I'm conducting, it's a baton :tongue:

[markporter]

Thanks Guys

Kenny, how does this relate to the will of each person? do persons not require separate wills? (as a determinist (of some form or other) you may find that slightly easier to deal with than me, but I don't know)

[Kenny]

Today @ 05:39 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271327#post271327)
markporter:

Thanks Guys

Kenny, how does this relate to the will of each person? do persons not require separate wills? (as a determinist (of some form or other) you may find that slightly easier to deal with than me, but I don't know)

This is an area that I’m still a bit fuzzy on myself, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But I say there must be some differentiation of wills within the Godhead merely on account of the fact that each person functions distinctively in relation to the others. For example, it is the will of the Father to seek the glory of another distinct from Himself – namely, the Son. It is the will of the Son to glorify another distinct from Himself – namely, the Father. The Father seeks the glory of a different other than the Son seeks the glory of (and, BTW, this is the answer to those who say it is egotistical for God to seek His own glory as there is no ego centeredness involved; God seeking His own glory is always one member of the Trinity seeking to glorify the others). Thus, the content of the Father’s will and the Son’s will are not identical in this respect and that makes for a distinction between the two. And, so as not to neglect the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son glory in their relationship to one another and thus they collectively seek to glorify the Holy Spirit as the personal resultant of their relationship. Likewise, the Holy Spirit, as loving communion between the Father and the Son, seeks (as persons in loving communion do) to glorify the others involved in the relationship – the Father and the Son.

So, an account of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit functioning in three distinct relationships, they have distinctive wills. However, necessarily there is perfect harmony between the wills such that they never conflict with one another. This makes for another important feature of monotheism. Saying that there is only one divine being is an essential component of monotheism but it is not the whole of it. A dualistic system in which there was only one divine being with conflicting but balancing aspects (say a will for good and a will for evil) may affirm the existence of only one divine being, but it is not monotheistic on account of its attribution of a dualistic conflict within the divine. In monotheism, God is not merely a single being, but a single being with no division or conflict within Himself. Since the members of the Trinity are held to exhibit no division or conflict, however, Christian theism remains monotheistic in this respect.

In Christ,
Kenny

[Kenny]

Also, I just thought to add…

I think there’s an analogy between the distinctiveness of the wills and the distinctiveness of the persons. What makes for distinctions between the persons are strictly relational qualities. All the non-relational qualities of each of the members of the Trinity are held in common with the other two. Likewise, the differentiating aspects of each member’s will pertains strictly to relational matters. All the non-relational aspects of the will of any given member are held in common between all three. So, for instance, while it may be the distinctive will of the Father to glorify the Son and the Holy Spirit as others and the distinctive will of the Son to glorify the Father and the Holy Spirit as others, both the Father and the Son share a common will to seek to glorify God. The distinction between the Father’s will and the Son’s will in this respect pertains strictly to their distinctive relationships but there is a non-relational quality to their wills which is held in common. Thus, we can still speak of their being a single divine will – that which all the members of the Trinity will in common.

In Christ,
Kenny

[markporter]

hmmm, trying to think about that confuses me; if we grant LFW then does it serve to confuse you too, or not? The question would be, where does the will come from? I can only imagine a will originating in one person, not 3 simultaneously, how can 3 persons simultaneously, freely choose the same thing without 2 of them just copying the originator? And if that's the case, then given LFW it would seem to compromise the freedom of the 2nd two?

[markporter]

hmmm, although I suppose it might make sense somehow if each sought to glorify the others, and the method of doing this for the son/holyspirit was through doing the father's will. Still not sure though.

[Kenny]

Today @ 06:58 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271375#post271375)
markporter:

hmmm, trying to think about that confuses me; if we grant LFW then does it serve to confuse you too, or not? The question would be, where does the will come from? I can only imagine a will originating in one person, not 3 simultaneously, how can 3 persons simultaneously, freely choose the same thing without 2 of them just copying the originator? And if that's the case, then given LFW it would seem to compromise the freedom of the 2nd two?

Perhaps that’s a good reason to give up LFW! But, I think even the most ardent of LFW defenders among Christians must deny that God has LFW with respect to all possible types of decisions. Most would hold, for example, that it is not possible that God could will to do evil.

I think the way into understanding the harmony of wills between the members of the Trinity is the recognition that God is fundamentally characterized by self-giving love (actually, I think that’s ultimately the proper way into all of our thinking about God). True self-giving love desires nothing more greatly and finds nothing more delightful than seeking the happiness of another.

I know I can be a very selfish husband at times, for example. My wife likes to “shop” at art and fabric stores (or, not to shop really – she’s very frugal with our financial resources and does not spend them on frivolous things – but to go out and look at items in the store). She also loves it when I go shopping with her. Personally, I hate shopping (and I hate going and just looking even more – seems like a waste of time to me). Often, I am selfish and I do not go with her when I know she wants me to, or I go but have a visibly bad attitude about it. But sometimes, in my better moments when I am less selfish, I go with her and I actually enjoy the activity of shopping, not because I enjoy the activity for its own sake, but because I know that I am making her happy and at that moment that’s what I desire and delight in above all conflicting desires.

Of course, even in my less selfish moments, I still may have some conflict of interest. I still may, on some level, not want to be shopping with my wife even if I am enjoying doing so for her sake. That’s because there is a part of my desires that are still centered around my own ego, around what I want for myself without concern for others. If I were really completely self-giving, I would want nothing else but to go shopping with my wife when she wants to go because I would want nothing more than to make her happy.

