“trinitarians”… Fer it… or agin’ it?
Following up on the previous post - the word “trinitarian” may be an adjective or a noun. The Oxford English Dictionary lists four adjective meanings: (here’s my editing of relevant parts of their entry, emphasis added)
2. Theol. Relating to the Trinity; holding the doctrine of the Trinity (opp. to Unitarian). [...]
Who’s up for a little trinitarian comedy?
Thanks to reader Mike K. for this hilarious link. They beat me to the punch - I’ve been sitting on a post for some time on this exact theme. (Stay tuned.)
I posted a comment asking about this bit:
It’s interesting to note that the English term “Trinitarian” was first used, [...]
MACRUE!… Gesundheit
Man, this is getting to be a long series.
This installment is a book review I’ve written of philosophical theologian James Anderson’s Paradox in Christian Theology: An Analysis of Its Presence, Character, and Epistemic Status. It is forthcoming in the philosophy journal Faith & Philosophy, and is posted by the kind permission of its [...]
Roll up, folks.
We now move one the fourth R - what I call Mysterian Resistance (or Mysterianism). The Resistor is resisting the pressure to resolve the apparent contradiction, i.e. changing one of the apparently contradictory beliefs. Unlike the Redirector, the Resister doesn’t ignore the apparent inconsistency. And unlike the Resolver, he doesn’t think there’s a [...]
Father, Son, Holy Spirit?
A professor friend emailed me recently:
I’ve lately been reading a book (at a student’s request) …a piece of bad Christian fiction called “The Shack” by William P. Young. … it might interest you in light of your trinitarian research. The persons of the Trinity make an appearance in the story: God [...]
Your average theologian’s response to recent Rational Reinterpretations.
Let me take four recent books off my shelf by current theologians. Now I’ll search through them to see if they have any reference at all to some of the more important Rational Reconstructions in the last 25 years or so, namely:
Tom Morris’s (1986, 1989) or Richard Swinburne’s [...]
Can’t we all just get along?
One last problem for Resolution through Rational Reconstruction: the new-fangled theory (or if you like, way of understanding the Doctrine) is invariably controversial, in the following sense: it involves metaphysical claims such that some thinkers will consider them false and impossible, and others not.
The more you think about hard stuff, [...]
Whew! That was close!
Many recent Christian philosophers have offered what I call Rational Reconstructions of apparently contradictory doctrines such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. Though I’m presently exploring criticisms of such views, let me emphasize that I don’t see anything wrong with what they’re doing, and I think that people with philosophical skills [...]
Yes, this is the real thing. Really.
And it can be yours for a mere $50.
Last time we highlighted one problem with Resolution through Rational Reinterpretation - often, only a metaphysician could love the new-fangled (but precise and seemingly consistent) version of the Doctrine in question. A second concern is that many believers think this “new [...]
Moses Stuart (1780-1852), professor at Andover Theological Seminary,
and NOT a fan of Rational Reconstruction (image credit)
What, if anything, is wrong with with the strategy of Resolution through Rational Reinterpretation? And why are most theologians so cold towards this strategy, while most Christian philosophers love it? Consider this quote by Moses Stuart on one of Leibniz’s [...]
This brings the total of R’s to 6.
Wish I could say there weren’t more coming!
We’ve looked so far at two ways Christians may respond to apparently contradictory doctrines: Redirection and Restraint. We now move on to a third strategy: Resolution. In brief, the Resolver holds that the apparent contradiction can be banished, made to disappear. [...]
Who are you calling dumb? (image credit)
We’re exploring the response of Restraint - when confronted with an apparently contradictory doctrine, might it not be a good idea for the believer to simply admit that she doesn’t know what it means? Last time we looked at the idea of “implicit faith”. What, if anything, is wrong [...]
Nothing objectionable in there…
One way to deal with an apparently contradictory doctrine in your religion is the response of Restraint. There’s a connection here, with the medieval Catholic doctrine of “implicit faith”, so I thought I’d explore it a little, and in my next post, I’ll apply this to the issue of Restraint in the [...]
Don’t ask me what this doctrine means… I only believe it.
Last time we briefly explored Redirection, the first of our four ways to respond to apparent contradictions in theology.
The response of Restraint is a little more reasonable. This person realizes that a certain way of understanding, say, the doctrine of the Trinity, seems inconsistent. The [...]
The smell of this will get you off the trail…
Last time we briefly distinguished four ways Christians respond to apparent contradictions in theology. Here, we look at what I call Redirection. When confronted with an apparently contradictory doctrine X, the Redirector changes the subject. She says something to direct your attention away from X, or [...]
This chart has been brought to you by the letter “R” and the number “4″.
In this series I’ll describe 4 basic ways Christian thinkers respond to apparent contradictions in theology. I don’t claim these are complete. Maybe ya’ll can help me clarify and add to this scheme.
I’ve been working for a while on what I [...]
“Sounds good to me!” (image credit)
Whoever says he believes what he does not at all understand, knows not what belief is, knows also not what he believes; and therefore, he believes in fact nothing, but it only seems to him [he believes]… Certainly nobody can believe something other than what he considers true… If reason [...]
“God” in Arabic. (image credit)
A continuing theme in the Christian blogosphere, which we discussed before (God = Allah?) - now Calvin College philosopher Kevin Corcoran, on his blog Holy Skin and Bone, asks:
Is the God of Christians the God of Muslims Too?
Corcoran answers a firm “yes”, and sort of scolds evangelicals who say “no”. He [...]
