Unity or Revelation

Barth says that non-Trinitarian theology inevitably deny either the unity of God or His revelation. If it maintains the unity of God “it has to call revelation in question as the act of the real presence of the real God. The unity of God in which there are no distinct persons makes it impossible for it to take revelation seriously as God’s authentic presence when it is so manifestly different from the invisible God who is Spirit.” On the other hand, if it emphasizes the revelation of God it must sacrifice unity: “in its concept of revelation it will not in fact be able to avoid interposing between God and man a third thing which is not God, a hypostasis which is not divine – it does not want that – but semi-divine; it cannot avoid making this the object of faith.” In short, “If revelation is to be taken seriously as God’s presence, if there is to be a valid belief in revelation, then in no sense can Christ and the Spirit be subordinate hypostases.”