Chapter 3

The Doctrine of God and the Nature of Man

"Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that ever was written on the subject."

- Joseph Smith¹

Perhaps the most fundamental questions a religion must answer are those relating to the nature of God and man's relationship to Him. Jesus said, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (John 17:3) In order to "know God" fully, one must also know about Him. As our Lord told the Samaritan woman, "Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship . . . ." (John 4:22)

The Prophet Joseph Smith claimed to have restored vital truths about God and man that had been lost for many centuries. However, some of these doctrines are controversial to the rest of the Christian world, and so this is exactly the area where Latter-day Saints are most often criticized by their Christian neighbors. For example, Evangelical leader E. Calvin Beisner, in the introduction to his defense of the mainline Trinity doctrine, brushes aside the Latter-day Saint doctrine of God as "polytheism."² And Anti-Mormon activists Ed Decker and Dave Hunt go further, insisting that Mormons "have a completely different God from what the Bible presents," and that the Mormon idea that men have the potential to become like God "is basically derived from ancient pagan traditions."³

Where exactly do the doctrines Joseph Smith restored relating to these issues fit in with the corresponding mainline teachings, and how do each of these systems compare to the earliest Christian beliefs? In this chapter it will be shown that Joseph Smith restored early Christian doctrines about God and man that were gradually replaced in a complex struggle between the original Church, Greek philosophy, and Gnosticism.

The LDS Godhead vs. the Mainstream Trinity

As has been discussed, the purpose of this book is to examine the thesis that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a restoration of ancient Christianity. Given this, one would expect to see a trend in the history of Christian doctrine starting from something very similar to the LDS position and ending with current mainstream teachings. Therefore, before we examine this hypothesis with respect to the doctrine of God, it will be necessary to define exactly what the LDS and mainstream belief systems include.

The LDS Concept of the Godhead

"We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." (Article of Faith 1) While this statement of faith may seem perfectly mainstream, there are many significant differences between the LDS doctrine of God and that of the bulk of the Christian world. Moreover the differences between any two doctrines of the Godhead in Christianity can usually be understood by comparing the ways in which a number of scriptural propositions are combined and interpreted.

The Bible contains four propositions about God that every Christian denomination must reckon with in its theology. (1) First, is that the Bible contains several strongly monotheistic statements. When Moses says, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD" (Deuteronomy 6:4), he means, as the Muslims say, "There is no God but God." This view also finds support in God's statement to Isaiah that, "I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me." (Isaiah 43:10) This tradition is continued in the New Testament as, for example, when Jesus prayed to the Father he said, "And this is life eternal: that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (John 17:3)

(2) Second, there is a person called the Father, who is identified as God. The example of Christ's "high-priestly prayer," quoted in part above, should be ample evidence of this fact.

(3) Third, there is a person called the Son in the New Testament, namely Jesus Christ, who is called God. Clearly identifying Jesus as "the Word," John wrote, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)⁴ Here Jesus is presented as God, but also as distinct from the Father, hence the phrase, "and the Word was with God." There are numerous other examples of this throughout the New Testament. For instance, when confronted by the resurrected Christ, Thomas exclaimed, "My Lord and my God." (John 20:28) Paul preached to the Church that they should, "Take heed . . . to feed Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." (Acts 20:28) Finally, Jesus Christ unequivocally identified himself as Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament when he said, "Before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:58)

(4) Fourth, there is a person called the Holy Spirit who is identified as God. That the Holy Spirit is God is shown by Peter's accusation of Ananias, "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? . . . Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." (Acts 5:3-4) The New Testament also teaches that the Holy Spirit is a person, distinct from the Father and Son: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." (John 14:26; see also Acts 13:2)

Naturally, these propositions present a problem. Are there three Gods or one? For Latter-day Saints, it is acceptable to say both that there is one God, and that there is a plurality of Gods, depending on the context. For example, in one sense the Father is "the only true God." "Paul says there are Gods many and Lords many . . . ; but to us there is but one God--that is pertaining to us; and he is in all and through all."⁵ That is, even if there are other Gods, the one with ultimate power and authority pertaining to us is the Father. In another sense there is a plurality of Gods. Again, quoting Joseph Smith, "I have always declared [that] . . . these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods."⁶

And in yet another sense, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can be spoken of as "one God." The Book of Mormon prophet Nephi preached the way to salvation, which he called "the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end." (2 Nephi 31:21) What is the nature of this "oneness"? In Jesus' great Intercessory Prayer (see John 17)⁷, He asked that His disciples would be made one in Him as He was one in the Father. Joseph Smith explained:

Many men say there is one God; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are only one God. I say that is a strange God anyhow--three in one, and one in three! It is a curious organization. "Father, I pray not for the world, but I pray for them which thou hast given me." "Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom thou has given me, that they may be one as we are." All are to be crammed into one God, according to sectarianism. It would make the biggest God in all the world. He would be a wonderfully big God--he would be a giant or a monster. I want to read the text to you myself--"I am agreed with the Father and the Father is agreed with me, and we are agreed as one." The Greek shows that it should be agreed. "Father, I pray for them which Thou has given me out of the world, and not for those alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be agreed, as Thou, Father, are with me, and I with Thee, that they also may be agreed with us," and all come to dwell in unity, and in all the glory and everlasting burnings of the Gods; and then we shall see as we are seen, and be as our God and He as His Father.⁸

Therefore, the Godhead consists of truly separate beings--even separate Gods--who are one in the sense of their total unity of will and love. The Prophet correctly noted that this type of oneness is consistent with Jesus' expectation that his disciples would be "one" as He and the Father are "one." (John 17:11, 21-24)

Consistent with the idea that the Father is the "only true God," the Prophet also preached "subordinationism," the idea that the Son and Spirit are subordinate in power, rank, and glory to the Father. "Any person that had seen the heavens opened knows that there are three personages in the heavens who hold the keys of power, and one [the Father] presides over all."⁹

The Prophet also taught a startling doctrine about the physical nature of God. He preached that "if you were to see [God] today, you would see him like a man in form,"¹⁰ and that "the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit." (D&C 130:22) Indeed, the Spirit of God and the spirit of man are both material substance. (D&C 131:7-8) Consistent with all of this, Joseph Smith taught that man is of the same race as God. The spirit of man existed before this mortal life, and man is capable of becoming like his Father in Heaven.¹¹

The Mainstream Trinity

When mainline Christians see the basic propositions about God discussed above, along with statements that "[Christ] and the Father are one" (John 10:30), they conclude that the doctrine of the Trinity as expressed in the Nicene Creed of 325 A.D. is the only logical explanation:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father. By whom all things were made, both which be in heaven and in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down [from heaven] and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered and the third day he rose again, and ascended into heaven. And he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead. And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost. And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion--all that so say, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.¹²

That is, there is only one God, but that God is composed of three distinct persons who share in the same substance or essence.¹³

Was this the original interpretation of the scriptural passages in question? Modern scholars agree that the Nicene view introduced new elements into the standard interpretations that had not been accepted by the earliest Church. For example, Maurice Wiles concludes that, "The emergence of the full trinitarian doctrine was not possible without significant modification of previously accepted ideas."¹⁴

Specifically, the phrase, "of one substance or essence," expresses a concept that was adopted and adapted from contemporary Greek philosophy, but was foreign to the thought of the original Christianity. This concept may seem strange to the modern reader because Greek philosophy is no longer the predominant system of thought, although it has remained the basis of many aspects of mainstream Christian theology even to the present time. At the time the Nicene Creed was adopted, the predominant philosophy was a hodgepodge of ideas, mostly based on Neoplatonism and a few other schools of thought. These schools, in turn, largely based their ideas on the thought of a few earlier philosophers, notably Plato, Empedocles and Xenophanes. A quick summary of how these philosophers viewed God should make the language of the Nicene Creed clear to the reader. (Although the Christians modified the terminology of the philosophers to fit their purposes, one still cannot make sense of their language without reference to these Hellenistic ideas.)¹⁵

Plato, realizing the material world was ever changing, speculated that it was impossible to obtain true knowledge by observing the natural world. But he had faith that true knowledge was possible, so he posited an unchanging, perfect world that was a higher reality than the material. He called this region or dimension the world of "Ideas" or "Forms." These "Ideas" were considered the perfect essences of various objects or attributes. For example, a waterfall and a person can both be said to be "beautiful" although they seem to have nothing material in common. Plato suggested that there must be an "Idea" or essence in the world of Forms--perfect and unchanging--called "The Beautiful," in which both the person and the waterfall participate.¹⁶ Similarly, Plato's idea of God was a perfect, unchanging, indivisible essence known as "The Divine," or "The One."¹⁷

Xenophanes and Empedocles expressed similar ideas of what God must be like. Xenophanes (570-475 B.C.) conceived of "God as thought, as presence, as all powerful efficacy." He is one God--incorporeal, "unborn, eternal, infinite, . . . not moving at all, [and] beyond human imagination."¹⁸ And Empedocles (ca. 444 B.C.) claimed that God "does not possess a head and limbs similar to those of humans . . . . A spirit, a holy and inexpressible one . . . ."¹⁹

Therefore, in the Greek world it was more acceptable for the Christians to say that there are three, distinct persons who are a single "Divine essence or substance"--or as Plato would say, "The Divine." But these three persons cannot be said to be three Gods, because the divine essence must be indivisible and simple. Many Christians envision the Trinity as three "centers of consciousness" within the one God, but even this is inadequate to express the ineffable reality of God.

Consistent with this conception of the "Divine Substance," God cannot be said to be a material being, for matter is a lower reality than a pure "Idea." Thus, the ancient Greek philosophers and modern mainstream Christians would agree that God is incorporeal, without a material body or human emotions, immovable, indivisible, and therefore ultimately incomprehensible to humanity.

