The western church affirms that each person of the Trinity is God; the West also professes that the Father is not the Son or that the Son is not the person of the Holy Spirit. Neither person of the Trinity is hypostatically identical with the other. Moreover, western theologians generally contend that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are identical in terms of what they are whereas the tres personae are distinguished in terms of who they are. That is, their identity is thought to be substantial (metaphysical) but not hypostatical.
Yet how do these concepts overcome the problem that seems to be raised by Leibniz' Law, namely, if an entity/object X has all properties in common with an entity/object Y, then X and Y are absolutely identical? This is one formulation of Leibniz' Law, but one western answer to this apparent difficulty is relative identity wherein the Father and Son are said to be the same F (the same God) without being the same G (the same person) just like Peter and John are both human without being the same persons. But two replies to this approach might be to question relative identity and to scrutinize divine simplicity, which has been invoked to show why God differs from Peter and John.
Finally, I might say that Lewis Ayres (in his work Nicaea and its Legacy) has argued that the so-called distinction between eastern and western Trinitarianism is greatly exaggerated. Ayres presents a more nuanced account of Augustine's Trinitarianism on pp. 364-383 of his study.
Friday, September 23, 2022
Eastern and Western Conceptions of the Trinity: Relative Identity and Triunity
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15 comments:
What are your thoughts on 1 Corinthians 10:4 and Jeremiah 23:5 proving Jesus is Jehovah as some claim?
Okay, how does 1 Corinthians 10:4 prove that Jesus is Jehovah? It doesn't necessarily equate him with Jehovah as the Rock of Israel although the verse may suggest preexistence, which we also believe as Witnesses. But which "rock" does Paul mean since Israel did not drink from Jehovah. At least, not in a literal sense.
Jeremiah 23:5 is another weak proof IMO. What about Jeremiah 33:16 (KJV):
"In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness."
And what about people with Hebrew names that mean "Jehovah is God" (Joel) or With us is God (Immanuel). The second name applied to someone who lived before Jesus, so the name hardly meant that person was God.
@ E. Foster if the word God as applied to the Father or the son is adjectival and not nominative how could the Father or the Son be the same God? What sorts of responses do academics put forward in the literature to questions of this sort?
@aservantofJehovah:
Trinitarian scholars recognize the construction at John 1:1 as nominative, but as we know, it's a preverbal anarthrous predicate nominative, which means it's not the subject in the sentence but the most popular explanation of the construction now is that it's qualitative or nearly adjectival. So, Daniel Wallace discusses the translational possibilities. For example, should it be rendered "the Word was divine" or "what God was, the Word was" and so forth. Wallace decides that the verse can still be translated, "the Word was God," but we should understand "God" in this case, to be qualitative rather than definite. Hence, they're saying the the Word is fully deity (same God as the Father), but he's not the Father.
Here's another article that might help. It is free, and written by Chrys Caragounis and Jan van Der Watt. See http://www.bsw.org/filologia-neotestamentaria/vol-21-2008/a-grammatical-analysis-of-john-1-1/525/
Here's Francis Moloney's remarks on John 1:1 (Sacra Pagina Commentary, page 35). It's a Catholic perspective:
"This verse concludes with a description of the consequences of the
intense intimacy between the Word and God. Although the traditional
translation is 'and the word was God,' there is a danger that this might
lead the contemporary reader of the English text to collapse the Word and
God into one: they are both God. The author has gone to considerable
trouble to indicate that an identification between the Word and God is to
be avoided. The Greek sentence (kai theos en ho logos) places the complement (theos: God) before the verb 'to be' and does not give it an article. It
is extremely difficult to catch this nuance in English, but the author avoids
saying that the Word and God were one and the same thing. The translation 'what God was the Word also was' indicates that the Word and God retain their uniqueness, despite the oneness that flows from their intimacy."
Therefore, he thinks the Word and God are one, but they're not absolutely identical. Yet, what God was, the Word also was: I believe he's ultimately saying the Word is fully deity like Wallace claims, but the Word does not exhaust the being of God since Moloney would say there are three persons, who constitute God. Moloney later writes:
"The preexistent Word, so intimately associated with God (vv. 1-2), now enfleshed, can be the communication and revelation of God in the human situation, where he now dwells (v. 14b)."
He speaks of the Word being incarnate or enfleshed, that is, God in the flesh.
Well it seems like the average trinitarian including some pastors haven't got the memo, if this is the mainstream view among trinitarian academics.
Do we need to teach trinitarians their own doctrine before witnessing to them?
Still though the statement that the Father and the Son are THE same God sounds identitarian even if unintentionally so.
Or more trinitarian double speak? If for instance I said that James and John are the same man, it probably would not occur to most people that I simply meant to imply that James and John are equally human. And if I then insisted that James and John were nevertheless different people all that would result would be confusion.
What I find in our area is that the average pastor knows little to nothing about Trinitarian creeds besides Nicea or a little about the Athanasian creed. But many pastors I've enountered have really held to modalism or tritheism rather than Trinitarianism. This is why the WT publications say that we should ask people what they mean by "Trinity" before discussing it with them because not everybody means the same thing.
What Trinitarians normally mean by "the same God" is that each person in the Godhead has all omniproperties or the properties only God can have (fully deity), although something has to distinguish one person from the other to keep from collapsing things into modalism. On this view, God is not a person but three persons, yet one being.
Trinitarians have used illustrations like a husband and wife or Peter, James, and John. In this case, they insist, there are two/three distinct persons, yet each person is fully human. Saying that Peter, James, and John are the same man would lead to confusion: they would only be the same man insofar as they're all human. So, I believe one church father said there is nothing wrong with saying three are the same man, but it just confuses matters.
See https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2009/06/alister-mcgrath-on-understated.html
Let me be clear I try very hard not to strawman anyone's position.I'm happy to engage anyone's sincere opinion. But what I often find is that at some stage in these discussions the question of orthodoxy is going to arise.When that happens
I like to be able to refer to trusted sources as to just what would constitute orthodoxy in the given context. Lest I be accused of strawmanning the orthodoxy
I see what you mean, and it seems to me that it's hard to pin down strict Trinitarian orthodoxy. Trinitarians who are in the know, want to avoid modalism or tritheism. But they disagree among themselves. Read the Cappadocians, then read Augustine of Hippo or Thomas Aquinas. They're all saying God is triune, but saying it in different ways. Then we have Protestants like Calvin and Edwards. So whose orthodoxy do we choose?
I am now reading pastor James White's 'the forgotten trinity' are you familiar with it?
I am familiar with that book and have read parts of it. Even his perspective is not accepted by all: I think White is a Reformed Baptist/Calvinist.
Ever read any Fred Sanders? See https://ps.edu/what-is-the-trinity-fred-sanders/
Another book that discusses John 1:1 is M.J. Harris' "Jesus As God," which is online somewhere for free :-)
@E.Foster I have in fact downloaded M.J Harris' book it's a great read. I am in the process of tracking down Fred sanders book.
@aservantofJehovah, both works should give you an orthodox trinity view
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