Talk:Ellen G. White

Verifiability

Fritz Guy made the point in a WP:RS, and I have explained his point in my own words. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:59, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Desire of Ages

Be advised... Ellen White did not write the Desire of Ages — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:6D52:E040:905C:75CB:D6A5:6706 (talk) 06:16, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Her plagiarism is hardly news. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:38, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Recent revert

1. Changing quotes from books written by others is not done;
2. The edits smack of original research, instead of rendering the judgment of WP:SECONDARY WP:RS.

So, yeah, Although not actively anti-Trinitarian is a quote from a book published by Indiana University Press. It is not something me or another Wikipedian devised by themself. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:35, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Deletion

The WP:CITEd work is WP:RS. Now there are two possibilities: either she did not believe that Jesus was God since eternity past, or her major preaching work is a jumbled, irrational writing which makes no sense rationally. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:00, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

And, if you don't believe me, here is her writing:

Extended content

Chapter I. - The Fall of Satan. Satan in Heaven, before his rebellion, was a high and exalted angel, next in honor to God’s dear Son. His countenance, like those of the other angels, was mild and expressive of happiness. His forehead was high and broad, showing a powerful intellect. His form was perfect; his bearing noble and majestic. A special light beamed in his countenance, and shone around him brighter and more beautiful than around the other angels; yet Jesus, God’s dear Son, had the pre-eminence over all the angelic host. He was one with the Father before the angels were created. Satan was envious of Christ, and gradually assumed command which devolved on Christ alone. The great Creator assembled the heavenly host, that he might in the presence of all the angels confer special honor upon his Son. The Son was seated on the throne with the Father, and the heavenly throng of holy angels was gathered around them. The Father then made known that it was ordained by himself that Christ, his Son, should be equal with himself; so that wherever was the presence of his Son, it was as his own presence. The word of the Son was to be obeyed as readily as the word of the Father. His Son he 17 had invested with authority to command the heavenly host. Especially was his Son to work in union with himself in the anticipated creation of the earth and every living thing that should exist upon the earth. His Son would carry out his will and his purposes, but would do nothing of himself alone. The Father’s will would be fulfilled in him. Satan was envious and jealous of Jesus Christ. Yet when all the angels bowed to Jesus to acknowledge his supremacy and high authority and rightful rule, Satan bowed with them; but his heart was filled with envy and hatred. Christ had been taken into the special counsel of God in regard to his plans, while Satan was unacquainted with them. He did not understand, neither was he permitted to know, the purposes of God. But Christ was acknowledged sovereign of Heaven, his power and authority to be the same as that of God himself. Satan thought that he was himself a favorite in Heaven among the angels. He had been highly exalted; but this did not call forth from him gratitude and praise to his Creator. He aspired to the height of God himself. He gloried in his loftiness. He knew that he was honored by the angels. He had a special mission to execute. He had been near the great Creator, and the ceaseless beams of glorious light enshrouding the eternal God, had shone especially upon him. Satan thought how angels had obeyed his command with pleasurable alacrity. Were not his garments light and beautiful? Why should Christ thus be honored before himself? He left the immediate presence of the Father, dissatisfied, and filled with envy against Jesus Christ. Concealing his real purposes, he assembled the angelic host. He introduced his subject, 18 which was himself. As one aggrieved, he related the preference God had given Jesus to the neglect of himself. He told them that henceforth all the sweet liberty the angels had enjoyed was at an end. For had not a ruler been appointed over them, to whom they from henceforth must yield servile honor? He stated to them that he had called them together to assure them that he no longer would submit to this invasion of his rights and theirs; that never would he again bow down to Christ; that he would take the honor upon himself which should have been conferred upon him, and would be the commander of all who would submit to follow him and obey his voice. There was contention among the angels. Satan and his sympathizers were striving to reform the government of God. They were discontented and unhappy because they could not look into his unsearchable wisdom and ascertain his purposes in exalting his Son Jesus, and endowing him with such unlimited power and command. They rebelled against the authority of the Son. Angels that were loyal and true sought to reconcile this mighty, rebellious angel to the will of his Creator. They justified the act of God in conferring honor upon Jesus Christ, and with forcible reasoning sought to convince Satan that no less honor was his now than before the Father had proclaimed the honor which he had conferred upon his Son. They clearly set forth that Jesus was the Son of God, existing with him before the angels were created; and that he had ever stood at the right hand of God, and his mild, loving authority had not heretofore been questioned; and that he had given no commands but what it was joy for the heavenly host to execute. They 19 urged that Christ’s receiving special honor from the Father, in the presence of the angels, did not detract from the honor that he had heretofore received. The angels wept. They anxiously sought to move Satan to renounce his wicked design and yield submission to their Creator; for all had heretofore been peace and harmony, and what could occasion this dissenting, rebellious voice? Satan refused to listen. And then he turned from the loyal and true angels, denouncing them as slaves. These angels, true to God, stood in amazement as they saw that Satan was successful in his effort to excite rebellion. He promised them a new and better government than they then had, in which all would be freedom. Great numbers signified their purpose to accept Satan as their leader and chief commander. As he saw his advances were met with success, he flattered himself that he should yet have all the angels on his side, and that he would be equal with God himself, and his voice of authority would be heard in commanding the entire host of Heaven. Again the loyal angels warned Satan, and assured him what must be the consequence if he persisted; that He who could create the angels, could by his power overturn all their authority, and in some signal manner punish their audacity and terrible rebellion. To think that an angel should resist the law of God which was as sacred as himself! They warned the rebellious to close their ears to Satan’s deceptive reasonings, and advised Satan, and all who had been affected by him, to go to God and confess their wrong for even admitting a thought of questioning his authority.

Copyright notice: since she is long dead, her book is public domain. Evidence: https://ellenwhite.org/correspondence/184045

Why would God need a public ceremony to formalize an objective fact known since eternity past? It does not make sense that in her scenario Jesus was God from eternity past.

And she probably did not understand what "ontological reality" means: the doctrine of the Trinity defines ontology, i.e. what everything that exists is made of. In Trinitarianism, the idea that Jesus is God is not God's accidental (willful) choice, but an ontological reality: God simply could not choose not to be Trinity. God is made of Trinity, and cannot choose to be something else. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:18, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Against medicines and physicians

Sorry to say this, but in 1865, when she published Health, Or: How to Live she was mostly right to oppose medicines and physicians. But that holds no longer true today. She was right at that moment, but that does not make it an eternal truth.

Want "proof"? Examine the medical advertisements from Revised Handbook for Boys, 1927 edition. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:55, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

E.G. White

Can someone chuck a redirection onto this page please (so she appears when you type 'E.G. White')? She is published as 'E.G. White' and i had to google the book name to find her wiki page. X Kempee (talk) 10:52, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Disputed content regarding vegetarianism

There are a couple of lines on the article that I do not believe are properly sourced. The first in the lead says "White is considered a leading figure in American vegetarian history", the source given is the International Vegetarian Union website [1], but this source fails to support that claim. The IVU website is clearly an advocacy website, I do not oppose using this website on Wikipedia (it's useful for dates and other minor details) but it isn't a good reference to be using in the lead on a biography. It is not an academic source. We would need stronger sourcing here, preferably a work from a historian.

Ellen G. White did not write much on vegetarianism. She became a vegetarian in 1894, so she was only a vegetarian for the last ten years of her life. I wouldn't describe her as a "leading figure in American vegetarian history". I have not seen any good sourcing claim that. She was influential but "leading figure" is WP:OR here.

The other line that isn't properly sourced is "The most vegetarian church fellowship is in North America where over half of Adventists in North American are vegetarian or vegan." This is sourced to the website Christianity Today. The website does not list a source for its claim. I do not consider this source to be reliable for data on vegetarians.

Few Adventists are vegetarians as this source notes "Very, very few Adventists are vegetarians, even by the permissive definition of Lorna Linda University researchers (eating meat less than one day per week). Even in California, one of the oases of Adventist vegetarians-along with Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand investigators estimate only half the Adventists are vegetarians. Some 90 percent of Adventists live elsewhere, and are overwhelmingly not vegetarians". [2]

According to this review of the Adventist Health Study 2 [3] 36% of 96,000 Adventists sampled in North America were vegetarians (vegan and vegetarian). The claim that "over half of Adventists in North American are vegetarian or vegan" is not supported by any good sourcing. Psychologist Guy (talk) 22:11, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

White did not actually become a vegetarian in 1894, "Two years ago I came to the conclusion that there was danger in using the flesh of dead animals, and since then I have not used meat at all. It is never placed on my table. I use fish when I can get it. We get beautiful fish from the salt water lake near here." In 1896 she was still eating fish [4] Psychologist Guy (talk) 20:34, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Avondale University

There seems to be a confusion with the institution she was involved in in Australia. The wiki page for the correct institution is at Avondale University but this page currently links to Avondale College, an Auckland high school. I just changed the same mistake in the page for Cooranbong but can't do so here. 121.75.119.210 (talk) 08:11, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Erroneous view of Ellen White's Christology (Trinity).

The article makes the following claim:

"In her own opinion, Jesus did not begin as equal to God the Father but was at a certain moment promoted to equality with the Father, which triggered Lucifer's rebellion (as explained in her book Spirit of Prophecy) [End Quote]

This claim is clearly incorrect. Here is an actual statement from Ellen White that shows her view:

"There had been no change in the position or authority of Christ. Lucifer's envy and misrepresentation and his claims to equality with Christ had made necessary a statement of the true position of the Son of God; but this had been the same from the beginning. Many of the angels were, however, blinded by Lucifer's deceptions (Patriarchs and Prophets pg 38)

So, according to Mrs. White, Jesus was already equal to God the Father. He was not promoted to equality at a certain moment. The actual sequence of events that she presents (see Patriarchs and Prophets pg 35 onward) is that Lucifer became envious of the Son of God and he broke the perfect harmony of heaven by developing a disposition to serve himself. He purposed in his heart to dispute the supremacy of the Son of God. God the Father gave a statement publicly declaring His Son's position of equality with Himself. He did that so that all His creatures could know His will and guard themselves against Lucifer's sophistry. Instead of submitting to the will of the Father, Lucifer distorted this statement by lying to the angels and making it seem that a new position of authority had been given to Christ. Although many of the angels believed Lucifer's lie, this was not actually the case. The reality is that there had been no change in Christ's position or authority. Christ's position was the same as it had always been. It was only Lucifer's envy and misrepresentation that had made the statement necessary. Jems777 (talk) 01:52, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Such claims are biased for Trinitarianism, and there is no evidence that White herself was a Trinitarian. She wasn't actively anti-Trinitarian, this is the most epistemically warranted claim you could get.

Also: openly lying about an objective fact known since eternity past? Were the angels mentally deficient? Her story makes absolutely no sense.

Some scholars have denied that Ellen White was a major influence in the Adventist shift toward Trinitarian doctrine and have argued that early Adventism had neither an Arian, Semi-Arian, nor Trinitarian theology, but rather a materialist one.

Copy/paste from Seventh-day Adventist theology. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:51, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

That isn't a biased claim for trinitarianism. It is simply what her quote actually says. No one can honestly say that Ellen White's opinion was that "Jesus did not begin as equal to God the Father but was at a certain moment promoted to equality with the Father" when her actual published statement declares:

"There had been no change in the position or authority of Christ. Lucifer's envy and misrepresentation and his claims to equality with Christ had made necessary a statement of the true position of the Son of God; but this had been the same from the beginning. Many of the angels were, however, blinded by Lucifer's deceptions (Patriarchs and Prophets pg 38).

We just need to be honest about this matter. What is written on the page is erroneous as her own statement proves.

Now, I agree with you that there is no evidence that Ellen White was herself a trinitarian. While she does refer to the "eternal Godhead" of Father, Son, and Spirit, she never seems to cross over the boundary of trinitarian doctrine by making Them into the one God (Him).

"The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the eternal Godhead is involved in the action required to make assurance to the human agent... (19LtMs, Ms 45, 1904, par. 16)

Now, you appear to have asked several questions that deserve answers:

You wrote: Also: openly lying about an objective fact known since eternity past? [End Quote]

I don't know where you are getting this from. You are assuming that it was an objective fact known since eternity past that the Son of God was equal to God the Father. Yet the Bible gives us a view of the pre-incarnate Christ that suggests that although He was in the form of God, He did not actually act like He was equal to God.

