Carson and Keller on Jakes and the Elephant Room
originally posted @ http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/02/03/carson-and-keller-on-jakes-and-the-elephant-room/
Controversy customarily generates its share of purple prose. It is very easy to read everything an opponent says as negatively as possible---in malam partem, as the Latins say, "in a bad sense," while taking what our friends say in bonam partem, "in a good sense." Such debate tends to generate polarities---and God knows that sometimes what we most need are clear-sighted polarities. Some of these polarities, however, quickly take on the flavor of party spirit and predictable responses, without any powerful effort to encourage a meeting of minds, even where we end up in disagreement.
But controversy can also provide a teaching moment, not least because the interest of many people is focused on the disputed issues. It is hard to deny that such a moment has arrived. We would like to offer some theological reflections on six conceptual pairings. We have learned over the past few decades that clear thought about the six pairings we are about to comment on is not easy. Others may be able to improve upon our musings, or even correct them. Still, we hope that the following theological reflections will clarify at least a few issues for some people.
When orthodox believers sought language to summarize the idea that each person of the Godhead is a self-conscious agent (the Latin category is suppositum intelligens), in the Greek part of the ancient world they first settled on prosōpon ("face"). But the Sabellians understood the same word to mean something like "aspect," and they defended the view that God revealed himself under a threefold aspect. Eventually the orthodox settled on hypostasis. Among the Latin speakers, Christians settled on substantia or persona---and hence our English word "person." (See chart below.) Christian thinkers have argued for centuries exactly how we should understand persona in Latin and "person" in English, but the very least that had to be affirmed was the deeply entrenched biblical reality that the "persons" of the Godhead interact with one another, address one another, love one another, in a "personal" way.
Terms Expressing God's Oneness and Threeness
(This chart is from John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God, A Theology of Lordship [Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2002], 697; see pp. 696-705.) Of course, the doctrine of the Trinity is much richer than these few lines suggest. As Christians in the third and fourth century studied the biblical evidence, they insisted that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit express necessary, internal, and eternal relations in the Godhead. Today, of course, we sometimes quickly summarize the doctrine of the Trinity: the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and there is but one God. That is true as far as it goes, but it does not guard very well against modalism. The early church taught "that the Father eternally, necessarily, and incomprehensibly communicates the divine essence to the Son without division or change so that the Son shares an equality of nature with the Father yet is also distinct from the Father" (this is the careful summary of Keith E. Johnson, "Augustine, Eternal Generation, and Evangelical Trinitarianism," TrinJ 32 [2011]: 141-163). The language of "communication" was judged crucial: the essence is absolute and communicable, and the early church fathers spoke of this communication in terms of the eternal generation of the Son, while the person is incommunicable, i.e., it cannot be shared. So while one joyfully confesses that the Son is God and the Father is God, the church throughout its history has equally insisted that the Son is not the Father and the Father is not the Son. The church needs a robust Trinitarianism to avoid modalism on the one hand and tritheism on the other.
Had we the space and time, it would be delightful to justify this synthesis by providing the exegesis of many passages, and then extend the discussion from Father and Son to the Spirit. Someone might ask, "But what does it matter?" The answer is twofold: (1) If this summary accurately captures at least some of the glorious truth of the nature of the Godhead, to abandon it is to abandon a true understanding of God. If we are to worship God aright, we must worship him as he is, as he has disclosed himself to us. The only alternative is to worship a god who is progressively false as our understanding skews away from the truth. (2) Various truths connected with the gospel itself become incoherent if one abandons robust Trinitarianism. The Father sends the Son; the Son demonstrates his love for the Father by obeying him all the way to the cross; the Son addresses his Father in the anguished cry, "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?"; the Father gives the elect to the Son; in the plan of God, the Son propitiates the wrath of God and expiates sin; in the wake of his ascension and session at the Father's right hand, the Son reigns as the Father's mediatorial king until he has crushed all opponents, when he will turn the entire scope over to his Father; indeed, when the Son "offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death . . . he was heard because of his reverent submission" (Heb 5:7). None of these relational displays---and there are many others in the drama of redemption---is coherent under modalism. These relations are tied up with the nature of the Godhead. It is not surprising that those who adopt modalism habitually slide toward a diminished gospel.
In his Institutes, John Calvin sums it up: "Say that in the one essence of God there is a trinity of persons: you will say in one word what Scripture says, and cut short empty talkativeness." He then adds that, in his experience, those who "persistently quarrel" over these words "nurse a secret poison" (I.13.5).
