What is God?

DALE [TUGGY] SAID:

About the "expansion" you think is plainly implied in the Bible - I'm curious about what that is. In your view, what is God, or what does it mean to believe in three persons who "are" one God? I think trinitarians need to put on the table what they think the traditional formula, in their view, mean. Only then can you compare the theory to some unitarian theory. Maybe, Steve, you should do a post on this. What is the common, pre-trinitarian concept of a god. And then, what proper, trinitarian concept replaces this, based on the Bible.

1) Just as there are varieties of unitarianism, there are varieties of Trinitarianism. In my response I’ll be speaking for myself.

2) I don’t know what Tuggy means by a “pre-trinitarian concept of a god.” Does he mean that, from a Trinitarian perspective, progressive revelation begins with a pre-trinitarian concept of God, which is gradually phased out (or abruptly terminated) as we reach a later stage of revelation?

I don’t think the revelation of the Trinity replaces a pre-trinitarian concept of God. The OT says Yahweh alone is the true God. It ascribes various actions and attributes to Yahweh. It opposes the true God to the false gods of paganism.

That concept is open to further specification. It’s not “pre-trinitarian,” but simply indefinite in various respects.

For instance, the Pentateuch identifies the true God as the God who made the world, send the flood, made a covenant with Abraham, guided the patriarchs, and delivered the Israelites from Egypt–among other things.

But that’s open to further historical developments. The same God makes a covenant with David, exiles apostate Israel, restores Israel to the promised land, and projects a future for Israel and the gentiles beyond the post-exilic horizon. Same God. These actions are also defining features of the one true God.

The Bible is sketching a picture of God. Filling in the details of the outline as time goes on.

3) Actually, we don’t need to put a trinitarian formula on the table to evaluate unitarianism. For instance, if unitarianism denies the deity of Christ, we can evaluate that claim on its own merits. We can compare and contrast the unitarian interpretation with the Trinitarian interpretation of the same passages.

4) One traditional way defining “what God is” is to begin with a list of the divine attributes. This method involves three caveats:

i) A biblical list of divine attributes will include not merely “attributes” proper, but relations (i.e. divine actions or social roles) which, in turn, imply divine attributes, viz. are grounded in divine attributes.

ii) Biblical terminology is sometimes redundant, using synonyms for the same attributes. So, as we move from exegetical theology to systematic or philosophical theology, we’d need to consolidate the usage.

iii) Philosophical theology translates Biblical categories into philosophical categories. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as the conceptual relation is univocal.

iv) In the conventional taxonomy of systematic theology, the Trinity is a different locus from the divine attributes. However, that’s an artificial distinction. If God is a Trinity, then his Trinitarian structure is one of his properties (or attributes). So this is a semantic distinction.

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

We can tweak the list. Unpack the categories. At this point I’m just making a methodological point about how we can define “what God is.”

6) So we’re defining God’s “nature” or “essence” by his attributes. This, in turn, raises another question: Are God-defining attributes uniquely-divine attributes, or a uniquely-divine set of attributes? To some extent the answer is both.

i) Some divine attributes are communicable attributes while other attributes are incommunicable attributes. Incommunicable attributes would be divine distinctives. Uniquely-divine attributes.

ii) But God also possesses a uniquely-divine set of attributes, even if not all of the individual attributes are uniquely divine.

iii) Apropos (i-ii), some attributes qualify other attributes. Even in the case of communicable attributes, God’s mode of possession is unique to God. For instance, love is a communicable attribute. However, creaturely love is a property-instance of the divine attribute. Divine love is the exemplar, of which creaturely love is the finite exemplification.

Divine love inheres in God’s unique mode of subsistence. God’s love is timeless love. God’s timelessness characterizes God’s love.

Conversely, a creaturely mode of subsistence characterizes creaturely love. Love conditioned by the nature of time. The perception of time.

d) Apropos (i-ii), if a subject possesses even one uniquely-divine attribute, then, by implication, he must posses every uniquely-divine attribute. Likewise, he will posses the unique set of divine attributes.

If, say, the Holy Spirit has one divine attribute, then he has them all. If the Holy Spirit has the divine attributes, then that entails both the personality and the divinity of the Holy Spirit.

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

A theologian can try to translate this into more philosophical usage, such as the features of “consciousness” in philosophy of mind, viz. intentionality, indexicality.

Moving along, what does it mean to believe in three persons who are one God?

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

2) What is meant by God’s “nature”?

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

3) What is mean by “person”?

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

4) What is mean by “one” in nature?

