A Critique of Social Trinitarianism (and why I believe classical trinitarianism is to be preferred)

What is social trinitarianism and what is classical trinitarianism? Although many have not heard these different terms, there exists a real difference.

Now just to be clear, both sides believe in trinitarianism and that there are three persons in God. The issue is only on how does one define what person means? 

Social trinitarianism may be defined as the belief that there are three distinct centers of intellect in God, thus mind is defined as an attribute of personhood instead of an attribute of nature. This is how Scott Horrell (a proponent of social trinitarianism) would define the view:

Trinity is that the one divine Being eternally exists as three distinct centers of consciousness, wholly equal in nature, genuinely personal in relationships, and each mutually indwelling the other." (Toward a Biblical Model of the Social Trinity)

The most famous modern advocate of social trinitarianism is William Lane Craig, and he thus defines the doctrine:

The central commitment of Social Trinitarianism is that in God there are three distinct centers of self-consciousness (Formulation and Defense of the Doctrine of the Trinity)

However, this stands in contrast to what is called "Classical Trinitarianism", meaning the form of Trinitarianism that was established in the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople and taught by many church fathers. In this system, mind is defined as as attribute of nature. Thus, in classical trinitarianism although there is only one mind and will in God, the one mind is "operated" by three distinct agents (the three persons). This view has been held by famous theologians such as Augustine, Martin Luther, Aquinas, Athanasius, John Calvin (mostly) and even John Nelson Darby. 

The reason for the existence of the terms "classical trinitarianism" and "social trinitarianism" is the fact that "classical trinitarianism" is the view that was generally held by the post-Nicene early church writers, the medieval church and most Protestants. It was also held by many ante-Nicene writers such as Ignatius of Antioch, however the doctrine of subordinationism (which is an erroneous understanding of the trinity) was common at that time. 

Social trinitarianism gets its name from its emphasis on viewing the trinity as the basis for human relationships. Though social trinitarianism is a more recently popularized doctrine (its golden age has been 1800-the present), some of its views can be traced to earlier writers. Now, while some call social trinitarianism "tritheistic", I would not go so far and call it a dangerous heresy. Although I do believe it is inaccurate, both classical and social trinitarianism affirm the three co-existent persons and affirm that there is one God. Thus, I do view social trinitarians who affirm the gospel as brethren.

It should also be noted that not every author fits perfectly into either camp, for example Wayne Grudem is a good example who is "in between" both positions (although I believe he is somewhat inconsistent).

What distinguishes the persons?

(note: not every author quoted necessarily perfectly agreed with every aspect of classical trinitarianism) 

The trinity

A person is someone who can say "I" to the exclusion of another, thus we can speak of there being three "personal self-distinctions or individual subsistences within the Divine essence". In other words, we can say there is one "what" but three "who"s. We can see the distinction of the persons in multiple places in the scripture. Jesus prays to the Father (Luke 23:34), the Father loves the Son (John 3:35), the Father sends the Son (1 John 4:14) and Jesus breathes forth the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). In social trinitarianism, the definition of personhood is more "anthropomorphic", meaning that it is taken in a more "human" sense. Thus, when social trinitarians speak of personhood, they use the word in the same sense it is used in common language today, implying a distinct center of will and mind. However, classical trinitarians do not believe that the word "person" should be used in the same way as we commonly use it in day to day speech.

In classical trinitarianism the persons can be distinguished from each other by their relations of origin. The Son is believed to be eternally begotten from the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.  Thus the Father is distinguished from the Son by being unbegotten, the Son is distinguished from the Father by being begotten and the Spirit is distinguished from both by spiration. 

To go into deeper detail, eternal generation is defined thus by Charles Hodge:

The eternal generation of the Son is commonly defined to be an eternal personal act of the Father, wherein by necessity of nature, not by choice of will, he generates the person (not the essence) of the Son, by communicating to him the whole indivisible substance of the Godhead, without division, alienation, or change, so that the Son is the express image of His Father’s person, and eternally continues, not from the Father, but in the Father, and the Father in the Son

But is this concept biblical? Certainly we can't accept it just because Nicaea mentioned it, we need to be Bereans and look what the scriptures themselves say.  However, there seems to exist many verses which suggest the doctrine:

John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 5:26: “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.”

