Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In theology, the doctrine, adopted by Sabellius in the third century, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are different manifestations of one and the same person.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Christianity The doctrine that the Trinity is composed of three modes or aspects of divine self-revelation, rather than three parts of God.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • At first glance, these statements seem to simply identify the persons of the Trinity and God; it is the extreme kind of modalism that holds

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • It may be objected that any kind of modalism which makes the Father and/or the Son a mode of God is hard to square with the New Testament, where the Father and Son are represented as enjoying a close, loving personal relationship, and where the Son mediates between God and humankind.

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • Tommy Wells and Chris Zimmerman, two of the loudest local voices for smart growth and multi-modalism, both won reelection to their city/county council positions.

    Election wrap-up: Good news locally, bad news nationally Dan Malouff 2010

  • Well aware of this problem, Leftow tries to to clarify his theory, to show why it doesn't amount to any undesirable form of modalism.

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • Sabellian modalism is usually rejected on the grounds that such modes are strictly sequential, or because they are not intrinsic features of God, or because they are intrinsic but not essential features of God.

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • By the time we reach the era of the extracanonical acts of the apostles and martyrs, Jesus is himself referred to as "the only true God", showing evidence of yet another Christological option that was explored by the early Church, that form of modalism that regarded God the Father as the very same "person" that became incarnate, regarding Jesus and the Father as simply "modes" of existence of the same single God.

    Jesus the Mystic in the Gospel of John James F. McGrath 2009

  • By the time we reach the era of the extracanonical acts of the apostles and martyrs, Jesus is himself referred to as "the only true God", showing evidence of yet another Christological option that was explored by the early Church, that form of modalism that regarded God the Father as the very same "person" that became incarnate, regarding Jesus and the Father as simply "modes" of existence of the same single God.

    Archive 2009-07-01 James F. McGrath 2009

  • Leftow argues that his theory isn't any undesirable form of modalism because

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • From my understanding, Oneness is a form of modalism, so I think Muslims would be ok with it.

    Muslims, Baptists and Sabeans in Sunday School James F. McGrath 2009

  • While modalism hasn't been explicitly defended in recent analytic philosophical theology, it haunts many recent discussions of the Trinity by philosophers and theologians, and seems important to non-philosophical thinking about the Trinity.

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

Comments

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  • Belief in unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (from Phrontistery)

    May 25, 2008