Most understand that whatever “the Trinity” doctrine amounts to, it includes the claims that no Person of the Trinity is identical to any other. In symbolic logic, we represent the three claims like this. (Because WordPress, oddly, has crippled inserting special characters like a not equals sign, I’m just using “-” to mean the not symbol. So, e.g. the first line reads: “It is not the case that the Father just is the Son.”)
- -(f=s)
- -(s=h)
- -(h=f)
In other words, the “Persons” of the Trinity are numerically three, not one. By definition a Trinity theory is supposed to rule out a “Sabellian” or “modalistic monarchian” theology, and a fairly standard way of understanding those is as collapsing the persons, so that the opposites of 1-3 above would be true (f=s, s=h, h=f). Thus, it is not controversial that “the doctrine of the Trinity,” however understood, should include claims 1-3.
At the popular level, and in a lot of apologetics material, people simply confuse together Jesus and God – even though, theoretically they are committed to God being numerically identical to the Trinity. Those can’t both be the case, because it would follow from j=g and g=t that j=t, which is manifestly false. Jesus can’t just be the Trinity (and vice-versa), because they have simultaneously differed. The Trinity is supposed to be tripersonal, whereas Jesus is not supposed to be tripersonal. In other words, if 4 and 5 were to be true, 6 would have to be true as well.
- j=g
- g=t
- j=t (4,5)
Don’t think 6 is true? I agree. But then, you must deny 4 and/or 5, because if both 4 and 5 were true, then 6 would be true too.
Just as it’s clear that we can’t collapse (numerically identify) Jesus with the Trinity – because they differ! – it’s clear that we can’t collapse the Father and the Son, again, because they differ. If you’re a trinitarian, you really should agree with the previous two sentences!
But what about the claim that “Jesus is God”? People have their favorite proof-texts here. But trinitarian tradition blinds us to the overwhelming New Testament evidence that Jesus is not God. It works like this. A trinitarian thinks that g=t. And pretty clearly too they assume that t?f. But it follows from this that g?f. Of course God, the triune God, can’t just be the Father, because in some sense there is more to God/the Trinity than the Father. That’s just standard trinitarian thinking.
So, they reason like this:
- g=t
- -(t=f)
- -(g=f) (7,8)
In other words, since God just is the Trinity, and of course it would be wrong to think that the Trinity just is the Father, therefore, it is wrong to think that God just is the Father. (Sidenote: I do not think this is a sound argument!) So when they see differences between the Father and the Son, they don’t register these as differences between God and the Son, because they think that God is one thing (the Trinity) and the Father is another (one “Person” somehow “in” the Trinity.)
Reading the New Testament, one encounters all sorts of differences between the Father and the Son. This, for a trinitarian, is according to the script; it’s what they expect to find there. And when someone points out that Jesus can’t be God, because Jesus and God differ from one another, the trinitarian may retort, “Well of course the New Testament authors distinguish the Son from the Father. We think they’re trinitarians, not modalists!”
But this is confused. Every New Testament author assumes that g=f, that the one God of the Old Testament is none other than the Father. When you see that God for them just is the Father (and vice-versa), that is, g=f, and we retain the correct insight that -(f=s), it follows that -(g=s). And since it is correct, when reading the New Testament, to collapse God and the Father, then every difference between Father and Son shows not only that -(f=s), but also that -(g=s). That is, all your evidence that the Father isn’t the Son, is also evidence that the Son isn’t God (and vice-versa). Once you see this, all the fog of Jesus-God confusion just quickly melts away. In sum, it is correct to reason like this:
- g=f
- -(f=s)
- -(g=s) (10, 11)
So the texts people misread as collapsing the Son and God – unless the New Testament authors are badly confused, they must not be collapsing Jesus with God, because just as surely as these authors think -(f=s), just as surely they also think -(s=g) (and -(g=s)). Whenever you see a commenter, translator, or author push the line that the text implies that Jesus just is God himself, you should push back, because that would be to say that Jesus just is the Father himself, which is obviously a misreading.
It’s pretty important, then, to get clear on the matter of f=g (or g=f). Is it true, as I have argued here and here, that the New Testament authors everywhere assume this? If so, then it would be uncharitable to allege that they also think that g=s (or s=g), given that they think that the Father and Son are numerically distinct. This is just simple reading comprehension, keeping the characters of the New Testament straight.
Can you still be a trinitarian if you see that it is wrong to collapse together Jesus and God? Yes, you can! In brief, some Trinity theories don’t identify Jesus and God, but rather make Jesus a proper part of God, that is, of the Trinity.