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1

THE ADVENTIST
TRINITY DEBATE

By Jerry A.
Moon, Ph.D., Andrews
University

Part 2: The Role of Ellen G. White

— Andrews University Seminary Studies, No. 2,
(Autumn 2003): 275-292.
Copyright © 2003 Andrews University
Press.

In 1846 James White dismissed the doctrine of the Trinity
as "the old unscriptural trinitarian creed."[1] A century later, the denomination he
co-founded voted its first official endorsement of a statement of
"Fundamental Beliefs" that included reference to the Trinity.[2] That a major theological shift occurred is
no longer subject to debate. That most of the early leaders among
Seventh-day Adventists held an antitrinitarian theology has become
standard Adventist history[3] in the forty years since E. R. Gane wrote
an M.A. thesis on the topic.[4] What is now disputed in some quarters is
Gane's second hypothesis, that Adventist co-founder Ellen G. White
(1827-1915) was "a trinitarian monotheist."[5] Since the 1980s, that view has come under
intense attack from some writers, mostly from outside the academic
community.[6] Nevertheless, the renewed scrutiny of the
role of Ellen White in the development of the Adventist Trinity doctrine
has raised enough questions to warrant a fresh examination of the
issue.

Part 1 of this research identified six stages in the
development of the Adventist doctrine of God, from opposition to the
Trinity doctrine, to acceptance of the basic concept of one God in three
divine persons.[7] Part 2 will present evidence in support of
a fourfold hypothesis: (1) That Gane's characterization of Ellen White as
a "trinitarian monotheist" is accurate regarding her mature concept of
God, from 1898 onward. In the 1840s, however, she did not yet have all the
components of that view in place. Her mature view developed through a
40-year process that can be extensively documented. (2) That her writings
describe two contrasting forms of trinitarian belief, one of which she
consistently opposed, and one that she eventually endorsed. (3) That Ellen
White's developing understanding exerted a strong influence on other
Adventist writers, leading eventually to a substantial degree of consensus
in the denomination; and (4) that the method by which early Adventists
came to this position was by disallowing ecclesiastical tradition from
having any normative authority and insisting on Scripture alone as the
basis for doctrine and tests of membership. This rejection of tradition
led them initially to some heterodox views that received severe criticism
from the broader Christian community. Their dependence on Scripture,
however, brought them eventually to what they believe is a more biblical
view of the Trinity.[8] This material will be presented under four
subheadings, (1) Evidences for Change, (2) Varieties of Trinitarianism,
(3) The Development of Ellen White's Doctrine of God and Its Influence on
Other Adventist Writers, and (4) Conclusions.

Evidences for Change

At the core of the debate is the question regarding Ellen
White's position and her role in the process of change. Some assume that
Ellen White did not change, that she was either always trinitarian or
never trinitarian.[9] There is ample evidence, however, that
Ellen White's beliefs did change on a number of other issues, so it is
entirely plausible that she grew in her understanding of the Godhead as
well. When she declared in 1849, "We know we have the truth,"[10] she was referring to the beliefs that
Sabbatarian Adventists held in distinction from other Christian groups.
She did not mean that there was no more truth to be discovered or that
Adventists would never need to change any of their views.[11]

The argument that her views did change is based on the
recognition that at every stage of life her knowledge of God and His will
was a combination of what she had learned through ordinary means such as
parental training, church attendance, Bible study, and personal
experience, and—after December 1844—what she received through visions.
Furthermore, she herself considered her visions as an educational process
that continued in cumulative fashion for many years.[12] Consequently, her personal
understanding, especially in the earlier years, contained many elements
not fully consistent with her later beliefs, because neither her personal
Bible study nor her visions had yet called her attention to those
inconsistent elements.

For instance, after her first vision in December 1844,
she continued to observe Sunday as the Sabbath for almost three more
years. She had not yet learned about the seventh-day Sabbath.[13] A second example of a changed view was
the discovery of the "time to commence the Sabbath" in 1855. For nine
years after they accepted the seventh-day Sabbath, the Whites and most of
the Sabbatarian Adventists observed the Sabbath from 6:00 p.m. Friday to
6:00 p.m. Saturday. Not until J. N. Andrews in 1855 demonstrated from
Scripture[14] that the biblical Sabbath begins at
sunset, did Ellen White very reluctantly acknowledge that for nine years
Adventists had been ignorant of the biblical time to begin the Sabbath.[15]

A third example is what Adventists have historically
called health reform. Until 1863, most of them, including James and Ellen
White, were heavy meat eaters, even slaughtering their own hogs. Not until
after basic denominational organization had been achieved, was the
attention of the movement called to a broader platform of health
principles, including complete proscription of pork products and the
strong recommendation of vegetarianism.[16]

In view of these and other areas of conceptual
development, it is not particularly surprising that Ellen White should
show both development and change in her view of the Godhead. Her writings
about the Godhead show a clear progression, not primarily from anti- to
pro-trinitarianism, but from relative ambiguity to greater specificity.
Some of her early statements are capable of various interpretations, but
her later statements, 1898-1906, are explicit to the point of being
dogmatic. Her change of view appears clearly to have been a matter of
growth and progression, rather than reversal, because unlike her husband
and others of her associates, she never directly attacked the view of the
Trinity that she would later explicitly support.

Varieties of Trinitarianism

The conceptual key that unlocks the enigma of Ellen
White's developmental process regarding the Trinity is the discovery that
her writings describe at least two distinct varieties of trinitarian
belief. One of these views she consistently opposed throughout her adult
ministry, and the other she eventually endorsed. The trinitarian concept
that she opposed was one that "spiritualized" the members of the Godhead
as distant, impersonal, mystical, and ultimately unreal. The concept that
she favored portrayed God as personal, literal, and tangible.� She did not
initially recognize His trinitarian nature, but when she did, she would
describe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as real individuals, emphasizing
Their "threeness" as willing, thinking, feeling, social, and relational
individuals, and explaining Their oneness in terms of nature, character,
purpose, and love, but not of person. The basis of these differentiations
will become clearer as we examine the historical context and process of
her developing thought.

The Development of Ellen White's Understanding of
the Godhead

Three pieces of evidence are particularly significant for
reconstructing the historical context of Ellen White's earliest references
to the Godhead: (1) the role of "spiritualizers" in post-disappointment
Millerism; (2) the polemics of James and Ellen White against those
spiritualizers; and (3) a contemporary Methodist creed that the Whites
(and other early Adventists) repeatedly cited in support of their
rejection of traditional trinitarianism.

