One God, Three Persons, Four Views | Book Review

In this article, I will be reviewing the latest installment in the growing Studies in the Doctrine of God series published by Cascade Books: One God, Three Persons, Four Views, a debate book on the Trinity edited by Dr. Chad McIntosh. In terms of difficulty, I consider it to be lay-accessible, with some challenges. Prior volumes in this series were Lyonhart’s Space God (which is a study of God’s omnipresence) and Mullins’ Eternal in Love (which explores questions about how we can know God and what his goals for creation are), and this latest book is a strong follow up to those successes. I will begin with a word on the contributors, and then move to some remarks on the contributions, noting the positives and negatives throughout, in order to give you an idea of what to expect should you decide to pick the book up.

Contributors

This is an All-Star lineup: Drs. William Lane Craig, William Hasker, Beau Branson, and Dale Tuggy. Craig represents a minimalist tripersonal monotheism view, Hasker a Monarchical Trinitarianism, Branson a Cappadocian Monarchical Trinitarianism, and Tuggy a Unitarianism. Craig and Hasker are both Social Trinitarians, Branson is a one-self Trinitarian, and Tuggy is a Unitarian a la the 16th century heretic Faustus Socinus. Each contributor is an outstanding choice to carry their camp’s flag, with all of them having a lengthy record of advancing their views. While the chosen contributors are a strength, a weakness (in the eyes of some) of this volume will be the lack of a Thomist contribution. Readers will not see the interplay of non-Thomists with Thomists on the topic of the Trinity. I would have been interested in seeing such interaction, but at the same time, the absence of a Thomist does save the book from devolving into a debate about the litany of objections to Thomism, so I don’t fault McIntosh for this omission.

Contributions

The book is structured in a unique way for a multiview book. Rather than a main essay from one author followed by responses from the contributors and then a reply from the author, we get all four main essays, and then the responses to each author in turn, with replies from each other at the end. Each essay is intended to have two components: in the first, the author is to argue for their view of the Trinity (the probative component), and in the second they are to lay out their model and show its coherence (the model component). I don’t have space to remark on every essay and critique from each contributor, so I constrain myself to a couple remarks about their contributions. Further, I make no claims of crowning a “winner”, although I do find myself preferring Hasker’s position.

A Socially Processed Trinity

William Hasker goes first, advancing Social Trinitarianism with some additional claims he wants to add to his model of the Trinity. Hasker holds to the Trinitarian processions (as in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of A.D. 381) of the Son’s being begotten of the Father and the Spirit proceeding from the Father. Unfortunately for my curiosity, Hasker does not weigh in on the famous Filioque clause and advocates a model which is compatible with or without it. In his probative component, Hasker draws on the work of NT scholar Larry Hurtado to show the very high Christology in the New Testament. I was mildly disappointed with the probative component of Hasker’s essay, however. The position he was advancing included the processions, and so I was expecting a positive argument for them, rather than them being used merely as a device to construct his doctrine of the Trinity. The latter, however, is what we get, although Hasker does marshal a couple NT passages (in his model component, curiously) that he believes teach the begetting of the Son. (pg. 21) Without going into an extended discussion, I will leave it as an exercise to the reader if John 1:1-2, 3:16, 5:26, and Hebrews 1:2-3 teach that the Son is eternally begotten of God. The processions appear in the model component of his essay, wherein he builds his doctrine off of eight claims. The final of these is perhaps what will draw the most heat: “The Three Persons are each constituted by the single divine nature.” (p. 23) For the uninitiated, the stock example of a constitution relation is a bronze statue. We are told by the constitutionalist that the statue is not identical to the copper but is rather constituted by it. Perhaps this is a problem strictly with me, but I find myself at a loss as to how constitution relations differ from identity relations beyond a bare “trust me bro”, or why they even need to be invoked in the first place. Setting my confusion aside, however, there appears to be a deeper problem with Hasker’s appeal to constitution; this relation is invoked to explain problems in physical mereology, that is, how parts of physical objects relate to their wholes. Is this really going to be helpful in elucidating how an abstract object (a nature) relates to concrete objects such as the minds of the Social Trinity? It is not obvious to me that this helps Hasker’s model even if the constitution relation is coherent.

