Clark, Dolezal, and Divine Simplicity: A Conversation

A month or so ago, I interacted with a Scripturalist named Charlie Ray on the subject of Gordon Clark, James Dolezal, and divine simplicity. You can find the video and my comments here (for some reason, you have to sort by "Newest first" to see all my replies. At some point, youtube stopped publishing my further attempts to comment. Perhaps that's just as well, as the conversation didn't seem to be going anywhere.

Since then, I see that Ray posted a blog and another video in which he further responds to me. In this post, then, I'll post our original conversation, my reply youtube failed to publish, and a few other thoughts on Ray's newer material. First, the initial comment chain. His comments will be indented, whereas mine will not. I'll highlight the portions that Ray did not and does not seem to grasp:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In outlining Dolezal's position, you said: "God is not composed of parts or composite parts." 

Clark believed: "...we shall define person as a composite of truths. A bit more exactly, since all men make mistakes and believe some falsehoods, the definition must be a composite of propositions. As a man thinketh in his (figurative) heart, so is he. A man is what he thinks. 

Since technical terms are used to avoid ambiguity, and since the Trinity consists of Three Persons, the definition will fail if it does not apply to God. That it does apply appears more or less clearly in verses that call God the Truth." (Gordon Clark, The Incarnation). 

Clearly, Dolezal's position is different from that of [elder] Clark.

I do not think the difference is as clear as you say. First of all, Clark was referring to the three Persons, who are all equally God. You took the quote out of context. Since all three of the Persons of the Godhead are equally omniscient, and all three Persons are the same God, it logically follows that all three Persons know exactly the same propositions, and they know those propositions intuitively. That is, they do not think one thought or one proposition after another. They know the entire system of propositions as one complete and intuitive system, not in partial or discursive thoughts. The only difference between the three Persons is when those three Persons think propositions that pertain only to their own identity within the Godhead. The Father cannot think, "I am the Son," or "I am the Holy Spirit." The Athanasian Creed makes this plain enough. The Athanasian Creed is included in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, by the way. 

Dolezal did his doctoral work under the supervision of his advisor, Scott Oliphint. Oliphint has had his own theological contradictions in recent years, including a book where he said that God changes according to "covenantal properties" in order to relate to humans. 

The Bible says that God is Truth. Since all three Persons are equally God, does it mean that the Father is Truth, but the Son and the Holy Spirit is not Truth? Gordon H. Clark stated clearly that God thinks in propositions. If not, how could God communicate special revelation to humanity in the written propositions in the Bible? God is Logic. That's divine simplicity. 

You quoted Clark's book out of context. 

The entire quote says: >>>Therefore, since God is Truth, we shall define person, not as a composite of sensory impressions, as Hume did, but, rejecting with him the meaningless term substance, we shall define person as a composite of truths. A bit more exactly, since all men make mistakes and believe some falsehoods, the definition must be a composite of propositions. As a man thinketh in his (figurative) heart, so is he. A man is what he thinks. 

Since technical terms are used to avoid ambiguity, and since the Trinity consists of Three Persons, the definition will fail if it does not apply to God. That it does apply appears more or less clearly in verses that call God the Truth. 

Deuteronomy 32:4, “a God of truth.” Psalm 25:5, 10, “Lead me in Thy truth…. All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth.” Psalm 31:5, “O LORD God of truth.” Psalm 108:4, “Thy truth reacheth unto the clouds.” Isaiah 25:1, “Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.” Isaiah 65:16, “the God of truth…the God of truth.” John 1:14, “the Word…full of grace and truth.” John 4:23-24, “…worship the Father in spirit and in truth…must worship him in spirit and in truth.” John 14:6, “I am…the truth.” John 15:26, “The Spirit of truth.” John 16:13, “The Spirit of truth.” First John 5:6, “The Spirit is truth.” 

Aside from whatever objections will be immediately raised against this uncommon conclusion, theologians will complain that this reduces the Trinity to one Person because, being omniscient, they all have, or are, the same complex. This objection is based on a blindness toward certain definite Scriptural information. I am not at the moment referring only to the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Spirit. I am referring to the complex of truths that form the Three Persons. Though they are equally omniscient, they do not know all of the same truths. Neither the complex of truths we call the Father nor those we call the Spirit, has the proposition, “I was incarnated.” This proposition occurs only in the Son’s complex. Other examples are implied. The Father cannot say, “I walked from Jerusalem to Jericho.” Nor can the Spirit say, “I begot the Son.” Hence the Godhead consists of three Persons, each omniscient without having precisely the same content. If this be so, no difficulty can arise as to the distinctiveness of human persons. Each one is an individual complex. Each one is his mind or soul. Whether the propositions be true or false, a person is the propositions he thinks. I hope that some think substance to be a subterfuge.<<< 

Gordon H. Clark. The Incarnation (Kindle Locations 802-822). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition.

Thank you for commenting. It's been a while ago, but I have read both of Dolezal's books on divine simplicity. I do recall that he criticized Clark at one point in the book. Dolezal is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary, and his doctoral advisor was Scott Oliphint. Oliphint was a student of Cornelius Van Til, so it is not surprising that there would be some disagreement with Clark at certain points. Oliphint himself caused a controversy awhile back by saying that God has a third category of "covenantal properties", whatever that is, that allows God to be immanent and communicate to humans on an ectypal level. But even the men at the Reformed Center podcast said that Oliphint had gone too far. Dolezal himself criticized Oliphint on this. I have the original version of Oliphint's book, which was pulled from publication. I read it and critiqued it in part on my blog. There has been radio silence on this ever since and Oliphint is still on the faculty of WTS.

https://reasonablechristian.blogspot.com/2019/04/scott-oliphints-covenantal-properties.html

A few corrections: 

1. You cite more of the context of Clark's statement, but you don't show how I took the quote out of context. I have also read both of Dolezal's books, and Dolezal thinks there is no real distinction between the divine persons and the divine essence (cf. All That Is In God, pgs. 118-123). Thus, Dolezal would not agree with Clark that the persons just are a composite of propositions. But this is exactly what [elder] Clark thought. 

In fact, you quote Clark as saying, "Each one is an individual complex." This is precisely what Dolezal denies on pg. 164 of God Without Parts when he rhetorically asks, "How can a simple God have a proper knowledge of many different things *without thereby possessing a complex intellect composed of many different ideas?*" Contra Dolezal, Clark affirmed that that the Trinity each have a complex intellect composed of many different ideas. Clark and Dolezal clearly do not have the same understanding of divine simplicity. 

By the way, Clark's view means that the Son knows some propositions the Father and Spirit do not. He says: "they do no know all of the same truths." That's a rejection of their omniscience, despite his protestations to the contrary. Clark shouldn't have said that indexical language entails different propositions. Joel Parkinson at least tried to distinguish between subjective (first-person) and objective (third-person) propositions. Clark should have said that while the Trinity do know the same truths, the mode of expression of these truths will differ. 

2. You are incorrect about Oliphint being on the faculty of Westminster. He retired from Westminster at the end of 2024. By the way, Lane Tipton has recommended Adam Ostella's book (The Developing Deity) written specifically against Oliphint. The book came out last month. I've read it in its entirety.

Does the Father not know tha He is not the Son of God or the Holy Spirit? How does denying that the Father and the Son are the same Person deny God's omniscience? 

Obviously, the quote is out of context on your part because you failed to mention that Clark does not say that truth is a composite. The quotes from the Bible show that all three Persons know exactly the same truth as one intuitive truth. The differentiation between the three Persons only exist at the points where the three Persons are distinguished. Other than that all three Persons are all equally omniscient because all three Persons are one and the same God. God is one in essence, being, and Godhead. Yet in another sense, God is three Persons. Persons are defined by the propositions that they think. Since all three Persons share all the same propositions that God knows in His omnisicience, and all three Persons are equally God, it follows that none of the three Persons is ignorant of anything else that the other two Persons know. The difference is in the fact that each Person has self-identity. The Father cannot identify as the Son or the Holy Spirit. There is no contradiction here. All three Persons share the same divine will. God has only one eternal will that is immutable. All three Persons are eternally self-existent as one and the same God. Deuteronomy 6:4; Matthew 28:18-20; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Matthew 3:16-17; John 1:32; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:21-22; Mark 12:36; John 1:1-3, 18.

