Hyer on trinitarian confusion
Former Episcopalian G.W. Hyer on the confused mind of the trinitarian layperson.
Former Episcopalian G.W. Hyer on the confused mind of the trinitarian layperson.
An important post by the Golf Pro from the Moon. He answers the above question, in part: Yes…
Last time, c. 1998-2001, I was a social trinitarian along the lines of Richard Swinburne. While I was on the job market in 1999-2000, my former professor Stephen T. Davis was kind enough to invite me and a friend to attend the Incarnation summit, a follow up to the earlier interdisciplinary Trinity Summit. This was a great privilege, and I pretty much just observed. But… Read More »the evolution of my views on the Trinity – part 6
Review of Thomas McCall’s Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism?
I woke up this morning, and realized that there is a problem with how I’ve been defining the concept of a unitarian. In this post, I will attempt a definition of the concept of a trinitarian, after reviewing what is required of a good definition. Next time, I’ll try to define the concept of a unitarian.
According to the textbook I have used for years in my critical thinking class, a good definition should:
What is a trinitarian?
Definition 1: someone who believes in a triune god.
Thanks to reader Mike K. for this hilarious link. They beat me to the punch – I’ve been sitting on a post for some time on this exact theme. (Stay tuned.) I posted a comment asking about this bit: It’s interesting to note that the English term “Trinitarian” was first used, in the 16th and 17th centuries, as a pejorative description of anti-trinitarians; the heretics… Read More »banning the word “trinitarian”
An apologist spells out “the Trinity” as incoherent monotheistic tritheism.
Was 381 the dawn of imperially enforced confession of a triune God?
“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!
In this series of posts, I’ve been discussing the view of Arius that the Son is created from nothing, and the view of Athanasius that the Father begets the Son. All of this illustrates two basic issues that any classical account of the Trinity has to face when it tries to explain how one divine person produces another. First, we need to think carefully before… Read More »Arius and Athanasius, part 11 – General questions about divine production (JT)
This time, some questions that may occur to you about Clarke’s views on the Trinity.
J.P. Moreland is a well-known and prolific Christian philosopher and apologist, as well as a Willardite writer on spiritual formation.
Back around 1992-3 I was privileged to take a few classes with him as an undergraduate at Biola. He’s a hard working, straight shooting, and forceful person, yet with an obvious spiritual side. I’ve read and profited from a lot of his stuff. Not that I can keep up!
Is God a person? Watch Moreland’s interview here (blue button) then, click here for my take –>Read More »Is God a Self? Part 4 – J.P. Moreland
Perhaps the greatest issue for Social Trinitarians with respect to the Holy Spirit is “his” personhood.
0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:25:44 podcast 27 – Interview with Dr. William Hasker about his Metaphysics and the Tripersonal God – Part 1 Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify In the last thirty years or so, many Christian philosophers have become “social” trinitarians. Not only do they “use the social analogy” for the Trinity –… Read More »podcast 27 – Interview with Dr. William Hasker about his Metaphysics and the Tripersonal God – Part 1
Time to close out this long series with a brief summary of my own observations on and objections to Trinity Monotheism. These aren’t all the one’s I’ve mentioned, but only the ones I think are the most relevant. And I should say that Joseph has raised some others as well, both in his guest post and in his comments. The whole parts issue is a… Read More »Trinity Monotheism Part 9: Some final thoughts and objections
Many of you know that I’ve argued in several ways, in print, against “social” Trinity theories, and particularly the sort which holds that Father, Son, and Spirit are a group/community/quasi-family. On such theories, it turns out that the one “God” is a group – a group of equally divine selves (aka gods – though they don’t like that term in the plural). This is surprising… Read More »Is God a self? Part 1
Not possible. But why? (image credit)
Here are some rough-draft thoughts on another line of thinking associated with social trinitarian theories.
God is perfect. Arguably, an absolutely perfect being could not fail to be “well off” – in classical terminology, a perfect being must be happy, must be in a “blessed” condition. Part of perfection is independence. One kind of independence is the kind which comes up when discussing ontological or cosmological arguments for God’s existence – the idea of aseity, or existing but not because of anything else. But here’s another kind of independence or self-sufficiency: not requiring any thing (i.e. any fact not entailed by your existence) to be well off, to have a good life. Perhaps we could call it the divine property of security, or independent or self-sufficient happiness.
Is God as well off as he could possibly be? Arguably not,Read More »Reflections on the Impossibility of a truly lonely Christian God (Dale)
A blogger mocks the UCA as “the Unitarian Confusion Alliance.” But on what basis?