James White responds to the Challenge, sort of

On the Fourth of July, 2023, Dr. James White undertook to refute my Challenge to Jesus is God apologists. Of course, he didn’t call it that, just referring to it as my argument, letting his audience believe either that it was addressed to him or to all trinitarians. But no, as explained in the post (which it’s not clear he read) some trinitarians can accept the argument as sound, and it’s only directed against “Jesus is God apologists,” i.e. those who confuse Jesus together with his and our God (i.e. by identifying/collapsing them). His subtitle, “The Unbiblical Nature of Unitarianism Demonstrated” shows that he’s almost completely missing the point; the argument is neither for unitarianism, nor is it a defense of it. Nor even is it an attack on all Trinity theories.

The first step in evaluating an argument is to fully understand it. White did not do that. Thus most of what he says is irrelevant, and he fails to appreciate the argument’s force and how it applies to him. Here again is the argument, followed by his slides and my comments on those.

1. God and Jesus differ.
2. Things which differ are two (i.e. are not numerically identical)
3. Therefore, God and Jesus are two (not numerically identical). (1, 2)
4. For any x and y, x and y are the same god only if x and y are not two (i.e. are numerically identical).
5. Therefore, God and Jesus are not the same god. (3,4)
6. There is only one god.
7. Therefore, either God is not a god, or Jesus is not a god. (5, 6)
8. God is a god.
9. Therefore, Jesus is not a god. (7,8)

Unaccountably, White leaves out step 8 in his initial slide. But he includes it in his slide below.

His first claim here is patently false; nothing about the premise, or the whole argument, assumes the truth of unitarian Christian theology. Nor is the goal of the argument, as he falsely states in his comments, to prove unitarianism. Nor are the terms “confusing.” In a Christian context, “God” is most naturally understood to refer to the only true god, God. White is a trinitarian; he thinks God is tripersonal. So “God” here is naturally understood to be the Trinity. He does not think Jesus is tripersonal. Thus, James White is committed to the truth of premise 1. I don’t see that the second bullet point says anything relevant; it’s just ranting, so I’ll pass it by. (BTW as I explain here, the argument still seems sound if by “God” we mean the Father throughout.)

White passes by the fact that 2 is a self-evident truth that we all know and constantly apply. It’s not a specifically theological premise but seems to apply in any subject-matter, and those trained in Philosophy apply it to many subjects. He appears to grant the truth of 2 even in theology (as he should) if “God” here is the Father. What are distinct “as Persons” are distinct (full stop). Of course, the principle is fully general, and so would apply to the Son and the Trinity too. How do they differ? Again, the second is tripersonal but the first is not. The first died on a cross but the second did not.

1 & 2 logically imply 3 – again, whether by “God” we mean the Trinity or the Father. In other words, if you’ve admitted the truth of 1 & 2, you’re already committed to the truth of 3. White’s “correction” here is irrelevant. 1 – 3 are consistent with God and the Son being two Persons, indeed, two Persons which share the “unlimited BEING of God.”

So while White wastes a lot of breath abusing the argument’s author, in fact, he seems to agree that the 1-3 portion is both valid and sound.

Again, White ignores that this premise seems self-evident, being an instance of a more general principle: For any x and y, x and y are the same F [some sort of thing] only if x and y are not two (i.e. are numerically identical). There is no “confusion of categories”: the concepts employed are that of being the same thing (or not) and being a god. Thus his second sentence is false. 4 is in fact compatible with “the Being of God” being “shared by two distinct Persons,” unless that involves relative identity. (It is the relative identity trinitarians who would have a principled reason to deny 4. But I don’t see that White is one of those.) “No foundation is given”; well, the principle seems to be self-evident – that’s the foundation or justification. Not all claims need justifying by appeal to other claims. Being the same god implies being the same thing. Denying that seems about as smart as denying that all triangles have three sides. The rest of his bullet point is pure confusion. No such claims are assumed or asserted by 4 (or 1-4), nor does this “assume a unitarian definition of ‘god.‘” As explained in the post, depending on their Trinity theory, some trinitarians can accept the whole argument as sound. In sum, White just impotently fusses about 4, but gives people who understand 4 no reason to deny it, nor does he do anything to undermine our evidence for 4.

As stated, 5 follows from 3 and 4. He’s attempted to undermine 4, without actually doing so. So it’s kind of superfluous to object also to 5. He breaks out his imagined “hidden unitarian assumptions,” but of course there are none of these anywhere in the argument, but only in White’s paranoid imagination. Here one might interpret White as holding to the relative identity trinitarian position that Father and Son are non-identical relative to personhood, but identical relative to godhood. That’s a more charitable interpretation, and he could move his theorizing in that direction, but at this point I don’t see that White has the logical and metaphysical sophistication it takes to be a relative identity trinitarian. Here he instead seems to commit to:

1. f = g
2. s = g

Which, as I’ve explained before, indisputably imply the unwanted:

3. f = s

About his comment that 6 “should have been the first statement” – LOL. The order of the statements is irrelevant to the validity and soundness of this or any argument, nor does order in the argument assume anything about relative importance.

