Philip Clayton

He publishes a ton, and much of his work is in the science and religion genre. Unlike many authors in that genre, Clayton isn’t a scientist – his training is in theology, religious studies, and philosophy.

He’s also a co-founder of this Big Tent Christianity project, which aims in his words “to foster a radically different understanding of the heart of Christian faith” – different, that is, from the theologically and culturally conservative and liberal camps.

But our question is: Is God a self? What saith Clayton? Check out his interview (blue button), and then click here for my take ->

Oh boy, that was a very professorial answer. I’ll try to unpack it some. Clayton undertakes to answer the question “as a metaphysician”, or from the perspective of “the philosopher of today” – as if the question were, can we know by reason alone that God is a self. (That’s a different question.)

Anyhow, in Clayton’s view the up-to-date philosopher should be very concerned about anthropomorphism - in other words, thinking about the Ultimate as too much like a human being. Clayton-as-metaphysician believes in a “ground” of the cosmos – I take it, a something-or-other which is more fundamental than the physical universe, and which explains it, or at least is in some sense or other the source of it.

But is there reason to think it a self? Well, says Clayton, “the metaphysician of today” starts with the view that the “ground” is impersonal – so he says the burden is on him (Clayton), who thinks that the ground is something like a self.

(I wonder if he means something like a self, or if he means something like a human self. The latter could be unequivocally a self. But not the former. Do you see the difference? It’s a big difference.)

Anyhow, why is the burden on the fellow who wants to think the ground isn’t totally impersonal? This part I need to explain.

So, many physicists and cosmologists have noted that there are numerous basic physical constants in the world, such that if any one of them were tweaked ever so slightly, biological life as we know it would be impossible – the cosmos would be too chaotic, too uniform, and so on. The cosmos, they say, look as if it has been “finely tuned” so as to make the evolution of life possible. But has it been?

Theists say yes – the best explanation, we say, is that there’s (at least) one provident self, who exists independently of the cosmos, who intended that the cosmos should contain biological life, and to that end, tweaked all these factors just right. This seems to blow out of the water the “explanation” that those factors just happen to be that way, or the dodge that if they weren’t, we wouldn’t be here wondering about them.

But here’s where it gets weird. There’s another explanation of that apparent fine tuning. Suppose there were some sort of random universe generator which spit out a huge number of cosmoi, each with these constants we referred to randomly tweaked in different ways. Most of these would be lifeless of course. But if there were enough of them, there would be some which were life-friendly. And this could be one of them.

It’s important to understand that this would explain the apparent fine-tuning. The question is, is it the best explanation? I agree with certain Christian philosophers – Stephen T. Davis, and Richard Swinburne come to mind, and especially Robin Collins who is coming out with a big book on this – that the theistic explanation is way better than the “multiverse” one. This, for many reasons. But just consider simplicity alone – one super self vs. an infinity or near-infinity of whole cosmoi plus some nearly inconceivable cosmos-generator thingee.

I take it that Clayton disagrees. Perhaps someone in the comments could point out in which book or article he goes into this. I’m not sure if he thinks the multiverse explanation is just better, so that the “ground” must also be this multi-cosmos-generator, or if he thinks that reason can’t decide between the theistic and multiverse explanations… I assume the former.

In any case, Clayton wants to say that the “ground” we must posit is “mind-like”, by which he means that it has (1) intentionality, (2) awareness, (3) rationality.

“I have omitted any moral dimension,” he says. It is a minimalist claim, no more than is needed to explain the multiverse. Again, this is Clayton speaking as philosopher.

He says that we should acknowledge Buddhist and Hindu theories on which the “ground” has both personal and impersonal characteristics. Really? Why? And, is this eastern insight understood as contradictory, or not?

I think, then, that Clayton’s answer is: yes. If by “God” we mean this “ground” of the multiverse, then we should think it is a self – we just can’t say, from science or metaphysics, whether this self is a good one or not. Then again… does this “ground” perform intentional actions - does it do things for reasons? If not, I’d say it isn’t a self, though it may be a mind… If and not, I think it wouldn’t be capable of entering into a personal relationship with anyone – and I assume that a capacity for that is implied by full-blown selfhood. So actually: I’m not sure.

Now I’m curious what Clayton-the-Christian-theologian’s answer is. If by “God” we mean the Bible’s one God, the God of Abraham and Paul and Jesus – is that being a self? If so, can he be the aforementioned ground? And does this fit with the Bible’s claim that people can know this cosmos to have been designed? Would a multiverse-generator count as a designer of this universe? Does the Bible not assert God to be an agent?

The interviewer suggests, and Flint agrees, that it is a “strange” question whether or not God is a person. Why? They don’t say – but I would guess that people may wonder if it is being asked if God is a human person – a dude or a lady. But what’s being asked is not that, but whether or not God is a self – this is a more abstract concept, which would be satisfied by an angel, an intelligent alien, a human, a god, etc.

Watch the interview here – then click here for my take. ->

Flint smartly beats a strategic retreat on the Trinity issue. He wants to talk instead about the generic, philosophical concepts of a person/self, and of God – the idea of God one encounters in philosophical arguments for God’s existence.

Elaborating on the classic definition of Boethius, he says that a person/self is

1. a substance/individual/entity (ultimate bearer of properties & not similarly in anything else), and
2. a mind – a knower, a thing which thinks, and
3. a willer / chooser – someone able to perform free, intentional actions.

God, though, a self, wouldn’t be a self just like us. For one, he’s perfect. Also, Flint points out that God has no extension (spatial extent), parts, matter.

They get sidetracked onto the means of God’s knowledge – Flint sketches the medieval view of God as not any sort of perceiver, but rather he knows all things through himself – through his own representations, perhaps, of what he’ll create (and if Flint is right, from knowing what any creature will freely do in any possible circumstance – in a nutshell, that’s the theory called Molinism. (Flint, by the way, has written one of the best books defending that theory.)

Towards the end, the interview asks: What does it make you feel when you think of God as a person?

Flint thinks of God as loving, involved, responsive – available for a personal relationship with us.
Anything less, he says, would be inadequate on a religious or spiritual level.

This was interesting. I’m with Flint on all of this (except the Molinism). I wondered if he was going to take a more medieval line, and say that God was really not a being at all, but rather “Being itself”, and only analogically a “person”, or something which *we can think of as* a person.

I’m curious about how he understands the Trinity doctrine, and whether it is compatible with what he says here. On most “social” theories, God is not a self. On some others, I think – in particular modalist construals of the orthodox formulas, God is a (single) self. I know he has highly developed, traditional Catholic views on the Incarnation, but I don’t know his thoughts on the Trinity.

But in any case, I give two big thumbs up to what he says here.

Watch the interview here, then click below for my take.

On such theories, it turns out that the one “God” is a group – a group of equally divine selves (aka gods – though they don’t like that term in the plural). This is surprising to be sure - is not the God of the Bible a super-duper self? One who is all-knowing, who loves and hates, carries out plans of action, smites and heals? Moreover, theism is usually explained as belief in one perfect, non-physical self, creator off all else.

Social trinitarians have of late been pushing back. “God isn’t one person, he’s three! We Christians have never said – or at least, never should have said – that God is a person. He’s not a person, though he’s personal. And that makes our view monotheistic.”

(A similar dialectic occurs with “social” theorists who don’t say that Father, Son, and Spirit are a mere group. Instead, they constitute or are within some one thing – but this thing is not a self.)

Now I think this response is wrongheaded in several ways, and am working on at least one paper responding to it.

But for now I note that a number of these “social” theorists are evangelicals, and thus many of them tend to take positions in other areas which push in the opposite direction.

• Christology. Who is Christ? God. And Christ is a self – one with two natures. Thus, God is a self as well – the same one as Christ.
• Theistic piety or spirituality. God is a he, not an it. He’s someone you can talk to, someone who loves you, someone who sympathizes with the downtrodden. He’s far from being an it – a force, “being itself”, or the other high-falutin’, abstract things people have imagined. Which brings us to:
• “Worldview” apologetics. Eastern (Buddhist, Hindu) views of ultimate reality are often criticized for their “impersonal” take on the ultimate. Theism – seemingly belief in a perfect, provident self – is argued to be more reasonable, and perhaps more practical as well.