Read Full Response @ http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/02/03/carson-and-keller-on-jakes-and-the-elephant-room/
1. Persons and Manifestations
What is at stake in the distinction? Toward the end of the second century and right through the third century, a number of thinkers defended a modal Trinity: the one God disclosed in three modes or manifestations. These people were variously called Unitarians, Patripassians (because they believed the Father suffered), or Sabellians (after Sabellius, a presbyter in Ptolemais, c. AD 250). They defended the deity of Christ (and on this one point aligned with historic Christian belief), but they denied personal distinctions in the Godhead. In their view, the one and the same person is simultaneously Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These labels express the different relations that God sustains with the world and the church, just as do other labels (e.g., Creator, King, Sustainer). But one cannot say that God the Creator addresses God the King: there is only one person. So on this view, the one person, God, has revealed himself in various manifestations or modes (hence this view is sometimes called modalism); we are not dealing with one God who has disclosed himself to be three persons, each of whom can and does address the other. It was not long before the church roundly condemned modalism, not least because Scripture is replete with passages in which, for instance, the Father addresses the Son, and the Son the Father.When orthodox believers sought language to summarize the idea that each person of the Godhead is a self-conscious agent (the Latin category is suppositum intelligens), in the Greek part of the ancient world they first settled on prosōpon ("face"). But the Sabellians understood the same word to mean something like "aspect," and they defended the view that God revealed himself under a threefold aspect. Eventually the orthodox settled on hypostasis. Among the Latin speakers, Christians settled on substantia or persona---and hence our English word "person." (See chart below.) Christian thinkers have argued for centuries exactly how we should understand persona in Latin and "person" in English, but the very least that had to be affirmed was the deeply entrenched biblical reality that the "persons" of the Godhead interact with one another, address one another, love one another, in a "personal" way.
Terms Expressing God's Oneness and Threeness
Greek
|
Latin
|
English
| |
One
| ousia, physis | substantia, essentia | being, substance, essence, nature |
Three
| hypostaseis, prosōpa | personae | persons, subsistences, modes of subsistence |
(This chart is from John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God, A Theology of Lordship [Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2002], 697; see pp. 696-705.) Of course, the doctrine of the Trinity is much richer than these few lines suggest. As Christians in the third and fourth century studied the biblical evidence, they insisted that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit express necessary, internal, and eternal relations in the Godhead. Today, of course, we sometimes quickly summarize the doctrine of the Trinity: the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and there is but one God. That is true as far as it goes, but it does not guard very well against modalism. The early church taught "that the Father eternally, necessarily, and incomprehensibly communicates the divine essence to the Son without division or change so that the Son shares an equality of nature with the Father yet is also distinct from the Father" (this is the careful summary of Keith E. Johnson, "Augustine, Eternal Generation, and Evangelical Trinitarianism," TrinJ 32 [2011]: 141-163). The language of "communication" was judged crucial: the essence is absolute and communicable, and the early church fathers spoke of this communication in terms of the eternal generation of the Son, while the person is incommunicable, i.e., it cannot be shared. So while one joyfully confesses that the Son is God and the Father is God, the church throughout its history has equally insisted that the Son is not the Father and the Father is not the Son. The church needs a robust Trinitarianism to avoid modalism on the one hand and tritheism on the other.
Had we the space and time, it would be delightful to justify this synthesis by providing the exegesis of many passages, and then extend the discussion from Father and Son to the Spirit. Someone might ask, "But what does it matter?" The answer is twofold: (1) If this summary accurately captures at least some of the glorious truth of the nature of the Godhead, to abandon it is to abandon a true understanding of God. If we are to worship God aright, we must worship him as he is, as he has disclosed himself to us. The only alternative is to worship a god who is progressively false as our understanding skews away from the truth. (2) Various truths connected with the gospel itself become incoherent if one abandons robust Trinitarianism. The Father sends the Son; the Son demonstrates his love for the Father by obeying him all the way to the cross; the Son addresses his Father in the anguished cry, "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?"; the Father gives the elect to the Son; in the plan of God, the Son propitiates the wrath of God and expiates sin; in the wake of his ascension and session at the Father's right hand, the Son reigns as the Father's mediatorial king until he has crushed all opponents, when he will turn the entire scope over to his Father; indeed, when the Son "offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death . . . he was heard because of his reverent submission" (Heb 5:7). None of these relational displays---and there are many others in the drama of redemption---is coherent under modalism. These relations are tied up with the nature of the Godhead. It is not surprising that those who adopt modalism habitually slide toward a diminished gospel.
In his Institutes, John Calvin sums it up: "Say that in the one essence of God there is a trinity of persons: you will say in one word what Scripture says, and cut short empty talkativeness." He then adds that, in his experience, those who "persistently quarrel" over these words "nurse a secret poison" (I.13.5).
Read Full Response @ http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/02/03/carson-and-keller-on-jakes-and-the-elephant-room/
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