Maybe the Ride Would be Like This
If You Hitch a Ride on the Wild Bus of Anthropomorphism, It Can Take You Some Strange Places
Father, Son, Arianism and Armstrongism
By Scout
Now at the time spoken of here in John 1 and verse 1, the Word was not the Son of God. They were co-equals. There never was a time when the Word did not exist as a separate personage from God. And yet He, too, is God. Now later the one called God, here, became the Father and after Jesus was born as a human being He said, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." Well, I've said that a few times about my son, Garner Ted. But, nevertheless, at this time, the Word had always existed. There never was a time He did not exist, so He could not have been a Son of God — otherwise God would have had to have existed first. Herbert W. Armstrong, “Our Calling”, Sermon, 1976 (Available Online)
I have said these things to you in figures of speech.” ― Jesus (NRSV, John 16:25)
Many Armstrongists will be surprised at Herbert W. Armstrong’s (HWA) statement above. They are fond of quoting “The Father is greater than I” without regard to Jesus’ kenotic state of incarnation. Subordinationism is a quite common view among Armstrongists. Yet HWA apostolically asserts that God and the Word are co-equal – both God in some sense. His statement, insofar as it goes, has a distinctly Nicene Christian ring to it.
Armstrongism, then, has an internal inconsistency. It asserts that God and the Word are co-equal persons. And are both God. Yet, the paradox is that there is a widespread belief in Armstrongists circles that Jesus the Son is inferior to God the Father. I believe this is rooted in the anthropomorphic view of God held by Armstrongists and likely inherited from Arianism. I will now step gingerly into metaphysics.
Ontology and Economy
In theology, two metaphysical properties of God are ontology and economy. Ontology refers to who God is. Economy refers to what God does. This is important in establishing how the Father and the Son are co-equal. They are equal in ontology but differ in economy.
An example is the number 1. It is useful in counting chickens. If you have one chicken you can count him using the number 1. In ontology, the number 1 is like all other numbers. It has magnitude and order. But the number 1 with the same ontology can be used in binary arithmetic in the implementation of digital electronics. It makes computer logic efficient. But it differs somewhat from the chicken-counting number 1. In binary arithmetic, it is used to signify if an electronic gate is open. The number 1 has the same ontology in both cases but a different economy in each case. Just as the Father and the Son are both God in essence but the application of their perfections is different – one is Father and the other is Son. They are the same in their essential being but differ in how they apply themselves.
It is important to understand this principle. It is the background for being able to interpret what Jesus means when he says “I and the Father are one” which implies equality. And elsewhere he says “the Father is greater than I.” This is not a contradiction. The Father and the Son are the same in ontology but differ in economy. In Nicene Christianity, this co-equality and sharing of essence is called Homoousion.
The Subordination of Jesus in Armstrongism
God is absolute. He is not just the strongest kid on the block. He created the block, the kids and the concept of strength. He calls things into existence. He creates reality. He is incomparable rather than relative. Another way of stating this is to say that God is not limited in any sense that we can think of a limit. He has absolute free will and he is what he is.
There cannot be more than one absolute being. If God the Father is absolute then Jesus cannot be absolute if he is a separate being. And the reverse is true. There are a number of arguments concerning this but the one I will examine here is the Argument from Unlimitedness. If there were to be two beings that were absolute, they would limit each other and the definition of absolute would be violated. If one being is all-inclusive then there cannot be another being that is excluded. The only way there can be more than one being that is absolute is for the multiple beings to have a shared essence and the Nicene doctrine of Homoousion is supported.
A corollary is that if God consists of more than one being but one being is absolute, then the rest are not. So, if God the Father is absolute, and Jesus is a separate, distinct being, then Jesus is not absolute. But Jesus is also “ho Theos” so God the Father and God the Son must have a shared essence and any form of polytheism, including the bitheism of Armstrongism, collapses.
So, how then are Father and Son differentiated? I don’t know. I have a conjecture. Perhaps a difference in economy is really a difference in emphasis for beings who encompass all things. The Father and the Son are both absolute, both all in all. But economy is created when God the Father emphasizes certain perfections and Jesus emphasizes others though all perfections are jointly held.
The Arian Pitfall of Anthropomorphism
Arius extended the anthropomorphic metaphor of father and son further than it could go. Nothing in the physical realm is an exact duplication of God’s attributes. In the physical, human realm, the father gives rise to the son as a result of human reproductive capability. Arius concluded that Jesus, then, was created by God the Father, that Jesus was not really God-as-God-is-God. Because he did not recognize metaphor, Arius thought he was being true to scripture and others were not. But what Arius did do was commit the heresy of Heteroousion which the Nicene brothers had to correct.
