How Trinity theories conflict with the New Testament (Dale)

May 172012
 

Most Christians are (at least in theory, according to creeds and statements of faith promulgated by denominations) trinitarians, believers in a triune or tri-personal God, which they call the Trinity. But some have always been unitarians, believers in one God who is one perfect self, who does not in any way contain three selves or “persons.” Nowadays, these are a minority (again, going by official statements and membership rolls – I think the facts about Christians’ actual beliefs are more complicated than the official documents suggest).

In my view, before around fifth century, unitarians were always a majority. Of course, they didn’t call themselves “unitarians” – that term is of late 17th c. coinage – but arguably most of them were unitarians - for some arguments read this.

In any case, one can’t determine what is true by taking a vote. Truth may be unpopular. But also, it can be popular. So, who is right?

I propose that the following clear arguments provide a way forward. Which should we accept?

T1 The Father is not the Trinity
T2 The Trinity is God.
T3 Therefore, the Father is not God.

T1 The Father is not the Trinity.
U2 The Father is God.
U3 Therefore, The Trinity is not God.

“Is” here means numerical identity throughout. If x in this sense “is” y (in logic we write x=y) then x and y are one and the same, numerically one thing, numerically identical, and so x and y can’t ever differ in any way. The order doesn’t matter: it will be true that x=y just in case it is also true that y=x. And if it is false that x=y, then x and y are truly two – those terms name different things. To repeat: every “is” in these arguments is the “is” of identity. This is why we’re dealing with clear arguments. We’re not talking about some less close relation or association.

“God” here names Yahweh, the one true God asserted in the Hebrew scriptures.

Each argument is valid; in each case, if both premises were to be true, then the conclusion would also be true.

But we can’t consistently accept both arguments as sound. T2 conflicts with U3, and T3 conflicts with U2 (in both cases the pairs are contradictories – pairs such that one must be true and the other false).

So what to do?

Let us start on common ground. All sides should agree Continue reading »

Arguing against no one (Dale)

May 162012
 

Princeton philosopher Thomas Kelly in a paper on the epistemology of disagreement (i.e. what the reasonable response when we find the people just as smart and informed etc. as us disagree on some important matter):

In principle, we ought to be able to give due weight to the available reasons that support a given view, even in the absence of actual defenders of the view who take those reasons as compelling. But in practice, the case for a view is apt to get short shrift in the absence of any actual defenders. The existence of actual defenders can serve to overcome our blindspots by forcefully reminding us just how formidable the case is for the thesis that they defend… But the case for a given view itself is no stronger in virtue of the fact that that view has actual defenders…

Thomas Kelly, ” The Epistemic Significance of Disagreement,” p. 31 (in pre-print).

At first this reminded me of a proverb I’ve often thought of when reading some catholic theologian who has evidently never put the slightest effort into understanding the overall case for unitarianism:

“The first to speak in court sounds right–until the cross-examination begins.”  Proverbs 18:17 (NLT)

But this is actually a different point than Kelly’s. A better courtroom analogy for Kelly’s point is: Continue reading »

Copan answers: Who created God? (Dale)

Apr 302012
 

“Well, who created God, then?” Many an atheist has lobbed this one, supposing it to be a devastating objection in question form.

In reply, Christian philosopher Paul Copan knocks this one out of the park.

Well played, sir. I would add a few points:

One of the perfections a perfect being is supposed to have is aseity – existing but not because of anything else. God by definition has this. The physical cosmos, it seems, could not. It seems that no physical object could exist independently of anything else (a se – Latin for “through itself”). Any physical object owes its existence to some cause or causes, and will go out of existence if conditions cease to be favorable.

So there is nothing arbitrary in the believer in God demanding to know what caused the physical cosmos to come into existence, while not demanding to know what caused God to exist. Given the sort of being God is supposed to be (perfect, so a se) it is a contradiction to suppose that God is caused to exist. (X caused an essentially uncausable being to exist.)  The question/demand/objection I started this post with is based on ignorance of what sophisticated monotheism is. It’s too bad that some well known recent atheist writers have propagated this mistake.

There is trouble here, by the way, for some Trinity theories (hint: eternal generation). See here if you’re interested.

Defining the concept of a trinitarian (Dale)

Apr 232012
 

I woke up this morning, and realized that there is a problem with how I’ve been defining the concept of a unitarian.  In this post, I will attempt a definition of the concept of a trinitarian, after reviewing what is required of a good definition. Next time, I’ll try to define the concept of a unitarian.