In fact, the more I selflessly love my wife, the more I will actually start identifying what delights her with what delights me. I may enjoy and actually desire to do activities that I never would have enjoyed or desired to do were it not for the fact that she enjoys them. I will begin to sympathize with her desires to such an extent that they become my desires. Likewise, as she begins to more selflessly love me, she will begin to sympathize with my desires to the extent they become hers. Desiring those things which are mutually delightful to us both, then, will become more and more natural the more we mutually selflessly love each other. In this process, we will approach more and more a point where we both desire exactly the same things and there is no conflict of interest between us.

In the Trinitarian community, the level of self-giving love is so complete that such a point is realized. There are no ego centered desires in any particular member of the Trinity. Each member delights in loving and seeking the glory of the others. The members of the Trinity give of themselves so completely to the others (and delight in receiving from the others in a selfless way – the way my wife might rejoice in a gift from me simply on account of the fact that she wants to acknowledge me in giving it to her and not necessarily because of any self-centered benefits she receives from the gift itself) that there is complete and perfect harmony between their wills.

We, as Christian believers, will all reach a similar state someday, I believe, when God’s eschatological community is fully established. In heaven, we will delight so completely in giving to and receiving from one another, that no conflict of interest will ever arise between us. And, yet we will still be entirely free in this (more free than we have ever been, in fact).

I love the doctrine of the Trinity. It is the most beautiful doctrine in all of Christianity as far as I’m concerned. God is love – self-giving love. God was self-giving love in Himself before the world began. And, we are created in God’s image – our ultimate destiny being incorporation into a community characterized completely by self-giving love. Such a beautiful but abstract and difficult doctrine, as far as I’m concerned, could not be of human origin. It could only be divine.

In Christ,
Kenny

[Jaltus]

Just some quick thoughts, as I think this prfoundly effects one's Christology as well.

First, let me say that LFW in no way is constrained by God. LFW just means the ability to freely choose between two or more options, but what those options are would be irrelevent. Thus, God not being able to choose evil is irrelevent, for He has a plethora of good choices to choose from. LFW is a method, it is not limited by the kinds of choices, it just needs to have at least two possible choices.

Second, and this is getting back to the point I made about Christology, we need to see how the idea of "wills" works within the Trinity in the context of Christ coming to earth as a man. In seeing Christ, we have a single person with two natures. In the Trinity, we have a single nature in three persons. In Jesus, we have man and God but a single predication (by predication I mean we have a single subject who is able to actually do things such that Jesus as man cannot do somethin that Jesus as God does not do, if Jesus does it all of Jesus does it, hence a single predication). In the Trinity, we have three predications but a single nature. The Father did not die on the cross, but Jesus did. The Holy Spirit did not die on the cross, but God did.

That is in fact the scandal of the cross: not only did the Messiah die on the cross, but God Himself died on the cross. To see the cross in any other light is heresy.

Thus, how can one have a single will when there are three predications in the essence of God? I would argue that there cannot be, there must be three wills but they are unified so as to be like one. Want some evidence? Turn to Matthew 26:36 and read along with me:

39 And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will."

Look, the Son has a will separate from the Father's! What does this mean, is there discord in the Trinity? No! Why not? Look at John's gospel, John 5:30

30 "I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me."

There are separate will's within the Trinity, but the are unified by the will of the Father taking precedence.

[smilax]

Today @ 01:01 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271350#post271350)
Kenny:
So, an account of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit functioning in three distinct relationships, they have distinctive wills.I have to be nitpicky here, which doesn't make me particularly happy, as there's so much good in these posts.

Should we attribute will to nature, or person? If person, then we have the Monothelitist heresy. If nature, then the three persons of the Trinity can only have one will. I insist upon this, because we clearly have the Son and Spirit doing the Father's will, speaking the Father's words, etc. To resolve this so we don't fall into modalism, quite simply, we return to relationality--the Father wills as the Father, the Son wills as the Son, etc. God has one mind/will/consciousness that subsists in three relational centers; this alone avoids tritheism quite easily.

(I just noticed that you clarified and explicitly stated this later.)

That means I think the text Jaltus quoted refers to Christ's human nature, not the person of the Son...

The other key is, however, that we do not insist upon an "egalitarian" Trinity. The Father must be understood as head and source at all times. The Father begets the Son; the Son does not beget the Father. When "God" is referred to as a person in the Bible, we are dealing with the Father. The Triune unity is not a mere abstraction, but begins with the monarchy of the Father as the point of departure--the Father's will, the Father's words, etc.--and are then "inherited" by the Son and Spirit, (and in entirely different ways, mind you. Why, one might ask, did it have to be the Son who went through the Incarnation, not the Spirit?) We as humans share Adam's nature by virtue of both ancestry and federal headship; as Christians, we partake of Christ's nature, again, by source and headship. The Triune family does likewise with the Father begetting the Son and spirating the Holy Spirit.

I don't think the body/soul/spirit analogy works very well; do a word study on nephesh, and you'll find both dynamic unity of body and soul (to borrow a term from Marvin Wilson) and synonymity of soul and spirit.

[geebob]

What is it that prevents this from being Tri-Theism?

