Jerry Walls: What is wrong with Calvinism? (Dale)

May 172013
 

Devastating.

I have long noted that Augustinian/Calvinist theology is unpopular among Christian philosophers, though many, like me, go through a Calvinist phase (when I was a sophomore and junior in college), before seeing its problems to be hopeless. Walls concisely and fairly sums up what Calvinism is all about, and then shows it to be profoundly problematic, focusing on philosophical problem rather than biblical ones.

I would add that many of us – many Christians who’ve studied analytic philosophy – are persuaded by the Consequence Argument that compatibilism about human freedom is false, and also that if compatibilism about human freedom were true, then J.L. Mackie would have a sound argument for atheism. Christians need to make the free will defense against that argument, and to do that, you must believe in libertarian freedom. (But, that’s the kind of freedom we all, or almost all, believe in anyway.)

Mysterianism, as Walls points out, is very important to being a Calvinist. They think that “The Bible teaches X” is an answer to any difficulty. But it isn’t – in particular, objections to the effect that the Bible doesn’t actually teach X, and/or that X seems to be a contradiction.

Judging just by a few things he says here, I assume that Walls is a “social” trinitarian; but I don’t think that detracts from his case. And note that God is a “he” throughout.

Note to young professors and grad students – this is how you give a presentation. Note what Walls does.

  • Simple but relevant slides. Not too many. No distractions.
  • Talks loudly, to the audience, moving around.
  • Touch of humor.
  • Knows what Continue reading »

Important new open access journal: The Journal of Analytic Theology (Dale)

May 122013
 

jatCongratulations to editors Oliver Crisp, Michael Rea, Trent Dougherty and Kevin Diller on the launch of an important new open access journal: The Journal of Analytic Theology.

What is “analytic” theology?

Good question. Roughly: theology done using the tools of contemporary (typically English-language) “analytic” philosophy.

What is that? Here’s one answer by a master practitioner. Also, this journal aims to “explore theological and meta-theological topics in a manner that prizes terminological clarity and argumentative rigor.” I assume that the topics will not be limited to Christian ones, although glancing through the names on the editorial board, I don’t recognize the names of anyone I know to be a non-Christian.

I’m sure this is going to be an important source both for philosophers and for theologians. The inaugural issue in fact features some interactions between the two.

It also features an interesting article by trinities contributor Scott Williams – congratulations, Scott! Maybe I’ll post a few comments or here on trinities soon.

Finally, kudos are due to the Center for the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame and Baylor University for their support of this project. Their support is advancing the cause of Christian thought.

Love the logo. If they made another, they could talk about their official “logos.”

OK, I’ll stop.

Linkage: White vs. Navas – Does the New Testament teach “the deity of Christ”? (Dale)

May 112013
 

boxing-clip-artAbly reviewed by Sean Finnegan. I would add a few philosophical comments:

