Socinus’ Unitarian Views

Socinus’ Unitarian Views

Thomas Allen

In History of the Dogma of the Deity of Jesus Christ (revised edition of 1876, translated 1878), Albert Reville, a minister of the French Reformed Church, gives a brief description of Faustus Socinus’ Unitarian views. Socinus (1539-1604) was the most famous Unitarian of the sixteenth century. His system of theology is known as Socinianism.

Socinus’ first argument against the Trinity of orthodoxy is that it is a mass of contradictions. It claims that the Deity consists of three persons “distinguished from each other by individual and exclusive properties” (p. 191): “the Father by the absoluteness of his being, the Son by the qualification of having been begotten, the Holy Spirit by that of being proceeded” (p. 191). Yet, it claims “to remain faithful to Monotheism” (p. 191). To justify the contradiction of its Trinity, orthodoxy takes “refuge in the idea of the mystery transcending human reason” (p. 191). However, “its Trinity does not transcend reason, it subverts and disowns it. . . . None of those who have endeavoured to reconcile it, however subtitle they might be, have been able to avoid either the Tritheism which denies the unity or the Modalism which denies the persons” (pp. 191-192).

Socinus’ second argument against the Trinity is that it “cannot stand against the idea of the Divine perfection” (p. 192). God can have no imperfection. So, is the property that “makes each person distinct from the other two a perfection or an imperfection” (p. 192)? If it is a perfection, then it is lacking in two out of the three persons.

Likewise, this perfection is lacking in the special relation of the Father and the Son. Orthodoxy claims that “the Son is a Divine person eternally begotten by the Father of his own substance” (p. 192). However, “God the Father possesses in Himself all perfection immutably” (p. 192). Therefore, “if He begets another God exactly similar to Himself[,] He is no longer absolutely perfect, for the existence of two absolute perfections side by side implies a contradiction” (p. 192).

Further, orthodoxy claims, “that the Son, God infinite and perfect like the Father, became man, uniting in his single person the perfect divine nature with the human nature complete” (p. 192). Thus, Christ has a “double consciousness, knowing itself to be at once infinite and finite, perfect and imperfect, insusceptible to pain and yet suffering, incapable of sin and yet tempted, knowing all things and yet ignorant of many things, praying to itself and hearing its own prayers” (pp. 192-193).

“Before the incarnation there were three Gods having the Divine nature in common” (p. 193). After the incarnation, human nature became inherent in the Deity. Thus, according to the doctrine of the Deity of Christ, “the Creator of the universe was born in the condition of the human embryo” (p. 193), and, therefore, he cried like a baby, ate, drank, slept, and died by human hands. As a consequence of his two natures, did “the man in Jesus alone passed through these vicissitudes while God remained exempt from them” (p. 193)? If so, then Nestorius, whom the Church condemned as a heretic, was correct. Optionally, “the Man-God has borne or felt in his single personal consciousness all these imperfections, . . . or the consciousness of Jesus was double; what one consciousness thought and felt was neither thought or felt by the other” (p. 193).

Moreover, according to the Socinians, the Arian Christ “is no more truly man than is the orthodoxy Christ” (pp. 193-194 fn).

Also, according to orthodoxy, “the absolute deity of Jesus is necessary for the accomplishment of his work as Redeemer, since the infinitely outrage justice of God called for an infinite satisfaction” (p. 194). However, the redemption involved some “inextricable difficulty.” “Who suffered in Jesus, the God and the man at the same time? If so, God has made satisfaction to himself, which is absurd; and we have a God suffering and dying who is no longer God. Or if only the man suffered, what becomes of the infinite expiation which was supposed to be necessary” (p. 194).

Nevertheless, the above reasoning about the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation were secondary to Socinus. Arguments from the Bible were his primary method. He asked his “opponents where the New Testament had taught the doctrine of the Trinity; in what passage Jesus had said that he was the second Divine person, and that he possessed two natures; and how they could explain, without doing violence either to their common sense or their own system, the numerous declamations in which he absolutely subordinated himself to his Heavenly Father” (p. 195). Likewise, where did his apostles make such claims?