Mere Trinitarianism

Next up is Craig, who although he locks arms with Hasker on the Social Trinity, parts ways with him over the processions. By my lights, that is the only substantial difference between them. Craig does not affirm the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed because he does not want to build the causal relations enshrined in it into his model of the Trinity. Craig’s probative component is entirely spent on showing biblically that the Father, Son, and Spirit are each God. He marshals a very strong exegetical case, focusing on the epistles, that Christ is called God multiple times. It is worth commending both him and Hasker (philosophical theologians) for doing the exegetical legwork and gleaning the insight of biblical scholars such as Hurtado and Harris on the theology of the New Testament. While his probative component is a strong case for the deity of Jesus, his model component on the Trinity is the weakness to his contribution: it is almost nonexistent! He says he doesn’t really have to get a particular model off the ground; I beg to differ. Advancing a particular model was a main quest in this game, not a side quest! I have mixed feelings about Craig’s main essay. There are multiple things to like in Craig‘s replies (such as tagging Tuggy on his usage of confirmation theory as an interpretive tool, and point-by-point takedown of Tuggy’s claims), but Craig‘s discussion of the OT theophanies in his reply to Branson is not one of them. He waves away the old Jewish two-powers-in-heaven Godhead as being a relic of Rabbinic Judaism instead of Second Temple Judaism (pg. 177). This I think is mistaken, and his contribution could have stood to benefit from the work of the late Michael Heiser, who has shown convincingly from the “Angel of the Lord” passages that ancient Israelites at a minimum were binitarians. The advantage to this would be the ability to make recourse to more than just the New Testament in demonstrating that Scripture teaches a populated Godhead. (Bafflingly, Tuggy knows of Heiser’s work and still claims, by implication, that YHWH was believed by all to be strictly identical to the Father until A.D. 381 at Constantinople I.)

The Unsocialized Trinity

Batting third is Beau Branson, bringing a distinctly Eastern flavor to the fray. Branson has been described as a wildcard, and that is an understatement! He draws heavily on the work of the Cappadocian theologians Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. I appreciate his clarity in what he looks for in a desirable model of the Trinity. It must solve three problems which have shown up in classic debates on the topic:

The theophany problem (TP): If God cannot be seen by anyone, and people such as Moses have seen God, what do we do with that?

The “Three Gods” (3G) problem: How, if three persons are each God, do we not have three Gods?

The “Who is God?” (WIG) problem: What does “God” refer to: Father, Son, Spirit, or Trinity?

The strength of his contribution is the clarity with which he sets out a metric for a successful model. In general, I would like to see this move more often in these kinds of books. It is all too easy for contributors to talk past each other, and fortunately I don’t believe that’s happened in the present volume. Branson solves these problems in a quite elaborate way. He uses a system of subscripts to God: God_{Power/action}, God_{Nature}, and God_{Ultimate source}, and this is done to bring out different senses of deity. As in, there are different ways in which there is one God: there is one “token action of the characteristically divine type” (pg. 80), or there is one divine nature that is undivided in the Trinity, or by there being one “source without a source”, respectively. Such, at least, is my best attempt at capturing his view; truth be told, I still don’t think I understand it. One may need to read his essay multiple times. However, for all the fireworks, at minimum it seems to be a very fancy Subordinationism. The subscripts just don’t do it for me. I have to imagine that Dale Tuggy was happily nodding along as he read parts of his essay. Branson maintains that the Father is the one “God_{Ultimate source}”; Tuggy will happily agree with this and claim Branson as a Unitarian Subordinationist (pg. 183-184)! Of course, Tuggy’s metric for what counts as Unitarianism is…definitely a choice. (More on that later.) Once one admits that the Father is the one true God, it is difficult to fend off charges of Subordinationism, and I think Branson has left himself open to that. This is not the end of the cons for Branson’s contributions. Branson’s reply to Tuggy is bizarre. It seems to me that the only thing he rejects in Tuggy’s argument is the conclusion. He issues challenges to Unitarianism, but that is not the same as pointing out the missteps in an argument for Unitarianism. Branson does engage in a couple of characteristically Eastern Orthodox polemics against Protestants throughout, and one in particular, in his reply to Tuggy, stands out as particularly goofy. (Assume for sake of discussion that Unitarians count as Protestants.) If you had a discussion of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo canon on your bingo card for a debate book on the Trinity, check that square off. For some reason Branson thinks (pg. 219-221) that this is an issue of canonicity (“The Trinity isn’t in everybody’s Bible”), and so he wastes space on discussing the Ethiopian canon, which has some more developed statements on the Trinity and deity of Jesus. How come it has those? Because it contains writings from possibly as late as the 5

^th

century A.D. So, it is not a strawman to say that Branson is content to gerrymander the canon of Scripture to combat Unitarianism. Such a move is surely a retreat, a concession that the Unitarians are correct about the Bible that we have. I do not expect this to be widely accepted even by many Orthodox Christians.

