Answering Modalism: One God in Three Persons

In the garden of Gethsemane, on the last free night of his life, Jesus of Nazareth fell on his face and prayed: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). It is one of the most searching scenes in all of Scripture—the Son of God in anguish, sweating as it were great drops of blood, asking for another way and then surrendering his will to his Father’s. And it raises a question that, once you see it, you cannot un-see: to whom is he praying?

For most Christians the answer is obvious: the Son is speaking to the Father. But there is an old and earnest tradition, rejected by the church since the third century, that cannot accept that answer at face value—because it holds that the Father and the Son are not two who can speak to one another, but one and the same divine person wearing two different faces. This is modalism, and the question of Gethsemane is, in miniature, the whole argument between it and the historic faith.

What Modalism Claims

Modalism is the teaching that God is a single divine person who is revealed in three modes, roles, or manifestations. Its ancient forms were usually pictured as successive—as Father in creation and the giving of the law, as Son in redemption, and as Holy Spirit in the life of the church—while its leading modern theologian, David Bernard, holds that the one omnipresent God can manifest himself in all three at once. On either view there are not three who are God; there is one who is God, appearing under three titles—as a single actor might play three parts, or as one man may be at once a father to his children, a son to his parents, and a husband to his wife.

The motive behind the view should be stated accurately: modalism is trying to guard the oneness of God. The Shema of Israel is uncompromising—“Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4)—and modalists fear that talk of three persons smuggles in a second and third God by the back door. They would rather say there is one God, full stop, who has worn three masks across the drama of salvation. That instinct—jealousy for monotheism—is not a vice. It is half of the truth the doctrine of the Trinity is built to protect.

The historic church has nonetheless judged modalism to be a serious error, and given it a string of names. In the early centuries it was called monarchianism (from the concern to protect God’s sole monarchia, his single rule), and more specifically modalistic monarchianism or Sabellianism, after Sabellius, a teacher active in Rome in the early third century. Because it makes the Father the one who suffers on the cross—there being no distinct Son to do the suffering—it also earned the mocking label Patripassianism: “the Father suffers.”¹

Sabellius, Praxeas, and the ancient response

We know the early modalists mostly through their opponents, which calls for some caution about details. Noetus of Smyrna and a figure named Praxeas taught, according to the church fathers, that the Father himself was born of the virgin and suffered on the cross. The decisive early reply came from Tertullian of Carthage, whose treatise Against Praxeas (c. AD 210–213) is one of the first sustained defenses of trinitarian distinctions. Tertullian’s verdict was withering: “By this Praxeas did a twofold service for the devil at Rome: he drove away prophecy, and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father.”² It was Tertullian who gave Latin theology its enduring formula—one substance, three persons (una substantia, tres personae)—and who insisted the three are distinct “not in condition, but in degree＊Order, not rankIs sayingTertullian's word is gradus, “step” or order: the persons are distinct in their order of relation (Father, Son, Spirit) within one substance.Not sayingNot that the Son or Spirit is God to a lesser degree. The creedal faith this essay defends holds the three co-equal and co-eternal, one in substance and power.; not in substance, but in form” (Against Praxeas 2).³ Sabellius was excommunicated at Rome around AD 220, and modalism was repudiated across the church well before the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) gave the Trinity its creedal shape.

Modalism today: Oneness Pentecostalism

Modalism is not merely a museum piece. Its largest modern form is Oneness Pentecostalism, which emerged out of the “New Issue” controversy among American Pentecostals around 1913–1916, when some came to baptize converts “in the name of Jesus” alone rather than with the triune formula of Matthew 28:19. The movement’s largest body is the United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI), and its most influential systematic theologian is David K. Bernard, the UPCI’s general superintendent, whose book The Oneness of God (1983) is the standard scholarly statement of the position.⁴

It is worth being precise and fair about what Bernard and the UPCI actually hold, because Oneness theology is more nuanced than its caricature. Bernard affirms one God, the absolute deity of Jesus Christ, and rejects the charge that he denies the threeness of biblical language. His claim is that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are real and meaningful—but as “manifestations, modes, offices, or relationships” of the one God, not as three distinct persons.⁵ Crucially, Bernard locates the deity of the Son in the indwelling Father: “the Son” refers to God-as-incarnate, while the prayers and submissions of Jesus express the relationship of his genuine humanity to the deity dwelling in him. It is held by many people who are sincere and devout, and it should be engaged, not sneered at (1 Peter 3:15) — engaged, that is, as the serious error the rest of this essay shows it to be.

