Is modalism logically wrong?

[Lisa44]

Modalism also appears to logically contradict Scripture.

In Matthew 3:16, after Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist, we are told:

Here, we see the Trinity all at once: Jesus in the water, the Spirit of God appearing from the sky, and the voice of the Father heard by the others.

Who sees the Trinity all at once?

 

[davidv]

Yes, if I’m not mistaken, the blasphemy comes in when modalists say that Jesus is the Father. The Catholic Church holds that the Father and the Son are two separate beings. That is why they say that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God.

True?

This is not correct. The Church teaches that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one being in three persons.

 

[Spencerian]

Who sees the Trinity all at once?

In the passage, the three persons of the Trinity are simultaneously illustrated, if that is a better term than to use the term, “see.” God is heard, the Holy Spirit appears “like a dove,” and, of course, Christ is incarnate after His baptism. This doesn’t factor in with modalism’s need to switch between modes or states.

 

[Spencerian]

It isn’t that Modalism logically contradicts Scripture, it is that Scripture entails a logical contradiction.

Welcome to what we Catholics call “mystery.”

Not in the mystery definition of some kids in a van with a talking dog, but in the transcendent state of God that defies any attempt to explain him through scientific means.

If you can accept, for the sake of argument, our definition of God as an all-powerful being that’s not human and has such power that he can be literally be anywhere or anything at once, then Scripture has no contradiction whatsoever. We use the term “mystery” as in the contemplation of the mystical. Scripture never claims or purports logic. It does purport truth, which is quantitative and measurable through philosophy or science or other means.

In faith, mysteries aren’t to be solved, but appreciated in the broader span of the message behind the mystical.

 

[belorg]

Welcome to what we Catholics call “mystery.”

Not in the mystery definition of some kids in a van with a talking dog, but in the transcendent state of God that defies any attempt to explain him through scientific means.

If you can accept, for the sake of argument, our definition of God as an all-powerful being that’s not human and has such power that he can be literally be anywhere or anything at once, then Scripture has no contradiction whatsoever. We use the term “mystery” as in the contemplation of the mystical. Scripture never claims or purports logic. It does purport truth, which is quantitative and measurable through philosophy or science or other means.

In faith, mysteries aren’t to be solved, but appreciated in the broader span of the message behind the mystical.

So you believe God can create square circles. Ok, then let’s drop reason altogether.

 

[davidv]

So you believe God can create square circles. Ok, then let’s drop reason altogether.

How is this a reasonable restatement of the other poster comments? Where is the logical contradiction in anything presented? Just because you find it incredulous doesn’t mean it is illogical.

 

[Spencerian]

So you believe God can create square circles. Ok, then let’s drop reason altogether.

Not at all. God is all powerful, but truth has definition. To answer the popular joke, no, God cannot create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it. Nor can he create square circles. These are logical impossibilities because a circle is round and a rock has finite mass. All powerful does not equal illogical.

You are applying human reason (which, by the way, differs from logic, which is demonstrable, unlike reason, where intuitive deduction can add error without sufficient proof) to quantify a transcendent being with infinite knowledge and awareness that does not think as humans do. Not even the most learned, pious theologian can define God, for he, through his very nature, cannot be “put in a box” in quite this way.

None of us here are proposing to you that we “know” precisely who and what God is beyond what he has revealed through the traditions passed down or placed in Scripture. Besides, I think we are getting off-topic for the OP asks about the logic of modalism, which presupposes that God exists in any form in the first place.

 

[Lisa44]

This is not correct. The Church teaches that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one being in three persons.

Thanks. So when we say “seated at the right hand of God” - why would we say that?
If in fact they are one being?

 

[davidv]

Thanks. So when we say “seated at the right hand of God” - why would we say that?
If in fact they are one being?

Because even though they are one in being they are also three distinct persons.
To our human minds this seems impossible, yet God reveals it to be true. That we cannot fully explain it is why it is called a mystery.

 

[Spencerian]

Thanks. So when we say “seated at the right hand of God” - why would we say that?
If in fact they are one being?

The nature of the Trinity can get confusing. Catholic Answers Senior Apologist Jimmy Akin uses this analogy: A rock is a being with zero persons (non-living, inanimate). A human is a being with one person. God is a being with three persons.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit completely share the same substance, but they also possess separate identities with equal power and agreement of will. The phrase “Seated at the right hand of the Father” signifies the glory given by the Father to the Son with the completion of His work for our atonement of sins in the Crucifixion.

To answer a question I’m sure would come up about Jesus praying: When Jesus prayed on earth, his humbling of self through his human nature made prayer to the Father a logical matter to do. As the Second Person in heaven, prayer would be unnecessary in the full glory of Himself with the Father.

 

[Lisa44]

In the passage, the three persons of the Trinity are simultaneously illustrated, if that is a better term than to use the term, “see.” God is heard, the Holy Spirit appears “like a dove,” and, of course, Christ is incarnate after His baptism. This doesn’t factor in with modalism’s need to switch between modes or states.

John 1:32-34
And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

He does not testify to three persons of the trinity. He testifies to who Jesus is.

The theory of modalism doesn’t allow for any “switching”. It is a difference between God being outside of creation, and God being inside of creation.

 

[Lisa44]

This is not correct. The Church teaches that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one being in three persons.

So what of the modalistic view that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not separate persons?

Is that considered blasphemy?

 

[jmcrae]

Thanks. So when we say “seated at the right hand of God” - why would we say that?
If in fact they are one being?

They are “one in being” - made of the same stuff. (Divinity.) They are not “one being.” Together they are one God, and we refer to each of them as “God,” but they are three distinct Persons who share one substance, one mind, and one will.

