What sort of being is “God” supposed to be? Your answer to this will constrain your options when it comes to thinking about the Trinity. The “Trinity” (in the primary sense of the term) is supposed to be none other than the triune God, the tripersonal God of officially catholic traditions since the late 4th century. In other words, the Trinity and God are supposed to be one and the same, numerically one reality, referred to in different ways. But then, whatever is true of one must be true of the other.
Option #1: an idea. If you hold, like radical Anglican theologian Don Cupitt, that God is “the mythical embodiment of all one is concerned with in the spiritual life,” you believe God to be a certain human idea. (Taking Leave of God (New York: Crossroad, 1980), 166.) And so, if you’re a trinitarian, then you will hold that the Trinity too is a certain idea, that same one. For you, questions about the Trinity are questions about the thought-lives of humans, not about reality apart from human thought or imagination. For you, theology is a branch of psychology.
Option #2: a big “?”. More popular are philosophical traditions which mean by “God” an “ineffable” ultimate reality, sometimes called “the Real” or “Being itself.” This sort of “God” is such as to satisfy no human concept, so no term in any human language literally applies to it, and we can’t understand this “God” to any significant degree. Maybe we can say what it is not, and maybe we can express how we indirectly experience it or its effects. But the core idea is that we’re not able to understand how it intrinsically is. In itself, it is a blank to even our best minds. If this is what God is, and one is a trinitarian, then one will hold that the Trinity too, being God, is a blinding light (and/or an impenetrable darkness), something wholly beyond our powers of thought, imagination, and ordinary experience.
This last is a hard stance for a Christian to consistently maintain. On the face of it, the biblical authors do think they to some degree understand how God intrinsically is, by understanding his will, his desires, and his actions. Thus, Christians strongly influenced by these philosophical traditions usually try to mitigate the ineffability of God by holding that no human word or concept literally applies to God, but some apply analogically to God. By non-literally describing God, it is hoped, one may understand God to some small degree, even if this can’t be adequately expressed. This will push one in the direction of what I’ve called “negative mysterian” approaches to the Trinity. We see this approach in Augustine of Hippo, and much later the Roman Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas tries to develop a coherent doctrine of analogy, how human words apply to God with meanings similar to their meanings in mundane discourse. Another approach is to argue that we only have cognitive access to God’s “energies” but not to “the divine essence,” that is, to God as God intrinsically is. Thus, any words or concepts we correctly apply to God do so because of a match with these “energies.”
Option #3: a community. In the New Testament, we read that God is love. (1 John 4:8) And the best kind of love is a mutual love between equals, wherein the lovers cooperate to benefit a third equal, who also returns their love. This sort of speculation (precise arguments are many) has led to the conclusion that the one God, as perfect, and so, as perfect love, must be tripersonal, or at least, not “unipersonal.” Any “unipersonal” God, like Allah in Islam or the Yahweh as Jews understand him, would be lonely, inadequate, less than perfectly loving. Their non-trinitarian theologies are easily seen to collapse into incoherence; they say their god is perfect, but that god is demonstrably imperfect. To be perfect, the one God must be a community of love. As such, it has been argued, God (the perfect community) is a model for human families and societies to imitate.
But who are the members of this community? The view is usually that these are three beings, each of whom is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, perfectly free, omnibenevolent, and an uncreated creator of the cosmos. It would seem to be a community of three divine beings, which is to say, three gods. But here speculation hits a wall. Is the “one true God” really a group or community or quasi-family of three gods? Trinitarian theology is by definition supposed to include an affirmation of monotheism and a denial of tritheism; but these seem to have been reversed! Moreover, in Christian prayer and liturgy, God is always addressed using the second person singular, never the second personal plural. In churches in the American South, they pray, “God, we thank you for your blessings,” not “God, we thank ya’ll for ya’ll’s blessings.” Why is this?
