By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
What is really at stake in the trinitarian-unitarian controversy?
What is really at stake in the trinitarian-unitarian controversy is whether Jesus is to be understood as the explicit primal ontic source of Christian authority, as trinitarians, in their way, maintain, or whether, on the contrary, Jesus is to be understood simply as the sole primary Christian authority, as unitarians, in their way, maintain.
Thus unitarianism is the position according to which Christianity is not a religion essentially distinct from Judaism but, in effect, a Jewish confession, denomination, or sect, and Christians are, in effect, "honorary Jews," or Jews who follow Rabbi Jesus. Trinitarianism, by contrast, is the position according to which Christianity is not, in effect, a Jewish confession, denomination, or sect, but a religion essentially distinct from Judaism, and Christians are not Jews but precisely Christians, who as such acknowledge the sole primary authority of the apostles whom they follow in confessing the sole Lordship of Jesus Christ.
4 June 1990; rev. 1 September 2003
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