30 April 2024

How Our Adventist Pioneers Got the Trinity So Wrong

by William C. DeMary | 30 April 2024

The Adventist Church has a poor record of accurately understanding and teaching the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. Many of its early pioneers rejected Trinitarianism because they believed it was a perversion of the truth about God.^{^[1]}

Joseph Bates rejected Trinitarianism because he thought that it taught that the Son is identical to the Father:

“Respecting the trinity, I concluded that it was an impossibility for me to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, was also the Almighty God, the Father, one and the same being.”^{^[2]}

J.N. Loughborough considered Trinitarianism “pagan and fabulous,” writing,

“It is not very consonant with common sense to talk of three being one, and one being three. . . . If Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are each God, it would be three Gods; for three times one is not one, but three.”^{^[3]}

J.H. Waggoner argued that Trinitarianism undermines the Adventist atonement doctrine by maintaining that only Christ’s human nature died:

“Trinitarians hold that the term ‘Christ’ comprehends two distinct and separate natures: one that was merely human; the other, the second person in the trinity, who dwelt in the flesh for a brief period, but could not possibly suffer, or die; that the Christ that died was only the human nature in which the divinity had dwelt. . . . Thus the remark is just, that the doctrine of a trinity degrades the Atonement, resting it solely on a human offering as a basis.”^{^[4]}

In each case, these pioneers rejected Trinitarianism because they misunderstood how it distinguishes three persons of the Godhead. They imagined that Trinitarians differentiate the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by their actions or vocations.

Origins of procession

The Nicene Creed, which is the traditional formulation of Trinitarian orthodoxy, distinguishes the divine persons not primarily by their vocations, but by their origins of procession. It says that the Son was “eternally begotten of the Father,” but is nonetheless “of one Being [consubstantial] with the Father,” and that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.”^{^[5]} “Begetting” and “sending” are thus the proper verbs used to distinguish the divine persons.

In his Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas explained procession by noting that people have two mental faculties: intellect (thinking) and volition (willing). Both are “processions” because these faculties proceed toward a particular kind of object represented in the mind. The intellect proceeds toward what it believes to be true, while volition proceeds toward that which it desires or loves. Intellection and volition are distinguished by our mind’s different relations or processions toward mental objects, although these objects may be the same.^{^[6]}

Aquinas specifies that the Father’s generation or “begetting” of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and Son correspond to God’s intellection and volition of himself, respectively. In other words, the Son is God’s intellection of himself (his understanding of himself) and the Holy Spirit is God’s volition of himself (his desire or will to actualize himself). The Son and Holy Spirit are intrinsic to the Father because they are processions in his mind.

Because the Father’s intellect and will never change, the Son and Holy Spirit proceed eternally from his omniscient and omnipotent essence. God is omniscient precisely because the Son is eternally generated from the Father: his omniscience consists not only in his knowledge of all created beings but in his eternal knowledge of himself. Likewise, God is omnipotent because the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds by the mutual volition or love of the Father and Son: God’s omnipotence consists not only in his power to create anything he wants but in his eternal power to actualize himself through his will.^{^[7]}

Nevertheless, explains Aquinas, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons. They are not anthropomorphic “persons” possessing independent abilities or mental faculties. (Because they are one, they cannot disagree, and each person can do everything the others can.)

“Person,” when used to describe God, means a self-subsisting relation belonging to God’s essence. The Son is self-subsisting (he exists necessarily) because God cannot be conceived except as understanding himself. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is self-subsisting because God cannot be conceived except as eternally actualizing his will.

Since God’s nature necessarily involves his intellection and volition of himself, these intrinsic processions are as self-subsisting as the Father, who is unoriginated (neither begotten nor sent). Although there is an order of procession among the divine persons, there is no order of priority (either temporally or hierarchically) among them. They are coeternal and coequal, proceeding by equal necessity from God’s eternal and infinite nature, and it is senseless to speak of the “eternal subordination” of one to the other.^{^[8]}

How the Pioneers Misunderstood Trinitarianism

Aquinas states that we can only know these intrinsic processions in God’s mind because he has revealed them to us in the scriptural tradition. Apart from the Bible, which has named these persons and their processions, we would have an inadequate conception of the Trinity, since we would be modeling our understanding of these processions on human faculties.^{^[9]}

This was Bates’ mistake. By basing his understanding of the Son’s generation from the Father on human procreation, he imagined it was impossible to identify the Son with the Father, just as we cannot regard human children as identical to their parents. Bates didn’t understand that when God begets himself through his intellect, the resulting person—the Son—is still intrinsic to the Father (they have the same nature), whereas human children have different natures than their parents.

Rather than taking God the Father’s relation to the Son, as revealed in scripture, as the standard of paternal relations, Bates took human fathers’ relations to their children as the standard and then projected this standard onto God.

Likewise, when Loughborough considered it nonsensical “to talk of three being one,” he was right to suppose that we cannot distinguish the divine persons through human reasoning alone. We tend to distinguish one thing from another by considering their external relations (such as their physical boundaries) with other things.

However, the relations among the divine persons are internal to God and therefore invisible to us apart from divine revelation. We can only accept Trinitarianism by faith in the scriptural tradition, through which God has revealed himself to us.

Waggoner mistakenly assumed that the Son is distinguished from the Father by his vocation rather than by his origin of procession. He imagined that what primarily distinguishes the Son from the Father is that he became a human and died to obtain our salvation.

