The objection
If a model starts from the one God and describes his three persons as ways of life, do Father, Son and Spirit really remain—or merely three appearances of the same I?
1. The decisive difference concerns the relationship's reality
Modalism does not arise merely from emphasizing God's unity. It arises if Father, Son and Spirit are ultimately only manifestations of a single person. The Son in prayer to the Father would then address no really other divine person.
The mere simultaneity of different appearances is therefore insufficient as a counterargument. An actor could theoretically portray several roles simultaneously. The decisive question is whether the personal relationship itself is real and eternal.
2. Leftow's model intends more than changing masks
Leftow uses a time-travel analogy: Different segments of one life could appear simultaneously. Applied to God, different life courses are supposed to exist without temporal succession.[1] The proposal must therefore not be described as merely switching between Father role and Son role.
The open follow-up question nevertheless remains whether such life courses explain genuine persons or merely different states of a single personal bearer. This examines the specific model. As Williams emphasizes, “Latin” is no sufficiently precise name for all Western explanatory approaches.[2]
3. Classical relational doctrine begins differently
Thomas calls the persons really subsisting relationships.[3] Fatherhood and sonship are no later activities of God toward the world. They designate eternal personal distinction within undivided divine reality.
“One nature” must therefore not be replaced with “one person with three roles.” Nor may the relationships be made attributes additionally attaching to a fourth person named God. In both cases the model would change the number and kind of persons it is meant to explain.
4. John 17 supplies a sharper criterion than the analogy
Jesus speaks of glory with the Father before the world's existence and the Father's love for him before the foundation of the world. These statements do not merely concern God's effect on later observers. They claim truth about God's own life.
A model must preserve this personal fellowship. If it fails, the model must be improved or abandoned. Scripture commits us neither to a time-travel analogy nor to its critics but to the eternal Son who is with the Father and reveals him. Precisely for this reason, modalism can be rejected without weakening God's unity.
5. Are Barth and Rahner therefore modalists?
Neither Barth's “modes of being” nor Rahner's “distinct manners of subsisting” may simply be equated with changing masks. Barth determines them through mutual relationships and expressly opposes modalism.[4] Rahner denies that a finished God first exists who subsequently assumes these modes; they necessarily belong to God's own being.[5]
This protects their proposals from premature caricature but replaces no substantive examination. The decisive question remains whether Father and Son are truly eternally related to one another or their distinction ultimately dissolves into a single personal I. A different expression for “person” does not solve this question by itself. Where it obscures the real counterpart of John 17, it must be clarified. Where it preserves this counterpart within undivided deity, the mere expression “mode of being” is not yet proof of modalism.
Biblical texts in context
Sources and further study
- Brian Leftow, A Latin TrinityFaith and Philosophy 21/3 (2004), pp. 304–333; his own abstract on the analogy of simultaneous life courses.
- Scott M. Williams, Indexicals and the Trinity: Two Non-Social ModelsJournal of Analytic Theology 1 (2013), pp. 74–94; the name “Latin” designates no single uniform theory.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiaeI, q. 29, a. 4: real subsistent relationships as personal distinction.
- Karl Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik I/1§ 9, especially the thesis and sections 2–4; English Church Dogmatics I/1, pp. 348, 353–383: modes of being in real mutual relationships, rejection of modalism.
- Karl Rahner, The TrinityChapter III, section E.3: “Distinct Manner of Subsisting”; modes of being are no subsequent or freely changing modalities of a prior God.