Like Calvin, Socinus saw the unity between Jesus and God as a purely moral unity and not as any degree or identity of substance.

According to Socinus’ Christology, Jesus is a man, which is his first principle. Nevertheless, he accepts the miraculous birth of Jesus, which he maintained did not alter his true humanity. Afterward, God miraculously carried Jesus locally to heaven and revealed to him the heavenly mysteries so that he could speak them to men from personal knowledge. Then, Jesus descended from heaven and discharged his commission. After his death, he again ascended into heaven, and God deified him as a reward for his virtue. Henceforth, he lives as the dispenser of divine grace. Unlike Calvin, who opposed praying to Jesus, Socinus accepted praying to Jesus.

In the name of protecting free will, Socinus limited the omnipotence and omniscience of God.

For Socinus, the Holy Spirit was “the mechanical, external gift of certain particular graces to such men as God judged to be worthy of them” (p. 199). Consequently, Socinianism “comprehended nothing of the idea of an indwelling presence of the Divine Spirit in creation and the human soul” (p. 199).

Reville concludes “that the Socinians doctrine, apart from its criticism of orthodoxy is somewhat poor and common place, too nearly resembling the vulgar rationalism of another period, and unsuited to our modern modes of thought from a certain rigid quality it has, a something mechanical and capricious, which replaces the difficulties of orthodoxy only with affirmations quite as embarrassing” (p. 196). Socinianism used “a method of biblical exegesis intended to reconcile reason with faith in the written revelations. It assumed the necessity of submitting to Scripture, but the real meaning of each passage is what reason determined” (pp. 196-197). Socinianism “was in its dogmatic views as supernaturalistic as orthodoxy — perhaps even more so” (p. 199).