The Father does not know "I am the Son." But contra Clark, He does know the same truths as the Son. The Son just has a mode of expressing the same truth that the Father does not (by using the indexical "I"). 

To say the Father doesn't know what the Son knows is a denial of omniscience.

Does Dolezal deny the Trinity? I don't think so. But I would like to see how Dolezal defines a person. Proverbs 23:1 says that man is what he thinks. Does the Father think that He is the Son or the Holy Spirit? https://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/daily/athanasian.html

I read both of Dolezal's books when they first came out. I also have listened to most of Dolezal's lectures on YouTube. If there are differences, which I did clearly acknowledge in my video above, it is because of Dolezal's Van Tilian apologetics and theology, not because Gordon H. Clark was some sort of heretic. Everyone makes mistakes in logic at some point or another. Dolezal is no exception and neither was Cornelius Van Til. In fact, even Camden Bucey is complaining that Van Til's views are not as popular as they once were. 

I seem to recall that you caused lots of problems for me on Facebook, even getting me banned from a Facebook group that claimed to be Clarkian but was really a Van Til group critiquing Clark. I'm no longer on Facebook due to the government censorship that took place during Covid and the 2024 presidential campaign. I deleted my account. 

You are welcome to comment here. I do not see any need to censor anyone. Although I do reserve the right to hold you accountable for equivocation and dissimulation. As I have shown above, you did quote Clark out of context. There is one God who is univocally the Truth. None of the three Persons of the Godhead is ignorant of anything the other two Persons knows. The accusation is therefore wrong. The difference is not a difference of ignorance but a difference in definition. The definition of each Person is a difference in propositions each knows about Himself and the other two Persons. Does the Holy Spirit know that He is not the Father or the Son? Yet, the Holy Spirit knows that the the Father is the Father and the Son is the Son. So how does that make the Holy Spirit ignorant?

Firstly, you mean Proverbs 23:7, not 23:1. Secondly, that verse does not talk about God. It isn't valid to extrapolate that the verse applies to God as well as man. Thirdly, it isn't clear that the verse is speaking ontologically, as if a man just is his thoughts. If you quote the whole verse, it's speaking to the fact that people sometimes will make professions or statements contrary to their thoughts (hypocrisy). As John Gill says: "He is not the man his mouth speaks or declares him to be, but what his heart thinks; which is discovered by his looks and actions, and by which he is to be judged of, and not by his words." 

I referenced exactly where to go to find Dolezal's position: pgs. 118-123 of All That Is In God. It's up to you if you want to read it or not. I'm not going to type out the whole thing for you when it sounds like you have the book. Dolezal approves of John Owen's definition of person on pg. 122.

I don't recall saying anything to get you banned from a facebook group. 

I repeat, Clark wrote that the Trinitarian persons "do not know all of the same truths." That's a rejection of their omniscience. That's a statement that the persons are ignorant. Clark may not have meant to imply that. If so, I explained how he should have communicated instead. "I am the Son" is an indexical mode of expression. The truth or falsity of the utterance is indexed to the person uttering the statement. As such, it isn't a proposition, for a proposition is the meaning of an utterance. It isn't possible to know the meaning of "I am the Son" until we know first who it is uttering the statement. 

All of this is a side issue. The main point I made - which you have not addressed, so your accusation I made an out-of-context citation is unfounded - is that Dolezal denies that the persons are composed or composite. Clark affirmed such. That isn't a Clark-Van Til issue.

I forgot to mention that Dolezal upholds a Thomistic view of Truth. This is one of the shortfalls of Van Til. If God has one Truth, and humans can know nothing that God knows, then obviously there are two kinds of truth: God's Truth, and mere human "truth" and the two never meet. This is the sort of thinking that leads directly to denying that the Bible is God's truth. The Bible is without error, infallible, and inerrant. Furthermore, if we can know nothing that God knows as the absolute truth, this leads to relativism. Man is God's image. Man alone is a rational creature. 

Dolezal says: 

>>>The outstanding common denominator in each of these serious and sophisticated arguments against the DDS is the strong commitment to ontological univocism. Each critic speaks as if God and creatures were “beings” in the exact same sense, reducing the Creator-creature distinction to a difference of degrees. God’s is a higher existence and his attributes more perfect, but all told his are simply greater instances of the same sort of existence and attributes found in creatures. Given this outlook it is no wonder that the DDS appears incoherent to many modern philosophers and theologians. God, it would seem, could no more be identical with his existence and attributes than any creature could be really identical with its existence and attributes. 

But it is precisely this ontological univocism that the DDS will not allow.95 Though creatures bear the image of God’s existence and attributes, their similarity to God is better understood as analogical than univocal. The manner in which God exists and possesses attributes is so radically unlike anything found in creatures that he cannot be classified together with them in a single order of being or as the highest link on a great chain of being. As the one who ultimately accounts for being in general, as its first and final cause, God does not stand within that general ontological order.96 In this connection the various critics surveyed in the foregoing section seem to have gratuitously precluded the very ontological outlook in which the DDS is intended to make sense. One unfortunate corollary of this procedure is the forfeiture of divine absoluteness inasmuch as something other than God (e.g., abstract being, properties, necessary propositions, Platonic forms, or some other piece of abstracta) enters into the ontological account of his existence and essence.<<< 

Dolezal, James E.. God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness (pp. 29-30). Pickwick Publications, An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition. 

The problem here is that nowhere does Gordon Clark ever say that man shares any of the incommunicable attributes of God's essence or being. Since logic is a communicable attribute, it is not a confusion between the Creator and the creature. God is a rational and intelligible and intelligent being who is also three distinct but inseparable Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Man is God's image because man alone of all the creatures is a rational being, created in God's image. If there is any confusion here, it is on your part because it is Scripture that says that God created man in His own image and likeness. Genesis 1:27; John 1:9. The eternal Logos enlightens every man with rationality, a rationality that the other created animals do not have.

I only commented in the first place because you recommend both Clark and Dolezal. I'm just pointing out that the two hold incompatible views. 

For example, if logic is an attribute of God and if, per Dolezal, each divine attribute is ontologically identical to every other divine attribute (e.g. omnipotence), then logic qua predicated of God would not be communicable, for we are not omnipotent. You might deny the conclusion, but then one wonders why you recommend Dolezal at all.

I recommended Dolezal because he is the first to fully advocate the doctrine of divine simplicity in modern times. Does that mean that I approve of everything he said? Of course not. There are many problems with Dolezal's view, including his trying to excuse Van Til's view that God is both one Person and Three Persons at the same time and in the same sense. This would indeed be a contradiction. 

Dolezal's books are worth reading, even if he is wrong on many points. For example, how does Dolezal square the fact that everything in God's mind is the same thing? If God's attributes are all the same thing, then there could be no distinction between any of the attributes within God's essence. 

If Logic is an attribute of God and inseparable from His essence, does it logically follow that this an incommunicable attribute of God? If so, that would mean that the Bible is not a logical or propositional revelation from God at all. 

You might deny the conclusion, but Van Til's analogical and Thomistic view that truth is twofold leads to neo-orthodoxy--whether Van Til realized it or not. 

And so what is your position on the doctrine of Scripture? Is Scripture propositional revelation? Or is Scripture an analogical revelation? Do you subscribe to the archetypal/ectypal distinction that Turretin got from Thomas Aquinas? 

Does the Father not know anything? You're deliberately equivocating. ​ 

Is the Father ignorant of the proposition that He is not the Son or the Holy Spirit? ​

youtube isn't showing my replies

I did show how you took the quote out of context. First, Clark clearly said that all three Persons of the Trinity are omniscient. Since all three Persons share the same divine essence, being, and fullness of the Godhead, they are all equally God Almighty. The only difference, according to Clark, is that the Father cannot know that He is the Son or that He is the Spirit. The reason being that the Father is not the Son or the Spirit. Each Person knows all the propositions that the other two Persons know with the exception that the Father cannot know that He is the Son or the Spirit, etc. If so, then the Father would not be a distinct Person within the Tri-unity. You should study the Athanasian Creed.  

