Is the Trinity logically coherent?
When I find something on YouTube which is actually helpful, I am pleasantly surprised, and feel the need to share it.
When I find something on YouTube which is actually helpful, I am pleasantly surprised, and feel the need to share it.
One thing that makes disputes about the Trinity intractable is the fact that different Christians have different views about just where authoritative Christian tradition is to be found.
In thinking about the Trinity, 380 and 381 are perhaps the most important dates to remember.
2015 was a good years for the trinities blog, even apart from the podcast. Below are some highlights, month by month. Also, I want to thank my friend and co-blogger Chad Macintosh for his good contributions this year! January: a new proof of God’s existence, with an assist from Dr. Bart Ehrman? February: Marcus Borg’s atheism March: the evolution of my views on the Trinity – part 9 April: the LORD… Read More »2015: the trinities blog in review
After his initial argument from perfect love for a Trinity of persons, Richard tries to support it by a brief argument from perfect happiness. Here I wish to summarize what I take to be this confirming argument from the plenitude of happiness. [Keep in mind that ‘plenitude’ has that particular meaning of a property of a substance that is not from another substance, but all other substances are from it.] Richard argues that if we are committed to the claim that God is perfectly happy, then we should also be committed to the claim that God is a Trinity of persons. Read More »Richard of St. Victor 10 – Perfect Happiness Requires Perfect Love (Scott)
Not all engagement is good engagement.
I’ve been reading Gregory of Nazianzus lately, his famous Theological Orations (c. 380 CE), wherein he expounds and defends what scholars call the pro-Nicene consensus about the Trinity – a viewpoint which developed in the latter half of the 4th c. by bishops rallying around the new homoousios term.
In the second oration, he hits this theme hard: God’s essence (the divine nature, the Godhead/deity) is unknowable. What does he mean by this? Only that it isn’t completely knowable (by us, in this life)? He does think that, but he’s saying more than that.Read More »Question about Gregory of Nazianzus on Divinity, the Son and the Spirit
“… and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Do Christian claims clash with Philosophy?
Found at here at Ian’s Philosophical Orthodoxy. Thus saith Marilyn McCord Adams:
Renouncing society’s right to say who we are and what we mean, frees us for full communion with Our Creator, with that gay men’s chorus, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. (emphasis added)
Uhh… hmm. [speechless]
Looking at the rest of this speech, a few other things stuck out. Read More »Quote: A new trinitarian analogy
At The Anxious Bench, eminent historian Dr. Philip Jenkins has a nice basic summary of Philo’s merging of Platonic theology with that of the Hebrew Bible. This summary fits nicely with the one I quoted towards the end of episode 76 of the trinities podcast. Dr. Jenkins says, in part: Having excluded God from the world, though, Philo used a Stoic concept to bring him… Read More »Philip Jenkins on Philo’s theology
0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:30:28 podcast 16 – How is Jesus “the one Lord”? Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify Paul calls Jesus “the one Lord.” What does this mean? In episode 15, we saw why we can’t take Paul to mean that Jesus is Yahweh himself. In this episode, we see what, according to… Read More »podcast 16 – How is Jesus “the one Lord”?
The latest on internet discussion of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s new book and the evangelical response book. Update: part one of my interview with Dr. Ehrman is now out. Part two is out on April 14. Ehrman’s own summary. And short Q & A. Theology professor “Dustin Martyr” evaluates Dr. Ehrman’s arguments, chapter by chapter. Negative review by evangelical theologian Dr. Andreas Köstenberger. Positive review by the Revangelical… Read More »Bart Update
Adventures in theologically-motivated misinterpretation.
He argues cogently that even in the earliest parts of the New Testament, the religious worship of Jesus is presupposed, such as in Philippians 2.
In this post I’d like to focus on Richard’s initial argument for why God must be a Trinity of persons. Thus far in his argument he has argued for two divine persons, and now adds a further line of argument to show that God is in fact a Trinity and not a Binity of persons. Why must God be a Trinity of persons? Richard argues from his notion of perfect love.Read More »Richard of St. Victor 9 – Perfect Love Requires Three Persons (Scott)
Kimel lampoons the biblical unitarian historical narrative, and urges that Irenaeus is a big problem for it.
0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:24:17 podcast 19 – Lewis vs. Rogers 3 – second rebuttals and closing statements Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify Episode 19 – the final segment of the Lewis-Rogers debate: Is the Trinity polytheism? In this last of our three segments, our debaters each give a second seven-minute rebuttal, and then… Read More »podcast 19 – Lewis vs. Rogers 3 – second rebuttals and closing statements
Is faith, as Mark Twain quipped, believing what you know ain’t so?