A Review of Dr. James White’s “The Forgotten Trinity”

Second to Walter Martin, James White has been one of the most formative voices in my early Christian formation. Having received many of the principles of the faith in my home and the church I grew up in, I desired to increase and bolster my knowledge of the deep things of God. Of the various doctrines of the Church, the Trinity seemed to me to be the pinnacle. Namely, to understand God as he is seemed to be the foundation upon which all other doctrine ought to be understood and tested. Dr. White’s numerous debates with Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Muslims as well as his writings and other teachings (especially on textual criticism) have been incredibly helpful in my formation. Those who have watched his debates are aware of how well prepared and read he is, how formidable a debater he is, and how desirous he is to not talk at the audience, but bring them along with him, trusting that they are intelligent enough and willing to honestly engage the ideas and discern the truth. These are qualities that any Christian should desire from God for the work of evangelizing.

My desire to understand the Trinity was initially founded, I think, in a desire to know God, though that was wrongly eclipsed by a desire to best my non-Christian peers in debates about theology. I suspect many others have succumbed to a similar, if not identical, temptation, and this temptation White rightly opposes from the outset. While there is much to be learned through debate and dispute, this is not the reason why one ought to deepen their knowledge of God. Rather, White encourages us to root and ground our pursuit of the truth of who and what God is in the first and greatest commandment: loving God with all we are (pgs. 12–16). It is only by rooting our desire to know God in the gift of faith in, love for, and worship of God that we can rightly approach the God who has revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ. Frankly, the pursuit of right doctrine abstracted from a foundational love for God is most often filled with a love for self that leaves one conceited, boastful, antagonistic, and void of the love that defines the God one is seeking to define and defend. Eternal life is to know the true God and Jesus Christ (John 17:3), not as ideas or concepts to defend, but as the God of the universe who gives us existence and preservation that we might love him in return, but who still gives us life even when we sin against him. He is the first cause and the final end, thus, any attempt to articulate the doctrine of God apart from a genuine love of God will be full of a fallen human self, not full of the love displayed in Christ who is fully God but became fully man to redeem us.

In this review I hope to outline some of the excellent qualities of this book as well as the concerns I have in some of the details. While this is, I think, an excellent book for helping to witness to Jehovah’s Witnesses about the divinity of Christ, I believe that there are issues with White’s definitions of being and person that, when taken to their logical end, end in error. Of particular import to the doctrine of the Trinity, but often neglected in popular portrayals, are the doctrines of divine simplicity, impassibility, and inseparable operations. I believe further reflection of these doctrines is essential to make up for what is lacking in this text, partially to make it a better tool for dialoguing with Mormons, but centrally to better articulate the doctrine of the Trinity.

Indefinite Definitions

White’s definition of the Trinity is, “Within the one Being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (pg. 23). From this definition White establishes three foundations: Monotheism, Three Persons, and Coequality and Coeternality of the Persons (pg. 25). White provides a helpful diagram to show why these foundations are essential to the doctrine of God (pg. 27). If one denies that there is one being of God, one will inevitably fall into polytheism (Mormonism, Gnosticism, Marcionism, etc.). If one denies that there are three persons, one will fall into some form of modalism (Sabellianism, Jesus-Only, etc.). If one denies the equality of the persons, one will fall into some form of subordinationism (Arianism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ontological Subordination of the Son, etc.). While these foundations are somewhat limited in White’s articulation (see below), they are a great way to protect against common Trinitarian errors.

White is spot on in his assessment that our failure to define terms often leaves people arguing over misconceptions of the Trinity rather than the actual doctrine (pg. 20–21). Unfortunately, while White urges us to distinguish between person and being, he does little to substantiate the difference. This lack of definitional clarity perhaps leads to some of the issues of this book. For example, White answers a what question as a who question: “We think of a physical body, an individual, physical attributes like height, weight, age — all things associated with our common use of the word ‘person’” (pg. 23). This is an excellent and important warning, but it is inaccurate insofar as these clarifications are really grounded in the being of God, not the persons. That is, these ideas are a misconception of the what question, not the who, because we often incorrectly use person and being interchangeably. God is without body, parts, or passions, that is he is not circumscribed temporally or physically, he is simple and indivisible from his attributes, and he is not moved towards ends or goods but is rather the first cause and final end of the entire creation. The being of God is without age, height, weight, etc. If the being of God is unlike our being, the persons are also unlike our personhood. Human beings are generally equal in their capacities (for example we can all will to do something), but we may differ in what we will (I am willing to write this and you are willing, at least until now, to read this). God, however, is not like human persons. We speak of three persons rather than three people for a reason: the persons act inseparably because the persons are the one God. Unlike human beings who share one nature but will and act from separate centers of consciousness, the one God wills and acts inseparably. Rather than articulate the Trinity as persons who share the divine essence (as White does on pgs. 169–171 following Louis Beekhof’s definition of the Trinity), which seems to set up the divine essence as an abstraction that exists independent of the persons, we would do better to say the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are the one God (that is, the persons are the essence).