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped... (Phil 2:5,6a)

The humility which the Son of God demonstrated, by emptying Himself, taking on human form, then dying upon the cross, appears to be a manifestation of His personality. The Scripture indicates that this is who He always has been, character wise.

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8)

With this being the case, it would be unclear to the angels His absolute equality with God the Father because He simply does not act that way as a matter of His character/personality.

You wrote: Were the angels mentally deficient? Her story makes absolutely no sense [End Quote]

No, the angels were not mentally deficient but, apparently, some of them must have became that way as evidenced by their rebellion. Egw's claim makes perfect sense in light of the Bible's teaching about the humble character and personality of the pre-incarnate Son of God. He is the absolute equal of the Father but did not appear to be that because of His humility. Jems777 (talk) 09:27, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, that's fully WP:OR. We have multiple academic sources which state that the claim that White was Trinitarian is extremely dubious. Her own husband denied that she was Trinitarian.

And you're making childish excuses that Jesus's humility in heavens (before being born on Earth), has kept hidden his equality with the Father. That is simply put a jumbled story.

See #Deletion for "ontological reality". It seems she did not understand that the Trinity is ontological, i.e. not a whim of God. She thought that the Creator could play hide and seek with angels, angels being definitely creatures and not the Creator (like Christ).

Let me admit it fairly: her story could be coherent, but not coherent with Trinitarianism. I.e. the part with Jesus was very humble among the angels is not a Trinitarian belief.

some of them must have became that way as evidenced by their rebellion—that's not what she said, she said that any angel has an intellect far superior to any man. You're defending fanciful claims with even more fanciful claims.

A more realistic view of Mrs. White is that she took no interest in Trinitarianism, neither to oppose it, nor to defend it. She either did not understand or did not care about the debate upon Trinitarianism.

Jesus's humility in heavens is not discussed (or denied) in the Bible. But, again, the doctrine of the Trinity is not a belief from the Bible, but the result of theological disputes which took centuries. Your interpretation of the Phil verse is by no means theologically orthodox. And the Jesus from the gospels (especially the Gospel of John) isn't a particularly humble person. The gospels describe him as conceited and prone to quarrels. By the same standard, when he was told he has quite an ego, Jiddu Krishnamurti merely became angry because that is an offense from a mortal to his own divine being. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:15, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

tgeorgescu, I'm curious about what you mean when you write "Trinitarian" or "Trinity". To aid in further communication about the article content, I have a few questions:

1. Do you agree that the lead of our article about the Trinity (copied below) expresses traditional Christian belief on the subject?
2. Do you believe that the official SDA position is consistent with that lead?
3. What form of statement from EGW would you find necessary to demonstrate that she would agree with what is written in that lead?
4. If you believe she would not agree, in what way do you think she deviates from traditional Christian beliefs on the subject?
5. Do you believe she ever held Trinitarian beliefs (at some point in her life)?

Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:26, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Trinity

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (Latin: Trinitas, lit. 'triad', from Latin: trinus 'threefold') is the central doctrine concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons (hypostases) sharing one essence/substance/nature (homoousion). As the Fourth Lateran Council declared, it is the Father who begets, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds. In this context, one essence/nature defines what God is, while the three persons define who God is. This expresses at once their distinction and their indissoluble unity. Thus, the entire process of creation and grace is viewed as a single shared action of the three divine persons, in which each person manifests the attributes unique to them in the Trinity, thereby proving that everything comes "from the Father," "through the Son," and "in the Holy Spirit."

This doctrine is called Trinitarianism and its adherents are called Trinitarians, while its opponents are called antitrinitarians or nontrinitarians. Christian nontrinitarian positions include Unitarianism, Binitarianism and Modalism.