  • White, like many evangelicals, understands “the deity of Christ” as meaning that Jesus and God are numerically one, that is, numerically identical. He argues that various things the NT asserts about Jesus imply this. (e.g. He is worshiped, called “Lord.”) Conveniently, he ignores the many passages which assert or presuppose a qualitative difference between Jesus and God. He ignores these because it is self evident that things which ever (or even merely could) differ, can’t be numerically identical.
  • White emphasizes the charge of “rationalism” vs. Navas. It’s unclear quite what that is supposed to be. Perhaps his main idea is that a “rationalist” ignores elements of divine revelation which are inconsistent with his theology.
  • But if that’s what he means, then as I just observed – White is plainly a rationalist! Takes one to know one, evidently. :-) (Is he projecting his own double-think onto his opponent?)
  • Sean’s point about choice of passages should be emphasized. Navas here fights White, as it were, on White’s home turf. To be fair, White should debate him again, taking the negative side, and letting Navas pick the five passages.
  • White was sloppy on the topics of monotheism and worship. And he overuses the ad hominem and question-begging assertion that Navas is simply looking at the texts through unitarian blinders. Still, he is an able debater. As is Navas.
  • This sort of debate can get tedious because of the focus mainly on the exegesis of texts. Those texts are, of course, the main evidence. But I think that both sides could have spent more time making their overall case – actually making explicit arguments, not only showing how various texts allegedly fit their respective views, and then going, see! This is, after all, a battle of theologies. If only reading the texts was going to solve this, well, it would’ve been resolved a long time ago. And it is clear – or at least, it is clear to me – that the theoretical arguments are really the locus of disagreement. e.g. Jesus is rightly worshiped, and only God can be rightly worshiped, therefore, Jesus just is God and vice-versa. (Even though they differ!) But that second premise is false, according to the New Testament. On carefully thinking through White’s traditional catholic arguments, see this. They do get a bit more into such argument in part 2.
  • Relatedly, it strikes me that for White, focusing almost completely on (favorite) texts is a way of avoiding hard questions, like: isn’t White’s theology self-contradictory? (e.g. Jesus and the Father are both identical to God, but not to each other. God is and is not the ultimate source of the cosmos. God does and does not have a God above him.) If so, we can reject it as false. And we can see that there is a weighty reason to suspect his interpretations of the texts, on our assumption that what they teach is true, and so self-consistent. If he’s going to resist these inferences, he’ll need to say a lot more about how it can be rational to believe a clear, stable, apparent contradiction. It will not do to merely repeat that his view is (allegedly) based on all the texts.
  • In light of 2nd and 3rd century catholic theology, it is amazing that White thinks it absurd (and/or “Gnostic”) that the Son is an intermediary between God and humans, who is less great than God / the Father. More on that theme in a forthcoming screencast and paper, but for now, see this series.

Interview with Ray Faircloth, translator of the Kingdom of God Version of the New Testament (Dale)

May 052013
 

kingdom of god versionI think I’ve met only two people who have translated the whole New Testament from the original Koine Greek to some modern language. One was an American evangelical missionary, who’d translated the New Testament into some obscure tribal language from South America. The other was the Englishman Ray Faircloth, who runs the biblicaltruthseekers website. (Some of his materials are also available here.)

In both cases, I was impressed. What an acheivement, and what a weight it must be, to try to effectively and accurately render what one regards as the most important texts in human history, the communications of God to humankind.

I was privileged to be able to interview Ray Faircloth a few days ago near Atlanta, Georgia, where we were both in town for a conference. Maybe at a later date I’ll post a few representative passages from his translation.

Congratulations on the publication of your translation of the New Testament, The Kingdom of God Version. How long did this take you?

This took three and half years.

Was that full time?

No, it was in blocks of time, so that you’d get so far, and you’d need to move on to another subject, and come back to it at a later time.

What, in your view, is most distinctive about your Kingdom of God Version?

It’s hard to say one thing, but much of it was attempt to get rid
Continue reading »

Flocanrib and the ambiguity of the word “Trinity” (Dale)

Apr 252013
 
anti botox brigade

Cerberus’ owner takes him/them for a ride?

Our fictional story was necessary, to help us think about some important distinctions about referring terms.

It is easy to forget that “Trinity” was once a puppy, a neologism. But it was. It was born some time in the second half of the second century. We don’t know who coined it, but the earliest surviving mention of it is by Theophilus, bishop of Antioch (d. c. 185). Commenting on the Genesis days of creation, in his remarks on the fourth day, he says that

…the three days which were before the luminaries [i.e. the stars], are types of the Trinity [Greek: triados, a form of trias], of God, and His Word, and His wisdom. (“Theophilus to Autolycus,” Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. II, p. 101)

One could better translate triados here as Continue reading »

photo by: emdot

Flocanrib explained – Irene’s mistake (Dale)

Apr 242013
 

Irene reflected on how she had got to thinking that her birthday gifts came from one person. She had labelled the source or sources of them “Presenty.” At first she may have been open-minded about whether the gifts came from one or many. But once she’d coined the name, that, in her imagination, solidified the source as being a single person.

This seemed to be confirmed by her discovery of “Flocanrib,” or rather her discovery of her uncles using that term. But she did not see that it was not really a proper name at all. It referred, but not to a particular man or woman. Her breakthrough was seeing the term disassembled into component parts (Flo, Can, and Rib) which corresponded to the gifts; that helped her to see how the referring term “Flocanrib” worked.

bieberPhilosophers distinguish singular referring terms from plural referring terms. Consider the word “Justin Bieber.” The function of it, the use of it, is referring to this one particular fellow. It is what philosophers call a singular referring term. Grammarians called it a name or a proper noun. Now consider a sentence like,

As Justin Bieber shopped, a crowd surrounded him and gawked.

