The scene, an American evangelical church, around Christmas time. The pastor prays,
Heavenly Father, than you so much for sending us your Son! We’re so grateful for your perfect of gift of forgiveness, of eternal life. Help us, this season, to remember the reason for it. God, thank you for coming to be born, to die for us. In your name we pray, amen.
At the beginning of this prayer, he’s addressing God, aka “Heavenly Father.” Then, seemingly talking to this same one, he thanks him for dying on the cross. Obviously, he’s talking about Jesus at the end of this prayer. But he’s also talking about God; he seems to think that Jesus and God are one and the same. He seems to be reasoning like this:
- Jesus is God.
- God is the Father.
- Therefore, Jesus is the Father.
(Each case of “is” here means numerical identity.) His justification for 1 is evangelical tradition. This is what it has boiled down the catholic two natures and Trinity doctrines into. His justification for 2 is the New Testament. “God” there is nearly always the Father – that’s presupposed throughout. He is none other than the unique God. 3 follows logically from 1 & 2. If 1 & 2 are true, then so is 3. This is impeccable reasoning; as far as inferring 3 from 1 & 2, our pastor makes no mistake.
But 3 conflicts straightforwardly with the New Testament. God, that is, the Father, did not die on the cross. Rather, the unique, human Son of God died on the cross, an atoning sacrifice for the sins of his fellow humans. (John 3:16; Romans 5:8-9) Starting with Tertullian, ancient mainstream Christians denounced claims like 3 as “patripassianism” – as the false claim that the one true God, the Father, died for us.
No, he didn’t. He can’t, as he’s always been immortal. In contrast, the human Son of God was, after his death, raised to immortality. But he wasn’t immortal on that fateful day at Golgotha.
We must, then, deny 3. But then, we must also deny 1 and/or 2. If both were true, then so would 3. But it’s not. 2 seems inviolable. Yes, Jesus and others are called “God” or “gods,” but no NT author, rightly understood, identifies the Son of God with the God whose Son he is. Even the many “two natures” speculations generally don’t mean to imply 1. It looks like we must deny 1. Indeed, we can know on NT grounds that 1 is false, just by keeping in mind a self-evident principle of reason.
And it is not clear that the 4th-5th century trinitarian traditions actually commit us to 1. But 1 is an actual effect of the official trinitarianism of present-day evangelicals. Call it “pop theology” or “folk religion” if you like. Simply put, they confuse together Jesus and his God. If you only defend the system as it exists, this is part of what you’re defending.
Stop defending it. These trinitarian Christian philosophers know better; they deny 1, and try to interpret the Trinity and two-natures traditions in ways that don’t imply 1. They don’t just mutter “Trinity” and hope that somehow this means we can affirm 1 & 2 while denying 3. We can’t. Denying 3 comes a price, and they pay it (denying 1). (Some of them also deny 2, but that’s another conversation.) And unitarian Christians too deny 1; no such, philosopher or not, agrees with 1, read as a numerical identity claim. And careful readers of the NT like Dr. Larry Hurtado and Dr. James Dunn not only battle against the many misreadings of the NT which imply 1, but also argue against 1 that the NT authors consistently distinguish between the two of them, and never run them together, though they do of course associate together God and his Son.
Did you get this confusion for Christmas? It’s not too late to take it back. Just explain to them that two different beings can’t be one and the same as a certain being. Get the store credit; the Christian theology store has better things to offer.
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