In this series, we’re going to have fun with video – with interviews with some philosophical theologians, Christian and otherwise. Each time I’ll like an interview clip, and comment on the guy’s answers.

These are from the TV series Closer to the Truth, which I believe airs on some American PBS stations. The interviewer has a pretty impressive resume. He asks each interviewee: “Is God a person?”

The question, I take it, is not whether or not God is a human being – but rather, is God a self – a subject of consciousness, what Descartes calls a thinking thing, something with will and intellect.

Next time: Jewish philosopher-theologian Neil Gillman.

What if

By “posts”, of course, we mean “posts or comments on posts”.

Read it, live it. Patton is very insightful there.

I speak as one sinner to others.

There’s something about human nature… if we’re convinced that we’re right about some important subject-matter, we start to think we’re entitled to pour scorn and contempt on those without this supposed insight. (This happens especially in matters of politics and religion.) But, we are not so entitled. The fact remains that God loves those people, and expects us to. And we would not like to be treated that way.

What way? Just take notice when others start to get heated up over your comments. It could be that you’ve touched a nerve, i.e. raised a devastating criticism. It could be that they’re spoiled, immature, and over-sensitive. Or, it could be that you’re rude. Judge yourself, lest you be called to account for your words. Usually, we know and take pleasure in online bomb-throwing/groin-kicking/eye-poking. Other times, we’re just operating with less stringent standards, like we’d used with friends via email, or face to face. But whether the damage is intentional or not, it’s damage, and the behavior is thus too rough.

Kudos to theologian James Anderson (blog) for significant correspondence – he’s intellectually honest, smart, tough-minded, and humble – a pleasure to discuss things with. Thanks also to my colleagues for enduring multiple drafts and re-writes.

In this paper, my main task is evaluating the mysterianism of James’s book. My view may be more nuanced that some would guess, based on my earlier work. I concede that in principle it can be reasonable to believe an apparent contradiction. I’m not optimistic about the actual prospects of having such beliefs, though.

It seems that James and I mostly disagree about the Bible, not about epistemology – he strongly endorsing, and me eschewing apparently contradictory interpretations of it regarding God and Christ.

The paper, especially the first part, has a lot to do with this long series here at trinities, though it is more focused.

I hope it’ll be a book chapter some day.

His abstract:

There are two general routes that Augustine suggests in De Trinitate, XV, 14-16, 23-25, for a psychological account of the Father’s intellectual generation of the Word. Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent, in their own ways, follow the first route; John Duns Scotus follows the second. Aquinas, Henry, and Scotus’s psychological accounts entail different theological opinions. For example, Aquinas (but neither Henry nor Scotus) thinks that the Father needs the Word to know the divine essence. If we compare the theological views entailed by their psychologies we find a trajectory from Aquinas, through Henry, and ending with Scotus. This theological trajectory falsifies a judgment that every Augustinian psychology of the divine persons amounts to a pre-Nicene functional Trinitarianism. This study makes clear how one’s awareness of the theological views entailed by these psychologies enables one to assess more thoroughly psychological accounts of the identity and distinction of the divine persons.

Godspeed on the dissertation, Scott!

(Link to Scott’s posts.)

Perhaps the clearest picture of this distinction and union [of the Trinity] is Jesus’ baptism, where the Son is anointed for his public ministry by the Spirit, descending as a dove, with the Father declaring from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:13-17) All three persons of the Trinity are present, and each one is doing something different. (p. 2514a, emphases added)

This is an example of the sheer laziness and sloppy reasoning that so mars contemporary theology. Think about it - how exactly is the unity of the Trinity displayed here – either their oneness of an individual essence (godhead, divine nature) or the sharing of a universal property of deity? Where exactly do we see portrayed here the absolute equality of the three, or the “full divinity” of the Son and Spirit.

Would anything in this episode cause trouble for, say, an “Arian”? Nope. Tritheists? No – they should be OK with coordinated actions by the deities. Consider those unitarians who think the Holy Spirit is a force or divine action, not a person in his own right. They won’t have any problem with this “descending as a dove” – which of course needn’t mean that a literal dove (or something that looks just like a dove) dropped from the sky. Finally, consider modalists, who think that each person of the Trinity is really a personality of the one divine person, or a way that person acts. They’ll just say that this omnipotent, divine person can easily pull off these three actions simultaneously: getting baptized as a man, speaking from heaven, and coming down from heaven to empower the man.

The one sort of Christian theology that would trip on this, would be a strictly serial modalism – which holds that God acts, in sequence, as Father, Son, and Spirit, but only one at a time. But who holds this? (Apparently, not even these guys – see #56.)

In sum, this episode, spiritually inspiring and important to christology though it is, is nearly worthless when it comes to arguing for or just finding evidence for any particular understanding of the Trinity. Theologians should be more nervous about just repeating these tropes. A narrative which is compatible with almost any view of the Trinity neither implies, asserts, assumes, nor even illustrates “the” catholic/orthodox/historical mainstream view of the Trinity.

Not having seen the book, I can’t be sure what is going on here. Here are some options:

1. The writer is terribly uninformed.
2. The writer is feigning ignorance in a misguided attempt to instill delight and wonder into science.
3. The writers is feigning ignorance in an attempt to multiply “mysteries”. If there are a lot of “mysteries” (realities we don’t understand) in nature, then any theological mysteries will be unproblematic. Call this “innocence by association” apologetics.
4. The writer is ham-handedly trying to make a (controversial) Kantian point about science – that it only reveals how things appear and not how they really are.

I’d like to believe that 1 is unlikely. It could be that all of 2-4 are going on here. Either way, this is clearly educational malpractice, especially the “All anyone knows is that…” part.

Anyone out there have the actual book?

Since I’m posting mildly entertaining nonsense lately, here’s a video from the, ahem, legendary Winterband. (Steve Winter, not Edgar & I assume, no relation), playing to a packed out basement (his own). Click if you dare.

Winterband is a power duo in reality, although Steve plays in three “persons”. (We must use this term, as we have none better.) Steve 1 plays lead and sings. Steve 2 plays rhythm. Steve 3 plays bass. And yet there are not three Steves, but one. And then there’s the mysterious Angel of Steve, aka Junior, holding down the drums. Some think he is Steve, but he is only Steve’s agent. Steve is one, people.

Although, some hold Steve Winter to be a loving community of band members. They play as one, perfectly together, better than Led Zeppelin circa 1971. Only the word periochoresis can capture it, they say. If you click the link above, you will caught up into the life of this group – you will be, in a word, Winterized. (At least, that’s what the Easterners say.)

In any case, the energia is clearly one. The Winter vibe is unmistakable. Turn up the speakers, and prepare to kiss the sky.

The rockin’ fun is somewhat dampened by his insistence that all trinitarians are tritheists who are going straight to hell. (More in depth analysis by Mr. Winter here.) Dang – where’d he get the idea that God is such a doctrinal stickler?

Some readers will be gratified to know, however that in Winter’s view, Jesus is the Only God.

(Finally, something to cleanse the musical palate. This one won’t hurt – I promise.)

Actually, a pair of “trinities”, with co-equal prices.

Decorating the mantle or end-table with religious statues has never been more affordable.

I know you’re intrigued by these low, low prices. If you live in Tucson, Arizona, you might be able to get the last ones.

I don’t know what the deal is with Jesus’ knee and calf. Does anybody out there get it? (click picture for close-up)

Did he take a bazooka hit, or what?

Or maybe he’s just karate-kneed Satan bloody?

Or perhaps he jumped on a live grenade, saving not only the other 2/3 of the Trinity, but the little foot-rest cherubs as well.

He noted that one may easily have a false belief about what one believes, and he noted that there can be strong social pressures to believe that one has beliefs one doesn’t (and that one lacks beliefs one in fact has). As an example, he noted that every Biola University employee’s continuing employment requires that they yearly affirm, I assume in writing, Biola’s doctrinal statement.

As an aside, here’s the core part of their statement on the Trinity:

There is one God, eternally existing and manifesting Himself to us in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

This sounds like an expression of modalism - one great self, with three aspects or personalities (“Persons”), and yet Biola’s statement  goes on to describe Jesus as a man, and surely no man is a mode of anything, but is instead an entity/substance, and no mode is a substance or vice versa. Surely, they’re assuming the identity of the second member of the Trinity (the Son) with Jesus. So, it looks paradoxical.

