podcast 185 – How to tell whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God – Part 1
Two philosophers give us a sort of recipe for answering this question.
Two philosophers give us a sort of recipe for answering this question.
“Do you believe in the leadership of Mike?” “Yes?” I muttered unconvincingly. But I didn’t know what I believed. I was new in town, and had never lived in a place with such rabid, overactive basketball fans. The season hadn’t started yet, so I’d never seen the team play. But the fans were already working themselves up into a frenzy. Our team was the Wisconsin… Read More »10 steps towards getting less confused about the Trinity – #7 – the deity of Christ vs. the Trinity
Can these obvious truths pop the bubbles of various theological and christological speculations?
Can these trim off the fat of excess speculations?
Applying the methodology… can we answer the question?
What is God’s most important commandment? When asked about this, Jesus replied, “‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’” (Mark 12:29-30, NRSV) Notice the last two elements with which we are to love God: mind… Read More »10 steps towards getting less confused about the Trinity – #10 Don’t be afraid to think hard about God
Continuing our yarn from last time, imagine that our guru Opi changes his strategy. Now he instead tells his disciples that “Opi is the dopi” means that Opi is eternally the uniquely smartest teacher, and also that eternally, there is a teacher smarter than Opi. Here, he teaches them to believe an apparent contradiction, that eternally, Opi is and is not the smartest teacher. But is… Read More »10 steps towards getting less confused about the Trinity – #3 Take the mystery out of appeals to “mystery” – Part 3
Equivocal terms are the enemy of clear thinking. It is common to hear that the Trinity is “a mystery.” But what does “mystery” mean here? Sometimes all that is meant is that the triune God is a great, wonderful, and complicated reality. Call this the honorific sense of “mystery.” It’s not unlike calling a book or movie “profound” or “deep.” The non-trinitarian Christian will agree… Read More »10 steps towards getting less confused about the Trinity – #3 Take the mystery out of appeals to “mystery” – Part 1
While there have long been standard terms and sentences relating to the Trinity, there is not and has never been any clear consensus about how to understand those terms and sentences. There is agreement about what the sentences do or don’t imply (Tritheism? No. Monotheism? Yes. Ontological inequalities between the three? No.) But there is not an interpretation of the sentences themselves which is held… Read More »10 steps towards getting less confused about the Trinity – #9 – Formulas vs. Interpretations
For a few of the most serious and clever among us, mystery-mongering dies hard. They will stubbornly resist my previous attack on positive mysterianism about the Trinity, kicking back hard. I knew all along that the Trinity was going to be mysterious. And so now that I’ve discovered one way in which it is mysterious, well, I do celebrate it. You can rub my face… Read More »10 steps towards getting less confused about the Trinity – #3 Take the mystery out of appeals to “mystery” – Part 4
Continuing our survey from last time, fifth, sometimes “the Trinity is a mystery” means that the doctrine of the Trinity is unintelligible, or nearly so. Some ancient “church Fathers” hold that the doctrine of the Trinity can’t be literally understood, so that we’re forced to use analogies to describe it, all of which are very bad analogies. But, they seem to think, piling bad analogy upon… Read More »10 steps towards getting less confused about the Trinity – #3 Take the mystery out of appeals to “mystery” – Part 2