Contra Barrett (Part 9): Sabellianism?

Traces of Sabellianism also appear like invisible ink held under fluorescent light when EFS says that the Father doesn't need the Son and Spirit to act in creation and salvation. He can act unilaterally; nevertheless, he is generous enough to include them. Not only is this a blatant violation of simpicity and a flagrant dissolution of God's one will, but this is something very close to Sabellianism. (Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity, 231)

Tritheism and Sabellianism are almost at opposite ends on the spectrum of one's view of the numericity in the Godhead, where tritheism stands at one end, and Unitarianism at the other. In Sabellianism, there is only one person, and this one person changes either depending on manifestation or in a certain sequence. It is indeed surprising to see Barrett attempt to tar EFS with both tritheism AND Sabellianism, since how can something be accused of being A and not-A at the same time?

To tar EFS with Sabellianism, Barrett refers to the problematic expression of Bruce Ware (as I have mentioned in Part 4 of this series). But let us give the most uncharitable reading to Bruce Ware, and what we get are three distinct gods in a society. Just because one works and the other two doesn't, does this tritheistic society suddenly morph into a single person who manifests the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in differing manner, or to do so in a particular sequece? How does three distinct deities suddenly become one single three-faced deity just because two of them are not working?

To ask the questions is to see how ridiculous this charge is. While the charge of tritheism comes about by reading EFS according to Aristotelian philosophy, the charge of Sabellianism seems more like trying to find more charges of heresy to stick to EFS, flinging them and watching if they stick. Such conduct is unbecoming of a scholar, and serves to corrode the credibility of Barrett's book further.