But that isn’t what concerns me here. In our recent debate coverage, we noted that  most evangelicals assert that Jesus is God. And by that, it seems that most mean that Jesus and God are numerically one being, one magnificent self, one divine person. They confess and assert this. But do they believe it?

I wonder (seriously – I really wonder – this is not a sarcastic pseudo-question). See, I assume that most hold the two to qualitatively differ. How they differ depends on one’s views on the Trinity. God has three persons, or centers of consciousness, or rational faculties in him. Jesus doesn’t. God has never not been omniscient; Jesus has. God sent his Son. Jesus didn’t. God is like a loving community, Jesus is not. So, when it is time to confess, they say “Jesus is God”. But their actions – specifically, the way they talk about Jesus and God in various non-argumentative contexts – show that they don’t believe that. Or do they?

Is this self deception (falsely believing yourself to believe Jesus to be God) or is it inconsistent belief (you believe they are one, and that they are two)? Or does it vary by person?

Here’s one angle on it. Consider these three claims:

1. Jesus and God are numerically one.
2. Numerically one things can’t differ.
3. Some things are true of Jesus which are not true of God, and vice-versa.

If you believe all 3, you have inconsistent beliefs. I would guess that a lot of evangelicals hold 1 as a central belief, don’t notice too often that they also believe 3, and actively ignore 2. I think that’s were I stood, before I started reading the recent philosophical literature on the Trinity.

But how does one tell three inconsistent beliefs from two consistent ones and an imaginary third (which is inconsistent with the conjunction of the first two)?

Go back to Gregg’s example of the old lady who falsely believes that she believes all races to be equal. That she’s self-deceived is one interpretation of what we observe.

But maybe in church she thinks that, but out about town, she doesn’t. If a belief is a tendency to think a certain way, maybe she believes both that blacks are inferior and that blacks are as good as whites – but different circumstances trigger each tendency in her, and she conveniently ignores the obvious inconsistency of the resulting thoughts and claims. (It helps that everyone at her church is white.)

But back to 1 – Could it be that many believe both 2 and 3, and believe that they believe 1, even though they do not?  Given that they know 2 and 3, they’re also aware at some level that 1 is false. And yet there is tremendous social pressure to verbally affirm the words of 1.

Imagined train of thought:

But of course I believe 1 – anything less is denying Christ. And I don’t deny Christ. I believe him, and in him. If were a Christ-denier, I wouldn’t be a Christian, but I am. And I’d be going to Hell – but I’m not. So, surely I do believe 1. How could I not?

Christian philosophers (philosophy PhDs), interestingly, are different. They’re trained to ferret out inconsistencies – at least, to expunge inconsistencies from their statements and thoughts. (But I reckon we’re about as prone to self-deception about our beliefs as people generally.) A good many, I would guess most conservative Christian philosophers, deny 1. (In fact, while I was an undergraduate at Biola I distinctly remember a philosophy professor clearly and firmly denying 1 in class.) This is surprising, but I think they are able to do this because they continue to say the words “Jesus is God” meaning something other than 1. (But, disconcertingly, they are aware that others understand those words as 1.) Others deny 2. I think the average evangelical pew-dweller would be befuddled by this, but at least on the surface, it is consistent (accepting 1 and 3 while denying 2.) I’m not aware of any who deny 3; both the Bible and the catholic tradition imply it.

In any case, for those of you who like me are offspring of the American evangelical world – are either of my diagnoses above accurate,when it comes to evangelicals in the pew, in your experience? I confessed to having had inconsistent beliefs (having believed 1-3 above), but I suspect that some more mature, more reflective evangelicals are forced into self-deception as described above.

(Commenters: If you comment anonymously, I will respect your anonymity. I don’t have the slightest interest in endangering jobs or reputations.)

While you’re thinking about it, here’s some more gratuitous Styx.

I’ve been reading I Told Me So (review) by Gregg Ten Elshof, a USC PhD who who teaches and chairs the Philosophy Department at my undergraduate alma mater. He’s been thinking about this topic for a long time (part 2) and so far, I really like the book. It is clearly written, insightful, and he trains his guns on self-deceptions by Christians in particular. Some of it is directly relevant to things we’ve been discussing here.

One point he makes in chapter one is that we can easily deceive ourselves about what we believe. He gives the plausible example – many of us have actually known people like this – of a respectable, elderly Christian woman who believes that she believes all people to be equal in God’s eyes, and yet her behavior clearly shows that she considers black people inferior to white people. (pp. 18-19) It’s hard to admit you’re an Archie Bunker when you’re part of a social group where it is unacceptable to be such.

But what might this have to do with theological beliefs? Ten Elshoff says,

Every year, I’m given a fairly detailed statement of Biola University’s doctrinal position. Each year, my continued employment is contingent upon my re-affirming belief in these various doctrines. I’ve got three small kids and a mortgage. Laurel, my wife, is a stay-at-home mom right now, and the job market in philosophy is atrocious. Of course I still believe all of this stuff! Imagine the stomach it would take to admit to myself and others that I don’t believe these things anymore! It would mean the immediate forgoing of economic stability – not to mention a kind of alienation from a significant chunk of my social group.  (p. 19, link added)

Mind you, he’s not confessing hypocrisy here. Rather, his point is that there are strong non-rational pressures on him to think and believe that he believes those things, whether or not he actually does. This is a real, and significant price that institutions like Biola pay for their apparent (and mostly real?) doctrinal uniformity, and Gregg has the guts to point out this somewhat uncomfortable fact.

Next time: Do evangelicals believe that Jesus is God?

Update: Finished the book, still liking it. It is very Willardite (Willardian? Willardesque?), and I mean that in a good way. (I can forgive the social trinitarian flourishes.) It is a great example of popular, applied philosophy, and you can confidently give it to any Christian friend. The writing was superb – not an ugly sentence in it – and it is spiced with interesting examples from literature and elsewhere. It is insightful about the human condition, and promotes both a proper understanding of and a proper pity for humanity. And, it is short. I can see occasionally re-reading this one, and I don’t normally do that.

In a recent post Brandon takes issue with my recent appeal to the principle that “if every F is a G then there cannot be fewer Gs than Fs”.

Some Trinity theories are inconsistent with the (I think obviously true, self-evident) principle, notably the recent theory by Mike Rea, as well as the much-quoted “Athanasian” Creed. Brandon thinks I’m confused. I am confused, about how he thinks I’m confused. And probably about other things.

Check out our discussion in the comments following Brandon’s post. (Comment there if you’re interested.)

But inquiring minds want to know: what did they believe, what statement or statements of faith did they sign, and are the beliefs therein necessary and sufficient for being a real Christian? This time, we’re digging a little deeper.

Their website saith,

World Vision U.S. hires only those who agree and accept to its Statement of Faith and/or the Apostles’ Creed. (source)

Interesting! Note the “and/or” – employees must affirm either one or both. As we’ve noted before here at trinities, nothing in the so-called Apostles’ Creed requires belief in either the “full deity” of Christ (whatever that may mean) or any sort of trinitarian theory. Go ahead – click their link above and read it.

• Did the three fired employees disavow the Apostles’ Creed?
• Or did they affirm it?
• Suppose they accepted it with no reservations… doesn’t that mean they could not be fired? If not, why not?
• Or did they accept it with reservations?

Here’s the relevant portion of World Vision’s statement of faith.

We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory. (emphases added, source)

I’m afraid this is typical American evangelical theological mush, featuring the weasel-words “in” (first sentence) and “deity” (second item).

The “in” phrase is current shorthand for some Trinity theory or other, but honestly, a resourceful unitarian could accept both of the above statements.

Our imaginary unitarian employee of World Vision could defend herself as follows:

Keep in mind that “person” means something like a mask, role, or personality – we’re not necessarily talking about the modern concept of a self. So, I believe in one God, the Father, who express himself in three persons. First, his own persona, as Father to Jesus and to all believers. Second, through the man Jesus, his special Son and servant. Third, through the guise of his own active power, which can seem like a third party. Do I believe in the deity of Jesus? Certainly. He’s the Son of God. He was sent by God, and empowered by God’s spirit. In all these senses, he was a divine man. And yet, he was a man.

