Van Til on the Godhead Being "One Person"

About a month ago, I brought up how Paul Manata seems to have gone all Twi Hard since moving to Grand Rapids, MI. Which is unfortunate as he generally has some good posts. Paul immediately dismissed my questions and comments without first making sure he knew he understood what was being said. My goal is to delve into the substance of the actual issues and not Manata's perceived ones.

Cornelius Van Til made a statement in his Introduction to Systematic Theology (hereinafter "IST") that has been somewhat abused by his detractors, but needlessly defended by his symathizers.

His detractors tend to accuse him of heresy and being illogical. That's not my goal. I do NOT think Van Til a heretic. Additionally, I think what he says is very "logical"...but, taken as is, the statement is heresy (many times heresy is little more than man imposing his own standard of logic on God). I'm a sympathizer of CVT, as many of my posts will attest. I haven't abandoned all things presuppositional...but I also don't think a defense of CVT's statement from IST is in order. To my knowledge, which may not be very great, Van Til's discussion of the Trinity is limited (in print) primarily to philosophical discussions of the problem of the one and the many.

We get small fragments of his conception of the Trinity here and there, like in IST. According to Van Til, and his popularizers, the Trinity shapes our conception of reality itself and is part and parcel to a Christian worldview...yet a robust Trinitarianism none of them make. It's more of a mathematical profundity that essentially comes down to this: "We see unity and diversity in the world...God is One and Three...see?" Of course, when you interject fancy words like "equal ultimacy", "concrete universal" (and other terms) you have yourself a jingoism that appears to be proof of Christianity.

Over the last year or so I've wondered how it is that such bold claims about the Trinity being central to the Christian worldview led none of these men to articulate a robust view of the Trinity. The answer is that they never seem to have considered the Trinity beyond simply affirming it. No problem with simply affirming the truth, but claiming that it shapes our conception of reality ought to render substantial discussion of the Trinity. Let's begin with the quote from Van Til I have alluded to:

It is sometimes asserted that we can prove to men that we are not asserting anything that they ought to consider irrational, inasmuch as we say that God is one in essence and three in person. We therefore claim that we have not asserted unity and trinity of exactly the same thing. Yet this is not the whole truth of the matter. We do assert that God, the whole Godhead, is one person. (Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology)

Here's the main question that I offer: Who is the "person" to which this term refers? When we refer to God, as simply "God", what do we mean? To "Whom" does "God" refer? This isn't a question I'm answering in this post, but it is striking how often we will use the word "God" and never consider what we mean. Taking Van Til's quote into consideration, to what, or whom, does Van Til refer when he says that the whole Godhead is "one person"?

The answer is God's essence.

Some may take issue with me here and suggest, instead, that Van Til is describing (via paradox) the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being one person...that he refers not to the essence. Van Til chose the term "Godhead", however...which is the "substance" of God. "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the Incarnate Deity" (sound familiar?). Van Til also stated in The Defense of the Faith that God is "absolute personality"...the essence (made up of the attributes) is "absolute personality", distinguished from the three Persons.

What we have discussed under the attributes of God may also be summed up by saying that God is absolute personality. The attributes themselves speak of self-conscious and moral activity on the part of God. (The Defense of the Faith)

So Van Til summarizes the discussion of "attributes" (contextually, the attributes make up the essence) as God being "absolute personality". In fact, the essence, in distinction from the Persons, possesses consciousness. This immediately raises red flags. The essence has been so distinguished from the Persons that he begins with attributes, consciousness and even personality before he gets to Persons. If you don't see where this is problematic, stick with me a few more moments. Van Til made another statement which could lend itself to error. This time, it is in reference to the Trinity:

Another point in the Christian doctrine of God that needs to be mentioned here is the trinity. We hold that God exists as a tri-personality. "The trinity is the heart of Christianity" (a reference to Bavinck). The three persons of the trinity are co-substantial; not one is derived in his substance from either or both of the others. Yet there are three distinct persons in this unity; the diversity and the identity are equally underived. (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith)

What does Van Til mean by "underived"? On its face, this statement asserts that the three Persons, by virtue of having the same essence, are underived from one another. To Van Til's mind, this seems to protect us from a heretical notion of subordination where one Person is ontologically greater than another. To guard from this notion, he says the persons are "underived from one another" so that none has primacy over another. They're each "equally ultimate" by virtue of their divinity. The diagram on the right shows the relationship of the Persons according to Van Til. Can you spot what is missing? The Father as father of the Son, and Son as son to the Father seems of no relevance. The "relationship" is a direct line from essence to Persons. Van Til is so concerned with "rescuing" the Persons from being derived from one another that we are left wondering how the three interrelate as an eternal necessity. In explaining the relationship of the Persons to the essence, he neglects the relationship between the Persons.

Given the above, what sense does it make to speak of the Son being "eternally begotten" from the Father, or the Spirit "proceeding" from the Father ( Orthodox) or the Father and the Son: filioque (Roman Catholicism/Protestantism)? The Persons arise from essence as if it were divorced from hypostasis (i.e. a divine person). Is the Son in the Father, and Father in the Son, or is it just that each one possesses the divine essence? The very terms "Father" and "Son" become arbitrary. One is left wondering: are the Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) actually necessary as that eternal interrelatedness? Contrary to Van Til's goal, the one essence actually has primacy over the three persons as he frames it. The essence gives rise to the persons...which is to say, the persons become modes of the essence...modalism (or "trimodalism" in this case as the essence is concurrently manifesting itself as three). God is ultimately one, not equally and ultimately three and one. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are manifestations of the One. They are "expressions"...but who's to say there couldn't be other equally valid manifestations of the One? Perhaps Mother, Daughter, and Womb? Perhaps the one chose "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" as a relationship to us...which would make apprehension of the essence impossible.

As much as I love Van Til, and consider myself a presuppositionalist, his Ontological Trinity, is a monad. As good Trinitarians, to what should the term "God" refer in order to avoid modalism? When I have some time, I'll delve into that a bit. This is an incredibly practical exercise, believe it or not. My desire is to be rescued from abstracted philosophical "trinitarianism".