>>>Neither the complex of truths we call the Father nor those we call the Spirit, has the proposition, “I was incarnated.” This proposition occurs only in the Son’s complex. Other examples are implied. The Father cannot say, “I walked from Jerusalem to Jericho.” Nor can the Spirit say, “I begot the Son.” Hence the Godhead consists of three Persons, each omniscient without having precisely the same content. If this be so, no difficulty can arise as to the distinctiveness of human persons. Each one is an individual complex. Each one is his mind or soul. Whether the propositions be true or false, a person is the propositions he thinks. I hope that some think substance to be a subterfuge."<<< 

Do you see now how you deliberately or at least inadvertently misrepresented what Clark said? Clark is completely in agreement here with the Athanasian Creed. The Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty, and the Holy Spirit is Almighty, yet there are not three Almighties. There is only one Almighty God.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is what I had intended to be a response:

It sounds like you don't much agree with Dolezal after all. Anyone who has read his books (like me) can see that they are not compatible with Clark's views. Very few theologians (apart from Clark) believe the divine persons or the divine essence are composite, by the way. Dolezal isn't special in that regard. Clark is. 

I tried commenting on your blog, but let me point out that I never said Clark did not believe in divine simplicity. You didn't read me very carefully. On the contrary, Doug Douma has documented he accepted it. See here. 

My point is that Clark's view is inconsistent with his own Trinitarian ontology. Regarding logic, I didn't talk about inseparability but ontological identity. You avoided the point by changing the subject. The question isn't whether logic is inseparable from God but if logic is an attribute of God that is identical to all other attributes. If the latter, then logic would be incommunicable. If you think Clark's views are right, Dolezal is not a theologian I would recommend.

I affirm Scripture is propositional revelation and that we know the same truths God knows. I reject the 1940s OPC complainants' view. The Father knows every truth, as do the Son and Spirit. They are each omniscient because each knows all truths. That directly contradicts Clark. I can't be any clearer than that.

That rounds out what I had to say in the comment section. 

Turning to his recent blog posts on the subject (link, link, link), I still don't know if Ray has understood the central point. He criticizes Dolezal's Thomistic epistemology, but he fails to recognize (or articulate, at least so far) that the problem is Dolezal's Thomistic metaphysic: if God's attributes are identical to each other, nothing that can be predicated of or attributed to God can univocally be predicated of or attributed to man. This metaphysical point has implications regarding epistemology. If one is going to reject Thomistic epistemology, he must also reject Thomistic metaphysics; in particular, Thomistic divine simplicity.   

To give an example of how Thomistic divine simplicity bears on epistemology, let's say that Ray is "a knower of the truth that 'Jesus Christ is the Savior of believers.'" The highlighted part of the previous sentence in quotations is predicable of or attributable to Ray. If that is true - which we will take as an assumption - then let's also state the obvious: Ray is not God. 

Now, given these assumptions and Dolezal's view of Thomistic divine simplicity, the predicate or attribute could not be univocally predicated of or attributed to God. For given Dolezal's view, anything predicable of or attributed to God is identical to God. If the predicate or attribute were identical to God, and if the attribute is also predicable of Ray, then Ray would be God. This is absurd. For crystal clarity:

1) Ray is "a knower of the truth that 'Jesus Christ is the Savior of believers.'" 

2) Ray is not God.

3) God is "a knower of the truth that 'Jesus Christ is the Savior of believers.'" 

4) God is identical to that which is predicable of or attributable to Him.

There is an inconsistency here. How does one resolve it? Surely we must accept that Ray is not God. One option is to assert that God is not "a knower of the truth that 'Jesus Christ is the Savior of believers.'" But for Clark (and Ray), that would effectively deny God's omniscience. Another option is to deny that Ray is "a knower of the truth that 'Jesus Christ is the Savior of believers.'" But if we repeat this for all cases of knowledge, then while God would be omniscient, Ray would know nothing, i.e. Ray would be reduced to skepticism. What, then, is the alternative? 4) must be mistaken, for Thomistic divine simplicity has skeptical epistemological implications.

Thus, it is bizarre that Ray, who accepts Clark's epistemology (let alone Clark's metaphysics), would "highly recommend James Dolezal's lectures and his books" on divine simplicity. Ray's initial reply to me was that he did not think the difference between Clark and Dolezal "is as clear" as I said it was. The above should hopefully make the difference as clear as day. If not, perhaps Ray is more willing to hear Doug Douma consider much the same thing in The Presbyterian Philosopher (pgs. 18, 88).

Turning to Ray's newer materials, in one post, he says that I commented that "Clark apparently did not believe in divine simplicity." This is false. Nothing Ray goes on to cite supports that inference. What I said was that "Dolezal's position is different from that of [elder] Clark." And this is obviously true. For elder Clark, God is a complex or composite of truths. For Dolezal, God is not. Ray quotes more from Clark's book on The Incarnation than I do, but in no way does he satisfactorily explain the relevancy of it to this obvious and fundamental difference between Clark and Dolezal. Instead, Ray says:

It seems clear enough that in the first sentence of the quotation Clark affirms the doctrine of divine simplicity by stating that God is truth.

 The "first sentence" by Clark to which Ray refers is as follows:

Therefore, since God is Truth, we shall define person, not as a composite of sensory impressions, as Hume did, but, rejecting with him the meaningless term substance, we shall define person as a composite of truths.

Again, it is mystifying that Ray should think this is compatible with or not so different from Dolezal's view of divine simplicity. Clark clearly says that God is "a composite," the very thing Dolezal rejects. It is impossible to paint a starker contrast.

Since that initial post, Ray has admitted that he "prematurely advocated that my listeners read Dolezal’s book" (link). Really, he could have said that in his initial reply, and that would have been the end of the matter. But he has now mentioned me in a recent video on divine simplicity, so I finally turn to that.

At minute mark 1:07, he says I complained that Ray confused Dolezal's view of divine simplicity with that of Clark. I did no such thing. I simply observed (not "complained") that Dolezal's view of divine simplicity is incompatible with elder Clark's metaphysics. 

At minute mark 2:00, Ray intimates that one problem he has with Dolezal's view is the identity of divine attributes such as divine justice with divine wrath. Actually, Clark affirmed the same thing:

It is the honorable view that all the attributes are identical in God, and sometimes visibly so in history; for when God demolished the walls of Jericho, the single action was both an instance of grace and an instance of wrath. In greater generality, knowledge is power, omnipresence is omniscience, mercy and truth are met together, and righteousness and peace have kissed each other. (The Incarnation, chapter on "Analysis Resumed")

It appears, then, that Ray, like me, also finds some difficulty with Clark's metaphysical views. 

At minute 2:40, Ray says that I am apparently a Van Tilian. This was most amusing! I have no idea what I said that gave him that false impression. Perhaps he'll peruse my blog one day and also find humor in that comment.

At 3:55, Ray accuses me of editing a citation of Clark by inserting the word "figurative" in parentheses. I did no such thing. My citation is verbatim what one finds in the ebook published by the TrinityFoundation. The same wording is found on page 54 of the 1988 physical copy of the book. Ray even gives the citation himself (minute 5:12) and later apologizes for his mistake (9:12), so I'll accept that and move on.

Ray repeats a few of his youtube comments. I already responded to those above, so I'll skip that portion of his video. Following Clark, Ray claims that no one has given definitions of key terms. I recommend that Ray read this book.

At minute 23:55, Ray says I miscite Clark. Rather than saying "God is complex," Clark says the "persons within the Trinity are complex persons." But at minute 23:21, Ray says God is, in one sense, three persons. Clark agrees. Ray already quoted Clark as saying that "the Godhead consists of three Persons." If the persons are complex or a composite of propositions, then, so too must the Godhead consist of a complex or a composite of propositions. This dovetails with Clark's statement that "God is Truth," that essence means definition, etc. 

