We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
What are the different models of the Trinity in the Christian tradition?
The Psychological and Social Models of the Trinity
The Bible teaches that there is only one God. At the same time, it teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each fully God. For this reason the church has always affirmed the doctrine of the Trinity, which teaches that God has one substance (ousia) but eternally and fully exists as three distinct Persons (hypostases in Greek, personae in Latin).
The question left unanswered is how we are to understand the relationship between the substantial unity and personal plurality within the Godhead. Throughout church history, two distinct models have been proposed.
The first model goes back to the second-century apologists and was made famous by Augustine. It is usually called the psychological model of the Trinity, for it likens the unity and diversity of the Godhead to the unity and diversity of the human self. According to Augustine, the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is like the unity of the mind (thoughts), heart (emotions), and volition (will) of a person. A different version was put forth by Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century. He argued that as the human psyche consists of a self, a self-image, and a relationship between the self and the self-image, so the Godhead consists of a self (Father), a perfect self-image (Son), and a perfect loving relationship (Spirit) between the self and the self-image.
While many have found the psychological model helpful, others have objected to it on the grounds that it is not faithful to the biblical data. The Bible depicts the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three distinct Persons, they argue, not three distinct aspects of one Person. Hence, they have proposed that we should think of the unity of the Trinity more like the unity of the mind, heart, and will of three people. This has been labeled the social model of the Trinity.
To some defenders of the psychological model, the social model borders on tri-theism (the belief in three separate gods). To some defenders of the social model, the psychological model borders on modalism (reducing the three Persons to three modes of one person). Still others argue that since models are only models, not exact replicas of reality, we may affirm both models as valid in capturing distinct perspectives on a God whose full reality defies exhaustive description.
Related Reading
Is Your Christianity Shaped by Plato or the Bible?
The Timaeus is a work that Plato wrote that addresses the questions: “What is that which always is and has no becoming, and what is that which becomes but never is?” (Tim. 28a)? These questions contain one of the most influential – and, in my opinion, one of the most disastrous – philosophical ideas of…
What We Long For
Augustine once prayed, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.” We all have an unquenchable yearning in our hearts, a yearning for nothing less than to share in God’s own eternally full life. This is why our deepest desires cannot be permanently satisfied by…
Thankful for the Passion of God
The classical view of God has held that God is impassible, meaning he is above pathos (passion or emotions). The main reason the church came to this view was that, following the Hellenistic philosophical tradition, they associated emotions with change while believing God was above all change (immutable). Moreover, experiencing emotions implies that one is affected by…
How NOT To Be Christ-Centered: A Review of God With Us – Part I
Theologians throughout Church history have used the concept of divine accommodation to account for everything in Scripture that seemed “unworthy” of God. Whatever didn’t line up with what we know about God was seen as God accommodating his revelation to our limited and fallen framework. The trouble is, theologians have, by and large, used the…
Lighten Up: Square Peg, Round Hole Theology
This comic was featured in The Bohemian Bowmans. If you don’t follow them, you probably should check them out. They’re great.
Is Your Church Promoting Tribalism?
It’s long been said that Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week. Sadly, many have taught us that homogeneity is the way the church grows the fastest. But should we put up with this? In what follows, Greg lays out a biblical foundation for what he calls “reversing Babel.” According to the…