podcast 133 – Dr. Jeffrey Koperski on 10 Science and Religion Myths – Part 1
Is “Science” at war with “Religion”? Philosopher of science Dr. Jeffrey Koperski says that this is myth and not reality.
Is “Science” at war with “Religion”? Philosopher of science Dr. Jeffrey Koperski says that this is myth and not reality.
2015 was a good year for the trinities podcast! Many thanks to those who supported it via PayPal or Amazon. Here are some highlights, month by month: January: podcast 70 – The one God and his Son according to John February: podcast 74 – Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho – Part 1 March: podcast 81 – Dr. Oliver Crisp on the breadth of Reformed tradition April: podcast 83 – The Spiritual… Read More »2015: the trinities podcast in review
Do we find trinitarian theologies in early Christian authors?
From Dr. Anatolios’s book Retrieving Nicea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine, describing the theology of Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260 – c. 339): Eusebius conceives of the Spirit as the next level down in the chain of being and willing that descends from the Father and the Son. While he is ambiguous on the neuralgic question of the creaturehood of the Son, he… Read More »Anatolios on Eusebius on the Holy Spirit
All Christians have always believed that Jesus Christ is one person with two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, right?
Andrew Davis on the church fathers, the Bible, and finding his way through clashing theologies.
What if the official god of your theology isn’t the one who actually gets his way in your life?
In this last of three interviews with the authors of The Son of God: Three Views of the Identity of Jesus, we talk with Dr. Dustin Smith of Atlanta Bible College.
In this episode Dr. Trent Dougherty of Baylor University tells us about his spiritual journey from secular, to evangelical, to Roman Catholic. Then we then discuss his general approach to what philosophers call “the problem of evil.” If God is perfect, and perfectly good, then why do so many terrible things happen?
The terms “atheism,” “monotheism,” and “polytheism” seem straightforward enough… BUT important ambiguity lurks in the root term “theism.”
“Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”” (Psalm 14:1) This says that all atheists are fools, right? Pastor John Hagee says that “Atheism is bankrupt and empty. It’s brain dead!” Others have said that all atheists because they hate God and want to sin with impunity. Is this what the Bible teaches? Is this true?
The apostles testify to God the creator and his holy servant Jesus.
Incredibly, in 1551 they discovered an intact statue of Hippolytus (pictured here). This may exist because he was revered as a martyr shortly after his lifetime.
In the previous post, we saw that in his theology, the divine (but less divine than God) Logos came to exist from God a finite time ago, so that God could create the cosmos by means of him. On two counts, then, this makes him not a trinitarian – that the “persons” are neither co-equal nor equally divine. But is he a unitarian?
In the most important work we have from him, he says,
The first and only (one God), both Creator and Lord of all, had nothing coeval with Himself… Therefore this solitary and supreme Deity, by an exercise of reflection, brought forth the Logos first… Him alone He produced from existing things; for the Father Himself constituted existence, and the being born from Him was the cause of all things that are produced. The Logos was in the Father Himself, bearing the will of His progenitor, and not being unacquainted with the mind of the Father. For simultaneously with His procession from His Progenitor… He has, as a voice in Himself, the ideas conceived in the Father. …when the Father ordered the world to come into existence, the Logos one by one completed *each object of creation, thus pleasing God. …[God, via the Logos] formed the ruler of all [creation, i.e. Adam]… The Creator did not wish to make him a god, and failed in His aim; nor an angel… but a man. For if He had willed to make thee a god, He could have done so. Thou has the example of the Logos. Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 10 – Hippolytus on the identity of the one God
Did Dr. Brown adequately rebut my argument from six NT facts?
Discussing trinitarian vs. unitarian Christian theologies with Dr. William Lane Craig.
My “On Baukham’s Bargain” has drawn a response from my biggest fan, the Reformed brawler Steve Hays. I reply in the comments there.
Given how many evangelicals have jumped on the Bauckham Bandwagon, I hope that it’ll get some serious discussion in the journals or elsewhere.
Here’s my first reply to his post:
Steve, it’s odd to spend so many words sniping at my summary of what Bauckham holds forth as advantages of his theory. e.g. After the seventh point (of Bauckham’s!) you object, “That’s a diversionary tactic.” Is that an objection to Bauckham?
Read all the way through, then think, and then, finally start objecting.
About the “fatal concession”, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. The time-explicit version of the indiscernibility of identicals is all I need to make the point.Read More »My diabolical “ruse” exposed – drat!
“The Lord created me at the beginning of His ways in His work: He set me up from everlasting, in the beginning, before He made the earth… he brought me forth.”
“You’re another” – that’s what tu quoque means – it’s the name of an informal fallacy, often called a fallacy of relevance. For example, if I argue that your theory is self-contradictory, suppose you retort that my theory is too. Well, so…? It’s irrelevant to the point that the first theory mentioned is self-contradictory (so, self-refuting).
Cornell grad student Chad McIntosh argues that if the social trinitarian God – or rather: the three divine persons posited by clear “social” Trinity theories – would be deceivers, then so would the perfect self in whom I believe, being a unitarian Christian. So granting that an ST is implausible, for similar reasons unitarian Christian theology is implausible (because it has a perfect being doing what appears a wrongful deception).
Is this a defense of ST?
I’ve already argued in that paper than a Swinburne-type ST implies what looks like wrongful deception by at least one of the three divine persons. This hasn’t been disputed.
I don’t grant that if God is a single self, then Read More »You’re another!
This time, another great Christian thinker, who I discovered some time around 1998.
“…earliest believers treated the risen/exalted Jesus as they did only because they felt required to do so by God.”