Tritheism

This article is about the nontrinitarian view in Christianity. For the belief in multiple deities, see Polytheism.

Tritheism (from Greek τριθεΐα, "three divinity"[1]) is a polytheistic nontrinitarian Christian conception of God in which the unity of the Trinity and, by extension, monotheism are denied. It asserts that, rather than being single God of three eternally consubstantial Persons, the Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit are three ontologically separate Gods. [2] It represents more of a "possible deviation" than any actual school of thought positing three separate deities.[3] It was usually "little more than a hostile label"[4] applied to those who emphasized the individuality of each hypostasis or divine person—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—over the unity of the Trinity as a whole.[1] The accusation was especially popular between the 3rd and 7th centuries AD.[1]

In the history of Christianity, various theologians have been accused of lapsing into tritheism. Among the earliest were the monophysites John Philoponos (died c. 570) and his followers, such as Eugenios and Konon of Tarsos.[1] They taught that the common nature of the Trinity is an abstraction; so that, while the three persons are consubstantial, they are distinct in their properties.[5] Their view was an attempt to reconcile Aristotle with Christianity.[4] This view, which was defended by Patriarch Peter III of Antioch, was condemned as tritheism at a synod in Alexandria in 616.[3][1] It was again condemned as tritheism at the Third Council of Constantinople in 680–81.[5]

In Late Antiquity, several heretical movements criticized Orthodoxy as equivalent to tritheism. The Sabellians, Monarchians and Pneumatomachoi labelled their opponents tritheists.[1] Jews and Muslims frequently criticized Trinitarianism as merely dressed-up tritheism (see Islamic view of the Trinity).[6] Groups accused by the orthodox of tritheism include the Anomoeans and Nestorians.[1]

In the Middle Ages, the scholastic Roscelin was accused of tritheism. He was an extreme nominalist who saw the three divine persons as separately existing. He was condemned as a tritheist at the synod of Soissons in roughly 1092. The realist scholastic Gilbert de la Porrée erred in the opposite direction by distinguishing between three divine beings and the essence of God (making a quaternity rather than a trinity), and was accused of tritheism.[3] He was condemned at the council of Reims in 1148. Gilbert's ideas influenced Joachim of Fiore, and the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) tried to clarify the issue by confirming the numerical unity of the Trinity.[5]

In modern times, the Austrian Catholic Anton Günther, in an effort to refute Hegelian pantheism, declared three divine persons to be three absolute and distinct realities bound together only by their shared origin.[5]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Kazhdan, Alexander (1991). "Tritheism". In Kazhdan, Alexander (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
  2. ^ Slick, Matt (2008-12-15). "Tritheism". Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry. Retrieved 2024-01-17.
  3. ^ a b c Marie-Anne Vannier (2005) [2002], "Tritheism", in André Vauchez (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, James Clarke & Co, ISBN 9780227679319.
  4. ^ a b Christian Wildberg (2018), "John Philoponus", in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  5. ^ a b c d F. L. Cross; E. A. Livingstone, eds. (2009) [2005], "Tritheism", The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd rev. ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3.
  6. ^ Dale Tuggy (2016), "Trinity: Judaic and Islamic Objections", in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.