Bill Vallicella, the famous Maverick Philosopher, just dropped me a line asking whether, when Thomas Aquinas and Baruch Spinoza use the term ‘Deus’, they are referring to the same being. This is a difficult and interesting question. Bill uses the Latin name ‘Deus’, alluding to the fact that both men wrote in Latin. Latin was the choice of the ‘scholastic’ theologians of the 13th century,… Read More »God and Deus
Should we defend what we think are biblical, yet unintelligible or seemingly incoherent claims as “mysteries”?
Last month my publisher gave the green light to start work on The Same God? Reference and Identity in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Scriptures. Yes, that old question of whether Muslims worship the same God as Christians, which surfaced again last year when Larycia Hawkins, an associate professor at Wheaton College, was suspended following her Facebook post citing Pope Francis’s statement that Muslims and Christians… Read More »God and Allah
Dale Tuggy kindly set me up with an account here, so I will say a few words by way of introduction. As Dale notes here, I am a lazy fellow. Or as I say, just as a thing is more noble and perfect, so the longer it takes to reach perfection. I am still working on a book I began in 1984, and perhaps I can use… Read More »Hello from London
This time, Dr. Smith’s thoughts on the debate. He argued for the minority view that the New Testament doesn’t teach Jesus’s literal pre-human existence.
Has “Science” shown that all causes are natural? Philosopher of science Dr. Jeffrey Koperski doesn’t think so.
Is “Science” at war with “Religion”? Philosopher of science Dr. Jeffrey Koperski says that this is myth and not reality.
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
Trinitarian theology is not served by sophistry, cheerleading, or ignoring relevant work. In this episode, I discuss five more apologetics face-plants about the Trinity.
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
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
Apologetics is hard, because it’s hard be an expert on more than a few subjects. There’s a strong pressure to just recycle bad arguments and wrongheaded claims propounded by other apologists.
Saith the late Christian sage Dallas Willard: The Kingdom Among Us is simply God himself and the spiritual realm of beings over which his will perfectly presides – “as it is in the heavens.” That kingdom is to be sharply contrasted with the kingdom of man: the realm of human life, that tiny part of visible reality where the human will for a time has… Read More »Jesus: Not a Cheerleader
Should Dr. Ehrman become a member of “the early high christology club”?
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
Does chapter one of the earliest gospel (Mark) portray Jesus as the God of Israel, as Yahweh himself? This is part of what Dr. Michael Bird argues in this second half of the debate.
Here is a guest post by Sir Anthony Buzzard. In it, he discuses what many would consider an obvious point, though some ignore or deny it: that the theology of Bible-era Judaism is monotheistic in a way that implies that the one God just is a certain mighty self. In Mark 12, Jesus simply affirms that theology. It is standard information in all the… Read More »Jesus’s Jewish error?
In this episode I review the first portion of a recent debate/discussion between Dr. Bart Ehrman and Dr. Michael Bird, held at the at the 2016 Greer-Heard Point Counter Point Forum in February 12-13, 2016 at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
