In order to discuss the similarities and differences of the Trinitarian view and the Modalist view, we need some background.

• Black boxes
• Referential transparency
• Graph theory
• OOP = Object Oriented Programming

Let us return to the similarities and differences of the Trinitarian view and the Modalist view, we need some background.

The etymology and history of the words used for the Trinity are interesting but beyond the current discussion.

Details are left as a future topic.

We start with an overview of the Trinity.

Trinitarianism is the Christian doctrine that God exists as three persons (Greek hypostases) but is one being. The persons are understood to exist as God the Father, God the Son (incarnate as Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit, each of them having the one identical essence or nature, not merely similar natures. Wikipedia. (as of 2022-07-08)

Modalistic Monarchianism, also known as Modalism or Oneness Christology, is a Christian theology upholding the oneness of God as well as the divinity of Jesus; as a form of Monarchianism. Wikipedia. (as of 2022-07-09)

Modalsm is sometimes called Sabbellianism who was one of the first to describe this view of the Trinity. In modern times, the Oneness Pentecostals movement has views on the Trinity similar to Modalism.

For this discussion, one must be careful not to conflate any heresy, real or imagined, in the views of a group with the Modalist views of that group.

Here is a table using object-oriented principles from programming.

• A class is a general idea about something such as the "nature" of something.
• An object is an instance of a class such as a "person".

Let us look briefly at each of the parts of the "Trinity".

God the Father is taken as the Creator God of the Bible as found in Genesis and thereafter.


Note that God did not create order out of existing chaos. That is a Greek myth. God created time and space and matter and then created order.

More: Genesis 1: A gaping gap between chasm and chaos

God the Son is the incarnate Jesus the Christ of Nazareth as the Messiah as accepted by Christian doctrine but not Jewish doctrine. Here we are only interested in Christian doctrine. Jesus is speaking in John 10:30.


What exactly does "one" mean?

• Jesus and the Father are the same "person".
• Jesus and the Father have the same "nature".
• Jesus and the Father are in agreement.
• Something else.

The verse before this one provides some clarification.


The "Father" is "greater than all". The "no man" in the Greek is "no one".

Discuss: Is the "Father" greater than the "Son"?

One can make the case that Jesus is God as stated by Jesus in the Gospels. Some make the case that this is not so. For the sake of argument we will assume that Jesus is God in human form (person, nature, etc.).

The Holy Spirit is the "helper" or "advocate" that Jesus promised at the Last Supper.


The Holy Spirit became manifest at Pentecost in Acts 2 and thereafter.

More: A big breath from a wind bag

The Holy Spirit is often portrayed as a dove or pigeon since they are the same bird. Many languages have only one word for this bird. English has two.

More: Flipping the pigeon bird: reality or perception?

The arguments used to justify or discredit Trinitarianism and/or Modalsm can be compared to the arguments that a dove and a pigeon are different birds. One often sees what they want to see.

More: A biased view about being unbiased

In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus the following.


The "Holy Spirit" had not yet been sent. What "Spirit" is this that is mentioned by Jesus?

The "wind" is the Greek word for "spirit". Might a Trinitarian or other view have influenced not translating "wind" as "spirit".

More: Variations of born again in other words

In 1 John 2:22, John mentions the "Father" and the "Son".


Why might John not have included the "Holy Spirit"?

Later in 1 John, John mentions "Jesus" and "God" but not the "Holy Spirit". He does mention the "spirit of antichrist".


How might the "spirit of antichrist" differ from the "Holy Spirit"?

Note that the "spirit" in "spirit of antichrist" is inferred in the KJV (King James Version) from the pronoun used in the Greek.

Is there anywhere in scripture to support the idea that the Holy Spirit is God? Or is that an assumption?

Jesus said he would send the Holy Spirit as a "helper". If Jesus had said that he would send an "angel" to each and every person as a personal "helper" or "advocate" would each and every "angel" thus sent qualify as God? Discuss.

For hymns that or allude to the Trinity, see the following.

• Song: Come Thou Almighty King
• Song: Angels from the realms of glory (last verse)
• Song: Love divine, all loves excelling (verse structure)
• Song: Holy, Holy, Holy.

A common Trinitarian diagram of the Trinity has "is not" edges along the outside to emphasis that each "person" is different but that they share a common "God" nature.
One could remove the "is not" edges under the assumption that anything not connected as "is" is a "is not".

Topology allows a graph to be picked up by a node and the connections and nodes moved around without disturbing any of the relationships.
Since there are no cycles in the graph, any node can be chosen to make the graph a rooted tree. So the graph can be rearranged with the "GOD" node at the top, making it a rooted tree, and the leaf nodes all at the same level at the bottom.

The diagram is now in a form that is familiar to programmers in OOP. There is a "class" or "nature" node at the top and "object" or "person" nodes from the root node.
Note: In OOP, a class could be made for each of "Son", "Holy Spirit" and "Father" and then on object for each made that inherits methods, properties, etc., from the root class "GOD". The intermediate class is omitted for this discussion.

For future purposes, the leaves will be reordered (using topology considerations).
In OOP any object with access to a class can construct an object of that class. Thus, the "Father" object could create a "Son" object that could be considered as proceeding from the "Father".

Disclaimer: This argument is not to put the Trinity as classes and/or objects in programming. The point is that ideas like this are used all the time in programming.

In the OOP analogy, the following hold.

The node "GOD" is the base class or "nature" from which the following are derived.
The node "Jesus" is a descendant object or "person".
The node "Holy Spirit" is a descendant object or "person".
The node "Father" is a descendant object or "person".