In the post-disappointment period of 1845, many former
Millerites "spiritualized" the second coming, by interpreting the biblical
prophecies of Christ's return as having a spiritual, not literal
meaning.[17] Hence the spiritualizers could believe
that Jesus did come on October 22, 1844, not literally, but "spiritually."
This view led to a wide range of aberrant behavior. Among the most extreme
were the "no work" fanatics who believed that the seventh millennium had
already been inaugurated as a Sabbath of perpetual rest, and that the way
to demonstrate saving faith was to refrain from all work. Others of the
"spiritualizers" dabbled in "mesmerism,"[18] joined the Shakers,[19] or even became followers of occult
spiritualism.[20]

James and Ellen White believed this teaching was false,
because it took a Bible doctrine that they believed was clearly intended
to be "literal" and made it nonliteral or "spiritual." The core belief of
Millerite Adventism was the literal, bodily, premillennial second advent.
From this perspective, if the second advent is not a literal, bodily
return of the same divine-human Jesus who ascended, but is rather some
subjective spiritual "revelation" to the individual heart or mind, then
the teaching of His literal return has been not just modified, but
destroyed—hence the phrase "spiritualize away." To "spiritualize away"
means to take something intended as literal, and by calling it "spiritual"
to so radically change the concept that it no longer has any real
meaning.

For this reason both James and Ellen White came early to
the conviction that they must oppose this spiritualizing as heresy.
Ellen's polemics against this doctrine and its resulting behaviors are
well known.[21] James also wrote repeatedly in the
post-Millerite Day-Star against these spiritualizing tendencies.[22]

One of James's polemics against the spiritualizers
included an antitrinitarian remark that implied a commonality of belief
between the spiritualizers and the trinitarians.[23] Apparently some of the "spiritualizers"
were supporting their error by reference to what James called "the old
unscriptural trinitarian creed." James charged that both the
"spiritualizers" and the traditional trinitarians "spiritualize[d] away
the existence of the Father and the Son, as two distinct, litteral
[sic], tangible persons."[24]

In maintaining that the Father and the Son are "real,"
"literal" persons, the Whites certainly didn=t doubt that "God is spirit"
(John 4:24),[25] but they insisted that as Spirit, God is
still Someone real, tangible, and literal; not unreal, ephemeral, or
imaginary. They felt that the terms used for Trinity in the creeds and
definitions they knew of, made God seem so abstract, theoretical, and
impersonal, that He was no longer perceived as a real, caring, loving
Being. Thus the attempt to make Him "spiritual" rather than literal,
actually "spiritualized Him away," that is, destroyed the true concept of
who He is and what He is like.

A third piece of evidence confirms that James was indeed
linking the spiritualizers with traditional trinitarians—a group that were
in almost every other way the theological opposites of the spiritualizers.
A Methodist creed of the same period—and the way this creed was quoted and
rebutted by other early Adventist writers[26]—supports the suggestion of common ground
between Ellen White's earliest statements about the person(s) of God, and
the antitrinitarianism of her husband (although she never in print
denounced trinitarianism as he did). The suggestion that there is a dual
linkage here—spiritualizers with philosophical trinitarians, and Ellen's
concept of a personal God with James's antitrinitarianism—may sound
far-fetched to many readers. But against the background of post-Millerite
spiritualizers, consider the wording of a typical trinitarian creed of the
time. One aspect of traditional trinitarianism espoused by some Protestant
groups, but rejected by early Adventists, was the somewhat curious
statement that "There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without
body or parts."[27] The early Adventists vigorously refuted
this, citing several biblical passages that portrayed God as having both
"body" and "parts."[28]

This question was evidently on the mind of Ellen White as
well.[29] Twice in early visions of Jesus, she
asked Him questions related to the "form" and "person" of God. In one
early vision, she "saw a throne, and on it sat the Father and the Son. I
gazed on Jesus' countenance," she said, "and admired His lovely person.
The Father's person I could not behold, for a cloud of glorious light
covered Him. I asked Jesus if His Father had a form like Himself. He said
He had, but I could not behold it, for said He, 'If you should once behold
the glory of His person, you would cease to exist.'"[30]

Also about 1850 she reported, "I have often seen the
lovely Jesus, that He is a person. I asked Him if His Father was a
person and had a form like Himself.� Said Jesus, 'I am in the express
image of My Father's person.="[31] Thus she gained visionary confirmation
of what her husband had written in the Day-Star in 1846, that the
Father and the Son are "two distinct, literal, tangible persons."[32] In terms of the trinitarian question,
this is ambiguous. By itself it contains nothing contradictory to early
Adventist antitrinitarianism, though it also offers no contradiction to
her explicitly trinitarian declarations of the early 1900s.

Other hints of her early views came in 1858 with the
publication of the first volume of Spiritual Gifts.[33] Her belief in the Holy Spirit is not in
question, for she links the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in
Christ's baptismal narrative. But she does not mention the Holy Spirit in
connection with the divine councils about creation and the plan of
salvation.[34] These statements, like the 1850
statements, are also ambiguous. They could be read without conflict by all
early Adventists, regardless of their trinitarian or antitrinitarian
leanings.

Perhaps her first statement that is clearly dissonant
with her antitrinitarian colleagues comes in 1869 in a landmark chapter,
"The Sufferings of Christ," where in the opening paragraph she asserts on
the basis of Heb 1:3; Col 1:19; and Phil 2:6 that Christ in His
pre-existence was "equal with God."[35] At this point it becomes evident that if
no one else was listening, her husband was. James White's early statements
on the trinity are uniformly negative,[36] but in 1876 and 1877 he followed her
lead. In an editorial comparison of the beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists
with Seventh Day Baptists, he included the Trinity among the doctrines
which "neither [SDAs nor SDBs] regard as tests of Christian character."
"Adventists hold the divinity of Christ so nearly with the trinitarian,"
James White observed, "that we apprehend no trial [controversy] here."[37] Clearly James was moving away from his
early polemics against trinitarianism. A year later he proclaimed in the
Review that "Christ is equal with God." He was not yet a
trinitarian, but another remark in the same article shows that he was in
sympathy with certain aspects of trinitarianism. "The inexplicable trinity
that makes the godhead three in one and one in three is bad enough," he
wrote, "but ultra Unitarianism that makes Christ inferior to the Father is
worse."[38] In asserting Christ's equality with the
Father, James was echoing what his wife had written eight years earlier.
For another evidence of her leading her colleagues, note that her
assertions that Christ was uncreated[39] preceded by more than two decades Uriah
Smith's published acceptance of that concept.[40]

Brick by conceptual brick, (perhaps without even being
aware of it herself) she was slowly but surely dismantling the
substructure of the antitrinitarian view, and building a trinitarian view.
In another clear break with the prevailing semi-Arian consensus, she
declared in 1878 that Christ was the "eternal Son."[41] Ellen White did not understand his
eternal Sonship to imply derivation from the Father. Sonship
in His preexistence denoted that He was of the same nature as the Father,
in unity and close relationship with the Father, but it did not imply that
Christ had a beginning. For in taking human flesh Christ became the Son of
God "in a new sense." From the perspective of His humanity, He for the
first time had a "beginning," and also, as a human, He began a new
relationship of dependence on the Father.

