Horace Bushnell: Orthodox or Sabellian?

Abstract

In 1848 Horace Bushnell delivered a lecture at Yale College entitled “The Divinity of Christ,” in which he set forth, for the first time, his views on the doctrine of the Trinity. A year later, this lecture and two others (“The Atonement” and “Dogma and Spirit”) appeared in a book entitled God in Christ. The book was prefaced with a preliminary dissertation on language. Almost immediately the critics assailed Bushnell for his Sabellian views on the Trinity. The Christian Observatory charged him with rejecting the “… commonly received doctrine of a proper Trinity in the Godhead, substituting for it a Pantheistic form of Sabellianism.” The Bible Repertory and Princeton Review, concurring in this judgment, indicated that “This, true enough, is the Sabellianism of Schleiermacher—a threefold revelation of God in the world, in Christ, and in the church.”