I’ve just updated my homepage with a paper forthcoming in Faith and Philosophy, called “Hasker’s Quests for a Viable Social Theory.” My sincere thanks to editor Thomas Flint, and to that journal’s anonymous readers for their help. The paper critically examines the various discussions of William Hasker, a very accomplished Christian philosopher, and former editor of F&P, from whom I have learned much. I think… Read More »New Papers
In this last post in this series, I want to put out a few critical reactions to Baber’s “Neo-Sabellian” Trinity theory.
My thanks to Harriet for this piece and for her interaction with us here.
No doubt, she’ll argue back; and she will probably say something about how her views have changed since she wrote this piece.
So, in no particular order:
Time for the old Spanish Inquisition. Will she survive The (self-administered) Rack?
In the final part of her article “Sabellianism Reconsidered”, Baber turns to theological objections. To wit:
Her answers? Jesus, like his contemporaries, was not a trinitarian. That is, he didn’t realize that the God to whom he prayed had temporal parts which were gods. Or even if he did, he didn’t intend to teach any trinitarian doctrine. Thus, he addressed not the Father, but God, as “Father”. (p. 10) Thus the term “Father”, in Jesus’ context, referred to God, while nowadays (post 380 CE?) it refers to the Father, the (temporally) first Person of the Trinity.
In response to the second objection, she notes that “a notion of timeless, metaphysically necessary causationRead More »“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 7 (Dale)
The theory, then, is that God is an everlasting, temporally extended thing with three temporal parts, each of which is a god. But, they’re the same god as God. Yet as we saw last time, how can the Three be gods at all, as each exists at some times but not others?Without going into the arguments for this controversial thesis, Baber appeals to the claim made by Derek Parfit and others, that “identity is not ‘what matters’ for survival”. (p.6) Thus, a future thing can count as my surviving, though it is not (numerically) identical to me.
Suppose (I’m stealing this thought experiment from Richard Swinburne) some mad scientists, such as Pinkie and the Brain, are going to cut my brain in half, and put the left half in one body, and the right in another. The body which gets the left half will be tortured to death, while the body getting the right half will be given lifetime passes to all NFL games and a lifetime supply of good beer. If I’m to undergo this experiment, I want to know which of these resulting people will be (numerically identical to) me: the unlucky one, the lucky one, or neither.
Baber (following Parfit) wants to say that depending on how exactly the resulting people are related to me, both may count as the continuation of or survival of me. Specifically, she suggests that psychological continuity is enough – it is enough that the later people have the same or nearly the same beliefs, desires, and so on that I have.
I don’t think this is right, but back to the Trinity: In her view, the god which is a God-stage (temporal part of God) called the Father would, just before the Incarnation, be mistaken to think Read More »“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 4
Dr. Harriet Baber (aka H.E. Baber) teaches philosophy at the University of San Diego, and has been active for many years in the Society of Christian Philosophers. She’s published a number of papers on gender, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and other topics. I met her in the 1990s at an SCP conference in California, and I have always found her to be funny, smart, and… Read More »“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 1
Help James Anderson defeat my defeater for his defeater-defeater. Here. (The target.) What’s all this defeater business? Michael Sudduth explains here. I do not look forward to the agony. May all your defeaters be defeated – except the ones you have for false beliefs.
Some good recent work on the concept of identity.
Carl Mosser teaches theology at Eastern University in Pennsylvania. I recently read, and profited much from his “Classifying Mormon Theism.“ Check it out. It’s part of a book dedicated to the work of the unique Mormon philosopher of religion David Paulsen. Mosser’s paper is of interest for several reasons: First, is Mormonism a sort of polytheism, monotheism, or what? You’ll have to read the paper… Read More »Classifying Mormon Theism – a paper by Carl Mosser
Congratulations to trinities contributor J.T. Paasch on his “Arius and Athanasius on the Production of God’s Son”, which has come out in the most recent issue of the prestigious philosophy of religion & philosophical theology journal, Faith & Philosophy (Vol. 27, No. 4, October 2010, pp. 382-404) Hey JT – do you have a preprint posted online anywhere? Here is JT’s abstract, to whet your… Read More »Congratulations to J.T. Paasch (Dale)
After my 2004 piece in which I gave three arguments against “social” trinitarianism, I had the privilege of being taken to Hask refuted twice by the excellent veteran Christian philosopher William Hasker. This last summer, I finally got around to replying. I wrote a long piece and sent it to Religious Studies, who had published my original article and one of Hasker’s replies. They generously… Read More »Reply to Hasker re: My Divine Deception Arguments
A paper on the rationality of believing apparent contradictions in theology.
Philosophy Compass is a unique philosophy journal which only publishes survey articles, pieces which aim to summarize recent work. Its aim, as editor Brian Weatherson explains, is to enable people to keep up with a vast, overspecialized, fast-moving, and only somewhat accessible world of philosophical research. What’s more exciting – they sell the pdfs of the articles for $1.99. They’re trying to be the iTunes… Read More »Robin Le Poidevin on metaphysics and the Incarnation @ Philosophy Compass
Brian Leftow is recognized as one of the most important living Christian philosophers. Formerly of Fordham University in NYC, he now holds the prestigious Nolloth Chair of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oriel College, Oxford. See Trent Dougherty’s comments here for a list of some of his publications. In person, Leftow is very pleasant and interesting, and his sense of humor also comes… Read More »Leftow 1: “Anti Social Trinitarianism”