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Chapter 2
Ditheistic Oneness
(Binitarian or Bi-personal)

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Defining the Oneness of God

by Carl Franklin

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Ditheistic Oneness (Binitarian or
Bi-personal)

Another little known concept of God's oneness is Ditheism (also called
Bi-personal or Binitarianism), the belief that there are two personal,
intelligent, equally powerful Beings Who are both God. These two Beings
possess personality and spiritual senses, experience emotions, and have
spiritual bodies with arms and legs, and heads with eyes, ears, noses and
mouths.

These divine Beings are Persons in the true sense of the word. They
communicate with mankind through spiritual thought (prayer) and through
Their written Word. They are revealed in the Old Testament both as
Jehovah and Elohim, and individually as the Ancient of days
and the Son of man (Daniel 7:13-14, 22). They are revealed in the New
Testament as God the Father and God the Son. There is no other God besides
these two Beings. In this sense they are the only God.

Although few people today have ever heard the terms Ditheism or
Binitarianism, the belief in two divine Beings was widely held among
Christians in early New Testament times. As one authority states,"...the
whole history of early Christianity gives us abundant examples of
Binitarian thought" (Essays on the Trinity and the
Incarnation, edited by A. E. J. Rawlinson, p. 201).

Contrary to modern opinion, the doctrine of Trinitarianism did not
naturally develop from the teachings of the early New Testament Church. In
fact, a study of early Christian beliefs shows that:

"contemporary [New Testament] thought-- if it had been
allowed to mold or influence the [modern] Christian conception of God in
any way--would have produced a doctrine not of three, but of two
persons in the Godhead. Further, there is ample evidence to show
that it did actually have such an effect; and that Trinitarianism had
to fight its way and make good its footing against a strong
tendency, both within and without the Church, towards belief in a
Godhead of two persons only" (Ibid., p.162).

Even early Jewish belief did not totally reject the concept of a
Bi-personal or Binitarian God. Here is a striking admission:

"If, then, we find that, without abandoning his
dominant monotheism, the pious Jew was prepared to admit a divine
Being distinguishable in name and function from Jahweh, and to
some degree self- existent, of whom personal relationship with man
is predicable, we must conclude that even this strict school of
monotheism recognized at least the possibility of a bi-personal
God" (Ibid., p. 184).

As the doctrine of Trinitarianism began to develop, the early
Binitarian Christians were caught in a controversy over the two
opposing beliefs. It was " a struggle between a Binitarian and
Trinitarian interpretation of the Christian facts--a
struggle which maintained itself for nearly four centuries
[spanning one fifth of the entire history of Christianity]" (Ibid.,
p. 199).

A major element of the controversy was the relationship of Christ
and the Holy Spirit. Was the Spirit a distinct person, or did the
Spirit come from Christ as His power? Rawlinson, an Anglican bishop
and scholar, finds abundant evidence in the New Testament to
illustrate a strong Christian belief in the Spirit as the power of
Christ and the Father. He states,

" . . . in the New Testament, there can be no
doubt that the other strain of thought in which the Spirit is
regarded in the main as an 'influence,' 'gift,' or 'power' sent by
the Father and the Son, and not as a distinct person, is fully
represented. M. Lebreton [Les Origines du Dogme de la
Trinite, pp. 347-348] repeatedly admits that large
numbers of texts represent the Spirit as an impersonal force, both
in Acts and in St. Paul" (Ibid., p. 203).

Rawlinson makes it clear that the apostle Paul did not regard the
Holy Spirit as a distinct person, but as the power of Christ. He
writes,

"When, therefore, we are told, as we commonly are,
that St. Paul 'identifies' the Risen Christ with the Spirit [2
Corinthians 3], we must assume the critics to mean that his
theology in the main belongs to the second (or 'Macedonian') type
previously mentioned. A second divine being, who may be called
indifferently the 'Son,' 'Image,' or 'Wisdom' of the Father
...has been incarnate among men, and now from his risen sphere
extends his fellowship to men and sheds out his influence
[through the Holy Spirit as just attested] upon those who accept
it" (Ibid., pp. 204-205).

Rawlinson further attests to the contrast between Trinitarianism
and the Binitarian theology of the apostle Paul:

"The result of his [the apostle Paul's] innovation,
however, is to reinforce the conclusion that we cannot eliminate
from his thought a very large admixture of purely Binitarian
elements, in which the Spirit--if distinguished from Christ at
all--is distinguished as the thing from the person, the gift from
its giver, the influence from its fount, and not as one hypostasis
in the Godhead from another " (Ibid., p. 207).