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Some Christologies

Some Christologies

Thomas Allen

    Over the centuries, several explanations have been presented about the relationship of Jesus, Christ, and the Son of God. Some of these views follow.
    1. Adoptionism. According to the Adoptionists, Jesus was a full flesh and blood human, but at some point in his life, usually at his baptism, but also at his conception or resurrection, God the Father adopted Jesus as his Christ and Son. Jesus was not divine by nature. Paulianists are an example of Adoptionists.
    2. Separationism. According to the Separationists, Jesus was born as a man. However, at some point, usually at his baptism, God the Son, Christ, entered Jesus and empowered him. Thus, Christ was the God nature, and Jesus was the human nature. Just before the crucifixion, the God nature, Christ, left the human nature, Jesus. Valentinians are an example of Separationists.
    3. Docetism. According to the Docetists, Jesus was completely divine; he was God himself. Thus, Jesus was not really human; he only seemed human. Moreover, he did not really die or suffer on the cross; he only appeared to have suffered. Marcionites are an example of Docetists.
    4. Patripassianism or Modalistic Monarchianism. According to the Patripassianists, Jesus was one of the three manifestations or modes of God; the other two manifestations were the Father and the Holy Spirit. Thus, Jesus was God himself because God is unipersonal. Jesus was the incarnation of God. For Patripassianists, God himself came to earth as Jesus Christ and suffered on the cross. Sabellians are an example of Patripassianists. Today, Oneness Pentecostals represent Patripassianism.
    5. Creationism. According to Creationists, Jesus was specially created as the Son of God and Christ before his conception — usually God’s first creation. Jesus was this preexisting being incarnated, and this preexisting being is usually thought of being to Jesus what the soul is to other men. In any event, he is not eternal and is subordinated to the Father. The Christ of the Creationists is neither deity nor human; he is a super-angelic being. Arians are an example of preexisting Creationists. Today, Jehovah’s Witnesses represent Creationism.
    6. Begottenism (for want of a better term). According to Begottenism, Jesus had only one nature: human; he was never divine or had a divine nature. He was born a man, lived as a man but without sin, died as a man, and was resurrected a man. Jesus is literally the Son of God, i.e., God is his father, who is miraculously endowed and exceedingly divinely inspired far beyond any prophet with an extremely close relationship with God. Jesus came into being when God begot him in the womb of Mary to be his Messiah. The divinity of the Son is that of the Father residing in him and acting by him. Although Jesus only has a human nature and never has a divine nature, some Begottenists believe that he was deified whereas other reject this notion. A major difference between Begottenism and Adoptionism is that Begottenists maintain that Jesus was begotten as the Messiah; he was the Messiah from conception. Most Adoptionists believe that God adopted Jesus as the Messiah after he was born. Photinians and  Socinians are examples of Begottenists. Today, Christadelphians represent Begottenism.
    7. Humanism. Jesus is just a man, a “mere” man, the son of Joseph, albeit an extraordinary man. He lived an righteous life, whose example and teachings should be followed. Apparently, he has no more of a special relationship with God that any other man. He was just another holy man like Zoroaster, Buddha, and Mohammed. Naturally, he is void of any divinity. Today, Unitarian-Universalists represent Humanism.
    Note: Both Monophysites and Dyophysites, which follow, are Nicaean Trinitarians. They believe in three Gods, yet not three Gods, but one God. As stated in the Athanasian Creed, “So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.”
    7. Monophysitism. According to the Monophysites, Christ, the Incarnate Word, had only one nature: either divine or a composite nature of the human and divine, i.e., Miaphysitism. Related to Monophysitism was Apollinarianism, which maintained that the divine Logos functioned as the mind of Christ, who possessed a real, imperfect human body. Today, Monophysitism as Miaphysitism survives in the Oriental Orthodox Churches. Also, Monophysitism is found in liberation theology.
    8. Dyophysitism. According to the Dyophysites, Jesus is fully human and fully God. He possesses two natures, human and divine, in one person, without confusion of substance. That is, Jesus is 100 percent human and 100 percent God united in one person without any confusion of the two natures. Dyophysitism is the doctrine of Orthodox Christianity. It is expressed in the Athanasian Creed as follows: “Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man. God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of substance of His mother, born in the world. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.” Closely related to the Trinitarians are the Nestorians, who also believe the Nicaean Trinitarian Creed; however, they rejected the doctrine of “Mary the Mother of God” and were thus declared heretics. Nestorians were also condemned for declaring that Jesus had two natures: divine and human. Nestorianism survives today in the Assyrian Church.
    Except for Monophysitism, Patripassianism, and some interpretations of Dyophysitism and most followers of Humanism, all of the above Christologies maintain a supreme God who is eternal, immortal, immutable, and impassible. Because Monophysites, Patripassianists, and some Dyophysites have God suffering and even dying on the cross, their God is not eternal (the eternal cannot die), immortal (although he comes back to life), immutable, or impassible (an impassible being cannot suffer). Obviously, two different Gods are being worshiped. One God is eternal, immortal, immutable, and impassible; the other is mortal, mutable, and passible.

Copyright © 2018 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Religious Development in the Sixteenth Century

Religious Development in the Sixteenth Century
Thomas Allen

AlombradosThe Alombrados, the Illuminati of Spain, was an illuministic sect founded about 1520 in Salamanca, Spain. By a supernatural or “illuminated” union of minds, initiates concentrated on the will of the master. They taught a form of Gnosticism. Man’s spirit could attain direct knowledge of God—thus, rendering trappings of formal religion unnecessary for those who found the light. In 1623 the Grand Inquisition condemned and suppressed the Alombrados. Out of the Alombrados came Ignatius Loyola.

Jesuits
Loyola, a Spanish nobleman and soldier and a member of the Alombrados, founded the Order of the Jesuits (Society of Jesus) in 1541. It was ostensibly founded to defend the Catholic faith and the pope. The doctrines of the Society of Jesus are similar to those of the Jewish Mishnah.[1] Like the Assassins, Jesuits had unquestionable, unhesitating obedience to the Order’s cause and its leaders. It was divided into six grades. Its initiate rituals and ceremonies resembled those used by the Assassins and Freemasons.

