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.
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
An important post by the Golf Pro from the Moon. He answers the above question, in part: Yes…
“Don’t mess with Texan metaphysicans, pardner.”
In a recent series of posts (uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco), I’ve been chewing on some philosophical arguments that “social” trinitarians have used for their doctrine. Been finding more gristle than meat.
In my latest installment, I was privileged to get some penetrating critical feedback from fellow philosophy of religion bloggers located in my home state of Texas – Alexander Pruss of Baylor and Mike Almeida of UT San Antonio (here, comments #2, 7-9) These guys are extremely sharp and are doing a lot of creative work in the field, by the way. About perfect beings – I’ve come to find out that Mike has thought a lot about this!
This post is my attempt to process Mike’s feedbackRead More »modal shootout on greatest possible beings – Part 1 (Dale)
“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)
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”
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
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
Four vivid, moving, memorable depictions of Love.
A post on some previous post commentary – no one can navel-gaze like a philosopher! 🙂 Here’s a pictorial recap, and some additional thoughts on the comments here, in response to Scott and JT. The point of all this: we’re exploring why people who call themselves “social trinitarians” don’t like what they call “Latin” theories, and specifically the claim that those “Latin” theories can’t do justice to the loving relationships between the persons of the Trinity.Read More »on interpersonal love and stick figures (Dale)
The pagan polytheistic monotheist Celsus presses the attack we looked at last time.
If you [Christians] taught them that Jesus is not his [God’s] Son, but that God is the father of all, all that we really ought to worship him [God] alone, they [Christians] would no longer be willing to listen to you unless you included Jesus as well, who is the author of their sedition. Indeed, when they call him Son of God, it is not because they are paying very great reverence to God, but because they are exalting Jesus greatly. [Origen answers:] We have learnt who the Son of God is, even that he is ‘an effulgence of his glory and the express image of his person’ …and we know that Jesus is the Son come from God and that God is his Father. There is nothing in the doctrine which is not fitting or appropriate to God, that He should cause the existence of an only-begotten Son of this nature. (Against Celsus 8.14, trans. Henry Chadwick, pp. 461-2, bold added)
Celsus pushes the point that a real monotheist would only worship God, and suggests that Christians exalt Jesus at God’s expense. (Never mind how he might reconcile this with his acceptance of traditional polytheism.)
Origen replies Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 6 – Origen’s Against Celsus – Part 2
Celsus was a pagan philosopher, essentially a cultural and religious conservative, who wrote a book attacking Christianity, perhaps around 177-80 (though some have argued that it must be no later than 161).
Decades later, it is not clear exactly why, the great Christian scholar Origen (182-254) wrote a massive refutation of this book, quoting substantial portions of it. This is the eight-book Against Celsus, which was probably written aronud 246-8.
There are many, many interesting things in the book. Here’s a quotation relevant to our present series:
[Celsus writes:] If these men [Christians] worshiped no other God but one, perhaps they would have a valid argument against the others. But in fact they worship to an extravagant degree this man who appeared recently [Jesus], and yet think it is not inconsistent with monotheism if they worship His [God’s] servant [Jesus]. [Origen responds:] Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 5 – Origen’s Against Celsus – Part 1
An interesting and much more recent statement from John Hick, along the lines of my last post. …Since then [around 1993] the focus of much theological discussion has moved from christology to the doctrine of the Trinity. This is partly because theology always does go the rounds of the traditional topics – creation, sin, incarnation, atonement, Trinity, church, heaven and hell – and after a… Read More »Is the doctrine of the Incarnation prior to & the source of trinitarian doctrine? – Part 2
I was reading famous philosopher of religion John Hick‘s contribution to the 1982 book The Concept of Monotheism in Islam & Christianity, and ran across an interesting idea. Let me put it in context. If you know anything about Hick, you can guess that in his chapter he’s is ultimately trying to promote his unique theory of religious pluralism. Here’s the connection he sees between… Read More »Is the doctrine of the Incarnation prior to & the source of Trinitarian doctrine? – Part 1
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)
Dallas Willard is one of my favorite authors, and I don’t normally go in for criticizing what he writes. But I found a great example in this (good) book (p. 122) of an idea that is fairly widespread, and which underlies a lot of social trinitarian speculation. This brief passage got me to thinking. He says, …God is love and sustains love for us from… Read More »Are persons essentially relational?
0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:29:30 podcast 56 – Richard Swinburne on his life and work Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify In September of 2014 I was privileged to attend a conference in honor of the greatest living natural theologian. For the uninitiated, this is what “natural theology” is (also here). The initiated hold Swinburne in… Read More »podcast 56 – Richard Swinburne on his life and work
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
Exploring a new argument against any sort of catholic Trinity theory.
This time, some questions that may occur to you about Clarke’s views on the Trinity.