the evolution of my views on the Trinity – part 9
This time, some questions that may occur to you about Clarke’s views on the Trinity.
This time, some questions that may occur to you about Clarke’s views on the Trinity.
This time, another great Christian thinker, who I discovered some time around 1998.
Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy – its effect on my thinking.
Last time, c. 1998-2001, I was a social trinitarian along the lines of Richard Swinburne. While I was on the job market in 1999-2000, my former professor Stephen T. Davis was kind enough to invite me and a friend to attend the Incarnation summit, a follow up to the earlier interdisciplinary Trinity Summit. This was a great privilege, and I pretty much just observed. But… Read More »the evolution of my views on the Trinity – part 6
Thinking about Trinity in grad school, reading Richard Swinburne’s The Christian God.
Just starting to think about the Trinity, as a Masters student.
In this series I’m going to get a bit more personal.
2015 was a good years for the trinities blog, even apart from the podcast. Below are some highlights, month by month. Also, I want to thank my friend and co-blogger Chad Macintosh for his good contributions this year! January: a new proof of God’s existence, with an assist from Dr. Bart Ehrman? February: Marcus Borg’s atheism March: the evolution of my views on the Trinity – part 9 April: the LORD… Read More »2015: the trinities blog in review
Trinitarian theology is not served by sophistry, cheerleading, or ignoring relevant work. In this episode, I discuss five more apologetics face-plants about the Trinity.
Is the question absurd? Or does it make sense in light of New Testament teachings?
Did fourth century Christians come to a consensus about “the doctrine of the Trinity”?
“For all its complexity, the biblical doctrine of the Trinity can be stated in seven simple propositions.”
In this episode I respond to the interesting article “What about This View? How to Defend an Anti-Trinitarian Theology,” by evangelical apologist Dr. Robert M. Bowman Jr.
“The Gospel is Trinitarian.” What does this mean, and is it both true and non-trivial?
Congratulations to both debaters on a fight well fought. (Here’s all the commentary.) Plenty of punches, thrown hard, relatively few low blows – two worthy opponents. Certainly, the fight must be decided on points, as there was no decisive knockout. Both debates are in different ways very impressive, and I learned a lot from both.
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 Read More »SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – Final Reflections
A narrative of the series of early speculations that eventually led to the idea of the Trinity as the one God.
Following up on the previous post – the word “trinitarian” may be an adjective or a noun. The Oxford English Dictionary lists four adjective meanings: (here’s my editing of relevant parts of their entry, emphasis added) 2. Theol. Relating to the Trinity; holding the doctrine of the Trinity (opp. to Unitarian). In early use, Trinitarian heretic, one holding heretical views as to the Trinity: 1656… Read More »Heretical “trinitarians” – evolution of a word
Is “the doctrine of the Trinity” essential to salvation? To Christianity?