The three persons could be joined in some undisclosed metaphysical way. Kenny's answer is interesting but I'll have to think about it and read it more slowly as it goes a wee bit over my head. But I don't think we need to have a definitive answer. We could just leave it as an undisclosed metaphysical unity. And I think what ever theories we may hit on the head, as close to the truth as they may come, we may not ever fully percieve the matter fully.

I would also make another suggestion. Perhaps we could view God as three persons in one person. I'm not willing to try to argue how that might be, but i'd like to point out that this is not an incoherent notion If we posit the analogy noting that three triangles can be connected to form one triangle, that is everybit as much of a triangle as the original three.

There is one notion in Kenny's suggestion that I'm not sure is really all that essential to trinitarian thinking. That is the notion that the three parts cannot exist without each other. The reason I raise an eyebrow to this has to do with Jesus' last words "my God my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" So was there a tempory rift in the trinity? I don't think that the notion is far fetched.





Likewise, the Holy Spirit views Himself as a distinctive center of consciousness from the Father and the Son on account of the fact that He is the necessary consequence of the loving communion that exists between the Father and the Son

Kenny, this is slightly off topic. I've heard this before several times from different sources, that is that the Holy spirit arises from the love between Father and Son.

Is there a biblical basis for this?

[Jaltus]

That means I think the text Jaltus quoted refers to Christ's human nature, not the person of the Son...

But you cannot make such a move, as I explained in my post. If you try to say something is done by Jesus the man and not Jesus the God, you now have two predications in Christ, which means two persons in Christ. Whatever Jesus does, He does as both God and man. If you argue for a time post incarnation (after His birth) that He did something as either man or God and not both, you are saying that Christ is a man who is separated from God, thisd denies perichoresis, which is the basis of Christological orthodoxy.

There cannot be two predications in Jesus and still have Him be both 100% God and 100% man. If He is able to do something as only God or as only man, He is no longer 100% of the nature that was left out.

[Jaltus]

Geebob,

Kenny is picking up a picture used by Augustine and further developed by Jonathon Edwards. Augustine makes the strongest biblical case for the idea.

[Kenny]

Today @ 08:24 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271486#post271486)
smilax:

I have to be nitpicky here, which doesn't make me particularly happy, as there's so much good in these posts.

Should we attribute will to nature, or person? If person, then we have the Monothelitist heresy.

I’m not familiar with the Monothelitist heresy. As it stands, I don’t think it makes sense to attribute will to a nature. Natures are abstractions. Abstractions neither desire nor act. Persons desire and act. I do think there is some distinction between the wills of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit on account of the fact that the relational distinctions necessarily make for some distinct desires. Yet, the divine will is one in all aspects which do not pertain to the distinctive relations, such that it is proper to refer to the singular Will of God – the Will held in common between all three.


The other key is, however, that we do not insist upon an "egalitarian" Trinity. The Father must be understood as head and source at all times.

Agreed.


The Father begets the Son; the Son does not beget the Father. When "God" is referred to as a person in the Bible, we are dealing with the Father. The Triune unity is not a mere abstraction, but begins with the monarchy of the Father as the point of departure--the Father's will, the Father's words, etc.--and are then "inherited" by the Son and Spirit, (and in entirely different ways, mind you. Why, one might ask, did it have to be the Son who went through the Incarnation, not the Spirit?)

Yes, but I wouldn’t say that this happens such that the Son and Holy Spirit only will passively as a causal result of the will of the Father, with the Father being the only one who actively wills. Rather, the harmony of wills results from the nature of the self-giving love within the Trinitarian community. The Father is the originator in that it is His initial act of self-giving love which generates the Son, but the Son actively reciprocates such love back to the Father. The Son’s will actively aligns with of the Father, then, because the Son has no ego-centered desires which might conflict with the originating will of the Father and because the Son actively seeks to reciprocate the Father’s initiative in self-giving love. Likewise, the Holy Spirit, as the personal resultant of loving communion between the Father and the Son, naturally aligns His will with both the Father and the Son because it is the nature of persons in perfect loving communion to identify with the desires of the others in communion.

In Christ,
Kenny

[Kenny]

Geebob,

With respect to the origin of the Holy Spirit:

I don’t have a lot of time left right now, but see the middle portion of this post (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=262682#post262682) for (an admittedly somewhat weak) Biblical argument. I don’t think there is a lot of direct Biblical support for the idea (so you may be appropriately skeptical of it on that account if you wish), but I am convinced that as a philosophical model, this idea makes the most coherent sense of both the Biblical language and the classical Trinitarian formulations. There’s also some natural theology thrown in to this. You can see the thread in the above link for a more fuller development of some arguments along these lines.

Jaltus is right, the basic idea is Augustinian in origin. C.S. Lewis picks it up in his discussion of the Trinity in Mere Christianity, though, and that’s where I first encountered it.

In Christ,
Kenny

[smilax]

Today @ 04:05 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271561#post271561)
Kenny:
I’m not familiar with the Monothelitist heresy. As it stands, I don’t think it makes sense to attribute will to a nature. Natures are abstractions. Abstractions neither desire nor act. Persons desire and act.Well... I absolutely refuse to reduce nature to abstraction; human nature is real, as real as total depravity; divine unity is *not* an abstraction, but is effected by the gift of the Spirit from the Father to the Son, i.e. communion is union. And as a compatibilist, I insist that nature determines will--not person.