This theory of the nature of God began to be adopted into Christian thought in the late second century. Christopher Stead writes that the early Christian writers Irenaeus (A.D. 130-200), Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 150-215) and Novatian (ca. 250) believed in a God who is "simple and not compounded, uniform and wholly alike in himself, being wholly mind and wholly spirit . . . wholly hearing, wholly sight, wholly light, and wholly the source of all good things." This, Stead points out, is almost identical to Xenophanes' assertion that "All of him sees, all thinks and all hears." And "since Clement elsewhere quotes Xenophanes verbatim, we have good grounds for thinking that Clement's description, and indeed the theory as a whole, derives from Xenophanes."²⁰

Thus, we see that to interpret what is meant by the mainstream Christian creeds, we must appeal to the ideas of the Greek philosophers. We also see that the concepts of deity derived from these sources are contrary to the doctrines and teachings presented in the New Testament.

From "the One True God" to "the One"

As stated in the beginning, the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the system of thought Joseph Smith restored and original Christian doctrine. To do this effectively, we will both provide evidence that the Prophet restored the original Christian doctrine of God and discuss how this doctrine was lost during the first few centuries after Christ. We have seen that there are commonalities between the LDS and mainstream doctrines, but in some of the most important areas there are significant differences between them. Accordingly, the journey from "point A" to "point B" did not happen overnight, but the first fatal step was taken early on, when the framers of early Christian thought substituted the New Testament concept of the one true God for "the One" of the philosophers.

The God of Israel and the God of the Philosophers

At first, Christianity did not appeal to Greek philosophy to explain its doctrines. Edwin Hatch points out that the earliest Christians eschewed philosophical speculations in favor of revealed truths.²¹ This ceased more and more to be the case, however, as Christianity foundered in the spiritual darkness left by the loss of the prophetic gifts.

Although we have established that the mainline doctrine of God was based on Greek philosophical tenets²², it still remains to be shown how these concepts infiltrated the Church to such an extent that they became the official doctrine of Christianity. We shall see that after adopting this Greek conception of God, it took many years of struggle to work out the logical conclusions of such a doctrine. And in this struggle, the old doctrines about God were consistently and steadily compromised.

As mentioned above, the Greek conception of God began to creep into mainstream Christianity around the middle of the second century. Christian apologists such as Justin, Athenagoras, and others who wished to rebut pagan criticisms of their doctrine, defended their faith by claiming that they worshipped the same God as the pagan philosophers. In doing so they were following the lead of earlier Hellenized Jews such as Philo of Alexandria, who had spiritualized the biblical account of the God of Israel in order to identify Him with the God of the philosophers. While, as Hatch indicates, there was no significant evidence of Greek influence in the Primitive Church, consider the similarity between the conceptions of God taught by the Middle Platonists Plutarch and Numenius, and various late second-century Christian intellectuals. First the philosophers:

Socrates and Plato held that (God is) the One, the single self-existent nature, the monadic, the real Being, the good: and all this variety of names points immediately to mind. God therefore is mind, a separate species, that is to say what is purely immaterial and unconnected with anything passible.²³

But let no one laugh, if I affirm that the name of the incorporeal is "essence" and "being." And the cause of the name "being" is that it has not been generated nor will be destroyed, nor is it subject to any other motion at all, nor any change for better or for worse; but is simple and unchangeable, and in the same idea, and neither willingly departs from its sameness, nor is compelled by any other to depart.²⁴

Now the teachings of early Christian thinkers--Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, and Irenaeus, respectively:

That we are not atheists, therefore, seeing that we acknowledge one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, illimitable, who is apprehended by the understanding only and the reason, who is encompassed by light, and beauty, and spirit, and power ineffable, by whom the universe has been created through His Logos, and set in order, and is kept in being--I have sufficiently demonstrated.²⁵

No one can rightly express Him wholly. For on account of His greatness He is ranked as the All, and is the Father of the universe. Nor are any parts to be predicated of Him. For the One is indivisible; wherefore also it is infinite, not considered with reference to inscrutability, but with reference to its being without dimensions, and not having a limit. And therefore it is without form and name. And if we name it, we do not do so properly, terming it either the One, or the Good, or Mind, or Absolute Being, or Father, or God, or Creator or Lord.²⁶

For the Father of all is at a vast distance from those affections and passions which operate among men. He is a simple, uncompounded Being, without diverse members, and altogether like, and equal to himself, since He is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason, and wholly hearing, and wholly seeing, and wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good--even as the religious and pious are wont to speak concerning God.²⁷

And as if it weren't enough that Clement called the Father "the One" and "Mind," witness Tertullian's identification of the Father as "the God of the philosophers" around the turn of the third century:

Whatever attributes therefore you require as worthy of God, must be found in the Father, who is invisible and unapproachable, and placid, and (so to speak) the God of the philosophers; whereas those qualities which you censure as unworthy must be supposed to be in the Son . . . .²⁸

Therefore, by the end of the second century the Father was evidently identified with "the One" of the philosophers.

The Abandonment of Anthropomorphism

If Christianity was to accept the God of the philosophers, however, it had to shed certain "primitive" beliefs that characterized the God of Israel. Chief among these beliefs was the idea that God is a material being whose physical form is that of a man. This type of "anthropomorphism"²⁹ was unacceptable, since as Grace Jantzen observes, "According to a Platonic system of thought, it would be utterly inconceivable that God should have a material body."³⁰

On the other hand, in the Bible God often appeared as a man. For instance, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel "saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone." (Exodus 24:9-11) And in another appearance, God told Moses that he could not see His face at that time, but said he would "cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts." (Exodus 33:22-23) Ezekiel recounted yet another example: "Above the vault over their heads there appeared, as it were, a sapphire in the shape of a throne, and high above all, upon the throne, a form in human likeness." (Ezekiel 1:26 NEB) Edmond LaB. Cherbonnier of Trinity College summarizes these ideas as follows: "In short, to use the forbidden word, the biblical God is clearly anthropomorphic--not apologetically so, but proudly, even militantly."³¹ Christopher Stead of the Cambridge Divinity School agrees that, "The Hebrews . . . pictured the God whom they worshipped as having a body and mind like our own, though transcending humanity in the splendour of his appearance, in his power, his wisdom, and the constancy of his care for his creatures."³²

Evidently the earliest Christians believed in the anthropomorphic God of the Old Testament. For example, Stephen saw in vision "the Son of Man standing at God's right hand." (Acts 7:56 NEB) And according the early reports of the rabbis about the "Two Powers" heresies, which included Christianity, all of these sects "picture God Himself as a man or posit a principal angel, with the shape of a man, who aids God in the governance of the world."³³ The Clementine Homilies, a Jewish Christian document based on a second-century source, also expressed the early anthropomorphic belief:

And Simon said: "I should like to know, Peter, if you really believe that the shape of man has been moulded after the shape of God." And Peter said: "I am really quite certain, Simon, that this is the case . . . . It is the shape of the just God."³⁴

For He has shape, and He has every limb primarily and solely for beauty's sake, and not for use. For He has not eyes that He may see with them; for He sees on every side, since He is incomparably more brilliant in His body than the visual spirit which is in us, and He is more splendid than everything, so that in comparison with Him the light of the sun may be reckoned as darkness. Nor has He ears that He may hear; for He hears, perceives, moves, energizes, acts on every side. But He has the most beautiful shape on account of man, that the pure in heart, may be able to see Him, that they may rejoice because they suffered. For He moulded man in His own shape as in the grandest seal, in order that he may be the ruler and lord of all, and that all may be subject to him.³⁵

A third century document, the apocryphal Gospel of Bartholomew, was also very specific about the physical nature of God. In this account the Father made an appearance to Mary in human form and ate and drank with her:

When I abode in the temple of God and received my food from an angel, on a certain day there appeared unto me one in the likeness of an angel, but his face was incomprehensible . . . . I was not able to endure the sight of him . . . . And said unto me: Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the chosen vessel, grace inexhaustible. And he smote his garment upon the right hand and there came a very great loaf, and he set it upon the altar of the temple and did eat of it first himself, and gave unto me also. And again he smote his garment upon the left hand and there came a very great cup full of wine: and he set it upon the altar of the temple and did drink of it first himself, and gave also unto me . . . . And he said unto me: Yet three years, and I will send my word unto thee and thou shalt conceive my . . . son, and through him shall the whole creation be saved.³⁶

In the fourth century, certain monks of the Thebaid in Egypt "were of strongly anthropomorphic views."³⁷ One of the monks, Serapion, disagreed with the teaching of God's incorporeality, calling it a "novelty." After being reluctantly convinced on intellectual grounds that he was wrong, he burst into tears and exclaimed, "They have taken away my God from me, and now I don't have anything to lay hold of; I don't know whom to worship, whom to call upon."³⁸ Similarly, group called the Audians, who founded monasteries in Gothic territory in the fourth century, also refused change their belief that God was in form like a man. "Had not God said 'Let us make man in our image'? then what form could He bear other than that of man? they asked."³⁹

Naturally, since a different view finally prevailed, many of the early sources that explicitly taught anthropomorphism have been lost. However, several Christian writers from the second through the fifth centuries gave witness to the fact that even though they themselves rejected the old doctrine, there were many contemporary Christians who still accepted it. For example, Jean Daniélou reports that Clement of Alexandria testified to the existence of early Christian belief in God's material body in human form, even though such an idea flatly contradicted Clement's own thought.⁴⁰

Clement's successor, Origen, presents another interesting case. Against the second-century pagan critic Celsus, who scoffed at this early Christian belief, Origen actually denied that such a belief even existed within Christianity!