Arianism is an odd philosophy that afflicted various branches of the Millerite Movement. When HWA joined a church after being convicted of the necessity to keep the seventh day, he joined an Arian church. He boarded up on the bus. Robert Coulter, past president of the General Conference of the Church of God Seventh Day (CG7), in an interview with Dixon Cartwright, stated that the early CG7 was Arian, that is, they did not believe that Jesus was God. CG7 was Arian when Herbert W. Armstrong joined it. But HWA did not retain this Arianism in its explicit form.
The major difference between Arianism and Armstrongism has to do with the transmissibility of the nature of God. Arius had a unitarian view and believed that God is unique and his nature cannot be transmitted to others - even Christ. HWA believed that the nature of God was ultimately going to be transmitted to nearly everyone. So, one cannot assert that Armstrongism is directly Arianist. But there is a subtle point of Arianist influence. Armstrongists seem to believe that Jesus is subordinate to the God the Father (in spite of HWA’s assertion of their co-equality) not only in Kenotic state but in essence. As we have seen, this means that Jesus is not absolute. This also means that Jesus is not God. And this is incontrovertibly an Arianist viewpoint.
The Summary Argument
Using HWA’s terminology from the quote at the top, two “separate personages” cannot be “co-equal” if they are absolute. There can be only one absolute being. If the beings are co-inherent and co-essential we get into different territory. Arius made the mistake of not recognizing the human father-son relationship as applied to God is anthropomorphic, a metaphor. It is not that humans have the true father-son relationship and the relationship between the Father and Son is an imitation. It’s the other way around. The divine relationship transcends the human relationship. We have the weak imitation in flesh. We are the poetry, the metaphor. And Arius made the mistake in rhetoric of not recognizing anthropomorphism when he saw it.
18 comments:
Good article, Scout! It's also a strange thought to me that the ontology of the Father and Son would be 2 separate beings. To my limited mind, One God makes sense. Two seems as unlikely as 3, 4, 5, or a million. One is a singularity while all else is a plurality. In this instance, one is more differentiated from 2 than 2 is from a million.
Scout has correctly identified this as an important error in Armstrongist theology, and he is also right in continuing to underscore the scope of its impact on the Armstrongist conception of God. This is NOT a minor point or an innocent difference of opinion. Armstrong claimed that only he and his followers understood the nature of God, but Scout has effectively demonstrated that they haven't even reached the first rung of the ladder in understanding the nature of God. Likewise, this is also essential information in understanding the doctrine of the Trinity. There is ONE God which presents itself in three manifestations/roles. Thus, God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is male and female. God can manifest as a human, angel, column of smoke or fire, burning bush, dove, a disembodied voice, or flames. This is the foundation of understanding that God cannot be contained. Great post!
God, later the Father when Jesus Christ came in the flesh and begotten as the Son of God, is greater than the Word who was God and who "co-existed" (but not "co-equal") with God in the beginning. How much greater and exactly what is the meaning of "greater"? I don't know.
The artwork! It is as if Jerry Garcia has come to pick up a group of willing participants for an exciting adventure down the rabbit hole with Alice!
This is the Armstrongist view ― God did not become the Father until Jesus was begotten. The generally accepted Christian view is that God was always the Father and Jesus was always the Son. This accommodates the idea that God is immutable. The Armstrongist view drives the idea that Jesus was less than God as the begetter is somehow greater than the begotten. It is more likely that anthropomorphism fails us at this point.
My speculation is that God is all things perfect and Jesus is all things perfect and both have always been so. So, God in his economy as the Father emphasizes certain traits or perfections. And Jesus emphasizes certain traits or perfections to become the Son. But both hold all perfections jointly because they are of the same essence. And a change in emphasis is not a change in ontology but a change in economy. This view preserves immutability and co-equality but permits differentiation is action and responsibility.
The problem is that my view, as much as I like it, may be heresy. So, I have no great commitment to the view. I am not a theologian. One day we’ll find out what the reality is.
Scout
I have never been able to fully understand why ACOG members have always argued so vociferously in favor of the binitarian model for the nature of God. They actually believe that God manifests Himself in three distinct ways, as 1) Father God, 2) Jesus Christ the Son, Messiah and Savior, and 3) as Herbert W. Armstrong. Now they do not state that specifically, but in actual practice, they have treated and revered HWA as if he were God, although they called him an Apostle. We shouldn't laugh! They can't help themselves, it is what they were taught by their third party resource!