The Monothelitist heresy was a rehash of the old Monophysitist take, viz. that Christ had a mixed human/divine nature. This time, the heretics contended that Christ only had one will but two natures. It was condemned at Constantinople III. Maximus the Confessor was one of the leading opponents.

Let me quote the relevant excerpt from the council:
According to the rule of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, she also confesses and preaches that there are in him two natural wills and two natural operations. For if anybody should mean a personal will, when in the holy Trinity there are said to be three Persons, it would be necessary that there should be asserted three personal wills, and three personal operations (which is absurd and truly profane). Since, as the truth of the Christian faith holds, the will is natural, where the one nature of the holy and inseparable Trinity is spoken of, it must be consistently understood that there is one natural will, and one natural operation. But when in truth we confess that in the one person of our Lord Jesus Christ the mediator between God and men, there are two natures (that is to say the divine and the human), even after his admirable union, just as we canonically confess the two natures of one and the same person, so too we confess his two natural wills and two natural operations.Notice two things: first, the nature-will association is assumed, an second, the unity of the divine will is assumed. On this basis is the heresy rejected.
I do think there is some distinction between the wills of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit on account of the fact that the relational distinctions necessarily make for some distinct desires. Yet, the divine will is one in all aspects which do not pertain to the distinctive relations, such that it is proper to refer to the singular Will of God – the Will held in common between all three.Right; and as I said, this distinction speaks of how the divine will subsists--not exists. The Father knows all things as the Father; the Son knows all things as the Son; both are omniscient, but the way in which one knows differs from the other.
Yes, but I wouldn’t say that this happens such that the Son and Holy Spirit only will passively as a causal result of the will of the Father, with the Father being the only one who actively wills. Rather, the harmony of wills results from the nature of the self-giving love within the Trinitarian community. The Father is the originator in that it is His initial act of self-giving love which generates the Son, but the Son actively reciprocates such love back to the Father. The Son’s will actively aligns with of the Father, then, because the Son has no ego-centered desires which might conflict with the originating will of the Father and because the Son actively seeks to reciprocate the Father’s initiative in self-giving love. Likewise, the Holy Spirit, as the personal resultant of loving communion between the Father and the Son, naturally aligns His will with both the Father and the Son because it is the nature of persons in perfect loving communion to identify with the desires of the others in communion.You read Jeffrey Meyers by any chance? In economy, I would agree with this; but in terms of the immanent Trinity, I would insist that the Father's will is "complete" logically prior to the ratification, so to speak, by the Son and Spirit. The Father is the sole source an principle, but the Son *responds* to it as described. This is where I find the analogy (and I do not consider it coincidental, either) for Reformed soteriology--God's primacy, the believer's inevitable and willing response corresponding to the relationship between the Father and the Son; and why not, seeing that we are Christ's brethren, begotten by His will? I am therefore quick to state that the roles of the Father and Son, though both present, are not identical; ditto with the so-called double procession of the Spirit, (i.e. the Son is not the source of the Spirit in the same sense that the Father is; Augustine is commonly misunderstood to be saying this.) The doctrines of monarchy and monergism go hand in hand.

And for the record, I do agree with Jaltus that God died on the cross, though only the person of the Son. Strict identification cannot be allowed, however, unless we want to assert that Christ's human nature was omnipresent. Some aspects of the Godhead are metaphysically incommunicable--even after the Incarnation.

[Jaltus]

Smilax,

First, look here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?action=showthread&postid=271564#post271564) to see the discussion about Trinitarian language that I use and how it fits within this context.

Second, I disagree with Constantinople III. If one has two wills in Christ, it is hard to see how that does not become two predications, and according to the ECFs two predications means two persons. THus, I think it is an illegitimate move by the Council. It makes their Christology nearly untenable.

[smilax]

Out of curiosity, what's your take on passages like Luke viii, 43-45? Real ignorance through kenosis, or apparent ignorance for rhetorical purposes? More particularly, Mark xiii, 32--did the Son cease to be omniscient? Maintaining two wills in Christ allows one to speak of the divine consciousness being laid aside but not removed; giving the person of the Son only one mind requires that He literally gave up His divine attributes and basically ceased to be God.

And do remember that Constantinople III (sixth ecumenical council) was still in the patristic era... They apparently saw no contradiction with what they were saying, freely quoting everyone from Gregory of Nazianzus to Cyril of Jerusalem in defense of their case.

The proceedings for anyone interested can be found here (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3813.htm).

[geebob]

so you may be appropriately skeptical of it on that account if you wish

It's not so much skepticism as it is intellectual sobriety. It sounds like an interesting notion, but I wanted to know the biblical strength of it.

[Jaltus]

Today @ 06:11 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271705#post271705)
smilax:

Out of curiosity, what's your take on passages like Luke viii, 43-45? Real ignorance through kenosis, or apparent ignorance for rhetorical purposes? More particularly, Mark xiii, 32--did the Son cease to be omniscient? Maintaining two wills in Christ allows one to speak of the divine consciousness being laid aside but not removed; giving the person of the Son only one mind requires that He literally gave up His divine attributes and basically ceased to be God.

And do remember that Constantinople III (sixth ecumenical council) was still in the patristic era... They apparently saw no contradiction with what they were saying, freely quoting everyone from Gregory of Nazianzus to Cyril of Jerusalem in defense of their case.

The proceedings for anyone interested can be found here (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3813.htm).

