Christians believe in God. And Christians believe in Jesus Christ. How should we think these two (?) relate to one another? Consider this following inconsistent triad:
D: Jesus and God have differed.
N: Jesus and God are numerically one.
I: If any X and Y have ever differed, then they are not numerically one.
One can’t consistently accept all three. If any two are true, the remaining one must be false. (Go ahead: work through the combinations, until you’ve convinced yourself.)
So a thoughtful Christian ought to reject at least one. But which?
I suggest: whichever we have the least reason to believe is true. But which one is that?
We have as much reason to believe I as we have to believe anything.
Suppose I is false. Then we have some X and Y which at some time have differed (e.g. at a certain time this X was hot and Y was cold, X was here and Y was over there, X was awake and Y was asleep, X knew that P and Y did not know that P) and yet are nonetheless numerically the same. That is, one and the same thing (call it X or call it Y) at one time differed from itself – at one time was a certain way and was not that same way. But this is obviously impossible.
So supposing I false implies a contradiction. The claim I must, then, be true. And once you grasp the impossibility just noted, you can be very sure I is true – as sure as you’re sure of anything.
So I is off the table. It’s down to D or N then. Which should a Christian deny?
Why believe D? The Bible and/or later theological traditions.
- In the Garden of Gethsemane, we are told, Jesus didn’t want to die, but God wanted Jesus to die. (Jesus prays to God hoping to change his mind, but eventually acquiesces in God’s will for him.)
- Or: traditional catholic theology. God is triune; Jesus isn’t triune.
- Or God is the font of divinity; Jesus is not the font of divinity.
- God sent one of his three “Persons” to earth; Jesus did not send one of his three “Persons” to earth.
- Or (see the icon above) God sat one one side of Abraham’s table and Jesus sat on the other.
- Or God (if you think the one true God is a group) surrounded the table, and Jesus didn’t.
- Insert your own favorite difference here, based on either your understanding of the Bible, or your favorite theological theory about God and/or Jesus.
Why believe N? Two reasons.
First, there are a handful of passages in the Bible which many people read as Jesus claiming to be God himself. And if Jesus is God himself, then he and God are one and the same, that is, numerically one.
Secondly, there are traditional arguments of this form:
- Jesus did/said/was truly described as X.
- Only God could do/say/be truly described by X.
- Therefore, Jesus is God.
X could be something like “truly say ‘I am'” or “non-culpably receive worship”. Note that 3 here is the same claim as N.
Note that both D and 1 depend on the Bible, on our believing what it clearly, indisputably asserts (that God and Jesus have different, or that Jesus did or said X or was truly described by.) Let us assume that the Bible is both inerrant (in whatever sense you please) and perspicuous (again, however you understand that). On assumptions like these, you will be very sure indeed that God and Jesus have differed, and also that Jesus did, said, and was truly described in various ways. D and 1 are consistent with one another, and it seems that a Christian ought to have about as much reason to believe one as to believe the other.
Now add in premise 2 in the argument above – that only God himself could have done those things, said those things, been truly described by those titles, names, and so on. This is a piece of speculation. It is not self-evident, and we can’t derive any contradiction from the supposition that it is false. Nor is it anywhere clearly asserted in the Bible, or even uncontroversially implied by it. So in all honesty, you ought to have a few doubts about premise 2. Even if one believes it, one should concede that one is less sure of it than one is sure of 1.
So even if you’re very sure of 1, you should be a bit less certain of 2. And since you believe 3 on the basis of premises like 1 and 2, you should be a bit less certain about 3 than you are about 1.
Recall now that you granted that both 1 and D are on a footing because each is based on the plain statements of the Bible – the first ones being explicitly said, the latter being plainly implied by what was said. And we just saw that you have less reason to believe 3 (the conclusion of the argument) than you do to believe 1. But 3 just is N. So you have less reason to believe 3/N than you do to believe D.
It looks like you should deny N then, and accept I and D. That is, you think Jesus isn’t God and God isn’t Jesus – when we’re using the “is” of identity.
But not so fast. I said that some believe N on the grounds that certain passages just say or clearly imply that Jesus is God himself. e.g. I and the Father are one, or I am. So what if we set aside speculative arguments like the one above, and just rest on the scripture alone.
Take your favorite “Jesus is God himself” passage, and read the whole chapter. Notice that some things are said there which seem to reflect the assumption that God is someone else. Just take that fact that Jesus talks to God and has a personal relationship with God – and not, it seems, in the way that one talks to oneself, or has a quasi-friendship with oneself. Jesus talks to him, and he talks back. And as noted above, they had a sort of clash of wills which was worked out. Or the author seems to mention them as two different, named selves, and seems to think differently about them. Now look back at your favorite “Jesus is God himself” proof-text. There just has to be some other way to read it, right? It can’t be that the author than Jesus and God were one and the same and that they were not – unless you think the author is pitifully confused.
So you look around and see that various careful interpreters in your own preferred group (e.g. evangelicals, Roman Catholics, pentecostals, Southern Baptists, etc.) have taken your favorite passage(s) not to imply that Jesus is God himself (i.e. that the “two” are in fact numerically one). So even if you still think that the Bible implies N, you have some reason to doubt that it really does.
In contrast, you find that there simply are not reasonable readings of the passages which imply that Jesus and God have differed, which show that really, the texts don’t imply that. Readers don’t even try to come up with those, because on most versions catholic theologies and christologies imply the falsity of N. You can see that the texts do imply D, and indeed most likely your own theology implies D as well.
In sum, you have more reason to believe D than N. And you have more reason to believe I than you do to believe either D or N.
The only reasonable course, then, is to accept I and D, and deny N. Jesus and God are not numerically one; they are two.