In His incarnation He gained in a new sense the
title of the Son of God. Said the angel to Mary, 'The power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.' While the Son of
a human being, He became the Son of God in a new sense. Thus He
stood in our world—the Son of God, yet allied by birth to the human
race. . . .

From all eternity Christ was united with the
Father, and when He took upon Himself human nature, He was still one
with God [emphasis supplied].[42]

An even more fundamental departure from the "old view"
emerged in 1888, in the context of the struggle over the law in Galatians
[3:19-3:25] and a clearer view of justification through substitutionary
atonement. Ellen White and others came to the realization that a broader
concept of the atonement and of righteousness by faith demands the full
Deity of Christ. "If men reject the testimony of the inspired
Scriptures concerning the divinity of Christ," she wrote, "it is in
vain to argue the point with them; for no argument, however conclusive,
could convince them. [1 Cor 2:14 quoted.] None who hold this error can
have a true conception of the character or the mission of Christ, or of
the great plan of God for man's redemption" (emphasis supplied).[43] Christ is "one with the eternal
Father,—one in nature, in character, and in purpose," "one in power and
authority,"[44] she proclaimed, "the only being that
could enter into all the counsels and purposes of God."[45] The context shows that her phrase "the
only being" contrasts Christ to the angels. Nevertheless, this statement
precedes the fuller exposition of the role of the Holy Spirit.

In 1890, she followed up her 1888 affirmation of Christ's
unity with the Father (in nature, character, and purpose) with perhaps her
last major statement that can still be read ambiguously. "The Son of God
shared the Father's throne, and the glory of the eternal, self‑existent
One encircled both."[46] Retrospectively, this phrase harmonizes
perfectly with her later statements (especially Desire of Ages 530)
that Christ is "self-existent" and that His Deity is not "derived" from
the Father. It is also possible, however, to read the sentence from a
binitarian or even semi-Arian perspective—that Jesus, exalted to the
Father's throne in the presence of the angels, was "encircled" by "the
glory of the eternal, self-existent One," i.e., the Father. Patriarchs
and Prophets, where the phrase appears, was an amplification of an
earlier work, Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 1 (1870), where the
corresponding phrase says simply, "The Son was seated on the throne with
the Father."[47] The surrounding context in both works is
similar, reflecting her earlier perspective, while the new phrase, "the
glory of the eternal, self‑existent One encircled both," reflects her
growing understanding in 1890.

A pamphlet published in 1897 carried the next major
component in her developing doctrine of God, that the Holy Spirit is "the
third person of the Godhead."[48] This concept would receive wider
attention and more permanent form in The Desire of Ages (1898),
where she repeated and made emphatic the previous two points: "In Christ
is life, original, unborrowed, underived," and the Holy Spirit is the
"Third Person of the Godhead."[49] In 1899 she confirmed the other side of
the paradox, that in "person," Christ was "distinct" from the Father.[50] Here the essential trinitarian paradox
of the unity of God in a plurality of persons is clearly articulated, and
her trinitarianism is essentially complete. All that remains for her
capstone statements of 1901 and 1905 is to affirm most explicitly that the
three "eternal heavenly dignitaries," the "three highest powers in
heaven," the "three living persons of the heavenly trio," are one in
nature, character, and purpose, but not in person.[51]

Thus there is a clear progression from the simple to the
complex, suggesting that Ellen White's understanding did grow and change
as she received additional light.� Fernando Canale has pointed out that
this progression is similar to the one presented in the NT.� In the
gospels, the first challenge was to convince the disciples that Christ was
one with the Father. Once their concept of monotheism had been expanded to
accept "one God" in two divine persons, it was comparatively easy to lead
them to recognize the Holy Spirit as a third divine person.[52]

The Kellogg Crisis and the Capstone Statements

As noted above, Ellen White's writings on the Godhead
address at least two distinct varieties of trinitarian belief—one she
consistently opposed, and another she eventually came to agree with. Her
differentiation between these two views of the Trinity became most
explicit during the Kellogg crisis of 1902-1907.[53] Because certain of the writings of both
J. H. Kellogg and Ellen White during this period have been seriously
misunderstood in recent years, it is necessary to consider this
controversy in some detail.

Dr. J. H. Kellogg, medical superintendent of the Battle
Creek Sanitarium, was the leading person of scientific credentials among
SDAs at the turn of the twentieth century. Possibly influenced by
intellectual companions from outside Adventism,[54] he eventually theorized that the life of
every living thing—whether tree, flower, animal, or human—was the very
presence of God within it. His view was a form of pantheism,[55] of which traces can be found in his
public presentations in the 1890s,[56] but the "crisis" did not break until
1902.

Following the Battle Creek Sanitarium fire of February
18, 1902, Kellogg proposed a fund-raising plan to finance the rebuilding.
He would donate to the Review and Herald Publishing Association the
manuscript for a new book on health.[57] � If the Review and Herald would donate
the costs of publishing, and if the 73,000 members that composed the
Seventh-day Adventist church in 1902 would undertake to sell 500,000
copies at one dollar each, the proceeds would both pay off long-standing
debts and rebuild the sanitarium. This plan was accepted. The Living
Temple was primarily a handbook on basic physiology, nutrition,
preventive medicine, and home treatments for common ailments. But the
title page quoted 1 Cor 6:19 about the body being the "temple of the Holy
Ghost," and here and there Kellogg incorporated his theological views.

While preliminary readers of the manuscript were pleased
with what it said about physiology, they sharply criticized some of its
speculations about the doctrine of God. Despite this criticism, Kellogg
pressed ahead with publication. On December 30, 1902, however, while the
Review and Herald Publishing Association was in the midst of printing the
first edition, the publishing house burned to the ground. Among other
losses were the printing plates and unfinished copies of The Living
Temple. Kellogg promptly took the manuscript to another printer and
contracted for 3,000 copies at his own expense.

When the book was finally distributed, the most flagrant
departures from established Adventist theology appeared in the opening
chapter, "The Mystery of Life."[58] "God is the explanation of nature,"
Kellogg declared, "–not a God outside of nature, but in nature,
manifesting himself through and in all the objects, movements, and varied
phenomena of the universe."[59] Evidently reacting to some of his
prepublication critics, Kellogg sought to blunt or circumvent their
objections by specific reference to the Holy Spirit.� He reasoned that if
the Holy Spirit could be everywhere at once, and if the Holy Spirit were
also a Person, then no one could say that the God Kellogg set forth as
dwelling in all things was an impersonal God. "How can power be separated
from the source of power?" Kellogg asked? "Where God's Spirit is at work,
where God's power is manifested, God himself is actually and truly
present."[60] In claiming that God's power equals His
presence, Kellogg blurs his logic, as a brief example will show. A
military commander can issue orders to mobilize the armed forces, and
through those orders the leader's power reaches right down to the home of
an individual soldier, but that's clearly different from the commander
visiting that home in person.