They have replaced the personalized guidance and comfort which the Holy Spirit provides with authoritarian church governance, the ministers being the enforcers, imposing their own opinions, likes and dislikes upon the church brethren, using eternal death in the Lake of Fire, and suffering in the Tribulation as their catty nine tails. Apparently, nobody in COGdom realizes that actions defined for you as "good", done under duress, are of no value at all. Good done from free will, as part of one's Spirit-guided character, is the actual gold standard, although some may point out that gold is merely paving material in the new Jerusalem.
I kind of kicked this whole "we know the unknowable" methodology taught by HWA/WCG/AC years ago, simply realizing that the language of the Bible identifies three crucial elements pertaining to God. No labels like binity or trinity, just plain God. The descriptive words refer to these as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and with clear verbiage, do provide a basic, workable description. Why parse these words and arbitrarily assign opinions which are intended to deepen understsnding, but in reality impose limitations which are not even hinted at by scripture? For the purpose of relationship with His human children, God has worked and does work through three named elements of Himself. The one God manifests Himself as these. I have had people accuse me of believing that God was a "shapeshifter" in the past, simply because I look to functionality as opposed to acceding to what is in the little boxes they impose. If the supernatural abilities of God include being able to manifest Himself through personalities consistent with His character in His dealings with humans, the word "shapeshifter" actually would be one primitive (but perhaps trivializing and disrespectful) way of defining God's functionality. Heh. When Armstrongites can't refute logic or concept, they do generally resort to ridicule. Sometimes, we have to turn that ridicule inside out and throw it back at them! A pity, that.
BB
Scout 829 says, "the problem is that is my view, as much as I like it, it may be heresy".
I admire your honesty, but that statement coming from you seems very much out of character from the Scout I have become acquainted with through your posts and comments. It gave me a chuckle.
The way I look at my own personal view in these latter days of life is, it is MY view, the result of the accumulation of a lifetime of experience, personal study and relationship with Christ. I'm not real concerned about what some theologian has to say about it. " Heresy" according to who is how I look at it. Of course that doesn't mean I know it all or that my view can't be sharpened or changed by interacting with other spirit led people. Iron sharpens iron.
BB wrote, “If the supernatural abilities of God include being able to manifest Himself through personalities consistent with His character in His dealings with humans, the word "shapeshifter" actually would be one primitive (but perhaps trivializing and disrespectful) way of defining God's functionality.”
The Trinity is a mystery. I conjectured that God, Christ and the Holy Spirit were each a different emphasis of the same commonly held perfections (attributes of God). Thus, each of the three co-equal persons of the Trinity have joint perfections that would permit any one of them to be, for instance, the Son. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are a specific alignment of jointly held perfections. This would satisfy the Nicene criteria that God has always been God, Jesus has always been Jesus and the Holy Spirit has always been the Holy Spirit. What this does not explain is how there can be three distinct persona with separate conscious states. There are three different roles, each with a distinct person enacting the role, but there is only one essence. If you assert that there is one God who acts in three different roles or modes, that is modalism and is a recognized heresy. There really is a difference in persona between the three though they draw on the same essence. At that point, I have no conjecture. That issue neatly eats my lunch. Maybe BP8 will stick his neck out on that one. I am going to watch the Spurs and the Nicks. The Spurs gotta win.
Scout
Thank you for the thoughtful article, Scout. It rightly pushes us to consider the nature of God and the Scriptures that speak to the Spirit’s identity. It also highlights how thin the reasoning becomes when some insist, as certain Adventist‑derived groups do , that the Holy Spirit is merely an impersonal force. That view must suppress or explain away a great many passages that simply do not fit an inanimate “it.” Scripture consistently attributes personal actions to the Spirit: He speaks, teaches, guides, testifies, intercedes, commands, appoints, and can be lied to or grieved.
These are not the behaviours of a force God manipulates; they are the actions of a personal agent. Any theology that reduces the Spirit to an impersonal power must eventually confront this biblical reality. What we often see, however, is that when the biblical evidence becomes too weighty to ignore, the fallback move is not to deal with the text but to dismiss the doctrine as “pagan” in origin. That was Herbert Armstrong’s primary strategy: rather than engaging with the passages that show the Spirit speaking, teaching, guiding, commanding, and interceding, he attempted to discredit the doctrine by claiming it came from paganism. This is not an argument from Scripture; it is an argument designed to avoid Scripture. But this was not uncommon for Armstrong .