John 6:57: As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

Commentators have noted how the word "gave" in John is in the aorist tense, which seems to put us back into eternity, as we see in Vincent's Word Studies by Marvin R. Vincent: "Hath he given (ἔδωκεν) Rev., more strictly, gave, the aorist tense pointing back to the eternal past.".

Another text which appears to support the concept is Hebrews 1:3: which says:

who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Sam Shamoun comments on this text:

 "There are several points which we can glean from this very crucial text. The first point is that Jesus is the very exact imprint, the very exact copy, the perfect reflection of God’s own substance, nature, essence etc. That is the meaning of the Greek word charakter, that Jesus is the precise and perfect imprint left by the Original or the Source. The author of Hebrews is basically saying that the Father is the underived Source of all Deity with the Son being the perfect duplicate of that Deity. If God’s substance is eternal, then Christ must be eternal also since he is the exact imprint. If God’s substance is infinite, then Christ must also be infinite seeing that he is the exact copy of it."

 A similar point as in Hebrews 1:3 is made in Colossians 1:15. 

In the modern day, there has been a slight bias against eternal generation by some translators, which is why the term "begotten" is often taken away from John 3:16, however if we read the earliest Christians, they all understood the term as referring to being begotten. Although I am not a King James onlyist, I believe that the King James translation of the verse is to be preferred. 

We also see the doctrine of eternal sonship in scripture, for example Christ is already called the Son in Proverbs (Proverbs 30), which is a messianic prophecy, way before the incarnation. This in my opinion, at least implies eternal begetting.

The eternal procession of the Holy Spirit is also explicitly affirmed in John 15:26, which reads thus in the King James Version:

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me

Theologians in the west also have generally taught that He proceeds from the Son as well, because the scriptures call the Holy Spirit "The Spirit of Christ". Jesus also "breathes forth" the Holy Spirit (John 20:22) and the Holy Spirit is sent "in the name of the Son" John 14:26.  However, we must be very careful to say that Christ is not created, eternal generation does not attempt to call Christ created, as John Walvoord says that we must avoid mixing in human ideas about begetting when discussing the doctrine:

Theologians have borrowed the Scriptural distinctions as to the eternal relation of the Second and Third Persons to the First Person. In speaking of the Son, the Scriptures affirm His generation eternally (Ps 2:7), while in speaking of the Spirit, the word proceed is used, as we have seen. No human mind can improve on these distinctions, even if it be admitted that the terms are inadequate to comprehend all the truth which they represent. Generation must be guarded from all purely anthropomorphic ideas, and proceeding must be made eternal. (The Person of the Holy Spirit)

The will or wills of God?

Going into the central issue on the problem of the divine will, my issue with identifying will and mind as being the concept of what "person" means is that it would imply that because Christ is only one person, He would have only one mind and one will (as the Bible teaches that Christ has two natures, human and divine yet being one person). Yet, if Christ had no human mind, we fall into problems with Hebrews 2:17, which states that Christ was like us in "every way": Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. We also see mentions of Christ "learning" (Luke 2:40, Luke 2:52), which show that Christ had a human mind. 

The scriptures speak of God's mind in the singular, implying only one mind in God. Verses which mention the mind or the will of God in the singular include Romans 11:34, Romans 12:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:18 and John 7:17. 

Social Trinitarianism almost always  teaches monothelitism (the doctrine that Christ only had one will) as it is generally flows from the other doctrines held. However, on monothelitism Ryrie says:

A similar error developed after Chalcedon that taught that Christ had only one will though conceding verbally that He had two natures. It is called monothelitism. This was condemned at the third council of Constantinople in 680. A study of errors should help clarify the truth and make us more careful how we express it. Semantics are very important in the statements of theology. (Ryrie, Basic Theology)

Biblically, it seems quite difficult for me to say that Christ was truly human if He did not have a human mind at all:

Hebrews 2:17

Therefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

Hebrews 4:15

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 

About this Chafer says:

