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Listen to this post:
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Internet apologist Steve Hays continues his attempts to rebut the arguments of these videos.
So far he’s done nothing of substance. Will he finally land a blow?
9. Sola scriptura. Sola scriptura incompatible with subordinating our theology to extrabiblical language and conclusions of later church councils?
Yes.
However, sola scriptura doesn’t rule out the use of extrabiblical language. What matters is not the words we use but the concepts.
Yes. Points to Steve so far for saying true and relevant things.
Do extrabiblical words convey biblical concepts?
That is the question. In the case of “the Trinity,” the answer is No. All Trinity-theories contradict clear New Testament teaching. (See also here.)
10. At odds with OT monotheism
1) Compared to creatures and false gods, there are three agents who stand out in the OT: Yahweh, the Spirit of Yahweh, and the Angel of Yahweh. These are presented as occupying the divine side of reality.
It’s conspiracy-theory level misunderstanding of the Old Testament to assert that those are three agents, or that in the Old Testament books there are three personal agents, three selves who are “on the divine side of reality.” One can consult actual mainstream scholarly sources here, and one will find that there is one who is the Most High God in the Old Testament, a single “who,” with the personal name “Yahweh.” It’s interesting, but disturbing, how many recent apologists have convinced themselves, via very selective reading, that the Jews were always basically trinitarians, or at least that they thought more than one “Person” was God.
And yet the trinitarian apologist nowadays will typically say that “God is one ‘what’ but three ‘whos’.” Yes, that seems to contradict with Old Testament theology, where there is one who says that he is the only god who has ever been and will ever be.
11. Trinitarians could start by explaining how two of us can share the same essence of humanity and be two beings but when three persons share the same essence of divinity, they’re one being.
Buckle up, guys. Hays here has his own brand of speculative jibber-jab.
1) “Being” is a very generic concept. A Trinitarian could consistently say that God is one being and three beings. The word “being” doesn’t do much conceptual work. It isn’t a discriminating descriptor. It’s more of a verbal placeholder.
2) Human beings exemplify a human nature, as properties instances. Each human being is an individual sample of human nature. A concrete, finite instance or copy.
3) By contrast, the divine nature is not some abstract generic essence that exists over and above or independent of the Trinitarian persons. The divine nature isn’t separable from the Trinitarian persons. God is the exemplar. Each person exhaustively contains the entire essence, not a sample. The Trinitarian persons aren’t copies of a divine nature
Just be glad he didn’t bring up fractals!
Let’s ignore 1) – surely most trinitarians would object!
About 2) and 3): a nature is supposed to be whatever property or properties it is what are necessary and sufficient for being a thing of a certain kind. Thus, if numerically three things have human nature, that is to say that there are at least three human beings. And, if numerically three things have divine nature, that is to say there are at least three gods.
Hays urges that the divine case is different. Convenient! On what grounds? These: “(1) The divine nature isn’t separable from the Trinitarian persons. (2) God is the exemplar. (3) Each person exhaustively contains the entire essence, not a sample.”
I don’t know what (1) means, really, or how it’s supposed to help. Same with (2). (3) Looks like a truism, if some Trinity theory is going be true. But how would (3), if true, help? Hays doesn’t tell us. It’s all just special pleading, with a couple of ineffective metaphysical flails. He’s philosophizing, but it’s not helping any.
14. “God the Son” doesn’t appear anywhere in the NT. In the NT, Jesus is called” “God” and “the Son of God”. So “God the Son” is a derivative biblical title that combines two things said about Jesus in the NT.
Our apologist here doesn’t want to ask why there isn’t any such a term in the New Testament. The clear focus of these 27 books is the man Jesus – a human person. But “God the Son” is supposed to be this divine self which is called “human” because of its recent, mysterious relation to a body and soul (which don’t constitute a human person). That is, this “God the Son” is not himself a human person. But on the face of it, no such character appears in the New Testament. Nor is there any “God the Holy Spirit” or “God the Trinity” – all of which is quite surprising if these authors are trinitarians, but which is just what we’d expect if they think the one is the Father – which is what they say.
Not much substance to his replies, really. Oh, the agony of defeat!