But then, is Jesus divine? “Divine” is a highly ambiguous term which can mean many things. One can’t, consistently with all of this, accept that Jesus is “divine” in some sense that implies that Jesus and the one God are numerically one. But Jesus may, for all this, be divine in some other sense(s) of the term. Indeed, many carefully constructed Trinity theories presuppose the non-identity of Jesus and God. Consider those, by all means, but it is time to lay aside confusing Jesus with God.
Hi Dale,
Per the relationship of Jesus and God, here is my position of impure relative identity applied to the medieval Shield of Trinity:
1. Jesus is impurely relatively identical to the Trinity.
2. Jesus is absolutely identical to the Son of God.
3. Jesus is numerically distinct from the Father.
4. Jesus is numerically distinct from the Holy Spirit.
5. Jesus is numerically distinct from the combination of the Father and Holy Spirit.
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I think one solution to the problem, is that God can mean more than one thing, it can mean a person of the Trinity, or the Trinity as a Whole, this is the view that William lane Craig defended, problem is once you Accept that God can mean different Things you destroy the arguments for the Trinity, which usually depend on God only meaning one thing.
I wrote a little bit about this view here:
https://theologyandjustice.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/william-lane-craig-and-the-trinity/
and here
https://theologyandjustice.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/william-lane-craig-and-the-trinity-part-2/
John – I have been thinking a lot about Anthony Buzzard’s article; and – much as I admire Sir Anthony – I have to reject his interpretation of Psalm 102. For two reasons.
In the first place, the Greek translation fits the Hebrew text too well. The suppliant is addressing YHWH, for which the Septuagint substitutes Kurie (Lord). [That is standard. If the translators had tried to translate “The Name” into Greek, they probably would have been stoned.]
So when the speaker says, “In the beginning you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands,” Yahweh is being addressed.
Secondly, the verb is in the past tense. When the psalmist wrote the Psalm, the work of laying the foundation of the earth was ALREADY in the PAST. I don’t see how that can be made to fit a future creation.
So the question arises: why would the writer of the Hebrew letter apply this passage to the Son?
The law of agency explains it perfectly. For example:
In Isaiah 43:11, Yahweh says, “I, even I, am Yahweh, and beside me there is no savior.”
And “I am Yahweh your God … and you shall know no god but me, for there is no savior beside me” (Hosea 13:4).
But 2 Kings 13:5 says, “Yahweh gave Israel a savior.” Nehemiah tells God (Nehemiah 9:27), “… when they cried to you … you gave them saviors, who saved them out of the hands of their enemies.” And so on.
Then came God’s ultimate agent, the savior of the world, who will “save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
As long as the law of agency is kept in mind, there is no contradiction. Yahweh, the Father, is the only savior, and he saves through the agents that he chooses. But no IDOL, nor any agent SENT by an idol, can save.
The same pattern can be seen in 1 Corinthians 8:6. Idols are nothing. Nothing comes FROM them, and nothing comes THROUGH them. All things come FROM the one God, THROUGH THE AGENCY OF the one Lord, Jesus Christ.
So Hebrews 1:10 makes perfect sense, without suggesting that Yahweh and his Son are numerically one.
I love it when something makes sense.
Marg
I think you are on the right track.!!
The word ‘firstborn’ appears 9 times in the NT.
In the first of these it refers to Mary’s firstborn child.
In the others, it SEEMS TO refer to the resurrected Christ.
Colossians 1 verses 15 and 18 refer to -the firstborn of creation v 15
-the firstborn of the dead v18
There is a parallelism between the two verses – which in turn links in to Revelation 1v5, which talks about
‘the firstborn of the dead.”
This is an astonishing revelation to me.!
1 Corinthians 8v6 can only be explained by some sort of agency – as we have noted , the whole essence of Christs mission and life involves being Gods agent. Without the Fathers empowerment, Christ can do nothing.
Every Blessing
John
Hi, John – again. One other problem occurred to me this morning. On the KR site, I have been assured often that Yahweh ALONE is the creator in Genesis one, and that rules out any “agents” in the matter of the Genesis creation. Anthony Buzzard uses the same argument.
On the other hand, I have also been assured that when God said, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26), he was talking to angels. For example: “Angels act as God’s agents throughout the OT, and we know they were present at the creation, so it makes perfect sense to me that God would address them when he says “let us make man…”
Isn’t there some kind of contradiction here?
John -I downloaded Anthony Buzzard’s article in order to study it in detail. Frankly, I agree with a lot of it. But there are two points which I understand differently.
Hebrews 1:5 quotes Psalm 2:7 – “Today I have begotten you.” Sir Anthony sees that as the Messiah’s conception. I think it refers to his resurrection. Here’s why.
In Acts 4:25-28 the disciples quote the first two verses of the Psalm in their prayer to God: “Why did the heathen rage? … The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.”
Notice how they apply those words: “… against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were gathered together.”
Then in Acts 13:33 Paul tells the Jews in Pisidian Antioch, “God has fulfilled [the promise] unto us their children, in that he raised up Jesus again; as it is written in the second Psalm, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.”
The two quotations fit together perfectly. Clearly, the disciples associated Psalm 2 with the Messiah’s death and resurrection – not his conception.
As for Hebrews 1:10, Sir Anthony has given a very persuasive argument in favor of considering the words to be Yahweh’s answer to the suppliant whose complaint fills almost 23 verses. He explains, “With the translation in the LXX … ‘He answered him’ the whole passage down to the end of the psalm becomes the answer of Yahweh to the suppliant who accordingly appears to be addressed as Kurie and creator of heaven and earth…”
That’s fine. But who is the suppliant? If it is the Messiah, where does Jesus fit in? As has been pointed out several times, the man Jesus was born long after the suppliant wrote the Psalm.
I find the idea of agency more straightforward. It requires a lot less manipulating.
By the way, Sir Anthony does not mention the last half of 1 Corinthians 8:6. Agency is certainly involved there.
