While interacting
with, and critiquing, the Trinitarian theology of William Lane Craig and J.P.
Moreland, Blake Ostler noted the problem of the “Quaternity”:
The problem with the number of substances
also highlights an additional problem with their view. It appears that there
are four divine entities, not three. There are three divine persons and then
there is also the “Trinity as a whole.” Since none of the three divine persons
has the property individually of being identical to the Trinity but has the property
of being a constituent part of the Trinity, it follows that none of the divine
persons is identical to the Trinity. Moreover, the divine persons have the
property of being personal individuals whereas the “Trinity as a whole” is
neither an individual nor a person according to Trinity monotheism. The “one
God” is neither identical to the individual divine person Yahweh as in the Old
Testament, nor to the Father as in the New Testament. Thus, it is rather clear
that we have four divine entities in such a view. Further, “God” is not a
person in this view. Following Dale Tuggy, I will call this the “problem of the
Quaternity” (Dale Tuggy, “The Unfinished Business of Trinitarian Theorizing,” Religious Studies 39 [2003]:165-83)
This problem of the Quaternity has three dimensions. The first dimension is
that none of the divine persons is properly called “God,” or the “one God,”
because the title must be reserved for the three of them together. Because the
divine nature is essentially triune, it also follows that the “divine person”
do not possess the divine nature because none of the divine persons has the
property of being “triune.” Only “the Trinity as a whole” has the property of
being triune. Thus, it appears that the divine persons are not truly divine
because they lack an essential property of the divine nature.
The second dimension of the problem of the
Quaternity is that it has a poor fit with the biblical data. In the Bible, God
is a divine individual, a single divine person known as Yahweh. Only the Father
is the “one God” or “the only true God,” and thus to identify “the one God”
with the “Trinity as a whole” is a category mistake. As Howard-Snyder observed:
No other text is more central to an
understanding of what we are than this: “So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him.” While no image has all of the features of that
of which it is an image, the tradition has it that a human being is made in the
image of God insofar as he or she “is equipped with rational faculties of intellect
and volition which enable it to be a self-reflective agent capable of
self-determination,” to borrow an apt description from Craig and Moreland. Unfortunately,
this is the description of a person,
which they say God is not. In what respects, then, are we made in the image of
an individual substance that is void of all personal attributes? (Daniel
Howard-Snyder, “Trinity Monotheism,” Philosophia
Christi 5, no. 2 [2003]:375-404, here, p. 400)
The third dimension of the problem of the
Quaternity is that it appears to be a form of polytheism rather than
monotheism. How is Trinity monotheism a form of monotheism? Or Craig and
Moreland, there is only one God because they believe that there is only one
individual substance or soul that belongs to the kind “divine.” But with that
claim exposed as fallacious, it appears that they cannot consistently claim
that they embrace monotheism. For the claim of monotheism to function in the
sense that they appear to intend, the word “God” cannot function as a name but
must be considered as a “king” term that picks out the kind or class of being
involved. What monotheism entails, according to Craig and Moreland, is that
there is necessarily exactly one of
the kind “divine being,” only one individual substance that instantiates the
properties essential to the attributes of godliness or divinity. Yet it seems
fairly indisputable that, in reality, their view entails that there are four
such substances that possess the properties of divinity—unless triunity is an
essential property of godliness, in which case the divine persons are not
divine. Craig and Moreland cannot have it both ways. Either the divine persons
are divine or they are not. If they are divine, then triunity is not an
essential property of divinity, and there are four substances that possess all
of the essential divine attributes. These problems are more than sufficient
reason to conclude that Trinity monotheism is neither a trinity nor monotheism—and
worst of all it is an incoherent doctrine that is in tension with biblical
assertions about the one God. (Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, vol. 3: Of God and Gods [Salt Lake City:
Greg Kofford Books, 2008], 234-36)
It is my hope that sincere Trinitarian readers will reconsider their illogical (and unbiblical) theology, and that they will embrace the beauty of the Restored Gospel, including possessing the true biblical Jesus that Latter-day Saints preach. For more on this important point, see: