1 Corinthians 8:6 — One God the Father, one Lord Jesus Christ

“… yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him.”

1 Corinthians 8:6

Context: food sacrificed to idols and the Pauline Shema

1 Corinthians 8 belongs to a larger argumentative arc (chs. 8–10) on the question of food sacrificed to idols (eidôlóthyta). Corinth was a cosmopolitan port city; animal sacrifices in temple cults were daily routine, and the greater part of the meat on the market came from such offerings. The question was practical: may Christians eat such meat? Some Corinthians appealed to their gnôsis (knowledge): idols are nothing, so what is offered to them can do no harm. Paul agrees with this principle (vv.4–6) — but he embeds it in a theological clarification about God himself.

In v.4 he cites the customary Corinthian confession: “We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one.” V.5 concedes that there are indeed “so-called gods” in heaven and on earth — “as in fact there are many gods and many lords.” Then v.6 sets the Christian counter-confession against it: all' hêmín heís theós ho patêr… kai heís kýrios Iêsôus Christós — “but for us there is one God, the Father… and one Lord, Jesus Christ.”

The structure of the verse is deliberately composed antithetically over against the pagan environment: there “many gods and many lords” — here one God and one Lord. This is no incidental formula but confessional language. In the background stands the Jewish Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4 LXX: kýrios ho theós hêmôn kýrios heís estin) — and Paul transposes it into Christian confessional structure, naming Father and Christ with two distinct titles.

The crucial observation is this: Paul does not cite the Shema as trinitarianly extended. He extends it christologically — and in such a way that the unity of God as the Father remains untouched, while Christ receives a separate predication (heís kýrios). The one God of the Shema is and remains the Father. Christ does not enter into this unity, but alongside it — as the one Lord and mediator. With this Paul has produced a formula which sounds binitarian but is in reality strictly monad-monotheistic.

The further context (vv.7–13) draws the ethical conclusion: the unity of God is not to be conceived as abstract speculation, but obliges the unity of the congregation. Whoever puts the weak brother to a stumbling-block by his eating-behaviour “sins against Christ” (v.12). The theology of v.6 has a concrete ethical aim: the oikodomê of the congregation.

The Socinian core thesis

Socinianly, 1 Corinthians 8:6 is the central New Testament confirmation of biblical monotheism. The verse identifies the one God of the Shema as “the Father” (heís theós ho patêr) — not as a triadic subsistence-community. Christ is set alongside, with his own title (kýrios) and his own function (mediation), but expressly distinguished from the one God.

The decisive exegetical key is the semantics of the prepositions: ex hou ta pánta (“from whom are all things”) designates the Father as causa prima, as the first, originless cause from whom everything proceeds. Di' hou ta pánta (“through whom are all things”) designates Christ as causa secunda, as the mediating cause through whom the one God unfolds his effect. Ex and diá are not interchangeable prepositions in Hellenistic-Aristotelian linguistic philosophy; they sharply mark the difference between origin and mediation.

The Racovian Catechism (1605) cites precisely this prepositional separation as a decisive argument against the consubstantiality of Christ with the Father. If Christ were that one God, Paul could not say di' hou of him, but would have to say ex hou. He does precisely not. The NT linguistic form is consistent: first cause = Father; second cause = Christ.

In addition Paul carefully distinguishes between theós (God) for the Father and kýrios (Lord) for Christ. Had he wanted to teach consubstantiality he could have called Christ also theós or simply have said “one God” subsisting in two persons. Instead he chooses two different titles for two different subjects. The title kýrios is given to Christ here not in the sense in which YHWH in the OT is the one kýrios, but in the sense of messianic exaltation according to Phil 2:9–11: Christ has received the name “Lord” — he is not eternally and ontologically this Lord.

Hence 1 Corinthians 8:6 is, Socinianly, not a binitarian extension of the Shema, but a precise application of the Shema to the New Testament economy of salvation: the one God of the Shema is and remains the Father; Christ is his sent, exalted and only mediator.

Core statement

Key terms

Five terms decide the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 8:6 linguistically and philologically:

heís theós ho patêr — “one God, the Father”

The predicative heís is a numeral, not an adjective in the sense of “united.” Paul counts: one God. And he identifies this one God by apposition: ho patêr, “the Father.” The identification is linguistically unambiguous — the one God is the Father. Not: the one God comprises the Father and others; but: the one God is the Father.

The same identification is found consistently throughout the Pauline corpus: Eph 4:6 (“one God and Father of all”); 1 Tim 2:5 (“there is one God and one mediator…”); Rom 15:6 (“the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”); 2 Cor 1:3; Eph 1:3; Col 1:3. Paul is not ambiguous: the one God is the Father of Jesus Christ.

ex hou ta pánta — “from whom are all things”

The preposition ex with the genitive designates in the philosophical usage of antiquity the causa prima, the first, originless cause. In Romans 11:36 Paul uses all three prepositions ex, diá and eis on the same one God (the Father) — which shows that he is master of prepositional semantics and uses them deliberately. In 1 Cor 8:6 he separates the prepositions cleanly: ex only of the Father, diá only of Christ.

This separation would be senseless if Father and Christ were the same subject. It is meaningful only if Paul distinguishes two distinct subjects with distinct causal functions: first cause (Father) and mediating cause (Christ). The Racovian Catechism cites precisely this observation as a decisive argument against the trinitarian reading.

heís kýrios Iêsôus Christós — “one Lord, Jesus Christ”

The title kýrios is the LXX rendering of the divine name YHWH. But Christ receives this title expressly as a gift: Phil 2:9 (“God has given him the name above every name”); Acts 2:36 (“God has made him both Lord and Christ”). Whoever is made was not so before. Whoever receives did not have it eternally in himself.

For the rest, the OT knows the transfer of kýrios- or lord-titles to exalted persons without implication of essence: Ps 110:1 (“The LORD said to my Lord”) is the standard christological verse for this — David calls the Messiah “his Lord” without identifying him with YHWH. Christ's kýrios-dignity is messianic-functional, not ontological-consubstantial.

di' hou ta pánta — “through whom are all things”

The preposition diá with the genitive designates the instrumental-mediating cause. In the OT God “creates” through his word (Ps 33:6: tôi logôi LXX), through his wisdom (Prov 8:22ff), through his messenger (Mal 3:1) — nowhere does the instrument therefore become the creator-God. Diá is the language of mediation, not the language of origin.

The Corinthian application to Christ does not depend, moreover, on a cosmological pre-existence in the trinitarian sense, but on the salvific mediation of Christ: all the things which concern the Christian people (so the Racovian Catechism, with reference to the Greek article ta panta) have come about through Christ. That is new covenant, new aeon, new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). A cosmic creational mediation in the sense of pre-existence-doctrine would have to be founded by other passages (Col 1:16; John 1:3) — and there too the Socinian exegesis contests it.

hêmín — “for us”

Paul frames the confession as Christian self-understanding: hêmín, “for us.” This is a deliberate marking-off over against the pagan “many gods and many lords” (v.5). The point is not a metaphysical treatise on the divine essence, but a practical confession of the congregation in a polytheistic milieu.

Whoever overloads the verse trinitarianly overlooks its confessional character. Paul does not formulate a trinitarian formula but distinguishes the Christian congregation from heathen polytheism. For that, two predications suffice him: one God (the Father) and one Lord (Christ) — everything else is later dogmatic construction.

Sozzini in his own words: the Racovian Catechism on 1 Corinthians 8:6

The Racovian Catechism (1605) cites 1 Corinthians 8:6 at three central points of its doctrine of God: as proof of the one person of God, as the express distinction of Christ from the one God, and as exposition of the prepositional separation of ex and diá.

“By the clearest testimonies of Scripture, which read: ‘This is eternal life’ (says Jesus, John 17:3), ‘that they may know you, the Father, the only true God.’ And to the Corinthians the Apostle writes: ‘For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things’ (1 Cor. 8:6). And to the Ephesians: ‘One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all’ (Eph. 4:6).”

Racovian Catechism, on the one God the Father

From this passage the Polish Brethren draw the central consequence: the one God of Scripture is consistently identified in the NT as “the Father.” This identification stands not incidentally but as locus probandi for the person of God. Whoever posits Father, Son and Spirit as three persons in one essence has not sufficiently weighed this NT identification.

In a second place the Catechism adduces 1 Cor 8:6 as proof that Christ is expressly distinguished from the one God:

“First, on the ground that Scripture sets before us only one single God, of whom we have shown above that he is the Father of Christ. This ground is all the more evident because Christ is expressly distinguished, in very many places, not only from him who is called God absolutely, but also from that one or sole God (1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 4:6; John 17:3).”

Racovian Catechism, against the divine nature of Christ

The argumentation is dense: if Scripture expressly distinguishes Christ from the one God, then Christ is not this one God. The trinitarian solution — that Christ is indeed distinct from the Father but consubstantial — does not resolve this finding; it only sharpens it through the postulate of an additional ontological medium (the “essence”), which does not appear in Scripture itself.

The most important place, however, is the detailed analysis of the prepositional separation in the section on Christ as Lord of glory:

“As to the first point, from the fact that the Apostle calls Christ the one Lord, that divine nature cannot be inferred. For he distinguishes him manifestly from that one God whom he designates as the Father, of whom we hold and teach that he alone is that one God. The very thing he says about him — that all things are through him — shows that he is not that one God, since it is established… that by the little word per [‘through’] not the first but the second cause is signified; which can in no way be said of him who is that one God.”

Racovian Catechism, on Christ as Lord of glory

Sozzini and the Polish Brethren therefore read the prepositional structure of the verse with philosophical-philological precision: per quem (Greek di' hou) is causa secunda; ex quo (Greek ex hou) is causa prima. Whoever is consubstantial cannot at the same time be designated as causa secunda, for he would then not be of himself but of another the efficient cause of all things — a logical paradox. The clean separation of the prepositions is Paul's deliberate linguistic decision; to override it is hermeneutically inadmissible.

The Catechism adds, moreover, an important philological observation on the scope of ta panta (“all things”):

“We do not, however, repeat what has already been said more than once: that the word ‘all’ refers to the present subject, as the article in the Greek text also indicates. For the Apostle is dealing with all those things which concern the Christian people, as is shown, in addition to the designation ‘Father’ and ‘that one Lord Jesus Christ,’ which in the proper sense belong to the new covenant, by the repeatedly recurring word ‘us,’ which exclusively designates Christians.”

Racovian Catechism, on 1 Cor. 8:6

The Polish Brethren therefore read ta panta here not as a cosmological totality of all creation (so that Christ would have collaborated pre-existently in creation), but as the soteriological totality of the goods of salvation of the new covenant. This reading follows from the Greek article ta before panta (context-specific totality) and from the rhetorical frame (hêmín “us,” which names the Christian people). It has, beyond that, the advantage that it does not have to see the cosmological creational mediation of Christ founded on a single prepositional formula.

Logical arguments

From 1 Corinthians 8:6 the following linguistic-theological arguments against the trinitarian reading follow:

1. Argument from identification. Paul identifies the one God by apposition as ho patêr, “the Father.” The linguistic apposition posits identity: the one God is the Father. Not: he comprises Father, Son and Spirit. A triadic identification would have been linguistically possible (e.g.: “one God: the Father, the Son and the Spirit”), but it is not there.
2. Argument from prepositional separation. Ex and diá are not interchangeable prepositions in Hellenistic linguistic philosophy. Ex designates the first, diá the second cause. Paul maintains this separation strictly in 1 Cor 8:6: ex hou only of the Father, di' hou only of Christ. Consubstantiality would render this separation senseless.
3. Argument from Rom 11:36. In Rom 11:36 Paul uses ex, diá and eis on the same one God (the Father). That shows: he is master of prepositional semantics and uses it deliberately. When he separates the prepositions in 1 Cor 8:6 it happens intentionally — in order to mark out two distinct subjects.
4. Argument from the two titles. Paul chooses two different predications: theós for the Father, kýrios for Christ. Had he wished to teach consubstantiality, he could have subsumed both under theós or have exchanged the titles. Instead he separates them cleanly.
5. Argument from the confessional structure. The structure of the verse is antithetical to v.5: there “many gods and many lords” — here one God and one Lord. This confessional structure works only if “God” and “Lord” are two distinct points of reference. With trinitarian consubstantiality the antithesis to polytheism would be linguistically muddled.
6. Argument from NT consistency. 1 Tim 2:5: “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Eph 4:6: “One God and Father of all.” John 17:3: “You, the only true God, and him whom you have sent.” That is a consistent NT pattern: one God (Father) plus one mediator (Christ). 1 Cor 8:6 is the most precise version of this pattern.
7. Argument from context-specific ta panta. The Greek article ta before panta restricts “all” to the respective presupposed object-domain. Here those are the goods of salvation of the new covenant (so the Racovian Catechism). A cosmological creational mediation of Christ must be founded on other passages, not on this one.
8. Argument from Phil 2:9–11. The title kýrios is there expressly accorded to Christ as a gift of God after the exaltation (echarísato “he has given him”). Whoever receives did not have it before. The kýrios-title in 1 Cor 8:6 is therefore messianic-exaltational, not eternal-ontological.
9. Argument from 1 Tim 2:5. Paul makes the Pauline Shema precise in 1 Tim 2:5 with the identification of the mediator as “the man Christ Jesus.” The mediation is bound precisely to the humanity of Christ, not to consubstantiality with God. Whoever encloses Christ ontologically in 1 Cor 8:6 within the one essence of God loses the point of the mediation.
10. Argument from hermeneutics. The doctrine of the Trinity demands that the most unambiguous Pauline confession (1 Cor 8:6) be reinterpreted by later and more difficult passages (John 1:1; Tit 2:13). Hermeneutically that is the wrong direction: the clear interprets the obscure, not the reverse. Paul himself, the most precise theologian of the NT, gives the norm here.

Objections and Socinian answers

Objection 1: “di' hou ta pánta implies the cosmic creational mediation of Christ and therefore his pre-existence.”

Objection: “Through whom are all things” is creation-language. If Christ is the causa secunda of the creation of all things, then he must have existed before creation — and that is pre-existence, hence divine nature.

Answer: The objection overlooks two central observations. First, in the Greek text ta panta stands with the article — that designates a context-specific totality, not the universal creation. The Racovian Catechism expressly draws attention to this article: “The Apostle is dealing with all those things which concern the Christian people.” This reading is supported by the repeatedly recurring hêmín (“us”), which exclusively means the Christian congregation. Secondly: even if one understands ta panta cosmically, no ontological pre-existence follows from it, but only the theological statement that God has created all things with reference to Christ (cf. Col 1:16 read as causa finalis: all things are created unto him). Thirdly: even if one assumes a pre-existent creational mediation, it would not imply consubstantiality with the Father — diá remains causa secunda, and that is never identical with causa prima.

Objection 2: “If Christ bears the title kýrios, then he is YHWH; kýrios in LXX usage is the divine name.”

Objection: In the Septuagint kýrios renders the Hebrew YHWH. When Paul calls Christ heís kýrios, he identifies him with the YHWH of the Shema. 1 Cor 8:6 is therefore a binitarian splitting of the Shema into theós-Father and kýrios-Son.

Answer: This argument has a linguistic and a theological defect. Linguistically: kýrios in Hellenistic Greek is a broadly meaningful word — it designates lords of every kind, from slave-owners to emperors. In the LXX it renders both YHWH and adonai (human lord). In the christological application of the NT it refers to the exalted Christ as messianic Lord, without identifying him with YHWH. Ps 110:1 (“The LORD said to my Lord”) shows the basic exegetical structure: David calls the Messiah kýrios without equating him with YHWH. Theologically: Phil 2:9 makes it explicit that Christ received the kýrios-title after the exaltation — he did not bear it eternally in himself. Acts 2:36 sharpens it: “God has made him both Lord and Christ.” Whoever reads the kýrios-title in 1 Cor 8:6 eternally and ontologically contradicts the clear statements of other Pauline and NT texts.

