Remembering Sunday School Lessons

I didn't post anything especially Easter-ish last weekend. This post is in penance.

Modalism, in the history of Christian theology, is the doctrine (or if you will the heresy) that the three persons of the divine trinity are distinct modes of a single revelation, not distinct persons within the Godhead.

So if a theologian tries to compare the three persons of the trinity to the three states of water: ice, liquid water, and vapor, he is likely to be accused of modalism.

Modalism is is also sometimes called monergism ("the work of One"). This is generally taught together with and in contrast to partialism, the view that each of the persons of God is one-third of God. Thus, if one uses and takes too seriously St Patrick's analogy of the trinity, the three-leaf clover, one is subject to the accusation of partialism.

The two are generally taught together -- at least in the Sunday school lessons of my receding memories -- because modalism denies the genuine Threeness of God, and partialism denies the genuine Oneness.

Easter-ish enough, sister?

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