Option #4: a god. The reason is that in the Bible, “God” is assumed to be a god. What is a god? The Bible uses its words we translate as “god” in a looser and in a more strict sense. In the looser sense, which is common particularly in older parts of the Old Testament, a god is just any self who is much more powerful than any normal human, and who can act even apart from or against nature’s normal ways. The main Hebrew term for this is elohim, which can be singular or plural (one decides by looking at the other words in the sentence). Thus, a ghost is an elohim (Samuel 28:13), an angel is an elohim (Genesis 35:7), and the members of God’s court are elohim (Psalm 82:1). Even certain powerful humans can be described, non-literally, as elohim. (John 10:22-39) And Yahweh too is an elohim, a god, although unique among them. (1 Kings 8:23; Psalm 97:9)
In the more strict use of “god” terms, Yahweh is the only one. The later parts of the Old Testament, and all the New Testament books, are anxious to emphasize the uniqueness of Yahweh, and so are reticent to apply god-words to anyone else, although they occasionally do. Being book-people, they were well aware of the older, looser usage. (John 10:34-35) One way to clarify matters is to talk about the one true god. (John 17:1-5) What is this stricter usage of “god” on which there is only one? It is the concept of a super-powerful and knowledgeable and good, unique creator of all else, who is uniquely provident over history. Angels, men, and ghosts fall far short of this, as do the “gods” of the nations, be they idols or rebellious spirits. Thus through the prophet God proclaims,
I am Yahweh, and there is no other; besides me there is no god. …there is no one besides me; I am Yahweh, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I Yahweh do all these things. (Isaiah 45:5-7, NRSV, modified)
Throughout the whole Bible, the unique God speaks, and is spoken to. A a prodigious user of singular personal pronouns, God is always an “I,” “me,” “he,” or “him,” never an “it,” “they,” or “them.” “God” in the Bible refers to one who is a god in both the looser and the stricter biblical senses of the terms. In the New Testament his uniqueness is expressed by the main expression for him which we translate as “God” – the Greek ho theos, literally the god. This is none other than the Father, as shown by the common use of all New Testament authors. For instance, notice how every letter attributed to Paul begins with his sending greetings and blessings from God, and also from Jesus. (e.g. Romans 1: 1-7; Galatians 1:1-4; Philippians 1:2; 1 Thessalonians 1:1) In the New Testament, the Father is the one “true God” (John 17:1-3; 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10; 1 John 5:20) the only god properly speaking, that is, the only “god” in the strictest sense, the god who is over every human, even over Jesus himself. (John 20:17; Revelation 1:6; Revelation 3:12; Romans 15:6; 2 Corinthians 1:3; Ephesians 1:17; 1 Peter 1:3)
This Biblical pattern would seem to rule out the conceptions of God as a community or as an ineffable “Being itself.” Against this the God-as-community theorists have only their speculative arguments to fall back on. The “Being itself” crowd is often inclined to go on the offensive, tarring the idea that “God” is a god as anthropomorphism, unreasonably imaging God as if God were some sort of super-duper human. The idea that God is literally a god is derided as “theistic personalism,” a theology for the unsophisticated and uneducated. It is objected that thinking that God is a god makes God a mere “being among beings,” or puts God on a level with creatures, making God finite, understandable, and non-mysterious. To the contrary, they argue, God is beyond being, and so is not a being at all, not even the greatest being there is or could be.
Seemingly contrary to these speculations are the traditions of thinking about God as the greatest possible being, the being with the greatest set of attributes that anything could possibly have, attributes like perfect freedom, unlimited knowledge, perfect power, and perfect moral goodness. Such traditions seem to side with those who think that God is a god, and against those who think that God is a group or an ineffable Something.