Inadequate definitions aside (for now), White does well to outline some qualities and descriptors of God that lay the groundwork for rightly understanding the claims of the authors of the New Testament regarding the divinity of the Son and the Spirit. Using Isaiah 40–48 as a foundational section of text, White clearly and accurately demonstrates that the Old Testament revealed several critical ways for the people of God to identify the true God: monotheism, uniqueness, transcendence, atemporality, and creator of all things. Briefly, the true God is identified in these chapters of the prophet as the only God in existence, the God who is entirely unlike the so-called gods of the pagans, the God who transcends spatial limitations, the God who transcends and is the creator of time itself, and the God who is the source and preserver of all that is. These claims of being the only true God, being unlike the other gods, transcending space and time, and creating all things will come into play as we look at the claims of Jesus and his followers.

God the Son

The heart of the book is a defense of the deity of Jesus Christ. Over six chapters White walks through the prologue of John’s gospel, various texts wherein Jesus is called or equated to God, the Johannine I Am statements, passages where Jesus is called the creator, Philippians 2:5–11, and passages where Old Testament texts about Yahweh are applied to Jesus in the New Testament. Dedicating so much of a book on the Trinity to the deity of Christ may seem odd, but as White points out no one disputes the divinity of the Father, but the divinity of the Son and Spirit are disputed by heretics and non-Christians groups.

In chapter four White exegetes the prologue of John’s gospel. The vast majority of this chapter is a masterful defense of Christ’s divinity and incarnation that any fan of White’s will be familiar with from his numerous debates. White does not shy away from inviting his reader to put in the work to understand many of the nuances of John 1, promising the reward of understanding what John is doing in his prologue so that we can better understand the light he is pointing us to. Step by step White demonstrates that the first clause of John 1:1 indicates the eternal nature of the Word, that the second clause indicates the distinction of the Word from the Father, and the third clause indicates that the Word was divine by nature. This chapter woos the reader into the depth available to those willing to brave further study in Greek. This kind of nuanced, exegetical work is precisely what makes passages like John 1:1–18 shine with the illuminating light of the gospel that dispels the darkness of unbelief and heresy. Much like in his debates, this is White at his finest: clearly, carefully, and authoritatively exegeting the text of Scripture.

With the fifth chapter White establishes that through his incarnation Jesus assumed a functional inferiority to the Father, though remaining equal in nature to the Father. An example of this might be that while the President of the United States is in a greater position of power than me, he is not of a different nature than me. This analogy falls apart rather quickly, however, as the reason Jesus is in an inferior position to the Father is not that he has emptied himself of his divine nature or position, but rather that he assumed our nature. According to his divine nature he was omnipresent and sovereignly reigning with the Father and the Spirit, but according to his human nature he was born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, crucified in Jerusalem, and now ever living to intercede for us in the heavenly Jerusalem. Augustine terms this distinction as Son of God or Son of Man, and I think this distinction is of some import. As White demonstrates, Jesus is called and identified as God throughout his life and ministry. White is certainly no kenoticist, arguing that Jesus emptied himself of his divine attributes, but one does wonder what it means for the Son to assume a distinct role from the Father and the Spirit because “they could not all take the same role and do the same things” (pg. 64). The assumption seems to be that the persons would not be distinguishable, but that was true throughout the Old Covenant. Indeed, because the one God works inseparably, unless he revealed the distinctions of persons we would have no way of knowing that God is Father, Son, and Spirit. I believe it is more accurate, therefore, to affirm that as man Jesus is indeed inferior to the Father, but as God he is equal to him, rather than to associate the persons with roles.

This terminological quibble aside, the texts White walks the reader through are overwhelming in their support for the claim that Jesus of Nazareth was acclaimed as God by his followers. One of the highlights for me in this chapter was White’s engagement with 1 Corinthians 8:4–6 and John 17:3, texts that Jehovah’s Witnesses go to in order to establish that while Jesus is Lord, he is not God. White wisely replies, “If ‘one God, the Father’ is meant to be taken exclusively, then does it not follow that ‘one Lord, Jesus Christ’ also excludes the Father front he realm of Lordship” (pg. 92)? This precise consistency in exegesis is invaluable for working out how to rightly read these texts, especially when witnessing with Jehovah’s Witnesses and others who deny the divinity of Jesus.