The phrase “a crowd” is also a referring term, but (arguably) not a singular one. You might think it refers to a single thing – to a crowd. But what is a crowd? It is merely a plurality of people. Arguably, the term “a crowd” refers not to a thing (entity, being) but to a mere plurality of entities, more specifically, of people – to Sally, Bill, Martha, Janet, and so on.

Some philosophers claim that any two things whatever compose (are parts of) a third thing. They would say that “the crowd” does refer to a thing, a thing composed of Sally, Bill, etc. But they would have to agree that this thing is not a person, not an individual human (even though it has such as proper parts).

A plural referring term need to refer to multiple entities of the same kind. Let us coin such a term. Many Americans love baseball, apple pie, and freedom – let us call such a thing  thing or mere plurality “bapfree“. I’m a big friend of bapfree. Note that these items belong in very different categories – one is a game, the other is a kind of dessert, and the third is a concept or property. Or a general might exhort his soldiers in the name of the president, the flag, and the constitution – man, a kind or set of physical object, and a writing. One might call it “preflac,” if one had some need to refer to it by one term.   More commonly we’d refer to it by a phrase like “what the general appealed to.”

Next time: what does all this have to do with the Trinity?

Two chances this year to take a course with me (Dale)

Apr 232013
 

(1) If you’re an underClose up of The Thinkergraduate college or university student, you can take my introductory philosophy course online for credit. It runs from May 28, 2013 – June 28, 2013, and is based around my online screencast lectures, like this one on the ethical theory of  cultural relativism, or this one on Jesus on human happiness, or this one on Paley’s design argument. Those lectures are always there on youtube, for free. But you can earn college credit working with them only in the summer. There is flexibility in when and how you work, though you do need to keep up with the ever-flowing pace. Click here for registration information.

On our campus, this course, called Phil 115 Philosophical Inquiry – counts as a humanities course (within the general education courses). Your institution may count it as transfer credit for a course called, e.g. Introduction to Philosophy, or whatever general education category that counts for. Some info about transfer credit is available at the link above, but you may also need to talk to your institution’s Registrar, or even the chair of their Philosophy department, to see what transfer credit they will give for it.

India 2013 slideshow summary(2) Last year I took ten students on a study abroad course for three weeks to western India (Pune and Mumbai). (See the pics on our department webpage.) It was a really great trip; I taught a course called Global Philosophy of Religion to the ten I brought, together with about thirteen Indian students from this college in Pune. The two groups really enjoyed each others’ company, and we all learned a lot, and had many memorable experiences and one of the most fascinating and important countries in the world. We’re planning the next incarnation now, for this coming winter. (The “winter” there, by the way, is pleasantly hot and sunny.) The course includes material from both Indian and “Western” philosophers, and particularly concerns theories relating to religious diversity (e.g. pluralism, exclusivism), and different concepts of God / the Ultimate and of gods, as well as the basics of the Hindu and Sikh religions.

Probably within a month this page will be updated with this year’s information. Tentative dates right now are December 27 to Jan 19. Costs will be slightly higher than last year, because then we had a one-time grant helping us. Application info is here. The deadline will be some time in October – stay tuned. Email me if you want to be updated as things develop.

These courses are available to any English-speaking undergraduate college student, anywhere. They are very inexpensive for residents of New York State – a little more for others. We were delighted last time to have a really good Australian student join us in India.

Flocanrib – a parable (Dale)

Apr 192013
 

Flower Close Up In DarknessIrene was the only little girl in her whole extended family, and everyone loved giving her girly gifts. Three of her uncles liked to give her certain gifts every birthday. Uncle John always gave her a flower, uncle Jack always gave her a box of candy, and uncle Jerry always gave her a hair ribbon. They always gave together, and in secret. The night before her birthday, the three would meet together in the dead of night with their presents, and together leave them on her doorstep. Irene would awake each birthday morning to find such presents, much to her delight. But she didn’t know who they were from and naturally assumed that it was one giver, not three.

