podcast 330 – Dr. Joshua Sijuwade on the monarchy of the Father
Does a doctrine of divine processions entail that the Son is less divine than the Father?
Does a doctrine of divine processions entail that the Son is less divine than the Father?
The terms “atheism,” “monotheism,” and “polytheism” seem straightforward enough… BUT important ambiguity lurks in the root term “theism.”
Does it make sense to say that God is a soul with three cognitive and volitional faculties – but is nonetheless not a self?
An appealing theological option which is neither Nicene nor “Arian”?
Pastor-theologian Greg Boyd has been theologizing about the Incarnation recently. He tips his hand right at the start – he’s going kenoticist. Boyd’s reasoning, I think, can be illustrated like this. Consider this inconsistent triad: A fully divine being is essentially omniscient. A human being is not essentially omniscient. A fully divine being can be a human being. Why believe 1? Perfect being theology, and… Read More »Boyd on Incarnation
Without going into the arguments for this controversial thesis, Baber appeals to the claim made by Derek Parfit and others, that “identity is not ‘what matters’ for survival”. (p.6) Thus, a future thing can count as my surviving, though it is not (numerically) identical to me.
Suppose (I’m stealing this thought experiment from Richard Swinburne) some mad scientists, such as Pinkie and the Brain, are going to cut my brain in half, and put the left half in one body, and the right in another. The body which gets the left half will be tortured to death, while the body getting the right half will be given lifetime passes to all NFL games and a lifetime supply of good beer. If I’m to undergo this experiment, I want to know which of these resulting people will be (numerically identical to) me: the unlucky one, the lucky one, or neither.
Baber (following Parfit) wants to say that depending on how exactly the resulting people are related to me, both may count as the continuation of or survival of me. Specifically, she suggests that psychological continuity is enough – it is enough that the later people have the same or nearly the same beliefs, desires, and so on that I have.
I don’t think this is right, but back to the Trinity: In her view, the god which is a God-stage (temporal part of God) called the Father would, just before the Incarnation, be mistaken to think Read More »“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 4
This brings the total of R’s to 6. Wish I could say there weren’t more coming! We’ve looked so far at two ways Christians may respond to apparently contradictory doctrines: Redirection and Restraint. We now move on to a third strategy: Resolution. In brief, the Resolver holds that the apparent contradiction can be banished, made to disappear. She doesn’t change the subject (as the Redirector),… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 7 – Resolution by Rational Reinterpretation
I’m very pleased to introduce Joseph Jedwab, who has some interesting comments on Moreland’s and Craig’s understanding of the Trinity. I haven’t had the privilege of meeting him, but given how he spells “center”, I gather he’s English. 🙂 Joseph is currently teaching philosophy and finishing his dissertation at Oriel College of Oxford University, on the metaphysics of the Trinity and the Incarnation. And he’s working under the supervision of one of the greatest living philosophers of religion, Richard Swinburne. Hiring committees take note – he goes on the job market next year! – Dale
I agree this is a clear account. I’m a bit worried about how the discussion might influence terminology. Moreland and Craig describe their view as Social Trinitarian and contrast this with an Anti-Social Trinitarian view. This is a mistake. Leftow’s title indicates his paper is against Social Trinitarianism (ST). It’s not supposed to be the name of a Trinitarian view. As you know, the name of the view Leftow defends is ‘Latin Trinitarianism’ (LT). Further, they say that the main commitment of ST is that there are three centres of consciousness, but it’s not clear what a centre is.Read More »Guest Post: Jedwab on “Trinity Monotheism”
I see trends in this analytic theology literature somewhat towards relative identity theories, and towards “metaphysical madness.”
An apologist spells out “the Trinity” as incoherent monotheistic tritheism.
Is it obvious that the cause must temporally precede the effect?
Is “monarchical trinitarianism” theologically viable?
Daniel Waterland (1683-1740) was by all accounts the most important disputant of Samuel Clarke about the Trinity.
Waterland spent his career at Cambridge, where he rose through the ranks, eventually becoming Vice-Chancellor, and also serving as a Chaplain to the King, and as an Anglican clergyman in a number of cities.
He had a good reputation, and was an energetic, but normally cool-headed controversial/polemical writer (aganist Clarke, and other other theological topics, against other respected men), and he gained somewhat of a reputation in Anglican circles as a defender of catholic orthodoxy.