One thing to avoid is the fudge of saying that God is “personal.” This weasel-term is perfectly suited to be vague between all the ways of thinking about God here distinguished. Does saying that God is “personal” mean just that God appears to us as if God were a person, a self, or that God is somewhat analogous to a self, as the “Being itself” people would have it? Or does it mean that God is composed of persons, as the God-as-community people think? Or does it mean that God just is, is numerically the same as, a certain self, a unique god? It can mean any of those, and so, it is a cover for confusion, an excuse for ceasing to think hard about all of this. If remaining adrift at sea is what you prefer, plenty of Christians out there can help you remain so. But here, we’re trying to press on through the fog, in search of solid ground.
This is your way forward. How do you, in your soberest moments, think about God? If you think that the one God is in the final analysis a community, this fits with a three-self or “social trinitarian” approach to the Trinity. If you think God is “Being itself,” then you will probably have to say that the Trinity is a nearly completely impenetrable subject for human thought and language. Perhaps you may find some help in Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox strategies for nonetheless saying something non-literal which is true about God. If instead you think of God as a god, as a certain mighty self, and unique among such, then you must decide whether to be a one-self trinitarian, who thinks of the “Persons” of the Trinity as something like ways the one divine Self is, or you can opt for non-trinitarian, unitarian theology, on which the one God is just the Father himself. Modern day bigshots of theology such as Karl Barth and Karl Rahner are on the former side. Ancient bigshots of theology such as Origen and Tertullian are on the latter side. They can’t both be correct. If God is a certain Self, who is he? Which self is he? Is he the Trinity, as fully developed catholic traditions hold, or is he the Father only, as seems to be assumed in the New Testament?
In my view, tradition is pitted against tradition here, apostles vs. bishops, and choices must be made. But mine is a minority view. Among Protestants, arguably a majority assume that what catholic traditions teach just is what is in some sense “in” the Bible, in less clearly. Is this correct?
Dale, thanks for the post, I particularly like the exhortational tone for clearer stance of folk on this central issue, and you have certainly helped me make up my mind.
I’m wondering if we could improve the capital “T” consistency. I’m in total agreement about a distinction you have made, and which is needed, between “trinity” and “Trinity”, but I’m not certain that you see this as so much of a concern when it comes to “trinitarian” and “Trinitarian”. But does this distinction not also need to be unfolded into the adjective too? Personally, I can happily say that I am a trinitarian, just please don’t get me to start a sentence with that word… 😉
Hi Dale,
An interesting post, which has precipated three of questions that I would like to ask.
First, “what sort of being” is the logos who termed theos in John 1:1.
Second, “what sort of being” is the monogen?s theos mentioned in the following verse:
“No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” (John 1:18 – NASB)
Third, “what sort of being” is the “God” who is from the “One God, the Father” of the Nicene Creed?
Grace and peace,
David
David,
Those are good questions. Dale may answer, but let me throw in my two cents worth.
1. LOGOS probably refers to an human being in John 1:1. This is evident for two main reasons. First, the pronoun OUTOS (“this one”) that is used of “the word” in John 1:2 is later used by the writer several other times when John the baptizer reveals the identity of Jesus Christ during the time of his public ministry (John 1:15, 30, 31, 34). Second, the writer said that “the word was flesh and dwelt among us …” (John 1:14). This referred to the human Jesus that John the baptizer said was “coming after me” (John 1:15) and who was “called the word (LOGOS) of God” (Revelation 19:13).
2. The term MONOGENHS (John 1:18) is referring to the same human being, Jesus Christ (John 1:17). The apostles understood that the human Jesus was “begotten” on the day he was “raised from the dead” (Acts 13:33; Hebrews 1:5; Romans 1:3-4). They associated Jesus being “raised from the dead” with his unique status as MONOGENHS because they understood that Abraham’ son Isaac was called MONOGENHS because God delivered Isaac from death as a “type” of Christ (Hebrews 11:17-19).
3. I don’t consider the language in the Nicene Creed to be of any exegetical value. Hence, I don’t have any comment related to your question about that.
Thanks David and Rivers.