Then Kellogg spins his defining metaphor—the most quoted
paragraph from The Living Temple.

"Suppose now we have a boot before us,—not an ordinary
boot, but a living boot, and as we look at it, we see little boots
crowding out at the seams, pushing out at the toes, dropping off at the
heels, and leaping out at the top,—scores, hundreds, thousands of boots,
a swarm of boots continually issuing from our living boot,—would we not
be compelled to say, "There is a shoemaker in the boot"? So there is
present in the tree a power which creates and maintains it, a tree-maker
in the tree, a flower-maker in the flower, . . . an infinite, divine,
though invisible Presence . . . which is ever declaring itself by its
ceaseless, beneficent activity."[61]

Kellogg's theory was vigorously debated in the church for
several years. Since leading Adventists had pointed out its weaknesses,[62] Ellen White hoped at first that it would
not be necessary for her to get involved. But by September 1903 Kellogg's
views were gaining adherents. When he claimed publicly that the teachings
of The Living Temple "regarding the personality of God" were in
accord with the writings of Ellen White, she could remain silent no
longer. "God forbid that this opinion should prevail," she declared. [63] "We need not the mysticism that is in
this book," she continued. "[T]he writer of this book is on a false track.
He has lost sight of the distinguishing truths for this time. He knows not
whither his steps are tending. The track of truth lies close beside the
track of error, and both may seem to be one to minds which are not worked
by the Holy Spirit, and which, therefore, are not quick to discern the
difference between truth and error."[64]

In a follow-up letter, she zeroed in on the core issue:
"The Lord Jesus . . . did not represent God as an essence pervading
nature, but as a personal being. Christians should bear in mind
that God has a personality as verily as has Christ."[65]

A few weeks later, in a letter to former General
Conference president G. I. Butler,[66] Kellogg defended his view: "As far as I
can fathom the difficulty which is found in the Living Temple
[sic], the whole thing may be simmered down to this question: Is
the Holy Ghost a person? You say No." (Butler was of the older
antitrinitarian school who held that the Holy Spirit was an aspect or
power of God, but not a person.) Kellogg continued: "I had supposed the
Bible said this for the reason that the personal pronoun 'he' is used in
speaking of the Holy Ghost. Sister White uses the pronoun 'he' and has
said in so many words that the Holy Ghost is the third person of the
God-head [sic]. How the Holy Ghost can be the third person and not
be a person at all is difficult for me to see."[67]

Here is a fascinating example of Kellogg as a debater.�
Essentially he is saying, "I have been misunderstood. I didn't claim that
the Father is in everything; it is the Holy Spirit who is in everything.
And if the Holy Spirit is a person, then Ellen White is wrong in saying my
view undermines the personality of God." Thus he sought to outmaneuver
Ellen White's reproof and maintain the legitimacy of his own opinion.

Butler, however, was not fooled. "So far as Sister White
and you being in perfect agreement is concerned, I shall have to leave
that entirely between you and Sister White. Sister White says there is
not perfect agreement. You claim there is . . . I must give
her the credit . . . of saying there is a difference."[68]

Kellogg is here telling casuistic half-truths to Butler,
attempting to portray the "pantheism" of Living Temple as simply a
scientific perspective of the same doctrine of God that Ellen White had
expressed in Desire of Ages. That is what Kellogg wanted his
readers to believe, but that does not make it true, although Ellen White
herself acknowledged that "to minds which are not worked by the Holy
Spirit" it might seem so.[69]

As the conflict dragged on into 1905, Ellen White wrote
another document that exposed the matter to the church in such stark lines
that it could not be misunderstood. The manuscript offers perhaps the most
radical, foundational indictment she ever wrote against a false view of
the trinity, followed by one of her most explicit descriptions of what she
considered to be the true understanding of the Godhead. In this document,
published in 1905, she labels the first view "spiritualistic,"
"nothingness," "imperfect, untrue,"[70] "the trail of the serpent," and "the
depths of Satan."[71] She said those who received it were
"giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, departing from
the faith which they have held sacred for the past fifty years."[72]

In contrast to this view which she unsparingly denounces,
she sets forth another view which she regarded as "the right platform," in
harmony with "the simplicity of true godliness," and "the old, old times .
. . when, under the Holy Spirit's guidance, thousands were converted in a
day."[73] The antagonism between two opposing
views could scarcely be drawn in more stringent terms in a theological
context, than a disagreement between doctrines of "seducing spirits" and
the doctrine of "the old, old times" of the original Pentecost. She is
talking about two contrasting doctrines of the trinity. Here is the first,
attributed explicitly to "Dr. Kellogg" and his associates in "our leading
medical fraternity."

I am instructed to say, The sentiments of those who are
searching for advanced scientific ideas are not to be trusted. Such
representations as the following are made: "The Father is as the light
invisible; the Son is as the light embodied; the Spirit is the light
shed abroad."� "The Father is like the dew, invisible vapor; the Son is
like the dew gathered in beauteous form; the Spirit is like the dew
fallen to the seat of life." Another representation: "The Father is like
the invisible vapor; the Son is like the leaden cloud; the Spirit is
rain fallen and working in refreshing power."

All these spiritualistic representations are simply
nothingness. They are imperfect, untrue. They weaken and diminish the
Majesty which no earthly likeness can be compared to. God can not be
compared with the things His hands have made. These are mere earthly
things, suffering under the curse of God because of the sins of man. The
Father can not be described by the things of earth [emphasis
supplied].[74]

Then, in the very next sentence, she defines what she
understands to be the truth about the Godhead.

The Father is all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,
and is invisible to mortal sight.

The Son is all the fulness of the Godhead manifested.
The Word of God declares Him to be "the express image of His person."�
"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life." Here is shown the personality of the Father.

The Comforter that Christ promised to send after He
ascended to heaven, is the Spirit in all the fulness of the Godhead,
making manifest the power of divine grace to all who receive and believe
in Christ as a personal Saviour. There are three living persons of the
heavenly trio; in the name of these three great powers—the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—those who receive Christ by living
faith are baptized, and these powers will co‑operate with the
obedient subjects of heaven in their efforts to live the new life in
Christ [emphasis supplied].[75]

In charging that Kellogg, with his "spiritualistic"
trinity doctrine was "departing from the faith" Adventists had "held
sacred for the past fifty years," she clearly refutes the assumption that
all doctrines of the trinity are the same and that objection to one
demands the rejection of all.[76] She is clearly distinguishing between
two varieties of trinitarianism.

