The Logical Use of Words and the Heresy of Modalism

I have frequent interactions with Modalists (also known as Oneness or Sabellians). They talk about Jesus's being His own Father. Or, when reading what Jesus says about the Father, they claim that His use of "He" and "We" really mean "I." I frequently respond that their doctrine deprives words of their meaning, undermining, not only communications among men, but, more importantly, communications from God to men. Either God uses deceptive language or He is utterly irrational, if Modalist exegesis is correct.

But I don't for a moment think that it is. Human reason is part of our having been made in the image of God (John 1:4, 9), which includes the ability to communicate. The need and ability to communicate imply the logical Law of Non-Contradiction, i. e., it is impossible for a word to mean both A and not-A (at the same time).

Consider how Jesus spoke about the Father during His earthly ministry: "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser" (John 15:1). He borrows from imagery that would have been familiar to the agrarian society of First-Century Palestine. What would a First-Century grape farmer think if he believed that Jesus meant that the vine and the vindresser were the same person? He would think, and properly so, that Jesus suffered from some form of dementia.

What if He had used imagery of our own time? "I am the software, and My Father is the programmer." Would any person, at least any English-speaking person, conceive that he might mean that the software IS the programmer? Yet that is the logic of  Modalism.