Ack, they snipped the citation of Cyril. In my reading of Cyril, I have no idea how they could say he fit this understanding. What is interesting is that they go with two wills in order to hold on to a single will in God the essence, such that the three persons have one will, but the will of Jesus is split in two. I do not think that makes sense. I am wondering how one can be a person without an individual will.

As for the texts you cite, I would say that while in flesh Jesus left behind certain things, such as omnipresence and omniscience. However, I think He had access to them if needed (well, at least omniscience since I am uncertain how a physical being can have omnipresence, though certainly the risen Lord is able to).

[Kenny]

Today @ 01:02 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271747#post271747)
geebob:

It's not so much skepticism as it is intellectual sobriety. It sounds like an interesting notion, but I wanted to know the biblical strength of it.

I think it does have a lot of indirect Biblical support, via explanitory power, but that's a more difficult case to make.

[smilax]

Today @ 12:29 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271902#post271902)
Jaltus:
Ack, they snipped the citation of Cyril. In my reading of Cyril, I have no idea how they could say he fit this understanding.If you *really* want to get into this, I'd be glad to discuss this. But in any case, this seems to contradict your thesis regarding predications:

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 4:9: "Believe then that this Only-begotten Son of God for our sins came down from heaven upon earth, and took upon Him this human nature of like passions with us, and was begotten of the Holy Virgin and of the Holy Ghost, and was made Man, not in seeming and mere show, but in truth; nor yet by passing through the Virgin as through a channel; but was of her made truly flesh, and truly nourished with milk, and did truly eat as we do, and truly drink as we do. For if the Incarnation was a phantom, salvation is a phantom also. The Christ was of two natures, Man in what was seen, but God in what was not seen; as Man truly eating like us, for He had the like feeling of the flesh with us; but as God feeding the five thousand from five loaves; as Man truly dying, but as God raising him that had been dead four days; truly sleeping in the ship as Man, and walking upon the waters as God."

Note the distinction... Christ "as Man" versus Christ "as God," over against Monophysitism. Later, however, he insists upon keeping the two natures together:

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 10:1: "Nurslings of purity and disciples of chastity, raise we our hymn to the Virgin-born God with lips full of purity. Deemed worthy to partake of the flesh of the Spiritual Lamb, let us take the head together with the feet, the Deity being understood as the head, and the Manhood taken as the feet. Hearers of the Holy Gospels, let us listen to John the Divine. For he who said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, went on to say, and the Word was made flesh. For neither is it holy to worship the mere man, nor religious to say that He is God only without the Manhood. For if Christ is God, as indeed He is, but took not human nature upon Him, we are strangers to salvation. Let us then worship Him as God, but believe that He also was made Man. For neither is there any profit in calling Him man without Godhead nor any salvation in refusing to confess the Manhood together with the Godhead. Let us confess the presence of Him who is both King and Physician. For Jesus the King when about to become our Physician, girded Himself with the linen of humanity, and healed that which was sick. The perfect Teacher of babes became a babe among babes, that He might give wisdom to the foolish. The Bread of heaven came down on earth that He might feed the hungry."

This does away with Nestorianism. Steering between these two heretical extremes, how is the next step towards rejecting Monothelitism (if the general assumption is that will is determined by nature--hint, hint) so hard to imagine?
What is interesting is that they go with two wills in order to hold on to a single will in God the essence, such that the three persons have one will, but the will of Jesus is split in two.Precisely.
I do not think that makes sense. I am wondering how one can be a person without an individual will.Oh, silly Jaltus. That's just the libertarian in you speaking.


As for the texts you cite, I would say that while in flesh Jesus left behind certain things, such as omnipresence and omniscience. However, I think He had access to them if needed (well, at least omniscience since I am uncertain how a physical being can have omnipresence, though certainly the risen Lord is able to).Well, of course, see the Lutheran doctrine of ubiquity for the latter. But again, if He left those divine attributes behind, then in what sense was He still divine? And why is it that He could leave omniscience behind but not, say, holiness, love, righteousness, jealousy, mercy, etc.?

The way I see it, in the Incarnation, Christ's human nature inherited all of the communicable attributes of God perfectly, but none of the incommunicable attributes; perfectly displaying salvation for us, as conforming to Christ will entail precisely that: inheriting all of the communicable attributes and none of the incommunicable. But for this to work, Christ has to be simultaneously omniscient in His divine nature and non-omniscient in His human nature--i.e. two minds/wills. If we say that Christ gave up His omniscience, are we not left with stealth Arianism, wherein Christ is merely a glorified human who has all of the communicable attributes of God, which all of us will receive perfectly at the resurrection?

It could be further argued that if Christ had only one will, then that means that salvation leads to God and man being identical--at least insofar that omniscience is concerned. Cyril of Alexandria actually argued this way against Monophysitism: if Christ has only one nature, then God and man will be mixed together in salvation, which is blasphemous heresy.

[markporter]

Perhaps that’s a good reason to give up LFW!

Perhaps it is, but the reasons that lead to me affirming LFW at the moment outweigh this one.

[Kenny]

Yesterday @ 08:57 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271545#post271545)
geebob:

The three persons could be joined in some undisclosed metaphysical way. Kenny's answer is interesting but I'll have to think about it and read it more slowly as it goes a wee bit over my head. But I don't think we need to have a definitive answer. We could just leave it as an undisclosed metaphysical unity.