After this Celsus relates at length opinions which he ascribes to us, but which we do not hold, regarding the Divine Being, to the effect that "he is corporeal in his nature, and possesses a body like a man." As he undertakes to refute opinions which are none of ours, it would be needless to give either the opinions themselves or their refutation. Indeed, if we did hold those views of God which he ascribes to us, and which he opposes, we would be bound to quote his words, to adduce our own arguments, and to refute his. But if he brings forward opinions which he has either heard from no one, or if it be assumed that he has heard them, it must have been from those who are very simple and ignorant of the meaning of Scripture, then we need not undertake so superfluous a task as that of refuting them.⁴¹

And yet, in another work Origen named Melito, bishop of Sardis in the late second century, as one of the Christians who believed God to have a material body in human form.⁴² Similarly, in yet another work, he confessed that the issue of God's corporeality was still an open question in Christian teaching:

We shall inquire, however, whether the thing which Greek philosophers call asomaton, or "incorporeal," is found in holy Scripture under another name. For it is also to be a subject of investigation how God himself is to be understood,--whether as corporeal, and formed according to some shape, or of a different nature from bodies,--a point which is not clearly indicated in our teaching.⁴³

Origen rejected anthropomorphism, not because the scriptures or unanimous Christian tradition specifically rejected it, but because the philosophers "despised" it: "The Jews indeed, but also some of our people, supposed that God should be understood as a man, that is, adorned with human members and human appearance. But the philosophers despise these stories as fabulous and formed in the likeness of poetic fictions."⁴⁴

Evidently Augustine tried the same tactic in the fifth century. Augustine, who grew up as a well-educated pagan, but had a Christian mother, rejected the Church at first because he thought all the Christians believed in an anthropomorphic God, which to him was philosophically absurd:

I was hopeless of finding the truth, from which in Thy Church, O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of all things visible and invisible, [the Manichaeans] had turned me aside,--and it seemed to me most unbecoming to believe Thee to have the form of human flesh, and to be bounded by the bodily lineaments of our members. And because, when I desired to meditate on my God, I knew not what to think of but a mass of bodies (for what was not such did not seem to me to be), this was the greatest and almost sole cause of my inevitable error.⁴⁵

But when he heard Ambrose of Milan speak, claiming that all those passages in the Bible which suggested anthropomorphism were to be interpreted figuratively, Augustine was intrigued and was eventually converted.

For first, these things also had begun to appear to me to be defensible; and the Catholic faith, for which I had fancied nothing could be said against the attacks of the Manichaeans, I now conceived might be maintained without presumption; especially after I had heard one or two parts of the Old Testament explained, and often allegorically--which when I accepted literally, I was "killed" spiritually . . . . But so soon as I understood, withal, that man made "after the image of Him that created him" was not so understood by Thy spiritual sons . . . as though they believed and imagined Thee to be bounded by human form,--although what was the nature of a spiritual substance I had not the faintest or dimmest suspicion,--yet rejoicing, I blushed that for so many years I had barked, not against the Catholic faith, but against the fables of carnal imaginations.⁴⁶

It is perfectly obvious that if Augustine, who grew up with a Christian mother and even went to Christian catechism, believed all his life that Christians believed in an anthropomorphic God, there must have been a fair number of Christians who actually did retain that belief. Indeed, in another place Augustine complained of the "carnal and weak of our faith, who . . . picture God to themselves in human form."⁴⁷ But like Origen, we find him later denying that such a belief existed at all.

When the Father became "the One" of the philosophers, it was not acceptable to ascribe any type of anthropomorphism to Him, so various strategies were employed to sidestep the language of the Bible. For example, we have seen that later theologians such as Augustine took the relevant passages figuratively. But in the second century, when the God of the Philosophers was first being adopted, this was not necessarily the case. Some of these Christian thinkers accepted Biblical anthropomorphism, but ascribed it all to the Son. For instance, consider the following passages from Justin Martyr and Irenaeus which state, respectively, that 1) God the Father does not have a human form; 2) nevertheless, the body of man is created in the physical image of God; and 3) the Son was the God who appeared to the prophets in human form. First Justin:

These and other such sayings are recorded by the lawgiver and by the prophets; and I suppose that I have stated sufficiently, that wherever God says, "God went up from Abraham," or, "The Lord spake to Moses," and "The Lord came down to behold the tower which the sons of men had built," or when "God shut Noah into the ark," you must not imagine that the unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from any place. For the ineffable Father and Lord of all neither has come to any place, nor walks, nor sleeps, nor rises up, but remains in His own place, wherever that is, quick to behold and quick to hear, having neither eyes nor ears, but being of indescribable might; and He sees all things, and knows all things, and none of us escapes His observation; and He is not moved or confined to a spot in the whole world, for He existed before the world was made.⁴⁸

For does not the word say, "Let Us make man in our image, and after our likeness?" What kind of man? Manifestly He means fleshly man. For the word says, "And God took dust of the earth, and made man." It is evident, therefore, that man made in the image of God was of flesh.⁴⁹

For I have proved that it was Jesus who appeared to and conversed with Moses, and Abraham, and all the other patriarchs without exception, ministering to the will of the Father; who also, I say, came to be born man by the Virgin Mary, and lives for ever.⁵⁰

Next Irenaeus:

Again, as to their malignantly asserting that if heaven is indeed the throne of God, and earth His footstool, and if it is declared that the heaven and earth shall pass away, then when these pass away the God who sitteth above must also pass away, and therefore He cannot be the God who is over all; in the first place, they are ignorant what the expression means, that heaven is [His] throne and earth [His] footstool. For [the Valentinian Gnostics] do not know what God is, but they imagine that He sits after the fashion of a man, and is contained within bounds, but does not contain.⁵¹

But man He fashioned with His own hands, taking of the purest and finest of earth, in measured wise mingling with the earth His own power; for He gave his frame the outline of His own form, that the visible appearance too should be godlike--for it was an image of God that man was fashioned and set on earth . . . .⁵²

For not alone upon Abraham's account did He say these things, but also that he might point out how all who have known God from the beginning, and have foretold the advent of Christ, have received the revelation from the Son Himself . . . . He is therefore one and the same God, who called Abraham and gave him the promise . . . . Therefore have the Jews departed from God, in not receiving His Word, but imagining that they could know the Father [apart] by Himself, without the Word, that is, without the Son; they being ignorant of that God who spake in human shape to Abraham, and again to Moses . . . .⁵³

In response to the LDS doctrine that God has a material body, mainline Christians often point to Jesus' teaching that "God is a Spirit" (John 4:24) and conclude that God has no physical form, but is "everywhere present." However, it is not a contradiction to say that "God is a spirit" and that He also has a body. For example, Paul wrote that "he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." (1 Corinthians 6:17) Be that as it may, since there is no indefinite article in ancient Greek, John 4:24 could just as easily be translated, "God is Spirit." Certainly this statement must be interpreted in the same sense that John also said, "God is light" (1 John 1:5) and "God is love" (1 John 4:8) Indeed, many modern translations⁵⁴ do translate it thus.⁵⁵ These do not characterize God's "being," but rather His actions and relationship with men. "God is light" because "in him there is no darkness at all," and "if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, then we share together a common life . . . ." (1 John 1:5-7 NEB) "God is love" because of "the love he showed to us in sending his Son . . . ." (1 John 4:8-10 NEB) "God is Spirit" because He enlightens men through His Holy Spirit, and "those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24 NEB) With respect to the ancient Hebrew concept of God, Christopher Stead notes:

By saying that God is spiritual, we do not mean that he has no body . . . but rather that he is the source of a mysterious life-giving power and energy that animates the human body, and himself possesses this energy in the fullest measure.⁵⁶

Furthermore, even those of the earliest Christians who rejected the notion of God having a body in human shape, and believed in a God who is "a spirit," nevertheless taught that this "spirit" was itself material.⁵⁷ Adolf von Harnack summarizes:

God was naturally conceived and represented as corporeal by uncultured Christians, though not by these alone, as the later controversies prove . . . . In the case of the cultured, the idea of a corporeality of God may be traced back to Stoic influences; in the case of the uncultured popular ideas co-operated with the sayings of the old Testament literally understood, and the impression of the Apocalyptic images.⁵⁸

Specifically, the "cultured" Christians who were influenced by Stoicism believed that there is nothing that is "immaterial." For instance, even though Tertullian did not believe that God has a human form⁵⁹, he argued strenuously that He must be material. "For who will deny that God is a body, although 'God is a Spirit?' For Spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form."⁶⁰ Later, Origen argued for the incorporeality of God, but felt he had to defend his thesis against those who would point to John 4:24 as proof of God's corporeality.

I know that some will attempt to say that, even according to the declarations of our own Scriptures, God is a body, because in the writings of Moses they find it said, that "our God is a consuming fire;" and in the Gospel according to John, that "God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." Fire and spirit, according to them, are to be regarded as nothing else than a body.⁶¹

Compare the aforementioned with Joseph Smith's teaching that there is no fundamental dichotomy between matter and "spirit":

There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter. (D&C 131:7-8)

Thus, when Latter-day Saints speak of God as a "spirit" or of the "spirit" in man they do not visualize something essentially different from any other matter--just a finer and purer substance.

As was mentioned above, all traces of anthropomorphism were later suppressed through the allegorical interpretation of the scriptures. But consider the danger in this type of arbitrary exegesis. In practice, one can throw out any doctrines that are inconvenient or out of date and replace them with whatever philosophies are in vogue. In fact, Augustine took it as his rule to do just that. "Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative."⁶² Who is to judge whether a doctrine is "sound"? For Augustine, that which was philosophically absurd could not be taken literally.

Some argue that scripture often speaks of God having "wings" (e.g. Ruth 2:12; Psalm 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 63:7; 91:4; Malachi 4:2), etc., so why should we not take the biblical references to God's human members figuratively, as well? In all cases where God is said to have wings, the context indicates a clear metaphor. For instance, when the Psalmist wrote, "in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge" (Psalm 57:1), he alluded to the image of a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings (cf. Matthew 23:37). On the other hand, when Ezekiel wrote that he saw God with "a form in human likeness" (Ezekiel 1:26 NEB), he stated it as a fact, not as a poetic metaphor for some abstract principle.