Significantly, Ellen White condemns Kellogg's view of the
Trinity in almost identical terms to those used by her husband James in
1846 when he condemned the "old unscriptural trinitarian creed" for
"spiritualiz[ing] away the existence of the Father and the Son, as two
distinct, literal, tangible persons." This supports the interpretation
that she was at least in partial agreement with him in 1846, and that she
later saw similarities between the creeds that claimed God was "invisible,
without body or parts" and Kellogg's "spiritualistic representations" of
God under metaphors of light and water.

Further, Ellen White claims that in Kellogg's heresy she
"recognized the very sentiments" she had opposed among spiritualizing
ex-Millerites in 1845 and 1846.[77] The implication is that the
spiritualizing of the post-disappointment fanatics, the creedal teaching
that God is formless and intangible, and Kellogg's impersonal concepts of
God were all associated by James and Ellen White under the general heading
of "spiritualistic theories."[78]

This is directly germane to the current debate, because
some have claimed that Kellogg's view which Ellen White condemned is the
same view of the trinity later accepted by the church[79]—a claim that is not supported by the
evidence. She clearly rejects the view of the trinity that makes God seem
distant, untouchable, impersonal; and embraces a literal, biblical[80] view of the trinity, a view that shows
God as including three individual divine personalities, who in nature,
character, purpose, and love are one.

Her latest affirmations of one God in three persons are
fully in harmony with the first explicitly trinitarian belief statement
among Seventh-day Adventists, written by F. M. Wilcox in the Review and
Herald in 1913.[81] "Seventh-day Adventists believe,—"
Wilcox explained, "1. In the divine Trinity. This Trinity consists of the
eternal Father, . . . the Lord Jesus Christ, . . . [and] the Holy Spirit,
the third person of the Godhead"[82]

Conclusion

Part 1 of this study noted that the 1946 General
Conference session was the first to officially endorse belief in the
Trinity,[83] just 100 years after James White's
strong rejection of that idea in the 1846 Day-Star. This change was
not a simple reversal. The evidence is that Ellen White agreed with the
essential positive point of James's belief, namely that "the Father and
the Son" are "two distinct, litteral [sic], tangible persons."
Subsequent evidence shows that she also agreed with James's negative
point: that the traditional, philosophical concepts held by many
trinitarians did "spiritualize away" the personal reality of the Father
and the Son.[84]

Soon after this she added the conviction, based on
visions, that both Christ and the Father have tangible forms. She
progressively affirmed the eternal equality of Christ and the Father, that
Christ was not created, and by 1888, that an adequate concept of the
atonement demands the full and eternal Deity of Christ. Only in the 1890s
did she become aware of the full individuality and personhood of the Holy
Spirit, but when she did, she referred to the Holy Spirit in literal and
tangible terms much like those she had used in 1850 to describe the Father
and the Son.[85] By 1905, she explicitly declared her
belief in three divine persons united in one God.

This confirms the fourfold hypothesis with which this
article opened. First, E. R. Gane's characterization of Ellen White as a
"trinitarian monotheist" is accurate regarding her mature concept of God,
from 1898 onward. She never, however, used the term "Trinity" to describe
her belief about God. Perhaps the closest she came was her use of the
phrase "heavenly trio."[86] A likely reason why she consistently
shunned the term "Trinity," even after she had embraced certain aspects of
trinitarian teaching, is the second hypothesis: that she had become aware
of two varieties of trinitarian belief, one that she embraced and one that
she vehemently rejected. An uncritical use of the term "Trinity" might
appear to endorse philosophical concepts to which she was diametrically
opposed.

This seems especially plausible in light of the third
hypothesis, that as she endorsed conceptual steps toward a biblical
trinitarianism, her developing understanding exerted a strong influence on
other Adventist writers, leading eventually to a substantial degree of
consensus in the denomination.

Fourth, the method by which the early Adventists sought
to separate the biblical elements of trinitarianism from the elements
derived from tradition, was to completely disallow tradition as a basis
for doctrine, and struggle through the long process of constructing their
beliefs on the basis of Scripture alone. In doing so, they virtually
retraced the steps of the NT church in first accepting the equality of
Christ with the Father, and second, discovering Their equality and unity
with the Holy Spirit as well.� In the process, their theology showed
temporary similarities to some of the historical heresies, particularly
Arianism. Their repudiation of tradition as doctrinal authority was costly
in terms of the ostracism they endured as perceived "heretics," but their
dependence on Scripture brought them eventually to what they believe is a
more biblical view of the Trinity.[87] A controversial corollary is the
conviction that the classical formulation of the Trinity doctrine, resting
as it does on Greek philosophical presuppositions of timelessness and
impassibility, is simply incompatible with a thoroughly biblical
theological system.[88]

Not an objective observer, but a systematic theologian
deeply involved in the development of the Adventist doctrine of God,
Fernando Canale has written extensively on the distinction between a
theology based on Greek philosophical presuppositions, and one based on
biblical presuppositions.[89] He argues that

In a very real sense, Adventist emphasis on Scriptures
as the sole source of data for executing theology has given theological
reflection on God a new and revolutionary start. Systematically
distrustful and critical of traditional theological positions,
Adventists were determined to build doctrines on the basis of Scripture
alone. The difficulties implicit in this fresh approach may account for
the scant number of Adventist statements on the doctrine of God.[90]

Canale makes a strong case for his contention that
because Adventists, "departed from the philosophical conception of God as
timeless" and "embraced the historical conception of God as presented in
the Bible," they were enabled to develop a genuinely biblical view of the
Trinity.[91]

End Notes

[1] James White, Day-Star, January 24,
1846, 25.

[2] "Fifteenth Meeting," General Conference
Report No. 8, Review and Herald, June 14, 1946, 197. For a
discussion of the historical context, see Jerry Moon, "The
Adventist Trinity Debate, Part 1: Historical Overview," Andrews
University Seminary Studies 41 (Spring 2003): 122-123.

[3] See Russell Holt, "The Doctrine of the
Trinity in the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination: Its Rejection and
Acceptance" (Term Paper, Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary,
1969); Le Roy Edwin Froom, Movement of Destiny (Washington, DC:
Review and Herald, 1971), 148-180—although Froom's pleading on the basis
of Millerite statistics that a "majority" of the Adventist founders were
trinitarian (ibid., 147) has not been supported by the evidence; Merlin
Burt, "Demise of Semi-Arianism and Anti-Trinitarianism in Adventist
Theology, 1888-1957"(term paper, Andrews University, 1996); Woodrow W.
Whidden, "Salvation Pilgrimage: The Adventist Journey into Justification
by Faith and Trinitarianism," Ministry, April 1998, 5-7; Fernando
L. Canale, "Doctrine of God," in Handbook of Seventh-day Adventist
Theology, ed. Raoul Dederen, Commentary Reference Series, vol.
12 (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2000): 117-150; and Woodrow
Whidden, Jerry Moon, and John W. Reeve, The Trinity: Understanding
God's Love, His Plan of Salvation, and Christian Relationships
(Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2002), 190-220.