Further, “one God, eternally existent in three persons” is probably most naturally understood as modalism – one self, acting or living in three different ways, in three different personalities. And a resourceful social trinitarian like Richard Swinburne could no doubt accept the formulas as well. The words in their doctrinal statement, then, fail to clearly express any precise views about God and Jesus. It seems to me that a lot of evangelical talk of the “deity of Christ” (or him “being God” or “being fully God” or “100% God” etc.) functions primarily as a sort of shibboleth, and that’s what is going on here. Their statement also owes something to a distinctively American anti-creedal tradition, which goes back to the founding of our country – but that’s a story for another time. The result is a distinctive sort of Christian tradition zealous to police itself for correct beliefs, but without interest in making precise distinctions.

Thanks to Google, a few more tidbits on our story, from a sort of newsletter by an interested (but uninvolved) lawyer:

Sylvia Spencer, Vicki Hulse and Ted Youngberg (the “Employees”) were all employed by World Vision. Like every employee, they attended daily devotions and weekly chapels held during the workday. However, at some point, the Employees stopped their attendance. World Vision interviewed each Employee as to why they stopped their daily devotions. Their responses were not recorded by the court, but World Vision concluded that each employee had they denied the deity of Jesus Christ. Even though the Employees denied this conclusion, World Vision nevertheless terminated their employment. The Employees sued World Vision for firing them, claiming that their terminations were based upon their religious beliefs. (source, emphases added)

This suggests that the three opted out of some required activities – something unclear in the CT story, which seems to add that they’d been given permission for some alternative. But more importantly - the three who were fired denied the denial? Really? (Imagined conversation: “Ya’ll are denying the deity of Christ!” “No we aren’t!”) What is going on here?

• Are they trinitarians who hold that Father and Son are numerically distinct, but claim that the Son is divine? e.g. Are they social trinitarians?
• Are they unitarians? Subordinationists? Jehovah’s Witnesses?
• Do they subscribe to kenosis theory?
• Are they dastardly liars, secret admirers of the Jesus Seminar, masquerading as evangelical Christians?
• Or do they neither affirm nor deny the vague thesis?
• Are the employees interpreting the statement of faith one way, and the management another?
• Or is the dispute about interpretations of the Apostles’ Creed, with World Vision taking the hopeless position that it clearly requires beliefs that Jesus is “fully God” and that he’s a member of the Trinity?

Slap me and call me “Curious George”, but I’d like to know. If this denial-denial part of the story is true, this is a big complicating factor which CT never should have left out of its story.

For the record: I support that right.

But the piece is occasioned by a current lawsuit against evangelical charity World Vision brought by three recently fired employees.

It strikes me that there are human and theological angles to this story which have yet to be told.

Here are the relevant bits from Ross’s story in CT:

Both [Sylvia Spencer and Vicki Hulse] signed statements affirming their Christian faith and devoted a decade to World Vision… But in November 2006, they and colleague Ted Youngerberg were fired. Their offense, as determined by a corporate investigation: The three did not believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and a member of the Trinity. (Bobby Ross Jr., “Faith-Based Fracas”, Christianity Today, June 2010, 17-21, p. 17, emphases added)

No doubt the reporter here was hindered by the fact that a lawsuit is underway. But the story has many obvious, yawning gaps:

• Did Youngerberg also sign a statement?
• What was this statement?
• When exactly were they signed?
• What is it to be “fully God”?
• What sort of trinitarian belief is required?
• They were fired because of what they (allegedly) did not believe. But what did they believe, roughly? That Jesus is 81% God?

(click image for source)

Are the plaintiffs Christians?

“They are deeply religious Christians,” said Judith Lonnquist, a Seattle attorney who filed a federal discrimination lawsuit on their behalf. “They just don’t have the same beliefs that World Vision espouses.” (p. 17, emphasis added)

It is clear that World Vision thinks they are not. They do hire non-Christians, but only for jobs for which there’s no available Christian, and which are mission-critical. (pp. 18-19)

As to the their attorney quoted above, the reporter subtly discredits her by quoting a laughable piece of exegesis from her.

Lonnquist told CT, “If Jesus walked the earth today, I think he’d be appalled. To me, ‘there are many rooms in my Father’s house’ means there is room for everyone, whether you’re Jewish and you believe in Yahweh, or you’re a Muslim and you believe in Allah, or a Native American spiritualist and you believe in a great Buffalo Woman.” (p. 21, emphases added)

Note to Lonnquist – this is not how to persuade an evangelical magazine or its readers!

World Vision’s chief attorney notes that their “values statement” says in part,

We are Christian. We acknowledge one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

That is vaguely trinitarian. But what is the relevance of a “values statement” to this case? Is that something all employees must at all times unreservedly affirm?

Ross, further quoting this lawyer,

“The employees were discharged because they no longer met an essential job prerequisite: that they genuinely affirm their belief in a statement of orthodox Christian faith as understood by the World Vision board.” (p. 17, emphasis added)

This is ambiguous (will any statement count as orthodox, so long as the board approves? I assume not.) But in any case, what statement or statements are sufficient?

The reporter is mainly interested in the legal angle, so we never find out.

Further down, some more intriguing info:

The plaintiffs – one served as an administrative assistant, one worked in telecommunications, and one coordinated furniture needs – say their central duties were nonreligious in nature. Nonetheless, they said, they always supported the organization’s mission and participated in Bible studies and devotionals on the job.

Hulse and Spencer even started a small-group Bible study during World Vision’s weekly employee chapel session – with a supervisor’s permission and no objection from the ministry. But when leadership learned of their beliefs about the divinity of Christ more than two years after the alternative Bible studies began, the three were investigated and fired, the former employees said. (pp. 19-21, emphases added)

More questions:

• Was this a study specifically for non-trinitarians? (Why and how “alternative”?)
• How did leadership learn of their beliefs?
• Where they affiliated with some unitarian group?
• Were these longstanding beliefs, or had their views on Christ and God recently changed? If so, why?

Ross’s story was typical for the American evangelical press - long on legal and social considerations, short on theology – painting it only in the crudest brush-strokes.

And in this case, short on human interest as well.

But, Ross did a fine job with the legal and social considerations (skipped in my excerpts above). I believe the story will eventually be posted online.

Next time: digging just a little deeper.

Congratulations to both debaters on a fight well fought.

Kudos to C. Michael Patton and Parchment and Pen for hosting the debate.

I hope you readers out there enjoyed my commentary on the debate. I sometimes got naggy or nerdy, and always expressed myself with typical lack of tact, but I tried to be helpful, and to show the helpfulness of philosophy and logic in thinking through these things.

In this last post in the series, a few concluding reflections on the debate.

Looking back on this debate, I see that I’ve ended up where I began: wondering what Bowman thinks the Trinity doctrine is. This, after all the debate was about whether or not the Bible teaches that.

Burke argued that the Bible teaches what I call humanitarian unitarianism (he calls it “biblical unitarianism”) – roughly, that the one God of Israel is the Father, whereas the Lord Jesus is a human being and his unique Son, and the Holy Spirit is God’s power. I understand what Burke argued for, and if it is true, then nothing that can claim to be an orthodox Trinity theory is true. But I don’t, in the end, understand Bowman’s view.

I flagged this issue at the start. As the debate wore on, I settled on the interpretation that each of the Three just is (is numerically identical to) God, and yet each of the three is not identical to either of the other two. I stuck with this interpretation, all the way to the bitter end. And yet, I never did like this interpretation - Bowman is a smart guy, and it is not charitable to interpret anyone, much less smart guys, as (even implicitly) contradicting themselves. Still, it seemed to best fit his claims, his lists of propositions he offered as definitions of the doctrine, and his defense of the apparent contradictoriness of the doctrine in the comments following Burke’s last post.

Why, then, does Bowman think of the “persons” as three something-or-others in some sense “in” God? These “persons”, he insists, are not selves (thinking and acting things, things each with a first person perspective on the world), because they are not things/entities/substances, and every self is a certain kind of entity. Bowman wants to say that God isn’t in this sense a “person”, though God is “personal” in that God “contains” three “persons”. What is such a “person”? He doesn’t know. I don’t either.

