Introduction

Non-trinitarian monotheism (henceforth NTM) is a term I will use to refer to just that- a monotheistic God which is not Triune. In this article I will state the reasons I believe that to prove why it is not a workable concept. My primary contention will be that the NTM deity cannot possibly love, or for have any ability whatsoever, and therefore is not a candidate for deity. The inference is that God must necessarily either be multi-personal, or not be at all. This article actually happily turned out to be rather short, compared to my arguments on the Trinitarian belief itself, and the syllogism is spelt out in section 4.

The Problem of the “One and the Many”

The intellectual appeal of the “one God” position is to a large extent the result of the lack of appeal of the only available alternative: the anthropomorph-tragic-comic-Marvel-Avengers-esque pagan pantheon. However could it really be that case that the solution to this bewildering kerfuffle lie in something so simple as a cull in the numbers? In this article we describe the problem that no pagan ever faced, that of affirming God’s singularity of essence without sacrificing plurality singularity of aspect. A pagan would solve this problem by simply adding one more god to it. In fact, monotheism is not as simple as the belief in one divine being. Rather it is the belief in the possibility of only one thing, period, with nothing else with all the abilities of a divine being, only one of which is the ability of creating everything else. We’ll call this the “one-entity world” scenario (OEW) in this article.

In fact at it’s heart, the problem of monotheism is the eternal problem of all philosophy- that of “the one and the many” that the greatest philosophers of the ancients grappled with. This has been severally stated, but let me put it this way. If at its heart, there is a certain unity in everything, and in thought itself, what is the reason that in the Universe, you never get one of anything, rather quite to the contrary you seem to get infinite repetitions of everything. Why is the exemplar never found in nature, only its infinite derivations, and what is the reason that those are derived at all, rather why does nothing exist but the exemplars?

In the Trinitarian doctrine, the exemplars are in the mind of God. The exemplar of multiplicity itself is found in God once again, in the Multiplicity of the Trinitarian Persons. This is one of the powerful proofs for the truth of Trinitarianism, but that’s getting off topic.

The Problem of Dynamism

The central problem at the heart of any NTM model is going to be one of dynamism. An entity that does not act or operate or is not dynamic, is simply the opposite- inactive, inoperative and dead. In the OEW, any operations/actions must be internal or inherent to that entity itself, since there are no other entities upon which they can be performed. In other words, the OEW entity must act upon itself, since there is nothing else to act upon. However this leaves the entity in an impossible situation: an action is defined by not one, but two entities- that which is acting and that which is being acted upon. But we have only one. “Dynamism” is defined by movement, but there is nowhere to move, the entity itself is the only destination in the OEW.

The only alternative is that we admit of divisions or parts in the entity so that the one part is able to act upon the other, and so on. However since everything in God is eternal, were there distinctions in him these would be eternal also, giving rise to polytheism. We can state this syllogistically. This will be a shorter version of the longer syllogism we describe later:

1. Act, operation all require distinction of subject and object.
2. Everything in God is eternal
3. Eternal distinctions in God would imply multiple “distinct” eternals and therefore polytheism.

What about “Reflexive” love and knowledge?

We’ve already stated that a “reflexive action” is a contradiction in terms. The definition of action necessitates the object of that action. But this really turns out to be the battleground for NTM, the last stand, that somehow, there may be a special case in which this definition may not be applicable to the NTM deity, because if not, then NTM is simply false. For this reason we will look into it even further, if possible. In a sense, what we will be doing here is no more than to flesh out the LPNTM syllogism we already made.

No one can always counter that God possesses transcendent actions and that we are unable to understand and is out of our grasp, and we cannot really ask such a question as to what God’s action is. All that is well and fine, but then that is an agnostic position, with regards to God’s action within that theoretical model. Being agnostic, it cannot compete with a model that makes a positive assertion regarding it.