 

[stanczyk]

Is that considered blasphemy?

Heresy, actually.

 

[belorg]

How is this a reasonable restatement of the other poster comments? Where is the logical contradiction in anything presented? Just because you find it incredulous doesn’t mean it is illogical.

“One being is at the same time three three separate beings” is a textbook example of a violation of the law of non-contradiction, which is a basic law of logic. if God can violate that law, then why is it impossible for Him to create a circle that is at the same time a square? Same violation.

 

[Alindawyl]

“One being is at the same time three three separate beings” is a textbook example of a violation of the law of non-contradiction, which is a basic law of logic. if God can violate that law, then why is it impossible for Him to create a circle that is at the same time a square? Same violation.

I agree, what you have written is violation of the law of non-contradiction. But the reason it’s a violation is because you are equivocating. “One being is at the same time three separate beings” is the logical fallacy of equivocation, because it uses the term “being” simultaneously with two different meanings and tries to treat those different meanings as if they were the same.

When we say God is one, then we mean being. Being as in nature or substance.

When we say God is three, we do NOT mean being. We mean person, and that is the sense in which you use the word being in the second half of that sentence. Those three persons are three distinct identities which are “made up of” or “comprised of” the same exact substance. Being describes nature, not identity. When someone says “I am a human being”, they are referring to their nature. But if someone wishes to refer to their identity, they will not say that they are a human being. They will say their name.

And therein lies the source of the problem - trying to measure God according to ourselves. It is quite the act of pride to claim that if we exist in a certain manner (each identity has its own substance not shared with any other identity), God must also exist in that same manner. It is this desire to measure everything against ourselves which gets in the way of accepting something vastly different from our own experience. So we try to come up with explanations for God which make God more like us. Modalism is one such explanation. If our identities have distinct substances, then to fit God into the same box as us the modalist will claim God’s single substance must mean God is also a single identity. Tritheism is a different heresy which starts from the identity rather than the substance by claiming that if God is three identities then that must mean God has three substances, ie is three gods rather than one.

Revelation tells us that there is only one God (ousia), but revelation also tells us that God is three distinct identities (hypostases). Since ousia and hypostasis are not the same thing, modalism and tritheism are both trying to answer a contradiction which does not exist.

 

[stanczyk]

“One being is at the same time three three separate beings” is a textbook example of a violation of the law of non-contradiction, which is a basic law of logic. if God can violate that law, then why is it impossible for Him to create a circle that is at the same time a square? Same violation.

God has the ability to do whatever is not intrinsically impossible nor in conflict with one of His divine decrees. Therefore, it is impossible for God to make a square circle, since this is an intrinsic impossibility.

The Trinity is not intrinsically impossible. The above definition of the trinity as “one being is [sic] the same time three separate beings” commits the straw man fallacy, by imputing a false doctrine of the Trinity. The Trinity consists not of three beings that are at the same time one being, but rather the Trinity consists of three persons who are one in being.

The Trinity is mysterious, but one of the fundamental qualities of the divine mystery is that it can be rationally understood as not being intrinsically impossible.

As evinced by belorg’s post, the Trinity is a frequently misunderstood doctrine. I hope this explanation helps to clarify any misconceptions.

 

[Lisa44]

Can the person of Jesus, sit next to the person of the Father?

Yes or no?

 

[Alindawyl]

Can the person of Jesus, sit next to the person of the Father?

Yes or no?

Yes. Saint Thomas answers this question in great detail in the Summa Theologica:

newadvent.org/summa/4058.htm

 

[belorg]

I agree, what you have written is violation of the law of non-contradiction. But the reason it’s a violation is because you are equivocating. “One being is at the same time three separate beings” is the logical fallacy of equivocation, because it uses the term “being” simultaneously with two different meanings and tries to treat those different meanings as if they were the same.

The problem is: those ‘different meanings’ are not different at all.

When we say God is one, then we mean being. Being as in nature or substance.

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean too.

When we say God is three, we do NOT mean being. We mean person, and that is the sense in which you use the word being in the second half of that sentence. Those three persons are three distinct identities which are “made up of” or “comprised of” the same exact substance.

An exact same substance cannot be three distinct identities without violating the LNC

Being describes nature, not identity. When someone says “I am a human being”, they are referring to their nature. But if someone wishes to refer to their identity, they will not say that they are a human being. They will say their name.

Are you now saying that ‘humen being’ consists of 7 billion perosns who are all ‘one in being’?

And therein lies the source of the problem - trying to measure God according to ourselves. It is quite the act of pride to claim that if we exist in a certain manner (each identity has its own substance not shared with any other identity), God must also exist in that same manner.

No, God must not exist in that same manner. God needn’t do anything as far as I am concerned. But if someone claims that God is ultimately simple, not composed of anything etc. and then at the same time maintains this same God has three seperate identities, then said person is contradicting his own claims. You are free to claim whatever you wish about God, but be consistent in your claims.

It is this desire to measure everything against ourselves which gets in the way of accepting something vastly different from our own experience.

I have no problem accepting something vastly different from my experience, but I am not willing to accept logical contradictions. If God is an ultimately simple being, he cannot be composed of three identities.

So we try to come up with explanations for God which make God more like us. Modalism is one such explanation. If our identities have distinct substances, then to fit God into the same box as us the modalist will claim God’s single substance must mean God is also a single identity.

That’s just plain logical.

Revelation tells us that there is only one God (ousia), but revelation also tells us that God is three distinct identities (hypostases). Since ousia and hypostasis are not the same thing, modalism and tritheism are both trying to answer a contradiction which does not exist.

There still is a contradiction because God is supposed to be simple and unchangable. So, there cannot be a difference between ousia and hypostasis.