Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In theology, one who holds or professes modalism.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Theol.) One who regards Father, Son, and Spirit as modes of being, and not as persons, thus denying personal distinction in the Trinity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to modalism
  • noun A believer in modalism.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Nor need the modalist declare all the remaining god-candidates to be distinct modes; rather, two or more may be identified with each other.

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • This sort of modalist simply identifies God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • These possibilities, envisioned by 17th century philosophers, have not been carefully applied or adapted to modalist Trinity theories by theologians.

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • Carried to an extreme, one may be a modalist without saying that any of the four are modes.

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • It accounts for mathematical truth in terms of the operations of a possible but non-actual ideal agent, and thus falls under the heading of modalist philosophies of mathematics.

    Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics Paseau, Alexander 2008

  • At the time, Lifeway was rapidly selling The Shack, which heretically misrepresents the Trinity, presenting God from the viewpoint of a modalist.

    BagOfNothing.com 2009

  • “thin” modes saddle a trinitarian modalist with the biblical difficulties noted above, whereas metaphysically

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • Much twentieth century theological literature on the Trinity derives from the influential work of theologians Karl Barth (1886 “ 1968) and Karl Rahner (1904 “ 84), both of whom endorse Trinity theories widely criticized as modalist or close to it.

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • Since a main motivation of modalist trinitarianism is the preservation of monotheism, God ” the god Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures ” is normally chosen as primary, although one or more the other three may be held to be numerically identical to him.

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

  • At the popular level, modalist thinking has a firm beachhead; liturgical statements, song lyrics, and sermons frequently use trinitarian names (“Father”, “Son”,

    Trinity Tuggy, Dale 2009

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