At minute 25:34, Ray expresses irritation that I said Clark's metaphysics of personhood entails that the Trinity cannot be omniscient. I invite the reader to go back to the initial back-and-forth in this post. Clark said that the Trinity "do no know all of the same truths." But omniscience literally means all-knowledge. If the Trinity cannot know all of the same truths, they cannot be all-knowing. That may upset Ray, but it's a straightforward inference. What we should conclude is that, contrary to Clark, the Trinity do know all the same truths. 

At 26:29, Ray admits that he has no idea what an "indexical" is. Well, that makes sense, and he should have just asked me to explain rather than doubling-down on a false position. Or he could have just googled it: an indexical is "a word or expression whose meaning is dependent on the context in which it is used (such as here, you, me, that one there, or next Tuesday). 

If I say "the cat is here" and another person says "the cat is at Ryan's house," these are just two modes or ways of expressing the same truth. "I" is another indexical. If I say "I am Ryan" and another person says to me that "you are Ryan," those are just two modes or ways of expressing the same truth. Therefore, it is not the case that the individual persons of the Trinity have privileged knowledge of truth that the other persons do not have. In other words, Clark is wrong to say that the Trinity "do no know all of the same truths." Clark's mistake is to think that a privileged mode of expression (i.e. the use of the word "I") entails privileged knowledge of truth that the other persons do not have. Rather than getting irritated, Ray should concentrate on understanding what I'm actually arguing.

At 25:55, Ray says I claimed Clark rejected divine simplicity. To repeat, I never said that. Again, the initial point I made was that Clark's metaphysic is inconsistent with Dolezal's (and, indeed, Clark's own) view of divine simplicity. That ends Rays mention of me in his video. Unfortunately, it is still unclear to me if Ray grasps the epistemological issues at stake in this conversation about theology proper. 

Personally, I reject the Thomistic model (one extreme) on which all attributes are only conceptually distinct. I also reject the other extreme on which the attributes are really distinct (i.e. separable) and somehow compose the essence of God (as if there were something more fundamental). For now, I accept the Scotist model on which the attributes are formally distinct but inseparable. Richard Muller does an excellent job of explaining the different Reformed views here, pgs. 284-298. Regarding what formal distinction means, Muller uses an example of how a 1) hardness and 2) shape of a table are inseparable attributes of the table yet correspond to an extra-mental distinction within the table itself. I also have an intuition the Scotist view might dovetail nicely with Clark's philosophy insofar as Duns Scotus accepted univocity. Finally, there is also something to be said about a distinction between 1) who or what God is and 2) what God does. I consider God's knowledge - His free knowledge, at least - as falling into the latter category, not the former.

UPDATE: Ray has made another video in which he references me (link). Unfortunately, he makes no progress in addressing my critiques. At 14:55, he says:

I want to draw this to a conclusion, but I just want to respond again to Ryan Hedrich and his accusation that Clark's view turns God into a composite or complex of propositions that He thinks.

This isn't an accusation. It's a fact, as has already been demonstrated above (and will be repeated below). Ray follows:

Now the first response I'd like to make to that is that does God know that 2 plus 2 equals 4? And if so, does that mean that God is a composite because God thinks different propositions in his mind? Of course, God had to predestine everything that comes to pass through His providence in time. And yet, God is an eternal being who never changes, who is immutable, absolutely immutable. God never has a new thought in his mind. And so, how do we relate God's omniscience that is intuitive - that is He knows all things there is to know all at once - yet He's not subject to time. We as human beings uh think one thought after another. But God knows everything. All is one, eternal now. And so, how does this relate to God's being a composite of propositions? Is He a composite simply because God thinks propositionally, simply because God knows all the propositions that that can possibly be known - including every mathematical system, every possible mathematics that man could think of - God already knew? I don't think so. 

So in adhering to divine simplicity, we need to recognize that God is not a composite simply because He is a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all who share the same eternal will, all who share the same omniscience, the same eternal complex of propositions that God knows except for where God\, according to Athanasian creed, thinks thoughts that are distinct from the others. God is Almighty. The Father is Almighty. The Son is almighty and the Holy Spirit is Almighty. Yet there are not three almighties but one Almighty. 

A few responses:

1. God [the Father] indeed knows the proposition that "2 plus 2 equals 4." That doesn't mean we should agree with Clark that God is that proposition He thinks (among others). 

2. It's well and good that Ray concedes that God is not composite. If that is the case, though, then Ray disagrees with elder Clark and must reevaluate Clark's metaphysical view of a person as a "composite of truths." By they way, it is irrelevant that the persons think these truths eternally, immutably, non-discursively, etc. The point is that there are a plurality of truths which the persons of the Trinity think. Given that, if we say that the persons metaphysically are these truths - that the persons of the Trinity just are equivalent or reducible to truths (plural) - then this plurality obviously entails some kind of composition (just as Clark says). Ray is caught between a rock (divine simplicity) and a hard place (Clark's metaphysics). One must go.

3. Ray repeats his mistake that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit "share the same omniscience, the same eternal complex of propositions that God knows except for where God, according to Athanasian creed, thinks thoughts that are distinct from the others." Again, this means Ray denies that each person is omniscient. If one person knows a proposition the others don't, the other persons are not all-knowing by definition. And if each person knows a proposition the others don't, then none of the persons are omniscient. Ray continually fails to understand this point. I think this failure is because Ray seems to conflate propositions with thoughts. Each person of the Trinity can know all propositions without having the same thoughts.

Propositions and thoughts are not necessarily the same. Propositions are the objects of one's thinking; thoughts "point" to propositions. For example, "the Son is incarnate" is a proposition. Anyone can think this proposition. On the other hand, "I am incarnate" is a thought which "points" to or expresses a proposition. A thought is performed by a specific thinker, like the Son. A thought, therefore, can be subject-relative. If I think "I am incarnate," I would point to a different proposition with that thought. I would be pointing to the proposition "Ryan is incarnate." That proposition is false, so my thought is also false. The Son alone correctly thinks "I am incarnate." A thinker (like the Son) can express a thought in a certain way or mode that no other thinker (like the Father and Spirit) correctly can.

Does this mean the Father and Spirit don't know the same propositions that the Son does? No. That would mean we, like Ray, would have to reject that the persons are omniscient. Instead, the Father and Spirit can think the exact same propositions as the Son - e.g. "[the Son] is incarnate" - they just can't express their thoughts the same way.

At 17:30, Ray says, "let me get into the accusation that Hedrich makes." He then quotes from Clark's book, The Incarnation, pgs. 75-76 (link). While he says he hopes the pages clarify things, the unfortunate truth is that they don't. I'm not sure how those pages are relevant to my so-called accusation that Clark says God is composite. The topic isn't even mentioned on those pages. 

Instead, what Clark talks about on those pages are definitions of key terms. Clark says that bishops of Chalcedon were "talking non-sense, because their terms had no sense at all." But Clark has not been alive for 40 years. Clark wasn't alive when the minutes of Chalcedon were published (which I've read). He wasn't alive when Richard Muller published a book on defining the very key terms that Clark questions (I already linked to this book above - clearly, Ray decided not to read it). Clark was not alive to read books that have traced the use of key terms by the early church and the way in which they changed in meaning over time (link). 

I am a friendly critic of Clark, and I try to be charitable even why I point out that Clark made more radical statements than Nestorius (link; I also discuss the two minds model of the incarnation and provide my own definition of "person" - see also the comment section). And I would like to extend the same charity to Ray. It would be easier for me to do so if Ray actually responded to the points I'm making, but I do hope this helps him.

UPDATE: 4 months later, Ray has decided to follow up on the original discussion we had on youtube linked above. Here is his comment:

No, but what you are expressing is modalism, which denies the trinity. The Oneness Pentecostals claim divine simplicity and say that all trinitarians are proponents of divine complexity. You are making a false accusation against Clark based on one or two slightly imprecise statements in his book. Errors in logic are caused by the noetic effects of sin. 

