Here’s a doctoral dissertation that Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity has made available titled “Morality and the Personhood of God: A Moral Argument for the Existence of a Personal God.” I imagine this would be a treat and food for thought for those into apologetics, theology and philosophy. I myself am fascinated with morality and the existence of God, and grounding that in not just only a personal God but as this dissertation touches on, even with the Triune God. While there’s no reference to Presuppositional Apologetics still I think Presuppositionalists would find this interesting.
The dissertation was written by Stephen Scott Jordan and was completed on March 26, 2021 as part of his completion of his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). I am thankful Liberty University has made this thesis available online for free.
Here’s an abstract:
The concept that God is personal is an important part of religious belief. If God were not personal, it would be odd to think of him as moral or loving; it would also seem counterintuitive to speak of him as One with whom humans can have a personal relationship, One who can be trusted, cares for the people he created, listens to their prayers, acts on their behalf, has their best interests at heart, and so on. In short, to talk of such matters in a sensible manner and to experience them in everyday life seemingly requires that God is personal.
Is there evidence that a personal God actually exists? Enter the moral argument. The moral argument, like other classical arguments for God’s existence, is able to provide evidence for believing in God’s existence, but—unlike other arguments, or perhaps better than the other arguments—is able to shed an incredible amount of light on God’s character (i.e., what God is like). For example, in order to account for morality, God must be good, loving, and holy. Additionally, by surveying the moral landscape—specifically, categories such as moral knowledge, moral values, moral obligations, and moral transformation—it becomes apparent that the deeply personal nature of morality points in the direction of a personal source, and most appropriately, a source personal to the highest degree possible.
If the moral argument suggests that a personal source is needed in order to account for the personal nature of morality, naturalism is in a difficult position because of its impersonal or non-personal nature. Similarly, Platonism is a non-personal metaphysical system and therefore faces a challenge in accounting for the personal nature of morality. Although there are several belief systems that set forth the notion of a personal God, with some conceptions coming nearer to adequately accounting for what is required of a personal God than others, Christianity uniquely demonstrates that not only is God personal, but that he has always been personal. If the only sense in which God is personal is in his personal interactions with human persons, then one could say that God’s personality was frustrated before he created human persons or that God became personal only after he created human persons. To say these sorts of things presents all sorts of theological and philosophical problems, namely, that God is dependent on something other than himself and therefore not self-sufficient.
A Trinitarian conception of God, which is a distinctly Christian concept, solves the sorts of problems alluded to above, suggesting that God has always been personal in and through the inner personal relations of the three Persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the fundamental reason why the Judeo-Christian God, the God of the Bible, is the best explanation for the deeply personal nature of morality: he is intrinsically personal himself.
While there is certainly more involved, there are two key tasks to this version of the moral argument: (1) demonstrate that morality points in the direction of a personal source; and (2) explain how a Trinitarian conception of God provides the best explanation for the deeply personal nature of morality.
Thanks for the great resource. I look forward to reading it.
Blessings.
OK, I’ll be the somewhat cynical critic here. I’ll preface by stating that I just KNEW the author would end up appealing to inherent Trinitarianism as ‘evidence’ for a personal God as I was reading through and before I got to the end of the selection. The problem with this, as I see it, is that this is an argument for the ‘Social Trinity’, which I cannot conceive as anything short of amounting to tritheism (three gods). We do much disservice to our God in our attempts to humanize Him–as that is what these sorts of arguments tend to do.
The argument tends to be circular: we impose our human ideas of both ‘P/personhood’ and what it means to be ‘personal’ unto the Trinitarian God and then export that back to what we envision is the ideal human ‘person’. I think it much better to never collapse the Economic Trinity into the Ontological Trinity and vice versa. The Trinity is a mystery, just like the Incarnation is a mystery, and we should keep them as such.
FYI, you would hate some of my classes! Jimmy would no better than me, taken too far I can see your point about tritheism; but ignoring the Personhood of the Trinity makes Him a monad and that has its own issue. I did a quick search of his sources to see if he would address the social trinity, but I have not seen any evidence that he did. Have you read 2 views on the Doctrine of the Trinity? It is a quick read. I would be curious of your thoughts on it.