Objection 3: “Paul extends the Shema binitarianly; that is a real christological upgrade beyond mere monotheism.”

Objection: Paul, a Pharisee and reciter of the Shema, would not have opened the Shema in this way had he not understood Christ as divine. The binitarian extension is evidence for an early high christology.

Answer: This thesis (held by Larry Hurtado, Richard Bauckham and others) reads into the verse an ontological upgrade which it linguistically does not yield. Paul does not extend the Shema into the unity of God, but alongside it: one God (the Father) and one Lord (Christ). The sharp prepositional separation (ex vs. diá) shows that Christ is not put in the position of the one God but in the position of the authorized mediator. That is also precisely the structural point of 1 Tim 2:5: “one God and one mediator” — not: “one God in two persons.” The high-christology thesis blurs this structural separation; the Socinian reading preserves it.

Objection 4: “If 1 Cor 8:6 is not trinitarian, how does John 1:1 (‘the Word was God’) fit?”

Objection: John 1:1 unambiguously teaches the deity of the Logos. If the Logos is God and the Logos is Christ, then Christ is God — and 1 Cor 8:6 is to be read trinitarianly.

Answer: First: hermeneutically the precise confession (1 Cor 8:6) has priority over the ambiguous passage (John 1:1). The clear interprets the obscure. Secondly: John 1:1 is read differently Socinianly; theós ên ho lógos is anarthrous and qualitative (cf. John 1:1c without the article), not determinative. The Logos has a divine quality (in the sense of John 10:34–36: men with divine authority are called “gods”), not ontological identity with the one God. The Racovian Catechism devotes a separate chapter to the exposition of John 1:1. Thirdly: even John 1 does not determine the Logos contextually as eternally pre-existent in a trinitarian sense, but as “the beginning of the gospel.” Cf. the detailed entry on John 1:1–3.

Objection 5: “The separation of theós and kýrios is only functional, not ontological — both are consubstantial.”

Objection: Within the Trinity too Father and Son are distinguished functionally (sending, incarnation), but remain consubstantial. The Pauline separation of titles and prepositions does not contradict this; it shows only the personal distinction within the one essence.

Answer: The scholastic distinction of person and essence is a philosophical construction which does not occur in the Pauline text itself. Paul knows no ousia-vocabulary that could formulate a triadic subsistence in one essence. He distinguishes simply: one God (the Father) and one Lord (Christ). Whoever introduces the ontological identity imports a Niceno-Constantinopolitan conceptual grid into a text written one generation before these councils. Moreover: had Paul wished to teach consubstantiality, he would have had concepts for it (e.g. morphê theoû in Phil 2:6, which however is read similarly Socinianly). He did not use them — because they are not his message. The NT finding is clear: one God (Father) plus one mediator (Christ). Everything beyond that is dogmatic construction of later centuries.

Cross-references

Theological consequences

Summary

1 Corinthians 8:6 is the central Pauline formula for the Christian confession of the one God. Paul identifies the one God by apposition as “the Father” and sets Christ alongside as “one Lord.” The precise separation of the prepositions ex hou (from whom, origin) and di' hou (through whom, mediation) marks the theological difference between first and second cause — and thereby between the one God and his mediator.

The Socinian reading stands in full continuity with the Shema of Israel (Deuteronomy 6:4) and with NT linguistic usage: one God (Father) plus one mediator (Christ). This reading is consistently confirmed by 1 Tim 2:5, Eph 4:6, John 17:3 and Phil 2:9–11. Christ's kýrios-title is messianic-exaltational, not eternal-ontological.

The Racovian Catechism cites 1 Cor 8:6 at three central points of its doctrine of God — for the identification of the one God as Father, for the express distinction of Christ from him, and for the exposition of the prepositional separation. Whoever reads Paul cannot let the one God subsist in three persons.