According to Chaitkin, “The Venetian house of Contarini detained Ignatius Loyola, and obliged him to head up a new worldwide secret intelligence service to serve the Venetian interests, the Jesuits.”[2] The Jesuits became the pope’s intelligence agencies, the Vatican’s CIA. The Order’s primary goal was to destroy Protestantism. In carrying out its objective, it used indoctrination, blackmail, and coercion. The Jesuits are credited with, among other great historical events, the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, fomentation of the Thirty Years War, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685.

Knights of Malta
When Rhodes failed to the Turks in 1522, the Hospitalers who were on the island fled to Malta. Here they reorganized as the Sovereign and Military Order of Malta or the Knights of Malta. Some recent members of the Knights of Malta are William F. Buckley (“conservative” writer), William Casey (CIA director), J. Peter Grace (chairman of W. R. Grace Co.), Alexander Haig (Reagan’s Secretary of State), Joseph P. Kennedy, Lee Iacocca (chairman of Chrysler), Clare Boothe Luce (American dramatist and diplomat), John McCone (CIA director), William Simon (Nixon’s Secretary of the Treasury), and William Wilson (ambassador to the Vatican). Today, the Knights of Malta serves as the principal channel of communication between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Vatican.[3]

Peasant’s War
In 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, and the Reformation was underway. The disturbance caused by the Reformation gave Illuminists many opportunities to work their mischief. They began by stirring up the peasants in Germany. They moved on to remove the Church condemnation of usury, a la Calvin, and to attack the divine nature of a resurrected Jesus, a la Socinus.

The year 1520 is often cited as the starting point of the leftist revolutionary movement:[4] unrestrained sensual pleasure; destruction of the family; collective ownership of property; subversion of science, literature, and arts; democratic despotic government; mass slaughter; and animosity toward God, i.e., the God of the Christians, and Christianity. The leader of this revolution was Thomas Munzer, a disciple of Nicholas Storck. Munzer claimed that inspiration came not from the Bible but from divine illumination or inner light. He devised a communistic doctrine of unrestricted equality. He advocated abolishing all temporal authority. His goal was to establish a theocratic communistic state. His preaching led to the Peasants’ War in 1524.

The Peasants’ War was an uprising of German peasants and of poor classes of the towns. Once the revolt broke out, Munzer took control when he came to the aid of Heinrich Pfeiffer. The revolt was crushed in 1525, and Munzer was beheaded.

A similar revolt occurred in Munster between 1533 and 1535. Like the Peasants’ War, this revolt sought equality and communion of goods. Lasciviousness was popular among the rebels.

Calvinism
According to Mullins, Calvinism was one of those movements organized by Illuminists that sweep across Europe periodically creating revolutions or turmoil.[5] Unlike previous Christian sects, Calvinism was compatible with the money interest. Instead of emphasizing austerity and vows of poverty, it approved of charging interest and acquiring wealth.

John Calvin of Noyons, France was the founder of Calvinism. His “religious movement was based on a literal Jewish interpretation of the Ten Commandments, Old Testament philosophy, and the prohibition of graven images.”[6] With the rise of Calvinism came the expansion of Jews into commercial activities besides banking, which they had historically dominated.

Calvinism revealed its kinship with Oriental despotism of Nimrod by its coercive nature. With his Ecclesiastical Ordinance, Calvin imposed absolute discipline on the inhabitants of Geneva. The penalty for objecting to Calvinism was death.

SocinusIn 1547, Laelius Socinus met with like-minded people in Vicenza. They laid plans to overturn orthodox Christianity and to replace it with their doctrines. They proposed executing their plans through a secret society. Upon learning of this conspiracy, the Republic of Venice captured and executed two members, Julian Trevisano and Francis de Rugo. The others fled and became involved in forming or capturing other secret societies across Europe. The secret society of Vicenza is among the ancestors of modern-day Freemasonry.[7]

Faustus Socinus, a Rosicrucian and nephew of Laelius Socinus, got his uncle’s papers after his uncle’s death. Using the doctrines in his uncle’s papers, he founded Socinianism from which came Unitarianism.

