Trinitarianism and the problem of Infinite Regress

Trinitarianism teaches that “God is love” in 1 John 4:8 means that God is multipersonal in interpenetrating perichoritic (rotational) love from all eternity.

However, the next verse of 1 John 4:9 identifies “God” in the preceding verse as the Father, the one who sent his Son. (As clarified in 1 John 4:14.)

Thus, if “God is love” means that God is multipersonal in internal love, then as this God is actually and precisely the Father, then the Father would also be multipersonal in internal love. Since every person of the Trinitarian Godhead is co-equal, then the other two—the Son and Holy Spirit—would also be multipersonal. Furthermore, as the persons of the persons would also “be love” in shared attribution, logically they would be multipersonal as well, and those persons also, ad infinitum in Infinite Regress.

Thus, one question to ask a devout Trinitarian is how they deal with this problem of Infinite Regress.

Of course, this question is not to the exclusion of another more pressing one, namely: ‘Do you understand that Trinitarianism presents a Jesus that never really died or sacrificed anything?’

[Note: This is not to be confused with the atheist argument of Infinite Regress which asks, ‘If God created everything then who created God, and then who created him, etc. ad infinitum?’ This question fails for not taking into account that God as creator would be transcendent and therefore the laws of pedigree would not necessarily apply to Him, and most importantly, that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. Read more: The New Atheism and Five Arguments for God by William Lane Craig http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-new-atheism-and-five-arguments-for-god.]


Related reading:

• Exploring a Trinitarian Black Box
  http://jimspace3000.blogspot.com/2012/12/exploring-trinitarian-black-box.html


• Trinitarian Samples
  http://jimspace3000.blogspot.com/2016/04/trinitarian-samples.html
  (This explains how the Trinitarian Jesus never really died or sacrificed anything.)


• Sundry Dissembling Asunder
  http://jimspace3000.blogspot.com/2015/06/sundry-dissembling-asunder.html

Podcast by Professor Dale Tuggy:

• Podcast 132 – 10 Apologists’ Mistakes about the Trinity – Part 2. The argument about love is addressed from ca. 3:50-9:40. http://trinities.org/blog/podcast-132-10-apologists-mistakes-about-the-trinity-part-2/