Mandy,
I absolutely affirm that God relates to us personally. And I affirm the ‘Personhood’ of the Father, the ‘Personhood’ of the Son, and the ‘Personhood’ of the Holy Spirit. But I strongly contend that in His intrinsic (ontological) Being, God’s ‘Personhood’ markedly differs from our personhood (hence, why I always put single quotes for God’s ‘Personhood’). We must first ask: What defines a human “person”? See definitions 4 and 5 for person. Can we say that God, or any individual ‘Member’ of the Trinity, is a “person” in the same way we say a human is a “person”. No, we cannot.
The best explanation I found for this delineation between God and humans in this regard is in RCC theologian Gerald O’Collins (though the author does not share my perhaps anal-retentive practice of capitalization and single quotes when referencing ‘Personhood’ of the Trinitarian ‘Members’):
–The Tripersonal God: Understanding and Interpreting the Trinity (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999), p 178.
So, this is where I see Jordan’s argument to be fallacious. Quoting from the citation above: …God has always been personal in and through the inner personal relations of the three Persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This imposes our human idea of personhood onto the Trinitarian ‘Personhood’ (or it attempts to equivocate between the two different meanings). If we call each Trinitarian ‘Person’ a “person” in the human sense of the term, then we must also say that each ‘Member’ of the Trinity has an individual mind and will. That’s tritheism. Our Trinitarian God has one divine mind and one divine will. And this is NOT correlative to the human experience.
I’d never heard of the book Two Views on the Doctrine of the Trinity.
Let me add this. Though I implied it, I didn’t spell out the following: Jordan’s statement is Social Trinitarianism (“…the inner personal relations of the three Persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”), whether he calls it such or not. Given this, the best (fairest) critique of the various Social Trinity constructs I’ve read is by Carl Mosser: Fully Social Trinitarianism
You’re very passionate about this. I have not read this full dissertation so I will not say he is a Social Trinitarian. The Trinity is a mystery and how the Godhead relates and communicates ontologically is not for me to figure out. It seems like the Western Church focuses more on God being One and the Eastern Church focuses on the Three. But the Trinity is always One God Three Persons. I know you say you are affirming the ‘Personhood’ of the Trinity. I think the argument in regards to mind and will in terms of members is apples to oranges rather than apples to apples. Since the author’s dissertation is in public databases, there has to be a way for you to contact him to refute his dissertation!!!! Will you be writing a post in response to his dissertation?!
Mandy,
With more time to provide a fuller response, let me add this. His statements here are non sequiturs:
One could also say that God relating to created humans personally does not necessarily entail some sort of change or lack of self-sufficiency in God (i.e., it does not necessarily deny immutability or aseity). And again, this imposes human conceptions of “personality” upon God. And this premise (the second bold above and its supporting statements after) is used to bolster his initial premise (the first bold). If all this were the case, surely someone would have addressed this issue LONG ago.
As I wrote, the selection I cited earlier indicates Social Trinitarianism. And, as I suspected, Jordan appeals to perichoresis to bolster his argument (see pp 199ff in the pdf). On pages 199–200 he clearly spells out an initial sketch of Social Trinitarianism using perichoresis as his basis. For great critiques of how this is wrong-headed, see Oliver Crisp Divinity and Humanity (New York: Cambridge UP, 2007, pp 1–33, esp 27–33) and Karen Kilby “Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity” (New Blackfriars 81, 2000). Quoting the latter:
And herein lies one of the problems. By very definition, God’s way of interrelating “personally”—through this doctrine of perichoresis (assuming we accept this argumentation)—is different from how humans relate personally. So, there are good grounds to say that, even if we accept perichoresis as a viable doctrine, God does not interrelate among his ‘Persons’ in the same way he relates to humans. It’s apples and oranges. As Kilby suggest in her title, it’s “projection” to think God does. It’s circular.
No, I have no desire to contact the author or write a blog post to refute the dissertation. Sadly, the ‘Social Trinity’ doctrine seems to have pretty much taken over current academia. As I mentioned in a somewhat recent comment here on another post, even Michael Reeves’ very popular Delighting in the Trinity uses Social Trinitarianism.