[4] Erwin
R. Gane, "The Arian or Anti-Trinitarian Views Presented in Seventh-day
Adventist Literature and the Ellen G. White Answer" (M.A. thesis,
Andrews University, 1963).

[5] Gane,
67-79.

[6] See, e.g., [Fred Allaback], "The Doctrine of
the Trinity in Adventist History," Liberty Review [5250 Johnstown
Road, Mt. Vernon, Ohio], October 1989, 4-5, 7-8; Lynnford Beachy,
"Adventist Review Perpetuates the Omega," Old Paths [Smyrna
Gospel Ministries, HC64, Box 128-B, Welch, WV], vol. 8, no. 7, July 1999,
1-14; David Clayton, "The Omega of Deadly Heresies," n.p., n.d. [ca.
2000], in my files; idem, "Some Facts Concerning the Omega Heresy;" and
Bob Diener, The Alpha and the Omega (Creal Springs, IL: Bible Truth
Productions, [ca. 1998]), videocassette.

[7] Moon, "Adventist
Trinity Debate, Part 1," AUSS 41 (Spring 2003): 113-129.

[8] Canale, Handbook of Seventh-day Adventist
Theology, 150.

[9] For example, John Kiesz, an antitrinitarian
of the Church of God (Seventh Day), speculates that Ellen White was a
"closet trinitarian" who kept that view to herself for half a century
until in the 1890s she suddenly broke her silence to challenge the then
majority view of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination (History of the
Trinity Doctrine," Study No. 132, , accessed January 2001).

[10] Ellen G. White to Brother and Sister
Hastings, March 24‑30, 1849 (Letter 5, 1849), pp. 5-6; in Manuscript
Releases, 21 vols. (Silver Spring, MD: Ellen G. White Estate, 1981,
1987, 1990, 1993), 5:200.

[11] "We have many lessons to learn, and many,
many to unlearn," she wrote in 1892. "God and heaven alone are infallible.
Those who think that they will never have to give up a cherished view,
never have occasion to change an opinion, will be disappointed. As long as
we hold to our own ideas and opinions with determined persistency, we
cannot have the unity for which Christ prayed" (E. G. White, "Search the
Scriptures," Review and Herald, July 26, 1892, par. 7).

[12] "With the light communicated through the
study of His word, with the special knowledge given of individual cases
among His people under all circumstances and in every phase of experience,
can I now be in the same ignorance, the same mental uncertainty and
spiritual blindness, as at the beginning of this experience? Will my
brethren say that Sister White has been so dull a scholar that her
judgment in this direction is no better than before she entered Christ's
school, to be trained and disciplined for a special work? . . . I would
not dishonor my Maker by admitting that all this light, all the display of
His mighty power in my work and experience, has been valueless, that it
has not educated my judgment or better fitted me for His work" (E. G.
White, Testimonies for the Church, 5:686).

[13] It should be noted that when she and James
White did accept the Sabbath, their acceptance was based initially on
Bible study prompted by reading a tract by Joseph Bates. Later the
correctness of this view was confirmed by vision (Arthur L. White,�
Ellen G. White, vol 1, The Early Years, 1827-1862
[Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1985], 116, 120-121.

[14] See, e.g., Lev 23:32 and Mark 1:32; J. N.
Andrews, "Time for Commencing the Sabbath," Review and Herald, 4
Dec. 1855, 76-78.

[15] A. L. White, Ellen G. White,
1:322-324.

[16] Richard W. Schwarz and Floyd Greenleaf,�
Light Bearers: A History of the� Seventh‑day Adventist Church, rev.
ed. (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2000); D. E. Robinson, The Story of Our
Health Message: The Origin, Character, and Development of Health Education
in the Seventh-day Adventist Church 3d ed. (Nashville: Southern
Publishing Association, 1965), 75, 81. Most Adventists were already
opposed to the use of alcoholic beverages.

[17] Schwarz and Greenleaf, Light
Bearers, 53-54. For the most extensive investigation to date of
post-disappointment Millerism, its division and disintegration, see Merlin
D. Burt, "The Historical Background, Interconnected Development, and
Integration of the Doctrines of the Sanctuary, the Sabbath, and Ellen G.
White's Role in Sabbatarian Adventism from 1844 to 1849" (Ph.D.
dissertation, Andrews University, 2002), 60-272.

[18] Burt, dissertation, 145.

[19] Enoch Jacobs, editor of the Day-Star
led in this move (Burt, 231-242).

[20] Burt, 242; George R. Knight, Millennial
Fever and the End of the World (Boise, ID: Pacific Press, 1993),
260.

[21] See, e.g., E. G. White, Life
Sketches, 85-94.

[22] Burt (146-147) lists four such items, each
titled "Letter from Bro. White," in Day-Star Sept. 6, 1845, 17-18;
Oct. 11, 1845, 47; Nov. 29, 1845, 35; and January 24, 1846, 25 .

[23] James White, Day-Star, January 24,
1846, 25; Ellen Harmon's first published writing was "A Letter from Sister
Harmon," in the same issue of the Day-Star, January 24, 1846,
31-32.

[24] James White, Day-Star, January 24,
1846, 25.

[25] In 1877 Ellen White quoted John 4:24 KJV :
"God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and
in truth" (E. G. White, Spirit of Prophecy 2:143). In 1904 she
wrote, "God is a spirit; yet He is a personal being, for man was made in
His image" (E. G. White, Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View,
CA: Pacific Press, 1904, 1948), 8:263. James White held that God is "a
Spirit being" (idem, Personality of God [Battle Creek, SDA Pub.
Assn., (ca. 1868)], 3).

[26] Several Adventist writers cited almost the
same creedal phrases. D. M. Canright quotes two creeds,� Methodist and
Episcopal. The Methodist creed included the phrase "without body or
parts," whereas the Episcopal creed specified that God is "without body,
parts, or passions." Canright claimed knowledge of "other creeds" that
went "still further" and said that God is "without center or
circumference" (D. M. Canright, "The Personality of God," Review and
Herald, Sept. 5, 1878, 81; cf. ibid., Sept. 19, 1878, 97; cf. J. B.
Frisbie, "The Seventh Day-Sabbath [sic] Not Abolished," Review
and Herald, March 7, 1854, 50. Cf. James White, Personality of
God.

