Indexical perspectives are a striking feature of human experience. For instance, the starting-point of science is the first-person perspective of an observer. But science attempts to translate that indexical perspective into an objective third-person description.
If the Trinity is true, then the one God has three first-person viewpoints. Father and Son are objective to the Spirit, Son and Spirit are objective to the Father, Father and Spirit are objective to the Son.
Unitarians say that's contradictory. Christians say that's a revealed mystery or paradox. Unitarians say that's euphemistic language to camouflage special pleading.
An analogous indexical perspective is the insider/outsider dichotomy. For instance, an observer can stand inside a house, viewing the outside through a window. Or the same observer can stand outside a house, viewing the inside through a window. Or an observer can stand outside, viewing another outside object. Or an observer can stand inside, viewing another inside object. But we typically think of viewing something from the inside out as contrary to viewing something from the outside in. You can experience both at different times, but you can't experience both at the same time, because these represent opposing physical positions. You can't be in two different places at once, so you can't simultaneously experience an insider as well as outsider viewpoint. Or can you?
On one occasion I was sitting in church. The sanctuary had the traditional cruciform design. I was sitting in the back of the transept, next to a corner window. From my seat, I could look outside.
In addition, there was a corner window in the nave, at right angles to the window beside me. Sitting in the transept, I could see the nave through that window. From the inside I was looking outside back into the inside. So I simultaneously enjoyed an insider and outsider viewpoint.
If I made that bare claim without providing the context, it might seem paradoxical or contradictory. But with a bit of additional information, it relieves the apparent contradiction. My point is that something which seems to be hopelessly contradictory may in fact be consistent, even simply so, if we see it in relation to a larger context. Just because a proposition appears to be incoherent doesn't mean there's even a presumption of actual incoherence.
"If the Trinity is true, then the one God has three first-person viewpoints."
ReplyDeleteIf only that were clear! Depends on what the "Persons" amount to. The one-self types do not obviously need to admit three points of view in God. Neither do negative mysterians.
"Unitarians say that's contradictory. Christians say that's a revealed mystery or paradox. Unitarians say that's euphemistic language to camouflage special pleading."
Oy. Get off the standard script, man. Don't joust with imaginary opponents. *Think!* Which unitarian says that it is *contradictory* for a being to have three points of view? That's an abstruse question for metaphysicians. Of course, depending on your Trinity theory, there will be different problems of seeming incoherence.
But the standard apologists' script is simply wrong in casting biblical unitarians as primarily concerned with the incoherence of "the" Trinity doctrine (as if there were one theory there). Rather, our concern has always been what best fits the Bible. See, e.g. the famous Racovian Catechism produced by the Minor Reformed Church of Poland, 17th-18th c. The old "rationalism" charge is mostly just a polemical slander. Some unitarians explicitly agree that real mysteries must be preserved, but add that we must guard against "mysteries" which are the product of our speculations, and not of divine revelation.
It's not even clear that there is a "paradox" in what you've said. Myself, I don't see why a being might not have several points of view at once. But anyway, that's just a modern gloss on the traditional language.
"because a proposition appears to be incoherent doesn't mean there's even a presumption of actual incoherence"
Sorry, but that's a howler. If something *seems* incoherent to you, that's evidence for you that it is incoherent. Of course, that may be overturned by further considerations. That seeming could disappear on further reflection or be over-ridden by a contrary, stronger one. But it's silly to say that seeming incoherence is not prima facie evidence of incoherence.
So that last sentence is... ill-considered. But your second to last sentence in this post is both true and very important.