Objection · Case 04 · The Trinity
The sketch’s mapping is too neat. The sun analogy isn’t really Arian, since Arius said the Son was created and the sun’s light isn’t created by the sun in any similar sense.
One objection from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Response
The mapping is rough, and partialism in particular is a modern label rather than a historical heresy name. It is more accurate to say the analogies tend toward the named errors than that they commit them. The sun analogy leans Arian because it makes the Son an emanation dependent on and lesser than its source; whether that is exactly Arius or merely subordinationist is a fair quibble that does not affect the point, which is that every physical analogy makes the persons either parts, phases, or unequal.
About this exhibit
This objection is to The “St. Patrick’s Bad Analogies” sketch, Lutheran Satire.
This widely shared teaching video walks through the common analogies and names the heresy each one commits: water through its phases lands on modalism, the divided egg or shamrock lands on…
Under Claim 13: The popular analogies for the Trinity each restate a view the early church examined and rejected as heresy.