Let us consider love first. Even in a context, “selfish love” is oxymoronic, a contradiction in terms and a negative rather than a positive attribute, denoting an unhealthy attachment to something, and to oneself. The one who truly loves themselves, shares with others, and the one that does not is more truly said to be self-obsessed, self-absorbed, or simply “selfish” and unloving. Were the single thought of a deity self-absorbent, that self-absorbent thought would be perfect and infinite, and any desire to create anything other than itself would be contrary to that thought. In fact who knows, there could be a number of such self-absorbed deities out there, and we shall never hear of them, nor they of us! The model of a self-absorbed deity gives no explanation or likelihood of an intention to create. Contrast with the trinitarian formulation wherein the very fact of the Persons not being self-absorbed but rather self-giving makes them authentically loving and well as yields a motive for Creation, Creation being a sort of “giving” to another not oneself. We could consider what does it even mean to love in a solipsistic scenario. I am not aware of solipsistic philosophers being effusive about love in their writings.

A definition of love can be slippery, even though we all intuitively know what it is, and so I still consider it a valid argument. But we can define a “person” very simply as that which we can have a rational relationship. Thus we are able to define “person” without actually defining it by using relationship. This is similar to a move that is made in the physical sciences, where a unit of weight, for example is “defined” simply by equality to the weight of an arbitrarily chosen measure. So were we to accept such a simple definition of “person”, then one can ask how a solipsistic entity could be personal, since it had no personal relationships.

Persons exist in relationships in the context of which love is made possible. Removing the possibility of “love-for-the-other” removes also the possibility that the NTM deity be personal in any sense. A relationship is precisely what makes something personal. In fact this is precisely that major NTM models like new-age and modern-day Hinduism do not have personal deities, rather impersonal forces and “one-ness with the Universe”. It can be argued that the Islamic deity is also not personal in the sense of the word, since the Islamic material is strikingly bereft of personal interfacing with the deity in marked contrast to Christianity. Most of that interface with the transcendent is provided by the prophet of Islam himself and his example is taken as a perfection equivalent or the closest thing available to it.

The “Brain-in-a-Vat” (BIV) Analogy is also useful in visualizing the problem with so-called reflexive attributes. Although different versions of the BIV exist, for the purpose of this analogy, NTM deity is: an adult brain which comes into existence fully formed directly into a vat of nutrient broth, with no neural connections whatsoever. (“Boltzmann brain” on the other hand, is a hypothetical entity which comes into existence with an entire set of human thoughts and memories entirely through random chance. Our BIV, in contrast, has no such thought-insertion). The BIV is thus a “potential intellect”, with the structural capability of gaining all of the cognitive functions of the average human intellect. Is the BIV capable of developing thought, and can it love itself?

From where do we derive our own thoughts and feelings? We love our interactions with our environment, the forces of nature (like gravity with which we interact through proprioceptive receptors), we see ourselves in others through sympathy and empathy; all this builds self-image and self-love, which is a highly complex rational emotion. This is why an individual does not “come of age” or hold “accountability” until they are well into their teens. That’s how much stimulation a brain requires before it can formulate rational thought processes even tentatively. Can a thing which has never done anything, has ever had a thought about doing anything, not has had anything done to it itself ever have a rational thought? It would seem that the “intelligence” that is specified by the syllogism fulfils all the conditions for BIV.

The hypothetical fact of the existence of a solitary entity is devoid of any other descriptor apart from the fact that it exists. In the absence of any other fact, is knowledge possible? Or in other words, what is the second fact in the OEW?

The Logical Problem of Non Trinitarian Monotheism (LPNTM)– Syllogism

If we are to give any description of the nature of God at all, it must describe his attributes, since that is what represents who-he-is to us. Those attributes must include knowledge, else all is obviously lost, and love, else all is lost too. I would contend that every other attribute were secondary to these or included in them. We can assume “life” and “being”, else there would be nothing to describe. So we are describing the “existence” of God, not whether he exists or not.

