Modalism

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by Cal

I've said before I think the Trinity is God's experience of his relationship with himself. He has a core self (Father), a self image (Son) and a relationship (Spirit) between himself and his image of himself. All self-conscious beings including us cannot help but have these three aspects in themselves. Thus we not only express God, we express the Triune God.

I've had this kind of thought too, especially when I read the first part of the gospel of John.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

I've had this kind of thought too, especially when I read the first part of the gospel of John.

More here:
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles...-understanding

And here:
https://www.monergism.com/thethresho...20the%20Tr.pdf

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by Cal

More here:
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles...-understanding

And here:
https://www.monergism.com/thethresho...20the%20Tr.pdf

Yes, Piper's writing here (heavily referring to Jonathan Edwards) lines up with what I've seen in the first chapter of John. However, I hadn't thought of the Spirit quite in the way Piper portrays . . . (this description of the Spirit actually sounds like things I've read in Bill Freeman's stuff!)

[Raptor]

What makes it more interesting and complex is that when we are considering the relationship between the Father and the Son, if we look at the life of Jesus, we have the point of view of His humanity to consider. He was still the Son of God, but now as the Son of Man, He had a proper relationship with God and the Father, but is there a distinction, a difference in the way He related to God as a Man vs. as the Son of God?

An obvious and extreme example would be that Jesus as the Son of Man had to be baptized. Would the Son of God before incarnation have to be baptized? Obviously not. What about prayer? Jesus prayed to the Father, how about the Son of God? Or about worship? Would the Son of God in His deity pray to or worship God, probably not.

So, harder to understand then and discern are the matters of obedience, for example: is Jesu´s obedience to God a matter of Him relating to God in His humanity or did the Son of God in His deity also have a role of "obedience" to the Father? So also the matter of when Jesus said, "The Father is greather than I"? Was that just a matter of Jesus as Man relating to the Father? Or does the Son of God in His deity also relate to the Father in the same way, saying He is greater? Similarly other matters....

[UntoHim]

Great points Raptor! I can see you are thinking out loud here and that makes for some very interesting discussion.

I have always found it quite "telling" that the Lord Jesus referred to the God of the Old Testament (YAHWEH, Jehovah, Kurios) as "Father", and referred to himself as "the Son" - Son of Man or Son of God. Also, one need not look further than the famous verse "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son". I don't think it's much of a stretch to understand this verse in terms of "For God the Father so loved the world". A plain reading of the text surely implies that a son is subservient to his father, and therefore the Father is the one sending the Son. So we can plainly see that the Son of God was indeed subservient to God the Father before the incarnation.

Another passage that I think would dovetail into this dynamic would be in 1 Corinthians 15 - Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

In context, I think one could easily understand "that God may be all in all" to mean "that God the Father may be all in all". But I can also see how one could interpret this phrase to mean "that the Godhead may be all in all". In any case, there does seem to be a clear subservience of the Son to the Father, at least administratively.

So where does all this leave us with modalism and the orthodox, historical teaching/doctrine/understanding of the Trinity? I'm not sure I know the answer to this one, but I'm ready and willing to learn from others.
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