Marg
Yes, we seem to see ‘eye to eye’ on quite a few issues!
Look forward to the coming months of debate!!
God Bless
John
Hey, John! We agree on the principle of agency! We agree on the principle of typology! And we (together) can worship God (together with) his slain Lamb. We’re buddies!
That, I think, is what the Lord Jesus was praying for when he asked that those who believe in him might be ONE, just as he and his Father are ONE: of one mind; with one purpose.
Marg
I am totally ‘on board’ with you when it comes to the concept of agency. It really does explain everything and solves a lot of ‘riddles’
So many verses have direct analogies in the business world.”if you have seen me you have seen the father…”
I believe that the writer of Hebrews was using OT scriptures as a sort of ‘typological foreshadowing’ -in which he anticipates the first words the newly risen Christ had with God, on arriving in heaven.
“Your throne O god stands forever !”
“Come and sit by my side while I make a foot-stool of thy enemies” etc.
But in Psalm 45 these words were addressed to the Israelite king on the occasion of his marriage to the Princess of Tyre – and verse (9) 10 confirms that the subject is ‘mortal man’
NAB ” Daughters of kings are your lovely wives’
KJV “Kings daughters are among your honourable women’
Psalm 110 has similar problems , as Sir Anthony Buzzard demonstrated in a recent paper (my mail takes 8 weeks)
I am still of an open mind as to who created the heavens and the earth – either directly of agentially and it will be tremendous when Dale give this one his best shot.
So far he has done a masterly job on Revelation!!!
Meanwhile, keep up your search for truth. The fuzzy areas are becoming less fuzzy and that must be a good sign!!
Blessings
John
Right on, John. I agree.
What I am delighting in right now is the way in which this concept has cleared up my fuzzy thinking about Hebrews 1:10. I hope nobody minds if I summarize the argument here.
There are two OT quotations in Hebrews 10:8-12. The first is quoted from Psalm 45:6-7, the second from Psalm 102:25-27. The first gives the introduction to the second.
First: “Your throne, God, is forever and ever … YOUR God has anointed you …”
The writer obviously does NOT consider the Son and his God to be numerically one. The one who is being anointed cannot possibly be the one who is doing the anointing.
That prevents us from misunderstanding the second quotation.
“You at the beginning, Lord, founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands …”
Unquestionably, Psalm 102:25 is referring to Yahweh. Also, the Genesis creation is clearly what the psalmist had in mind. So why is the writer of Hebrews – someone who clearly knows the OT well and who loves its precepts – applying it to the Son?
Because the Son, being the agent of Yahweh, can be addressed with the same words. That is inherent in the law of agency. The work of the agent is the work of the principal – a pattern for which there are many examples in the Bible.
[The example given in the article is Exodus 7:17-20. Yahweh says, “I will strike the waters with the staff that is in my hand, etc.” But Aaron was the one who struck the waters with HIS staff. Whatever Yahweh’s agent does, in obedience to Yahweh’s command, is rightfully attributed to Yahweh.]
The writer of the Hebrews crafted his letter well. He doesn’t quote Psalm 102 until he has quoted Psalm 45, making it clear that he is NOT equating the Son with Yahweh. He is identifying the Son as the AGENT of Yahweh in creating the heavens and the earth.
Marg
Forgot to mention something.Bible ‘literalists’ perform the usual gymnastics to reconcile Exodus 33v11 and Exodus 33v 20.- but, I tend to accept that communication between man and God has always
been through ‘intermediaries’ or agents.
The whole of Acts portrays Christ in an agential way
Blessings
John
Hi Marg
I managed to download the paper from Sir Anthony – and it is a treasure trove of good stuff.
I havn’t had a chance to read tthe whole paper -but something on page three ‘struck a chord’ with something that Dale Tuggy mentioned in post number 40 – that is, no matter how’ high’ the post-ressurection Christ is portrayed , there is still a sharp distinction between him and God.
We,re learning all the time!
Blessings
John
I’d like to give that one more try. Divine Agency in the Scriptures.
I like to hear Samuel Clark referred to. I think he had the right idea, all along the way.
I also like Dale’s reference to Christ as God’s “agent”. That is the only way that Hebrews 1:10 makes sense.
There is a thread in the Kingdom Ready Blog called “Divine Agency in the Scriptures”. I enjoyed the article – but I have been ejoying the comments more. It does something for the “muscles” of your mind to have someone give reasons for questioning what you believe. “Testing all things” is healthy exercise.
In case you’re interested, the url of the thread is http://lhim.org/blog/2010/01/21/divine-agency-in-the-scriptures/. (I don’t know whether that makes a link or not, but …)
Dale
Sorry to revert back to 1 John 5 vv19& 20 but it is important to get this one right -since there are NO, absolutely NO trinitarian ‘proof-texts’.
Jemes Anderson states ” a good case can be made on syntactical and contextual grounds that the referent is Christ”
Let’s look at syntax
Yes, there should be a flow of ‘subjects’ -from one verse to the next, but there are instances where a PRONOUN refers to a more remote subject.
Have a look at Acts 4 v10
“in the name of Jesus Christ who you crucified
WHOM God raised from the dead
in his name
this man stands before you”
or try Acts 7 verse 19
” until another king
who knew nothing of Joseph
came to power in Egypt
HE dealt shrewdly with our people
and opressed our ancestors”
Lets look at CONTEXT
I cant believe that anyone would raise this one. Samuel Clark (referred to in an ealier post, must be chuckling in his grave!
1 John 5 v 19
‘We know we belong to GOD
and the whole earth is under the power of the evil one
We know that the SON OF GOD is come…”
And of course we all know that “alethinos theos’ is only used to refer to the Lord God Almighty.
This intensity of this debate reflects the desperation of trinitarians to find just one ‘proof verse’ -no matter how flimsy.
