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Papers

Dr. James N. Anderson on Paradoxes in Theology

Theologian-apologist-philosopher Dr. James N. Anderson of Reformed Theological Seminary has posted his new entry for IVP’s  New Dictionary of Theology on “Paradox” – that is, on apparent contradictions. Saith Dr. Anderson, Various approaches to theological paradoxes have been proposed, including: (1) The paradoxes involve real contradictions, but God is not bound by ‘human logic’. (2) The paradoxes involve real contradictions, and therefore some traditional doctrines need to be… Read More »Dr. James N. Anderson on Paradoxes in Theology

podcast 60 – Dr. Carl Mosser on deification in the Bible

0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:43:38 podcast 60 – Dr. Carl Mosser on deification in the Bible Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify Does the Bible ever speak of redeemed humans as “gods”? Many Jews and Christians have thought so. In this episode Dr. Carl Mosser takes us on a journey through this theme in the… Read More »podcast 60 – Dr. Carl Mosser on deification in the Bible

podcast 51 – Dr. Ravi Zacharias on the Trinity

0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:54:25 podcast 51 – Dr. Ravi Zacharias on the Trinity Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify Dr. Ravi Zacharias is a popular, Indian-born, evangelical apologist, the author of many books and articles, a frequent public speaker, and a veteran of Christian radio. Recently here at the trinities blog I received a reader… Read More »podcast 51 – Dr. Ravi Zacharias on the Trinity

podcast 45 – Sir Anthony Buzzard on Christian mistakes

0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:18:54 podcast 45 – Sir Anthony Buzzard on Christian mistakes Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify In this less biographical episode, Sir Anthony and I discuss various Christian mistakes: obsession with Hebrew names for God and for Jesus, keeping kosher food laws and Jewish holidays, the doctrine of tithing, and even the… Read More »podcast 45 – Sir Anthony Buzzard on Christian mistakes

two new papers published online

At the Journal of Analytic Philosophy, and at the Journal of Biblical Unitarianism. Thanks to the editors of both journals for their good work. The first paper continues the discussion with Hasker of my “Divine Deception” arguments against three-self Trinity theories. I discuss there the monotheism of Isaiah. Then I get into interesting arguments by historical unitarians, such as Nye, Clarke, and Worcester, even comparing… Read More »two new papers published online

Bill Hasker’s reply

to this piece of mine, in the previous issue. Who gets the better of the exchange? I don’t have more to say right now… but I am reviewing Hasker’s major new book soon for another journal. In brief, he defends a three-self Trinity theory, and believes he can show this to be self-consistently monotheistic. He develops this view, I think, farther than anyone else ever… Read More »Bill Hasker’s reply

Roger Olson asks: How important is the doctrine of the Trinity?

Theologian Roger Olson asks, How important is the doctrine of the Trinity? He seems to hold, with many others, that …the doctrine of the Trinity is crucial, essential, indispensable to a robust and healthy Christian view of God. But, The problem is, of course, that many, perhaps most, Christians have little or no understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. And they couldn’t care less. Indeed.… Read More »Roger Olson asks: How important is the doctrine of the Trinity?

“Trinity” in paperback form

Suppose you want to really study my entry “Trinity“ in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. If you’re like me, when you want to really read something, you’ll print it out (and then proceed to destroy it with a pencil and a highlighter). And if you do print it all out, it’ll make your printer burst out in tears. The whole thing, with supplementary discussions, comes… Read More »“Trinity” in paperback form

podcast 10 – Dr. Scott Williams on “Latin” Trinity Theories

0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:29:07 podcast 10 – Dr. Scott Williams on “Latin” Trinity Theories Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify This week, an interview with Dr. Scott Williams, an analytic theologian, trained by some of the best out there, who loves to tackle those hard to read medieval philosopher-theologians like John Duns Scotus, Thomas… Read More »podcast 10 – Dr. Scott Williams on “Latin” Trinity Theories

My diabolical “ruse” exposed – drat!

caveman lawyerMy “On Baukham’s Bargain” has drawn a response from my biggest fan, the Reformed brawler Steve Hays. I reply in the comments there.