According to the textbook I have used for years in my critical thinking class, a good definition should:

  1. Include the genus and a differentia.
  2. Not be too broad or too narrow.
  3. State the essential attributes of the concept’s referents.
  4. Not be circular.
  5. Not use negative terms unnecessarily.
  6. Not use vague, obscure, or metaphorical language. (p. 44)

What is a trinitarian?

Definition 1: someone who believes in a triune god.

This fails Continue reading »

“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 8 (Dale)

Apr 222012
 

In this last post in this series, I want to put out a few critical reactions to Baber’s “Neo-Sabellian” Trinity theory.

My thanks to Harriet for this piece and for her interaction with us here.

No doubt, she’ll argue back; and she will probably say something about how her views have changed since she wrote this piece.

So, in no particular order:

  1. I agree with her that it’s suspicious if some philosophical theory should appeal to us only or mainly because it’ll help us in theology. I also agree with her that it’s interesting to at least try to come up with what is in some sense an acceptable Trinity theory which uses only metaphysical doctrines we have other reasons to believe.
  2. Again, I think it is a good aim to produce an intelligible (seemingly consistent) Trinity theory, assuming some such theory is called for. I think she’s correct to complain about the severe obscurity of traditional claims about “eternal generation” and “procession”.
  3. Picky point: I think “Neo-Sabellian” is a misnomer. It’s “Neo” all right, but Continue reading »

“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 7 (Dale)

Apr 202012
 

Time for the old Spanish Inquisition. Will she survive The (self-administered) Rack?

In the final part of her article “Sabellianism Reconsidered”, Baber turns to theological objections. To wit:

  • The account renders it impossible for the Son to pray to the Father. But the NT says this happened.
  • The account denies that each Person of the Trinity is himself eternal, and has eternally born relations to the other two Persons. (pp. 8-9, paraphrased)

Her answers? Jesus, like his contemporaries, was not a trinitarian. That is, he didn’t realize  that the God to whom he prayed had temporal parts which were gods. Or even if he did, he didn’t intend to teach any trinitarian doctrine. Thus, he addressed not the Father, but God, as “Father”. (p. 10) Thus the term “Father”, in Jesus’ context, referred to God, while nowadays (post 380 CE?) it refers to the Father, the (temporally) first Person of the Trinity.

In response to the second objection, she notes that “a notion of timeless, metaphysically necessary causation Continue reading »

LaBreeska’s right (Dale)

Apr 182012
 

(click for image credit)

LaBreeska Hemphill is right. Jesus isn’t God; he’s the Son of God.

God is a certain perfect self, the one both we and Jesus call “our Father” and “our God”. Jesus is a man – but by no means a mere man, to wildly understate the case. God is not a man, not, as C.S. Lewis would say, a Son of Adam.

She’s not a theologian. She’s just one in a long parade of Christians who closely examine the Bible, expecting to find taught there that Jesus is God, or that he’s divine, and instead find Jesus worshiping and praying to one he calls “the one true God”. She’s a unitarian Christian, aka a “biblical unitarian” or a “humanitarian unitarian”.

Unlike many Christian intellectuals, she assumes that trusting Jesus means accepting his theological teaching, even if that implies that certain catholic bishops and those loyal to their traditions  have been mistaken in some of their speculations.

Like nearly all traditional Christians, she assumes God to be a self. The Bible implies this straight up, throughout, to the dismay of some with other conceptions of God – e.g. those who hold that God is “Being” or an “Ultimate Concern”.

Some present day “social” theorists deny that God is a self, and may deride her reasons for rejecting Trinity doctrines, as it conflicts with their speculation that really, God is a group of selves, or is a composite self or quasi-self composed of three selves. But they prudently hide this view of theirs when in church; they dare not assert that it is a mistake to think God is a self. They mumble that God’s  a “personal” being (you know, composed of persons/selves). They dare not correct their friends who refer to God as “him” or “he”, insisting that God is an “it”.

LaBreeska doesn’t need to mumble. She speaks Continue reading »

“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 5 (Dale)

Apr 172012
 
To be omnipotent, Baber says, “is to be able to do [directly, by fiat] any action… including actions at times other than” the time at which one is omnipotent. (p.6)
But consider, say, the action of miraculously inflicting some person with a headache on 1/1/2015. It seems that the Father, on this theory, couldn’t do that, as he wouldn’t exist then (having been superseded by the Son and the Spirit) – at least not directly. Thus, it seems he wouldn’t be omnipotent. But then, he wouldn’t be a god, or fully divine, as the theory requires. Likewise, the Son would not have the ability to create the world, as he existed only c. 1-33 CE.

