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#784 Monothelitism and the Trinity

May 22, 2022
Q

I read a most excellent response to a question on third ecumenical council and monotheletism. My question is if will is indeed a faculty of person hood how do escape the conclusion that three persons, three wills equals tri-theism or three Gods?

Ken

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Dr. craig’s response


A

Your question, Ken, intersects my current work on the doctrine of the Trinity. For those who lack the background, let me explain that the debate between dyotheletism and monothelitism concerns whether the incarnate Christ had two wills (one human and one divine) or simply a single will. Since, as you note, I hold that the will is properly a faculty of a person rather than of a nature, I believe that there is but one will in Christ, despite his having two natures. For there is one person who is Christ, namely, the divine second person of the Trinity.

Now if we affirm a robust conception of a person as a center of self-consciousness, intentionality, and will, as I think we should, it follows that the three Trinitarian persons have three wills. Of course, as the wills of three perfect persons, their wills always agree and are in harmony. Though there are three distinct acts of will, they all will the same thing. I thus affirm a vigorous social trinitarianism, what has been called a “three self” view of the Trinity, in contrast to a “one self” view, which seems to me nothing more than a thinly veiled Unitarianism.

So your question is, if there are three divine selves, namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then why are there not three Gods? How does one avoid tritheism? I have addressed that question at length in my chapter on the Trinity in Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 2d rev. ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2017), and I would refer you to the discussion there. I propose a model of the Trinity according to which God is an unembodied soul endowed with three sets of rational faculties, each sufficient for personhood. God is thus an immaterial tri-personal being. That seems to me a straightforward and unproblematic biblical doctrine of the Trinity.

I accepted the label “Trinity Monotheism” suggested by others for the view I defend. But I now find that nomenclature less preferable. For the Trinity is a group concept, and I don’t want to affirm that God is a group. Rather God is an individual, an immaterial, tri-personal substance. So I think that my view is better described as “Tri-personal Monotheism.”

- William Lane Craig