I don’t see the thesis mention at all economic and immanent Trinity; when talking about the Three within the Trinity I think those distinctions are important to acknowledge. Would you be uncomfortable with someone saying the economic Trinity can be invoked to solve this dilemma the author brought up? It seems that doesn’t read into the immanent Trinity and acknowledge the distinction of Immanent/economical while also what is said about the economic relations of the Members of the Trinity in its relations or implications towards creatures is being acknowledged, since this discussion is about morals for creatures. I do think the moral argument does touch on the observation that grounding morals with the impersonal is problematic. Personally (pun) I probably would bring Van Til theme of how even the Oneness of God is not a “thing,” but the “One” in the Trinity is for lack of better term personal, and even the Oneness of God isn’t just attributes of “personal” as if the oneness of God is an abstract idea of an attribute/property but the One is a Person (though not equivocating that with the “Person” used to describe the three ness of God. This absolute Personalism of the Oneness of God has implications for this apologetics discussion here since I think the Person or personal is never first defined as relations with a referent or referents that are totally other (a presupposition of theistic mutual oats /EFS/ERAS/SocialTrinitarians which raises the problem of Tritheism or idolizing creation and creatures) while also leaving Biblical mystery (it is counterintuitive to many who think personal is relational in essence but it is not in light of God’s personal absolutism), this also protects the Creator/creature distinction and still is bringing a Trinitarian solution to the table (the Oneness of God and classical theism’s doctrine of the One will of God, which is a character of the “Personal” [using this to describe what is the opposite of the impersonal, God’s one Will shows the Oneness of God is not something merely as a “thing”] sadly doesn’t seem to be Brought up by those who often try to invoke the Trinity as solutions for philosophical dilemmas). What do you think?
Hey SlimJim,
I concede it’s not fair to strawman Jordan; but, the way I read him here, he seems to have conflated the Economic Trinity with the Ontological Trinity. Specifically, I am referring to the selection I cited in response to Mandy: …God has always been personal in and through the inner personal relations of the three Persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To me, this imposes the workings of the Economic in creation upon the ontological of the Being of the Ontological/Immanent.
If it’s OK with you, I think it better to direct you to my response to Mandy above to get a better sense of my overall position and my critique of Jordan. That may answer some of the questions you posed here to me.
I think philosophical musings are just fine; in fact, I like them. But they must be consistent with historical theology, OR they must actively engage in historical positions in an attempt to persuade the reader as to why this new philosophical position may be superior (this is the sort of thing Oliver Crisp excels at).
SlimJim,
If you’ll indulge me, please see my new response to Mandy above.
To be more concise, I don’t disagree with the idea that God relates to us personally and that this provides a strong basis to believe God is also moral. But I reject Jordan’s position that God’s morality is grounded in God’s intrinsic “inter-personality” (my term for how I construe Jordan). This is because I reject his premises as regards to how God interrelates among the Trinitarian ‘Persons’ and how this then supposedly is relevant to how God relates personally with humanity. No matter how we construe the manner in which the Trinitarian ‘Persons’ interrelate, we must concede that this is markedly different from how God personally relates to humans. I see it as confusing God’s Being (ontology) with God’s interaction with creation (economy). And, IMO, there are sufficient reasons to reject that the interrelations among the ‘Persons’ of the Ontological/Immanent Trinity is “personal” (as we understand the term) in the first place.
I’m agreeing with you here with your comment to Mandy that the author use of the term personal in that excerpt is problematic since he sees person or personhood is essentially defined as relational; I dont think that is right nor Biblical. Even when we talk about causation of things in philosophy we can talk about the agent as the personal cause but that doesn’t necessitate it has to imply that the personal cause has to have another person to relate to, in order for that person to be a person. I do think ultimately the Oneness of God in the Trinity (God as one Being, but we don’t mean being in the sense of its sometimes used in philosophy that all things participate in, where being is something impersonal, since I see the Being of God is opposite of that, for ‘He is’ and not ‘it is,’ so the One Being is for lack of better term a Person [though not creaturely person, nor do I use the term Person in the same sense as the Threeness of God, lest we have a quadity instead of a Trinity] in light of the One will of God as expressed in classical theism)is the metaphysical ground for our morality. As noted in an earlier comment I wished the thesis and evangelicals in general would be more fully Trinitarian with categories like the immanent and economical Trinity distinction, and a discussion of the Trinity in light of other classical attribute of God such as His aseity and immutability. Yet as a classical theist I still think the endeavor found in the dissertation of grounding moral on the basis of the Biblical God is a worthy endeavor, though a fuller and more accurate and historically grounded orthodox doctrines of God needs to be brought to bear here. I think Van Til shows us a way without reinventing the wheel. Van Til doctrine of analogous reasoning would protect from equivocal and univocal use of theological language with the parallel terms we use for both the Trinity and humanity. Plus with the creator and creature divide the inter-Trinitarian relations must keep in mind the attributes of God, with that fuller account we see that God is not somehow uneasy to need a relationship with someone other, etc. Yet with God as the Archetype do you think the economic Trinity still has implications for us without being reduced to Tritheism? I see John 17:22-23 attests to that where Christians should have unity as echetypes to the Archetype of the economical Trinity where the Father and Son are one in economic relations (I don’t see the immanent Trinitarian relations is in view here in the passage since I see the Ontological Trinitarian relations is only about the origin of the Members of the Trinity, so here it must be economic, plus it’s in context of the Trinity In relations to man, and the Trinity In regards to salvation). I hope you know I am a classical theist and someone who desire to be Biblical and I think my interpretation of John 17 justify my approach, and I don’t hold to an EFS/ERAS/social Trinitarian/theistic Mutualists reading of John 17, for they blunder with equivocating eternity past mentioned in the passage with the immanent Trinity. The economical Trinity by the way is from eternity past, before the Creation of time. What do you think?