The writings of the apostle Paul clearly reveal a Binitarian view
of the Holy Spirit. The predominance of Binitarian thought in early
Christianity is evident not only in Paul's epistles but also in
other New Testament epistles, as Rawlinson shows in the following
summary:

"Of the seventeen Epistles which open with the
invocation of 'grace and peace' or the like upon the readers, in
thirteen these gifts are specifically mentioned as coming from
'God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ'; in two there is
explicit mention of the first two Persons of the Trinity in the
same context, though not definitely as the source of grace; in one
(Colossians) the reading varies between 'from God' and 'from God
and Christ'; in one only (1 Peter ) is there any mention of the
Spirit at all, and then not as a source of grace. Of the formulae
of thanksgiving or blessing which in eleven cases follow the
opening salutation, three are addressed to the Father alone, one
to the Father and the Son, six to the Father with an immediate and
closely related mention of the Son (e.g. 'the God and Father of
Our Lord Jesus Christ'); one is quite vague; but in not a single
case is there any mention of the Spirit at all. The facts are
startling in their importance. Here are formulae as fixed and
solemn, in their way, as the baptismal formula itself; twenty-two
of them are definitely Binitarian, only one [in 1 Peter ] is
[remotely] Trinitarian " (Ibid., pp. 203-204).

The New Testament bears ample evidence of the Binitarian beliefs
of the apostles of Jesus Christ. Yet in the centuries that followed,
the doctrine of Trinitarianism came to dominate Christian thought.
If the apostles of Christ did not profess the Trinity, upon what
authority was the doctrine of Trinitarianism introduced into the
Christian Church? How can the acceptance of Trinitarianism as a
Christian doctrine be explained? Rawlinson gives the answer when he
states that:

"...if the faith [in the Trinity] be logically and
empirically unverifiable [not supported by the New Testament],
even the fact that the earliest [Roman] Christians held it cannot
vindicate it, unless our appeal be to bare authority [of the Roman
church] and that alone " (Ibid., p. 210).

It is a historical fact that the doctrine of the Trinity entered
the New Testament church through the influence of Rome. As the
influence of the Roman church grew, belief in the Trinity spread
throughout the Christian churches. In time, the doctrine of
Trinitarianism replaced the earlier Christian belief in a
Bi-personal God.

Although Trinitarianism had the greatest influence on Christian
belief in the early centuries, the doctrine of Modalism also had its
effect. Introduced by the philosopher Sabellius about 100 A.D., the
teaching that Jesus and the Father were one and the same God soon
had followers in many churches. While some Christians embraced this
Modalist teaching, other Christians denounced it as heresy. A record
from 170 A.D. shows the Ephesus brethren resisting the doctrine of
Modalism and holding to their belief in a Bi-personal divinity. Here
is that historical account:

"Noetus [a Smyrnan brother who as a devout Modalist
founded the Patripassian heresy], when cited before a council in
Asia Minor [the elders at Ephesus], sought to conceal his
Patripassian learning by emphasizing his monotheism, and
pathetically exclaimed: 'What wrong have I done? I adore the One
God, I know but One God, and none beside Him, who was born,
suffered, and died! [Ephiphanius, Haeres., 57, 1]. The
assembled bishops (called presbyteri, [Polycrates among
them]) did not reply that they were Ditheists. They simply
declared: 'We, too, adore the One God, but in a manner in which we
know that He is adored rightly. And we likewise possess the One
Christ,...the Son of God, who suffered and died" (Preuss, The
Divine Trinity: A Dogmatic Treatise, p. 119).

The elders of Ephesus in New Testament times affirmed their
belief in two Beings who are God--God the Father, and God the Son.
Does this statement of belief fit the Scriptural definition of the
oneness of God?

We should not base our answer to this question on the teachings
of philosophers and theologians. God Himself reveals the true answer
in His Word. Let us examine the Scriptures to find the true meaning
of God's oneness.

Chapters in
Defining the Oneness of God

Introduction

Chapter 1

Modalistic, Trinitarian
and
Tritheistic Oneness Defined

Chapter 4

"One" Used of Spiritual Unity with Jesus
Christ

Chapter 2

Ditheistic Oneness
(Binitarian or
Bi-personal)

Chapter 5

A Primary New Testament Example of
"One"

Chapter 3

The Scriptural Meaning of
"One."

Chapter 6

"One" Used to Show the Holiness of
God

Chapter 7

"As One of Us" in Genesis 3 Refers to
Godlike
Characteristics

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