As they coordinated the drop off each year, the conspirators would communicate, and they took to referring to themselves as “Flocanrib.” They would say things like “When is Flocanrib meeting next Tuesday?” and “Can Flocanrib do it again this year?”

When she was little, Irene thought of the source of her yearly presents as her birthday fairy “Presenty.” But later, she thought it must be a single human being – she imagined, a relative – still called, in her mind, “Presenty.” One day, when she was in high school, her birthday came, but the presents did not. They never resumed, and Irene still wondered who Presenty was; she was eager to thank this person. Continue reading »

See you in Atlanta? (Dale)

Apr 082013
 

LostI’ll be attending and presenting at 2013 Theological Conference in the Atlanta area. Registration is open till April 19, and anyone may attend.

I went last year and had a great time. I met a lot of interesting unitarian Christians (aka One God believers, Christian monotheists, biblical unitarians), and enjoyed the presentations and the beautiful wooded grounds of the conference center. The weather was delightful last year.

Among the presenters will be Kermit Zarley, author of (among others) this book. And Sean Finnegan. And Dustin Smith. A main organizer of the conference who I assume will also present is Sir Anthony Buzzard.

My presentation will be on some of the themes I’ve been posting here on in recent months. It will be called “The Lost Early History of Unitarian Christianity.”

I hope to see you there.

trinitarian or unitarian? 11 – a trinitarian passage in Hippolytus? (Dale)

Apr 032013
 

mrs-butterworthsWas Hippolytus a trinitarian or a unitarian? In the last two posts, I’ve argued that he was the latter.

In the most recent translation of his Against Noetus, though, the translator thinks he is a trinitarian. He entitles this section, “The three Persons of the Trinity are One God”. (p. 74) Is he right? Here’s the passage, pretty much the whole chapter:

Well then, brethren, all this is what the Scriptures point out to us. This economy that blessed John, too, passes on to us through the witness of his Gospel, and he maintains that this Word is God… [John 1:1]

But then, if the Word, who is God, is with God, someone might well say: “What about this statement that there are two gods?” While I will not say that there are two gods – but rather one – I will say there are two persons; and that a third economy is the grace of the Holy Spirit. For though the Father is one, there are two persons – because there is the Son as well: and the third too, – the Holy Spirit. The Father gives orders, the Word performs the work, and is revealed as Son, through whom belief is accorded to the Father. By a harmonious economy the result is a single God. Continue reading »

Bill Maher on God and Jesus (Dale)

Apr 012013
 

I consider comedian Bill Maher to be a fairly funny guy. I don’t care for his politics. But I watched his movie Religulous, and I thought it had some funny and interesting moments. He’s not as smart as he thinks he is. He’s typical of kids who were raised Catholic, who didn’t pay too much attention, and who later sloughed off the whole thing as childish, without any serious investigation.

Here’s some of his schtick:

  • “God had a son” – sorry Bill, you can jeer at the claim rather than seriously consider it, but that only reveals your contempt for Christianity – it doesn’t show anything ridiculous about the claim. Granted, it is an unusual claim. Of course, Jesus was an unusual man.
  • “suicide mission” – Sort of sounds like he’s blowing himself up to kill others. Gee, Bill, that’s just not at all like the claim that he came, in part, to willingly offer him as a sacrifice for all the sins of humanity. Bill surely knows better, and is depending on the ignorance of the audience to find that a stinging and funny comparison. Fail.
  • “they can’t kill you because you’re really Me”

Here, Bill has a point. Consider this argument:

  1. God is immortal. Continue reading »

He is risen… so not reincarnated (Dale)

Mar 312013
 

Jesus is alive, and he still has a real, flesh and blood body. He has had that body continuously – but for a break of less than three days –  for over 2000 years. Because of that, he has not switched bodies, not reincarnated, not been reborn as some present day dude. Jesus is still driving the original model… with a few upgrades, of course.

This is important to know, because of the proliferation of fake Jesuses today, like A.J. Miller in Australia, Sergey Anatolyevitch Torop in Russia, Jose Miranda (also here) in America, Álvaro Theiss (also here) in Brazil, and other assorted crazies.

Acid test: Does this claimant Continue reading »

trinitarian or unitarian? 10 – Hippolytus on the identity of the one God (Dale)

Mar 292013
 

hippolytusIncredibly, in 1551 they discovered an intact statue of Hippolytus (pictured here). This may exist because he was revered as a martyr shortly after his lifetime.