@Valjean:

1. Yes, I agree, since I'm not performing WP:OR. In fact I have no dog in the dispute between Trinitarians and anti-Trinitarians, nor in the dispute between the theologically orthodox and the theologically heterodox. I only notice that the view that Christ was the Undercover Supreme King of Heaven is not a traditional Trinitarian view. The traditional view is that he was the Manifest Supreme King of Heaven, and he only humbled himself in order to become human in order to redeem humanity. Trinitarians did not commonly believe that he humbled himself before his incarnation, nor that his role as Supreme King of Heaven was a closely guarded secret.
2. Yes, the SDA Church is at this moment Trinitarian. Perhaps they do not fully acknowledge that the Trinity is a mystery incomprehensible to the human mind, but they do their best to comply with Trinitarianism.
3. Again, I do not perform WP:OR, I simply note that according to multiple WP:RS she simply had no take on Trinitarianism. So, there is no explicit statement wherein she disagreed with it, and no explicit statement wherein she agreed with it. It's like searching for five year plans in the works of Marx and Engels: it wasn't their idea.
4. I don't think that she either agreed or disagreed with Trinitarianism; it was simply not her concern. As stated before: I WP:CITEd an Adventist professor stating that she did not work as an academic theologian, and therefore she did not have a theological doctrine.
5. According to the evidence we have, I don't think that's knowable. Scholars have a variety of views upon whether she was Trinitarian or not, but there is no smoking gun, all such views rely upon reading their own interpretation into what she stated. Again, SDA scholars have a strong incentive to conform to present-day theological orthodoxy of the SDA Church, which is now Trinitarian. So they are biased for her being Trinitarian. I'm not saying that everything they state about that would be a lie, but their position has to be taken with a grain of salt. In case I wasn't clear: I do plead above for the academic WP:RS being right, but I don't substitute my judgment for the judgment of the WP:RS. E.g. at [5] the claim that she defended Trinitarianism is seen as an overstatement. The epistemically warranted position is that she was "not actively anti-Trinitarian". tgeorgescu (talk) 23:20, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! It's nice to understand a bit about background when communicating. I often see your edits to SDA articles and have wondered about yours. I'm a 4th generation PK and MK, ministers in all directions, but I am not one, nor a particularly faithful SDA. Let's just say I understand its history and theology but am not a formal theologian.

Even if EGW wasn't always a Trinitarian, she came to hold Trinitarian beliefs, in the sense of believing in one God in three co-equal parts. She believed in God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. She believed this was a mystery and a matter of faith, not something humans could fully understand. The same goes for the humanity of Christ, while still being fully God. Another mystery. If she wasn't always a Trinitarian, I don't know when she fully embraced it, but it may have been after her husband, James S. White, died in 1881. They were far from united in their theological beliefs, and their marriage had some friction. She was surrounded by Arians and others in church leadership who were not Trinitarians. For example, Uriah Smith never believed in the Trinity, but believed that Jesus was a created being. EGW did not believe that. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:00, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Valjean: It's a matter of jargon: for her "created beings" meant beings created by Jesus Christ. So, in that respect, she never denied that Jesus Christ is the Creator. But Arians did not deny that, either. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:17, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, she believed Jesus was the Creator. The question some ask is if she believed Jesus was a created being. That would be a firm "No". She believed the angels and beings on other planets were created by Jesus, and that Lucifer was the highest of all created beings and the leader of the angel choir, a being with vast abilities and singing powers. Since the Godhead had always existed, there came a time when God created the angels, and those angels did not have personal knowledge of preceding history. Thus, when Jesus was formally announced (according to EGW) to be part of the Godhead, Lucifer got jealous. He apparently thought of Jesus as a fellow angel. Well, that was not the case. In reality, there was no change of status for Jesus, just a formal declaration of status, a form of explanation and clarification. (I am speaking from an SDA perspective here, just to explain how they believe these things.)

As we know, she had views about things related to God, Heaven, Lucifer, and other angels that we don't find clearly and unequivocally stated in the Scriptures. In that sense, she held certain beliefs that are not shared by other Christians, IOW they would be seen as unorthodox beliefs. This would be rather benign if it did not contradict Scripture. It would be mere embellishment, something many, if not most, religious writers engage in. If it did contradict Scripture, then she'd be off into unchristian, maybe even heretical, beliefs. I don't recall any such beliefs. Her deviations are more benign.