One comment about his bullet-point rant here. It’s not relevant to the argument, but it seems to show White assuming that the “being of God” which the three Persons share is not a property like divinity/being a god, but is rather Yahweh himself, God, the concrete being. This suggests that he thinks the three Persons “sharing the being of God” means the same as each Person being numerically identical with the one God. If that’s right, then White’s Trinity theory is demonstrably incoherent, and truth-seekers should move on.

The bullet point after 7 is irrelevant to the argument. 5 and 6 do imply 7, just as 3 and 4 imply 5. What he says is vague here regarding what “the doctrine of the Trinity” is, but it’s consistent with the incoherent interpretation just mentioned. The bullet point after 8 is likewise irrelevant. Just because an argument doesn’t use terms you’d prefer to see used, it doesn’t follow that anything whatsoever is wrong with that argument. Nor is anything in the argument incompatible with distinguishing Being and Person. Nor does the argument “ignore biblical revelation.” White is just flailing here to no effect. Does he deny that the Trinity is a god? Does he deny that the Father is a god? Who knows, as he’s again ranted off-topic.

The meltdown continues. More irrelevant hot air.

In sum, 9/10 of what White writes and says is irrelevant to the argument. Much of what he says in addition to the slides amounts to an ad hominem fallacies, specifically of the poisoning the well variety. That is, he wastes a lot of breath attacking the man, not the argument. It is irrelevant to the argument if the man “prioritizes Philosophy over Scripture,” ignores Scripture, blah blah. And he gets into poisoning the well by suggesting, in effect, that I’m so dumb or bad that I’m not worth arguing with. Again: even if true, irrelevant to the soundness or unsoundness of the argument. This is not competent apologetics, folks.

He seems dimly aware that he’s committed to the soundness of 1-3. He doesn’t want to admit 4, but he doesn’t either address the grounds we have for the truth of 4 (on which see below) or give any argument against it. Now, if he’s right that 4 is false (or just: something we have no significant justification for), that’s all the answer he needs. But again, he supplies us with no reason to deny 4. It’s not much of a rebuttal!

Let me then say a little more about 4 and why you should believe it. In the post I point out, perhaps a little too quickly, that 4 is implied by this self-evident truth: if x and y are the same F, then Fx & Fy & x=y, that is, that x is an F, y is an F, and x just is y (x and y are numerically one). So for instance, if Cephas and Peter are the same apostle (or man, or husband, or left-handed-guy, or Jew, any sort of thing you like), it follows that Cephas and Peter are one and the same. In other words, to say that they’re the same apostle is to assert three things: Cephas is an apostle. Peter is an apostle. And Cephas = Peter. The original statement isn’t true unless those three things are true.

“Aha!” you say, “but we’re talking about God here.”

But of course the principle is true about God and divine persons too. It is true that Yahweh is the same god as Elohim. This requires the following three things to be true: Yahweh is a god. Elohim is a god. Yahweh = Elohim. (And no, talk of “a god” doesn’t imply that there is or can be more than one. “The” god is thereby “a” god too.) You agree with that, right?

Jesus and the Son of God are the same divine Person. This requires the truth of: Jesus is a divine Person, the Son of God is a divine Person, and Jesus = the Son of God. How do you, my trinitarian friend, know that the Son and Spirit are not the same divine Person? You know that because in your view they can’t be =, because they simultaneously differ (only the Son is “eternally generated”) – so you’re applying principle 2 above. And you’re acknowledging that being the same divine Person implies being = (a claim similar to 4, another instance of this class of truths).

Now, if you want to say also that Jesus and the Father are the same god (again, I’m using “god” here is a kind-term, which is wholly compatible with the impossibility of more than one), this implies that Jesus is a god, the Father is a god, and Jesus = the Father. Yikes. It’s no good pounding the table and pointing out that you also affirm the numerical distinctness of the Persons. That would be just to add not-(j=f) to j=f, committing yourself to an explicit contradiction.

The point then is that being the same some-sort-of-thing implies being the same (full stop), that is numerically the same thing. Thus is implied the aforementioned general principle: For any x and y, x and y are the same F [some sort of thing] only if x and y are not two (i.e. are numerically identical).

Trinitarians who understand identity claims often here deny that Jesus is a god and that the Father is a god (because they sure are not going to allow that Jesus = the Father). Rather, they say, the one God is the Trinity. So then Jesus and the Father will be “fully divine” and have the divine nature, but those will not entail being a god. Rather, they entail being a Person in God. This is what two of my interlocutors, Dr. Hasker and Dr. Craig, in the forthcoming 4-way debate book commit to. They are not what I call “Jesus is God apologists.”

Would James White agree with them? Not if my interpretation of White’s theology above is correct. But of course, he could agree with them and arguably be within the orthodox trinitarian camp. This, whether or not each Person is a god, is one of many things trinitarian disagree on.

So to his credit, White has responded, after a mere 2,709 days. To his discredit, the response is incredibly weak. He basically just says, “I don’t want to grant 4,” without addressing why 4 seems to be obviously true. If you’re trying to find some problem with the argument, White is basically no help at all, in fact, he just clouds over the issues with his voluminous abuse and irrelevant points. He could do better; but that would require studying and learning some new things not just recycling moldly old rhetoric.