In the LPNTM, which is the central proof of this article, we do not make any reference to creation or created things, which enables us to have a proof which is based solely upon the nature of God and no factors extraneous to him. In a sense we are asking the question, “What can God do, if not creating?” and the answer from the syllogism is mainly “nothing”:

1. The NTM deity has no external object.
2. It is impossible to act upon oneself without change.
3. God cannot change (divine immutability).
4. From (1),(2)&(3), and that action requires an object (internal or external): the NTM deity cannot act.
5. From (1)&(4), the NTM deity can only think about its inaction (it has nothing to act upon outside it nor on the inside).
6. But thought without content is not intelligence (nor data).
7. From (6), the NTM deity cannot be intelligent/ think (or even have data).
8. Love requires both: object of action, and content of thought.
9. From (1),(5) the NTM deity cannot love (nor love itself).
10. God must have the power to exist, intelligence to be aware of his existence, and love in order to desire his continued existence rather than self-annihilation.
11. From (4),(7),(9)&(10) the NTM deity cannot be God.
12. We could also add with regards to Creation: A Creator-Deity must be able to think about Creating, act in Creating, and love his creating Act.
13. From (4),(7),(9),(11)&(12): the NTM deity cannot be the Creator God.

To summarize, in the case of the NTM Deity, since Power acts upon something, so it is not powerful. Since knowledge is about something, it has no knowledge, and since Love is for someone, it cannot love. It is not God and nor is it anything at all. There is no eternal all-powerful undistinguished entity. There aren’t even any such physical ones.

“Ability-in-Potential”?- a state of Disability or Impotence

A counter argument is that the inactivity of the NTM deity does not preclude its having “potential” or “latent” or “potential” ability. This does not get past the problem raised by the LP-NTM: latent or not, the LP-NTM shows that if not for creation God CANNOT do anything. Or stated in other terms, “potential or not, God does not have any actual ability”. This is enough of a violation that it challenges the very definition: God is not defined as “that which has no actual ability”. Could this actually be God, or is it just God potentially?

It turns out that in the case of the NTM deity we are able to define a state, the state of our absence (absence of created things for it to interact with) as a state of incapacitation. An interlocutor once asked me: “God having his attributes eternally doesn’t make them false because they’re not manifested, that’s like saying I cannot have the ability to carry things unless that thing is there…”. But that’s a misrepresentation of the argument. What we are stating is that we can posit a state in which you have no abilities. A thing for which we can define a state of incapacitation cannot be God. God should be dynamic in any states, independent of any considerations. I replied to the man: “if I define a state for you in which you cannot carry things (like say a zero oxygen or a increased gravity chamber), this is an “inability”, not a “potential ability”. It means that there is a state in which you have a disability.” This is a state of impotency for God. However in the case of the NTM deity, that state is the state of not having created. Thus we see that all we get left with in the case of the monadic deity is the classic circular arguments: God obviously exists because we exist.

What is an entity that does not “exercise their attributes” but only possess them “potentially”? Are we believing in a non-practicing deity? Or that the deity who is not practicing his attributes of thought love and act is eternally existing devoid of love, thought or action?

Further, were God to go from potential to actual ability he would again violate immutability. To go from potential to actuality is the definition of change in state and temporality. But what changes and is temporal cannot be God. Therefore we can conclude that God is what he actually is, not what he could potentially become. How absurd that the first thing an omnipotent deity ever actually did was to create us, the first thing it ever thought about was us and we were the first thing it ever loved. Take us away, and the deity is left with nothing again. Thus we have the absurdity of the deity who’s acts and existence depended upon us. Thus we can already see that the act of creation itself cannot be taken as an argument that all abilities of God are held in latency. Because for one, it would entail the admission that creation related abilities were in fact the only abilities of God.

Or we could come at it from the problem of infinite regress: The NTM deity would necessarily need to create the thing it could act upon, else it could not act at all. But how can it create anything if it cannot act?

For the Deity to completely with-hold potential abilities, lying quiescent indefinitely like a germinal spore, not thinking, acting, or feeling, is an absurd situation for God, in which God had no happiness, or joy or pleasure. Medically that condition is called anhedonia. Theologically it is a deity that depended upon creatures for its happiness.