But, if I follow her compressed reasoning here (p.7), the reasoning just given is mistaken. God is, at any time, able to bring about anything at that time. He’s able to do this because of his temporal part (e.g. the Father) which exists at any given time. (Or if we’re talking about stretches of time, it could be 2-3 parts.) But each God-temporal-part is also omnipotent, in that for all its career, it can do any action, at the earlier or later gods which count as the same god as it, have the same sort of power during their careers. So, take the Son. He’s omnipotent, because (1) during his life he can do any action, (2) at times later than his life, the Holy Spirit can do any action, and the Holy Spirit counts as the continuing existence of the Son, and for parallel reasons, (3) before the Son’s life, he ought to be thought of as pre-existing as the Father, who during all of his career, could do any action. “The Persons, therefore, are as omnipotent… as [God] is.” (p.9) Thus, she holds, her third condition is satisfied – each of the Persons is wholly divine.

Next time: But is the Trinity God?

“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 4 (Dale)

Apr 122012
 
The theory, then, is that God is an everlasting, temporally extended thing with three temporal parts, each of which is a god. But, they’re the same god as God. Yet as we saw last time, how can the Three be gods at all, as each exists at some times but not others?

Without going into the arguments for this controversial thesis, Baber appeals to the claim made by Derek Parfit and others, that “identity is not ‘what matters’ for survival”. (p.6) Thus, a future thing can count as my surviving, though it is not (numerically) identical to me.

Suppose (I’m stealing this thought experiment from Richard Swinburne) some mad scientists, such as Pinkie and the Brain, are going to cut my brain in half, and put the left half in one body, and the right in another. The body which gets the left half will be tortured to death, while the body getting the right half will be given lifetime passes to all NFL games and a lifetime supply of good beer. If I’m to undergo this experiment, I want to know which of these resulting people will be (numerically identical to) me: the unlucky one, the lucky one, or neither.

Baber (following Parfit) wants to say that depending on how exactly the resulting people are related to me, both may count as the continuation of or survival of me. Specifically, she suggests that psychological continuity is enough – it is enough that the later people have the same or nearly the same beliefs, desires, and so on that I have.

I don’t think this is right, but back to the Trinity: In her view, the god which is a God-stage (temporal part of God) called the Father would, just before the Incarnation, be mistaken to think Continue reading »

“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 3 (Dale)

Apr 112012
 

To continue Baber’s attempt to retool Sabellianism:

Suppose your car, named KITT, has temporal parts. KITT, then is the sum of, the whole composed of these parts. (KITT at t1, KITT at t2, KITT at t3, KITT at t4…etc.) Further, Baber urges each of these car-stages (temporal parts of a car) is itself a car. So, e.g., KITT at t3 is just as much a car as the whole KITT. But now, suppose David Hasselhoff is driving KITT on, say, Easter. He’s actually, on this metaphysics, driving two cars, for KITT on Easter is a different car than KITT (the sum of KITT-stages).

Not to worry, argues Baber. We simply need a concept of “tensed identity”. This is not numerical identity as normally understood, but is rather the relation between KITT and KITT at Easter, such that they “count as one”. (p.5) Thus, Baber suggests that if we believe in temporal parts, the thesis of “tensed identity” is a “plausible way to avoid over-population.” (p. 5)

Back to God. She’s exploring the idea that God is a whole composed of three temporal parts Continue reading »

A Lesson in Christological Rhetoric (Dale)

Apr 082012
 

You say that you want to argue for a “high” christology, for something widely considered to be a mainstream Christian understanding of Jesus. My advice is: be careful - if you say too much, you’ll open yourself up to refutation, and your claim will appear implausible, or too contentious and theoretical, or you’ll at least invite questions you have no intention of answering. How, then, to state your thesis?

“Jesus is God himself“? Sounds heretical (suggests they’re the same person, and not merely the same being, and that the Son and Father are the same person). Plus, sounds a bit too strong.

“Jesus has the divine nature“? What’s a divine nature? Who knows? Help! Is there a metaphysician in the house? You don’t want to go there – legions of nature-theories are lurking in the shadows, nipping and growling at one another, and at you.

“Jesus is a member of the Trinity“? Good and vague – but it raises that whole Trinity issue. Better to sidestep that one.

“Jesus is included in the identity of God.” Mysterious, but not in a good way. Plenty unclear, but sounds too high-falootin’, too academic – like something Brian McLaren would write. Too newly minted. You can retreat to this if need be – you can name-drop a famous scholar or two here – but whatever you do, don’t lead with it.

“Jesus is God“?

Mmm… good and vague. Powerfully simple, pithy. Close – but too much like the first statement above.

You may believe all of the above – but you don’t want to say any of those claims, unless you have to.