And here is my response:

Well, at least you finally admit Clark makes statements that are false. I'm sure Clark did not intend for those statements to lead to larger errors, but it is important that we point out that his false statements would lead to larger errors (if one followed them to their absurd conclusions).

That you think I express modalism is just an assertion. You have presented no argument for that, and I certainly have said nothing that entails it. I don't accept "divine complexity." You are welcome to read this thread (I am the original poster), where I start by explicitly state that "God is without parts," but in which I also reject Dolezal's views: 

https://puritanboard.com/threads/questions-on-divine-simplicity.112883/

There is a diversity of historic, Reformed views on how to view God's attributes. I recommend Richard Muller, pg 286 (and the broader context) explaining how the Reformers viewed distinctions between God's attributes. I accept the formal distinction model, not the Thomistic/Dolezal model: 

https://archive.org/details/postreformationr0003mull/page/286/mode/1up

I recommend doing a lot of reading before throwing out false accusations.

If Ray posts anything further about me, I'll simply update this post.

Trinitarian and Anthropological Metaphysics

In the comments of a recent post, I was recently asked some challenging questions regarding Trinitarianism, Christology, and anthopology. In the past few years, I've mentioned several times the need for humility and balance when positing a doctrine of God (see here and pursuant links). On the one hand, I aim to do a better job of avoiding dogmatism on points of speculation. On the other hand, even in the case that answers to certain questions are underdetermined by biblical data, apologetic concerns warrant consideration of possibilities to prevent one's faith from being undercut. 

In what follows, my goal is to provide answers that are faithful to Scripture insofar as they are deducible from or coherent with it. Keeping in mind that this latter qualification - coherence - is a necessary but insufficient condition for truth, the questions I was asked will be indented:

I'm trying to also keep in my the Trinity, with the three persons united in one being. Being would be identical to nature (divine nature), would it not?

On the concept of "unity," this post would provide a helpful background for my own thoughts (excepting a few uncareful remarks in the final paragraph).

I don't think the Trinity are united "in one being" if that means persons are subsumed under nature. Don't get me wrong: natures don't exist without persons, and persons do not exist without natures. Yet insofar as "nature" or "being" discusses what is common to individuals, natures belong to and are predicated of persons, not persons to natures. "Enhypostasis" - nature is in the hypostasis. If persons were "in" natures, then Christ's having two natures would seem to imply Nestorianism.

Now, the members of the Trinity are consubstantial. In fact, I think the meaning of their being consubstantial is just the same as the meaning of you and I being consubstantial, although the manner of consubstantiality differs between Trinitarian members (eternal, necessary) and us as men (temporal, contingent). Regardless, they indeed are of the same nature. 

But I would balk at certain theories of divine simplicity that may be implicit in the phrasing of your question. That is, Trinitarian consubstantiality does not imply only one concrete nature. Recall that you mentioned mind is "indexed" to nature: if we subsumed the divine persons under or in a single, concrete divine nature, then, that would entail that there is just one divine mind. The problem with that - as you seem to recognize - is that it runs against biblical data suggesting the members have distinct, self-reflective thoughts (e.g. John 17). On that note:

So the mind of the Son would have self-referential propositions that the Father would not (e.g. "I am the eternally begotten one"), but that mind would not be coextensive with the person of the Son? What would be the remainder? Would it be something like the shared divine nature that extends beyond the self-referential thoughts of the mind?

While the mode of the Son's existence is eternal, He is also eternally begotten. Here is precisely where I think Clark, for example, went wrong: it is not merely that the Son thinks something of Himself that is different than His thought of the Father or Spirit; rather, this thought corresponds to something about the Son Himself. I argue Clark's rejection of the correspondence theory of truth in the 1940s led him to collapse persons into propositions/thoughts (link). I further argue I think Clark's reasons for rejecting it only pertain to a certain kind of correspondence theory of truth (link). 

What I am saying, then, is that the persons of the Trinity are not simply minds - and again, since you agree minds are "indexed" to nature, that would not constitute a differentiating principle between the individual Trinitarian persons anyway. Nor are the persons the thoughts of the mind (as if it is intelligible to suggest the divine persons are products of three minds?). On the contrary, the thoughts of the persons of the Trinity about themselves reflect or correspond to something unique about the way that they themselves are: unbegotton/originate, eternally begotten/generation, eternally spirated/process. Epistemological and ontological categories should not be collapsed. 

Also remember that in the original post on Clark and Nestorius, I was only attempting to provide a connotative definition of "person" in general. I was not talking individual persons/hypostases/subjects. For example, I think the Father, Son, Spirit, the angels, and humans are all "persons" because they have something in common: they each have a mind or minds. But this definition does not individuate any one individual "person" from any other. Well, that makes sense, for we agree that the having of a mind (or minds) is something properly belonging to the category of nature - not that we have the same nature as God, of course, but the overlap explains (at least partially) in what sense creaturely persons might be images of divine persons. 

So what individuates individual persons/hypostases/subjects? We might posit (as Clark did) that they can be individuated by their thoughts (of themselves). In a cursory analysis, this might be sufficient. But foundationally, note again that thoughts are products of thinkers. To the extent that an individual's thoughts of himself is relevant to this question, that to which the thoughts correspond - the individual himself - is all the more so. 

Let me suggest that an individual person is the correspondent of whatever may truly be predicated of him either timelessly (if His mode of existence is timeless, e.g. the Father) or at time t (if his given his mode of existence is temporal, e.g. an angel or human). What I "think" of myself is irrelevant, because my thoughts of myself are potentially false. Rather, true propositions about me (corresponding to my existence at time t) are those thoughts God thinks about me (corresponding to my existence at time t).

The above is perfectly intelligible to me. Even the case of Christ incarnate can be nuanced (example). Here is one catch, however: it suggests that the divine nature is concretized in the three persons. This should be obvious anyways if we accept a model of the Trinity on which each member of the Trinity has a distinct mind, but it should be noted. Not all (or even most) Trinitarian models would accept this. If we take Clark's definitions of thoughts/beliefs as involving volition, three concrete minds also entails three concrete wills.

Clark's own reasoning supports this, for he reject faculty psychology in the context of anthropology and Trinitarianism:

In the case of God, the simplicity of his reality should favor still more such a identification, rather than a development of divine faculty psychology. (April 3, 1937, Letter to J. Oliver Buswell)

A man is not a compound of three things, an intellect, a will, and an emotion. Each man is a single personality. (1943. On the Primacy of the Intellect. Westminster Theological Journal Vol. 5 No. 2, May. 182-195)

The question has to do with Ephesian 4 where it speaks of man’s mind being darkened. Well, I would include in the functions of mind the assent as well as the notitia, but I distinguish between the two functions. This is not faculty psychology, but it is two functions of the same spirit. (1977. A Defense of Christian Presuppositions in the Light of Non-Christian Presuppositions)

Just as in the post on "unity" I linked to above, these statements exhibit an internal inconsistency in Clark's thought. If the same spirit has two functions - assent and notitia or knowledge - then on what grounds could Clark affirm three distinct functions in one respect (self-knowledge) but not the other (assent)? If only the Son thinks "I am the Son," what does it mean to "think" if assent is not involved?

We can certainly differentiate the relationship between our persons to propositions we "know" (acquisitional, receptive) to the relationship between the Trinitarian persons and propositions they "know" (active, generative). In both cases, the objects of knowledge - truth-bearing propositions - are the same, although the psychological activity of "knowing" differs.

To reiterate, on the model I gravitate towards, the Trinitarian persons are consubstantial just as you and I are consubstantial. What it means for the divine nature to be "in" each person is the same, is true, and therefore corresponds to the existence of each person. There is just one "divine nature" that we conceptualize: all-wise, all-powerful, all-good, etc. Each member of the Trinity is all-wise, all-good, etc.