Given how many evangelicals have jumped on the Bauckham Bandwagon, I hope that it’ll get some serious discussion in the journals or elsewhere.

Here’s my first reply to his post:

Steve, it’s odd to spend so many words sniping at my summary of what Bauckham holds forth as advantages of his theory. e.g. After the seventh point (of Bauckham’s!) you object, “That’s a diversionary tactic.” Is that an objection to Bauckham?

Read all the way through, then think, and then, finally start objecting.

About the “fatal concession”, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. The time-explicit version of the indiscernibility of identicals is all I need to make the point.Read More »My diabolical “ruse” exposed – drat!

William Lane Craig in the Chronicle of Higher Education

Here. On the whole, a well done piece. Craig is indeed a fearsome debater, and a bold and insightful scholar. His devotion to apologetics makes him a bit uncool among professional philosophers. But I would guess that his work is probably read by more average people – Christians, atheists, Muslims, and who-knows-what – than any living philosopher. The reason is that it has many good… Read More »William Lane Craig in the Chronicle of Higher Education

Scott Williams’s “soft Latin” theory of the Trinity

Williams LT 1Here are a few observations on my co-blogger Dr. Scott Williams‘s recently published article in the Journal of Analytic Theology, called “Indexicals and the Trinity: Two Non-Social Models.”

There’s a lot going on in the piece – some terminology, some history of theology, and some interesting dialectic with one of the best philosophers working on this topic, Brian Leftow, which centers around the concept of an “indexical” term.

But in this post, I want to narrowly focus on the theory which Dr. Williams suggests to us. This comes in his section 4, pp. 84-8. He calls it “soft LT” (to contrast it with Leftow’s “hard LT”) and I would expound it with the chart here, which I made.

f, s, and h are, respectively the divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. d is the divine nature which they share, and which is one component in each of them. The other component in each is some “incommunicable personal attribute” (p. 84), respectively: begetting (b), being begotten (g), and being spirated (p). The ovals show the two parts or components of each divine person. (I take it that the model is committed to denying any classic doctrine of “divine simplicity.”)

None of f, s, h is identical to the divine nature, but each isRead More »Scott Williams’s “soft Latin” theory of the Trinity

publications update

My paper critiquing the Brower-Rea “constitution” approach to the Trinity has now been published in Philosophy and Theology. I just received the issue this week. Pre-print is on the home page. I worked very hard on this, off and on, for more than two years, and tried (with limited success, I think) to make the discussion intelligible to non-philosophers. It’s a metaphysics-heavy discussion though. My… Read More »publications update

Important new open access journal: The Journal of Analytic Theology

Congratulations to editors Oliver Crisp, Michael Rea, Trent Dougherty and Kevin Diller on the launch of an important new open access journal: The Journal of Analytic Theology. What is “analytic” theology? Good question. Roughly: theology done using the tools of contemporary (typically English-language) “analytic” philosophy. What is that? Here’s one answer by a master practitioner. Also, this journal aims to “explore theological and meta-theological topics… Read More »Important new open access journal: The Journal of Analytic Theology

Linkage: Sokal Hoax 2.0

id-rather-like-you-to-know-youve-been-trolled.jpgEvery philosophy student and every theology student should know about the original Sokal hoax. Here’s the best reflection on its important lessons. (Dr. Boghossian later expanded the discussion in this book.)

Now a philosopher has pulled a similar hoax; this time it’s a naturalistic atheist vs. the Association for Reformational Philosophy. The story is at Jerry Coyne’s blog, Why Evolution is True. (Never mind that this particular post provides no such reason. 🙂 ) Coyne notes,

This shows once again the appeal of religious gibberish to the educated believer

True – for some. But Read More »Linkage: Sokal Hoax 2.0