The Texts Oneness Believers Press

The Oneness case is built from Scripture, and a fair hearing means stating its best texts at full strength before answering them.

The absolute deity of Jesus. Oneness theology leans first on passages that exalt Christ as fully God. “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). If all the fullness of deity is in Jesus, the argument runs, what is left over to be a separate person called the Father? Add Isaiah’s great messianic oracle: the child to be born is called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Here, the Oneness reader says, the Son is named Father outright—Scripture itself collapses the distinction.

The unity sayings of John. Then come Jesus’ own words. “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). And to Philip: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father… Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (John 14:9–10). On the Oneness reading these are not careful statements of two-in-one-essence; they are plain identifications. To see Jesus is to see the Father, because Jesus simply is the Father made visible.

The one name in baptism. Finally, the baptismal evidence. Jesus commands baptism “in the name”—singular—“of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Yet the apostles, who heard that command, baptized “in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38; cf. 8:16; 10:48; 19:5). For Bernard the conclusion is irresistible: the single name behind the three titles is Jesus, because Father, Son, and Spirit are one God whose saving name is Jesus.⁶ This is the steelman, stated at full strength so that it can be answered at full strength.

The Biblical Case for Three Distinct Persons

The historic reply does not retreat one inch on the points modalism cares about. Orthodoxy insists, with the Nicene Creed, on one God, and on the full and equal deity of the Son and the Spirit—“true God from true God.” Both sides confess one God and call Jesus God — but Oneness locates the deity of the Son in the indwelling Father, so that “the Son” refers to God-as-incarnate. The real question is whether the one God is a single person or three coequal, coeternal persons who share one undivided being. And here the texts that resist modalism are not a verse or two but the structure of the New Testament itself.

Three present at once

Begin where modalism is weakest: scenes in which all three are on stage simultaneously. At Jesus’ baptism, the Son comes up out of the water, the Spirit descends upon him like a dove, and a voice comes from heaven—“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16–17). Three distinct presences, at one moment, with one of them speaking about another. A single actor can change masks between scenes; he cannot wear all three at once and converse across them. Successive modes cannot share one scene; persons can act together. Modern Oneness theology replies that the omnipresent God can manifest himself in heaven, in the dove, and in the man Jesus at once. But omnipresence explains how one person can be in three places, not how he can address himself: one person cannot, in the same moment, speak from heaven to another as “my beloved Son” and be the Son who is spoken of—three in relationship, not one in three places. And manifestation cannot absorb John 17: the glory the Son “had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5) was not a manifestation to anyone.

The Son prays to the Father

The deepest evidence is the prayer life of Jesus, of which Gethsemane is the sharpest case. “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39) is a real will yielded to another real will＊Distinct persons, one divine willIs sayingThe incarnate Son, a person truly distinct from the Father, genuinely submits — the whole point against modalism: Father and Son are not one person wearing masks.Not sayingNot that the Father and Son are two separate divine wills, still less two gods. The one God has one undivided will; in Gethsemane it is the Son's genuine human will freely yielding to the divine will he eternally shares with the Father.. The Oneness reply, which we should answer rather than caricature, is that the genuine human nature of Jesus is here addressing the deity indwelling him—flesh speaking to the Spirit within a single person. The decisive answer is the high-priestly prayer of John 17, because it reaches behind the incarnation altogether. There the petitioner asks for “the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5), and says “you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). The one praying speaks of a relationship that obtained before any human nature existed to do the addressing—so the petitioner cannot be the human nature speaking to the indwelling deity; he is the pre-existent divine Son, asking the Father to restore a shared glory the two of them knew before creation. Love between Father and Son before the world began is not a manifestation to anyone; it is eternal interpersonal fact—the very thing a mode can never be. Oneness teachers reply that this glory existed only in God’s plan. But Jesus does not say he was foreknown; he says he had glory “with you” before the world existed (John 17:5)—a shared possession, not a place in a plan. (The phrase “before the foundation of the world” in 17:24 is used elsewhere of God’s foreknowing purpose—Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20—so the weight rests on 17:5.)