There are different way to gloss that.

i) We need to distinguish between what divine revelation prescribes or proscribes, and philosophical models. In what sense is God the “one” God in Scripture? Let’s consider the “monotheistic” prooftexts.

a) Deut 6:4 is the locus classicus. However, as scholars like Bock and McConville had documented, this verse is syntactically ambiguous. Cf. D. Block, “How Many is God: An Investigation into the Meaning of Deuteronomy 6:4-5,” JETS 47/1 (June 2004) 193-212; J. G. McConville, Deuteronomy (Apollos 2002), 140-41.

Furthermore, this passage is about monolatry rather than monotheism:

Although the character of Yahweh’s devotees is a concern in chapter 6 (cf. v. 5), the primary issue with respect to Yahweh in the broader context is neither his unitary character nor worship devoted to him in a single form/manifestation of the deity, the God of Israel. The question addressed here by Moses is not, “How many is Yahweh?” or “What is Yahweh like?” but “Whom will the Israelites worship?” It may have seemed legitimate in some circles to ask, “How many Yahwehs are there?” but we must distinguish between popular religion and official orthodox Yahwism.49 In any case, this is not the question raised by Deuteronomy 6 or 6:4–8:26, or any other text in Deuteronomy, for that matter. The issue facing the Israelites who were about to cross the Jordan was not how many Yahwehs there were, nor which Yahweh they should serve (God is one!), nor even how many is Yahweh. The question that concerned Moses was whether they would remain exclusively devoted to Yahweh who had rescued them from Egypt and called them to covenant relationship with himself, or be seduced by and commit spiritual harlotry with the gods of the land of Canaan. The Israelites were not to bow down to gods of their own making (cf. 4:16–18) nor worship the astral deities (4:19), for Yahweh their God in their midst was a passionate God (6:15). In the face of the threat posed by other gods, the Shema served as the obverse of the first principle of covenant relationship in the Decalogue, “You shall have no other gods beside/besides me.” As a declaration of Israel’s complete, undivided, unqualified, and undistracted devotion to Yahweh, “Our God is Yahweh, Yahweh alone,” represents the required verbal response to the Hauptgebot. To Yahweh alone they shall cling; him alone shall they serve; and by his name alone they shall swear (Deut 6:13; 10:20).

http://www.freewebs.com/trinitytruth/How%20Many%20is%20God_JETS.pdf

b) Another traditional prooftext for monotheism is Exod 20:3 (cf. Deut 5:7). But strictly speaking, that’s about monolatry rather than monotheism.

c) A more direct, albeit neglected, prooftext for monotheism is Deut 4:32-40 (esp. vv35, 39). However, this passage doesn’t favor unitarianism over Trinitarianism. It identifies Yahweh as the only real God. That’s set in contrast to the pagan pantheon. But that’s not set in contrast to the Spirit of God or the Angel of the Lord. Likewise, it doesn’t say the Father is Yahweh–in contrast to the Son.

Indeed, from a unitarian perspective, it would be anachronistic to retroject Trinitarian categories like the “Father” and the “Son” back into our analysis of the OT.

It says only Yahweh can be the true God, but it doesn’t say who can be Yahweh. It says who can’t be Yahweh in relation to the gods of heathenism, and it identifies Yahweh with the God of the Exodus, but, of course, Yahweh isn’t confined to Exodus.

d) Then you have a series of monotheistic verses in Isaiah (e.g. Isa 44:6,8; 45:5-6,14, 21-22; 46:9). These likely have their background in Deut 4:32-40, where the Isaian passages evoke a second exodus motif, alluding to the events of Deut 4:32-40, which–in turn–parallel the post-exilic restoration.

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

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

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

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

ii) What about philosophical notions of numerical identity? At one level the members of the Trinity are “one” in nature if they possess the same nature, viz., the same attributes (except for whatever property distinguishes the persons).

iii) One possible objection to (ii) is that this fails to distinguish one divine “being” from several divine “beings,” just as human nature can be multiply-exemplified in different human beings.

But even on its own terms, that objection isn’t clear-cut.

a) What do we mean by “beings”? What individuates “beings”? Among other things, concrete objects are individuated by space or time or both. However, that doesn’t apply to God. Therefore, sharing a common nature wouldn’t imply separate “beings.” Not, at least, separate beings on analogy with natural kinds, viz., human beings.

b) Likewise, concrete objects, like human beings, are property-instances of abstract properties. They exemplify God’s communicable attributes.

By contrast, God is the exemplar. A member of the Trinity is not a finite exemplification of the divine attributes. Rather, each member possesses the sum-total of the divine attributes.

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

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

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