Just in….Nicks won. Sorry Scout. Wonder if any of the Armstrong crowd were watching? Hey Bobby boy…..what about ya self? Sure to be a sermon this week from him on the evils of watching sport again. Should have gone to the betting shop and placed a wager on the Nicks. And donated any winnings to a worthy cause. And that would exclude any of the Armstrong organisations then. Cheers folks.
Sorry Scout about the Spurs and about the dead end this trip down "Trinity" lane usually leads. No, I don't have any definitive answers but my studies have led to the same conclusion as the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, which says, "The spirit in the NT is personally less distinct than the Father and Son, and His divinity less clearly stated. One properly concludes (as I do) that the NT is overall clearly Binitarian (as in 1 Corinthians 8) in its data, and probably trinitarian" (vol.4, page 917).
Also, Anon.940 says, "Scripture consistently attributes personal actions to the Spirit . . . that are actions of a personal agent".
This is also true in my perspective. Since the spirit is the extension of both the Father and Son, these actions are THEIR actions. The spirit is the spirit " of" the Father, "of" the Son, not a third person. "OF" denotes possession, belonging to, originates from.
Continuing, 940 says, "this view must suppress or explain away a great many passages that do not fit an inanimate " it".
Yet, Scripture uses many terms regarding the spirit that are not typically used and applied to personal beings. The spirit is poured out, is a gift, is like water, the wind.
The spirit is God's spirit, Christ's spirit, their love, power, life, mind, and character. As it has been described, "as the spirit in man is to man, so the spirit of God is to God". That make sense to me, see also 1 Corinthians 2:10-16.
I know this doesn't solve anything, and according to Walter Martin this opinion takes me to hell, but that's my 2 cents.
Because HWA taught that Jesus was the God of the Old Testament, and because Jesus came to Earth to live, eat, sleep, drink, and breathe, He appears to have a different level of personal involvement with mankind than does Father God. So, there is not only a difference between the Holy Spirit and Father God and Jesus Christ, but also a difference between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and Father God.
Both Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit came to Earth, the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost following Jesus' death and resurrection. It is the understanding of the Jewish people and most Christians that Father God also came to Earth, and lived in the Holy of Holies in the Temple, and the tent which preceded it, right there amongst the Israelites. Is this act of Father God symbolic of the Holy Spirit coming to Earth to live within Christians? Is it the Old Covenant equivalent?
It is obvious from scriptural descriptions that the Holy Spirit is interactive with humans, constantly assessing them and administering to them. This is why Jesus deliberately chose the word "comforter". An impersonal power such as electricity, unless it powers a hierarchy of diagnostics which analyzes a computer, machine, or automobile upon startup, is not interactive. It is either on or off, as controlled by switches. The Holy Spirit is interactive in the building of Godly character within humans, in providing inspiration, strength, and encouragement, and in producing a set of fruits, many of which are unique and actually counter to the normal human nature of those who are indwelt. Clearly, this interactivity makes the Holy Spirit much more than simply a force or power. It would cheapen or diminish the essence of the Holy Spirit to liken Him to AI. Perhaps a better choice of words would be "Spiritual intelligence", or SI.
I do not understand why Herbert W. Armstrong, through his teachings, systematically throttled two of the members of the deity. At times it appears as if he were leveling God, almost in an effort to lower members' expectations of the WCG, to subtly explain away its failures and deficiencies. He inserted cruel authoritarianism as cheap shot replacements for grace and spiritual guidance, calling us his "dumb" sheep, micro-supervising us, and blaming us for not being ready, (on his watch!) for his wife's death, and the "postponement" (failure!) of what he taught as God's plan. And, then he died with the most toys and won, leaving behind the confusion and crumbling of the empire that had made him so rich and powerful. Would a real Apostle have done that???
I purposely left out any discussion of the Holy Spirit. The introduction of the Holy Spirit adds an additional dimension of controversy to the argument. The heart of the issue is the co-equality of the Father and Son. Nicene Christianity, to counter Arius, asserts that the Father and Son are co-equal. But they also add that the Father was always the Father and the Son was always the Son. Yet, I do not see how that could happen. Is there some force of divine nature that would cause this organization of the God persons to be inexorable? As in the theorem “If you have two gods, one will inevitably be father and one will inevitably son.” How do we support that idea? I think this conundrum points to the weakness of the Nicene view.
In counterpoint to the Nicene view, Arius and HWA believed that the Father and the Son were not equal although HWA uses the term “co-equal.” (HWA is no longer around so we can’t ask him what he meant. My guess is that his followers still don’t have a clue.) Arius believed that Jesus was straight-up created. He took human reproduction as his guide – a dangerous immersion in anthropomorphism. HWA believed that Jesus was god but was a subordinate god. This opens the door for there to be many more subordinate gods. This is illogical unless one backs off from the idea that God is absolute. Discard his absolute nature and we are left wondering where existence came from.