But a mere undisclosed metaphysical unity is insufficient for monotheism. Hindu theology, for example, has numerous, countless gods. Yet, all of these gods are really just various manifestations of the Ultimate Reality – like waves on the surface of the same ocean. Is Hinduism thereby monotheistic because it maintains that there is ultimately only one divine reality? For monotheism, the unity must be not merely such that there is only one divine being, but such that this one divine being is undivided and without conflict within Himself.

Furthermore, Christian monotheism places further constraints on what type of unity it must be. We believe that the Father is fully divine, that the Son is fully divine, and that the Holy Spirit is fully divine. We also believe that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are genuinely distinct persons but that somehow the distinctions between them still only makes for one divine being and not three divine beings. Furthermore, Scripture gives us some specific data about how the members of the Trinity relate to one another (e.g. the Father generates the Son).

So, even if we can’t understand the nature of the unity fully, we already know several of the characteristics it must have. Furthermore, it is a service to the Christian faith to attempt to find models which demonstrate that the assertions of Trinitarian orthodoxy can be made to fit together in a coherent fashion. Otherwise, the skeptic might charge (or we ourselves may question) that one of the central tenets of our faith is pure nonsense.


And I think what ever theories we may hit on the head, as close to the truth as they may come, we may not ever fully percieve the matter fully.

Agreed. There are things about God which exceed our ability to comprehend. But, you know me, I hate premature appeals to mystery. I think God has revealed a considerable amount about Himself and that he has invited us to ponder that revelation further and that he has given us minds which are capable of probing deeply into many mysteries. So, we ought to do our best to try, though in appropriate humility concerning the results. If we get a philosophical model that fits all the data of revelation together in the right way and helps shed light on other aspects of our understanding, however, then even if the model is not entirely true, it’s probably somewhere close to the truth.


I would also make another suggestion. Perhaps we could view God as three persons in one person.

I’m not sure if that would be orthodox. It seems that under some interpretations, the above could be modalism. Under others, it would seem to suggest the existence of four divine persons (the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the person constituted by all three (Bob?)) instead of the orthodox three.


There is one notion in Kenny's suggestion that I'm not sure is really all that essential to trinitarian thinking. That is the notion that the three parts cannot exist without each other. The reason I raise an eyebrow to this has to do with Jesus' last words "my God my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" So was there a tempory rift in the trinity? I don't think that the notion is far fetched.

I think often far too much metaphysical and theological baggage is drawn into Jesus' quotation of the opening line of this Messianic Psalm. Whatever occurred on the cross, I will fervently maintain that it could not have been the breaking of Trinitarian fellowship. At all points in Jesus’ earthly life, including the cross, the Father and the Son were working together in perfect harmony to accomplish human redemption. Jesus was not ever left alone to finish the work of redemption by himself. And, yes, my metaphysics of the Trinity do suggest that not only did such not occur but that it could not have occurred.

So what do I think did happen between the Father and the Son on the cross? I don’t know if it lies fully within our comprehension (doh! an appeal to mystery – well, I guess we all got to do it sometimes), but I think much of it has to do with one’s theology of Hell, since we believe that in some sense Jesus took the consequences that human sin leads to on himself while on the cross.

I find the notion that Hell is mere separation from God to be an idea with little Biblical or theological support. The Bible, rather, speaks of the outpouring of eschatological judgment in terms of the outpouring of the Wrath of God which discloses the truth about human sin. I do not think the absence of God will torment those in Hell – the presence of God in the fullness of His wrath will torment them. This does not mean we need to think of God as constantly actively inflicting suffering on those who are being tormented in Hell. The experience of God’s wrath is really just the sinner’s experience of the full disclosure of God’s goodness. In the presence of absolute goodness, one’s sinfulness is brought out in the full light of its horrifying existential ugliness and the goodness of God is experienced as torment on that account. It is not so much that God cannot bear to have sinners in His presence, as Evangelicals so often unfortunately word things, as it is that sinners cannot bear to be in the presence of God. As C.S. Lewis put it, some talk as if staring in the face of absolute goodness would be fun – they need to think again. Of course, as the redeemed, we will experience the full disclosure of God’s goodness also, but we, being clothed in Christ’s righteousness and reconciled to God, will experience that goodness as deep satisfying contentment.

So what does this have to do with Jesus on the cross? Well, when Jesus was on the cross, Jesus identified himself with sinners. He entered into solidarity with them to such an extent that their sins were gathered up and attributed to him. While Jesus himself never became an actual sinner in his own person, he did become a sinner in terms of his being the representative of sinners before God. On account of having identified himself when sinners in this way, Jesus had the wrath of God the Father poured out on him. That is, Jesus experienced the Father’s presence in the way that sinners experience it as all the existential horror of the sin which Jesus had taken on himself was exposed in the penetrating light of divine goodness.