The Father bears witness to the Son

Jesus himself counts persons. Challenged on whether his self-testimony is valid, he appeals to the Mosaic law that requires two witnesses: “I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me” (John 8:17–18). On the modalist accounting—one person in two roles—that is a single witness testifying twice, and Jesus’ own argument collapses. It works only if Father and Son are genuinely two. (If the reply is that the two are Jesus’ deity and his humanity, the law Jesus invokes counts the testimony of two people (John 8:17)—and natures do not testify; persons do.) The Father also speaks to the Son and of the Son—at the transfiguration, and at “Father, glorify your name,” answered by a voice from heaven (John 12:28).

The Spirit sent by Father and Son

Finally, the sending of the Spirit. Jesus promises “another Helper” (John 14:16). The Greek is allos, which often (though not always, in New Testament Greek) means another of the same kind—and the context bears that out: the Spirit teaches, reminds, and bears witness as Jesus did (John 14:26; 15:26). The Son will ask the Father, and the Father will give the Spirit; later the Son himself sends the Spirit “from the Father” (John 15:26). A king does not petition himself to send himself, and a mode is not “another” Helper at all. The grammar of sending presupposes a sender and a sent who are distinct. So too the risen Christ stands “at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55–56), where Stephen sees not one but two—Jesus standing beside the glory of God. A right hand requires someone whose right hand it is.

Answering the Oneness Texts

None of the strong Oneness texts, read in context, actually requires modalism—and several positively resist it.

“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). The word for “one” here is neuter (hen), not masculine (heis). Jesus does not say “the Father and I are one person”; he says we are one thing—one in unity, power, and purpose. This is exactly how the church has always read it: a statement of shared being between two who are distinct, not of identity. And the immediate context confirms it—a verse earlier Jesus distinguishes “my Father, who has given them to me” from himself (John 10:29).

“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The next verse interprets it: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:10). Seeing the Son reveals the Father not because the Son is the Father but because of their mutual indwelling—the Son is the perfect image and revelation of the Father (cf. Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). Crucially, the very same discourse has the Son praying to the Father, being sent by the Father, and returning to the Father. A reading of John 14:9 that erases the distinction cannot survive its own chapter.

“Everlasting Father” (Isaiah 9:6). The Hebrew is ’abi·‘ad, literally “Father of eternity.” In Semitic idiom “father of X” commonly means the source, possessor, or characteristic bearer of X—as Jabal is “the father of those who dwell in tents” (Genesis 4:20), and as Eliakim the steward is to be “a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (Isaiah 22:21) without being their parent. The title casts the Messiah as the eternal one, the fatherly source and everlasting protector of his people—a role-title in a list of role-titles (“Wonderful Counselor,” “Prince of Peace”).⁷ It names what the Son is to his people, not which person he is. Trinitarian theology has always held that the three persons share every divine perfection—eternity included—while remaining distinct persons.

“The fullness of deity” (Colossians 2:9). This text the orthodox affirm without reservation: Jesus is fully and completely God. But “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” tells us that Christ lacks nothing of Godhood; it does not tell us that there is no distinct person of the Father. The full deity of the Son is precisely what Nicaea defends—and the same Paul who wrote Colossians 2:9 opened the letter by thanking “God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Colossians 1:3).

Baptism in Jesus’ name (Acts 2:38). The Oneness case leans hardest on this text, so it needs a full answer. “In the name of Jesus Christ” in Acts is most naturally read not as a liturgical formula competing with Matthew 28:19 but as a description of Christian baptism—baptism into allegiance to Jesus as Lord, marking converts off from John’s baptism and from the synagogue. Luke records varied wording (“in the name of the Lord Jesus,” “in the name of Jesus Christ”), which tells against a fixed verbal formula. And the inference Oneness draws—that Father, Son, and Spirit are therefore one person—simply does not follow: that three share one name can equally express the unity of three persons in one God, which is how the church has always read Jesus’ striking singular “in the name” in Matthew 28:19.

The Strongest Objection, and the Honest Reply

The deepest Oneness challenge is not exegetical but theological, and it should be given in its most pointed form. It runs: be honest—three persons who love one another, send one another, and submit to one another are three gods by any working definition. Oneness took the Shema seriously; you embroidered it. Your “distinct persons” always slides, in practice, into tritheism. This is a serious objection, and it must not be waved away. Its ablest contemporary exponent, the analytic philosopher Dale Tuggy (author of the “Trinity” entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), presses a version of it not toward Oneness modalism but toward a strict unitarianism in which God is the Father alone—which is a reminder that whatever answers the “three gods” charge must not, in doing so, collapse the three back into one person.

