Larry Hurtado on early Christians’ worship of Jesus
If the earliest Christians’ answer (re: how one can be a monotheist and yet worship both the one God and Jesus) was a good answer then, why isn’t it a good answer now?
If the earliest Christians’ answer (re: how one can be a monotheist and yet worship both the one God and Jesus) was a good answer then, why isn’t it a good answer now?
In this follow-up post, three factors that make Rufinus’ corruption of Origen’s On First Principles all the more egregious. First, after recklessly changing anything he doesn’t like in translating Origen’s book, absurdly claiming that anything Origen says that doesn’t comport with the (then) new Nicene orthodoxy must have been changed by heretics, and lyingly (or idiotically) claiming to have filled things in only with Origen’s other words or ideas… Read More »Rufinus’s corruption of Origen’s On First Principles – Part 2
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!
In round 2, Bowman descends to close combat on a few central texts. But first, he makes the methodological point that it is too easy to claim simply that your preferred texts are clear, whereas the ones central to your opponent’s case are obscure or ambiguous. I think that’s right, and that it is also correct that “academia… encourages revisionism”. He says, In the end,… Read More »SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – Bowman 2
To readers who aren’t philosophers – thanks for your patience! We philosophers feel compelled to pick through these things at a slow pace. Stay tuned for less exploratory and technical stuff. In my last post, I tried to answer the quesion “What is modalism about the Trinity?” The basic idea is that there are things, and there are modes of things, or ways those things… Read More »What is “modalism”? – Part 2
“And the best thing is, we can take these blocks apart!”
In the last post, I introduced the ‘generic view’ of the trinity, namely the claim that Divinity (that which makes the divine persons God/divine) is shared equally by all three persons and so does not belong to any one divine person more than another. In this post, I would like to highlight some of the issues faced by a generic view.
My point of departure is modern day criticism of the generic view such as that of Colin Gunton and John Zizioulas (to name just a few). These authors are not, in my opinion, the most philosophically astute critics, but nevertheless, they do highlight some of the issues relevant for the generic view.
Read More »Derivation vs. Generic Theories – part 6: Issues for the Generic View (JT)
Mike, reloaded – before the smoke has even cleared.
More from Mike Almeida about a premise in an anti-social-trinitarian-argument argument I’ve been exploring. Also, (sorry Mike – actually, sorry everyone) I continue my cheesy cowboy theme. (But as a native Texan, it’s my sacred right, Pardn’r. 🙂 )
Here’s a summary in (attempted) ordinary English of his thoughtful post on infinitely increasing properties @ his PhilRel Blog, followed by my response, which I posted to his comments section.
Can a unitarian Christian explain why God has the capacity for interpersonal love?
Philosopher Ed Feser thinks my comments about God (here and here) are ridiculous. So, he breaks out his rhetorical brass knuckles, and tries to knock some sense into me. Feser may suspect that I’m trolling, simply dishing out accusation of “atheism” just to get a rise out of people, or to get attention, or just for the joy of annoying others. But I’m afraid the… Read More »Passing Feser’s Laugh Test
At Christianity Today, some Christian scholars fondly remember the recently deceased Dr. Marcus Borg, liberal Bible scholar. Dr. Ben Witherington praises him as a “Christian churchman.” I guess I have no objection to that description, so long as we supplement it with this observation: Dr. Borg was a longtime atheist, who had moved from monotheism to agnosticism to atheism, like so many. It’s just that… Read More »Marcus Borg’s atheism
As I said last time, Arius maintains that the Son is created from nothing (ex nihilo), but Athanasius denies this. Much of the discussion depends on what these authors mean by ‘creation’. Before we go any further then, it will be helpful to establish a working definition for ‘creating something from nothing’. This requires some care, because we’re after a definition that both Arius and Athanasius would agree to. But so long as we make the right qualifications, I think that Arius and Athanasius do agree on what it means to create something from nothing.
Just so we have a rough idea of what we’re talking about, let me begin by describing creation in the following way: something is created from nothing if it’s produced without any pre-existing ingredients. Now, that’s a very loose way of putting it, but it makes the basic idea clear enough. We know that things get produced with pre-existing ingredients all the time. Masons build walls with bricks and mortar, cavemen make charcoal with fire and wood, humans procreate with sperm and eggs, and so on. But none of that counts as a creation. Something is created from nothing only when it’s produced without any pre-existing ingredients.
Read More »Arius and Athanasius, part 2 – Producing something with ‘ingredients’ (JT)
Richard Swinburne was a visiting fellow at Biola University’s Center for Christian Thought in the Fall of 2012. Here are the videos they’ve posted from that visit. Interestingly, they seem to have avoided the topic of Swinburne’s Trinity theory – at least, judging by the videos they posted. One has to wonder why. Maybe they just wanted to leave room to discuss the soul, about which… Read More »Swinburne @ Biola
“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)
In my comments on his first salvo, I wondered exactly what Trinity doctrine Bowman means to defend. (Some kind of modalism?) After round two, I said that Bowman has owned up to affirming a contradiction – trying to pass it off as a “mystery”, i.e. a merely apparent contradiction. In round 3, Bowman ignores these fundamental conceptual difficulties for his position, and soldiers on with… Read More »SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – Bowman 3
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
Does Jude 4 somehow refute what unitarian Christians say about John 17:1-3.
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
Central to Dale’s divine deception argument against Social Trinitarianism (ST) is the following analogy. Little orphan Annie is one day adopted by a man named Fred who claims to be her father. Fred lovingly raises Annie over the years, but for unknown reasons will not see her in person. But, at long last, Fred finally does meet her. Much to her surprise, however, Annie meets… Read More »Dale’s Divine Deception Dilemma