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Exegetical neutrality

I am making slow (but sure) progress on The Same God? Reference and Identity in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Scriptures. My background is in the philosophy of language, and particularly the theory of reference and singular terms. The research for this book has taken me to some strange places I never expected to visit (and never really knew about before). One of those is hermeneutics,… Read More »Exegetical neutrality

No Trinity, No Job – Part 2

Three World Vision employees are fired because according to World Vision they don’t believe in that Jesus is “fully God” or that he’s a member of the Trinity.

But inquiring minds want to know: what did they believe, what statement or statements of faith did they sign, and are the beliefs therein necessary and sufficient for being a real Christian? This time, we’re digging a little deeper.

Their website saith,

World Vision U.S. hires only those who agree and accept to its Statement of Faith and/or the Apostles’ Creed. (source)

Interesting! Note the “and/or” – employees must affirm either one or both. As we’ve noted before here at trinities, nothing in the so-called Apostles’ Creed requires belief in either the “full deity” of Christ (whatever that may mean) or any sort of trinitarian theory.Read More »No Trinity, No Job – Part 2

SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – Burke 2

There’s a lot of meat in Burke’s second round, and both his and Bowman’s second rounds were cleaner, more free of stray punches than round 1. Here I offer some summaries and brief comments on Burke.

  • In a lot of the piece, Burke lays out his positive views about Jesus. This should give a lot of people pause; it is often assumed, contrary to the long but largely forgotten history of this minority report, that unitarians are mere “deniers”, or that they can be lumped together with the amorphous “skeptics” who appear in apologetics writings, or that they are theological “liberals”, or that they are Unitarian Universalists. Not so – arguably, Burke affirms all the really obvious doctrines of the New Testament – messiah, mediator, resurrection, atonement, etc. – roughly, all the items in the “Apostles'” Creed. Burke defends what used to be called a “humanitarian” christology – that Jesus was a human, and did not exist before his miraculous conception in Mary. It would be misleading to describe his position as being that Jesus was “just a man”. In Burke’s view, he’s far from being just a “great teacher” among many, with peers like the Buddha  and Muhammad, or even being merely a prophet.
  • It is striking to what degree Burke simply ignores some influential (but now largely forgotten) patristic ideas, to wit: the Jesus’ ministry obviously manifested the divine nature (through, e.g. his miracles), that Jesus must be divine so as to be able to divinize humanity, that Jesus and not the Father was the one who interacted with the Jews in OT times, that the title “Son of God” implies having the divine nature, that what is “divine” must be absolutely unchanging and simple. I say this more by way of observation than criticism. With the exception of the first, I expect that Bowman will largely ignore them as well.
  • Flag: Burke says that the risen, glorified Jesus isRead More »SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – Burke 2

the apologetics blind-spot on numerical identity

Here’s part of a conversation I had recently with a guy in a Facebook group who when it comes to theology consumes almost only evangelical apologetics sources. I’m going to call him “Tim” here. The conversation illustrates a blind spot that I often run into, a blind spot which results from people who study apologetics being insufficiently trained in logic. All the non-theological points I… Read More »the apologetics blind-spot on numerical identity

“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 8

In this last post in this series, I want to put out a few critical reactions to Baber’s “Neo-Sabellian” Trinity theory.

My thanks to Harriet for this piece and for her interaction with us here.

No doubt, she’ll argue back; and she will probably say something about how her views have changed since she wrote this piece.

So, in no particular order:

  1. I agree with her that it’s suspicious if some philosophical theory should appeal to us only or mainly because it’ll help us in theology. I also agree with her that it’s interesting to at least try to come up with what is in some sense an acceptable Trinity theory which uses only metaphysical doctrines we have other reasons to believe.
  2. Again, I think it is a good aim to produce an intelligible (seemingly consistent) Trinity theory, assuming some such theory is called for. I think she’s correct to complain about the severe obscurity of traditional claims about “eternal generation” and “procession”.
  3. Picky point: I think “Neo-Sabellian” is a misnomer. It’s “Neo” all right, butRead More »“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 8

HoG: “What does it mean to say the Father is ungenerated?” (Scott)

paternity.jpg

 

“Is there any Son who does not cause His Father to become a Father and vice versa?”

Here I wish to briefly summarize what I take to be Henry’s position on the question: is the Father constituted by the (personal) property of being ‘ungenerated’ (ingenitum)? Henry’s discussion of this comes from his Summa Quaestionum Ordinariarum 57.1.

Henry engages in a lengthy discussion of ways the word ‘ingenitum’ (not generated) or ‘innascibile’ (not able to be born) can be predicated of the Father, whether negatively, privately, or positively. The upshot of these distinctions is to ask about the precise nature of this property ‘ungenerated’. Is it saying what the Father is not (negation), or is it saying the Father lacks some further property and is potentiality to receive some new property (privation), or is it saying there is some positive property the Father really is constituted by?

Henry rejects predication of the property ‘ingentium’ to the Father by negation and by privation; instead he opts for predication of a positive property. What then is this positive property that the Father has/is?