This morning I had breakfast with a man who studied ancient language and philosophy at a well know Irish university. At the end he said to me ” you are merely voicing our very worst fears that few people have the courage to enunciate -that the doctrine of the Trinity is a ‘hollow shell’.
It’s all about FEAR
Every blessing
John
John, this is an excellent point.
John clearly emphasizes the distinction between the two throughout his writings. He has a very exalted view of Jesus, but he does not exalt Jesus by blurring the distinction between him and God.
Dale,
Is it possible that 1 John 5 v 20 is one of those fairly rare verses to which Rev Samual Clark alluded when he said ( words to the effect that)
“Examine any trinitarian ‘proof’ text which suggests that “Jesus= God” and you will find, in the immediate vicinity, a verse which shows them to be ‘two’
v19 We know we beling to GOD, and the whole world is under the power of the evil one….”
v20″We also know that the SON OF GOD has come… .And we are in the one who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life”
Note the use of the word ‘in’ – I think it is possibly a reference to “God was in Christ, and Christ is in us”
Blessings
John
No apology needed, Dale, but thanks anyway. I just wouldn’t want your other readers (if any are still following this thread!) to get the wrong idea about what I’ve argued.
Regarding the ‘oscillation’ issue: I think ‘oscillation’ isn’t the right word, but I understand the point you’re making. I will give it some thought. If it’s a genuine problem — and I don’t grant that it is — it’s a practical one (as you suggest) rather than an epistemic one.
As for 1 John 5:20 — yes, Murray Harris concludes that alethinos theos refers back to the Father rather than to Christ. But what I said was that “a good case can be made, on both syntactical and contextual grounds,” that the referent is Christ. Does Harris disagree with that?
On my side, I could cite, among others, Robert Yarbrough, I. H. Marshall, F. F. Bruce, Steven Baugh, and Daniel Wallace (the last two being Greek grammarians).
Since you respect Harris’s exegesis of 1 John 5:20, I assume you’re sympathetic to his conclusions regarding all the other theos texts he considers in his book. 🙂
Practical problem, yes. I think not a small one though…
Well, I take it about Harris, all we care about his is final verdict, not whether he thinks any case at all can be made for a contrary view.
It’s been a while since I look hard at it, but I remember disagreeing with a few of his judgments, but agreeing with more. Clarke also his interesting discussions on all the same passages.
What’s really important though is this simple point: proper names and titles can be equivocal. If I call you Obama (I’m not sure why I’d do that – but never mind) that *may* mean that I think you’re the president married to Michelle, or I may have some other reason for calling you by his name. It all depends on the context what an observer will think about my beliefs.
And the context of the NT is highly relevant here… we are straight up told that Jesus, at his exaltation, was given the very “name about all names” by God, we assume, “Yahweh”. And “King of Kings”, “Lord”, and so on. There’s a perverse hermeneutic of hint-hunting out there, which says “See! They’re tell us that he’s God himself.” [facepalm] No, it *says* it was God himself who decided to share these names or titles with him!
So, Murray’s work is pretty good. But it doesn’t have the theoretical implications he thinks it does.
Sorry, I seem to be writing a blog post in a comment… Good night, Obama.
Sincerely,
Napoleon
Dale
Have you noticed that the ‘prologue’ and ‘epilogue ‘ to Revelation give one immense insight into what is happening?
The “Prologue’ states
V1 “The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to him….”
The “Epilogue states -in part- “Worship God’
Presumably the “God’ of the prologue is the same ‘God’ that is referred to in the epilogue and He is clearly distinct from the one to whom he is giving the revelation – so we have two distinct persons.
It is interesting that even in his ‘elevated’ state – Christ is not omniscient!
If one ties this in with ‘the end’ described in 1 Corinthians 15 v 28 “the Son will (also) be subjected to the one (person) who subjected everything to him , so that God may be all in all” – then it is clear that in his ‘exalted’ state Christ is not omnipotent.
Every blessing
John
“It is interesting that even in his ‘elevated’ state – Christ is not omniscient!”
Well, all we have is
“The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John…”
I don’t think we can infer this from what you cite. If the idea is that God sends Christ, who also sends an angel – what Christ got could be a command as much as it could be information or knowledge.
I’m not trying to caricature or offend; forgive me.
I was speaking loosely and repeating a phrase from an earlier comment.
What I had in mind was something that does bother me, on a practical level. That is that at the end of the day, your theory entails that one ought to think of God (and Jesus) in apparently inconsistent ways. Yet it’s hard for anyone to do this at one time. So it works out as a sort of serial (apparent) inconsistency – in one context we’re to think of Jesus as = God, in another not. This oscillation is entailed, in a practical way, by accepting your mysterian stance.
Now your view isn’t that we ought to ignore this. But it does entail accepting it, I think. Yes, this is far from suspension of all rational thought. You still need rational thought to stay convinced that you must live with this sort of oscillation in your thoughts.
Again, I apologize, and I hope this clarifies what I was thinking.
That’s still a caricature of my position, Dale — and you know it!
I argue that one can believe paradoxical doctrines without violating any norms of rationality (whether internalist or externalist). Yes, I know, you think the argument fails. But please at least represent it accurately.
“Suspension of all rational thought” is your characterization of the mysterian stance, not mine.
Well, you suspend it AFTER constructing a super-sophisticated defense of believing apparent contradictions, and not before.
Sorry – I didn’t mean to say that you were averse in general to rational thought. Rather, to resolving this tension.
Suspend all rational thought? Funny, I vaguely recall writing a book arguing the very opposite!
In a way, that is exactly what James thinks you should do. :-/
But you’re also supposed to think of the two as not numerically one; so, he thinks you’ve got it half right, as it were!
