Seventh-day Adventist Theology - Trinitarian Development, Christology and Pneumatology

Trinitarian Development, Christology and Pneumatology

Early Seventh-day Adventists came from a wide assortment of nineteenth-century American Protestant churches, highly influenced in thought and teaching by Anabaptism and Restorationism. Some early Adventists, such as two of the church's principal founders, James White and Joseph Bates, had a background in the Restorationist Christian Connection church, which rejected the Trinitarian nature of God. However, the teachings and writings of Ellen White, who was raised in a Methodist family, ultimately proved influential in shifting the church from largely Semi-Arian roots towards Trinitarianism.

Before the 1890s Ellen White made no explicit anti-Trinitarian or semi-Arian statements. However, in Desire of Ages (1898) she made the shocking, to some, statement, "In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived," which brought about the development on the view of the Godhead. Over the next several decades, other Adventists explored the Bible on the Godhead and established the Adventist Trinitarian teaching on the topic.

Gradually after "transition and conflict" in the early 20th century this view of the Godhead was confirmed in Adventist theology, and by the middle of that century the Trinity became accepted. The move towards Trinitarianism can be observed in the successive doctrinal statements of the church. The 1872 Declaration of the Fundamental Principles taught and practiced by the Seventh-day Adventists mentioned Father, Son and Holy Spirit but did not contain an explicit affirmation of the Trinity:

"That there is one God, a personal, spiritual being, the creator of all things, omnipotent, omniscient, and eternal, infinite in wisdom, holiness, justice, goodness, truth, and mercy; unchangeable, and everywhere present by his representative, the Holy Spirit.

That there is one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father, the one by whom God created all things, and by whom they do consist...

By 1931 the Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-Day Adventists included a Trinitarian statement:

That the Godhead, or Trinity, consists of the Eternal Father, a personal, spiritual Being, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, infinite in wisdom and love; the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father, through whom all things were created and through whom the salvation of the redeemed hosts will be accomplished; the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, the great regenerating power in the word of redemption.

The official Adventist fundamental beliefs, adopted in 1980, include the following as statement number 2, "Trinity":

"There is one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a unity of three co-eternal Persons. ".

What is curiously missing in this statement is an indication of whether or not the "three co-eternal persons" are of one being or of one essence. This has led to some debate among critics about whether the current Adventist view of the Trinity is orthodox, or if Adventist views are tantamount to the heresy of Tritheism. In fact, Adventist scholars themselves have actually pointed out the distinction between the Adventist view and the orthodox view of this doctrine:

"She taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct individuals, which is not true of the medieval doctrine of the Trinity."

"Ellen White's view did change—she was raised trinitarian, came to doubt some aspects of the trinitarianism she was raised on, and eventually came to a different trinitarian view from the traditional one. In her earliest writings she differed from some aspects of traditional trinitarianism and in her latest writings she still strongly opposed some aspects of the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. (4) It appears, therefore, that the trinitarian teaching of Ellen White's later writings is not the same doctrine that the early Adventists rejected.11 Rather, her writings describe two contrasting forms of trinitarian belief, one of which she always opposed, and another that she eventually endorsed."

"But I would like to say, I think there were seven non-orthodox, which means those who did not hold their brand of Trinitarianism, which we reject today, along with them. So, we probably would have been branded as Arian by the orthodox."

"What James and the other men were opposed to, we are just as opposed to as they were. Now, their solution to that, at that time, they didn't see any solution by retaining the Trinity concept, and getting rid of its distortions. But, in reality, we have been faithful to their commitment, and I know of nothing that they were objecting to, in objecting to Trinitarianism, that we have not also objected to."

"A major development since 1972 has been the quest to articulate biblical presuppositions grounding a biblical doctrine of the Trinity, clearly differentiated from the dualistic presuppositions that undergird the traditional creedal statements."

"In many ways the philosophical assumptions and presuppositions of our worldview are different from traditional Christianity and bring different perspectives on some of these old issues. We do not accept the traditional Platonic dualistic worldview and metaphysics that were foundational to the church fathers' theology of the Trinity, one of these being the concept of the immortality of the soul."

One Adventist sociology professor has described the Adventist view as follows:

"In spite of its clear monotheistic ring, the biblical account seems uncompromised on the idea of God as a group. While God has been declared to be one God (Deut. 6:4,1 Tim. 2:5), He has also been presented as a plurality of beings (1 John 5:7; Matthew 28:19; Ephesians 4:5)....What the notion of a triune (group) God seems to suggest is that the three members of the Godhead become joined in their relationship with each other, on the basis of their common purpose, values and interests."

Despite their problematic history with this touchstone doctrine, the denomination has been "officially" Trinitarian for several decades. However, there remain small factions and individuals within the church who continue to argue that the authentic, historical Adventist position is semi-Arian. Some have argued as a recent study contends, that early Adventism had neither an Arian nor Trinitarian theology, but rather a materialist one and say that Ellen White was not a major influence in the Adventist shift toward Trinitarian doctrine.