John Harvey Kellogg's Concept of the Godhead

Abstract

The chapter “John Harvey Kellogg’s Concept of the Godhead” is part of a collection of studies on the Trinity. It examines Kellogg’s steadily developing views of the Godhead regarded by many contemporary leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church as views akin to pantheism. Beginning with Kellogg’s publication, Harmony of Science and the Bible (1879) it traces the pathway of his personal search for God’s immanence. It also demonstrates that this pursuit and attempts to define its relationship to human experience eventually forced him to seek God outside His self-revelation and the Bible. In consequence, it compelled him to define God in abstract, technical, impersonal and mythical terms rather than a loving caring and personal Being. More so, his Christological reductionism, made no room for Christ as mediator, the eternal son, equal to God, yet distinct in personality. It concludes that his views reduced Christ’s role to an exemplar and a historical figure for reflection and inspiration. Further, it suggests Kellogg’s specific view of the Godhead, helped the church to clarify its understanding of the biblical view of the Trinity.