Most accurately, he wants to say that God and Jesus are related by some ineffable relation to which our concept of identity is our best approximation. But acquiescing in this mystery claim practically amounts to thinking that they’re one and that they’re not, keeping in mind that our concepts are not adequate for this reality.
John,
No, replies are enable there.
I won’t define worship in the series. I think one can and should try to distinguish different kinds of worship. But I don’t see John doing this anywhere in Revelation, so it won’t be part of the exposition. Stay tuned – in further posts, perhaps in the next month, God willing, I’ll post on this idea of different kinds of worship.
I think most people use “deity” and “divinity” as synonyms, so your distinction here would be a stipulation. My own view is that we must distinguish these terms used to say that something is a god vs. associating that thing with some god. (e.g. the divine scriptures) Yes, many unitarians will say that Christ is divine in the second sense. I think trinitarians use those terms of him in both senses.
James,
Take care with my points about Philo and the fathers. You said it was obvious that only God alone created. It was not super-obvious, evidently, those 2nd c. fathers showing this. I do not appeal to their authority.
About Philo, you asserted that no Jew would say that God and someone else created. Philo stands as a counterexample. Now, you can criticize him as not a good Jew because of the obvious, almost ridiculous influence of Platonism on his theology. But we have no reason to dismiss him as idiosyncratic. Myself, I *assume* that Palestinian Jews in Jesus’ era were not very Hellenized (as compared with the large community at Alexandria). Still, they were all reading the OT in Greek! And you seem some Greek philosophical terminology in the NT. (But again, my view is that they were not unduly influenced by Plato et al.) In any case, your assertion is false. And there’s no good way to qualify it, where the qualified version will be both relevant and seemingly true.
Murray Harris disagrees: Jesus as God, pp. 253, 272.
More needs to be said about this; on the face of it, your claim creates a problem for you with John 17, in which Jesus says that the Father is the one true God (meaning, no one else is – including Jesus). I’d like to see a proper study of this “true” usage. At first glance, a “true” F could also be that which is F in the most proper or fundamental sense. So other Fs would not be false Fs.
Hi, James.
In the OT, Moses was made elohim by Yahweh, who was the elohim of Moses. But Moses was not the only true God.
Similarly, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ has made him to be both Lord and Christ, and has put all things under his feet (1 Co. 15:26-27) – everything, that is, EXCEPT the one who made him Lord and who put all things under him. Always, Jesus is subject to his God.
But the only true God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is subject to NO ONE.
I would have to suspend all rational thought to make the two numerically one.
As for the different nuances of the word worship, I do not need to worry about it, John. To give equal honor to the Father and the Son is God’s own decree. I need only concern myself with trying to give them the honor that is due to them.
At the same time, I will never address Jesus as “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That would be silly.
Dale
You have started a new blog on “Revelation 4& 5 without giving us a “Reply Box”
Just a couple of points-
The word “worship’ has not been defined.
Are you referring to the type of worship which is reserved for the Lord God Almighty -or a more generalised ‘worship’ .
Is the ‘worship’ of God in Revelation 4 the same type of ‘worship’ encountered in Revelation 5?
There seems to be a great deal of confusion over the definition of ‘deity’ and ‘divinity’
While I accept God as ‘Deity” – I can only accept Christ as ‘divinity’
My own understanding is that ‘deity’ means “God’ – while ‘divinity’ means ‘OF God”
Every Blessing
John
Dale,
One other quick comment (also applicable to Marg). You wrote:
A good case can be made, on both syntactical and contextual grounds, that 1 John 5:20 refers to Christ as “the true God”. Moreover, given the contrastive, antithetical Johannine usage of the true/truth word-group, if Jesus is theos (John 1:1, 18; 20:28) then he can only be the true God.
It’s not as though we’d find John saying, “The Father is the true God, and the Son is God too — just not the true God!” The only alternative to a true God, in the Johannine mindset, is a false (i.e., deceptive or unreal) God.
Marg,
Sorry, but you can’t read all that metaphysics out of a Greek preposition. Such claims need to be interpreted in the context of OT Hebrew monotheism and texts like Isa. 44:24. The problem with your view is that it isn’t recognizably monotheistic.
Again, you’re not taking into account the monotheistic context. You said earlier that Jesus is divine “as his Father is divine”. So how many Gods are there? How does your answer square with the strict monotheism of the OT?
Dale,
How are the views of the 2C fathers relevant to the proper exegesis of Isa. 44:24? I thought you were supposed to be the guy who was more committed to Sola Scriptura than the rest of us. 🙂
Right.
It’s not merely the most natural inference. It’s the plain sense of the Hebrew.
Yes, I thought you might pull a Philo. 🙂
Well, Philo’s views were an idiosyncratic synthesis of Judaism and Middle Platonism. Which was the greater influence on this particular point? The latter, of course. Was he a reliable exegete of the OT? No. He didn’t read Hebrew and he favored allegorical interpretation. So appealing to Philo is a non-starter here.
I’ll wait and see what you have to say.
Hey John,
“A pastor friend recently pointed out to me that there had been some criticism of your submission to the Stanford Encyclopedia on the subject of “Trinity’”
Is this in print anywhere? Or do you have links to such criticism? I am always, always in the market for thoughtful, informed criticism.
“my metaphysical views are still in their infancy”
Unless your name is Ted Sider, you have to say this. I say it, and I’ve taught metaphysics classes several times! 😉
Thanks for your comments, Katie.
“But it’s hard to think of anything more obviously impossible than than a thing should be and not be the same way at one time.”
I agree – I just don’t think accepting D and N together, properly qualified, necessarily results in such an explicit contradiction.
“I think most analytic philosophers reject, btw, the view that all nec truths are analytic.”
I imagine so – I seem to have a penchant for picking unpopular views. 😀 Btw, though, I think what I consider “analytic” may be broader than what many philosophers consider…I need to do some more reading on this subject.