Read More »HoG: “What does it mean to say the Father is ungenerated?” (Scott)

Are atheists denying the obvious? Koukl vs. Rauser and Feser

Here’s an overview, with a few comments, of an interesting little public disagreement about Romans 1 and atheism. The discussion was kicked off by evangelical apologist Greg Koukl’s “No Duh” video, where he says that according to Romans 1, all atheists are intentionally suppressing their knowledge of God. Randal Rauser then pointed out a hard to accept implication of Koukl’s claim, which seems to require us to re-think just how… Read More »Are atheists denying the obvious? Koukl vs. Rauser and Feser

Ben Nasmith on ancient Jewish monotheism

At his blogs Ben Nasmith has been writing so very good posts weighing trinitarian vs. unitarian theologies, and in particular thinking about Richard Bauckham and Samuel Clarke. In Monotheism and the unitarian-trinitarian dilemma he concludes, I think rightly: to answer this question we need a clear understanding of the monotheism of the Bible. That links to a post at his other blog, THE “HERESY OF CLARITY” –… Read More »Ben Nasmith on ancient Jewish monotheism

SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – ROUND 6 Part 2 – Bowman

In his sixth and final installment of the debate, Bowman turns in his finest performance, making a number of interesting moves, and getting some glove on Burke. First, he tweaks his formula (here’s the previous version): The doctrine of the Trinity is biblical if and only if all of the following propositions are biblical teachings: One eternal uncreated being, the LORD God, alone created all… Read More »SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – ROUND 6 Part 2 – Bowman

Tim Pawl: a God-man is possible

Catholic analytic philosopher Tim Pawl (University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota) argues that this is logically consistent: Jesus has both a divine and a human nature.

His answer is challenged by another talented young Catholic philosopher, Tomas Bogardus, of Pepperdine University. With their permission, I’ve reposted their dialogue from Facebook. I thought it deserved a wider audience.

From that same thread, I learned that Dr. Pawl is working on a book on the metaphysics of the Christology that comes from the “ecumenical” councils. I’ve thought and taught a good bit about those in recent  years, and plan to discuss them in upcoming podcasts, so I look forward to seeing this book, and the discussion it will generate.

Which is mightier – this beard or this one?

You decide. I’ll weigh in with a comment later.

Here, unedited but for the addition of a few explanatory links (and a gratuitous picture), is their dialogue:Read More »Tim Pawl: a God-man is possible

Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 4 – Implications

Last time we carefully read through a heavenly scene in which Jesus is exalted to God’s side and worshiped alongside him.

We saw that it is indisputable that Revelation 4-5 holds forth Jesus as worthy of being worshiped.

But can this help us choose between the dueling arguments from the first post? Yes!

Given that we accept that Jesus ought to be worshiped, we must choose between Only God should be worshiped and Jesus isn’t God because we can’t consistently accept both of these, in addition to the claim that Jesus ought to be worshiped.

Based on our careful reading (Part 2, Part 3) of Revelation 4-5, let us ask which of these John would agree with?

Would John agree that only God should be worshiped?
Plainly not. 

  • Jesus is presented throughout as someone else. In these chapters, he comes into God’s throne room, receives the scroll of God’s secret plans from God, and is then honored alongside God.
  • God, the one on the throne, silently approves of all this. He lets Jesus take the scroll. It is his mission that Jesus accomplished, because of which Jesus is worthy to now be exalted. And he stands by while people worship both him and Jesus. And he does not thunder “You lousy idolaters” – worship only me!” And he, he tacitly approves of this exaltation of Jesus.
  • Smartly, the people present agree. (v. 14) No one calls out God Read More »Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 4 – Implications

Metatheology with Baber

(click for image credit)

Thanks to all you excellent commenters! I can’t always keep up.

I see my friend philosophy professor Harriet Baber has been on there asking some provocative questions like some kind of Socratic gadfly. 🙂  I thought they deserved a post. The quotes here are from her comments.

WHAT pre-existed: the 2nd Person of the Trinity or Christ?

Orthodox / catholic-kosher answer: both. The 2nd person of the Trinity is assumed to be personally identical to (and so, identical to) the man Jesus.

What if I hold that the Trinitarian Person was pre-existent but became a human at some time in the late 1st century BC so that, in effect, Christ is a proper temporal part of the 2nd Person of the Trinity. Does this make me an adoptionist?

To all the non-philosophers out there; she is applying the recent metphysical doctrine of temporal parts here, thinking of, e.g. a self as extended across or spread out over time, rather than lasting (entire) though time. In current day metaphysicians’ lingo, people perdure rather than endure. So in this case the one Christ would be that whole four-dimensional, event-like thing, with the early part being the pre-human logos and the latter part being the human Jesus – but as I’m using the terms here (this is tricky – there are no standard terms here) the logos and Jesus would be temporal parts of the one Christ.

I don’t know, Harriet, whether or not this makes you an adoptionist; I suggest we lay aside Read More »Metatheology with Baber

Constitution Trinitarianism Part 5: Ambiguous God-talk

 

 


Like about everything else these days.

In this post I want to explore what to me is the oddest and hardest part to grasp of the constitution trinitarianism. When I first read their paper, I thought they thought God was a stuff – that is, that the term “God” referred to a certain thing, that immaterial stuff they call “the divine essence”. That was wrong on two counts. For as we’ve seen, “the divine essence” isn’t supposed to be a thing (although they think it wouldn’t be a catastrophe if they admitted it was a thing – see their footnote 10). Hence, it can’t be a thing which is identical to God. Second, they don’t think that “God”, say, when used in a Psalm, refers to that stuff. So, what do they think it refers to? It depends. They hold that it’s a systematically ambiguous term. Why is that?Read More »Constitution Trinitarianism Part 5: Ambiguous God-talk