Christianity adopted the practice of allegorical interpretation from the Greek philosophical schools. The exploits of the Greek gods and goddesses are well known, of course, but it is less well known that no educated Greek would have taken these myths seriously. However, these legends, as recorded in the tales of Homer and others, were an integral part of the religious heritage of the Greeks, so they couldn't just throw them out when belief in a pantheon of gods went out of fashion. Therefore, the myths were interpreted allegorically. Edwin Hatch writes that this method of interpretation became standard procedure in the Hellenistic world.⁶³

This was unquestionably not the case for the first Christians.⁶⁴ For example, Aristides, the earliest apologist, roundly rebuked the Greeks for allegorically interpreting their legends. "For if the stories about them be mythical, the gods are nothing more than mere names; . . . and if the stories be allegorical, they are myths and nothing more."⁶⁵ How sad that Christianity adopted this thoroughly Greek practice wholesale, at least with respect to passages dealing with God's physical form.⁶⁶ Cherbonnier comments on the fundamental incompatibility of the anthropomorphic God of the Bible and the God of the philosophers:

Such authoritative utterances, expressing the consensus of most religious philosophers, have persuaded theologians that no thinking person could subscribe to the idea of God as Person. In the name of reason, therefore, they long ago made a fateful decision. They decided to tone down this conception and to reach an accommodation with the philosophical conception of "the divine." With the wisdom of hindsight, it is not difficult to see that their enterprise was doomed to fail. For while making overtures to philosophy, they could not, as Christians, abandon completely the anthropomorphic God of their own liturgies, hymns, and creeds. They were thus caught in a logical dilemma. For when they ascribe to the biblical God the attributes of "the divine" as conceived by philosophy, they tacitly contradict themselves. Though they aspired to rationality, they were trying to combine two ideas of God that are mutually exclusive, and were therefore bound to end in self-contradiction.⁶⁷

The Transcendent God

The problem of anthropomorphism in the early Church illustrates the nature of the struggle between the God of Israel and the God of the philosophers. That is, the God of Israel is a being who is in some senses not far distant from His human offspring. The God of the philosophers, however, is "transcendent" in the sense of being utterly remote from humankind, and indeed the material world as a whole. "One of the most important themes of late Hellenistic intellectualism is that of the transcendency of the supreme God, who is regarded as utterly remote from this universe and as completely incomprehensible to the mind of man."⁶⁸ After all, if the Divine Substance is a pure, Platonic form, how can God be any part of the material world, which is a lesser reality? And as material beings we must necessarily find the reality of God inexpressible, or "ineffable"--and ultimately beyond our comprehension.

Augustine epitomized this belief when he said that "the super-eminence [or 'transcendence'⁶⁹] of the Godhead surpasses the power of customary speech."⁷⁰ And in contrast to Jesus, who taught that "this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3),⁷¹ Gregory of Nyssa taught that the highest knowledge of God is to "comprehend that he cannot be comprehended."⁷²

But according to Edwin Hatch, the earliest Christians had no concept of "transcendence." Indeed, they thought of themselves very literally as the children of God:

From the earliest Christian teaching, indeed, the conception of the transcendence of God is absent. God is near to men and speaks to them: He is angry with them and punishes them: He is merciful to them and pardons them. He does all this through His angels and prophets, and last of all through His Son . . . . The conception which underlies the earliest expression of the belief of a Christian community is the simple conception of children . . . .⁷³

These "simple conceptions" were soon lost, however, with the importation of Greek philosophy into the Church. "The conception . . . of the one God whose kingdom was a universal kingdom and endured throughout all ages, blended with, and passed into, the philosophical conception of a Being who was beyond time and space."⁷⁴ Thus, for Christian philosophers like Origen, "the divine nature is remote from all affection of passion and change, remaining ever unmoved and untroubled in its own summit of bliss."⁷⁵

However, it can easily be seen that this aspect of the God of the philosophers creates numerous problems for the interpretation of the Bible. As Eric Osborn observes, "How a changeless God may be involved in history is a persistent problem in Christian thought."⁷⁶ Again, the Christian thinkers could allegorize the relevant Bible passages to some extent, but in the final analysis, it must be admitted that a God who "so loved the world that he sent his only Begotten Son" (John 3:16) is fundamentally incompatible with a God who "is remote from all affection of passion and change, remaining ever unmoved and untroubled in its own summit of bliss."

Creation "Ex Nihilo"

This transcendence from matter did not just mean that God is "a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions . . . ."⁷⁷ In addition, the post-Apostolic Christians came to believe that God created the entire material universe out of absolutely nothing (i.e. creatio ex nihilo), rather than out of pre-existent, chaotic matter. Perhaps in a misguided attempt to give more glory to God, Christian philosophers of the late second century discarded the early Christian and Jewish idea of creation from chaos in favor of the theory of creatio ex nihilo, as formulated by the Gnostic philosopher Basilides. According to Hatch, this theory penetrated the Christian community through Tatian in the second half of the second century:

With Basilides [a second century Gnostic philosopher], the conception of matter was raised to a higher plane. The distinction of subject and object was preserved, so that the action of the Transcendent God was still that of creation and not of evolution; but it was "out of that which was not" that He made things to be . . . . The basis of the theory was Platonic, though some of the terms were borrowed from both Aristotle and the Stoics. It became itself the basis for the theory which ultimately prevailed in the Church. The transition appears in Tatian [ca. 170 A.D.]⁷⁸

Others also agree that Basilides was the ultimate author of this doctrine, and in fact Peter Hayman indicates that there is only one recognized scholar who has recently worked on the problem of its origin--Jonathan Goldstein, who still maintains that the doctrine originated within Judaism.⁷⁹ Frances Young of the University of Birmingham gives Basilides credit for coming up with the idea of creation out of nothing and then explains that Basilides' theory was a radicalizing of the Greek idea of the transcendence of God:

The driving force of Basilides' logic is his notion of radical transcendence . . . [is] his critique of human analogies--the ultimate God is not an anthropomorphic world-builder . . . . His idea of creation out of nothing . . . is not so much a confrontation with Greek conceptions as a radicalising of them . . .⁸⁰

The earliest Christians, as Hatch intimates, believed the Jewish doctrine⁸¹ of creation from chaos. For instance, Justin Martyr wrote, "And we have been taught that He in the beginning did of His goodness, for man's sake, create all things out of unformed matter . . . ."⁸² Peter himself echoed the picture presented in Genesis 1:1-2 of a watery chaos from which the world was created. The New English Bible translates these passages in the following way: "In the beginning of creation . . . the earth was without form and void, with darkness over the face of the abyss, and a mighty wind that swept over the surface of the waters." (Genesis 1:1-2 NEB) "There were heavens and earth long ago, created by God's word out of water and with water . . . ." (2 Peter 3:5 NEB)

Young also lists Athenagoras, Hermogenes, and Clement of Alexandria among the early Christian writers who explicitly taught creation from chaos. For example, in his Hymn to the Paedagogus, Clement rhapsodized: "Out of a confused heap who didst create This ordered sphere, and from the shapeless mass Of matter didst the universe adorn . . . ."⁸³ Indeed, in the third century Origen complained that he could not understand how so many learned people could have held this opinion: "And I cannot understand how so many distinguished men have been of [the] opinion that this matter . . . was uncreated, i.e., not formed by God Himself, who is the Creator of all things, but that its nature and power were the result of chance."⁸⁴

If Christianity had become so enamored with Greek philosophy, why did the Church take hold of this strange doctrine of creation out of nothing when Plato himself believed in the eternity of matter? Young postulates that Christians may have accepted creation ex nihilo as a reaction to the rapid influx of secular philosophy. That is, they were trying to separate themselves from the mainstream of Greek philosophy, which they realized had made inroads into the Church. If so, we can see that without the guide of revelation Christians were apt to accept philosophical ideas in place of revelation and reject other revelation where it coincided with philosophy.

Perhaps it is more realistic to postulate that these second century Christian thinkers were merely eager to express their belief in God in terms the Greek world could accept, therefore they had to incorporate a radically transcendent view of deity. For example, Theophilus of Antioch was eager for chance to show that the Christian God was even more transcendent than other gods because he created everything out of nothing!

And what great thing is it if God made the world out of existent materials? For even a human artist, when he gets material from some one, makes of it what he pleases. But the power of God is manifested in this, that out of things that are not He makes whatever He pleases . . . .⁸⁵

Another view, adopted by David Winston, is that Christian thinkers readily adopted creation ex nihilo because it provided a good argument against the extreme Gnostic position that matter is not just a lower reality, but actually evil.⁸⁶ If this is the case, it is ironic that the doctrine apparently originated with a Gnostic teacher.

In any case, the transition to this mode of thought happened nearly instantaneously. "The adoption of the view that the world was created out of nothing was almost universal in Christian circles very quickly."⁸⁷ This transition was most likely aided by the fact that seemingly contradictory language was used in the scriptures and by earlier Christian and Jewish writers. For instance, the creation account in Genesis indicates creation from a watery chaos, and the Wisdom of Solomon taught that God "created the world out of formless matter"⁸⁸, but 2 Maccabees asserted that "God made [the sky and the earth] out of nothing, and . . . man comes into being in the same way."⁸⁹ Paul seemed to imply creation out of nothing: "God . . . summons things that are not yet in existence as if they already were" (Romans 4:17 NEB), and yet we saw that Peter's language recalled the Genesis account of creation from a watery chaos. Indeed, in the very same verse Paul wrote that God "fashioned" (Greek katertisthai = "adjusted, put in order again, restored, repaired") the universe, but in such a way that "the visible came forth from the invisible." (Hebrews 11:3 NEB) The second-century Pastor of Hermas asserted that God "made out of nothing the things that exist,"⁹⁰ but in another passage clearly presupposed creation from a watery chaos: "By His strong word [He] has fixed the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth upon the waters . . . ."⁹¹ Similarly, Frances Young writes that Philo the Jew, who was a near contemporary of Christ, spoke of things being "created from nothing" in some passages in his writings, but clearly took for granted the concept of creation from chaos in others.⁹² To these ancient writers "existence" meant organized existence, and "non-existence" meant chaos.

