Dr Paul Allen

The early church fought off false teachers and doctrines to obtain a better understanding of what the Bible teaches about who God is and how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relate to one another in terms of their existence and works. They thought deeply and biblically regarding the Scripture’s affirmation that we worship one God in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In so doing, the church defended biblical truth against three errors: modalism, Arianism, and semi-Arianism. Yet, these errors did not go away but have periodically reappeared throughout church history. MODALISM Modalism1 arose in the late second and early third centuries when theologians promoted the doctrine of Monarchianism. Monarchianism (from the Greek mono, “one,” and arch, “ruler”) is the heretical doctrine that teaches that the one God is only one person who manifests Himself in different ways at different times. A third-century theologian by the name of Sabellius (c. AD 215) could not reconcil...

Does the Book of Mormon teach a Trinitarian concept of God? Some have assumed so because certain verses taken separately do seem to use Trinitarian language. However, taken as a whole, the Book of Mormon lends itself more to a modalistic understanding of God rather than Trinitarian. Modalism is an old heresy that attempts to defend monotheism, but does so at the expense of “confounding the persons” within the godhead. Modalists claim that God manifests himself in different  modes . For example, God is revealed as Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Holy Spirit as the giver of grace. Christianity affirms that there is one true and living God while also affirming that this one God exists eternally in three  Persons  — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Holy Spirit, nor is the Holy Spirit the same person as the Father. All possess the same divine nature but they do not represent three separate Gods. There is no e...