Does this mean that Jesus’ Trinitarian fellowship with the Father was broken – may it never be! It is just that Jesus’ experience of the Father’s presence took on another aspect – the aspect of the Father’s wrath toward sin – which it had never taken on before, not that the other aspects were removed. The Father, as always, loved and remained pleased with His obedient Son. We must not say that Jesus taking on human sin such that the Father’s wrath was poured out on him meant that the Father became displeased with Jesus. The wrath which Jesus bore in his person was not itself directed toward Jesus’ person, but to human sin. The Son, likewise as always, loved the Father and delighted in doing his will – even when it was painful to do so. The person of the Father and the person of the Son remained in perfect harmony of will and fellowship even as Jesus experienced the Father’s displeasure toward human sin. Likewise, contra classical theism, I maintain that the Father himself experienced grief on account of the cross out of sympathy for His Son’s afflictions (though the Father did not experience those afflictions Himself – there is genuine distinction between the persons here after all) on account of the unbroken Trinitarian fellowship that remained. The Father never just left Jesus to do it all on his own.

The atonement must be viewed as an inter-Trinitarian act at all points of the process, though the experience and role of each member of the Trinity differed. The cross did not involve a rift in the Trinitarian community at all, but the taking up of human suffering on account of sin into the very heart of that community.

In Christ,
Kenny

[markporter]

I think often far too much metaphysical and theological baggage is drawn into Jesus quotation of the opening line of this Messianic Psalm. Whatever occurred on the cross, I will fervently maintain that it could not have been the breaking of Trinitarian fellowship. At all points in Jesus’ earthly life, including the cross, the Father and the Son were working together in perfect harmony to accomplish human redemption. Jesus was not ever left alone to finish the work of redemption by himself. And, yes, my metaphysics of the Trinity do suggest that not only did such not occur but that it could not have occurred.


I think the way I look at the cross is not so much a break of fellowship, but a distancing, perhaps like two lovers separated at distant ends of the globe, still with that perfect love.

[Kenny]

Today @ 05:28 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=272270#post272270)
markporter:


I think the way I look at the cross is not so much a break of fellowship, but a distancing, perhaps like two lovers separated at distant ends of the globe, still with that perfect love.

That would still imply that Jesus had been left alone and that the Father was not actively involved in all aspects of our redemption. I do not find that acceptable.

In Christ,
Kenny

[Jaltus]

My bad, I thought you had said Cyril of Alexandria.

Cyril of Jerusalem, no biggie. Of Alexandria and then it would be contradictory. After all, they used his works to write Chalcedon.

[markporter]

Yesterday @ 05:34 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=272278#post272278)
Kenny:



That would still imply that Jesus had been left alone and that the Father was not actively involved in all aspects of our redemption. I do not find that acceptable.

In Christ,
Kenny

Hmmm? Did the father become incarnate? did the father live on earth all those years? The father is active in Jesus' death just as much as in the incarnation itself, does it not hurt the father just as much to have to distance himself from the son whom he loves?

[Kenny]

11-04-2003 @ 10:23 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271627#post271627)
smilax:

Well... I absolutely refuse to reduce nature to abstraction; human nature is real, as real as total depravity; divine unity is *not* an abstraction, but is effected by the gift of the Spirit from the Father to the Son, i.e. communion is union.

I am using the term ‘nature’ (or the equivalent term ‘essence’) as the term is used in contemporary analytic philosophy. In that sense, a nature is just an abstract set – the set of properties an individual maintains in all logically possible worlds in which that individual exists, to be precise. I realize that such a usage wasn’t necessarily the one behind the creeds, but there was also no uniform understanding of that term at the time the creeds were formulated and I believe that a contemporary analytic construal of the term captures all that was essential (pun intended) to what the creeds were trying to say. It seems to me that the contemporary construal is much clearer and less confused that the ancient Neo-Platonic and Aristotlian formulations of ‘nature’ – as I do not think that these systems were able to clearly differentiate between the abstract and concrete in a coherent and consistent manner.

That being said, I do not deny that “human nature is real” as I believe that abstractions do have a reality of some sort. But, it is pure confusion between the abstract and the concrete to say that a nature has the same ontological status of its exemplars. I also agree that total depravity is real – in the abstract as a property which describes all human beings (save Christ) subsequent to the fall and in the concrete as an actual quality of all human beings (save Christ) subsequent to the fall. I don’t think that requires us, however, to reify natures into something other than abstractions. I also agree that the union between the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit is real on account of the fact that they share all of their non-relational concrete qualities indivisibly in common and on account of the fact that the harmonious relations between them are real. Again, though, I don’t see how a reified view of natures as something more than abstractions is required to maintain this.


And as a compatibilist, I insist that nature determines will--not person.

As a compatibilist also, I will agree that nature determines will in sense. But, I will deny that this sense is in the sense of causal determination. Rather I will say that, as abstract descriptions of particular beings, natures logically determine the behaviors of those beings. This is the same sort of manner in which a mathematical equation may determine a physical process – by means of the equation accurately describing various qualities of the system and the relations between them and not by some mystical causal power the equation exhibits over the system.

I think this is an important distinction for several philosophical and theological reasons, but many of those reasons are beyond the scope of this discussion. But, for one, if God’s nature causally determines what God does (as opposed to simply logically determines what God does by way of abstract description), then there is something outside of God (or not identical to God at least) that causally determines God’s actions. I find that theologically unacceptable.

So I will say that persons, or at least personal beings, and not natures are what causally determine will, but that they do so in a way that is logically consistent with their natures.


The Monothelitist heresy was a rehash of the old Monophysitist take, viz. that Christ had a mixed human/divine nature. This time, the heretics contended that Christ only had one will but two natures. It was condemned at Constantinople III. Maximus the Confessor was one of the leading opponents.

