Sunday, July 30, 2023

Blake Ostler on the Relationship between the Divine Persons in Latter-day Saint Theology

 The relationship between the divine persons in Mormon thought may be defined as follows:

 

(1) Distinct persons. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three distinct divine persons who are one Godhead by virtue of oneness of indwelling unity of presence, glory, and oneness of mind, purpose, power and intent. Each of the three divine persons is a distinct person in the fullest modern sense of the word, having distinct cognitive and conative personality. Because each of these capacities requires a distinct consciousness, each divine person is a distinct center of self-consciousness.

 

(2) Loving dependence and ontological independence. The Son and the Holy Ghost are subordinate to the Father and dependent on their relationship of indwelling unity and love with the Father for their divinity—that is, the Father is the source or fount of divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost. If the oneness of the Son and/or Holy Ghost with the Father should cease, then so would their divinity. However, the Son and Holy Ghost do not depend upon the Father for their existence as individuals, and thus each of the divine persons has de re ontologically necessary existence. Further, although the Father does not depend for his divine status on the Son or Holy Ghost, nevertheless, it is inconceivable that the Father should be God in isolation form them because God is literally the love of the divine persons for each other.

 

(3) Divinity. Godhood or the divine nature is the immutable set of essential properties necessary to be divine. There is only one Godhood or divine essence in this sense. Each of the distinct divine persons shares this set of great-making properties which are severally necessary and jointly sufficient for their possessor to be divine. Each of the divine persons has this essence though none is simply identical with it.

 

(4) Indwelling unity. The unity of the divine persons falls short of identity but is much more intimate than merely belonging to the same class of individuals. There are distinct divine persons, but hardly separated or independent divine persons. In the divine life there is no alienation, isolation, insulation, secretiveness or aloneness. The divine persons exist in a unity that includes loving, interpenetrating awareness of another who is also “in” one’s self. The divine persons somehow spiritually extend their personal presence to dwell in each other and thus become “one” “in” each other. Thus, the divine persons as one Godhead logically cannot experience the alienation and separation that characterize human existence.

 

(5) Monotheism. These scriptures present a form of monotheism in the sense that it is appropriate to use the designator “God” to refer to the Godhead as one emergent unity on a new level of existence and a different level of logical categories. The unity is so complete that each of the distinct divine persons has the same mind in the sense that what one divine person knows, all know as one; what one divine persons wills, all will as one. The unity is so profound that there is only one power governing the universe instead of three, for what one divine person does, all do as one. There is a single state of affairs brought about by the divine persons acting as one almighty agency. Because the properties of all-encompassing power, knowledge and presence arise from and in dependence on the relationship of divine unity, it logically follows necessarily that the distinct divine persons cannot exercise power in isolation from one another. Therefore, it follows that there is necessarily only one sovereign of the universe.

 

(6) Apotheosis. Humans may share the same divinity as the divine persons through grace by becoming one with the divine persons in the same sense that they are one with each other. However, humans are eternally subordinate to and dependent upon their relationship of loving unity with the divine persons for their status as “gods.” By acting as one with the Godhead, deified humans will share fully in the “godly attributes” of knowledge, power and glory of God.

 

Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2001), 462-64