This difficulty in expression is illustrated by the way Basilides had to pound home his idea that there was really nothing in the beginning: "There was nothing, no matter, no substance, nothing insubstantial, nothing simple, nothing composite, nothing non-composite, nothing imperceptible . . . ."⁹³ If the expression, "creation from nothing," would have had the same meaning to everyone in his audience, audience, he would not have had to take such great pains to explain himself.⁹⁴

Frances Young concludes that "underlying the most crucial episode in the emergence of the Christian doctrine of God, namely the reply to Arianism [culminating in the Nicene Council], was affirmation of creation out of nothing."⁹⁵ That is, we shall see that the argument at Nicea was all about whether Jesus Christ was part of the "Divine Substance" or a created being who could have no part in this eternal, indivisible, unchangeable Platonic "essence." For, if there are two classes of beings--those created out of nothing and those united in the uncreated Divine Substance--it had to be decided whether Jesus was "truly God," a part of the Divine Substance, or merely a created being. Therefore, if creation from nothing was not the original doctrine, the whole discussion at the Nicene Council was irrelevant to the earliest form of the Christian Church!

On the other hand, Joseph Smith is again in company with the earliest Christians, and Latter-day Saints reject the notion of creation ex nihilo.⁹⁶ In one of the LDS creation accounts Christ says, "We will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell." (Abraham 3:24) Joseph Smith spoke of this principle when he said:

Now, the word create came from the word baurau which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos--chaotic matter, which is element . . . . Element had an existence from the time he had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end.⁹⁷

From Godhead to Trinity

The Father had become "the One" of the philosophers. But where did that leave the Son and the Holy Spirit? The adoption of the idea of a transcendent God created a dichotomy between God and everything else, for if He created everything else out of nothing, that which is self-existent or "uncreated" is God, while "the world was made from nothing; wherefore it is not God."⁹⁸ Were the Son and Spirit "God" or part of "the world"? If they were part of the world, then they might be called "gods" in some subsidiary sense, but in reality they could never really be "God." And if they were really "God," then this seems to go against the axiom that the "Divine Substance" must be simple, uncompounded, eternally unchanging, etc. One can readily see that, philosophically, this was no easy problem to solve, and it took centuries for theologians to finally iron it out. In this section we will examine how this debate transformed the Christian concept of the Godhead from something quite similar to the LDS doctrine into the nebulous "Trinity" of the creeds.

The Problem of "Monotheism"

Kelly reminds us that for all the early Fathers, the "monotheistic idea, grounded in the religion of Israel, loomed large in [their] minds . . . ."⁹⁹ But what exactly was Israel's monotheistic idea, and how did Christians over the centuries adapt it to their faith? We have already seen that both Latter-day Saints and mainstream Christians can justly be called "monotheists," but in different senses. So what exactly was the tradition that "loomed large" in the minds of the early Christian fathers?

A growing number of Old Testament scholars are beginning to realize that "Israel's oldest religion was not monotheistic."¹⁰⁰ Much of the evidence for the foregoing assertion by Margaret Barker lies with the use of the names of God in the Hebrew Bible. Four names or titles are commonly used to connote God in the Old Testament. First, the Hebrew or Canaanite word "El" simply means "God." The plural form of this word, "Elohim," literally means "Gods," but is often used to connote a single god whose supremacy and omnipotence make him "the God of gods." (Psalm 136:2; Daniel 11:36)¹⁰¹ Another such designation is "Elyon" or "Most High." "Jehovah," the anglicized version of the Hebrew "Yahweh" or "Jahveh," is the name of the God of Israel, who identified Himself as the great "I AM" (Exodus 3:14) to Moses. With few exceptions the KJV translates "Jehovah" as "LORD" in all capitals. Most mainline Christians see all these designations as referring to one divine being. However, Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus Christ, in his pre-existent state, was named "Yahweh," the God of Israel, and the Father is given the title "Elohim."

According to Margaret Barker and others, Elohim or El and Yahweh were originally considered separate deities by the ancient Israelites. El was the high God, while Yahweh was the chief among the "sons of El"--the second God and chief archangel.¹⁰² But according to Otto Eissfeldt, "El was never conceived of as a rival of Yahweh. He was rather considered as a figure to acknowledge whose authority meant an enhancement rather than a restriction of the authority of Yahweh."¹⁰³ Consider the following passage from Deuteronomy:

When the Most High parcelled out the nations, when he dispersed all mankind, he laid down the boundaries of every people according to the number of the sons of God; but the LORD's [Yahweh's] share was his own people, Jacob was his allotted portion. (Deuteronomy 32:8-9 NEB)

This passage seems to indicate that Yahweh was seen as the chief son of El, and was given special charge over the nation of Israel. Several other passages point to the same interpretation. For instance, according to Barker "the text of Ps. 91.9 does actually say: 'You, O Yahweh, are my refuge, You have made Elyon your dwelling place.'"¹⁰⁴ To show that Yahweh was originally thought of as both God and an angel, Barker demonstrates that an ancient Old Testament figure known as "the Angel of Yahweh" was equated with Yahweh himself. There is considerable evidence that the Angel of Yahweh was so interpreted, including the following:

Gideon saw the Angel of Yahweh, and this storyteller too identified Yahweh and the Angel of Yahweh. The Angel of Yahweh appeared to Gideon (Judg. 6:11-12), and introduced himself as Yahweh (Judg. 6.12). It is then as Yahweh that he speaks to Gideon (Judg. 6.14,16). The Angel of Yahweh disappears, and Gideon realizes whom he has seen. He fears because he has seen the Angel of Yahweh face to face (Judg. 6.22) but Yahweh reassures him that he will not die (cf. Exod. 33.20, where Yahweh said 'You cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live')."¹⁰⁵

Other passages underscore the presence of a class of beings called "the gods." For example, "God [Elohim] takes his stand in the court of heaven to deliver judgement among the gods [elohim] themselves." (Psalm 82:1 NEB) Similarly, a passage from the Dead Sea Scrolls says that God "will raise up the kingdom of Michael in the midst of the gods . . . ."¹⁰⁶

After the exile, reformers promulgated the idea that there was only one God, and consequently, El and Yahweh were fused into the one God, Yahweh.¹⁰⁷ Although this faction never completely erased the original belief, they did succeed in inserting their view into several passages of scripture. For example, the passages from Deuteronomy quoted above are from the NEB, which has followed the text of the Greek Septuagint or the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, an examination of the King James Version shows that the Masoretic texts upon which it is based were changed to remove all reference to the gods.¹⁰⁸ Similarly, in Barker's view some texts like the following from Isaiah attest to the fact that the Israelites were being thus propagandized:

I myself have made it known in full, and declared it, I and no alien god amongst you, and you are my witnesses, says the LORD [Yahweh]. I am God [El]; from this very day I am He. (Isaiah 43:12-13 NEB)

Was it not I the LORD [Yahweh]? There is no god [El] but me; there is no god [El] other than I, victorious and able to save. Look to me and be saved, you peoples from all corners of the earth; for I am God [El] and beside me there is no other. (Isaiah 45:21-22 NEB)

Latter-day Saints can interpret these passages in two ways. First it would be acceptable to suppose, with Margaret Barker and others, that scribes succeeded in changing the texts of many of the aforementioned passages into more strongly monotheistic statements. It is perhaps more acceptable to suppose that the prophets, such as Isaiah, did write these monotheistic passages to emphasize the "oneness" of the council of the gods under the monarchy of Elohim. (E.g. witness Nephi's designation of the Godhead as "one God" in 2 Nephi 31:21.) Later on the scribes could have misinterpreted these statements and fused the two principal deities.

In any case, in later texts where Yahweh was equated with El, various angels, including Michael, were shifted to fill Yahweh's former roles.¹⁰⁹ It is noteworthy that in a number of these texts there were actually two Yahwehs! Both the High God and principal angel were so designated.¹¹⁰

However, the original belief seems to have survived among certain groups of Jews at least until the time of Christ. During the first Christian centuries the rabbis engaged in furious debate with minim (i.e. cultists or heretics) whom they referred to as "Two Powers" heresies. These sects, which included Christianity, all seem to have claimed that there was a second God, in many cases identifying him with Yahweh.¹¹¹

[One of the crucial issues in the "two powers" debate was] a tradition about a principal angel, based on Ex. 20f, said to be Metatron in the amoraic traditions but whose real significance is that he is YHWH or the bearer of the divine name (using Ex. 23:21 f.). These passages may have little in common with their origin. But they all picture God Himself as a man or posit a principal angel, with the shape of a man, who aids God in the governance of the world.¹¹²

Philo of Alexandria, who lived in the first century A.D., is a well-known example of a Jew who inherited such a tradition. Philo called the second God the "Word" (Greek logos) and indicated that He was also the chief angel. "For nothing mortal can be made in the likeness of the most high One and Father of the universe but (only) in that of the second God, who is His Logos."¹¹³ "But if there be any as yet unfit to be called a Son of God, let him press to take his place under God's First-born, the Word, who holds the eldership among the angels, their ruler as it were."¹¹⁴