I would just add that all textual critics recognise that this verse John 1:18 is textually difficult, for the simple reason that in total we can trace up to 13 variants (see Miller’s chapter in Daniel Wallace’s response to Ehrman’s Orthodox Curruption of Scripture). Ehrman himself (who is not theologically committed, and sometimes haphazardly throws in a “sure, John thought Jesus was God”, before he clarifies his terminology to in fact mean “a divine being”) says that the most likely reading is only-begotten or only-begotten son, not “only begotten God”. I don’t know if that’s useful. J
John B,
Even though I don’t espouse the Trinity doctrine or the deity of Christ, I think the “only-begotten God” is probably the correct variant (on account of “the word was God” in John 1:1) in the immediate context of the Prologue. Albeit, “only begotten son” occurs more often elsewhere (John 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9).
With that said, I also think it’s likely that “only-begotten God” was simply a different way of expressing the title “son of God” which is the relationship that the risen Jesus has with “the Father” in John 1:18 after he was glorified (John 1:14). The term MONOGENHS also seems to have resurrection implications (Acts 13:33; Hebrews 1:5; Hebrews 11:17).
Moreover, there are other indications in the language of the 4th Gospel that Jesus was claiming “equality” (John 5:18) and “oneness” (John 10:30) with God “the Father” on the basis of being “the son of God” (John 10:36; John 19:7). An equality between two different beings (or persons) can be determined in many different ways; it isn’t necessary to immediately conclude that “divine nature” is what Jesus or the writer of the 4th Gospel had in mind.
Rivers thanks I respect your view, although I think whatever view is held about this it should be held somewhat lightly focussing on what is agreed: monogenes. Note that your argument works well with an early copyist change too.
Interestingly, our views might differ a bit on the John framework, but that’s probably a conversation for another day ?
John B,
Thanks. Yes, I wouldn’t think it is unreasonable that a copyist might have changed “only begotten God” to “only begotten son” (for clarification). But, we can only speculate about that. I’d rather have an exegetical explanation that can reasonably account for both variants (since they are both found in popular modern translations).
Please tell me more about what you think MONOGENHS means in John 1:18. I’d like to hear more about your understanding of the “framework of John” as well. This is the place to discuss it. 🙂
Rivers thank you. In an embryonic nutshell then, 2nd century Sebellianism, in my view, was not the first deviation deemed necessary for serious realignment; a realignment that nonetheless still encompasses cosmic delegated rule to Christ from his Father. By John’s day, in my view, perhaps because of this (admittedly awesome) cosmic dimension, had developed to such a point that the Father’s perceived greatness with respect to Christ had actually been equalled/superceded.
Smith is mistaken, and I think this can be demonstrated, with regard to Philo’s definite lack of influence to John as well, he has a relative (nephew’s (future?) wife) who shows up in Acts itself, so is it so unlikely that by 80-90 that John’s gospel writer had not been influenced by Philo’s thought directly, along with the more general Hellenised Judaism perspective (especially in Egypt where the Jewish community have lost their mother tongue?)
In my view, the fourth gospel writer was not employing euphemism when he said in the third person that “we know that *his* testimony is true”. This disciple was probably John son of Zebedee. He swore the fourth gospel writer anonymity regarding his name. At some point that John, like many others, wrote his version down. That might well be a different account. **This** author is not a copyist, he is trained by John and a true leader and thinker in his own right (John the Presbyter, see Papias and Eusebius?) He has had revelation himself through what he has learned from John son of Zebedee, and through the Lord directly. This has authorised him to frame certain contemporary (late first century) discussions and necessary realignments visavis the Father-Son (&Spirit) dynamic within Jesus’ life time. He is also responding to the doubts sewn by the death of his mentor: HANG ON, didn’t Jesus say he (John, son of Zebedee) WOULDN’T die? But he HAS died. This might even be one of the occasions for this gospel.
J
How does this reconstruction sound to you, Rivers?