Many, including himself, contemplating his becoming a bishop, but in 1740 he died after complications, seemingly, from surgeries on an ingrown toenail in one of his big toes! He was survived by his wife of 21 years. (His only children were his books.)
I’d describe Waterland’s views on the Trinity as social, with a liberal dose of negative mysterianism. Like Clarke, he insists that his is the ancient catholic view, and much of the dispute concerns pre-Nicene fathers. Like Clarke, he wants to stick to those fathers and to the Bible, and takes a dim view of medieval theology.
About the pre-Nicene catholic “fathers,” I’d say both Clarke and Waterland somewhat bend the material to their own ends (I mean, they tend to see those authors as supporting their view, and being perhaps more uniform than they were), but I think Waterland bends the materials more. In his view, catholics had always believed the Three to be “consubstantial” in a generic sense, yet which, somehow, together with their differences of origin, makes them but one god. Like Swinburne and Clarke, he agrees that the Father is uniquely the “font of divinity.” He continually hammers Clarke with the claim that there’s no middle ground between the one Creator and all creatures.
In this series, I’ll examine the way he deals with some favorite unitarian proof-texts, which, unitarians think plainly assert the numerical identity of the Father with the one true God, Yahweh. According to Waterland, these unitarians are making a mistake like the one I made.
You [i.e. Clarke] next cite John 17:3, 1 Cor. 8:6, Eph. 4:6, to prove, that the Father is sometimes styled the only true God; which is all that they prove. Read More »Daniel Waterland on “The Father is the only God” texts – Part 1
At long last, we’ve reached the 25th and last chapter of book three of Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate! (Here are the other Richard-related posts here @ trinities.)
Richard starts off with the point that for the Persons of the Trinity, unlike the case of any other persons, there is “individuality without plurality” – each is what it is without any plurality of any kind – and “unity without inequality” – I’m not sure what he means by this second phrase. (p. 396)
In contrast, any other person, such as you or me, can be “unequal to himself”, in that we can become greater or lesser over time. (e.g. I’m smarter and morally better now than when I was 14.) And persons like us have multiple properties (we’re not simple). (p. 396) And of a human person, say Barak Obama, we can say that “his power alone is dissimilar to itself… [since] one thing is easy for him, another is difficult and a third is impossible.” (p. 397)
Then he says, “one and the same nature… in one respect is less, in another it is greater, and [so is]… dissimilar and unequal to itself.” (p. 397) So, the same point he made about persons, can also be made about natures. Thus,Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 25 (Dale)
In this episode I respond to the interesting article “What about This View? How to Defend an Anti-Trinitarian Theology,” by evangelical apologist Dr. Robert M. Bowman Jr.
Real arguments vs. pointed questions combined with incredulous tone.
Thanks to Rob Bowman for his thoughtful reply to my previous post regarding the Shema and his argument with Sir Anthony Buzzard. While I sided with Mr. Bowman regarding the meaning of the Shema (as saying that YHWH is unique – who which only presupposes, but doesn’t assert that he is a god), I think Buzzard is correct that ancient Jews thought that YHWH was… Read More »a reply to Robert Bowman on biblical monotheism, the Trinity, and the Shema
Our friend Fr. Aiden has responded to my post defending analytic theology (and analytic theologians). This bit, I think, advances the discussion: …my concern is not false teaching per se but the subjection of God’s self-revelation as Father, Son, and Spirit to the quest for philosophical precision. And this brings me to the heart of my concern. As far as I can tell, the theological… Read More »more on despising analytic theologians
Three Christian philosophers on perfect being theology, tradition in philosophy going back to the great medieval philosopher Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109), but really, as Leftow has shown, back to Augustine, Plato, and the Christian Bible. First, a great interview (click the thin blue button) with Oxford philosopher Brian Leftow by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, for the PBS should Closer to Truth. I did not know that Leftow was… Read More »Is God Perfect?
Last time I tried to analyze Richard’s argument in ch. 22 that his view preserves monotheism. This time, I critically evaluate the argument. Is it sound?
It goes like this:
What shall we make of this argument? Why believe premise 1? Richard says,
…if it is agreed that omnipotence can do everything, it will be able to carry out with ease what any other power would not be able to do. For this reason it is clear that only one omnipotence can exist. (ch. 22, p. 394)
I have a couple of problems with this. Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 22 – part 2 (Dale)