That Philo identified the second God with Yahweh can be seen in the following text: "Why does (Scripture) say that when Abraham was ninety-nine years old, 'the Lord God appeared to him and said, I am the Lord [Yahweh] thy God [Elohim]'? It gives the two appellations of the two highest powers . . . ."¹¹⁵

Finally, how did Philo preserve Jewish "monotheism," such as it was? It is evident that he did so by asserting the absolute monarchy of the High God: "Not that there is any other not Most High--for God being One 'is in heaven above and on earth beneath and there is none beside Him.' (Deut. 4:39)"¹¹⁶

Philo was a thoroughly Hellenized Jew, and some have concluded that his peculiar brand of polytheism was due to the influence of the philosophical systems. However, Barker points out that this is highly unlikely, since Philo often disagreed with the philosophers while at the same time expressing his views in their language. Also, Philo was a leader of his Jewish community, and if his theology was a significant departure from the tradition they inherited, he certainly would not have been tolerated in that capacity.¹¹⁷ Therefore, "it seems more likely that Philo drew his ideas of the mediator from his people's most ancient beliefs, and only adapted them to Greek ways of thinking."¹¹⁸

After the first century, rabbinical Judaism moved even further away from the old doctrine. Larry Hurtado of the University of Manitoba summarizes:

The reactions against the known "heresies" the rabbis had in mind, Jewish Christianity and Gnostic groups, may well have produced a hardening of rabbinic monotheism in the direction away from the more inclusive and monarchial monotheism and toward a more monistic or unitarian character in some rabbinic circles, as Dunn has suggested.¹¹⁹

A comparison of passages from the Old and New Testaments makes clear that Jesus was thought by the earliest Christians to be identical with Yahweh.¹²⁰ For example, Isaiah saw Yahweh in vision and John claimed that this vision was of Jesus Christ. (Isaiah 6; John 12:40-41) Isaiah identified Yahweh as the "Holy One," while in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus is called the "Holy One." (Isaiah 54:5; Matthew 11:27) Yahweh told Isaiah that beside him "there [was] no saviour"; Jesus was obviously identified as the Savior in the New Testament. (Isaiah 43:11; Luke 2:11) Just as Moses called Yahweh "the Rock," Paul insisted that "the Rock" who led the children of Israel through the wilderness was Christ. (Deuteronomy 32:3-4; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4) And, employing the same language he used in Exodus 3:14, Jesus unequivocally announced that "Before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:58)

The identification of Jesus with Yahweh was made by many early Christians after the Apostolic age. For example, Justin Martyr recorded a conversation with his Jewish friend, Trypho:

And I said, "As you wish, Trypho, I shall come to these proofs which you seek in the fitting place; but now you will permit me first to recount the prophecies, which I wish to do in order to prove that Christ is called both God and Lord [Yahweh] of hosts . . . . The Psalm of David is this: 'The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and all that dwell therein . . . . Who is this King of glory? The Lord [Yahweh] of Hosts, He is the King of glory.' (Ps. 24)¹²¹

In harmony with the LDS practice of calling the Father by the title "Elohim," which is the Hebrew plural of "God," Justin claimed that the Father has no name, only titles.

But to the Father of all, who is unbegotten, there is no name given. For by whatever name He be called, He has as His elder the person who gives Him the name. But these words, Father, and God, and Creator, and Lord, and Master, are not names, but appellations derived from His good deeds and functions.¹²²

Not only did many Christian writers identify Jesus with Yahweh, until the fifth century it was quite common to call Jesus either a "second god," the chief angel, or both.¹²³ (Similarly, it was made clear that the Holy Spirit occupies the third place.) For example, during the second century Justin Martyr wrote that the "first-begotten," the Logos, is the "first force after the Father:" he is "a second God, second numerically but not in will," doing only the Father's pleasure.¹²⁴ And he designated the Son as "this power which the prophetic word calls God . . . and Angel . . . ."¹²⁵ He also maintained that the Son is "in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third . . . ."¹²⁶ In the same vein Hermas spoke of "the angel of the prophetic Spirit"¹²⁷ and Jesus as the "'glorious . . . angel' or 'most venerable . . . angel' . . . ."¹²⁸ The Ascension of Isaiah referred to both Jesus and the Spirit as angels, as well: "And I saw how my Lord worshipped, and the angel of the Holy Spirit, and how both together praised God."¹²⁹ Finally¹³⁰, Clement of Alexandria referred to Jesus as the "Second Cause"¹³¹, and Peter in the Clementine Recognitions not only called Jesus both "God" and "angel," but also identified Him with Yahweh, the prince of the Sons of God mentioned in Deuteronomy 32:7-8:

For the Most High God, who alone holds the power of all things, has divided all the nations of the earth into seventy-two parts, and over these He hath appointed angels as princes. But to the one among the archangels who is greatest, was committed the government of those who, before all others, received the worship and knowledge of the Most High God . . . . Thus the princes of the several nations are called gods. But Christ is God of princes, who is Judge of all.¹³²

Around the turn of the third century, Hippolytus called Jesus "the Angel of [God's] counsel"¹³³, and Tertullian spoke of Christ as "second" to the Father:

This is the perfect nativity of the Word, when He proceeds forth from God--formed by Him first to devise and think out all things under the name of Wisdom--"The Lord created or formed me as the beginning of His ways;" . . . while I recognize the Son, I assert His distinction as second to the Father.¹³⁴

However, he stopped short of saying there was a "second God," because he considered the Father to be the "only true God" and Jesus to be a secondary being, dependent upon the Father:

God forbid, (is my reply) . . . . That there are, however, two Gods or two Lords, is a statement which at no time proceeds out of our mouth: not as if it were untrue that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and each is God; but because in earlier times Two were actually spoken of as God, and two as Lord, that when Christ should come He might be both acknowledged as God and designated as Lord, being the Son of Him who is both God and Lord.¹³⁵

Well into the third century, Origen could speak of Jesus as a "second God"¹³⁶, but he added a qualification: "We are not afraid to speak, in one sense of two Gods, in another sense of one God."¹³⁷ In what sense are they "one"? "And these, while they are two, considered as persons or subsistences, are one in unity of thought, in harmony and in identity of will."¹³⁸ In another passage he identified the Son and Spirit with the seraphim in Isaiah 6:

My Hebrew master also used to say that those two seraphim in Isaiah, which are described as having each six wings, and calling to one another, and saying, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts," were to be understood of the only-begotten Son of God and of the Holy Spirit.¹³⁹

Similarly, the presbyter Novatian maintained that Christ was both angel and God: "He has constantly received on the faith of the heavenly Scriptures, which continually say that He is both Angel and God."¹⁴⁰ And he equated this God/angel with the Lord (Yahweh) of Hosts:

For, behold, Hosea the prophet says in the person of the Father: "I will not now save them by bow, nor by horses, nor by horsemen; but I will save them by the Lord [Yahweh] their God." If God says that He saves by God, still God does not save except by Christ.¹⁴¹

He also made clear that the Spirit is subject to the Son: "But the Paraclete being less than Christ, moreover, by this very fact proves Christ to be God, from whom He has received what He declares . . . ."¹⁴² Indeed, the unity of the Godhead is not some mysterious metaphysical "oneness," but a unity of will:

And since He said "one" thing, let the heretics understand that He did not say "one" person. For one placed in the neuter, intimates the social concord, not the personal unity . . . . Moreover, that He says one, has reference to the agreement, and to the identity of judgment, and to the loving association itself, as reasonably the Father and Son are one in agreement, in love, and in affection; and because He is of the Father, whatsoever He is, He is the Son; the distinction however remaining, that He is not the Father who is the Son, because He is not the Son who is the Father . . . . For when two persons have one judgment, one truth, one faith, one and the same religion, one fear of God also, they are one even although they are two persons: they are the same, in that they have the same mind.¹⁴³

Novatian didn't hesitate to name other angels "gods" as well: "[If] even the angels themselves . . . as many as are subjected to Christ, are called gods, rightly also Christ is God."¹⁴⁴ And yet in another sense Novatian hesitated to say there is more than one God, because all gods are subject to the Father: "Thus making Himself obedient to His Father in all things, although He also is God, yet He shows the one God the Father by His obedience, from whom also He drew His beginning. And thus He could not make two Gods . . . ."¹⁴⁵

Lactantius approvingly quoted a Hermetic text which spoke of a "second God"¹⁴⁶, and another third-century text called The Threefold Fruit of the Christian Life described Jesus as the angel, Yahweh of Hosts: "When the Lord created the angels from the fire he decided to make one of them his son, he whom Isaiah called the Lord [Yahweh] of Hosts."¹⁴⁷

In the fourth century, Methodius of Olympus could say that Christ was filled with the "pure and perfect Godhead," but also designated Him as first among the Archangels:

And this was Christ, a man filled with the pure and perfect Godhead, and God received into man. For it was most suitable that the oldest of the Aeons and the first of the Archangels, when about to hold communion with men, should dwell in the oldest and the first of men, even Adam.¹⁴⁸

Eusebius of Caesarea likewise called Jesus a "secondary being" who is both angel and God:

Remember how Moses calls the Being, Who appeared to the patriarchs, and often delivered to them the oracles afterwards written down in Scripture sometimes God and Lord, and sometimes the Angel of the Lord. He clearly implies that this was not the Omnipotent God, but a secondary Being, rightly called the God and Lord of holy men, but the Angel of the Most High His Father.¹⁴⁹

Again, Eusebius equated Jesus with Yahweh, prince of the sons of El, spoken of in Deuteronomy 32:7-8:

In these words [Deut. 32:8] surely he names first the Most High God, the Supreme God of the Universe, and then as Lord His Word, Whom we call Lord in the second degree after the God of the Universe. And their import is that all the nations and the sons of men, here called sons of Adam, were distributed among the invisible guardians of the nations, that is the angels, by the decision of the Most High God, and His secret counsel unknown to us. Whereas to One beyond comparison with them, the Head and King of the Universe, I mean to Christ Himself, as being the Only-begotten Son, was handed over that part of humanity denominated Jacob and Israel, that is to say, the whole division which has vision and piety.¹⁵⁰

In another interesting passage, Eusebius compared the hierarchy of being to the sun, moon, and stars spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15:40-42:

"For there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars," says the divine Apostle; "for one star differeth from another star in glory." In this way, therefore, we must think of the order in incorporeal and intelligent Beings also, the unutterable and infinite power of the God of the universe embracing all of them together; and the second place, next to the Father, being held by the power of the Divine Word . . . . And next after this second Being there is set, as in place of a moon, a third Being, the Holy Spirit, whom also they enroll in the first and royal dignity and honour of the primal cause of the universe . . . . But this Spirit, holding a third rank, supplies those beneath out of the superior powers in Himself, notwithstanding that He also receives from another, that is from the higher and stronger, who, as we said, is second to the most high and unbegotten nature of God the King of all . . .¹⁵¹

However, in the aftermath of the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., such language became unpopular, and some theologians tried to sweep its former popularity under the rug. For example, in the late fourth century Basil of Caesarea feigned that such a thing as a "second God" was unheard of in the "orthodox" faith:

For we do not count by way of addition, gradually making increase from unity to multitude, and saying one, two, and three,--nor yet first, second, and third. For "I," God, "am the first, and I am the last." And hitherto we have never, even at the present time, heard of a second God.¹⁵²

Within "orthodox" circles of the pre-Nicene Church, even where terms like "second God" and "angel" were rejected, it was always made clear that the Son and Holy Spirit are subjected to the Father, who is "greater than" them. The various forms of this doctrine are known as "subordinationism," and Bettenson admits that "'subordinationism' . . . was pre-Nicene orthodoxy."¹⁵³ After all, Jesus said that "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28), and He asserted that the He does not know the hour of His Second Coming--only the Father knows. (Matthew 24:36) Paul wrote that the Father is "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 15:6, NEB), and revealed that after the resurrection Jesus will "be subject unto him [the Father] that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." (1 Corinthians 15:24-28)

In the post-Apostolic era, Hippolytus wrote that the Father is "the Lord and God and Ruler of all, and even of Christ Himself . . . ."¹⁵⁴ And Irenaeus insisted that the Father surpasses the Son in knowledge:

For if any one should inquire the reason why the Father, who has fellowship with the Son in all things, has been declared by the Lord alone to know the hour and the day [of judgment], he will find at present no more suitable, or becoming, or safe reason than this (since, indeed, the Lord is the only true Master), that we may learn through Him that the Father is above all things. For "the Father," says He, "is greater than I."¹⁵⁵

Clement of Alexandria taught that while the Father cannot be known, the Son is the object of knowledge:

God, then, being not a subject for demonstration, cannot be the object of science. But the Son is wisdom, and knowledge, and truth, and all else that has affinity thereto. He is also susceptible of demonstration and of description.¹⁵⁶

The Fathers maintained a form of "monotheism," however, by asserting the absolute monarchy of the Father as the "only true God." For instance, Irenaeus states:

This, therefore, having been clearly demonstrated here (and it shall yet be so still more clearly), that neither the prophets, nor the Apostles, nor the Lord Christ in His own person, did acknowledge any other Lord or God, but the God and Lord supreme: the prophets and the Apostles confessing the Father and the Son; but naming no other as God, and confessing no other as Lord: and the Lord Himself handing down to His disciples, that He, the Father, is the only God and Lord, who alone is God and ruler of all;--it is incumbent on us to follow, if we are their disciples indeed, their testimonies to this effect.¹⁵⁷

Because of the monarchy and harmony within the Godhead, in a sense the diversity of power, rank, and glory was not thought to particularly matter in practice. As Origen put it:

Moreover, nothing in the Trinity can be called greater or less, since the fountain of divinity alone contains all things by His word and reason, and by the Spirit of His mouth sanctifies all things which are worthy of sanctification . . . .¹⁵⁸

Likewise, Athenagoras spoke of the "diversity in rank"¹⁵⁹ within the Godhead, but qualified this by saying, "The son is in the father and the father is in the son by a powerful unity of spirit . . . ."¹⁶⁰

As we have seen, subordinationism was perpetuated within Christianity for centuries, even after the almost universal adoption of the God of the philosophers. In itself this was not a problem, because many of the philosophers, such as Plato and Numenius, believed in a second God or "demiurge" who created the material world.¹⁶¹ On the other hand, these same philosophers strongly contrasted the transcendent "One" with all other beings. For example, Plotinus:

The One is infinite, the others finite, the One is creator, the others creatures, the One is entirely itself, entirely infinite, the others are both finite and infinite . . . the One has no otherness, the others are other than the One.¹⁶²

Adoption of such philosophies led some Christian theologians to contrast the Father too strongly with the other members of the Godhead. For instance, Origen noted: "We say that the Son and the Holy Spirit excel all created beings to a degree which admits of no comparison, and are themselves excelled by the Father to the same or even greater degree."¹⁶³ Therefore, Christ and the Holy Spirit could never be "God" in the fullest sense. But since the earliest times Christians had inherited the tradition that Jesus was fully God. He was Christ Jesus, "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God . . . ." (Philippians 2:6)

In short, both subordinationism and the idea that the Son and Spirit are fully God were passed down from the earliest Christian traditions. However, both of these propositions could not be harmonized with the God of the philosophers, and so for centuries the Christian Church struggled with the question of which proposition to drop. In the end, Christianity chose to reject subordinationism and meld the Son and Spirit into "the One."

The "Word" Becomes the "Logos"

The first step in the absorption of the Son and Spirit into "the One" was the transformation of the "Word" of John into the "Logos" of the philosophers. Actually, the Greek word logos can be translated "Word," and John employed this language at the beginning of his Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word [Greek logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)

Why did John call Christ the Logos, or Word? In Jewish documents such as the Wisdom of Solomon, the "almighty Word" (Wisdom 18:15 NEB) appears as a great angel, which is not surprising considering the foregoing discussion. Also, in Greek thought the Logos could represent "a divine principle that ordered existence and made knowledge possible"¹⁶⁴, or alternatively the "Reason" of God.¹⁶⁵ And while this was perhaps more abstract than the Jewish equivalent, it was certainly an apt analogy for the role of Jesus Christ. However, as Adolf von Harnack notes, the Christian Apologists of the second century completely transformed the "Word" of John into the abstract "Logos" of the philosophers:

The most important step that was ever taken in the domain of Christian doctrine was when the Christian apologists at the beginning of the second century drew the equation: the Logos = Jesus Christ. Ancient teachers before them had also called Christ "the Logos" among the many predicates which they ascribed to him; nay, one of them, John, had already formulated the proposition: "The Logos is Jesus Christ." But with John this proposition had not become the basis of every speculative idea about Christ; with him, too, "the Logos" was only a predicate. But now teachers came forward who previous to their conversion had been adherents of the platonico-stoical philosophy, and with whom the conception "Logos" formed an inalienable part of a general philosophy of the world.¹⁶⁶

The solution the Apologists and some later theologians came up with was to theorize that in the beginning God was alone, but when the time came to create the universe, He generated Jesus, or the Logos, from His own eternally existent Reason.¹⁶⁷ The important thing to note, however, that the Logos was thought to have been generated at a certain point in time. The Logos did not always exist as a separate entity. Tertullian explained:

For before all things God was alone--being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself. Yet even not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is to say, His own Reason . . . . Now, as soon as it pleased God to put forth into their respective substances and forms the things which He had planned and ordered within Himself, in conjunction with His Wisdom's Reason and Word, He first put forth the Word Himself, having within Him His own inseparable Reason and Wisdom . . . .¹⁶⁸

Again, Tertullian insisted that "There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with Him, nor the Son . . . ."¹⁶⁹ In contrast, Origen and later theologians realized that the generation of the Logos was problematic. Didn't that imply a change in "the One"? Therefore, they postulated the "eternal generation" of the Logos. That is, the Logos was generated outside of time, and there was never a time when He was not.¹⁷⁰

In any case, the view of these early theologians seems to have been that the Father is the entire "Divine Substance," while Son and Spirit are portions, or at least generated from portions of the substance. "For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: 'My Father is greater than I,'" explained Tertullian. "The Paraclete [is] distinct from Himself, even as we say that the Son is also distinct from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in the Paraclete . . . ."¹⁷¹ This is significant, for on the one hand it allowed the Son and Spirit to really be God, since they are derived from God's own "substance" rather than from "nothing." On the other hand, the Son and Spirit could not be fully God, because they were not considered to comprehend the fullness of the "Divine Substance." In contrast, Paul taught that in Jesus "dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." (Colossians 2:9)

When the Logos became a portion of "the One," however, it had to take on the characteristics of the Divine Substance. This meant, of course, that the Logos had to have been "without body, parts, or passions," etc. This was, philosophically speaking, a problem, because the Christian doctrine had always been that the Logos actually became a man. Christopher Stead asserts that "In a Palestinian milieu it was still possible to picture the heavenly Father in human form and to see the contrast between heaven and earth as one of light and glory against relative darkness and indignity,"¹⁷² and hence the Incarnation represented a condescension, but not a fundamental change. However, to the Greek mind the implied change was very nearly absolute, and such a change in God would necessarily have been a change for the worse.¹⁷³ As Eusebius put it, "For if it is unreasonable to suppose that the unbegotten and immutable essence of the almighty God was changed into the form of man . . . ."¹⁷⁴ In response to this problem, Christians such as Origen taught that the Logos became man, but doing so implied no change. The Logos animated a truly human nature, but remained itself in heaven, suffering none of the things the human part of Him did:

But if the immortal God--the Word--by assuming a mortal body and a human soul, appears to Celsus to undergo a change and transformation, let him learn that the Word, still remaining essentially the Word, suffers none of those things which are suffered by the body or the soul . . . .¹⁷⁵

The traditional type of christology seems to have been what Kelly calls a "Spirit Christology," where the Logos, a divine spirit, took on a body of flesh. In short, "the Word became flesh" (John 1:14), or the "Logos we know to have received a body from a virgin."¹⁷⁶ Granted the Word was not "merely human," but if the Logos was totally different from the human soul, how could it really become human?

