Theological Term of the Week: Modalism
Thursday, February 3, 2022 at 3:00AM 
modalism
The unorthodox teaching that “there is only one person in God who represents himself in the roles of the three persons.”1 Rather than a Trinity consisting of three distinct persons who are coexistent, there is one person who reveals himself at different times in three different modes (or forms, roles, or manifestation). Also called Sabellianism. Modalistic monarchism and patripassionism are types of modalism.
- From scripture we see that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct from one another and interact with each other:
And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17 ESV)
- From the Athanasian Creed:
25. And in this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another.
26. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal.
27. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
28. He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity. - From Systematic Theolog by Robert Letham, pages 97-98:
Until the early fourth century there were two potentially deviant tendencies affecting the church’s grasp of the Trinity. The first of these was modalism, which blurred the distinctions of the three persons. In the third century, Sabellius held that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were merely ways in which the one God revealed himself, like an actor taking on different roles. He maintained that the only God, Father in the Old Testament, had become the Son in the New and sanctified the church as Holy Spirit after Pentecost. The three were successive modes of the unipersonal God. Consequently, Christ was merely an appearance of the one God but did not have any distinct identity of his own. With modalism, God’s revelation in human history as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit did not reveal who he is eternally, and so Christ gives us no true knowledge of God. Moreover, the effect was to undermine God’s faithfulness, for we could not rely on him is what he disclosed of himself in Christ did not truly reflect who he eternally is. Indeed, for those determined to maintain the unity of God and resist anything savoring of a dual or threefold god, there was a constant danger of regarding the Son and the Spirit as identical to the Father, as appearances of the one God at different times. Tertullian countered modalism in his book Contra Praxeas, calling those who held this position “monarchians,” who insisted that God’s rule (monarchia) was one. Later, Paul of Samosata was condemned on these grounds at the Council of Antioch in 268.
Learn more:
- Theopedia: Modalism
- Simply Put: Modalism
- Got Questions: What is modalism?
- Blue Letter Bible: Does the One God Have Three Different Modes?
- Tabletalk Magazine: The New Adventures of Trinitarian Heresies
Related terms:
1 From The Christian Faith by Michael Horton, page 997.
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