All are distinct "persons" or "objects" sharing a common "GOD" "nature" or "class".

The Modalist view can now be expressed by switching "person" or "object" with "nature" or "class".
The OOP analogy no longer fits the programmer model but the analogy does fit.

One can now compare the similarities and differences between the Trinitarian view and the Modalist view.

Do we know the exact workings of each aspect of the Trinity and their exact relationship?

In the conventional black box model, one is outside the box trying to determine what is inside the box.
For the problem of the Trinity, we are actually inside the box of time and space and want to see outside the box.

This requires thinking outside the box.

Unfortunately, we cannot see outside the box. Paul says we can see "darkly" if at all.

Here is a build sequence to compare the progression.

Let us return to the black box idea but use a cube. We cannot see inside the box but can see only what is exposed. That is, the "Father", "Son" and "Holy Spirit" (or just "Spirit").

Remember, we are inside the box (time and space as we know it) looking out to what we can see of "GOD" who is outside of time and space (as we know it).

What we need to do might be summarized as follows.

• Love God (with all our heart, etc.)
• Love neighbor (as ourself)

Discuss: From our point of view, what difference does it make in our lives and in what we are to be doing if we think using the following views?

• Trinitarian model
• Modalist model
• some other model (including none)

What impact does our view of the Trinity have on what we should be doing? This is where the idea of referential transparency can be useful.

Jesus affirms that the two most important laws are the following.

• Love your God.
• Love your neighbor (as yourself).

Having the "correct" view of the Trinity, which cannot be known with certainty, may not really be relevant.

More: Both love your God and love your neighbor needed

A dimension in math and science is a way of looking at something. The three space dimensions of length, width and height are common spatial dimensions.

A Hilbert space in mathematics (named for David Hilbert) can have an infinite number of dimensions.

More: Addition: mathematical dimensions of the Trinity

Some people confuse dimensions with what modalists call "modes" (and provides the basis for the name of Modalism).

A physical cube, such as a die with six sides, has three dimensions. One can look at any side to see that view.

The overly simplistic modal view of a cube is that since we see each side, and there is only one physical cube, those views must be of the same cube.

Instead of a physical cube, one should think of a logical cube as a conceptual black box with a limited view of what is inside. Keep in mind that we are inside the box trying to look outside the box.
That outside perspective is found, for example, in Psalms 2 and in Job.

What the Modalist call "modes" can be thought of in computer science terms as a FSM (Finite State Machine). A FSM has a finite number of states and the machine can only be in one state at a time. There is only one machine for a given FSM.

Modalists, and Trinitarians when critiquing Modalist views, argue that in Modalism, God only be in one form at any one time.

The timesharing principle in computer systems allows one processor to time-slice what it is doing to appear as if it is doing more than one thing at any one time.

Since we live in a digital world, discovered as quantum mechanics in the early 20th century, it is conceptually possible that a God outside of time and space could time-slice what is happening, in the Modalist view, to appear to have more than one form at any point in our time.

Each group will adopt a certain viewpoint. All members must accept that viewpoint.
What happens if a group member starts to research an issue and find that the group viewpoint may not be the best?

That is, a firm "yes" becomes a qualified "yes?".

That group member now suggests "no".
All group members now insist that that group member change their view to the group's view with an emphatic "yes!".

How often does this happen in human organizations?

We see this group think idea in practice in John 7 when Nicodemus questions the group about Jesus.

This same group think happens between the opposing views of Trinitarianism and Modalism.

Each side persecutes any view from the opposite side. This will happen even when the person doing the persecuting is just repeating ideas without any real knowledge of the issues, the logic, the reality. etc.

This is especially telling since it is not clear that the exact workings of the black box can be determined with certainty.

And it appears to be the case that knowing the exact workings inside the box may not be important in terms of the "eternal security" of an individual.

Any new requirement that is made mandatory, such as might be added through progressive revelation, means that in all past history, those other people are out of luck. They did not believe the correct things.

And, by a future induction, if some newer idea comes along, are you out of luck?

Discuss: Would Jesus have left certain requirements unstated until a future time?

Discuss: Would Apostles who did not clarify their view on the Trinity be excluded from salvation?

Discuss: Paul said we see though a glass darkly. Did Paul not know the true nature of the Trinity as claimed by Modalists, Trinitarians, etc.

Let us look at some Bible verses that mention the Trinity or help to clarify the relationship between the parts of the Trinity.

Jesus describes what is called the Trinity in Matthew in the Great Commission.

Paul mentions all three in 2 Corinthians 13:14. This is the ending verse of the letter.


Jesus is included but not with an explicit name of "Son".

... more to be added ...

Talking of the end of time in the last days, in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, Jesus says the following.


Does the "Father" know something that the "Son" does not know?

Discuss: How can Jesus be God if the Father knows something that he does not know?

If Jesus is also the Father, does this discrepancy disappear?

In what other ways might this statement be explained?

An owner of a hotel may say to a customer, "I will talk to the owner about this" without letting the customer know that he or she is the owner. This is in the movie Home Alone where the toy store owner talks to Kevin.

Someone may ask a question in a group that "someone asked them" about such and such. It may have been that person asking themselves.

Both of these are reflexive relationships.

More: Reflexive relationships in the Bible

There appears to be no way to know the exact nature of the Trinity. We cannot see inside the box. Or outside the box since we are inside the box. And it is not clear that we really need to know the exact nature of the Trinity.


How might you determine the difference between the models?

We have looked at various "aspects" of the views of the Trinity.

Note that showing that bad logic is used to justify a position does not make the position false.

More: Tu quoque or you too fallacy