The following three chapters provide much of the same: thoughtful, close exegesis of various passages that further establish the divinity of Christ. In the sixth chapter White demonstrates that while Jesus’ usage of “I am” certainly has roots in Exodus 3:14, it has even more parallelism with Isaiah 41:4, 43:10, and 46:4, which only further emphasizes how clearly he was identifying himself as the Lord who spoke to Moses and Isaiah (pgs. 97–99). In the seventh he shows that Paul is battling against Gnostic notions of God and asserts the divinity of Jesus over against these ideas, demonstrating that he is not an emanation from God, but the creator of all things. In the eighth White briefly walks through a handful of New Testament texts that quote from Old Testament texts about Yahweh and appropriate them to Jesus, noting that these texts are particularly important when witnessing to Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Monogenes

One concern I had in the Christological section was White’s handling of monogenes. White argues with many modern exegetes that monogenes, the term used in John’s gospel in reference to Jesus (John 1:14, 18, 3:16, 18), ought not be translated ‘only-begotten,’ but rather ‘unique.’ Charles Lee Irons has provided a powerful argument in support of the traditional translation of monogenes as ‘only-begotten,’ but even setting aside the textual evidence within secular Greek literature, the LXX, and the New Testament, the context of John demands more than that Jesus is unique. That Jesus is unique in some ways is unequivocal, but how is John articulating the uniqueness of the Son? White points in the correct direction, but doesn’t go the whole way: “He differentiates the Father from the Logos, the ‘One and Only,’ clearly directing us to two persons, the one coming from the other. Yet the Logos is seen to have glory, to have a divine origin with the Father” (pg. 58). How is it, though, that the Logos, the Son, is distinct from the Father? Is it simply that he is from the Father as White suggests? How then would the Son be differentiated from the Spirit who proceeds from the Father (John 15:26)? Both are certainly said to be from the Father, so how does the procession of the Son and the procession of the Spirit differ? As Irons points out, eternal generation (that is, that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father) does not rest on the monogenes texts alone (Psalm 2:7, Proverbs 8:22–31, Micah 5:2, John 5:26, Galatians 4:4–6, Hebrews 1:3, etc.), but the question is what kind of relationship are the monogenes texts pointing to? Namely, how is it that the Son is from the Father? What is the relationship between them? How long have they been in relationship like this?

White names his concern when explaining monogenes theos in John 1:18: “One thing is for certain: he is not telling us that Jesus Christ was ‘created’ at some time in the past. He is not denying everything he said in the previous seventeen verses and turning Jesus into a creation! Such ideas flow from wrong thinking about what monogenes means” (pg. 60). White is concerned that if the Son is spoken of as ‘only-begotten’ that people will understand the term to mean that the Son came into existence at some point rather than that he eternally existed alongside the Father as his Son. Several chapters later White affirms the eternal generation of the Son (pg. 172), but it is unclear why, if he is going to maintain eternal generation, he is concerned about the traditional translation of monogenes. Even if monogenes is rightly translated unique, and this is a very questionable assertion, the question still remains, what makes this Son unique compared to others who are called sons of God such as the angels (Genesis 6:2, Job 1:6, Psalm 82:6), Adam (Luke 3:38), humanity in a general. sense (Acts 17:28), and Christians (Galatians 3:26–4:7)? These sons are all created and adopted, but the monogenes huios, the Son who was with the Father in the beginning, is his natural and eternal Son. Angels, humans, and adopted sons come into being and enter into relationship with God as they come into existence, but the Son always was the Son of the Father. Moreover this relation of origin is identified biblically in some of the texts parenthetically cited above as begetting (of particular import is Psalm 2:7, “This day I have begotten you.”), namely that the Father begets the Son, as he is the principle of Deity. The Son has always been God and there was never a time when the Son was not, but these relations of origin matter not only because they are the testimony of Scripture, but because they relate economically to our salvation. We are made sons of God because the eternal Son was born of a woman (Galatians 3:26–4:7). His temporal birth is for the sake of our receiving everlasting life and adoption as sons, but he is only able to give us such access to the Father if he himself is the natural Son. We are given access to this life through the work of the Spirit of the Son in the economy, who as the breath of God proceeds to us and hovers over us and indeed fills us with the breath of life as Adam was to regenerates us and make us alive in Christ, the Second Adam (Genesis 1:2, Ezekiel 37:1–14, Ephesians 3:14–19, Titus 3:4–7, etc.). Thus, the relations of origin directly relate to our salvation and the concerns over monogenes being rendered ‘only-begotten’ seem unfounded.