It's just that how consubstantiality cashes out is not in persons being found "in[side]" of a common nature but rather along the lines that a person who is a principle or "fount" (e.g. the Father; Adam) communicates his same nature to others who find their "origin" in him (e.g. the Son/Spirit; the rest of humanity). This bears on the unity of persons and explains the connection to traducianism, by the way, which I'll return to momentarily.

In the context of the Trinity, there is a necessary connection between the members. The property of the Father, the attributes of the divine nature He enhypostatizes, and mode of the communication of His divine nature to His Son and Spirit is such that the three persons 1) mutually depend on each other - for example, the Father is not who He is without His Son and Spirit - and 2) always act conjointly and agreeably. 

A comparison could reasonably be made between 1) three distinct knowers who distinctly and reflexively index the same, objective body of propositional meaning, and 2) three distinct operators or actors who necessarily produce one and the same conjoint operation or act (which, incidentally, includes the body of propositional meaning comprised of necessary and contingent truths).

A traducian friend of mine (Ken Hamrick) uses the language of "shared agency" to describe our participation in Adam's sin while the mode of "our" being was not yet (i.e. at the time of the Fall) as individuals but as the singular nature of Adam through which he sinned and out of whom we were not yet propagated as individuals (link). I agree with him, although how we think this analogizes to the Trinity differs. 

Ken would emphasize the numerical sameness of the spirit traduced to us and thereby argue for the numerical sameness of essence shared among the Trinity (link). I would emphasize that once we are propagated out of Adam, our possession of the same spirit is nevertheless concretely distinct and thereby argue that the Trinitarian persons exhibit an analogy to "shared agency" in the eternal communication of the divine nature through which the persons operate even as they are eternally individuated and individuals. As I mentioned at the outset, these are rather deep waters to stake out a dogmatic claim that one can confidently swim them. 

In either model - Ken's or mine - there is an analogy one could make between Trinitarianism and traducianism. There are also disanalogies in either case, of course. For Ken, whereas we have distinct, concrete natures (albeit inherited through our fathers once we are propogated out of them into a different mode of being, i.e. as individuals), the members of the Trinity would not. On my end, the manner of consubstantiality between the Father, Son, and Spirit would be eternal and grounded in their intrapersonal relations rather than temporal (such as my relation to my father). This interesting impasse at once suggests an argumentative parallel between Trinitarianism and traducianism regardless of which one of us is correct as well as that other reasons must be given for independent support for either of our positions.

I think my model goes some way in explaining biblical texts like John 17, the covenant of redemption, and the resonance between theology proper and anthropology. 

Further, on the subject of anthropology in general and traducianism in particular, I think this model (and Ken's) also avoids nominalism while affirming a realism in the contexts of original sin and justification which does not devolve into erroneous positions. For example, erroneous positions such as: 

1) one wherein Christ assumes a sinful nature (cf. uncareful statements of the doctrine of original sin), 

2) one wherein I am unjustly punished for sins which are really and completely alien to me (cf. representationalist theories of original sin), 

3) one wherein Christ assumes and glorifies a human nature under which all persons are said to be subsumed (cf. Eastern Orthodoxy and deification, despite the protestations of its apologists to believe that natures are in hypostases rather than the reverse), 

4) one wherein infused righteousness is argued as necessary for justification to be justly possible in this lifetime (cf. Roman Catholic apologists, although those who argue this are themselves inconsistent).

On several of these points, see here for more. Further potential advantages of this model are that it seems to cohere with other metaphysical ideas which have separate appeal: theistic propositional realism (i.e. divine conceptualism), a version of divine simplicity which allows for formal distinctions, an Aristotelian theory of universals, etc.

I've thought about this quite a lot, and while the above is not a full story, it's probably the best articulation I can come up with at the present. To your next question:

If by inheriting one's father's "spirit" means those immaterial attributes that he possesses (analogous to the material attributes one possesses), then I think I can get my mind around what "spirit" means. Just as our bodies are made from our parents's bodies without being identical to them, so our spirits are made from our parents's spirits without being identical to them.

But then what distinguishes mind and spirit, or are they the same?

I think they are the same. Christ assumed a body and a rational soul or spirit without assuming a person, so there is no Christological difficulty, at least. Ken has elsewhere suggested that the "spirit is the seat of the will regarding moral matters" (link), and I think this all dovetails with Clark's aforementioned thought that knowledge and assent are two functions of the same spirit.

Finally, I had written:

The separation of body and spirit is "death," and such is predicated of our persons; but so too is the separation of our spirit from the Spirit "death" also predicated of our persons... suggesting the relationship between man's body and his spirit is analogically related to the dependency of our spirit to God's Spirit?

Maybe all of this becomes simplified by looking at a case most Christians would agree with: Christians will be conscious in the intermediate state. Are these Christians still human? If so, then it appears that they just are, ontologically speaking, spirits. To say that the person experiences death is to say that his body has been separated from his spirit (i.e. himself). Men are not, ontologically speaking, composite beings, for although these spirits do normally have bodies, the separation of the normal unity between spirit and body does not ontologically change a person (spirit). Likewise, the separation of the designed unity between spirit and Spirit does not ontologically change a person (spirit). If physical death is not an ontological change, neither would be spiritual death.

Your question: 

As for the subsequent post wherein you discuss the intermediate state, have you considered also that our spiritual bodies may be of a different order than our physical bodies? Paul's statements about the natural body and spiritual body are puzzling. "Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit." The first man was made of the earth from dust, the last man is from heaven. Is it not safe to say that even in our present state we not "fully human" but are "incomplete" because the body we were given (even Adam's sinless body) was only the seed of what will only be completed in the resurrection? So, it may be the case that there is no ontological change since the separation of the spirit from the body in death is part of the planned transformation from natural body to spiritual body (like the seed germinating).

Did you mean to ask whether it's possible that "even in our present state we [are] not "fully human" but are "incomplete""? If so, did the incarnate and yet-be-glorified Son assume a fully human nature? Further, when this Son died and was buried (prior to His resurrection), was He fully human or not? Surely the former. 

I would also keep in mind the question of whether or not the reprobate are fully human: they will experience a bodily resurrection too, but their spirit remains severed from the life-giving Spirit of God and, thus, experience a second death. These points cumulatively suggest that death entails no change in nature.

Now, my original comment was about whether is ontological change at the time of death. Here, on the other hand, I am here emphasizing that there is never a change to the human essence each of us has. Ontology is indeed a broader category than humanity, I just wanted to answer your specific questions by distinguishing between an eschatological telos and a change in nature.

Clark and Nestorius

John McGuckin writes that Cyril of Alexandria

“…was appalled by the way Nestorius kept referring to the different prosopa as well as to the prosopon of the union… The problem was that Nestorius was using one and the same technical term to connote the disparate concepts of differentiation and convergence: there are two prosopa (Jesus and the Logos) and only one prosopon (Christ). There is of course, no sensible context whatsoever that would allow one to speak of three prosopa. It may well be that this economy of language in Nestorius led to a fatal weakness in the coherence of his theory, as Cyril argued, but it is clear enough that the caricature of his teaching that described it as no more than a repetition of the old Two Sons theory is an uneven reading of his intent. To this extent Cyril’s synopsis of his opponent was inaccurate. But Cyril had nonetheless put his finger on the key matter and his criticism still had force in the way he argued from Nestorius’ explicit statements to his necessary implications. In this regard Cyril had posed the essential question and voiced fears of many others when he asked whether such a theory had done enough to secure a concept of unitive subject in Christ.” (pgs. 149, 159)

If true, Cyril makes an excellent point. Indeed, one can read Nestorius make this exact sort of statement in the Bazaar of Heracleides:

…the union of the prosôpa took place for the prosopon and not for the ousia and the nature. It is not indeed that one ousia without hypostasis should be conceived, as if by union into one ousia and there were no prosôpon of one ousia, but the natures subsist in their prosôpa and in their natures and in the prosôpon of the union. For in respect to the natural prosôpon of the one the other also makes use of the same on account of the union; and thus [there is] one prosôpon of the two natures. The prosôpon of the one ousia makes use of the prosôpon of the other ousia in the same [way]. For what ousia seekest thou to make without a prosôpon? That of the divinity? Or that of the humanity? Therefore thou wilt not call God the Word flesh nor the flesh Son.

