The rebuttal is to this blog post of mine, and it is by a Blogger user named “Annoyed Pinoy,” with whom I briefly discussed these things in the comments here. I take it that he is an evangelical Christian who is interested in theology – that’s all I know about him, other than that he is a Filipino in Illinois who is smart, curious, and open-minded. In five parts, in the next five days, I’ll go through his long response.
In the original post, I set out two arguments. We know that both are not sound. I urge that we have more reason to accept U2 than we do to accept T2. We all have equal grounds to accept T1 (more on this later). Hence, we should accept the second argument as sound, rejecting the first argument as unsound (because even though it is valid, its second premise is false). See the original post for various clarifications and comments on the arguments.
T1 The Father is not the Trinity
T2 The Trinity is God.
T3 Therefore, the Father is not God.T1 The Father is not the Trinity.
U2 The Father is God.
U3 Therefore, The Trinity is not God.
With these on the table, I respond to some of the critique/response offered by Annoyed Pinoy, quoting him.
There were different kinds of Unitarians. Regarding the church fathers, they weren’t always consistent with each other or even with themselves. Some of their views could be labelled Unitarian from one perspective and non-Unitarian in another.
Yes, there was disagreement. The logos theologians seem to have riled things up. And some of them held to a two-stage theory, and later to a one-stage theory. The widespread opposition to them was labeled “monarchian” by Tertullian, but I think probably represented somewhat different views. But here’s the interesting thing. Both kinds of logos theorist, and at least many of those called “monarchians” assumed the identity of the Father and the one true God. As I use the term, this is just what the defining thesis of Christian unitarianism is, the numerical identity of the one god Yahweh with the one Jesus calls “Father.” Many want to see these guys c. 150-300 as sort of proto- or almost- or imperfectly-trinitarian, precisely because they in various ways affirm that Jesus is divine. Yes, they do – in interestingly different ways. But so do latter-day unitarians, like Clarke, Priestly, and Socinus. Even unitarians like me and Anthony Buzzard will say that Jesus is uniquely divine in that he was miraculously fathered by God, and was uniquely empowered by God to do and teach what he did, and to be a sacrifice for all, and to be raised to a God-like position, at the right hand of God.
I myself am studying the early church and I’ve found many of the comments by David Waltz informative. He holds to what he has termed Nicene Monarchism and I find it appealing.
Annoyed, I’m not familiar with that term. Can you post here a link to some sort of definition of Nicene Monarchism? I gather from this that it is what I call subordinationist unitarianism, some version of which was the majority catholic view at least by the time of Nicea. I’m not sure quite what makes it “Nicene.”
Though, for the meantime I remain a Trinitarian. I do so while admitting the open secret that there are various types of Trinitarianisms (even among Evangelicals).
You’re ahead of the game then. You’ve got past the table-pounding repetition of ambiguous formulas, apologist-style. Great – keep going.
Next time: which of the many Trinity theories does Annoyed Pinoy think is correct?
Just as a refresher, the expression “subordinationist unitarianism” is an oxy-moron. Of course, the contributor of the entry “Trinity” and related at SEP would disagree, but ALL standard dictionaries are against his peculiar take. And so does the IEP.
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