Now we’re getting somewhere! Yes, I agree that we should conceive the Oneness of God in Trinity as ‘personal’ (as opposed to an impersonal ‘thing’, which, to me, is borne from a faulty conception of ousia in Trinitarian theological terminology).
You wrote: [A]s a classical theist I still think the endeavor found in the dissertation of grounding moral on the basis of the Biblical God is a worthy endeavor, though a fuller and more accurate and historically grounded orthodox doctrines of God needs to be brought to bear here. YES!!
I definitely agree that John 17:22–23 refers to the Economic and not the Immanent Trinity. And I agree that John’s words of Jesus here make an analogy between the one-ness (“unity”) of the Trinity and the desired one-ness/unity of the ekklēsia. But I’m unclear on how this might be used to bolster any sort of “personal”/moral argument, except that it is one (of many) Scriptures that point to God’s ‘personal’ relationship with humankind (specifically here, with His elect)
I’d never heard the Economic predates creation. I’ve always understood that the very definition of the term in reference to the Trinity is in relation to creation.
Looks like a fascinating read. I will check it out when I have time.
Awesome! I know you are busy. Just prayed for your studies and responsibilities. How goes your studies?
Thanks for the prayer. Yes, I am busy but only have a couple days left of the class I am in then I am off for a week.
Also, studies are going well although it’s a lot at times. I am past all the intro classes now and looking forward to getting into the meat of the program.
Also, just came by an old copy of Van Til’s The Case for Calvinism and I am exited about reading that in my spare time.
Hope all is well with you.
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Thanks, brother. This looks good although it’s probably over my T-101 head. I forwarded the link to my work email so I can print it out tomorrow. I would much rather try to read it via hardcopy.
Nice that you can print it at work! I like hard copy too! Going to go walk soon and reading a hard copy book! How does your day look Tom?
Hope you have a good walk! This morning I snowblowed the driveway (yup, we had more snow last night!) and grocery shopped for the weekend. Couch duty until lights out.
What’s on the agenda for the rest of your day?
Thanks for sharing this! I agree with His premise and look forward to learning more about this through my time at WTS.
Thanks for reading this! Did your class assigned two views of the Trinity book?? First heard of it from your comment to Craig!
Yes, I read that for my MABS. Interesting read.
Although I have only read the introduction, this looks like a good survey of the issues involved in the personal nature of morality and that only a trinitarian God would make that possible.
Thanks for reading the intro. I want to go slowly through this especially the section that surveys historically those who used the moral argument before in the past. Blessings to you, is your Thursday going well?
I saved the dissertation for reading later. One has to read these slowly to make sure one gets the details. I often have to read parts more than once over periods of time.
[…] Free PDF Apologetics’ Dissertation: Morality and the Personhood of God: A Moral Argument for the E… […]
Thank you. Amen.
You are welcome! ALso can you check if my comments on your posts are ending up in spam? Don’t know if its moderated and waiting or end up in spam lol
I am recieving your posts.
my site is moderated and only 5 in spam. I just checked.
Thank you !
You are welcome! Praying for your Friday!
Thank you pastor Jim. Your prayers are very much appreciated .
Praying for your weekend ministry .
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