I might have guessed that Bowman is, like some theologians, a modalist – holding the “persons” to be ways God is, lives, or acts. (This is common – in eschewing “modalism” most theologians mean only to deny that the persons never overlap in time, or that they are merely appearances.)

But this interpretation doesn’t make sense either. It seems Bowman considers God to be a self, and Jesus to be a self. And, Jesus and God are one and the same (numerically identical). Same what? Same god, same divine self. That’s the point of all the divine titles, deeds, honors, etc. – those can only belong to the one god, God. If they belong to Jesus (as Bowman urges) that’s because God is who Jesus is. And yet, surely he assumes that Jesus just is the Son of God. But the Son of God is one of the three “persons” in God, and so is not a self, not a thinking and acting thing. I don’t get it. I wish I did.

You can argue till you’re blue in the face that the Bible teaches X. But if I don’t grasp what you mean by X, I can never be persuaded by you. Burke argued that the Bible teaches Y, and it is clear enough that if Y then not-X, and Y consists of claims A, B, and C, each of which I understand. Still working on X, though. Thus, Burke wins the debate, in my view.

I understand this much about Bowman’s position – he’s defending evangelical talk about God and Jesus. And thinking (sometimes?) of Jesus as just being God himself. And he holds that only his view remains faithful to the Bible – to all of it, and that this is the only humble view, whereas others proudly and unjustifiably discard some of what the Bible says.

But is it humble to rest in an apparently contradictory interpretation of the various texts? This comment by Bowman was telling:

As a debater, I could be pleased by the approach that you took to this debate, since in terms of the debate your approach has played into my hands. …Consistent with anti-Trinitarianism in all of its forms, over a third of your closing statement focuses on what you correctly describe as “the argument from reason.” In addition, four of the ten bulleted points articulating the superiority of Unitarianism to Trinitarianism with which you begin your closing statement are rooted in this argument from reason. Yet the debate is supposed to focus on which of our positions best reflects the teachings of the Bible.

Bowman thought that Burke had wasted much of his closing statement on concerns about what is consistent, as if this were irrelevant to interpreting the Bible. But normally, for all of us, Bowman included, that an interpretation is apparently contradictory is a weighty reason to avoid it. Why, then, accept it here? I think a factor in many people’s thinking is the idea that what Bowman was urging is the majority report of Christianity through the ages. There’s a kind of complacency that comes from being in the mainstream… or at least thinking you’re in the mainstream.

But the evangelical habit of putting things in terms of who “is God” is inherently unclear (because, oddly enough, of that innocent looking little word “is”) and does no justice to the rich history of debate on the status and relations between especially the Father and the Son of God. As we saw in round 5, 2nd & 3rd century guys thought Jesus was “divine” or shared the divine substance, but clearly distinguished between him and God, holding him to be lesser than God in several ways (power, glory, authority, time of existence, even goodness). Again, in the 4th c., as my co-blogger J.T. Paasch so clearly lays out, they didn’t identify Jesus and God. (See e.g. his concluding post.) True, evangelical spirituality involves thinking of Jesus as God, and evangelical apologists like Bowman speak out for “historic Christian orthodoxy”, but the realities of the catholic tradition are what they are, immovably laid down in black and white, and they refute the idea that the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is numerically identical to God. But we should already have known that – some things are true of one, that are not true of the other!

Some people  have wondered what my view of all this is. Some point later this summer, I’m intending to do a series about the evolution of my views on the Trinity, so stay tuned if you’re curious.

But on one level, my view is that both Bowman and Burke believe in God, and endeavor to follow God’s Son, in all aspects of their lives, in community with other disciples. I assume then, that both are children of God, reborn, destined for eternal life with God and his people. Yes, they have conflicting theories about God and his Son and Spirit/spirit, and they interpret the Bible somewhat differently. I assume that God doesn’t view either as an idolater or unbeliever, and that he looks at each a good bit less harshly than each (sometimes) looks at the other. Someday, over a nice beer ale, we’ll be able to sit in a pub somewhere with Jesus at the table, and he can enlighten either Bowman or Burke (or both – their positions are contrary, not contradictory – both can’t be true, but logically, both could be false) about where they went wrong. At least one will be profoundly embarrassed, probably shed a tear, but Jesus will be gentle, and if there is a “winner” he won’t rub it in, and in ten or maybe ten thousand years perhaps it’ll largely be forgotten.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that both views are true (that’d be too much paradox for any of us), or that they are equally reasonable, or that this debate doesn’t matter, or that one’s views on the Trinity have no important practical consequences. I firmly deny all these things.

What I’m saying is that this is an argument between siblings, and so is not like the showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Our older brother, then, is at bottom a friend of both sides, and we should gladly follow him in this, whatever our theories may be. The contempt that so easily slips in – we should let it go. Argue on, brothers.

First, he tweaks his formula (here’s the previous version):

The doctrine of the Trinity is biblical if and only if all of the following propositions are biblical teachings:

1. One eternal uncreated being, the LORD God, alone created all things.
2. The Father is the LORD God.
3. The Son, who became the man Jesus Christ, is the LORD God.
4. The Holy Spirit is the LORD God.
5. The Father and the Son stand in personal relation with each other.
6. The Father and the Holy Spirit stand in personal relation with each other.
7. The Son and the Holy Spirit stand in personal relation with each other.

The only theological position that affirms all seven of the above propositions is the Trinity. However, each of these propositions finds affirmation in at least one or more non-Trinitarian doctrines.

I think the changes are verbal, not substantial. But he’s doing a couple of things here. First, he wants to show that he’s not presupposing any Trinity doctrine, but just inferring it from what the Bible clearly teaches. Thus, he makes the point that each of 1-7 is affirmed by at least one non-trinitarian theory. Second, he wants to show that his theory is most faithful to the Bible, of the available theories.

When I first saw this, I thought he was re-formulating to get around the problem that this theory is apparently contradictory. But I don’t think this is his aim, as at best, the contradiction is slightly papered over. If 5-7 are true, then f, s, and h must each be selves (capable of being in personal relations) and since by “personal relation” we assume Bowman means friendship with another (not with oneself), then f, s, and h must be three – none can be numerically identical to either of the others. And yet, 2-4 seem to say that each is numerically identical to one thing, the self who created (1). And things identical to the same thing, are identical to each other – ’cause they’re just one thing, after all. So, each of the three is and isn’t God; in my view, the battleship remains sunk.

BUT, to his credit Bowman puts up a manly and forthright defense of positive mysterianism (comment #3 here). He smacks down a misinterpretation of John 4:22, and makes the excellent point that it is irrational to dismiss a theory at the first sight of an apparent contradiction. One must be patient enough to work through things – oftentimes those contradictions turn out to be merely apparent.

Mind you, I don’t agree with positive mysterianism, and I’ve explained in gruesome detail what I think is wrong with it. Moreover, I think Bowman is mistaken in saying that catholic Christians have always held paradoxical views about God (e.g. in the NT “mysteries” have nothing to do with apparent contradictions), and he doesn’t seem to recognize the crucial difference between a belief which merely strikes one as implausible, and one which appears to be contradictory. Moreover, he attacks a straw men (that believable theological claims must be proven consistent, and that to believe that something is so one must understand how it is so). But he here expresses a view popular with a good many Christians, and with evangelicals in particular. And IF this defense is reasonable, then it is not enough to merely point out the apparent inconsistency of Bowman’s views. Point, Bowman.