Here’s a better way: Continue reading »

“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 2 (Dale)

Apr 052012
 
President Bush, President Reagan, President Carter, President Ford, President Nixon
What is this adequate Trinity theory called “Sabellianism”, according to Baber? It is what I’ve called serial, non-essential FSH noumenal modalism - each “person” of the Trinty is a mode of God, a way God is during a period of time. None of these overlap (serial), they supervene on God’s intrinsic features (noumenal), and they are non-essential – if God hadn’t created, there would have been no time, and so no temporal parts to his life.
So the theory is that the one God is an everlasting self with three temporal parts, the Father (up to the time of the Incarnation?), the Son (during the earthly life of Jesus, ending at Pentecost?) and the Holy Spirit (Pentecost and after?). So the three “persons” of the Trinity are in fact person-stages of the one divine person/self, but they are also persons as well.

Following an ancient tradition of mocking modalists as “patripassians”, she seems to think the biggest or the main problem with modalism is that it identifies the Father and the Son. (pp. 1, 3) On her modalist theory, they are temporal parts (person-stages) of one being, but they are not numerically identical – they are different temporal parts of God. As she observes, on this theory, “There is… no time at while f=s.” (p. 3) Thus, her theory doesn’t identify any of the persons with one another, or with God for that matter.

Many metaphysicians, she knows, reject the theory of temporal parts, and the perdurance theory of how a thing can “last” through time.

But moving on, is this theory monotheistic? She urges,

All we need to capture the spirit of monotheism is the doctrine that at any time there is exactly one God. (3)

Huh? She draws an analogy with US Presidents; at any given time, there’s one one.

But imagine this: Continue reading »

It’s just gotta be true… (Dale)

Mar 242012
 

<gossip>Once some years ago, I was hanging out with a group of Christian philosophers, and the subject of the Trinity came up. One person,  a well known philosopher, firmly remarked that “It’s just gotta be modalism.”

I recently shared this story with a Christian philosopher friend. In response, he told me that more recently, he was hanging with a group of Christian philosophers, and one (who is at least as respected as the aforementioned – which is to say, very) opined firmly that Christians should just admit to being tritheists and defend tritheism. </gossip>

My friend and I got a big laugh out of this.

Neither philosopher, by the way, has published yet on this topic. But maybe we’re in for a bumpy ride!

The more I think about this, though, the less funny I think it is. There’s nothing new under the sun, says my darker self. And I recall the words of the dearly departed Christian philosopher William Alston,

It is a well known fact, amply borne out by the history of the discussion of the topic, that as soon as one goes beyond the automatic recital of traditional creedal phrases one inevitably leans either in the direction of modalism – the “persons” are simply the different aspects of the divine being and/or activity – or tritheism – there are really three Gods, albeit very intimately connected in some way. (“Swinburne and Christian Theology,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 41 (1997) , p. 54).

Well, if that’s so, maybe there’s a problem with those traditional creedal phrases! (For his part, Alston rested with a very unsatisfying appeal to mystery.)

I tremendously respect all three of these people – Alston and the two nameless ones – but I dare say that none of the three has fully enough explored all the options.

How not to conduct theological dialogue (Dale)

Mar 222012
 

A poor exchange. Read it first – then my comments.

Where do I start?

  • The unitarian behaves poorly. Pretending to ask questions, he instead puts forward objections. This is disrespectful. And it makes the compliments at the start seem disingenuous, which is obnoxious.
  • But Bill serves it back, by sarcastically labeling the thing “Muslim objections…” Cute.
  • Are these objections “simple-minded”? No, not really. What they are, are objections to Jesus being the same self as, and so identical to God.  They are objections from the indiscernibility of identicals. And they do apply to one-self understandings of the Trinity.
  • But the unitarian, not having done his homework, lobs them at Craig, to whom they do not apply. ‘Cause Craig thinks that God Continue reading »

Francis David: Against Worshiping Jesus (Dale)

Mar 142012
 

(click for image credit)

There was a famous dispute between the famous unitarian Socinus and a Hungarian unitarian leader Francis David (a.k.a. Ferenc Dávid, Franciscus Davidis; 1510-79) about whether Christians should worship or pray to Jesus. Both were what I call humanitarian unitarians (Jesus did not exist before his conception, and does not have a divine nature.)

This dispute went on for some time both in person and in print. Sadly, it became politicized and personalized, I take it, through no fault of Socinus, and turned into an attempt by George Blandrata (a.k.a. Giorgio Biandrata, 1515-88) to slander and destroy David.

While David was deathly ill, he was dragged before a prince to answer blasphemy charges.

