Homer, I have read that view of modalism in the past. However, most modalists, neither in the past nor the present, saw/see "God as one mode at a time rather than three simultaneously" in spite of websites which affirm the contrary. Consider the following article from catholic.comHomer you wrote:Paidion also wrote:
True trinitarians also believe that the Son is a different Individual from the Father, and modalists or "Oneness" believers think Trinitarians believe in three Gods.
But who are the "true" trinitarians? Didn't the trinitarians for most of church history see The Father, Son, and Spirit as personae rather than individuals? Contra modern trinitarians who see the three as individuals, and contra modalists who see God as one mode at a time rather than three simultaneously?
http://www.catholic.com/library/God_in_ ... ersons.asp
and this one:
http://www.faithalone.com/modalism.html
I have United Pentecostal friends and they vehemently deny that they believe in "sequential" modalism. They believe the Father, Son, and Spirit exist sumultaneously.
"Personae" is the Latin word from which "persons" is derived. Early Latin usage was not restricted to individual personal entities, however. It refer to actors' masks, or roles in a drama. The Greek equivalent of "persona" almost exclusively referred to an actor's mask or role in a drama. Thus the modalist sees God as a single divine Individual who portrays Himself in three roles (He wears three "masks", that of the Father, that of the Son, and that of the Holy Spirit. Though the Father role was dominant in OT days, the Son role dominant while Jesus walked the earth, and the Holy Spirit role dominant on that special day of Pentecost and thereafter, any two or all three roles can be taken on by God simultaneously.
By "true Trinitarianism", I meant classical Trinitarianism, not the modern modalism which disguises itself as Trinitarianism. Classical trinitarianism, was that defined in the fourth century, which defines God as a triunity. They saw God as a single, unified, compound Being consisting of three divine Individual persons. A clover leaf might be one of the best earthly representations of the Trinitarian concept of God . In their attacks against Trinitarianism, the JWs crudely describe the Trinitarian God as a "three-headed monster". Although the JW phrase would be blasphemous to a Trinitarian, it nevertheless seems that a three-headed person would be a fairly accurate analogy to the classic Trinitarian concept of God.