“Consider this case: it seems to you that God himself is telling you that 1 + 1 = 3. It’s far from clear, I think, that you ought to believe that. ”
“1 + 1 = 3” is false by definition. “D and N are not logically compatible” is true only if we make certain assumptions.
“About your “issues with identity” – I would suggest that most likely your issues are with some other metaphysical concept. See the piece on = in the Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics which makes this point in great depth.”
Entirely possible – my metaphysical views are still in their infancy, so to speak. Thanks for the suggestion.
James – if the prepositions mean something, then the one God, the Father, is the source of all things and the one Lord, Jesus Christ, is the channel for those same all things. Jesus is the agent by means of whom God (= the Father = Yahweh) created all things.
As for Revelation 5, verse 13 gives me every right to give equal honor to Yahweh, God Almighty, AND to the slain Lamb TOGETHER – at the same time, with the same words. I am simply carrying out the will of the Father as expressed by Jesus in John 5:23. I cannot see how the two can be numerically one.
By the way, I am not a philosopher and I don’t know the meaning of most of the “labels” that seem to appear regularly. But I DO love the Bible, which I consider to be God’s Word to me.
Dale
Your blog is well named!
There is no consistency with traditional trinitarian reasoning , since there is absolutely NO scriptural support for the concept.
All we have are speculative ‘proof texts’ and half-baked reasoning.!
A pastor friend recently pointed out to me that there had been some criticism of your submission to the Stanford Encyclopedia on the subject of “Trinity’
When I checked all I could find were the same verses, the same desperate gymnastics.
James Anderson quoted scriptures which he felt ‘showed’ that Christ may rightly be worshipped.
On investigating I found that Christ was being paid homage or obesience.
The Hebrews verse refers to the post-resurrection Christ who has been elevated to Lord and Messiah – “higher than the angels”, so it is appropriate that they should ‘worship’ him.
Revelation 5v12 again refers to the post-resurrection Christ and the same logic applies.
Does anyone seriously say that Revelation 4 is referring to anyone other than YHWH – and does anyone seriously deny that ‘the Lamb’ referred to in Revelation 5 is Christ.?
The problem with all of this is that there are NO trinitarian proof texts – NOT ONE, so the debate becomes academic abstraction.!
I found Margs comments helpful.
Every Blessing
John
James, I don’t see that in the context of the present argument this begs any question. This isn’t a trinitarian-unitarian debate. All that need be granted is that the NT throughout assumes and sometimes asserts Jesus’ Father to be the one true God.
Tell that to just about any 2nd. century “father”. Influenced by Philo, they hold that God couldn’t get mixed up directly in creating, but must have created indirectly through this second god, this Son who God first put forth out of his own being.
About the Hebrew being emphatic – yes, but the context is Yahweh denigrating the gods of the nations – what is clearly implied is that none of them had anything to do with creation. It is less clear that no one else did. Although I agree that the most natural inference is what you say.
Sorry, but Philo is precisely such a person, from whom we have a large corpus, and he does seem to say that, though I must hasten to add, none too clearly. (It isn’t clear whether in the end he’s personifying God’s Wisdom and Power, etc. – he names them variously – or whether he thinks them selves distinct from the one true God. Andrews Norton has a great discussion of this.)
I should have said, Rev 4-5. I’ll post on this some time soon.
We need to take care with our definition of idolatry; your definition is a contentious one. Worshiping is honoring. You properly honor your parents, or the king, but that is not idolatry, even though neither of those are God. You’ll probably argue that idolatry has to do with religious worship. Fine. I think we’ll need to define that as well, but in any case, you’re in the teeth of passages wherein Jesus is religiously worshiped, and is assumed to be, and is presented as numerically distinct from God.
No, my N isn’t meant to sum up any Trinity theory. It’s just a claim of numerical identity, like Mark Twain = Samuel Clemens. But yes, I grant your nuances.
By the way, my closing remark wasn’t meant to be a poke in the eye (or anywhere else!). I’m just trying to put myself in your epistemic shoes. I just can’t see any plausible way to reconcile the high Christology of the NT with your humanitarian unitarianism (and yes, I am aware of the alternative readings). Given your other beliefs, it seems like you’d have a defeater for your belief that the NT writers (specifically, Paul, John, and the author of Hebrews) shared your low Christology.
Anyway, I don’t want to turn this into a full-scale debate over our respective positions. I only wanted to question your claim about the biblical basis for (2)-type statements.
” Denying that I is a necessary truth seems less obviously problematic to me than stating ~D or ~N, given that Jesus has just appeared and told you clearly that D and N are true. ”
You can find no end of metaphysical speculations that would deny I. But it’s hard to think of anything more obviously impossible than than a thing should be and not be the same way at one time. I think most analytic philosophers reject, btw, the view that all nec truths are analytic. That’s an old-fashioned Humean/empiricist stance that has been down and out since roughly the 1970s.
Consider this case: it seems to you that God himself is telling you that 1 + 1 = 3. It’s far from clear, I think, that you ought to believe that. At bare minimum, you’d first have to go through the agonies described above.
Also, consider this: our simply interpreting someone’s speech to us requires reliance on our intuitions.
About your “issues with identity” – I would suggest that most likely your issues are with some other metaphysical concept. See the piece on = in the Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics which makes this point in great depth.
“Katie, you asked me what was the case if the text said D and N. Then I suppose we’d both conclude that the author was confused.
>I dunno…I’m not an inerrantist either, but it seems like we can’t just go willy-nilly throwing out statements attributed to Christ, lest we make the Bible utterly useless…
“But perhaps you meant to ask: what if I heard from Jesus himself that D and N. I’m not sure – I certainly would reconsider I. But assuming that it shined true as clearly as ever, I’d wonder what Jesus was up to. Is he testing my response? I don’t know what I’d do – you might have to describe the case further.