This statement by Nestorius is troubling and why I find a graphic shown here to be misleading. Nestorius says that the prosopon (defined by McGuckin as the “observable character, defining properties, manifestation of a reality,” pg. 138) of the divine ousia (essence) and the prosopon of the human ousia are united in one prosopon.

Two prosopa somehow unite such that one prosopon results. And yet, for Nestorius, even given the resultant prosopon, there are still two prosopa, each making “use” of each other. How is this intelligible? McGuckin goes on to argue that Nestorius grounded the union in God’s will: the prosopa of the Logos and the man Jesus are extrinsically related rather than ontologically grounded. Thus, when Nestorius rhetorically asks, “what ousia seekest thou to make without a prosôpon? That of the divinity? Or that of the humanity?” it seems that Nestorius is denying an enhypostatic-anhypostatic distinction - not that I think human nature can exist apart from a hypostasis but that Christ's human nature is enhypostatized by the divine Son, not a distinct individual/subject/person/hypostasis.

Another implication would be that for Nestorius, the prosopon who was glorified with the Father before the world existed (John 17:5) cannot be the same prosopon as the enfleshed Christ whom the Father sent (John 17:3). Along these lines, I can understand better now the Chalcedonian concern regarding “theotokos” (on which, see below).

Now, the same author who used the graphic I linked to above goes on to conclude, “It is recorded that Nestorius agreed with Leo of Rome in regards to Chalcedonian Christology.” The author then cites a statement Nestorius made in The Bazaar of Heracleides: “I was content to endure the things whereof they accused me, in order that while I was accused thereof, they might accept without hindrance the teachings of the Fathers.”

This appears a little too quick. Driver and Hodgson, who wrote an introduction to The Bazaar of Heracleides, qualify this:

The book must have been written by Nestorius in the year 451 or 452, seeing that there are references to the death of Theodosius II in 450, and to the flight of Dioscorus of Alexandria. Dioscorus was at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, but though formally deposed by the Council in October of that year was not condemned to banishment until the following July. On the other hand, Nestorius, though speaking of the triumph of the orthodox faith of Flavian and Leo, does not seem to be aware of the formal decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. It appears, therefore, that Dioscorus must have fled when the Council decided against him, and that when Nestorius wrote he must have heard of his flight, but not of the formal decision of the Council or of the imperial decree by which sentence of exile was pronounced upon him.

Even if Nestorius knew of the council’s decisions and that there was a great deal of each side talking past one another, there certainly were substantial disagreements. Christology is very technical. It should not be surprising that the progressive, historical outworking of Christology was complex... let alone our second-order, contemporary reflection on this historical outworking. In any case, one should not look to Nestorius for a proper understanding of Christology.

With the above in mind, I recently alluded to the way in which elder Gordon Clark's gradual, metaphysical synthesis (link) may have contributed to the two person theory that he proposed in the last book he penned, The Incarnation. Clark wrote:

It seems absurd that the Second Person of the Trinity would have gone to Gehenna, and certainly peculiar if he had gone to Hades, this last because the Second Person could not die. He was the eternal, immutable Son of God. Hence since “the man Christ Jesus” is the only other possibility, the one who died on the cross was a man, he had or was a soul, he was a human being, a person. 

Note how late this particular change in Clark's mind must have been. In 1982, a Trinity Review article on Traducianism was published. This was taken from Clark chapter on The Atonement in Clark's unpublished systematic theology, completed some time around 1978. The Atonement itself was posthumously published in 1987. This suggests that Clark approved the publication of Traducianism in 1982 - at the very least, there is no record that Clark had any problems with its publication. Why is this point relevant? In the article, Clark writes:

J. Oliver Buswell, Jr. defends creationism in a most unfortunate way. In his A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion (Zondervan, 1962, Vol. I, 250-252) he speaks three times of Christ having been born with a sinless body: “The body of Christ was perfectly sinless.” Nothing is said about a sinless soul. This is peculiarly strange, for, contrary to orthodox doctrine, Buswell teaches, “He, that is, his personal eternal being, his soul, became a human person, a human soul, without in any way ceasing to be a divine person, a divine Soul” (251). But this seems to be Nestorianism unless Buswell means to annihilate the divine Person, and other creationists would not be pleased with this defense of their doctrine.

This is consistent with another remark Clark makes in his in book, The Trinity (which was originally another chapter in his aforementioned systematic theology):

As a prelude to the discussion of this Athanasian Creed, and all the more of later argumentation, certain terminological difficulties require attention. Some of these terms occur in the creed; others have come into use from other sources. Over the centuries discussions on the Trinity have utilized the words nature, essence, being, substance, subsistence, and the very unfortunate Latin term person. These are hardly ever defined with precision. For example, one would ordinarily think that a person must have a will. But the orthodox doctrine allows the three persons of the Trinity to have one will only, while surprisingly the incarnate Jesus has two wills, one divine, one human; and yet even with a human will, and “reasonable soul,” he is not a human person. Nestorianism, with its assertion that Christ was two persons, though plausible on the ground of this psychology, is nonetheless, on the ground of the mediatorial atonement, a heresy. (Gordon Clark, The Trinity, chapter on The Athanasian Creed)

Thus, in 1978 - and probably in 1982 - Clark rejected Nestorianism. Even in his book on The Incarnation, he denies association with Nestorius on the basis of having provided definitions for key terms. Clark thought Nestorius did not provide any such definitions (McGuckin might disagree, although I'm unsure on this point). Nevertheless, his admission to John Robbins in a 1985 that "it is hard to avoid Nestorianism" suggests that on this matter, Clark was of two minds(!)

Now, definitions are important. But how we formulate theological definitions is even more important, for these must accord with God's own self-disclosure in His word. With that in mind, the point Clark makes in his book on The Trinity is pertinent: Nestorianism is a heresy because its two-person Christology leads to a rejection of one Mediator. It is be strange that so specific and excellent a criticism should have been left unanswered by Clark himself upon his change of mind in The Incarnation. Of course, Clark passed away before completing the book to his personal satisfaction.

Much of this is recounted in Doug Douma's book, The Presbyterian Philosopher. But what might also be pointed out is that it is hard to see how Clark's understanding could avoid the charge that the Son of God is not the Son of Man:

Luke 22:69 But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.
70 And they all said, “So You are the Son of God?” And He said to them, “You say correctly that I am.”

Do two [per]Sons sit at God's right hand? Even Nestorius insisted that it is "not as though again two sons were sitting but one, owing to the union with his flesh." Nestorius verbally denied two that there were two Sons. Whether Nestorius' position is consistent with such a verbal denial is another question.

Instead, the point I wish to make is that despite elder Clark's protestations against comparison to Nestorius, his position begs the same questions: who sits at God's right hand? Is there one mediator between God and man, or are there two? Who intercedes for us: God, man, or the God-man? Is the Son through whom God spoke the same Son whose throne is forever and ever (Hebrews 1:3, 8)? Etc.

For the same reasons, we should not hesitate to affirm that Mary was "theotokos." I've spoken with Protestants (and not only those who read Clark) who have had reservations about affirming this. But in his book on The Trinity, Clark said, "theology cannot be divorced from church history" (chapter on Athanasius). Well, did any patristic or theologian in church history who affirmed "theotokos" also affirm that Mary gave birth to the divine nature? Of course not. Any hesitation on this point seems to be a needless worry, whereas accidentally affirming Nestorianism is a real worry.

Take an analogy: would the same people who have reservations about affirming Chalcedon's reference to Mary as "the mother of God" also hesitate to affirm that "the Father is God," "the Son is God," and "the Spirit is God" because they don't want to be confused with tritheists? Wouldn't they rather affirm each statement and just qualify them appropriately (such that monotheism is also affirmed)?