The reply turns on what actually makes for many gods. Polytheism counts gods by separable essences—Zeus and Poseidon are two because they have two distinct natures, two wills, divisible turf, and can act against one another. The persons of the Trinity have one undivided divine essence, one will, one power; nothing is parceled out among them. This is why the church rejected tritheism wherever it appeared, and why the Athanasian Creed insists on “neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.” The Son is not a second instance of deity; he is the one God, eternally the Son. To refute modalism by drifting into tritheism would simply trade one error for its opposite—and the same Scripture that forbids collapsing the persons forbids dividing the being. The reply here answers the tritheism charge, not the further philosophical puzzle of how one being is three persons—which the essay concedes below it does not claim to dissolve.

Here the deepest cost of modalism comes into view, and it is not arithmetic but the gospel. Scripture reveals that God did not become loving when he made the world: “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and the Father loved the Son “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24), in the glory the Son “had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). The Trinity lets those texts stand together, so that God’s love neither waits on creation nor divides the God who is one; modalism has no eternal Beloved to point to. And the salvation the gospel offers is precisely adoption into that communion—to be brought, by the Spirit, into the Son’s relationship with the Father (Romans 8:15–17; John 17:21). On the modalist account there is no eternal Father–Son communion to be brought into. In saving the oneness, modalism spends the relationship that the gospel exists to share.

The State of the Question

Among historians and theologians across the confessional spectrum—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant—there is no live dispute that modalism falls outside Nicene orthodoxy; that judgment was settled in the third and fourth centuries and has never been seriously reopened. The genuinely live conversation is elsewhere. First, there is real and respectful scholarly engagement between trinitarian and Oneness Pentecostal theologians—seen in the official Oneness–Trinitarian Pentecostal Dialogue (2002–2007) sponsored by the Society for Pentecostal Studies, and in critical assessments by Gregory Boyd (a former Oneness believer) and others—over exegesis, church history, and what counts as biblical monotheism.⁸ Second, within orthodox theology itself there are vigorous debates about how to state the doctrine: how strongly to press the social-trinitarian language of three “centers of consciousness” (defended by Cornelius Plantinga and others) versus the classical-theist caution that such language risks the very tritheism modalism warns against. Critics of social trinitarianism—including Brian Leftow and Karen Kilby—argue that overemphasizing the distinctness of the persons concedes too much to the modalist’s complaint.⁹ That internal debate is healthy, and it shows the Oneness concern is taken seriously even by those who reject the Oneness conclusion.

Honesty also requires conceding what the Trinity does not claim to do. It does not dissolve the mystery. The doctrine states the data—one God, three distinct persons, full equality—and rules out the failed solutions (modalism on one side, tritheism and Arian subordinationism on the other); it does not pretend to comprehend how one being is three persons. The analogies all limp: water’s three states are actually modalism (the same water, usually one at a time); three men sharing humanity are actually tritheism. The orthodox confess a reality that exceeds every illustration, and they should say so plainly.

Conclusion

Modalism holds fast to one true thing—that there is one God—and any answer that loses that truth, or the full deity of Jesus Christ, has answered badly. But both sides call Jesus God in different senses: Oneness locates the deity of the Son in the indwelling Father. So modalism is a serious error, as the historic church has judged. It secures the oneness at a price Scripture will not let it pay: it must turn the Son’s prayers into soliloquy, the Father’s voice at the Jordan into ventriloquism, and the eternal love of Father for Son into nothing at all. The biblical data are stubborn. Three are present at the baptism; the Son prays to the Father, real address to one who is really other; the Father bears witness as a second witness; the Spirit is sent, asked for, and given, “another” of the same kind.

The doctrine of the Trinity does not invent these distinctions; it reads them off the page—while refusing, just as firmly, to let them multiply into three gods. One God, undivided in being; three coequal, coeternal, genuinely distinct persons, eternally in love. That is the needle modalism cannot thread and the gospel cannot do without. To the Oneness believer who fears for monotheism, the trinitarian says: your jealousy for the one God is honored, not abandoned—come and keep it, and keep the Father’s love for the Son as well.