Imad Shehadeh writes (GWU, Kindle version):

“It is necessary not only for God’s attributes to exist eternally, but also for them to be active eternally. However some think (…) they only become active after creation (…) limiting the work of God’s atributes to after creation means that his eternal activity is dependent on the existence of creation. This means that his eternal attributes are limited to being within what is contingent (p.171) (…) there was no time when God did not practise his knowledge, holiness, justice, goodness, and so on (…) rather it is ceratin that his attributes were active in themselves from eternity past to the degree of perfection, before the existence of any being other than him (…)

The restriction of the activity of God’s attributes to after creation means having no experience of them and no knowledge of the meaning of any of them. This is a problem because to perform an action in creation requires prior knowledge and prior experience of it outside creation (…) These properties (omniscience, omnipotence, etc.) . . . of their very nature are only to be ascribed to a person on the basis of their conscious employment (p.173) if God were dependent on another, he would no longer be God, and this other would be God! (…) his resources in himself are full and completely satisfy all his desires (…) he is from all eternity past without beginning, knower and known (…) owning will and recognizing the will of another, seeing and being seen, hearing and being heard, loving and being loved (…)” (p.174)

Was Creation a “Potential Ability” in God?– God does not have potentials, period

The standard objection that I face from NTM adherents is : “were the syllogism true (that the NTM God could not love without creating), then the following must surely also be true: ‘God would lack the ability to create had he not created’, and this is absurd.“

The meaning of the refutation is that it would be absurd to claim that in the absence of the creation act God lacked creative-ability altogether. This is obviously true, we would not claim that. But it follows that it is also true that this hypothetical God-that-did-not-create has nothing but himself in his range of experience. The objection is that there is nothing in that experience that constitutes love. It is irrelevant as to whether the creating or loving is present in potential form, even apart from the question of whether potentials are present in God or not. The point is that it is not problematic that God is not actually and actively creating, it is problematic that God is not actually and actively loving. The trinitarian God in the absence of actually creating is actually (actively) loving. The NTM deity in the absence of actually creating is not actually (actively) loving and the possibility and potential for love in it is dependent upon it actually creating. It does not work to say that the NTM deity “loves the creation it might have the potential to create”, because our hypothesis is to state that this deity has taken the decision not to create, and then examining what its state would be like. If that decision is not possible then we have a necessitarian deity. The Trinitarian deity, had it taken the decision not to create would continue to have the ability to love because the principle for that love is within itself. What’s more its not true that the Trinitarian deity that hypothetically did not create hated that which it did not create. What it did not create is simply not present, even in concept. The choice to create is the very choice that the concept should arise, be loved and be reality. If God loved creation, he would not have left it uncreated in the first place, so the assertion “he will still love the memory of us” is meaningless. This is only an assumption that such a God can love in the first place, and its begging the question- God will love the memory because God has the ability to love.

This is the bottom-line in the argument: If the true God did not create, then nothing follows from that, he would still be the same God. However in the case of the NTM deity we have an additional issue. Had it not created, then it would also follows that it could not possibly love in eternity. This additional entailment is not present in the case of the Trinitarian deity because the principle of love is within itself. The question we’re asking is whether it were possible for God to have a non-creation related love, one whose principle and object were both inherent to God.

A second way to look at this is from something we’ve already discussed: that it would be absurd were God doing nothing if not creating. But in the absence of loving, what are the remaining options left for God? So not only is God dependent upon creation for loving, but for activity itself, and ability. In the NTM model, creating becomes the only available activity to God and the model gets reduced to question begging.

Is it valid to say that God remains dormant in a state of the potential to create and love if he does not create and love? We’ve already seen that it makes no sense to speak of “potential abilities” in God. Creation simply occurs when the Deity creates. Again, the argument is not whether the deity has the potential to love or not, the argument is where the deity is actively loving or not, and if not, what then?