 The Scriptures declare that Christ possessed a human body, soul, and spirit, and that He experienced those emotions which belong to human existence. Much difficulty arises when the thought is entertained of two volitions—one divine and one human—in the one Person. Though this problem is difficult, it is clearly taught in the New Testament that Christ, on the human side, possessed a will which was wholly surrendered to the will of His Father. The surrender of the will, while it obviates any possible conflict between the will of the Father and the will of the Son, does not at all serve to remove the human will from His unique Person. The human will was ever present regardless of the use He may have made of it. (Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology) 

Thus, despite Christ having two minds and two wills, there can be no conflict with the human mind and the divine mind, the human mind of Christ perfectly syncs with the divine mind. As Christ is one person, every action Christ does in His human nature can be attributed to the divine person. Thus we can say "God died in the flesh" or "God was born", it was God who bled in the cross and not another person merely "controlled" or merely indwelled by God. There are not two Christs, there are not two Christs who are just "close to each other", no but there is only one Christ and the union of two natures is substantial. This is why scripture says "they have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8). It is the eternal Logos (Word) Who became human and died for our sins in the cross. Now, Social trinitarians thankfully would agree with our statements that there is only one Christ, and every action of Christ as a human can be attributed to the divine person of the Word. However, I wanted to make it clear that the doctrine of Nestorianism (that Christ is two persons) must be rejected on the basis of the scriptural testimony.

Now, because there is only one will in God, it would mean that there can be no submission of the will in eternity. The verses which speak of submission of the will should be interpreted as Christ in his human nature (Christ had two natures, one human one divine and as will is an attribute of nature, he had two wills). Thus Christ submits to the Father in His human will but not in His divine will, the concept seems to be affirmed by Paul in Philippians 2:8:

And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

The important word here is "became" (γενόμενος). If Christ "became" obedient, how does it fit with an eternal obedience? The word implies a change, thus Paul is directly saying that Christ only became obedient during the incarnation. 

It should still be noted that there is a certain order in which the members of the trinity work, as we see the Father sends the Son and both the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit, however this does not mean that the Son "obeys" the Father, which would necessitate a submission of the will. This order of the persons working in theology is called "taxis". I do not believe that the trinity should be used to justify gender roles, as the scripture never uses that comparison. Although I do affirm complementarianism, it is too much of a price to pay to abandon classical trinitarianism in exchange to have an argument against egalitarianism.

John Nelson
Darby

Naturally arising from the doctrine of one person, the three persons work "inseparably". Every work of God is a trinitarian work, although they work inseparately they do not work indistinctly, as John Nelson Darby explains:

The Spirit distributes to whom He will; but this is not separate from the will of the Father and the Son. They have not the same counsel but one counsel, mind, purpose, thought; yet they act distinctly in the manifestation of that counsel. The Father sends the Son, and the Son the Spirit.

The doctrine does not mean that there are no distinctions in the works of the three persons, as we biblically do see a distinction. The doctrine may be communicated thus: "The three persons work inseparably buy not indistinctly", as every work of God is a trinitarian work. The clearest text to teach inseparable operations is John 5:19. For example, only the Son became incarnate, the Father and the Holy Spirit did not become human. However, this does not mean that they weren't all involved, it was through the Holy Spirit that "she was found with child of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew 1:18). 

This is how Matthew Barrett defines the doctrine:

"every act [in the Trinity] occurs in accordance with his simple essence. No matter which person we are referring to, they all have the one will in common just as they all have the one essence in common…On the other hand, the one, inseparable essence and will has three modes of subsistence: the Father as unbegotten, the Son as begotten, and the Spirit as spirated…the divine essence has three modes of subsistence, each person a subsistence of the one, simple essence" (Barrett, Matthew. Simply Trinity (p. 308-309))

Now, by "modes of subsistence", Barrett is not referencing the Modalist doctrine that there is just one person with three "masks", which is completely outside trinitarianism and should be rejected. By this, Matthew is referencing just the fact that there are three distinct subsistent persons in God.

Read more

The Eternal Generation of the Son A Biblical Perspective (Sam Shamoun)

What is social trinitarianism? (Matt Slick)

What is monothelitism? (Gotquestions)