[27] Doctrines and Discipline of the
Methodist Episcopal Church (New York: Carlton and Porter,
1856), 15.

[28] For instance, Exod 24:9-11; 33:20-23; John
1:18; Heb 1:1-3; Uriah Smith, The State of the Dead and the Destiny of
the Wicked (Battle Creek, MI: SDA Publishing Assn., 1873), 27-30. Note
Smith's polemic against any "mystical interpretation of our current
theology" (ibid., 27).

[29] The creed in question was a Methodist
creed, and she had been raised Methodist. Furthermore, she was closely
associated with early Adventists who cited this creedal detail as one of
the unbiblical aspects of trinitarianism.

[30] Ellen G. White, A Sketch of the
Christian Experience and Views [Visions] of Ellen G. White
(Saratoga Springs, NY: James White, 1851) reprinted in Early
Writings of Ellen G. White (Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1882,
1945), 54.

[31] E. G. White, Early Writings, 77,
emphasis hers.

[32] While there is no record of her denouncing
the "trinitarian creed" as did her husband, note the similarity of
expression between her view in 1852 and what he wrote in 1868: "The
Father and the Son were one in man's creation, and in his
redemption.� Said the Father to the Son, 'Let us make man in our image.'
And the triumphant song of jubilee in which the redeemed take part, is
unto 'Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and
ever.'"

AJesus prayed that his disciples might be one as he was one with
his Father. This prayer did not contemplate one disciple with
twelve heads, but twelve disciples, made one in object and effort in
the cause of their master. Neither are the Father and the Son parts of
the 'three-one God.' They are two distinct beings, yet one in the design
and accomplishment of redemption. �The redeemed . . . ascribe the
honor, and glory, and praise, of their salvation, to both God and the
Lamb" (James White, Life Incidents [1868], 343, all emphasis
added).

[33] The title was an explicit assertion of her
claim to have received the gift of prophecy.

[34] Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts,
vols. 1, 3 (Battle Creek, MI: Steam Press of the Review and Herald
Office, 1858; Steam Press of the SDA Publishing Association, 1864),
1:17-18, 22-28; 3:33-34.

[35] Ellen G. White, "Testimony 17 (1869)," in
Testimonies for the Church, 9 vols. (1855-1909; reprint Mountain
View, CA: Pacific Press, 1948), 2:200; cf. "The Son of God was in the form
of God, and he thought it not robbery to be equal with God" (E. G. White,
Spirit of Prophecy [1877], 2:10).

[36] "To assert that the sayings of the Son and
his apostles are the commandments of the Father, is as wide from the truth
as the old Trinitarian absurdity that Jesus Christ is the very and eternal
God" (James White, "The Faith of Jesus," Review and Herald, Aug 5,
1852, p. 52).

[37] James White, "The Two Bodies," RH Oct. 12,
1876, 116; cf. Froom, Movement of Destiny, 178.

[38] James White, "Christ Equal with God,"
Review and Herald, Nov. 29, 1877, p. 72.

[39] Ellen G. White, "The First Advent of
Christ," Review and Herald, Dec. 17, 1872, par. 4; later published
in Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 2 (Battle Creek, MI: SDA Publishing
Association, 1877), 9-10; cf. E. G. White, "Bible Study," Review and
Herald, Jan 11, 1881, par. 3.

[40] Uriah Smith, Thoughts on the
Revelation (Battle Creek, MI: SDA Publishing Association, 1865), 59,
calls Christ the first created being; a view repudiated in Looking Unto
Jesus (Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald, 1898), 17, 12.

[41] Ellen G. White, "An Appeal to the
Ministers," Review and Herald, August 8, 1878, par. 4; Ellen G.
White to E. J. Waggoner and A. T. Jones, Feb. 18, 1887 (Letter 37, 1887),
in Manuscript Releases,15:25, par. 3 (also in idem, 1888
Materials, 28.3); idem, "'Search the Scriptures.' John 5:39," in
Youth's Instructor, August 31, 1887, par. 1; idem, "The Truth
Revealed in Jesus," Review and Herald, Feb. 8, 1898, par. 2.

[42] E. G. White, "Christ Our Only Hope,
Signs of the Times, Aug. 2, 1905, reprinted in E. G. White,
Selected Messages, 1:226-228.

[43] Ellen G. White, Great Controversy
(1888 ed.), 524. Cf. E. J. Waggoner's assertion that "Our object in this
investigation is to set forth Christ's rightful position of equality with
the Father, in order that His power to redeem may be the better
appreciated" (Christ and His ighteousness [Oakland, CA: Pacific
Press, 1890; facsimile reprint, Riverside, CA: The Upward Way, 1988];
19).

[44] E. G. White, Great Controversy (1888
ed.), 493, 495.

[45] Ellen G. White, Great Controversy
(1888 ed.), 493; idem, Patriarchs and Prophets (1890), 34.1; cf.
idem, "That We Might Be Partakers of the Divine Nature," Signs of the
Times, Oct. 14, 1897, par. 3.

[46] Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets
(1890), 36.

[47] Patriarchs and Prophets
(1890) was an amplification of an earlier work, Spirit of Prophecy,
vol. 1 (1870), where the corresponding sentence says simply, "The Son was
seated on the throne with the Father, and the heavenly throng of holy
angels was gathered around them."� E. G. White, Spirit of Prophecy,
vol. 1 (1870), 17.

[48] Special Testimonies for Ministers and
Workers, No. 10 (1897).

[49] Ellen G. White, Desire of Ages, 530,
671.

[50] "The world was made by him, 'and without
him was not anything made that was made.' If Christ made all things, he
existed before all things. The words spoken in regard to this are so
decisive that no one need be left in doubt. Christ was God essentially,
and in the highest sense. He was with God from all eternity, God over all,
blessed forevermore.

"The Lord Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, existed from
eternity, a distinct person, yet one with the Father" (Ellen G. White,
"The Word Made Flesh," Review and Herald, April 5, 1906, par. 6-7,
italics supplied [reprinted from Signs of the Times, April 26,
1899]).

[51] E. G. White, Manuscript 130, 1901, in
Manuscript Releases, 16:205, quoted in idem, Evangelism
(Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1946), 616 (but erroneously attributed
to Ms. 145, 1901); idem, Special Testimonies, Series B, no. 7
(1905), 51, 62-63, quoted in Evangelism, 617.3, 615.1.

[52] Fernando L. Canale, "Doctrine of God," in
Handbook of SDA Theology, ed. Raoul Dederen, 128-130.