Or take Matthew 1:23. Mary is prophesied as the one who will give birth to Immanuel. She will give birth to "God-with-us." Should we have reservations about affirming this Scripture just to avoid a position that no important theologian in history has ever affirmed? These are fair challenges to those who refuse to accept orthodox doctrines and inferences.

Now, as with his Trinitarian model, I would like to think Clark's attitude regarding his theory of personhood was something along the following lines: 

The discussion of the main problem in the doctrine of the Trinity may now be called completed, even if it is not complete. Other students and scholars may add to, subtract from, modify, contradict, or otherwise alter the foregoing. Such responses would be a great improvement over the present almost universal neglect of the doctrine. (chapter on Individuation)

Charity towards Clark would, I think, read him as primarily encouraging thoughtfulness regarding metaphysical conundrums. However, there can be little doubt that Clark's own thought has inhibited some people from accepting orthodox Christology. That's the charitable way to put the matter. One might reasonably be more blunt. Even so, it remains for us to take up Clark's challenge:

...if someone does not like these definitions, he is free to present his own for consideration. (The Trinity, Bavinck and Van Til).

I have offered a definition of the term person. Most people will find it queer. Most theologians will find it unacceptable. Well and good, let them formulate and propose a different definition. That is the honest and logical thing to do. Then there will be an intelligible subject of discussion. One can reasonably suppose that it could be a better definition than mine. (The Incarnation, Conclusion)

A Nestorian Christology of any flavor is biblically untenable. Clark's view causes worse problems than it aims to solve. But unless we are content with apophaticism, some positive theory must be given. 

The problem for Clark was when he defined a person as "his mind or soul" (The Trinity, chapter on Some Conclusions). In fact, for Clark, a single person always has a single mind because a single person just is his mind... not to mention that he is also the objects "he" thinks (I go into more detail about this ontological collapse here). This too strict equation of a single person with a single mind led Clark to believe that Christ incarnate was two persons because Christ incarnate has two minds. That is the problem stated. 

What follows is a solution - a positive theory which coheres with the foregoing analysis. I do not argue my solution is the most coherent one possible. But I take it as prima facie acceptable insofar as it can account for the Scriptural data while avoiding a few of the conundrums Clark mentions. I mentioned it a long time ago, and as it's held up in my mind over time, I'll attempt to outline it in a little more detail below.

A helpful way to begin a formulation of a definition for "person" is to point out that Jesus Christ is the single subject of many biblical propositions. Whatever explains the unity of Jesus Christ as a single subject might also help us to explain what persons are.

That is, suppose one wrongly accepted some version of Nestorianism (Clark's or otherwise). That person would still tend to make statements such as, “Jesus Christ is a human person and divine person.” But this still implies a single subject, Jesus Christ, which or who the Nestorian thinks is the unity of two persons. Well, how would the Nestorian unite the two persons in a single subject? 

Just as importantly, if and once such an explanation is provided, why can't that explanation about how Jesus Christ is a single subject also help us to explain how Jesus Christ is a single “person” in the first place (rather than two persons)? Christ is one subject. Therefore, is it not plausible that He is one person? However one attempts to explain that Christ is one subject can also be used to help explain how He is one person. I take this to be a good start.

Pushing the matter a bit further, I think any thorough solution should recognize that Christ incarnate does indeed have two minds. Thus, the definition of "mind" is not identical to the definition of a person. Instead, a mind is that by which a person can think. Note that this does not suggest that the relationship between persons and minds is one of one-to-one correspondence (see below).

Now, in certain cases, minds think self-referentially. Take an example: "Ryan is a male" is a true proposition. Because I am Ryan, I am also able to truthfully think, "I am a male." This thought reflexively indexes the true proposition "Ryan is a male." Other persons (like females) cannot truthfully use the reflexive indexical "I" to think the proposition that I think in the mode that I think it. Females would only be able to truthfully affirm the true proposition, "Ryan is a male," not the self-referential thought which indexes the proposition to myself.

In normal cases, when we talk about one, singular person, we usually associate him or her one mind. Thus, Clark's faulty definition of persons is natural, if dangerous. However, given the unique case of Christ, we should allow for the possibility that a single person can have multiple minds. A better definition of "person" than Clark's, I think, is one which is not too far removed from it: a person is a mind or minds capable of reflexive indexation. Perhaps the underlined portion is redundant, but at any rate, here's an example of how this cashed out in the case of Christ incarnate:

The human mind of Christ incarnate thinks, "I grow in wisdom."
The divine mind of Christ incarnate thinks, "I am all-wise."

In both cases, the "I" has the same referent, a singular subject, individual, or hypostases: Christ incarnate. Thus, one can truthfully affirm that "Christ incarnate grew in wisdom" and that "Christ incarnate is all-wise." This is not a contradiction, because Christ incarnate does not grow in wisdom in the same sense that He is all-wise. He grows in wisdom by His human mind and is all-wise by His divine mind. On this definition of "person," we can avoid the error of Nestorianism.

Accepting this definition would mean one would have to reject elder Clark's metaphysical synthesis. But I think this turns out to be a case of addition by subtraction: the less one relies on Clark's metaphysics, the better.

Now, I have seen the following citation float around which might seem to pose a problem for the view I've expressed. In his book Paradox in Christian Theology, James Anderson writes:

If claims about Jesus possessing two distinct ranges of consciousness, two distinct sets of experiences, beliefs, etc., are to be coherent then it must be possible to refer to those mental features without those features being necessarily owned by any particular person. Yet this is precisely what our concept of a person rules out. If experiences are necessarily individuated with respect to persons, then at the most fundamental logical level it makes no sense to speak of one person with two distinct consciousnesses (in the sense that each consciousness might in principle be ascribed to a different person that the other)...

If persons and not minds are the logically primary subjects of experiences and other mental states then it makes no more sense to say Christ believe that water is H2O with respect to his divine mind but did not believe that water is H2O with respect to His human mind than it does to say that Christ broke break with respect to his hands but did not break bread with respect to his feet. A person either breaks bread or he does not; likewise, a person either believes that water is H2O or he does not. To try to isolate two distinct minds or consciousnesses within one person, as Morris seeks to do, is to kick against the goads of the very concepts needed to formulate the christological problem in the first place. (Paradox in Christian Theology, pgs. 97-98)

Frankly, I personally don't see a problem with the statement that Christ broke bread with respect to his hands but did not break bread with respect to his feet. Despite his seeming incredulity, does Anderson think that this statement is false? In what way does this conflict with Anderson's argument that "If particular experiences are to be meaningful, they cannot be logically isolated from the subjects of those experiences"? Subjects are not attribution-less particulars. To say that there is a distinction between the subject or person of Jesus and His divine and human minds does not seem to entail that Jesus' divine mind (in particular) is not "necessarily owned" by the person of Jesus. 

Here is an analogy: "if claims about the person of the Father possessing two distinct attributes is to be coherent, then it must be possible to refer to those attributes without those attributes being necessarily owned by any particular person." Does Anderson really think that [the divine] attributes are not "necessarily owned" by the Father? Or would Anderson suggest some sort of extremely strong, Plotinic view of divine simplicity on which God has no attributes? I wouldn't think so, as I recall Anderson had some relevant criticisms of Dolezal's book on divine simplicity (link).

In fact, Anderson himself accepts theistic conceptual realism. He thinks that God's thoughts are identical with propositions. Insofar as propositions are distinct, God's thoughts must also be distinct. So here's another, even better analogy: "if claims about the Father's possessing two distinct thoughts is to be coherent, then it must be possible to refer to those thoughts without those thoughts being necessarily owned by any particular person." Would not Anderson deny that this follows? If so, that would mean his original argument doesn't follow either.

One final thought: a separate objection to the definition I've proposed for what a "person" is might be that it is contrived. Well, in some sense, I grant that this is true: the incarnation is a special case, after all. The language of "personhood" is one the church did contrive to deal with heresies and of which the church should take the data of special divine revelation in account when formulating a coherent Christology. This is less a criticism and more so an obvious statement of a historical reality.