John B,
Thanks for the reconstruction you’ve offered. We differ on a few assumptions, so here are my thoughts.
1. I’m not sure what you mean by “cosmic”, but I think the term “world” (KOSMOS) in the 4th Gospel probably only refers to the people of “Israel” to whom the writer understood John the baptizer was “manifesting the Christ” (John 1:31, 49). The term KOSMOS is even used specifically of the Jewish people in several places (e.g. John 12:19; John 18:20). Moreover, there are no heathen “gentiles” in the 4th Gospel. Even the “Samaritans” (John 4:9, 12, 20) and “the Greeks of the Dispersion” (John 7:35) mentioned in by the writer are identified as fellow Isrealites along with the “Jews.”
2. I don’t think there is any exegetical or historical evidence that Philo had any influence on the writer of the 4th Gospel. I realize that other scholars speculate about this theory, but it seems entirely presumptive to me. The writer of the 4th Gospel indicated that the “word” (LOGOS) the disciples received came from God himself through the teaching of Jesus Christ (John 2:19; John 4:41; John 5:24; John 8:31; John 14:10, John 14:23; John 17:14; 1 John 1:1; etc). The writer of the 4th Gospel almost always used LOGOS to refer specifically to something spoken by the human Jesus, and Philo never used LOGOS to refer to Jesus or anything Jesus said.
3. The dating of the 4th Gospel is only speculative. I think it could have been written at any time after AD 40. Certain historical details in the book certainly mitigate against it being written after AD 70. For all we know, it could have been written before any of the other Gospels (especially considering the lack of any reference to any from among the “gentiles”).
4. I think the evidence in scripture makes it impossible for the Apostle John to be the writer of the 4th Gospel. For example, notice that “the other disciple” who wrote the 4th Gospel became a “believer” when he first saw the empty tomb with Peter (John 20:8) whereas the Apostle John was one of the Eleven (including Peter and John) who did not believe until later that day when Jesus appeared to them (Mark 16:14).
Hi John,
I think that Ehrman makes a good point when he notes that the reading “MONOGENES hUIOS” is certainly as ancient as “MONOGENES QEOS”, and so merely observing that the oldest mss. we have support the later doesn’t really seem to be that compelling to me.
My personal view is the minority one, i.e. the original reading was probably just MONOGENES, which would have been substantivized (= “only begotten [one]”) and later scribes added hUIOS and QEOS, probably just to clarify who the only-begotten one was. I tentatively suspect that this probably better explains the later emergence of the two primary readings than the assumption that the original had QEOS and scribes changed it either to harmonize it with other texts or because they were tired and just wrote the wrong word.
~Sean
Hi John,
About Wallace’s response to Ehrman, please see Stafford’s response to Wallace’s response, here:
http://elihubooks.blogspot.com/2011/11/bart-d-ehrman-daniel-b-wallace-and.html
After providing evidence and argumentation, Stafford concludes as follows about Wallace’s attempt to refute Ehrman’s specific syntactical point:
“And
so Wallace and Stratton have failed to provide even one clear
counter-example which invalidates Ehrman’s syntactical argument about
what must otherwise be considered a highly likely attributive
relationship between monogen?s and theos in John 1:18.”
~Sean
Thanks Sean.
Sean,
I wish I could dialogue with Greg Stafford about some of his “Greek” but he seems rather elusive these days. I enjoyed reading his books and listening to the debates with James White and Robert Bowman. I thought he handled himself pretty well (considering he had no comparable academic credentials).
Perhaps he’s come to feel that there’s little to be gained by arguing with those who offer ‘every wind of teaching’. I know I have.
Sean,
He started doing a podcast last year but it only lasted a couple of episodes. He mentioned that he was writing a book about the Granville Sharp rule as well. I got the impression he still has a number of ex-JW followers, but he seems to have lost touch with the current conversations about Christology.
