Unitarianism, as opposed to Trinitarianism, is the view that divine sovereignty is not shared in any way.
Effectively, in unitarian views, there is not only just one God, but He is only revealed through just one person. In Trinitarian Christianity, the one God is revealed through three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Given that atheism is clearly false, and that polytheism is also clearly false, and that therefore monotheism is clearly true, it may seem to many people that unitarianism must also be true. However, unitarianism is not the same thing as monotheism. Again, in all unitarian views, the key is that divine sovereignty is not shared in any way. But how can we see that this is false?
There are at least two ways we can see that unitarianism is false. First, deductively.
Any rational, sovereign, omniscient author of time and the universe -- any monotheistic God -- will, of necessity, eternally conceive of Himself as his own ultimate reason for everything that occurs. The conception of Himself will eternally be the exact representation of Himself, sharing divine sovereignty, since this conception is the reason for everything that occurs.
You see, God and His conception or image of Himself are both truly God. And both will exist if God is rational. And yet, there is a distinction between the concept and the thing conceived of. Thus, of deductive necessity, divine sovereignty will certainly be shared by God and God's reason, which is none other than God Himself.
Deduction therefore necessitates that unitarianism is false.
But secondly, the Bible, in agreement with deduction, also makes this clear.
In the beginning was the Word (or reason), and the Word (or reason) was with God, and the Word (or reason) was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
- John 1:1-3
He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.
- Hebrews 1:3
"He who has seen Me has seen the Father."
- John 14:9
Unitarianism is thus both Biblically and also deductively false.
Comments
I'm just wondering if it causes you any cognitive dissonance to know that you're absolutely wrong when you claim that Christians agree on what the bible teaches, and (on a related note)how could you possibly know that you haven't been deceived by satan?
All well and good, yes? But what about the other Christians who say baptism ISN'T necessary for salvation and can (and do) write long, detailed essays quoting the bible ad nauseam which proves THEIR side?
I think when Christian and other Theistic apologists call Atheism false, they're also trying to imply that Atheism is somehow a belief system, like Christianity is.
Also, how is Atheism false? Science and the Universe overwhelmingly support Atheism. Darwinian evolution itself is inherently Atheistic, as is every other aspect of nature that needs no gods/goddesses to explain it.
Does historical evidence support Christianity? No. Does science support Christianity? No.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/trinity/files/trinity.html
The difference between Edwards' version, which your argument (in my opinion) does apply to, and my argument, is the insertion of the concept of "reason". While the Father eternally understands Himself as His own reason (thereby eternally begetting the Son), the Son does not think of Himself as His reason for everything -- He thinks of the Father in this way. However, the Son's image of the Father is not the reason for everything that the Father does. Therefore, that image does not share divinity with the other two persons (in the same way they do) in that the Son's image of the Father has no true causal ultimacy. The vicious cycle of divine persons that is seen in Edwards' essay therefore never goes beyond the Son when we add "reason" to the context as I have.
I am claiming that the Father conceives of Himself, and His conception of Himself IS the Son.
So, are you suggesting then that the Father, in addition to conceiving of Himself and begetting the Son, then also conceives of the Son separately from His conception of Himself which IS the Son, thus begetting a third? So He both conceives His conception and also conceives OF His conception, thereby conceiving yet another?
If so, then I don't see why the Father would understand His conception OF His conception to be His ultimate reason. Thus, to my mind, He may have such a conception, but that conception is not divine, since it is not the Father's reason for all that He does. Only Himself, and His conception of Himself, have divine ultimacy.
In terms of identifying other conceptions, there is a heavenly host; and we too are made "in the image of God" (though I lack confidence that scripture intends this sense).
The Son's conception of Himself would not be the Father's reason for everything that He does, so it would not technically share divinity. There would only be one conception that shares ultimacy in terms of reason -- the reason for everything the Father does. That conception would be the Father's conception of Himself, which would be the Son. No other conception would be the reason for all the Father does, so no other conception would share divine ultimacy.
Without God's omniscience, there would be no rational justification for universal truth claims. Any worldview that denies God's omniscience denies the rationality of universal truth claims, like universal, invariant noncontradiction. But noncontradiction is one of our first principles, or initial premises. If it is irrationally held, then every conclusion based on it (which is every conclusion) is without rational justification.
There would be no reason for any belief at all without God's omniscience.
Does that make sense?
"If God created everything in the world then he can reasonably tell us that there are (probably) no contradictions in reality."
If there are things aside from God that he did not cause (like "time", which he seems to be somehow subject to in your view), why would he think that these things obey his rules? I don't agree that the arbitrary assumption that those things behave the way he wants them to is justified when he can have no justification for making that assumption.
[continued]
"God could also know everything about himself, just not all at once, meaning he is aware of certain parts of himself at different times. His nature prevents it from forming a complete conception. He could also inherently have the knowledge that he doesn't contradict himself without Omnipotence."
Even if he doesn't contradict himself, and even if he knows this, "time" is not him, nor is he in charge of it in your view (if I understand you correctly). Him not contradicting himself is one thing, but time not contradicting itself is another proposition, one he has no authority to make.
"This doesn't prove the trinity."
Agreed.
I apologize, but I'm really not understanding what you are proposing. It may very well be a failing on my part rather than your own. Could you try to explain things in a different way, perhaps by analogy? I usually find analogies helpful (but no guarantees!).
For example, "time was in a pre-existing form," in my mind, means that when it did not exist, it existed, which seems like a blatant contradiction. I'm sure you meant something different, but I'm not comprehending your meaning.
Or, "time wasn't anything like what it is today," sounds to me a lot like "the book itself is actually a completely different object while reading page 53 than while reading page 78," which, again, doesn't make sense to me. You surely mean something different, but, again, I'm not following you.
[continued]
Or, "As a result of God's acting on it, 'time' changed," seems to me to mean that God, because He "acts on it," is a temporal being, changing (acting) within time. With my analogy of "time" being much like a book, and temporal beings all characters in the book, I understand you to be saying that this particular character in the book actually rewrites the entire book when He shows up on page 1, such that page 2 is and can only always be something other than what it was before page 1. But page 2 is never before page 1. So I don't get what you're saying actually happened.
So I just really don't understand what you're suggesting. Thanks for any additional clarification you can provide!
Sure, but (as I see it, at least) since neither of those conceptions would be conceived of as the reason (or logos) for everything that occurs (only the Father's conception of Himself would be), those other conceptions would not be properly God.
I really appreciate your comments, Sam!
I think this comes down to the-existence-of-an-actually-infinite-set versus the-generation-or-creation-of-an-actually-infinite-set-by-means-of-incremental-addition-or-concatenation. If the infinite set exists permanently in the mind of God, I'm not sure that there's a logical problem with it. On the other hand, if the set is generated incrementally, appending items one-by-one to the set until an infinite set is attainted, that seems to me to be logically impossible. I would suggest that since my God does not change, and thus does not learn, the former is true of His knowledge rather than the latter. I do actually talk about this same concept elsewhere on this site in more depth... I must just be getting too old to remember stuffs (at least, that's my excuse):
https://www.godcontention.org/christian/if-infinites-cannot-exist-can-god-be-infinite