There is nothing “prior” to that creation, only eternity. “Potential” means to have a chance/ probability of performing some act in the future. Such terms mean nothing in eternity. If there is nothing temporally “prior” to creation, then we cannot define any “potential state” for God. God does not suffer from potential conditions, rather he creates them. God does not create the temporal state from out of his own temporal state of potentiality and latency. It is the Universe, that is the ongoing realization (or “actualization”) of potentiality in time, not God. Thus it is a theological error to hold that any “potential for creation/creating/anything to do with either” is inherent to God’s eternal Essence. Again, were it the case, then the act of creating would produce any change in God, that is, make God go from potential to actual which is the definition of change. This would violate divine immutability. Thus there simply cannot be any potentials in God, and we have already seen why.

What is creation then, and how does the event of creation not violate divine immutability? Creation is a Mercy of God. The creation of wretched things like us in spite of our wretchedness is nothing but a mercy and an unnecessary addition to the perfection of the Being of God. That is what it means to be “contingent”. God is perfect without any unfulfilled potentials within him. We speak about these issues in even greater detail in the important essay on Divine Simplicity We are clearly imperfect beings, and so were we to take this erroneous path and try to assert that we were present as unfulfilled potentials inherent to the Nature of God then we would be admitting the presence of imperfections in him, even in the potential form- potential to create imperfections as substantial with respect to God. When we state this in its correct form and assert that God simply creates in the absence of any potentials prior to him, then we have already avoided this problem. That God allows us to exist in spite of the pain that we cause is a Mercy of him. It is erroneous to define the ability to create us as necessary to the nature of God as one of his inherent and definitional properties when we are unnecessary ourselves. To define God in this manner would be to create God for ourselves.

The only way that the LPNTM can be untrue is if it were not necessary that God be loving, which we address in the next section. There is another rather fringe argument, which is the Neo-Platonic view that God’s act of existing is identical to his act of creating (not all Neo-Platonists might state it quite like this). In this case we can probably say that everything is present simultaneously and the LPNTM probably becomes meaningless. This argument is however barely worth the mention because it entails necessitarianism- God creates necessarily, which is unacceptable because it is the literal opposite of free will. If it were insisted that God were free, and God were the same as his act of creation, then saying that God could choose not to create would be the same as saying that God could choose not to be God.

Is God Necessarily Loving?

This would be an attempted refutation of my primary premise- that an unloving God is unacceptable. First, the “necessary being” argument has nothing to do with God’s attributes anyway, only his necessity. However if one believes that God is the best that we can possibly conceive (and this is a moral argument, not an argument from necessity), then its hard to see how God could be bad. The moral argument is also an important philosophical proof of God’s existence- “how can we have a standard of morality if not for God, etc.” Another way of arguing for God’s goodness is to consider that if God were evil he would be perfectly evil and were this the case then having no one else to hate, he would hate himself. Being omnipotent, he would then successfully destroy himself. We cannot have equally valid competing models of God, as though God could have been “different” in another world. Since they are our own models, we ourselves need to attempt to determine the merits and demerits of each model. Just because people can seemingly come up with several intellectual concepts of God, does not make all those concepts equally viable. The evil deity is possibly the poorest concept that a human could possibly come up with, and would rank even lower than most pagan and polytheistic conceptions of deities.

Conclusion- Creating the Creator?

Monotheism is hardly a free ticket to an unbridled metaphysical hubris. For God to be a philosophically valid concept, he must necessarily have a priori power and attributes independent of any created things, else theology becomes an exercise in question- begging. Obviously if God managed to create, he must be pretty powerful, but that’s just assuming the conclusion. No consideration of creation can be necessary or inherent to a description of the Divine Nature, because creation is inferior to God. To describe God in terms of creatures would be to create God, not describe him. Having made these simple stipulations, we can see that it is impossible that a NTM deity possess the most basic attributes one would expect of an omnipotent deity or even a rational being, like love, intelligence and personality. This is the problem with the NTM model.