Socinianism rejected the teachings that Jesus had a divine nature. He was merely the human instrument of divine mercy. The Holy Spirit was nothing more than the activity of God. Although the Scriptures were considered authoritative, they were interpreted from the perspective of rationalism.

HuguenotsAnother reformation movement was the Huguenots. Huguenots were the Calvinist Protestants (Presbyterians) of France. They founded their church in 1559. The Huguenot massacres began in France soon after Catherine de Medici became Regent on the accession of her son, Charles IX. In 1568, she issued an edict that outlawed the Huguenots. As Huguenots had acquired great wealth, placing them outside the law invited their plunder. Hoping to prevent the impending slaughter of a tenth of his population, Charles began negotiating with the Huguenot leaders. While Charles negotiated, Catherine plotted their extermination. When Huguenot leaders assembled in negotiation, Catherine’s forces attacked and killed them. She had killed all the important Huguenot leaders. This massacre occurred on August 24, 1572, and became known as St. Bartholomew’s Massacre. This massacre lead to others until most Huguenots had been killed or driven from France. King Charles died soon after his mother betrayed his trust. His son Henry II died at the hands of an assassin because he seemed unwilling to slaughter the Huguenots.

The Huguenots received an uneasy peace between the issuance of the Edit of Nantes by Henry IV in 1598 and it revocation in 1685 by Louis XIV. Its revocation resulted in most of the remaining Huguenots fleeing France for the American colonies. (France’s unnecessary loss became America’s fortunate gain. France’s decline can be dated from the St. Bartholomew’s Massacre.)


Endnotes
1. Eustace Mullins, The Curse of Canaan: A Demonology of History (Staunton, Virginia: Revelation Book, 1987), p. 91.

2. Anton Chaitkin, Treason in America From Aaron Burr to Averell Harriman (New York, New York: New Benjamin Franklin House, 1984), p. 141.

3. Jim Marrs, Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids (New York, New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2000), pp. 312-313.

4. Clarence Kelly, Conspiracy Against God and Man: A Study of the Beginnings and Early History of the Great Conspiracy (Belmont, Massachusetts: Western Islands, 1974), p. 29.

5. Mullins, pp. 81-83.

6. Ibid., p. 81.

7. Denis Fahey, Grand Orient: Freemasonry Unmasked as the Secret Power behind Communism through Discovery of Lost Lectures Delivered by Monsignor George F. Dillon, D.D. at Edinburgh, in October 1884 (New and Revised Edition. Metairie, Louisiana: Sons of Liberty, 1950), pp. 12-13.

ReferenceChaitkin, Anton. Treason in America From Aaron Burr to Averell Harriman. New York, New York: New Benjamin Franklin House, 1984.

Daraul, Arkon. A History of Secret Societies. New York, New York: The Citadel Press, 1961.

Fahey, Denis. Grand Orient: Freemasonry Unmasked as the Secret Power behind Communism through Discovery of Lost Lectures Delivered by Monsignor George F. Dillon, D.D. at Edinburgh, in October 1884. New and Revised Edition. Metairie, Louisiana: Sons of Liberty, 1950.

Kah, Gary H. The New World Religion. Noblesville, Indiana: Hope International Publishing, Inc., 1998.

Kelly, Clarence. Conspiracy Against God and Man: A Study of the Beginnings and Early History of the Great Conspiracy. Belmont, Massachusetts: Western Islands, 1974.

Marrs, Jim. Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids. New York, New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2000.

Monteith, Stanley. Brotherhood of Darkness. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Hearthstone, 2000.

Mullins, Eustace. The Curse of Canaan: A Demonology of History. Staunton, Virginia: Revelation Book, 1987.

Preuss, Arthur. A Dictionary of Secret and Other Societies. St. Louis, Missouri: B. Herder Book Co., 1924.

Queenborough, Lady (Edith Starr Miller). Occult Theocracy. Two Volumes. Hawthorne, California: The Christian Book Club of America, 1933.

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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