In the rest of his closing statement, Bowman

• Gives a pretty fair summary of Burke’s biblical points.
• Insists that he’s shown his interpretations of the passages to be better, including some surprising ones, e.g. 1 Cor 8:6, which he reads to assert Jesus and the Father to be one self.
• Denounces as “slanderously false” Burke’s claim that trinitarianism somehow compromises the genuine humanity of Jesus. Although I think Bowman lost the debate about temptability, I think not enough in this debate has been said about the consistency or inconsistency of incarnation theories. Burke would need to show that on Bowman’s view of the incarnation (whatever that is), Jesus can’t be a man, or the right sort of man. Bowman points out in a comment (#7) that Burke hasn’t done enough to definitively show this.
• Objects to Burke’s claim that Jesus is the “literal” Son of God.
• Asserts that he creamed Burke re: Philippians 2.
• Ditto on John 1. I agree that Bowman points out some apparent inconsistencies in Burke’s position, but he seems blind to the difficulties of his own reading. (To wit: Isn’t Pr. 8 the background here, as well as some statements in the apocrypha about the non-literal incarnation God’s law? And what would it mean to say that the logos both is God and is with God? Burke has a natural answer here – Pr. 8:27, 30 And strangely, Bowman’s reading has “God” being applied, confusingly, in short order to the Father (“with God”) and to the Son (“was God”) and then quickly (v.2) back to the Father.)
• And the NT obviously teaches Christ’s existence before his conception. Plus, Bowman accuses Burke of quoting out of context “Mowinckel, who “shows that the Jewish ‘Son of Man’ was really (not ideally) pre-existent.” It seems that Dave was mistaken about Mowinckel’s overall position; but this sort of “gotcha” doesn’t advance the discussion, in my view, though it may delight partisans. On a close look, though, Burke didn’t say or imply that Mowinckel agreed with his overall view. It’s fair to point this out, but Burke has no obligation whatever to draw attention to the fact.
• Finally, Christ in various places receives “divine honors” and “divine names” – and not just in any old way, but in “religious contexts” (whatever those are!) which show that the disciples etc. took Jesus to be God himself. Religion scholar James McGrath shows up in the comments are pertinently asks what “religious” worship consists in, and what Bowman makes of an interesting OT text. (Comments 1, 10, 19, 67, 69)
• In a long, labored comment (#4) Bowman accuses Burke of deliberately distorting the “Athanasian” creed, when Burke says that it does and doesn’t teach three Lords. Bowman confidently pounces because the creed explicitly denies there are three Lords. Well, sure. But Burke wasn’t saying that the creed has an explicit contradiction (asserting “P” and asserting “not-P”) but rather that it is implicitly contradictory – explicitly saying there aren’t three, and yet implying that there are. I got Burke’s point. (More here.) Bowman should be slower to accuse his opponent of bad faith. Clear implicit contradictions are just as obviously false as explicit ones. Bowman also objects that Burke is begging the question, but Burke is only assuming self-evident truths, which one may reasonably assume in any context. Bowman needs to state and defend his controversial assumption of relative identity relations. Point Burke.
• In the rest of that long comment, Bowman tries to deduce the Trinity doctrine (understood paradoxically as above) from the Bible without using the word “person”. He asserts that the concept of a person is just the concept of “someone other than” one or more selves. (That can’t be right – the notion a solitary person/self isn’t contradictory.) In any case, as he reformulates “the” doctrine, he comes up with “There is one God, i.e. one divine Being, existing in three Persons… But now I notice that the word “Person” in the above statement cannot be identical in meaning to the word “Being” without resulting in a contradiction. Thus…” (he none too clearly asserts that in this context two things can be different “persons” but the same being). But why the sudden dislike for apparent contradictions? Embrace the mystery, my friend – don’t go rationalist on us at this late date.
• The comments on Bowman’s post are cantankerous and interesting. Bizarrely, at one point (#65) a Bowman partisan assures him that he should quit, that further discussion would be a waste of time (too many unitarians involved!) To his credit, Bowman discusses historical matters (#14-15, 63) and the objection about why the NT weren’t more up front with their views on the Trinity (#66 – to me, his answer is unsatisfying ). Points to Bowman for patient and thorough follow-through.

On the negative side, here’s Bowman’s final reply to McGrath re: worshiping Jesus as an agent of God:

…I agree that in a limited sense, the Israelite king (David or Solomon especially) functioned as God’s “agent” in that they ruled Israel on his behalf. I even agree that this motif establishes some precedent for the NT teaching that Christ rules from God’s throne. In the NT, however, what was a very limited, circumscribed agency with regard to the Israelite king is expanded to include Jesus Christ in the very identity of God.

In the last sentence Bowman repeats a confused trope from contemporary theology. But that’s not essential to his case; if Jesus just is (is numerically identical to) God, then we don’t need any talk of his being “in God’s identity”, whatever that might mean.

Though not every punch lands, Bowman fights hard and on many fronts in this round, and I’m awarding the round to him.

Score through all six rounds:

Bowman: 1
Burke: 3
draw: 2

Next time: some concluding reflections on the debate.

From reason: The Trinity doctrine, argues Burke, is inconsistent with itself. The “Athanasian” creed presents us with three, each of whom is a Lord, and yet insists that there is only one Lord. As some philosophers have pointed out, it is self-evident that if every F is a G, then there can’t be fewer Gs than Fs. So if every divine person is a god, then there can’t be fewer gods than divine persons. (Burke leaves out this: Why say that this creed presents us with three? Because each one differs from the others, having at least one feature the others lack.)

Since the Trinitarian Jesus is believed to be God, everything in Scripture which applies to God must necessarily apply to him.

Right. If the “two” are really one and the same, whatever is true of one must be true of “the other”. That is, nothing can differ from itself at any given time. Bowman does seem to identify Jesus and God, even while he thinks some things are true of one but not of the other. Point, Burke.

But note that many trinitarians to not identify Jesus and God. Almost no evangelical philosophers do, for instance, and arguably none to almost none of the ancient catholics do. Sharing a nature with isn’t the same as being numerically the same as, nor does the first obviously imply the second (unless the “nature” is a haecceity).

Unfortunately, this section features repeated distractions concerning words. Burke complains that “Trinitarianism requires unique definitions of words.” So what. Theories often require us to coin new definitions. Similarly, Burke demands evidence from the Bible that the word “person” should be used as trinitarians  use it. But the Bible doesn’t have rules about word definitions – at least not this one! Burke is trying to press the point that trinitarianism makes arbitrary and maybe inconsistent claims, and ones which ill fit the Bible, but these are not the ways to press points like that.

A more substantial point:

[Bowman] accepts the Trinity as “three persons”, when it suits him, but at other times he wants to count the three persons as one (ie. one Yahweh, or one Lord). He does this by effectively treating the three separate persons as a single unipersonal being, which is logically inconsistent…

I agree – it seems to me that like the rest of us, Bowman normally thinks of God as a magnificent self. But he doesn’t want four divine persons, so he sometimes thinks of God as… well, not a self, but some sort of thing which in some sense has three divine selves within it. But, Bowman finally addresses this in a comment in this last round… stay tuned.

From scripture: Mostly, Burke gives a good recap of his overall scriptural case. At one point, I think he goes too far:

Jesus and his apostles were adamant that everything people needed to know about him could be sourced directly from the OT. There was no “progressive revelation” about the Messiah; there was no new doctrine concerning his nature and identity; there was no change from OT to NT. (emphasis added)

I don’t think this is true. An important counterexample is Christ’s second coming, or the distinction between the first and second comings. I think it is a mistake to be hostile to any doctrine of progressive revelation. Why can’t something which is obscure later be made clear? e.g. what happens after death, how many times the messiah will come, how God will bring in people from all nations to his family. I think Burke rejects progressive revelation because he thinks it requires the later revelation to contradict the earlier. But the later might instead be correcting not what the earlier says or implies, but rather mistaken conclusions people are liable to draw from what it says and implies. e.g. that when one is all the way dead, one has ceased to exist

He effectively presses his point about Acts, which arguably conspicuously lacks any teaching of the “fully divinity” of Jesus or of any tripersonal God.

But where is the uproar [in Acts] against the notion of a Messiah who is also a God-man? Where is the backlash against a triune God? There is no such uproar; there is no such backlash; there is no outcry against Trinitarian concepts. On the Trinity and the deity of Christ, the preaching record and the Jewish response are both silent. In light of the Jews’ response to the Gospel message, this is inexplicable unless proto-Trinitarian doctrines were not preached at all. And if they were not preached, why weren’t they preached?

Irritatingly, this section has some scattershot charges – that trinitarians commit a lot of fallacies, that their readings of the Bible are convoluted, that their readings are marred by their love for their theory, which they always presuppose. This is just a fancy way of saying “look how ridiculous they are” – and it is about as effective as that charge. Best to stay on the subject at hand – the substance of Bowman’s case, not the alleged shortcomings of trinitarians in general.

