#881 Wrestling with Doubts

Dr. craig’s response

There’s a great deal to be said in response to your letter, Lincoln, quite apart from your question about the metaphysical necessity of the Trinity.

First of all, it troubles me that you would engage in a project which produces such spiritually destructive doubts in your own mind. Why would you do such a thing? Why not instead try to produce a list of arguments in support of Christianity? At the very least, you should try to produce such a positive case before you make a list of objections, so that you have something on the other side of the scale as a counterweight to those objections. I find that those who are most susceptible to destructive doubts are persons who do not have a robust, positive apologetic for the truth of their Christian faith. Such people are playing with fire if they engage in a project like yours.

I have often said that we all have a bag of unanswered questions. Given the finitude of life, we’ll never have enough time to answer all the questions in our bag. The secret to victorious Christian living is not having answers to every question, but learning to live successfully with unanswered questions. Fundamental to success will be cultivating our walk with God, staying close to Him, and having no unconfessed sin in our life. The witness of God’s Spirit can enable you to live victoriously with unanswered questions. We’re not playing intellectual games here; your soul is at stake.

That having been said, I should add that one of the most intellectually enriching experiences of the Christian life is to take one question out of that bag and pursue it into the ground until you find an answer that gives you peace of mind. I have spent literally years reading and reflecting on questions like God’s relationship to time, the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom, and the challenge posed by abstract objects to God’s self-existence. Why not let your list of doubts turn into philosophical research topics? You can pick just one of them and pour yourself into studying the literature on that question. Don’t just wallow in doubt. Chase down your doubts by serious, patient, extended philosophical inquiry. I think you will find it to be a tremendously rewarding experience that will strengthen your faith.

Your question about the metaphysical necessity of God’s being triune is, in fact, one of my unanswered questions! But, unlike you, I am not bothered by the fact that it may be a brute metaphysical necessity that God is tripersonal. That’s probably because I see no reason to embrace your assumption that “all his intrinsic properties are necessary de re to him.” It baffles me that this assumption is not on your list of doubts! Are you more confident that Jesus Christ is not divine than that all God’s intrinsic properties are metaphysically necessary? I should find that extraordinary! Not only is there no good reason to adopt this assumption, but I think that it is clearly false. This fact emerges from philosophical discussions of divine simplicity. God’s belief states (e.g., “I have created the world”) are intrinsic to Him, but they are not metaphysically necessary, but contingent. So contrary to the proponents of divine simplicity, I think that God has unlimited properties that are both contingent and intrinsic.

That is not to say that I think that God’s being triune is a contingent property of God. Despite my rejection of your assumption, I am inclined to think that God is essentially tripersonal. But I can’t think of any good reason why this state of affairs cannot be a brute fact about God. It just belongs to His nature to be tripersonal.

Now I do think that we can give a very powerful argument for God’s being a multi-personal being rather than, as you put it, “a one person being.” That is the argument from God’s being essentially loving. As a maximally great being, God must be essentially loving. But it belongs to the very nature of love to give oneself away to another. But then who is that other to whom God gives Himself essentially in love? It cannot be any contingent being. Therefore, there must be multiple persons within the very being of God. God is not a lonely monad, as unitarians believe, but rather is a multi-personal being.

It remains to be asked why a multi-personal being must be specifically tripersonal? Why three persons? As you point out, Swinburne argues that there needs to be a third person with whom the two lovers share their love because such a being is greater than just a bipersonal being. Although, like you, I am not fully persuaded of this argument, I do think that it has something to be said for it. Two persons sharing their love with a third does seem to be greater than just the two persons in love with each other. Adding a fourth would not make the being any better. These speculations are so exotic, however, that I do not think a Christian should be at all troubled by not having an answer to your question why there must be exactly three divine persons.

So your argument from simplicity fails rather spectacularly, I think. Not only so, but I disagree that the biblical doctrine of the Trinity involves “a complicated, nearly incomprehensible tripersonal singular being.” Take a look at the model of the Trinity that I present in Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, and see if you do not find it simple and comprehensible.

Traditionally, the doctrine of the Trinity belongs to revealed theology, not natural theology. So I see no need for “a positive philosophical basis for the Trinity.” Since it is, as you recognize, taught in Scripture, the question is whether you have good reasons to believe what Scripture teaches. We are back again to that positive case for Christianity that I began with! I am far more confident that Jesus rose from the dead and was who he claimed to be than I am that we must have a positive philosophical basis for the Trinity. Indeed, you should add to your list of doubts any religious epistemology that would require a philosophical argument if a theological doctrine is to be rationally justified or warranted!