Here’s how Rees represents David’s position, as expressed by his son in law on his behalf at the trial:

… no divine worship which was not prescribed or commanded in the Scriptures could be agreeable to God. The invocation of Christ was not there prescribed or commanded; – therefore Continue reading »

Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 7 – Morgridge on Revelation 4-5 (Dale)

Mar 112012
 

19th c. American minister Charles Morgridge makes an apt comment about Revelation 4-5:

There is not in the Bible a clearer distinction between the only true God, and his only Son our Saviour, than is here expressed. GOD sat on the throne; the Son stood amidst the elders. GOD had in his right hand a book; the Son came and took the book out of his hand. GOD was worshiped as the Being who created all things; and who liveth forever and ever. The Son was honored as the Lamb that was slain, and redeemed us unto God by his blood. And as [in 1 Chronicles 29:20] the whole congregation of Israel bowed down their heads, and worshiped the LORD and the king, who was but a type of this Lamb; so, in verse 13, the whole universe is represented as ascribing Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, unto HIM that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever. (The True Believer’s Defence, p. 58, bold added)

A couple of other gems:

The word worship is now generally used to express the religious homage due to God. But this is not the only sense Continue reading »

Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 5 – An Objection (Dale)

Mar 082012
 

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If we stick with objections arising from the text of Revelation itself, perhaps the most obvious one is that raised in a comment on previous post by my friend James Anderson. Reformulated by me, it goes:

The text itself (Rev 19:10, 22:9) asserts that we should worship only God. And yes, Revelation plainly implies that Jesus should be worshiped. And so it plainly implies that Jesus is God. 

One might look to one of my favorite translations, the New Living Translation, which has these two verses saying, in part: “Worship only God”.

When you look at the Greek, though, you see that it simply says “Worship God.” Not the same thing! And most translations get this right. (Even The Message and the Good News Bible get it right.)

Where does the “only” come from? From the theological agenda of the translators; they want the text to be making the argument above. So in the ESV Study Bible, which translates these phrases correctly (“Worship God.”) they feel the theological need to add this footnote:

Human beings must not worship even the angels… God alone must be worshiped. Since the Lamb is rightly worshiped (5:8-14), he is God. (p. 2497)

Interestingly, these evangelical commenters agree with those in the recent Jewish Annotated New Testament that Revelation asserts that only God should  be worshiped. In their comment on 19:7-10, they assert that

It is God, not the Lamb/Jesus, who is to be worshiped. (p. 493)

And bizarrely, in their notes on chapter 5, they ignore the obvious fact that Jesus is being worshiped together with God, although they correctly note that

The heavenly song makes a clear distinction between the enthroned one and the sacrificial lamb. (p. 474)

I’m reading between the lines here, and the commenters in this book are understandably very circumspect, but I think their assumption is Continue reading »

Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 4 – Implications (Dale)

Mar 062012
 

Last time we carefully read through a heavenly scene in which Jesus is exalted to God’s side and worshiped alongside him.

We saw that it is indisputable that Revelation 4-5 holds forth Jesus as worthy of being worshiped.

But can this help us choose between the dueling arguments from the first post? Yes!

Given that we accept that Jesus ought to be worshiped, we must choose between Only God should be worshiped and Jesus isn’t God because we can’t consistently accept both of these, in addition to the claim that Jesus ought to be worshiped.

Based on our careful reading (Part 2, Part 3) of Revelation 4-5, let us ask which of these John would agree with?

Would John agree that only God should be worshiped?
Plainly not. 

  • Jesus is presented throughout as someone else. In these chapters, he comes into God’s throne room, receives the scroll of God’s secret plans from God, and is then honored alongside God.
  • God, the one on the throne, silently approves of all this. He lets Jesus take the scroll. It is his mission that Jesus accomplished, because of which Jesus is worthy to now be exalted. And he stands by while people worship both him and Jesus. And he does not thunder “You lousy idolaters” – worship only me!” And he, he tacitly approves of this exaltation of Jesus.
  • Smartly, the people present agree. (v. 14) No one calls out God Continue reading »

Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 3 – Revelation 5 (Dale)

Mar 042012
 

(click for image credit)

Last time, in chapter 4, our author (a “John” – 1:1) was granted a vision of God in heaven, receiving worship in his throne room.

In chapter 5, God – the one on the throne – is holding a sealed up scroll – a scroll which we later find out (ch. 6-9) contains his future plans. This is what the author was promised at the start of chapter 4 – that he’d be shown the future (4:1), again, something we know from Isaiah is the prerogative of God alone.

No one is found worthy to open it, and John is bummed. Someone tells him,

“Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

Lamb. Who? We’ve met him before – it is Jesus, the one through whom Continue reading »

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