As a Biblical Unitarian, I found much of the argumentation in his books and debates (c. early 2000s) somewhat obsolete (but valuable with respect to dealing with Trinitarian perspectives). I would like to see how his perspectives would hold up in a dialogue with someone who doesn’t share presuppositions about the context of the Prologue and John 8:51-58 that he shared with the Trinitarian opponents he was addressing.
I think his understanding of Sharp’s Rule rivals that of Dan Wallace, and his own version of it, while perhaps a bit more cumbersome to state (as I recall), better corresponds to the complete body of Greek literature.
I don’t agree with Greg on a number of points (e.g. the manner in which he presses his “two God” view; his view of Philippians 2; etc.), but I think that his approach to Christology is more up-to-date, fresh, and daring than you’d like to believe.
Your view of John 1 hasn’t been given serious consideration by anyone that I’m aware of since the 1800s, and I’m not even sure that it was then; your view of John 8:58 results in an absurd dialogue between Jesus and his opponents that simply couldn’t have happened; and it strikes me that your view of Philippians 2 results in odd inconcinnity that seems to destroy the logic of the passage, which everyone but you apparently recognizes.
If I were Greg I wouldn’t be interested in debating you, either. One doesn’t typically spend his valuable time preparing for and engaging in debate with alternate views that only one person holds. If one is going to debate, then I would say that he should choose his opponents wisely, and concentrate on those potential interlocutors whose views are proving to be successful in swaying and/or misleading others.
~Sean
Sean,
Thanks. I agree. Sharp’s rule doesn’t resolve any of the Christological implications where it is often employed by Trinitarian apologists. Contextual considerations always trump grammatical “rules” in any particular text.
I don’t feel “slighted” by Stafford at all since he’s been reclusive for the past 10 years and I haven’t had any interaction or communication with him whatsoever (only with some of his sympathetic followers).
Based upon everything Stafford has written and taught in debates, I don’t think he’d be informed enough to address the exegetical considerations I’ve offered more recently. Stafford’s argumentation is based upon significant presuppositions that he shares with Trinitarian apologists (e.g. Preexistence and Incarnation). Not all Biblical Unitarian interpreters accept those concepts.
I have more respect for Stafford than to think he would have your attitude toward opposing viewpoints. It’s presumptuous to think that only “one person” (out of billions) hold any particular opinion. Moreover, I think Stafford seems intelligent enough to realize that his own “Witnesses of Yah” group represents a vast minority of Christians and is also extremely obscure and unpopular. Thus, it would be incredibly arrogant and foolish for someone like him to point the finger at another minority viewpoint.
To be honest, based upon the numerous conversations I’ve had with Stafford’s followers (or at least people who are sympathetic to his view), I think it would be a waste of my time to formally “debate” him. I would run circles around his limited knowledge of Greek (upon which he bases a lot of his argumentation) and he wouldn’t have any frame of reference with which to respond to the inter-textual evidence that I could offer to support a Biblical Unitarian perspective that isn’t based upon presuppositions about Preexistence or Incarnation.
“Thanks. I agree. Sharp’s rule doesn’t resolve any of the
Christological implications where it is often employed by Trinitarian
apologists. Contextual considerations always trump grammatical “rules”
in any particular text.”
It’s good to find a point of agreement.
“Based upon everything Stafford has written and taught in debates, I don’t
think he’d be informed enough to address the exegetical considerations
I’ve offered more recently. Stafford’s argumentation is based upon
significant presuppositions that he shares with Trinitarian apologists
(e.g. Preexistence and Incarnation). Not all Biblical Unitarian
interpreters accept those concepts.”
It’s quite presumptuous to assume that Stafford isn’t sufficiently informed to
debate you because of what he wrote to address different presuppositions
than those you hold. One can only adequately judge his readiness to
confront you based on what he’s written to counter presuppositions you
hold. What little he’s written to counter Socinianism was quite compelling.