In the previous post, we saw that in his theology, the divine (but less divine than God) Logos came to exist from God a finite time ago, so that God could create the cosmos by means of him. On two counts, then, this makes him not a trinitarian – that the “persons” are neither co-equal nor equally divine. But is he a unitarian?

In the most important work we have from him, he says,

The first and only (one God), both Creator and Lord of all, had nothing coeval with Himself… Therefore this solitary and supreme Deity, by an exercise of reflection, brought forth the Logos first… Him alone He produced from existing things; for the Father Himself constituted existence, and the being born from Him was the cause of all things that are produced. The Logos was in the Father Himself, bearing the will of His progenitor, and not being unacquainted with the mind of the Father. For simultaneously with His procession from His Progenitor… He has, as a voice in Himself, the ideas conceived in the Father. …when the Father ordered the world to come into existence, the Logos one by one completed *each object of creation, thus pleasing God.   …[God, via the Logos] formed the ruler of all [creation, i.e. Adam]… The Creator did not wish to make him a god, and failed in His aim; nor an angel… but a man. For if He had willed to make thee a god, He could have done so. Thou has the example of the Logos. Continue reading »

trinitarian or unitarian? 9 – Hippolytus’s two-stage logos theory (Dale)

Mar 272013
 

lonely tree in the snow Hippolytus (c. 170-236) is an interesting, if obscure character. He was a presbyter in Rome, and on some reports, was a bishop of Rome – either a pope on an anti-pope, depending on how you look at it (he would have been a rival bishop, if this is true, to either Zephyrinus or Callistus). (See the entry on him in this book, pp. 164-5)

He was especially concerned to combat “monarchian” theology. In my view, it is a huge undertaking to get clear what on just what “monarchian” theology was all about. In any case, it is clear that the Hippolytus re-asserts the two-stage logos theory against it, the same sort of theory we saw  in Ireneaus. He may have been a disciple of Irenaeus.

God, subsisting alone, and having nothing contemporaneous with Himself, determined to create the world. Continue reading »

trinitarian or unitarian? 8 – Origen on “God” vs. “a god” (Dale)

Mar 252013
 

wordOrigen, many other ancient catholics, takes the Word (logos) of John 1 to be the pre-human Jesus.

For the record, I don’t think that is correct. But I won’t contest it here.

In the quotes here, he’s commenting on “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is from an long commentary on John, this portion of which was probably written in 231-2 AD.

Many people who wish to be pious are troubled because they are afraid that they may proclaim two Gods and, for this reason, they fall into false and impious beliefs. They either deny that the individual nature of the Son is other than that of the Father by confessing him to be God whom they refer to as “Son” in name at least, or they deny the divinity of the Son and make his individual nature and essence as an individual to be different from the Father. (Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel According to God, trans. Robert E. Heine, p. 98, bold added)

Permit me to paraphrase: people think that this Word who is with God and yes is God must be another God, a second God. But that seems wrong – isn’t monotheism true? Thus, they either think Father and Son to be numerically one (the same God) or they deny that the Word, that is, the pre-human Jesus to be divine – to be such that the word “God” applies to him.

Immediately following the passage above, Origen gives his solution.

Their problem can be resolved in this way. Continue reading »

One-self Trinity theories (Dale)

Mar 232013
 

I used to call these sorts Trinity theories of “modalism.” I still think that is not a bad description, so long as you specify that it is not by definition heretical or wrong.

But I now think “one-self” is a more neutral term, which even better describes the sort of theory.

The reasoning goes like this.

The Christian God must, after all is said and done, be Continue reading »

Credo House Ministries’ Inaccuracies about the Trinity and the Council of Nicea (Dale)

Mar 212013
 

Unimpressed-Mona-LisaI’ve blogged about these folks before. I do not enjoy criticizing apologists, because I think Christian apologetics is important. And the folks at Credo House Ministries seem like good-hearted and hard working Christians who are doing their best to help Christians love God with their minds. And I think Patton is an excellent blogger and writer.

But I feel compelled to correct some of their inaccurate statements about “the” doctrine of the Trinity. In this video, they want to correct the myth that “The Trinity” – by which they mean “the” doctrine of the Trinity, or rather, the widely accepted catholic creedal formulas -”was invented.”