In reiterating his case, I a few times noticed that he overstates it. Thus,

We saw that throughout the OT, God’s Holy Spirit is described as something that belongs to Him, like a property or a power. We saw that the NT follows this model exactly, without deviating in any way from OT teaching. There is no new revelation about the identity of the Holy Spirit.

This point can be argued, but it is too much to say that the “NT follows this model [of the Holy Spirit as an attribute] exactly”.

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.” (Acts 5:3-4, NIV, emphases added)

As I explained before, this usage of “the Holy Spirit” (as a singular referring term, referring to the Father) needn’t bother a unitarian. Overstating the case makes it easy for one’s opponent to reject it out of hand.

Moving on, Burke asks some pertinent questions:

Why did God allow His chosen people to believe He is only one divine person instead of three, right up until the Christian era? Why did He conceal His triune identity? What was the rationale behind this divine deception? When and where was the new revelation first made clear? Rob claims it is “implicit”, but why only “implicit”? All the other key apostolic doctrines are explicitly preached. How can divinely inspired church leaders fail to provide an explicit teaching of the triune God if that is what they genuinely believe? Jesus told his disciples that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth (John 16:13); why didn’t it lead them to Trinitarianism?

I believe that Bowman stonewalls on all these through the whole debate. (Have I missed any answers?) I assume his view is just that we can’t understand God’s ways. But if so, better he should say and defend that answer. He loses points by refusing to answer. The audience he’s used to may not think much of them, but this is a more mixed audience.

On to history: Burke argues that the earliest material is “biblical unitarian”, while much (most) 1st century catholic theologians are subordinationist unitarians. He holds that:

Historically, doctrine always develops from the minimal to the complex, evolving as it is exposed to new influences and adapting in response to perceived heresies. Thus, the simplest doctrinal statements are more likely to be the earliest and most authentic. It is therefore significant that the earliest Christian creedal statements are Unitarian.

Is trinitarian theology, or subordinationist unitarianism more complex than humanitarian unitarianism? Maybe (it may depend on which Trinity theory we have in mind – some professed trinitarians simply hold that there’s one god with three ways of living, and that at least as simple as biblical unitarianism, isn’t it?). Are the early statements unitarian? One might not want to say they are explicitly so – as they are not written in reaction to any Trinity theory – but rather that they are compatible with, and a good fit with unitarianism, as they seem to assume that God and the Father are numerically the same. But if Bowman is right, we would not expect them to be this way.

In his summation, Burke urges us to lay aside the docetic thinking which dogs trinitarianism and embrace a Jesus who really shared our lot. Further,

…Christianity began as a Jewish religion. …Biblical Unitarianism calls for a return to those Jewish roots. I urge you to rediscover Israel’s God; the God Whom Jesus himself worshipped; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — not the God of Justin Martyr, Arius, or Basil the Great.

Some will wonder what is so important about “getting back to our Jewish roots”? I mean, Judaism is a different religion, is it not?

More importantly, don’t these last three (or at least the last two – see below) also worship the god of Abe and Jesus? I think Burke oversells his theory, suggesting that unless you buy this, you may be worshiping another god. How likely is this, I wonder, for current day Christians?

Suppose I have a friend who thinks I (1) have huge muscles, (2) speak Chinese in addition to English, (3) love the New England Patriots, and (4) am half space alien. (He’s kind of a weird guy.) This friend is mistaken on all four counts – but he’s still my friend. These false beliefs about me may throw up somewhat of a barrier to our friendship, in certain situations. I’ll wish that he was better informed, but I’m not going to reject him for his false beliefs about me, even if he’s culpable for them. There are limits to this – it’s hard to see how I could be friends with someone who thought I was a wallaby, a donut, or a pair of socks.

Justin Martyr and Arius think, like Burke, that the one true god is the Father. So… they believed in Israel’s God, no? Even if they think he created the world by means of a newly formed, divine helper or two. (Basil is another case… if  I understand him, he identifies God with an ineffable, simple divine nature.)

Again, consider Bowman, if Burke is right. Bowman worships the Father, considering him to be the one true god. That he, if Burke is right, is confused about Jesus and the Holy Spirit, doesn’t take this fact away. Doesn’t Bowman love the things God loves, in particular, Jesus? Are Bowman’s beliefs inconsistent? If so, this isn’t a good thing, but it won’t prevent his worshiping God and serving him.

In sum, Burke recaps what has been a pretty strong case. But he makes some points which, though they delight the choir (other unitarians), either beg the question (assume what needs proving), or are not very relevant when debating a non-unitarian. These too aggressive reaches are a debating mistake; one thinks one is going in for the kill, but in reality, hostile and some neutral listeners tune out.

Next time: Bowman’s closing statement.

Buckle your seatbelts – this post isn’t a quickie.

First, to review – in this whole debate, Burke has argued that all the NT writers were humanitarians. But if this is so, one would expect there to be a bulk of humanitarian unitarians in the times immediately after the apostles. Here, as we saw last time, Bowman pounces. All the main 2nd century theologians, he urges are confused or near trinitarians. (Last time, I explained that this is a dubious play on the word “trinitarian”. My term for them is non-Arian subordinationists.) There’s not a trace, Bowman urges, of any 1st c. humanitarians – with the exception of some off-base heretical groups, like the Ebionites.

We’re talking about mainly the 100s CE here, going into the first half of the 200s. The general picture, as I see it, is this. Early in the century, we find the “apostolic fathers” basically echoing the Bible, increasingly including the NT (the NT canon was just starting to be settled on during this century). However, some of them seem to accept some kind of pre-existence for Christ (in God’s mind? or as a divine self alongside God?), and they’re often looser, more Hellenized in their use of “god” (so even though as in the NT the Father is the God of the Jews, the creator, Jesus is more frequently than in the NT called “our God” etc.) But clearly – no equally divine triad, no tripersonal God, and in most, no clear assertion of the eternality of the Son. In the second half of the century, starting with Justin Martyr, we find people expounding  a kind of subordinationism obviously inspired by Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish Platonic theologian who was a rough contemporary of Jesus. How do we know this? They use his metaphors and adopt some of his interpretations of the OT – and like him, under pressure of Greek philosophy, they were very worried about taking parts of the OT literally, and about sort of shielding God from the corruption of the material world. (This is a big subject – I’ll post on Philo another time. But for the intensely curious, there is a very helpful discussion in Norton.)

Is Bowman right about the total absence of evidence for 2nd c. humanitarians? I don’t think so, though this is a dark subject. We have to remember that much of what he have is works by highly educated guys – Tertullian, Justin, Irenaeus, Origen loom large – who are tireless polemicists for the catholic (aka “proto-Catholic”) movement. It is not clear to what degree the views of a guy like this, at any given time, reflect the views of catholics all together of that time. In this post, some general thoughts, and a few bits of relevant evidence.

First, a Christian like Bowman (and also, like Burke, or like me for that matter) has no good reason to consider proto-Catholics the only real Christians in this era – that is, that group of Christians united behind the bishops, who as the century went on increasingly claimed apostolic authority for themselves collectively. Why? Because we all think that they were off base on many things  – notably the authority of bishops, but also things like baptismal regeneration, (later on) infant baptism, the claim that Plato got all his truth from Moses, universalism in the case of Origen, etc. Thus, when surveying the opinions of genuinely saved folk in the first c., it is too quick to dismiss the views of any non-catholic. Thus, it is not clear that the Nazarenes and Ebionites are irrelevant to this dispute. But still, let’s assume they are irrelevant.

In the rest of this post, I’ll cite 3 pieces of evidence that there were humanitarian unitarians in the 1st c. – possibly, a lot of them, within the broad realm of the catholic movement.

First, an exchange from Justin‘s mid 1st c. Dialogue with Trypho the Jew (which was discussed by Biddle, Christie, and Priestley) ch. 48-9:

And [the Jew] Trypho said, “…Resume the discourse… For some of it appears to me to be paradoxical, and wholly incapable of proof. For when you say that this Christ existed as God before the ages, then that He submitted to be born and become man, yet that He is not man of man, this [assertion] appears to me to be not merely paradoxical, but also foolish.”