[53] On the Kellogg Crisis, see R[ichard]W.
Schwarz, John Harvey Kellogg, M.D. (Nashville: Southern Publishing,
1970; reprint, Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1981),
174-192; idem, Light Bearers to the Remnant, (Mountain View, CA:
Pacific Press, 1979), 282-298; Jerry Moon, W. C. White and Ellen G.
White: The Relationship between the Prophet and Her Son (Berrien
Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1993), 274-320.

[54] Froom, Movement of Destiny, 351.

[55] W. A. Spicer, "Pantheism Here and in Its
Ancient Setting," in How the
Spirit of Prophecy Met a Crisis: Memories and Notes of the "Living Temple"
Controversy, [1938], chapter 13., accessed September 18, 2003.

[56] See J. H. Kellogg, "God in Man, No. 1,"
"God in Nature, No. 2," and "God in Man, No. 3," in General Conference
Daily Bulletin, 1897, 72-84.

[57] J. H. Kellogg, The Living Temple
(Battle Creek, MI: Good Health Pub. Co., 1903).

[58] Kellogg, Living Temple, 28-30.

[59] J. H. Kellogg, Living Temple,
28.

[60] Ibid.

[61] Ibid., 29.

[62] W. A. Spicer, (n. 55 above); W. W.
Prescott, "Suggestions on Matter Found on Galleys 1-129, Inclusive, of
Matter for Dr. Kellogg's New Book, The Living Temple," Record Group
11, A. G. Daniells, 1901-1950, J. H. Kellogg Case File, General Conference
Archives, Silver Springs, MD.

[63] E. G. White to the Teachers in Emmanuel
Missionary College, Sept. 22, 1903 ("Teach the Word"), in Spalding and
Magan's Unpublished Manuscript Testimonies of Ellen G. White,
1915-1916 (hereinafter referred to as Spalding-Magan Collection
(Payson, AZ: Leaves-Of-Autumn Books, 1985), 320.

[64] Ibid., 320-321.

[65] Ibid., 324. Kellogg hinted in Living
Temple (29-32) that the concept of a personal God was an (ultimately
unfactual) construct for the benefit of immature minds, implying that
intellectuals like himself could perceive the reality beyond the
anthropomorphic accommodation.

[66] George I. Butler had been president of the
General Conference (1871-1874, 1880-1888) and in 1903 was president of the
Southern Union.

[67] J. H. Kellogg to G. I. Butler, Oct. 28,
1903a [one of two letters from Butler to Kellogg on the same date], Center
for Adventist Research, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI.

[68] G. I. Butler to J. H. Kellogg, April 5,
1904, emphasis supplied.

[69] E. G. White, "Teach the Word," Sept. 22,
1903, in Spalding-Magan Collection, 321.

[70] E. G. White, Special Testimonies,
Series B, no. 7 (1905), 63.

[71] Ibid., 62, alluding to Rev 2:24.

[72] Ibid., 61.

[73] Ibid., 63-64.

[74] Ibid., 62.

[75] Ibid., 62-63.

[76] See note 80 below.

[77] E. G. White, Selected Messages,
1:203.

[78] Ibid., 204.

[79] Bob Diener, The Alpha and the Omega,
videocassette.

[80] Bible texts that Ellen White cited as
supporting various aspects of a trinitarian view include Rom 8:16
(Evangelism [Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1946], 617); 1 Cor
2:10-14 (ibid.); John 16:7-14 (ibid., 616); John 14:16-18, 26; 16:8, 12-14
(Desire of Ages, 669-671); and Col. 2:9 (Evangelism, 614).

[81] F. M. Wilcox was editor of the Review
and Herald from 1911-1944, and one of the original five trustees
appointed by Ellen White to superintend her estate.

[82] [F. M. Wilcox], "The Message for Today,"
RH, October 9, 1913, p. 21.

[83] Jerry Moon, "The
Adventist Trinity Debate, Part 1: Historical Overview," Andrews
University Seminary Studies 41 (Spring 2003): 122.

[84] James White, Day-Star, January 24,
1846, 26.

[85] "We need to realize that the Holy Spirit,
who is as much a person as God is a person, is walking through these
grounds, unseen by human eyes; that the Lord God is our Keeper and Helper.
He hears every word we utter and knows every thought of the mind" (E. G.
White, "Talk at Avondale School," March 25, 1899, in Sermons and
Talks, vol. 2 [Silver Spring, MD: E. G. White Estate, 1994], 136-137;
also in Evangelism, 616 and Manuscript Releases, vol. 7
[Silver Spring, MD: E. G. White Estate, 1990], 299).

[86] E. G. White, Special Testimonies,
Series B, no. 7 (1905), 62-63, quoted in Evangelism, 615.1.

[87] Canale, Handbook of Seventh-day
Adventist Theology, 150.

[88] Ibid, 148-150. On a more popular level, see
Moon, "The Trinity in the Reformation Era: Four Viewpoints," in The
Trinity, by Whidden, Moon, and Reeve, 166-181.

[89] Fernando Luis Canale, A Criticism of
Theological Reason: Time and Timelessness as Primordial
Presuppositions, Andrews University Seminary Doctoral Dissertation
Series, vol. 10 (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1983),
359; 402, n. 1;� idem, ADoctrine of God," in Handbook of Seventh-day
Adventist Theology, ed. Raoul Dederen, 117-118, 126, 128-129, 132,
138-140, 145, 148-150.

[90] Canale, "Doctrine of God," in Handbook
of Seventh-day Adventist Theology, 148.

[91] Canale elaborates (ibid., 150): "Finally,
having departed from the philosophical conception of God as timeless and
having embraced the historical conception of God as presented in the
Bible, Adventists envisage the relation between the immanent and economic
Trinity as one of identity rather than correspondence. The works of
salvation are produced in time and history by the immanent Trinity [Fritz
Guy, "What the Trinity Means to Me," Adventist Review, Sept. 11,
1986, 13] by way of its different Persons, conceived as centers of
consciousness and action. Consequently, the indivisibility of God's works
in history is not conceived by Adventists as being determined by the
oneness of essence—as taught in the Augustinian classical tradition—but
rather by the oneness of the historical task of redemption [Raoul Dederen,
"Reflections on the Doctrine of the Trinity," AUSS 8 (Spring 1970):
20]. The danger of Tritheism involved in this position becomes real when
the oneness of God is reduced to a mere unity conceived in analogy to a
human society or a fellowship of action. Beyond such a unity of action,
however, it is necessary to envision God as the one single reality which,
in the very acts by which He reveals Himself directly in history,
transcends the limits of our human reason [W. W. Prescott, The Saviour
of the World (Takoma Park, MD: Review and Herald, 1929), 17]. In no
way could human minds achieve what the classic doctrine about the Trinity
claims to perceive, namely, the description of the inner structure of
God's being. Together with the entire creation, we must accept God's
oneness by faith (James 2:19)."�

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