I disagree with some of the metaphysical presuppositions of the council, then, as they seem to have reified natures in such a way that incoherently confuses the abstract and the concrete. My view of the incarnation is that the Son took on an additional set of qualities – all the qualities essential to humanity – without divesting Himself of the qualities of divinity. This does necessitate that Son had all the essential qualities of human will added to His divine will. However, I don’t see why this could not simply be construed as the Son’s divine will taking on additional qualities, rather than the addition of an entirely separate will. I agree with Jaltus here, that saying Christ had two separate wills would seem to split Christ into two personal subjects. I would rather say that the divine will of Christ in some sense contained the human will but without thereby destroying the genuinely human aspect.


Right; and as I said, this distinction speaks of how the divine will subsists--not exists. The Father knows all things as the Father; the Son knows all things as the Son; both are omniscient, but the way in which one knows differs from the other.

Yes, but there is a problem with saying that the wills are really all identical on this account. Identical wills would have exactly the same content. But where the wills of each member of the Trinity pertains to their distinctive relational aspects, the content of the wills are different. It is the Father’s desire to accomplish certain things through the Son, for example, and it is the Son’s desire to accomplish what the Father wills to accomplish through the Son. These two wills are harmonious and identical in all that does not pertain to the relational aspects, but their content is nonetheless different. Different content makes for distinctive wills. Yet, because of the harmony and the sharing of non-relational content, it is also appropriate to speak of a single Will of God – the content shared in common between all three wills.


You read Jeffrey Meyers by any chance?

I haven’t.


In economy, I would agree with this; but in terms of the immanent Trinity, I would insist that the Father's will is "complete" logically prior to the ratification, so to speak, by the Son and Spirit.

I thought about this for a while. As I said to Mark, I’m still fuzzy on this issue myself, so I’m not entirely confident in my conclusions here. But, after thinking about this, I see a problem here, at least in terms of the point of departure for Trinitarian thinking which I have attempted to consistently maintain – that the Trinity is a community of reciprocal self-giving love with no ego-centeredness. If the Father’s will is formed in its entirety prior to the ratification by the Son, then there is no place left for the Father to respond reciprocally to the Son’s response of love, in seeking the Father’s glory, which would not involve a prior ego centered desire on the part of the Father to obtain such response from the Son.

I would say, instead, that the Father initiates the whole process by His original act of self-giving love toward the Son in which the Father selflessly seeks the Son’s glorification. The Son then wills His own glorification as a selfless response to the self-giving love of the Father (so the Son does will Himself to be glorified, but not on account of an egocentric desire, but on account of a desire to honor the Father by receiving the gift of the Father). The Son, then, in turn, reciprocates love back to the Father and thus seeks the glory of the Father. The Father, in turn, desires this glory for Himself on account of His selfless desire to honor the gift of His Son. The Father and Son, in turn, selflessly glory in the loving communion between them and thus they collectively glorify the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in turn willingly receives this glory and reciprocates it back to the Father and the Son.

The perfect giving and receiving insures that all three wills line up in all their non-relational aspects, but also that no one member of the Trinity is ego centered in terms of that member’s desire to receive glory for Himself (so, for example, while the Father does desire His own glory, He desires it selflessly as a means of honoring the gifts of the Son and the Holy Spirit and not because the Father is being egocentric). Furthermore, the Father remains the initiator because it is the Father’s act of self-giving love that gets the whole process started, but the Father’s initiation as such does not mean that there is no room for response on the part of the Father to the reciprocal love given to Him by the other members of the Trinity.


The Father is the sole source an principle, but the Son *responds* to it as described. This is where I find the analogy (and I do not consider it coincidental, either) for Reformed soteriology--God's primacy, the believer's inevitable and willing response corresponding to the relationship between the Father and the Son; and why not, seeing that we are Christ's brethren, begotten by His will?

I have a Reformed soteriology also, and I also see an analogy with the model I have described above. It is the God’s initial act that causes a reciprocal response in us, but we do genuinely respond and God does genuinely delight in receiving glory back from us.

In terms of the broader context of redemption as a Trinitarian act, I think the model I have articulated fits with the historically Reformed view that the elect community is a gift of love from the Father to the Son. It was the Father’s initial act of self-giving love that determined to give the Son a people for Himself. The Son enthusiastically receives this gift from the Father and, in turn, seeks to glorify the Father by securing the redemption of this people through perfect submission to the Father’s will and by forming them into a community that seeks the glory of the Father. The Father, in turn, responds to the Son’s act in this respect, by receiving that community – justifying them and adopting them into the family – and has that community glorify His Son in return. At all points in this process, the Holy Spirit is cooperating with these inter-Trinitarian expressions of love by drawing this people into communion and the Holy Spirit, as the resultant of communion between the Father and the Son, is also glorified in the process.


I am therefore quick to state that the roles of the Father and Son, though both present, are not identical;

Agreed.


ditto with the so-called double procession of the Spirit, (i.e. the Son is not the source of the Spirit in the same sense that the Father is; Augustine is commonly misunderstood to be saying this.)

I think I agree, since I believe the Holy Spirit results from the communion between the Father and the Son and because I believe that the Father (as initiator) relates differently to the Son than the Son does to the Father. So the Father and the Son both play a distinctive role in the procession of the Spirit on that account. However, I will affirm (contra Eastern Orthodoxy) that the Holy Spirit does proceed both from the Father and the Son.

In Christ,
Kenny