Theophanies

Perhaps most concerning of all in White’s Christology section, White seems to maintain that one of the ways the persons of the Trinity can be distinguished is that the Father is invisible, but the Son is visible. In White’s own words regarding John 1:18: “Another important fact to note from this verse is that if indeed no one has seen the Father, then what does this tell us of the Son? Who did Isaiah see in Isaiah 6? Who walked with Abraham by the oaks of Mamre (Genesis 18:1)? None other than the preincarnate Jesus Christ, the eternal Logos” (pg. 61). White repeats the assertion a few chapters later, saying, “Lest one should find it hard to believe that John would identify the carpenter from Galilee as Yahweh himself, it might be pointed out that he did just that in John 12:39–41 by quoting from Isaiah’s temple vision of Yahweh in Isaiah 6 and then concluding by saying, ‘These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory and spoke about Him.’ The only ‘Him’ in the context is Jesus; hence, for John, Isaiah, when he saw Yahweh on his throne, was in reality seeing the Lord Jesus. John 1:18 says as much as well” (pg. 100). In a section dedicated to the question, “Who did Isaiah see?” (pgs. 136–138), White softens his interpretation of Isaiah 6:1–10, John 1:18, and John 12:37–41, limiting Isaiah’s vision to the glory of Jesus, rather than to seeing the Son before the incarnation. The prior two articulations are very consistent with how White exegetes the texts in debates, and therefore seem normative for White’s understanding rather than the softened version found later in the book.

Here again let us raise the question: is the Son distinguished from the Father according to relation (relationally), that is as persons (personally), or is the Son distinguished from the Father according to being (essentially)? If no one has ever seen the Father, but some have seen the Son, does this not imply that they are distinguished according to essence rather than relation? How else would one explain that the Father is invisible, but the Son visible? Does the Father alone dwell in light unapproachable whom no man has seen or can see (1 Timothy 6:15–16), or is the Son also invisible? If the Son is visible, is he circumscribed? Does he have a body? What exactly was Isaiah seeing? Abraham? Jacob? Were they seeing the Son as he is, or a created representation of himself? More to the point of John 1:18, when John speaks of the Father being unseen and the Son seen, is he saying the Son was seen according to his divinity or his humanity? The parallel of his first epistle makes it clear that the Son was seen according to his humanity, for according to his divinity he is essentially (according to his essence) identical to the Father, that is, he is the immortal, invisible, God. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with out hands, concerning the word of life — the life was made manifest and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us” (1 John 1:1–2).

Whatever one makes of the various theophanies of the Old Testament, to be consistent, we cannot say that anyone ever saw God according to his essence. As he warns Moses, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). What then do we make of these other passages that indicate people saw God? Augustine teaches that these are incidents when people see a creation, be it an angel or some other sign, that represents God to us (De Trinitate 2–3). This is made clear in many of the passages or their interpretations, but it can be very easy to confuse such emphatic statements, “I have seen the Lord,” as authoritatively documenting how he was seen. Consistency demands that we recognize that the author who wrote that God cannot be seen (Exodus 33:20) also said that Moses spoke with God face to face a few verses prior (Exodus 33:11). What descends into the tent of meeting? The pillar of cloud (Exodus 33:9). This seems to leave us with at least two options: is the pillar of cloud the essence of God, or is face to face a euphemism for the intimacy with which Moses spoke with God? Exodus 33:20 clarifies that it is indeed a euphemism. So also when Abraham spoke with God, or Jacob wrestled with a man through the night, or when Samson’s parents see the angel of the Lord and fear having seen God, or indeed when Isaiah says he saw the Lord and his glory, we can read these texts as indicative of an encounter with God, but not one in which God is seen as he is. Indeed, Athanasius rightly articulated (On the Incarnation 20) one of the reasons why the incarnation is such a blessing to our feeble minds: because we are inclined towards idols and images God sent his Son to become the icon of God that we might see him, and believing him to be God, live.

