podcast 353 – Should Christians Accept the Trinity?
Is the question absurd? Or does it make sense in light of New Testament teachings?
Is the question absurd? Or does it make sense in light of New Testament teachings?
Why no mention of Incarnation in the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke?
“Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee… He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.”
Can someone with two natures be essentially immortal and die?
“Dear Christian, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about God and me.”
“For all its complexity, the biblical doctrine of the Trinity can be stated in seven simple propositions.”
A thoughtful Baptist confronts his church about biblical vs. later teachings about God, Jesus, and heresy.
How widely has God’s spirit been active in the world?
Some reasons why we should think that the New Testament writers don’t believe that Jesus literally existed before his time in the womb.
In this second conversation, Mr. Kermit Zarley and I discuss a number of themes from his book The Restitution of Jesus Christ, including
the evangelical tradition of saying that “Jesus is God” or “Jesus is divine,” the biblical phrases “Son of God” and “the Son of God,” the texts commonly read as teaching that Jesus existed before his conception in Mary.
In round 4, Burke urges that his views about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit provide a simpler explanation of the texts. Whereas trinitarians must argue from implications of the text,
By contrast, I argue that the Bible provides us with explicit doctrines about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which… I have shown to be firmly rooted in OT theology.
Burke has a point here, although it can be overstated. Burke’s theology allows him to stick more closely to the words of the NT and the message as preached, e.g. in Acts. Surely, considered by itself this is an advantage. Trinitarians will argue that it is outweighed by the fact that the unitarian message leaves out other essentials, if somewhat implicit ones. Burke complains that Bowman hasn’t defined “implicit“, but this is a general philosophical issue outside the realm of the debate. Burke emphasizes that his approach is “Hebraic” whereas Bowman’s is “Hellenic”. In some sense this may be true, but I don’t think it advances the debate. It is surely possible that God providentially used Greek philosophy to help uncover the true implications of the NT. Further, both debaters are to some extent using Greek-philosophy-originated concepts and logic. Another place in which they’re talking past one another is this issue of the importance of what is and is not explicit in the NT, and specifically in the preaching of the apostles. Bowman is surely right that, e.g. Peter need not assert every element of the apostolic teaching in one sermon, and that Luke’s summary of that sermon surely wouldn’t include all of it. But Burke is right that if it is an essential part of the faith, and necessary to believe for salvation, that e.g. the Holy Spirit is a fully divine person in God distinct from the Father and Son, then we would expect this to be explicitly taught by the apostles, up front, prior to baptism. And we do not find this. But I don’t believe that Bowman has said that one must believe this to be saved. But if he affirms it, and holds that the apostles teach it, then Burke has a strong argument against him. This is surely a pressing, practical question that should be raised.
It is striking that Acts 2 does not contain Read More »SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – ROUND 4 PART 3 – BURKE
In this post I venture to offer some debate advice: be very hesitant to accuse your opponent of a logical fallacy.
In round 4, Burke makes the 3rd error, Bowman the 4th.
Burke argues,
Even Acts 5, where the apostle Peter accuses Ananias of “lying to the Holy Spirit” (verse 3) and his wife of trying to “test the Spirit of the Lord” (verse 9) is not an open and shut case. The usual argument made from this passage is that Peter accuses Ananias of “lying to the Holy Spirit” and Sapphira of trying to “tempt the Holy Spirit”; but since an impersonal power cannot be lied to or tempted, the Holy Spirit must therefore be a person and therefore it follows that the Holy Spirit is God. The logic here is not terribly good, and the argument ends with a non sequitur.
Neither this nor what follows it make clear what Bowman’s errors in reasoning are supposed to be. What exactly is the argument he’s criticizing? Is it this?Read More »SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – Round 4 Part 1
Who was born on the first Christmas? According to Luke, God revealed this information to a Jewish prophet named Simeon: Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see… Read More »Simeon says…
Do Matthew, Mark, and Luke discreetly but clearly imply that Jesus is God?
Does unitarian Christianity “deny the Divinity of Christ,” preach “morality,” and teach salvation by works?
Does Jude 4 somehow refute what unitarian Christians say about John 17:1-3.
I Can’t Stop Loving You – actually, it’s worse than that – I can’t not love you!
Alexander Pruss is an excellent philosophy of religion dude at Baylor. His second PhD dissertation was on possible worlds. Don’t ask me to explain what his first one was on! 🙂 He’s got about a million original ideas on almost as many topics, a lot of which get posted at his creatively-titled blog, Alexander Pruss’s Blog 🙂 as well as at The Prosblogion.
He recently weighed in (comments #8-9) on my attempted argument against social trinitarian arguments. Here are the most relevant bits:Read More »Pruss on essentially loving beings
“This clears it all up, right?”
Anselm: “Um, no. I must bestow upon it the analytic frown of uncomprehension.”
(image credit)
I used to think I had a great objection to Anselm’s famous ontological argument. (Bear with me – this has something to do with social trinitarianism.) The argument, at least many forms of it, basically goes like this. If it is logically possible that there’s a Greatest Possible Being (i.e. a being such that there’s no logical possibility of there being a greater one), then it is necessary that there’s a Greatest Possible Being. More simply: if it’s possible (non-contradictory) that God exists, then it’s also necessary that God exists (i.e. it is inconsistent to suppose God not existing). (For more, see here and here. For more than you’d ever want to know, here.)
Many critics have replied like this:
I’d be a sucker to grant your premise. Why should I think that the notion of a Greatest Possible Being is the notion of a possible thing at all? Read More »perfection, the Trinity, and impossible beings (Dale)