Her theological beliefs about salvation by faith were largely Methodist. That was her background before the creation of the SDA church. The church was originally composed of people from many different Protestant denominations, and they each brought their background beliefs with them. The church gradually coalesced around certain beliefs they could all accept, and also coalesced against certain beliefs they rejected. The result was the early SDA church, and the church has evolved even more since then, especially regarding righteousness by faith. The general understanding moved further away from legalism with the 1888 teachings of A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner. IIRC, EGW expressed that before that time, she had only spoken about such beliefs with her husband. Before that, there was much legalism in the church. Their Christ-centered evangelism seemed to give her the courage to more openly and clearly express such teachings. Some of her most beautiful writings about Jesus and salvation came after this time.

The legalists in the church chafed under all this emphasis on Jesus, righteousness by faith and not by works, and deemphasis of The Law. Preaching about the law was the bread and butter of many Adventist evangelists. It all came to a head when the General Conference President, a legalist and opponent of Jones and Waggoner, literally, but discretely, exiled her to Australia. ("God later revealed to her that it had not been His plan for her to go to Australia, but rather the will of the church leaders to send her there. Some reports even suggest that certain church leaders wanted Ellen White to leave for a while because of personal disagreements they had with her."[6] Church history is interesting stuff. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:43, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Valjean: I do not lambast her views as "false teachings", nor I endorse them as true belief. I follow theological debates same as I follow debates about Greek mythology, i.e. not as a believer. Independent sources do not agree that she endorsed Trinitarianism, but only that she did not oppose it. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:09, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, if one only listens to certain sources, and ignores her own teachings and words, that would be the result. Regarding the Trinity, although she did not write using theological terminology and avoided using the word "Trinity", she believed in one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. That is classic Trinitarianism. Her husband, with whom she did not always agree, "stated categorically that her visions did not support the Trinitarian creed". He died in 1881, before her understandings of some of these things expanded greatly. I don't recall if he was anti-Trinitarian, but many early SDA leaders were not Trinitarians. The modern church is firmly trinitarian. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:19, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Valjean: For me being an Wikipedian means being passionate about ideas which aren't mine and have no impact on how I lead my life. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:28, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. Here I want to explore what she said and believed. We need to get it right. Here is one quote about the matter:

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.

That's a pretty clear statement that supports her Trinitarian beliefs. Here is another:

The work is laid out before every soul that has acknowledged his faith in Jesus Christ by baptism, and has become a receiver of the pledge from the three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:34, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

A good PowerPoint presentation from Andrews University deals with the history of anti-Trinitarian and Trinitarian beliefs in the church and EGW's statements. It's not long and well worth reading. Download Ellen G. White and God: One, Two or Three? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:06, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Valjean: I would like to see that judgment endorsed in WP:BESTSOURCES, which is AFAIK not the case. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:08, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Of course. I'm curious what you think of the quotes I posted above. Does that sound like someone who does not believe in the Trinity?

We must be careful to not depend on sources, cherry-picked or otherwise biased, that have an axe to grind with the church or EGW. Theology, just like politics, is far from an objective area, often not based on fact but based more on opinions. If used at all, they must be attributed. There are former and current church members who try to misrepresent EGW, so we should be careful. They avoid quoting her statements that are clearly Trinitarian in nature, or they seek to reinterpret them or find fault with them.

Church authorities, theologians, and other writings would be acceptable for documenting her beliefs. To the best of my knowledge, her mature understanding of the matter is mirrored by this current statement of church beliefs:

"Belief 2 - The Trinity:

There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three coeternal Persons. God is immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, above all, and ever present. He is infinite and beyond human comprehension, yet known through His self-revelation. God, who is love, is forever worthy of worship, adoration, and service by the whole creation. (Genesis 1:26; Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 6:8; Matthew 28:19; John 3:16, 2 Corinthians 1:21, 22; 13:14; Ephesians 4:4-6; 1 Peter 1:2.)