“I have more respect for Stafford than to think he would have your attitude
toward opposing viewpoints. It’s presumptuous to think that only “one
person” (out of billions) hold any particular opinion. Moreover, I think Stafford seems intelligent enough to realize that his own “Witnesses of Yah” group represents a vast minority of Christians and is also extremely obscure and unpopular. Thus, it would be incredibly arrogant and foolish for someone like him to point the finger at another minority viewpoint.”
Firstly, there’s nothing presumptuous at all about making a decision to focus one’s attention where one can do the most good and help the most people, and your views haven’t yet been successful in misleading many people. You can’t even get your fellow Socinians on this forum to agree with many if not most of them.
Secondly, Greg’s offshoot group shares the same basic christological understanding as the group he broke away from and as the various other offshoots, such as the Bible Students, etc. In other words, it is a demonstrable fact that there are millions who share Greg’s basic Christology and his understanding of many of the various texts that support it.
Since it hasn’t been shown that your ideas are embraced by anyone but you, there simply is no reason to debate you. The reason for debates is so that people on both sides can hear the arguments for the different perspectives so that they can be better equipped to judge which is correct. There’s no one on your side when it comes to how to understand the applicable texts. If Greg were to decide to debate a proponent of Socinianism then it would be better for him to concentrate on those who better represent that body of believers.
“To be honest, based upon the numerous conversations I’ve had with
Stafford’s followers (or at least people who are sympathetic to his
view), I think it would be a waste of my time to formally debate him. I
would expose his limited knowledge of Greek (upon which he bases a lot
of his argumentation) and he wouldn’t have any frame of reference with
which to respond to the inter-textual evidence that I could offer to
support a Biblical Unitarian perspective that isn’t based upon
presuppositions about Preexistence or Incarnation.”
I trust that Greg would probably realize that it would be a waste of his time to formally debate you, and he would expose your unsupported and un-vetted ideas about Greek rather easily, I suspect. However, unlike you, Greg isn’t the self aggrandizing type, so he probably wouldn’t say such things on a public forum. Moreover, while people who share his presuppositions would probably leave the debate satisfied that they have the better position, there wouldn’t be a sense of accomplishment or a sense that the time and preparation were well spent (see above).
I know you think that your novel views are well founded, but most of us on
the other side of your arguments don’t find them to be compelling at
all. In fact, most people who read your arguments wonder how anyone
could so completely misconstrue what is being said in various scriptural
contexts. I think you should consider setting aside your haughty attitude for a while and instead resolve to spend some time contemplating the possibility that there just might be good reasons for that, reasons that you’ve hitherto been unwilling to hear.
~Sean
Sean,
I’m just presenting a different perspective on the biblical evidence that every one can consider for himself. I respect that you believe your opinion to be satisfactory (even though most Christians reject your view as well). I think it’s important for the Christians of each generation to take a fresh look at the evidence and to encourage dialogue.
If I thought your exegesis and interpretation of the Prologue was a reasonable explanation of the biblical evidence, I would certainly agree with it. I don’t care who might be teaching the truth. What is important is that we accurately represent what Jesus and the apostles were teaching their disciples.
“I’m just presenting a different perspective on the biblical evidence
that every one can consider for himself. If I was “arrogant” like some
of my opponents, I would be advertising a personal blog or peddling
self-published books.”
There’s nothing “arrogant” about writing books or starting a blog. Indeed, the scholarly process by which books are published and presented for peer review and public scrutiny is often practiced with great humility.
Do you want to know why I started my own blog? It was because I’ve found myself discussing the same topics so often that it just became too time consuming to retype arguments that I had made before, and so my blog is just a public storehouse for my argumentation that allows me to merely provide links.
I wore wrist braces for years because tendonitis in my wrists kept flaring up, and my blog has helped me to reduce the likelihood that this will happen again.
Why should we trust your judgment over biblical texts and how they should be understood in context when you can’t even offer a reasonable judgment about what constitutes “arrogance”?
~Sean
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