>Yes, that’s a better example. Say he appears to you and tells you D and N. Would you really just assume he isn’t being serious? That seems like a stretch…
“I agree that one should not throw over any clear teaching of scripture in favor of some philosophical theory or speculation – but there is no theory here. I is a deliverance of the common sense God gave us.
>Okay – I don’t have the time for a long metaphysical discussion here, but just so you know where I’m coming from, I lean toward the view that all necessary truths are analytic. Of course, I assume that all contradictions are false for the sake of coherent dialogue.
“Also, can you see that you’re relying on your intuitions to just the degree that I am? You’re reasoning,
– (D & I & N)
D > I
N > I
Therefore, I should deny D.
(Your grounds for the 2nd and 3rd premises are that Jesus himself says D, and says N.)
We agree this is valid reasoning. Why? Because the 4th line seems to follow from the first three? Intuition.
Don’t denigrate your *logical* intuitions. It is by them you know that no contradiction is true, etc.
>I’m assuming in line 4 you meant “I should deny I.” Denying that I is a necessary truth seems less obviously problematic to me than stating ~D or ~N, given that Jesus has just appeared and told you clearly that D and N are true. As a side note, it also seems to me that D would need to be somehow clarified if it is the case that Jesus = God. I also have some issues with the concept of identity, so it seems possible to me that it could be true that Jesus is God but that the statement Jesus = God is somehow misleading or incomplete (I have the same problem with the classic example Samuel Clemens = Mark Twain, by the way…I am not just grasping for ways to save the Trinity, about which I do not have any firm view).
One other thought… If I seemed to see and hear Jesus assert both D and N, I would have to wonder if my eyes and ears were deceiving me (i.e. he’s not really saying THAT) and whether or not that was really him. (Why would he be uttering what is incoherent?)
In the argument I just gave (last comment) we’d agree that 4 would follow. I’m not sure that Jesus asserting D and N would justify both the 2nd and 3rd lines. I think you’re assuming that obviously it would.
Katie, you asked me what was the case if the text said D and N. Then I suppose we’d both conclude that the author was confused.
But perhaps you meant to ask: what if I heard from Jesus himself that D and N. I’m not sure – I certainly would reconsider I. But assuming that it shined true as clearly as ever, I’d wonder what Jesus was up to. Is he testing my response? I don’t know what I’d do – you might have to describe the case further.
I agree that one should not throw over any clear teaching of scripture in favor of some philosophical theory or speculation – but there is no theory here. I is a deliverance of the common sense God gave us.
Also, can you see that you’re relying on your intuitions to just the degree that I am? You’re reasoning,
– (D & I & N)
D > I
N > I
Therefore, I should deny D.
(Your grounds for the 2nd and 3rd premises are that Jesus himself says D, and says N.)
We agree this is valid reasoning. Why? Because the 4th line seems to follow from the first three? Intuition.
Don’t denigrate your *logical* intuitions. It is by them you know that no contradiction is true, etc.
Dale,
But that would mean that (in our hypothetical example) Jesus was either lying or horribly mistaken about his own identity. Do you prefer that consequence over a violation of your principle I? I agree that in reality the Bible is ambiguous on N, but I would not want to reject anything specifically and clearly revealed by Christ in favor of my own logical intuition.
Katie, that is an excellent question. I would then have much more reason to believe N than I do now. But this would still be less than I would have for I.
So I would reason,
If D & N -> -I.
I.
Therefore, -(D & N)
I think that despite the upgrade, I’d still have more reason to believe D than to believe N. What do you think?
Dale,
Are you referring to your debate proposal? Well, I think what you suggested would advance your agenda more than it would mine (even if my debating skills weren’t feeble). But if you’re itching for an exegetical debate with a more worthy opponent, I can suggest a couple of folk who might be interested.
A few follow-up comments:
In Isa. 44:24, the subject is Yahweh. To simply identify Yahweh with the Father is to beg the question. Moreover, Isa. 44:24 in context doesn’t merely claim that Yahweh is “the ultimate source of what is created”. It’s asserting that Yahweh is the only agent of creation — period. The Hebrew is quite emphatic.
In answer to the question “Who created everything?” a first-century Jewish monotheist would hardly have tolerated the response, “Yahweh and some other guy.”
I’m not sure why you think Rev. 5 poses a problem for Trinitarians. On the contrary, Trinitarians routinely appeal to Rev. 5 in conjunction with Rev. 22:8-9 and the other texts I cited to support the deity of Christ.
Only if one can defend the claim that biblical monotheism can tolerate the worship of creatures. Now that’s a hard row to hoe (cf. Romans 1:25). Scripture is consistently clear: worshiping any other than Yahweh is idolatry.
One other quick comment. Your N is a simplification of Latin Trinitarianism and I don’t make that statement in my book (or if I did, it needs to be nuanced!). Rather, my claim is that the biblical teachings on the identity of Christ strongly seem to imply N and that (according to my model) the relationship between the Son and Yahweh is (at present, for us) conceptually indistinguishable from numerical identity. Those aren’t trivial nuances.
By the way, my closing remark wasn’t meant to be a poke in the eye (or anywhere else!). I’m just trying to put myself in your epistemic shoes. I just can’t see any plausible way to reconcile the high Christology of the NT with your humanitarian unitarianism (and yes, I am aware of the alternative readings). Given your other beliefs, it seems like you’d have a defeater for your belief that the NT writers (specifically, Paul, John, and the author of Hebrews) shared your low Christology.
Anyway, I don’t want to turn this into a full-scale debate over our respective positions. I only wanted to question your claim about the biblical basis for (2)-type statements.
What would you do if D and N were both stated explicitly in the Bible? (Pretend we have Jesus saying both clearly in the same Gospel and with no sign of any historical tampering.)
