The Problem with Social Trinitarianism

Social Trinitarianism and polytheism

“…There is a complication here, as some, e.g. Brower (2004), have argued that God is not divine on Wierenga's view. I think that there is a perfectly good sense in which Wierenga can still claim that God is necessarily divine, and so I ignore this issue.…”

“…First, Jeffrey Brower (2004) has noted an unfortunate consequence of accepting G 1 : G 1 entails that polytheism is logically impossible. First, Jeffrey Brower (2004) has noted an unfortunate consequence of accepting G 1 : G 1 entails that polytheism is logically impossible.…”

“…Brower (2004), have argued that God is not divine on Wierenga's view. Without some such property, however, that FG and SG can plausibly be read as attributing to the Father and the Son, or some other understanding of the property of being a God, the Social Trinitarian seems committed to polytheism.…”

“…Though this response does allow ST 2 to avoid the charge of polytheism, there are good reasons to deny G 1 . First, Jeffrey Brower (2004) has noted an unfortunate consequence of accepting G 1 : G 1 entails that polytheism is logically impossible. Brower writes, ' [A]s Wierenga understands it, polytheism is logically impossible and hence trivially false, since it is logically impossible for more than one thing to be identical with God ' (299).…”

Objections to Social Trinitarianism

“…Jeffrey Brower has criticized this view on the grounds that there is no basis for Wierenga's distinction between the properties of being divine and being God. 39 According to the Athanasian Creed, 'the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God ; and yet there are not three Gods, but there is one God '. If in saying that each of the Persons is divine they had meant to attribute to the Persons some property other than being God, they had the Latin word divinus ready to hand ; since they employed instead the word deus, it is gratuitous to suppose that they intended such a distinction.…”