The Modalistic Urge

There are no new heresies, only old heresies in new clothes. A recurring heresy among the "faithful” is modalism, the defective view of the Trinity according to which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not discrete Persons but merely manifestations or modes of the simple, undifferentiated God ("Oneness” Pentecostalism is deeply modalistic, as are many "Deeper-Life” cults prominent among pietistic Christians). Brown notes:

The word "modalism” is unfamiliar to most Christians, yet it is the most common theological error among people who think themselves orthodox. It is the simplest way to explain the Trinity while preserving the oneness of God; unfortunately, it is incorrect. Adoptionism preserved the unity of the godhead by sacrificing the deity of Christ; modalism, by abandoning the personhood of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Modalism frequently reappears as the result of failure to teach the doctrine of the Trinity clearly. An implicit or naive modalism is sometimes found in modern fundamentalistic circles that insist on the deity of Christ but are unwilling to make theological effort to formulate a clear doctrine of the Trinity.1

While tri-theism (the belief in three gods) and Arianism (the belief that Christ was a created being, subordinate in essence to the Father) swallow up the one in the many, so modalism swallows up the many in the one. Orthodox Christianity grounds itself and all of life in the Trinity, in which a proper relation and balance subsists between the One and the Many.2 Augustine argued against the modalistic heresy: "For we do not say that the nature of the good is simple, because the Father alone possesses it, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone; nor do we say, with the Sabellian [modalistic] heretics, that it is only nominally a Trinity, and has no real distinction of persons.”3 For Christian orthodoxy, God is both one God yet three discrete Persons.

Modalism is often evolutionary: God manifested himself as the somewhat harsh, law-based Father in the Old Testament; as the grace-giving Son during Christ’s earthly incarnation; and today as the life-giving Holy Spirit: "It holds that God reveals himself under different aspects or modes in different ages—as the Father in the Creation and the giving of the Law, as the Son in Jesus Christ, and as the Holy Spirit after Christ’s ascension.”4 In this modalistic conception. Biblical law represents an earlier and more "primitive” stage of God’s dealings with man, but now that man and God have both "grown up,” the latter deals with the former by grace, not by law. By logical extension, this form of modalism embraces process theology—that God is himself in a sort of metaphysical and ethical transition. It is therefore blasphemous.

Further, "modalism makes the events of redemptive history a kind of charade”5: ‘ if Christ is not a discrete Person, his death for our sins and resurrection, session, and his intercession for us as his people, are illusory. Consistent modalism is thus an assault on Biblical redemption.

Common to modalists and other cultists and heretics is the notion that the history of the church is one long, sordid tale of apostasy, and that only recently (and usually with their provincial group) true Biblical Christianity was restored.(Pentecostals ["Third Wave”], fundamentalists, "The Local Church,” Arminian Baptists, Mormons, and "Church of Christ” are notorious for this provincial arrogance.) Most cultists despise systematic theology, reverent commentaries, and especially the creeds and confessions of historic Christianity. They are confident the Holy Spirit interprets revelation for them immediately, apart from their recourse to the church historic. Why the Holy Spirit should furnish them with an infallible interpretation while neglecting the church’s reverent Bible scholars and students of today and the past does not seem to trouble to the cultists.

This fact was brought home to me most vividly several years ago in a discussion with a professed "Bible-only” Christian. We were disputing a certain topic, and I would occasionally remark, "Well, Calvin says such-and-such.” To this he finally responded in desperation, "Your authority is Calvin; my authority is the Bible.” I swiftly reminded him that my authority was no less the Bible than was his, but the difference between us is that I didn’t think I understood the Bible better than everybody else in church history. (He failed to grasp the point.)

Because cultists deny the authority of the Holy Spirit in history, they end up reinventing orthodoxy on the anvil of their own depraved speculation. And their "neo”-orthodoxy is always vastly inferior to the consensus orthodoxy of the Christian church.

Cultists hate systematic deductions from revealed truth in history (except their own, of course!), and therefore, of necessity, strive to subvert the Christian Faith.

1. Harold O. J. Brown, Heresies (Garden City, NY, 1984), 99.

2. R. J. Rushdoony, The One and the Many (Fairfax, VA [1971], 1978).

3. Augustine, The City of God, trans. Marcus Dodd (Chicago, 1952), Bk. 11, Ch. 10.

4. Brown, loc. cit.

5. ibid.