God the Spirit

White spends some time arguing for a need for definitions (pg. 20–23), so the aforementioned lack of definitional distinction between person and being remains a concern in his section on the Spirit. As White correctly opines, “Unless we recognize the difference between the terms being and person, we will never have an accurate or workable understanding of the Trinity” (pg. 171). These questions particularly come to the fore in his defense of the personality of the Spirit. One of his defenses is that the Spirit is said to have a will, which one cannot say of a force, and therefore he is personal like the Father and the Son. However, we must ask, when we speak of the will of God, does this refer to God’s being or to a person? White’s answer is person: “So if we can plainly see that the Son’s willing is an act of a person, and the Father’s willing is an act of a person, how can we possibly avoid recognizing that the Spirit sovereignty and wisely gives His gifts to the church just as He wills to do so, and that this makes Him, inarguably, a person” (pg. 148). To be fair, this is not something unique to White, but part of the Reformed tradition (see, for example, Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretical-Practical Theology 1.2.25.5, 1.2.26.5, and 1.2.27.5 where he associated will with person rather than being). Nonetheless, it is a departure from the classical doctrine of God and, if unexplored, often leads to a soft polytheism. How? If will is associated with God’s being, then this will is one, indivisibly shared by the persons, and unchanging. If it is associated with a person, such as the Father, is this will shared by the persons in any way? If so, is there monarchy in the divine wills? Does the Father will things that the Son or Spirit do not? Is it a democracy? Suddenly we do not have three persons abstracted from human notions of personhood, but three people. At what point is this not the Mormon articulation of the Trinity, namely, three distinct gods who work together with a unified purpose? White disputes an understanding of the Trinity that limits their unity to one of purpose (pg. 157), but it is hard to see how this limited union is avoided when will is associated with person rather than being.

That will must be associated with being rather than person becomes especially clear when we discuss Christology. Jesus often differentiates himself from the Father, even saying “The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father does. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.” (John 5:19). This text gives us immense insight into the operation of God. Do the persons of the Trinity will and operate separably, or inseparably? Jesus answers that he wills nothing and does nothing separate from the Father. As Augustine helpfully teaches (Homilies on John 18) this text does not mean that the Father healed a paralytic man in an parallel universe so that the Son could copy him in ours, but rather that the Father and Son work inseparably because they are the one God. This parallelism is found all throughout the text of John’s gospel, teaching us that while the persons of the Trinity are distinct relationally, they are one essentially. Who draws humanity to Christ? The Father (John 6:44) and the Son (John 12:32). Who has possession of all that the Father has? The Son and the Spirit (John 16:13–15). While we may appropriate some of the actions of the economy to individual persons, we simultaneously recognize that the one God is acting indivisibly (though, indeed, some actions terminate in one of the persons, such as the incarnation).

What about will, then? Jesus prays, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matt 26:39). Setting aside the question of what Jesus is asking for here, it is clear that he is submitting his will to that of the Father. Do the Father and the Son have distinct wills? A second question we must ask to answer this is, was Jesus willing according to his divinity or according to his humanity? According to his humanity he naturally feared death and desired to suffer with his friends rather than alone, but according to his divinity he assumed a human nature so he could suffer and die. Again, we must ask, as Augustine urges us, does he say this as Son of Man or Son of God? As Son of Man, “Not my will but yours.” As Son of God, “Whom do you seek?” They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said, “I am,” and they fell backward to the ground.

While I understand the desire to argue against those who would defame the Spirit of God by calling him a mere force, we must do some from an orthodox articulation of the doctrine of God. It confounds me as to why the Reformed tradition shifted in this way as it attempted to defend against neo-heresies that reawakened in the Reformation, but it is an innovative and inaccurate way to articulate the doctrine of God. Rather, we would do well to cling to the classical doctrine of God in defense of the divinity and therefore personality of the Spirit. If the Spirit is divine and if the Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son, we have demonstrated both. Appealing to distinct will does nothing but set us down a path toward polytheism.

Love for the Trinity

I remain ever grateful for the work and ministry of James White. He imparted a desire to study the Scriptures, to contend for the faith, to define terms, and to love the Trinity. While I disagree with his assessment of the doctrine and find some of his conclusions and teachings erroneous and indeed dangerous, they do not come from malicious intent or a desire to deceive. Moreover, I appreciate his call for Christians to think seriously about the Trinity. The Trinity is indeed the heart of the gospel, and thoughtful study and reflection on the doctrine can and should lead to deeper praise, exaltation, and worship of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In closing, let me offer these lines written to the tune of Holy, Holy, Holy as a meditation for us to continue to reflect on and praise our blessed God:

Glory, glory, glory be unto the Father

And be to his only Son who for us flesh became

And be to the Spirit pouring love within us

One God eternal, over all to reign

Holy, holy, holy, infinite and constant

Undivided in his acts, substance, and sov’reignty

Without parts or passions; immanent, transcendent

Righteous, immortal, mighty Trinity