podcast 358 – Baptist Justice: Samuel Eddy on Scripture, Church Discipline, and the Trinity
A thoughtful Baptist confronts his church about biblical vs. later teachings about God, Jesus, and heresy.
A thoughtful Baptist confronts his church about biblical vs. later teachings about God, Jesus, and heresy.
A review of the most interesting trinities podcast episodes from 2021.
In the recent and ongoing series, I have been showing that famous early “fathers” are not, contrary to popular accounts, trinitarians at all, once we carefully define the term. They are unitarians, again, carefully defining the term.
But these recent comments by reader “Villanovanus” got me thinking.
He finds it outrageous that I call people like Irenaeus and Origen “unitarians,” even though I also call them “subordinationists.” Isn’t a subordinationist by definition a trinitarian? (When one reads the trinitarian authors of histories of theology, they are usually a little more modest, saying that these folks are sort of, kind of, maybe trinitarians, if not good ones, or fully developed ones, etc.) Am I not grammatically challenged, or perversely unwilling to look up terms in a dictionary? If a “subordinationist” is by definition a trinitarian, then “subordinationist unitarian” is a contradiction in terms.
He cites a number of dictionary type definitions of “subordinationism”, e.g.
The second definition is too narrow. But making “subordinationism” Read More »“Subordinationism”
Dr. James White’s stated reasons for not debating me are based on misunderstanding.
In the New Testament “God” is nearly always the Father. But what follows from that, exactly?
Is it the foundational commitment of biblical unitarians that Scripture must be inoffensive to human reason?
Apologist explains what any theist can, declares victory for his own pet theory.
In this post I venture to offer some debate advice: be very hesitant to accuse your opponent of a logical fallacy.
In round 4, Burke makes the 3rd error, Bowman the 4th.
Burke argues,
Even Acts 5, where the apostle Peter accuses Ananias of “lying to the Holy Spirit” (verse 3) and his wife of trying to “test the Spirit of the Lord” (verse 9) is not an open and shut case. The usual argument made from this passage is that Peter accuses Ananias of “lying to the Holy Spirit” and Sapphira of trying to “tempt the Holy Spirit”; but since an impersonal power cannot be lied to or tempted, the Holy Spirit must therefore be a person and therefore it follows that the Holy Spirit is God. The logic here is not terribly good, and the argument ends with a non sequitur.
Neither this nor what follows it make clear what Bowman’s errors in reasoning are supposed to be. What exactly is the argument he’s criticizing? Is it this?Read More »SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – Round 4 Part 1
Steve Hays provides a stellar example of how not to do apologetics.
Plausibly, most Protestant scholars who think that the Bible teaches the Trinity focus on the New Testament. They argue that while trinitarianism isn’t explicit there, it is implicit.
Did Dr. Brown adequately rebut my argument from six NT facts?
“I believe in the divinity of Christ.” Perfect. Like a Rorschach test, people can read it however they want.
In this episode, I walk you through an argument against confusing Jesus with his God.
Can a unitarian Christian explain why God has the capacity for interpersonal love?
Three World Vision employees are fired because according to World Vision they don’t believe in that Jesus is “fully God” or that he’s a member of the Trinity.
But inquiring minds want to know: what did they believe, what statement or statements of faith did they sign, and are the beliefs therein necessary and sufficient for being a real Christian? This time, we’re digging a little deeper.
Their website saith,
World Vision U.S. hires only those who agree and accept to its Statement of Faith and/or the Apostles’ Creed. (source)
Interesting! Note the “and/or” – employees must affirm either one or both. As we’ve noted before here at trinities, nothing in the so-called Apostles’ Creed requires belief in either the “full deity” of Christ (whatever that may mean) or any sort of trinitarian theory.Read More »No Trinity, No Job – Part 2
Here’s a very interesting interview with probably the greatest living Christian philosopher. Like many of my peers, I’m a big fan. Read the whole thing to see why I picked a teapot. Here are some relevant bits (with my own bolding): I take atheism to be the belief that there is no such person as the God of the theistic religions. The first being of… Read More »Parsing Plantinga: is there such a person as God?
This time, another great Christian thinker, who I discovered some time around 1998.
Kimel lampoons the biblical unitarian historical narrative, and urges that Irenaeus is a big problem for it.
A blogger mocks the UCA as “the Unitarian Confusion Alliance.” But on what basis?