That's the church, not EGW, but her statements are in harmony with that statement. She goes much further, making that statement a simplistic, bare minimum, statement of doctrine. I'll try to find other, non-primary, sources for her beliefs on this point. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:31, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Valjean: The SDA Church has an axe to grind against split groups who want to return SDA to anti-Trinitarianism. So, yes, the view of the SDA scholars matters, but some skepticism is warranted. Again, I'm not involved in such a dispute, for me it is just getting the popcorn.

Distinguishing among Trinitarianism, Arianism, Semi-Arianism, and materialism is not an easy job, and it cannot be done based upon a few summary quotes. E.g. Arians stated that the Son is God, but subordinated to God the Father. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:54, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

All interesting stuff, but we need to keep it related to EGW's beliefs. She may not have used theological terms, but she had clear beliefs on these matters. She may not have used the word "Trinity", but she did write "three persons" and "There are three living persons of the heavenly trio". They mean the same thing. She is expressing a clear Trinitarian belief. Even Malcolm Bull found she was the lone exception who wrote a "Trinitarian declaration" prior to 1898. No other Adventists did that until much later. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:33, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

(Continued below)

References

Parsing Bull's words

@Valjean: I'm not reading the RS the same way: according to me, Bull is actually doubting that she wrote a "Trinitarian declaration". tgeorgescu (talk) 07:18, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, it's possible I haven't parsed his words correctly, so let's do it together. Here is the current wording in the article:

He wrote that "one researcher was forced to conclude" there has not "been found any Trinitarian declaration written, prior to [1898], by an Adventist writer other than Ellen G. White." She was the lone exception.

That is based on these words of his from the cited reference (I have stricken some words that are not relevant to the point):

"... one researcher was forced to conclude that he was "unable to discover any evidence that 'many were Trinitarians' before 1898, nor has there been found any Trinitarian declaration written, prior to that date, by an Adventist writer other than Ellen G. White."

How am I misinterpreting those words? We can simplify the sentence by removing those stricken extraneous words:

"... one researcher was forced to conclude" there has not "been found any Trinitarian declaration written, prior to [1898], by an Adventist writer other than Ellen G. White."

That literally means there has been found some form of Trinitarian declaration written by Ellen White prior to 1898. That leads me to conclude he means "She was the lone exception" up to that date. I don't know which statement she made prior to 1898, but we do have a statement from 1898 (that originated in 1896):

"sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power." (The Desire of Ages, p. 671 (1898).

That statement's origins are from "Letter 8, 1896": "a letter Ellen White addressed to “My Brethren in America,” dated February 6, 1896. She wrote, “Evil had been accumulating for centuries, and could only be restrained and resisted by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power."[7] It was repurposed for use in The Desire of Agess in 1898.

While the question of when she wrote her first statements on the matter is of academic interest, that is not our primary concern here. We just need to demonstrate, using RS, whether she made statements about the subject and answer the question "Did EGW make statements that are Trinitarian in nature?" She did.

Per the other descriptions of how she wrote, we wouldn't find her using typical theological wordings or using the word "Trinity", but still words that clearly describe her understanding of the Trinity. She wrote "three living persons of the heavenly trio; in the name of these three great powers—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" and "the three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

Am I oversimplifying it by removing keywords that affect the meaning? If so, which words? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me)

BTW, the most authoritative source for her writings is the "Ellen G. White Estate" in Takoma Park, Washington, DC. Although much of what she wrote is published in books, they have everything she wrote at EGW Writings. The website has good search functions. This page is a good place to start for this topic: Table of Contents: Ellen White's Trinitarian Statements: What Did She Actually Write? Everything she wrote started with her handwritten notes, and those were then typed by her multiple secretaries, using several carbon copies. That means there were several copies of each original document, and many, if not most, of those copies got into circulation. My father had possibly the largest private collection in the church. When I was in college, I stayed with him in the summer and helped catalog his collection. It dominated the basement of our house. We had many carbon copies that had her signature or stamp. When I was 15 and my father was doing research for his doctorate, we visited the vault many times, so I've been in there where her writings are stored. There is a complete list of everything she's written, and the employees bring out the documents that are needed for research by scholars, authors, and others. There are branch research centers/archives/vaults located in many other places and countries. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:24, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Valjean: Yup, Bull cites the view of that scholar, but does not agree with them. He calls their view an "overstatement". And you fail to notice that an Arian could write the same words, without being a Nicene Trinitarian. Arians did not exactly deny there were three Persons of the Trinity, they just saw a hierarchy instead of equality. And Semi-Arianism is even harder to distinguish from Nicene Trinitarianism. (Originally the conflict between Arians and Nicenians were just about the Son and the Father; the Holy Spirit did not get mentioned much.)