However, Trinitarianism teaches that the eternal generation of the Son from the Father, and not the Son’s soteriological role alone, is what makes the Son distinctive. When we affirm that Christ is the Son of God, we are affirming that Jesus is God’s incarnate intellection of himself and that we can know God through faith because God’s self-understanding has become an embodied, historical entity. Christ achieves our salvation by revealing God’s selfless love for us. His death was not a “human sacrifice,” not only because Jesus was no mere human, but because salvation comes through Christ’s resurrection rather than his death alone. God comprehends himself, in the person of his Son, as a selfless, loving being whom death cannot defeat because he exists by eternal necessity. Christianity teaches that salvation is participation in God’s eternal life through faith in Christ, in whom God became a historical reality.

Avoiding the Pioneers’ Mistakes

Unfortunately, the 28 Fundamental Beliefs have not adequately corrected the early Adventist pioneers’ mistakes. They do not sufficiently convey that the divine persons ought to be distinguished not by their vocations but by their origins of procession.

Consequently, many Adventists, wrongly distinguishing the divine persons by their roles, have concluded that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father rather than coequal with the Father. (They believe this hierarchy is the model for the relationship between men and women.)

Moreover, some Adventists, fearful of anything superficially resembling “spiritualism,” deny that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person, regarding him as simply the life animating the Father—as though God consists of an inseparable body and soul like people. They believe that the Spirit is simply God acting in his capacity as a living entity.

Both errors result from the mistaken view that the persons of the Godhead are or ought to be distinguished by their activities or vocations.

To correct these mistakes, I’ll propose amendments to the Fundamental Beliefs that would better align Adventist doctrine with trinitarian orthodoxy.^{^[10]}

Fundamental Belief 2 (“The Trinity”). We could modify the first sentence of this doctrine to say, “There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three coeternal, coequal, and consubstantial Persons, differentiated by intrinsic relations of procession that are essential to God’s nature” (the italics indicate the added portions). This would indicate that the divine persons are essential to God’s nature and that there is no order of priority among them.

Fundamental Belief 4 (“The Son”). Here, we could modify the first sentence of this doctrine to say, “God the eternal Son, who is eternally generated from the Father through God’s intellection of himself, became incarnate in Jesus Christ.” This expresses what is distinctive about the Son, specifically the kind of procession that distinguishes him from the Father and Holy Spirit.

Second, to clarify that the Son was not begotten by the Holy Spirit, instead of saying, “He was conceived of the Holy Spirit,” we could instead say, “His human body was conceived of the Holy Spirit.”

Third, rather than saying that Jesus “perfectly exemplified the righteousness and love of God,” we could say that he “revealed the righteousness and love of God.” This is to avoid suggesting that the Father and the Son have distinct wills or that Jesus could have not exemplified God’s love and righteousness, which is impossible.

Fundamental Belief 5 (“The Holy Spirit”). Perhaps we could modify the first sentence to say, “God the eternal Spirit, sent by the will and mutual love of the Father and Son, was active in Creation, incarnation, and redemption.” We omit that the Spirit was active “with the Father and the Son,” as though they are autonomous entities. This expresses what is distinctive about the Holy Spirit and clarifies his relation to the other persons of the Godhead.

Second, we could modify the second sentence, “He is as much a person as are the Father and the Son,” to clarify what “person” means in the context of the Godhead, such as by saying, “He is as much a person, or a relation subsisting in God’s nature, as are the Father and the Son.”

Lastly in this section we could omit the sentence, “He filled Christ’s life with power,” since the power of the divine persons is the same and the Bible also attributes Christ’s power to the Father (see John 5:19).

Fundamental Belief 9 (“The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ”). The phrase “In Christ’s life of perfect obedience to God’s will” suggests that Christ’s will was distinct from the Father’s. Rather, we could say, “Because the Father and the Son have the same will, the incarnate Christ perfectly revealed God’s goodness and love. Through Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection . . . .” (The additional benefit of this amendment is that since the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, who have the same will, it guarantees a more coherent understanding of the Holy Spirit.)

In these changes (and possibly others) we could make it clear that the Son’s will is not distinct from the Father’s or that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father.

See Jerry Moon, “Heresy or Hopeful Sign?” Adventist Review (April 22, 1999), 498. Available online at https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4621&context=pubs. ↑
Joseph Bates, The Autobiography of Elder Joseph Bates (Battle Creek: Steam Press of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association, 1868), 205. Available online at https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1086/info. ↑
J.N. Loughborough, “Questions for Bro. Loughborough,” Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald 18 (November 5, 1861), 184. Available online at https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1685.6378#6613. ↑
J.H. Waggoner, The Atonement (Oakland: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1884), 165. Available online at https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1485.643#649. ↑
From The Episcopal Church, Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Hymnal Corporation). Available online at https://www.bcponline.org/General/nicene_creed.html. ↑
Thomas Aquinas (ed. Kevin Knight, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province), Summa Theologiae (second ed.) (1920), 1.27.1, 1.27.5. Available online at https://www.newadvent.org/summa/. ↑
Aquinas (1920), 1.27.2, 1.27.4. ↑
Aquinas (1920), 1.28.2, 1.29.4, 1.42.1, 1.42.3, 1.42.6. ↑
Aquinas (1920), 1.32.1. ↑
For the full text of each of these Fundamental Beliefs, see https://www.adventist.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ADV-28Beliefs2020.pdf. ↑