This is why I think differentiation by emphasis is a better answer than differentiation by separate personhood. But emphasis alone doesn’t produce two separate instances of consciousness. There can’t be just one instance of consciousness or we are back to modalism – one being two roles. To me, the Nicene solution seems incomplete. It’s like the brothers took it as far as they could and just quit. I think I am doing the same thing.
Go figure.
Scout
Scout
When you stop to think about it, what is truly "orthodox" or "heretical" about something we can barely understand? Even the ISBE articles on the Trinity contain numerous "probablys" on key points, meaning "we think"???
In the end all we have to go on is what God chooses to reveal in His word, and most of the time we struggle to agree on that, which is not necessarily a bad thing. With the right mindset disagreement can lead to growth!
I have enjoyed the commentary in this thread - especially the humility. I alluded to a ladder in my previous remarks, and I believe that the very best that we can do as humans is to climb one or two rungs on that ladder of understanding the nature of God. Unfortunately, the traditional Armstrongist view doesn't even make it to the first rung. Personally, I believe that God encompasses ALL consciousness. I think that is how we are to be resurrected from a state of death. I think that the Bible is clear that there is ONE God, and that God manifests as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Anything more than that is getting into the weeds - speculation. After all, when Moses asked God's name, God answered "I am who I am." He was/is the God of our forefathers. Unitarian, Binitarian, Trinitarian are human concepts. God is love, mind, and power. The Holy Spirit is God in us. I'm comfortable with the Nicene Creed and believe that EVERYBODY who professes to be a Christian should be comfortable with it. There is a great deal of wiggle room within that profession - more than enough to prevent anybody from getting their panties in a wad about particulars!
BP8 and Miller Jones
I heard a Jewish scholar say that Jews believe the Bible is a problem to be solved and Christians think it is a message to be proclaimed. This is the difference between midrash and kerygma. While both are necessary, I lean toward midrash. And I agree with BP8. Conjecture is not categorically heresy. Even the Bible itself seems to have internal tensions that demand that we engage our minds.
Midrash, which advances exegetical work, is exploratory rather than doctrinaire. This is a foreign concept in Armstrongism which asserts the apostolic authority of HWA in all things theological. Armstrongism emphasizes kerygma almost exclusively. It’s all about a gospel of prophecy, witness and warning. Theology is something that Armstrongists have in their hip pocket because HWA defined theology for them and HWA is unchallengeable. This is presumptuous dealing. I think there is a little presumption in all kerygma, whether Christian or Armstrongist, but I think Armstrongism, because of its authoritarian approach, is especially subject to this pitfall. British-Israelism is really just one big presumption, for instance.
What bothers some is that midrash is not conclusive or monolithic. Jews seem to record and respect every rabbi’s viewpoint. But on the upside, midrash acknowledges the fact that we only know as much about God as he wants us to know. I think it will always be that way. It puts us in our place. Armstrongism doesn’t have this issue. They believe God is a kind of super-human. For them, if you want to know about God, just look at human beings. He has a nose because he has to breathe something, maybe spirit air, to stay alive.
Midrash is one of the reasons why Armstrongists don’t often show up on this blog to defend their viewpoints. The idea of a blog is not compatible with their religious viewpoint. For them there is no discussion, only little booklet theology written ex cathedra by the Apostle HWA. Either you accept it or you don’t. Like my biker buddy back in the mountains. Either you wear the patch or you don’t.
Scout
I remember back in the 70's when HWA's apostleship really began picking up full steam. Everyone including the Ministry began asking, "do you believe Mr. Armstrong is an apostle"? It actually became a test of fellowship and loyalty--the PATCH as Scout put it. Answering " I don't know " was just as bad as "no" for both demonstrated a lack of faith. I tried to get by by saying, "if he is, he is, it really doesn't affect me or the way I conduct my life". Of course one had to pick and choose who they were talking to. It wasn't long after that I transitioned to GTA's kingdom.
Exactly BP8, the 70's after Loma had died and Radar had puffed up Herbert's ego.
They needed the "apostleship brand" for arranging high powered meetings with world leaders. Billy Graham was called an evangelist so Herbert leapfrogged him by being called an apostle.
As royal monachy courtiers who are highly skilled at branding idiot entitled royal princes as ' humble men of the people' so does the COG rebrand people. And the first rebranding was Herbert himself. Garner Ted was rebranded as well, by the WCG propaganda machine.
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