What Trinity?

Dale Tuggy goes last, rejecting the Trinity outright. Readers who are otherwise unfamiliar will see a very good way in which a Unitarian will advance their case, and the highest compliment I have for Tuggy’s contribution is that it is thought-provoking. If nothing else, what Tuggy forces the Trinitarian to do is be clear about what their claim is and what Scripture teaches. I find Tuggy to be a strong analytic thinker who will press on weak points of one’s model of the Trinity. I have mixed feelings about the type of argument he presents, a “best explanation” type of argument. On the one hand, in general this is a powerful form of argumentation that is used effectively in apologetics. I’ve read multiple debate books before and I don’t recall seeing a contributor put forward such an argument for their case, so this is refreshing. But on the other hand, it’s questionable if this is suitable for enterprises such as biblical interpretation. The form of argument he advances makes it even more thought-provoking. Unfortunately, that is where the niceties end for me with his contribution. The problems with his argument run deep. The argument is a presentation of 20 facts that, in his view, confirm that the NT assumes God is numerically identical to the Father, and the Son and Spirit are not fully divine, over that the NT assumes God is the Trinity and that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are fully divine. However, some of these are clearly not facts, and Craig rightfully tags him on these. For example, Tuggy claims as his fourth fact that there were no early monotheism controversies, and as his fifth fact that the NT endorses core Jewish theology instead of criticizing it. Setting aside the fact that this sounds like two different ways of saying the same thing, John 5:18 and 10:33 record exactly such controversies, as well as (contra Tuggy’s footnote on p. 93) Mark 14:62-64, in which Jesus is accused of blasphemy. Besides presumed violations of the Law, it was precisely a controversy over monotheism that had the Pharisees riled up about Jesus! Consider also the words of New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado, “Focusing on the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and Paul (working chronologically backward to progressively earlier texts), I will argue that…in these early decades Jesus-devotion was already being taken by at least some Jews as an objectionable “mutation” in Jewish monotheistic devotional practice.” Besides not all being facts, it is not clear how much Tuggy’s “facts” that are true even favor Unitarianism. For example, Tuggy claims as his sixth fact (p. 93) that theos nearly always refers to the Father. This may indeed be true, but uninteresting. He proceeds to score an own goal with the admission that “We can generously concede for sake of argument that as many as eight times in the NT theos refers to Jesus.” If the NT authors are Socinians, that number should be 0! Given these issues, it is truly shocking that Hasker calls Tuggy’s argument “sound”! (pg. 195) The final lowlight of Tuggy’s contribution in my view is his imaginative revision to the history of Trinitarian theology. He makes the shocking move to claim practically every major church father from before Constantinople in A.D. 381 as Unitarians! That’s right: Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian (who is believed to have coined the word “Trinitas”), Origen, Lactantius, etc…it was Unitarianism all along. (And he claims Basil too!) I do not believe for a moment that any of these fathers would look at Tuggy’s Unitarianism and sign off on it. Readers who are conversant with the history of doctrine will be unlikely to find Tuggy’s telling of it to be compelling. Those interested are encouraged to consult authorities on the topic such as Kelly (Early Christian Doctrines) or Pelikan (The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition) and see if the early Christians really are on Team Tuggy or not.

Conclusion

To conclude, this review has been remarking on some pros and cons of the work of each contributor. Each person involved should be very proud of having been involved in this project. In particular, Dr. McIntosh deserves a round of applause for his perseverance in seeing the project to fruition. This is a landmark on the topic and deserves to be engaged with for a long time. I heartily recommend One God, Three Persons, Four Views to anyone interested in the topic of the Trinity. This volume contains arguments you can easily track, arguments that will leave you bewildered, and accusations of heresy; everything a good book on the Trinity should have!

Notes

Social Trinitarianism is the view that there are three distinct “selves” in the Godhead; three unique centers of consciousness, volition, and will capable of rightfully using the first-person indexical “I”. Normally I would have just ignored them, but Branson decided to make them a feature of his presence in the book, mainly in his responses, and so they deserve some remark. Hurtado, Larry W. How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?: Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005, pg. 153. Tuggy, “When and how?” (2020), as cited by Branson in One God, Three Persons, Four Views, 253.