Why Theistic Personalism is the Biblical Reality
For two millennia, Christian theology has been entangled with Aristotelian categories that have obscured the biblical vision of God. Classical theism—shaped by the unmoved mover, divine simplicity, and an impassible, timeless essence—has so thoroughly dominated Christian thought that many assume it is the only orthodox way to conceive of God. Yet, when we return to the Bible, we find a very different picture: a God who speaks, engages, grieves, loves, and acts in history. This is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not the distant deity of Greek metaphysics.
This recovery of a biblical theology of God aligns with what some modern philosophers call theistic personalism—the belief that God is a personal being with intelligence, will, and the capacity for relational engagement. Reformed epistemologists like Alvin Plantinga have already begun challenging classical theism’s rigid philosophical assumptions, but the reality is that this shift is not an innovation; it is a retrieval of the Old Faith.
The Patristic Turn Toward Abstraction
The early Church Fathers, while rightly defending the faith, absorbed elements of Hellenistic philosophy in their theological formulations. They were wrestling against pagan polytheism and needed a conceptual framework to articulate the transcendence of the God of Israel. But in doing so, they often compromised the personal nature of God as revealed in Scripture. By adopting Aristotelian metaphysical categories—immutability, simplicity, and impassibility—they created a theological structure that struggled to account for divine action in history.
This shift was not merely an academic exercise. It had profound theological consequences. The God who personally spoke to Moses, who entered into covenant with Israel, who revealed Himself in the Angel of the Lord (Malakh YHWH), became increasingly cast as an abstract principle. The Incarnation, rather than being understood as the fulfillment of a deeply Jewish theological pattern—the Sar HaPanim(Prince of the Presence) reality—became something that needed to be “explained” through the lens of Greek philosophy. The relational nature of the divine became secondary to metaphysical speculation.
The Jewish Framework: Ein Sof, Adam Kadmon, and the Sar HaPanim
Jewish theology never fell into this trap. Instead, it maintained a dynamic, personalistic view of God. The concept of Ein Sof—the Infinite One—preserved both God’s transcendence and His active engagement with creation. The Adam Kadmon tradition, far from being mystical obfuscation, was a way of articulating how God manifests within creation without diminishing His absolute unity. The Sar HaPanim (Metatron in later sources) preserves the biblical reality of God’s presence revealed through a divine mediator.
This is where the Trinity makes sense—not as an abstract philosophical formulation but as the culmination of biblical theophanies. The Second Person of the Trinity is the same divine figure who walked with Abraham, wrestled with Jacob, and spoke to Moses. The Word (Memra in Aramaic) that became flesh is not a late theological construction; it is the realization of a pattern seen throughout the Hebrew Bible.
A Way Forward: Back to the Old Faith
The solution to the theological confusion of the past two thousand years is not another scholastic system, nor a return to static dogmatic categories. It is a return to the Old Faith—a faith rooted in divine self-revelation, not human speculation. The Bible presents a personal God, and the Jewish framework maintains this reality far more faithfully than the impersonal categories of classical theism.
This does not mean rejecting the Trinity. On the contrary, it means properly situating it within the biblical and Jewish framework that clarifies rather than distorts. The Sar HaPanim-Metatron tradition provides the missing context, allowing us to understand God’s unity, presence, and relational nature without falling into the philosophical traps that have plagued Christian theology.
Christianity needs to recover this vision. Theistic personalism is not a modern innovation; it is a biblical reality. The God of Israel is not an abstract force. He is the God who sees, speaks, and saves. He is the One who calls His people by name.
It is time to return to Him—not through Aristotle, but through Abraham.