And I [Justin] replied to this, “I know that the statement does appear to be paradoxical, especially to those of your race… Now assuredly, Trypho,” I continued,”[the proof] that this man is the Christ of God does not fail, though I be unable to prove that He existed formerly [i.e. before his conception] as Son of the Maker of all things, being God, and was born a man by the Virgin. But since I have certainly proved that this man is the Christ of God, whoever He be, even if I do not prove that He pre-existed, and submitted to be born a man of like passions with us, having a body, according to the Father’s will; in this last matter alone is it just to say that I have erred, and not to deny that He is the Christ, though it should appear that He was born man of men, and [nothing more] is proved [than this], that He has become Christ by election. For there are some, my friends,” I said, “of our race [i.e. Christians], who admit that He is Christ, while holding Him to be man of men; with whom I do not agree, nor would I, even though most of those who have [now] the same opinions as myself should say so; since we were enjoined by Christ Himself to put no faith in human doctrines, but in those proclaimed by the blessed prophets and taught by Himself.”

And Trypho said, “Those who affirm him to have been a man, and to have been anointed by election, and then to have become Christ, appear to me to speak more plausibly than you who hold those opinions which you express. For we all expect that Christ will be a man [born] of men, and that Elijah when he comes will anoint him. But if this man appear to be Christ, he must certainly be known as man[born] of men; but from the circumstance that Elijah has not yet come, I infer that this man is not He[the Christ].” (emphases added)

There are a couple of interesting things here. First, Justin concedes that Jesus can be the Messiah without his being divine or pre-existent – those points are independent of each other, and nothing about being Messiah logically implies being divine or pre-existing. So he insists that his arguments that Jesus is the Jewish messiah will work even if he can’t show Jesus to have pre-existed, or to be anything but a “man of men”, i.e. not Virgin-born, but with two human parents.  Second, Justin seems willing to concede that people who deny his logos theory may yet be Christians – catholic Christians, we assume. Third, there’s a translation problem in the last sentence of the first paragraph – on some renderings, such as the one cited by Priestley, it sounds like Justin might be grudgingly conceding the popularity of the humanitarian view.

I do not agree with them, nor should be prevailed upon by ever so many who hold that opinion… (Priestley, p. 6.)

And a unitarian translator has,

To whom I do not assent, though the greatest part of them should say that they have been of the same opinion. (Christie, p. 209)

But the latest translation I’ve seen, by a trinitarian, essentially agrees with the first above. Priestley notes that Irenaeus also declines to condemn humanitarians who accept the virgin birth. Priestley observes,

This language has all the appearance of an apology for an opinion contrary to the general and prevailing one… [he] even speaks of the pre-existence of Christ… as a doubtful one, and by no means a necessary article of Christian faith.” (Priestley, pp. 6-7)

By itself, this doesn’t count for much - perhaps Justin is merely over-eager to concede all he can for the sake of argument.

But consider a second piece of evidence, noted by Christie (pp. 211-2) – a passage from Tertullan’s Against Praxeas, ch. 3:

The simple, indeed, (I will not call them unwise and unlearned,) who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the Three in One), on the ground that their very rule of faith withdraws them from the world’s plurality of gods to the one only true God; not understanding that, although He is the one only God, He must yet be believed in with His own [economy] . The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity they assume to be a division of the Unity; whereas the Unity which derives the Trinity out of its own self is so far from being destroyed, that it is actually supported by it. They are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and three gods, while they take to themselves pre-eminently the credit of being worshipers of the One God; just as if the Unity itself with irrational deductions did not produce heresy, and the Trinity rationally considered constitute the truth. We, say they, maintain the Monarchy (or, sole government of God). And so, as far as the sound goes, do even Latins (and ignorant ones too) pronounce the word in such a way that you would suppose their understanding of the [Monarchy] was as complete as their pronunciation of the term.

What Justin is noting, is that average pew dwellers were in his day constantly objecting to the logos theology. Why? Presumably because logos theology was (1) new, (2) never before popular (at least outside of elite circles), and (3) because they understood their “rule of faith” to be inconsistent with it – specifically, its monotheism. What is the rule of faith? Probably, something like a primitive, shorter form of what we call the Apostles’ Creed. Countless unitarians have pointed out that the so-called Apostles’ Creed seems unitarian, identifying God with the Father, and may reflect a (mid? early?) 1st c. consensus. Tertullian in his On the Veiling of Virgins, ch. 1 says:

The rule of faith… is altogether one, alone immoveable and irreformable; the rule, to wit, of believing in one only God omnipotent, the Creator of the universe, and His Son Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary…

Finally, what to my mind is the most important of the evidence: monarchians. Back in the 18th c., patristic heavyweight Nathaniel Lardner opined that at least some of the so-called “patripassians” were in fact humanitarian unitarians. These Christians – such as Noetus, Praxeas (possibly a pseudonym for Callistus I, bishop of Rome) and later on Sabellius and Paul of Samosata,

…were grouped in Rome, and had a dominant influence over the affairs of the Roman church, as can be seen by the manner in which Pope Callistus regarded the defense of the Monarchian cause as simply the preservation of the integrity of the ancient Roman tradition in the face of new innovations from the Logos theologians (especially Hippolytus). (“Monarchianism” in The SCM Press A-Z of Patristic Theology, p. 226, emphases added)

In other words, the Monarchians claimed that their view of Christ was the ancient, majority opinion within catholicism, at least at Rome (and like all catholics, they claimed their tradition to be apostolic, and geographically uniform). What was their view of Christ? As best I can tell – at least for Praxeas and Noetus, that he was a man,  the messiah, virgin born but not pre-existent or divine. I’ve scoured Tertullian’s Against Praxeas and Hippolytus’ Against the Heresy of One Noetus, in which they blast their opponents for holding the Father and Son to be one and the same. (I think I know, by the way, how they’d object to Bowman’s christology!) But if you look carefully at the statements and arguments attributed to their targets (Praxeas, Noetus) they sound roughly like the sorts of things a humanitarian unitarian would say! It’s not too hard, in my view, to spot the confusions of their critics.

One is this. The “monarchians” read the “logos” of John 1 as being not an agent alongside the Father at creation, but just God’s wisdom. The logos for them  just is (a mode or attribute of) the Father. Now, what is the divine element of in the man who was crucified, which is responsible for his divine actions, such as his miracles, and moreover just is the Son of God? Tertullian thinks: obviously, the logos. But these idiots think the logos is the Father – so they must think that Christ is the Father! They must be “patripassians” (Tertullian invents this taunt) – holding that the Father suffered on the cross. In other words, Tertullian reasons that they’re doomed by this argument:

1. l = f
2. l = s
3. Therefore, f = s.

Tertullian thinks they should deny 1 like him, but what he doesn’t see is that they would deny 2. This was hard for the logos theorists to get their heads around – they were so fixated on the ancient, quasi-divine logos, instrument of the Father’s creation, that the man Jesus (either the complete human nature or the conglomerate of the logos plus a human nature) was of less interest. Indeed, the massively influential logos theologian Irenaeus holds that our salvation was effected by the incarnation of the logos – not so much, it seems, by what Christ did during his earthly ministry!

There’s a lot more that would need to be said to justify my controversial reading of these obscure figures, whose writings are almost totally lost.

But if I’m right that many or most of the so-called “monarchians” were in fact some sort of humanitarian unitarians (which would make them modalists about the Spirit and the logos – but not about the Son of God, whom they took to be a virgin born man – but not “modalists” as theologians usually define it nowadays), and they were correct in asserting themselves to be old and numerous, then Bowman’s assertion that there’s no evidence of (any decent number of) humanitarian unitarians in the 1st century is mistaken. And, Burke has more support for his view – not only subordinationist unitarians, but humanitarian ones, nowadays called “biblical unitarians” were there in the 1st c.

Both sides fought valiantly this round. I thought Bowman landed some punches on the triadic passages. Burke did better on the temptation of Christ issue. Both sides ran into some trouble with the concept of identity. Burke raised a number of issues, whereas Bowman put all his eggs into one (important) basket. Both fought valiantly in the comments, including more issues than I could comment on. I’m calling this one a draw.

Score up through round 5:

Bowman: 0
Burke: 3
draw: 2

Next up: the sixth and final round.