There is a camp which states she endorsed Nicene Trinitarianism, and there is a camp which states she opposed it. My take is that both camps are wrong. IMHO, she would have thought that both camps are based upon sophistry.

And, yup, unless she overtly expressed her views upon sophisticated doctrinal theological questions, which wasn't her style anyway, there is no way to say if she was Semi-Arian or Nicene Trinitarian. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:07, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

So this comes down to an "overstatement"? We're citing Bull for that, but his statement confusingly blends beliefs from widely different time periods (Ellen's early and later beliefs) and James White's old statement about his wife, with whom he often disagreed, and who may not have been Trinitarian when he died in 1881, but later became one. We're talking about a wide spread of pre-1881 to post-1896. So we shouldn't do what Bull does and lump it all together. We should not imply that she may not have become fully Trinitarian in her beliefs by 1896 (the date of a quote above).

The "overstatement", as indicated by what follows in his quote, seems to indicate that "one researcher's" use of the words "Trinitarian declaration" are the "overstatement", as she would not be using the word "Trinity" or make a formal "Trinitarian declaration".

Bull: "Although not actively anti-Trinitarian, Ellen White always carefully avoided using the term "Trinity," and her husband stated categorically that her visions did not support the Trinitarian creed." That was before 1881(!!!) and thus irrelevant to her later beliefs.

The fact that she didn't use the word Trinity doesn't mean she didn't use synonyms. She did speak of one God in three persons many times. She would fully agree with the classic definition of the Trinity as "one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons." She wasn't avoiding the topic, reticent about the topic, neutral about the topic, or anywhere remotely near being "anti-Trinitarian". Her failure to use the word doesn't lend any support to the idea that she did not become fully Trinitarian. "Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack." (Her failure to write "Trinity" is not evidence she did not believe in the "Trinity".) Bull may be falling into that logical fallacy, and maybe(?) you are too.

Trinitarianism is the monotheistic belief about one God in three persons. That's what she stated in various ways, so we should discount that part of what he said about her not using the word "Trinity". It's a red herring and irrelevant. He's comparing apples with oranges. We need to discount some of what Bull says, and refocus the topic of his use of the word "overstatement". It is an "overtatement" to expect her to write a formal, theologically formulated "Trinitarian declaration". That was not her style. Yet, she still articulated, using other words, full agreement with Trinitarianism.

She believed that God the Son (Jesus Christ) eternally coexisted with God the Father and was never created. Then He became man and remains man forever, while still being fully God. IOW, she believed in the mystery of the hypostatic union of Christ's humanity and divinity in one hypostasis, or individual personhood. She describes how Christ's manhood created a permanent limitation on His ability to be with all his followers on Earth (no longer omnipresent), and that's where the Holy Spirit (always omnipresent) functioned as a representative of Jesus, as a Comforter for them. That was his promise to his followers. He would send the Holy Spirit, and that happened on Pentecost.

The Holy Spirit's function is not to "speak of Himself", but only of Christ, truth, etc. He is Christ's representative on Earth: "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come." John 16:13-15 (KJV) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:44, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Valjean: The difference between Semi-Arianism and Nicene Trinitarianism is literally "one iota of difference": it is very hard to distinguish between them lacking very explicit statements. Another RS stated that for her Arianism, Semi-Arianism, and Nicene Trinitarianism were equally bunk. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:56, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

But why be concerned with those various shades? Which VERY specific aspect of them is relevant here? We're concerned with classic Trinitarianism, as defined in Trinity. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:12, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Valjean: Okay, in the end RS have expressed a variety of views upon whether she was Trinitarian. I will leave it at "there are a variety of views." tgeorgescu (talk) 23:35, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. I like how you think! 👌 Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:06, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

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