Some theologians from Origen on taught that Jesus took on both a human body and soul. "For the soul and body of Jesus formed . . . one being with the Logos of God."¹⁷⁷ Therefore, it could be maintained that Jesus was fully human and fully God, and all the frailties of human nature could be ascribed to something other than the Logos.

But the Logos was supposed to be intimately united with Jesus' humanity, so how could Jesus really suffer and do all that he did for humanity? John Chrysostom reasoned that "sometimes he leaves the flesh deprived and stripped of his own activity, so that, by showing its weakness, he may help men to believe in the reality of his physical nature . . . ."¹⁷⁸ Ambrose of Milan taught that Jesus' hunger was "a holy deception," perpetrated to trick the Devil.¹⁷⁹ Augustine believed that Jesus was ignorant of the day and hour of His Second Coming only in that he was keeping His disciples ignorant.¹⁸⁰ And Hilary of Poitiers concluded that Jesus really wept, ate, etc., but not because He was really sad or hungry. "He conformed to the habits of the body to prove the reality of His own body, to satisfy the custom of human bodies by doing as our nature does."¹⁸¹

This "Word-man" Christology never really became dominant, however, until late in the fourth century.¹⁸² In the final Christological settlements of the fifth through seventh centuries, it was agreed that Christ must have had two natures--one human, and one divine--including Logos, body, and human soul.

This was not the end of the story, however. In the third council of Constantinople (680 A.D.) it was resolved that Christ must have had "two wills" as well as "two natures."¹⁸³ For, if Christ had a will separate from the Father's ("nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt"--Mark 14:36) that will must not have been connected with the Word, which is part of the indivisible "Divine Substance." But having two wills by no means made Christ a schizophrenic. John of Damascus explained that Christ's human will "wills of its own free will those things which the divine will willeth it to will."¹⁸⁴

Such were the demands of the God of the philosophers. But did all this philosophizing really solve the problem? The reader will remember that the early Gnostics and their predecessors were "docetists,"¹⁸⁵ who believed that Christ only "seemed" to take on a material nature. The later Catholic theologians granted that Jesus had a material nature, but denied that it affected His divine nature in any real sense. And indeed, they postulated, His divine nature prevented His human nature from being truly human. As Cyril of Alexandria lamented:

Hence they speak with undue precision of him suffering in the nature of the humanity, as if they separate it from the Word and set it apart by itself, so that they mean two and not one . . . .¹⁸⁶

Consider also the criticism of Adolf von Harnack:

Even though the Christological formula were the theologically right one--what a departure from the Gospel is involved in maintaining that a man can have no relationship with Jesus Christ, nay, that he is sinning against him and will be cast out, unless he first of all acknowledges that Christ was one person with two natures and two powers of will, one of them divine and one human. Such is the demand into which intellectualism has developed.¹⁸⁷

The identification of Jesus with the Logos of the philosophers created yet another problem. That is, in what sense is Jesus the "Only Begotten" of the Father? Kelly observes that the majority of Christian writers before Origen seem to have dated Jesus' "sonship" to His incarnation.¹⁸⁸ Likewise, Latter-day Saints designate Jesus as the Only Begotten Son in the flesh. The LDS belief in a premortal existence allows for any number of sons of God in the spirit, but if there were no such premortal existence, the phrase "Only Begotten" takes on a different meaning. We have already seen that it came to be believed that the Logos was "begotten" out of the very divine substance, putting him in the "God" category, rather than in that of the created "world."

This is where the problems started. First, what did it mean to be "begotten" out of an essence that is supposedly unchangeable and indivisible? The theologians decided that "begetting" in this sense must be some process totally unlike anything within human experience, thus maintaining the divine unity:

If any one, therefore, says to us, "How then was the Son produced by the Father?" we reply to him, that no man understands that production, or generation, or calling, or revelation, or by whatever name one may describe His generation, which is in fact altogether indescribable.¹⁸⁹

Second, what does that make the Holy Spirit? Some early witnesses, like the Pastor of Hermas, called the Spirit a "son of God," as well.¹⁹⁰ But if Jesus is the Only Begotten Son, then the Spirit must be something different. Gregory of Nazianzus explained the dilemma:

But of the wise men amongst ourselves, some have conceived of him [the Holy Spirit] as an Activity, some as a Creature, some as God; and some have been uncertain which to call Him, out of reverence for Scripture, they say, as though it did not make the matter clear either way.¹⁹¹

The answer? Appealing to the language of John 15:26, the later Fathers reasoned that the Spirit "proceeds" from the Father, which is something altogether different than being "begotten."¹⁹² What is the difference between "proceeding" and being "begotten"? Well, we have already seen that they had no idea what being "begotten" meant, and it was no different with the issue of "procession." Gregory of Nazianzus explained:

The Holy Ghost, which proceedeth from the Father; . . . . inasmuch as He proceedeth from That Source, is no Creature; and inasmuch as He is not Begotten is no Son; and inasmuch as He is between the Unbegotten and the Begotten is God. And thus escaping the toils of your syllogisms, He has manifested himself as God, stronger than your divisions. What then is Procession? Do you tell me what is the Unbegottenness of the Father, and I will explain to you the physiology of the Generation of the Son and the Procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be frenzy-stricken for prying into the mystery of God.¹⁹³

And that was that. The Word had become the Logos, who was eternally "begotten" from the "Divine Substance" in some inexplicable way, and the Spirit had become who knows what that "proceeds" from the "Divine Substance" of the Father in some equally inexplicable way. Of course, "procession" and "begetting" are two completely different things, but we just do not know how or why they are different.

The Monarchian Crisis

As was mentioned above, the idea that the Son and Spirit were generated from a portion of the Divine Substance was not entirely satisfying for some. A "portion" seemed to imply that the Divine Substance was not "simple" or "uncompounded," and "generation" seemed to imply some sort of change in the Divine Substance. Also, even though the monarchy of the Father was unequivocally proclaimed, there were still those who felt it smacked of polytheism. Consequently, in the closing decades of the second century, factions arose within Christianity that tried to preserve the monarchia, or divine unity of "the One."¹⁹⁴ These "heretics" have been dubbed "monarchians."

There were two types of monarchians, Dynamic monarchians, and Modalistic monarchians. The Dynamic monarchians, or "adoptionists," were essentially intellectuals who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. To them, Jesus was a "mere man" upon whom the Spirit of God had descended. Some allowed that He had been deified after his resurrection, but their main concern was to keep Him separate from "the One," and eliminate the crass concept of an incarnate deity.¹⁹⁵

The Modalistic monarchians, on the other hand, were concerned both to preserve the divine unity and to preserve the full divinity of Christ. Therefore, they claimed that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were not separate persons, but different "modes" of presentation of the same Divine person.¹⁹⁶

It was recognized that the monarchians were clearly wrong.¹⁹⁷ The Dynamic monarchians denied the full divinity of Christ, which had clearly been taught from the beginning--"the Word was God." (John 1:1) The Modalists, on the other hand, destroyed the distinction between the Father and Son. But both the distinction of the Son from the Father, and His subordination to the Father had also been clearly taught since the beginning.

We shall see that, in a sense, the monarchian crisis defined the later Trinitarian controversies. That is, if "God" is defined as "the One"--an indivisible, simple, uncompounded, eternally unchanging "essence" that is fundamentally different than the rest of the universe, created out of "nothing"--how can the full divinity of the Son and Spirit be preserved without erasing their distinction from the Father? Furthermore, we have already seen that the full humanity of Christ had to be preserved, as well.

"Of One Substance"

In response to the monarchians, the "orthodox" merely pointed to the tradition of the Church, which had always taught the full divinity of Christ and his distinction from and subordination to the Father. They pressed home the idea that the Son and Spirit had been generated from the Divine Substance rather than ex nihilo, but that this generation implied no division or compounding of the Divine Substance.

This controversy led two "orthodox" writers, Tertullian and Hippolytus, to utilize a particular phrase that later proved quite important. The phrase was "of one substance," the Greek word homoousios or its Latin equivalent una substantia. That is, the Son and Spirit are "of one substance" with the Father. According to Tertullian:

Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are one essence, not one Person, as it is said, "I and my Father are One," in respect of unity of substance, not singularity of number.¹⁹⁸

Eric Osborn summarizes the meaning of Tertullian's language:

Substance for Tertullian means 'stuff' or 'material'. One substance was one physical thing. The soul, as well as God, logos and holy spirit were all corporeal realities . . . . He thought of one substance divided into three parts which remained together . . . ; each part was the embodiment of one of the three members of the trinity . . . . A quick reading of Against Praxeas suggests that Tertullian has not avoided a division of the divine substance, and a closer reading indicates that he may not have given the son and the spirit a totality of divine substance.¹⁹⁹

Hippolytus taught essentially the same thing at about the same time: "The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God. Now the world was made from nothing, wherefore it is not God . . . ."²⁰⁰ But Hippolytus stressed the subordination of the Son, as well, and spoke of the Father as "the Lord and God and Ruler of all, and even of Christ Himself . . . ."²⁰¹

Tertullian and Hippolytus seem to have borrowed the term "of one substance" from the Gnostics, who used it to denote a "generic" unity. That is, the same <