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podcast 4 – Anglicans vs. “Athanasius”

0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:27:30 podcast 4 – Anglicans vs. “Athanasius” Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify As we’ve seen, the “Athanasian Creed” appears to be incoherent, that is, inconsistent with itself. One response is to creatively interpret it in a way which does seem coherent. We will explore this approach in many future episodes.… Read More »podcast 4 – Anglicans vs. “Athanasius”

The Maverick Philosopher: Are the divine persons parts of the triune God?

I missed an excellent post by our friend the Maverick Philosopher back in January: …if the proper parts of a cat can be feline in the very same sense in which the cat is feline, without themselves being cats, then we have an analogy that renders intelligible the claim that the Persons of the Trinity are divine without being Gods.  The picture is this:  God or the… Read More »The Maverick Philosopher: Are the divine persons parts of the triune God?

podcast 3 – making Abelard cry

0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:17:02 podcast 3 – making Abelard cry Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify In this episode: an interesting historical episode relating to the “Athanasian Creed.” It makes a grown man cry. This creed really “starts up” Christian philosophers; surely, a distinction here, a distinction there, and the appearance of contradiction can… Read More »podcast 3 – making Abelard cry

No can eat: a Pawlian parable

Dr. Timothy Pawl has argued that the idea of Incarnation is consistent since we should think the councils understood what one may think are contrary predicates in a way such that a two natured thing may rightly be called both. So if “impassible” means “has a nature that is impassible” and “passible” means “has a nature that is passible,” then Christ will be both “impassible”… Read More »No can eat: a Pawlian parable

Tim Pawl: a God-man is possible

Catholic analytic philosopher Tim Pawl (University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota) argues that this is logically consistent: Jesus has both a divine and a human nature.

His answer is challenged by another talented young Catholic philosopher, Tomas Bogardus, of Pepperdine University. With their permission, I’ve reposted their dialogue from Facebook. I thought it deserved a wider audience.

From that same thread, I learned that Dr. Pawl is working on a book on the metaphysics of the Christology that comes from the “ecumenical” councils. I’ve thought and taught a good bit about those in recent  years, and plan to discuss them in upcoming podcasts, so I look forward to seeing this book, and the discussion it will generate.

Which is mightier – this beard or this one?

You decide. I’ll weigh in with a comment later.

Here, unedited but for the addition of a few explanatory links (and a gratuitous picture), is their dialogue:Read More »Tim Pawl: a God-man is possible

Craig’s a priori argument for a three-self Trinity

We’ve covered this before. Craig slurs the argument, making the conclusion a bit unclear. The point is not really that a three-self trinitarian theology is just somehow superior to a unitarian theology. Rather, the point is supposed to be that the concept of a perfect being who is a self collapses into incoherence; it is perfect, yet (the idea is) lacks a feature any perfect… Read More »Craig’s a priori argument for a three-self Trinity

Reformed trinitarian to unitarian Christian

Here’s a long but engaging interview by Sean Finnegan at his Christian Monotheism website. (Podcast RSS feeds here.) The subject, a young man named Christopher Amelung, underwent the change of theology noted above. He doesn’t recount all of the relevant arguments and exegesis; it’s rather a narrative of his own thoughts, emotions, and relationships. This is not a deconversion story, but a story of a… Read More »Reformed trinitarian to unitarian Christian

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

Nigel Warburton on contemporary philosophers

Some interesting comments on philosophy and philosophers by Nigel Warburton, one of the two hosts of the best philosophy podcast, in an interview on the occasion of his resigning his academic post. …that’s just the nature of philosophy. It’s always difficult… If you’re not having trouble then you probably don’t really understand what’s going on. Many people seem not to have trouble, but I know… Read More »Nigel Warburton on contemporary philosophers

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

Jerry Walls: What is wrong with Calvinism?

Devastating. I have long noted that Augustinian/Calvinist theology is unpopular among Christian philosophers, though many, like me, go through a Calvinist phase (when I was a sophomore and junior in college), before seeing its problems to be hopeless. Walls concisely and fairly sums up what Calvinism is all about, and then shows it to be profoundly problematic, focusing on philosophical problem rather than biblical ones.… Read More »Jerry Walls: What is wrong with Calvinism?

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

White vs. Navas – Does the New Testament teach “the deity of Christ”?

Ably reviewed by Sean Finnegan. I would add a few philosophical comments: White, like many evangelicals, understands “the deity of Christ” as meaning that Jesus and God are numerically one, that is, numerically identical. He argues that various things the NT asserts about Jesus imply this. (e.g. He is worshiped, called “Lord.”) Conveniently, he ignores the many passages which assert or presuppose a qualitative difference… Read More »White vs. Navas – Does the New Testament teach “the deity of Christ”?

Flocanrib and the ambiguity of the word “Trinity”

Our fictional story was necessary, to help us think about some important distinctions about referring terms. It is easy to forget that “Trinity” was once a puppy, a neologism. But it was. It was born some time in the second half of the second century. We don’t know who coined it, but the earliest surviving mention of it is by Theophilus, bishop of Antioch (d.… Read More »Flocanrib and the ambiguity of the word “Trinity”

Flocanrib explained – Irene’s mistake

Irene reflected on how she had got to thinking that her birthday gifts came from one person. She had labelled the source or sources of them “Presenty.” At first she may have been open-minded about whether the gifts came from one or many. But once she’d coined the name, that, in her imagination, solidified the source as being a single person. This seemed to be… Read More »Flocanrib explained – Irene’s mistake

Flocanrib – a parable

Irene was the only little girl in her whole extended family, and everyone loved giving her girly gifts. Three of her uncles liked to give her certain gifts every birthday. Uncle John always gave her a flower, uncle Jack always gave her a box of candy, and uncle Jerry always gave her a hair ribbon. They always gave together, and in secret. The night before… Read More »Flocanrib – a parable

trinitarian or unitarian? 8 – Origen on “God” vs. “a god”

wordOrigen, many other ancient catholics, takes the Word (logos) of John 1 to be the pre-human Jesus.

For the record, I don’t think that is correct. But I won’t contest it here.

In the quotes here, he’s commenting on “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is from an long commentary on John, this portion of which was probably written in 231-2 AD.

Many people who wish to be pious are troubled because they are afraid that they may proclaim two Gods and, for this reason, they fall into false and impious beliefs. They either deny that the individual nature of the Son is other than that of the Father by confessing him to be God whom they refer to as “Son” in name at least, or they deny the divinity of the Son and make his individual nature and essence as an individual to be different from the Father. (Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel According to God, trans. Robert E. Heine, p. 98, bold added)

Permit me to paraphrase: people think that this Word who is with God and yes is God must be another God, a second God. But that seems wrong – isn’t monotheism true? Thus, they either think Father and Son to be numerically one (the same God) or they deny that the Word, that is, the pre-human Jesus to be divine – to be such that the word “God” applies to him.

Immediately following the passage above, Origen gives his solution.

Their problem can be resolved in this way. Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 8 – Origen on “God” vs. “a god”