Hey E – thanks for the comment. I means, there is some *one* time (moment, span – even quasi-temporal eternity) at which X and Y have ever differed. It allows that things may change. In my view our experience and common sense assure us of the reality of change, and so of endurantism – at least about ourselves, if not about anything else. I’m about as anti-perdurantist as a philosopher can be. 🙂
James – thank you. I was hoping you’d comment. (Still waiting to hear back re: what I suggested in an email in Dec.) I am of course trying to apply direct pressure to your mysterianism.
I think 2a is implied by the Bible, understanding “God” there to name the Father, and assuming that being creator means being the ultimate source of what is created. Some trinitarians would not agree, e.g. some social theorists. In any case, in this argument I would say that your 1a is false; I think those Christ-creator passages are misread. In any case, the most one could get would be an Origen-style (and Philo-style) scheme where the Son helps God create or is his instrument or means – in which case he’d not be creator in the sense of the ultimate source.
Let us first note that in identifying Jesus and God (3b) you are at odds with nearly all your philosophical trinitarian brethren, and I think many of the theologians too. But leave that aside. No, 2b is not uncontroversial – count the objects of worship in Rev 5. Again, suppose there’s a kind of worship appropriate to the Father alone, and let’s stipulate that “worship” in this argument only means that. Then 2b is obviously true, but 1b no longer is.
I think what your comments bring out is that the sorts of arguments I mention always are problematic, but not just because of the second premise, as I imply in the post. If I develop this, I’ll have to correct that.
No, I think it all comes out consistent, at least on the topic of Jesus and God. This is a more charitable reading than declaring it apparently contradictory. The reverse on what someone would expect, perhaps, given our difference about inerrancy.
I think this does point out an achilles’ heel in your mysterian strategy – you have to argue that we have about as much reason to believe some things on the basis of the Bible as we do to believe a patently self-evident necessary truth. This is a hard row to hoe. You have to either bring down the obvious truth (by highlighting our fallibility or limitations) or raise up the epistemic status of what is believed on the basis of the Bible (I assume, by Plantingian means). But these latter will only go so high, and the former can only bend so low… I think you must concede that we have as much reason to believe I above as we do to believe in the principle of non-contradiction, which in your book, you treat, I think rightly, as inviolable.
Marg,
You raise an important point. The significance of the prepositions must not be overlooked. I disagree with the conclusions you draw, but that’s beside the point here, so I won’t argue it. I could reformulate (1a) and (2a) to allow for either your position or mine. My point was only to challenge Dale’s claim about the biblical support for (2)-type statements.
Actually, these verses all state that things were created by (Gr. dia) Jesus. The preposition means through; by means of; through the agency of.
That is particularly clear in Hebrews 1:2 – “By (dia) whom God created the worlds.” It was God who created the aeons, through the agency of his Son.
It is also clear in 1 Corinthians 8:6. All things come FROM the one God, THROUGH the one Lord.
The Hebrew law of agency fits this topic well. Two statements of the Lord Jesus express it perfectly:
“As the Father has sent me, so send I you.” (John 20:21)
“He who receives you receives me; and he who receives me receives the one who sent me.” (Matthew 10:40)
An illustration of the same principle is seen in Exodus 7.
V. 1 – God told Moses that he had made him elohim to Pharaoh, and Aaron was Moses’ prophet. So Moses was the agent of God, and Aaron was the agent of Moses.
V. 17 – YHWH says, “Behold, I will smite with the rod that is in my hand upon the waters in the river, and they shall be turned to blood.” Then
V. 19 – YHWH said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your rod and stretch out your hand upon the waters of Egypt, etc.”
And Moses and Aaron did as YHWH commanded. As agents must.
This illustrates the principle that “A person’s agent is regarded as the person himself.” God stretched out his rod, through the agency of Moses and Aaron. But neither Moses nor Aaron was literally“ God himself.
By the way, I agree with you that Jesus is divine. He is “the express image of [God’s] substance,” and that seems to mean that he must be divine, as his Father is divine. But his divinity comes FROM his Father, and not from himself. Only the Father – “the only true God” – is the underived, unbegotten source of all things.
I think you might want to modify I (If any X and Y have ever differed, then they are not numerically one), because it seems that some endurantists would reject it (Socrates on Monday is sitting, Socrates on Tuesday is standing, and so Socrates on Monday and Socrates on Tuesday have differed, but some endurantists will say that they are numerically one). Unless you think endurantism is false or implausible. Just a thought.
Glad you’re posting on trinity stuff again. Keep them coming, please!
I cannot wait until I see if my model of relative identity in US general partnerships and the Trinity passes peer review. After that, I can give a better response to this post.
A piece of speculation? Okay, I’ll bite.
(1a) Jesus created the cosmos. (John 1:1-3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2)
(2a) Only God created the cosmos. (Job 9:8; Isa. 44:24)
(3a) Therefore, Jesus is God.
Is (2a) clearly asserted in the Bible, or uncontroversially implied by it? I think so.
(1b) Jesus may rightly be worshiped. (Matt. 2:11; 14:33; 28:9, 17; Heb. 1:6; Rev. 5:12)
(2b) Only God may rightly be worshiped. (Ex. 34:14; Deut. 6:13; Rev. 22:8-9)
(3b) Therefore, Jesus is God.
Is (2b) clearly asserted in the Bible, or uncontroversially implied by it? I think so.
Of course, I know you’re familiar with these texts and arguments, Dale, and you’re not persuaded by them. My only point here is that you’ve understated matters considerably. What’s more, I think you apply a double standard when you deal with these texts as opposed to the “Jesus differs from God” texts. Modalists could just as well argue the other way around (and have done).
It seems to me that given your stance on related issues (anti-mysterianism, open theism, non-inerrancy) the reasonable course for you would be to conclude that the NT writers did in fact believe Jesus was God (or at least divine in some strong sense) but were simply mistaken.
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