Well, given that it is a doctrine which we’re talking about, a theory, which didn’t exist in BC times, of course it was “invented,” i.e first formulated and stated by some folks.

But it actually wasn’t in 325, at Nicea! That formula, as then understood, was consistent with Christian unitarian theology.

But let’s go through their video. Continue reading »

Linkage: Dan Wallace: 5 Myths About Bible Translation (Dale)

Mar 192013
 

booksCheck out this post by Dan Wallace over at Parchment and Pen. I teach religious studies, and regularly encounter this one:

Myth 1: The Bible has been translated so many times we can’t possibly get back to the original.

Wallace’s answer is absolutely right.

#2 is also an important point. Wallace might have added that quotation marks are never in the Greek manuscripts; they didn’t exist in ancient times. In a sense, they are part of the translation – and at times, a product of translators’ interpretation.

I agree with the substance of Wallace’s comments #3 and #4 as well. But on #5, it is wholly unclear what he means by the “deity of Christ.” Evangelicals love that phrase, I think in part because of its ambiguity.

It is true, though, that Constantine is not any kind of major player in the development of catholic doctrine. That’s just Dan Brown nonsense – the bane of anyone who loves the intellectual enterprise of history.

Update: 15 more. Some of this stuff is embarrassing; but Wallace is doing God’s work, because many of these are in wide circulation.

John Biddle’s unitarian confession of the Holy Trinity (Dale)

Mar 172013
 

go to jailJohn Biddle (1615-62) (also spelled “Bidle”) has been called “the father of English Unitarianism.” (But he didn’t use the word “unitarian” – that had yet to be coined, as a more descriptive, less polemical alternative to “Socinian.”) When he taught his theology publicly, he ran afoul of the the law, and eventually died in jail, imprisoned for his beliefs.

Here are three of the six articles of his A Confession of Faith Touching the Holy Trinity, According to Scripture. (1648, reprinted in a 1691 book, itself reprinted in 2008.) I have modernized his spelling and use of capitals and punctuation, and have added emphases in bold.

Article I: I believe that there is one most High God, creator of heaven and earth, and first cause of all things pertaining to our salvation, and confessedly the ultimate object of our faith and worship; and that this God is none but the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the first person of the Holy Trinity. (p. 1)

Article II: I believe that there is one chief Son of the Most High God, Continue reading »

trinitarian or unitarian? 7 – Origen uncensored (Dale)

Mar 152013
 

scissors

Against Celsus is not the only important surviving book by Origen. Origen’s On First Principles is often called the first systematic Christian theology. It was written some time before 231. It is a bold and wide-ranging work, and in Origen’s day Christian theologians could speculate a fair amount.

But the curtain was brought down on this era of freedom by ecclesial-political events of the fourth century. While many still considered Origen a great scholar, the atmosphere was such that one might lose one’s church career if people thought you were too sympathetic to his views.

Among his admirers was the great scholar Jerome (translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible), but Jerome had do distance himself from Origen lest the heresy hunters get him. But still, people wanted to read Origen. Answering this need, Rufinus (d. 410) translated Origen’s On First Principles into Latin. Problem is, Rufinus systematically cut out and/or changed numerous passages that would not fit the new Pro-Nicene hegemony.

How do we know this? Because Rufinus tells us! He argues that heretics must have corrupted Origen’s works, since there just could not be a difference between those and the new catholic orthodoxy. Also, we have from other sources, e.g. letters of his contemporaries, the Greek texts of some of the cut and altered passages. In the excellent modern edition of the book, the editor-translator restores these to the text. Sadly, Rufinus’s Latin version is the only complete version we have of Origen’s book, so as it stands, the book is riddled with suspicious passages that don’t fit what we otherwise know about Origen, but which we have no textual grounds to correct. (On the whole crazy affair, see the above edition, pp. xxxi-lii.)

Here are some of the cut and restored passages; if you’re familiar with the “Arian” controversy and the trinitarian orthodoxy that coalesced and acquired the power of the Roman emperor at the end of the fourth century, you will not need an explanation why Rufinus cut them.

…the Saviour… is an image of God’s goodness, but Continue reading »

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