podcast 349 – Craig-Tuggy dialogue on trinitarian vs. unitarian theologies
Discussing trinitarian vs. unitarian Christian theologies with Dr. William Lane Craig.
Search Results for: Is God a self?
On a Rebuttal to my “How Trinity theories conflict with the New Testament” – Part 4
This reply of his, honestly, is too danged long, as is this series. Future critiquers – remember, brevity is the soul of wit. But here is part 4 of 5. I’m going to skip a few tangents. Picking up his critique, …irrespective of whether the doctrine of the Trinity is true, it’s not formally contradictory. Depends on the version, but my post doesn’t anywhere claim that… Read More »On a Rebuttal to my “How Trinity theories conflict with the New Testament” – Part 4
Marcus Borg’s atheism
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
How not to conduct theological dialogue
A poor exchange. Read it first – then my comments. Where do I start? The unitarian behaves poorly. Pretending to ask questions, he instead puts forward objections. This is disrespectful. And it makes the compliments at the start seem disingenuous, which is obnoxious. But Bill serves it back, by sarcastically labeling the thing “Muslim objections…” Cute. Are these objections “simple-minded”? No, not really. What they are,… Read More »How not to conduct theological dialogue
Caught between catholic tradition and the Bible
Dr. Brown is caught between the traditional claim that God is the Trinity and the clear NT claim that God is the Father.
the evolution of my views on the Trinity – part 8
This time, another great Christian thinker, who I discovered some time around 1998.
What is the Trinity? A Dialogue with Steve Hays – Part 1
Prolific blogger (at Triablogue) Steve Hays and I have recently been discussing various things.
At the end of a recent exchange, I basically said: Dude, I don’t know what you think “the” doctrine of the Trinity is. What, in your view, does it mean to say that God is a Trinity?
He’s now responded here.
In this post, I try to understand just what he’s claiming, in other words, what he takes trinitarianism (rightly understood) to be.
This is a bit risky, because I think he’s confused about the concept of identity, and I’m trying to hear a self-consistent view here.
The first job in critical thinking is carefully listening to what the source at hand is saying. Here I listen carefully, editing out a lot of his methodological musings and terminological quibbles, trying to get to the meat of his view.
I think the meat starts here:Read More »What is the Trinity? A Dialogue with Steve Hays – Part 1
Qureshi vs. Ally – Trinity vs. Tawhid
This should be interesting. Mr. Qureshi (a PhD student in theology) is the author of the fascinating book Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (kindle). He’s a convert from Ahmadiyya Islam to evangelical Christianity. He is bold, smart, and clear. Dr. Ally is an erudite and well-spoken Islamic apologist and an experienced debater. In the press release for this live-streamed, April 8, 2015 debate, Mr. Qureshi says that My goal… Read More »Qureshi vs. Ally – Trinity vs. Tawhid
First Review of the How ___ Became ___ books
by evangelical apologist Rob Bowman, at the Parchment and Pen blog. He has a nice and fair summary of Ehrman’s book, and he then focuses to a large extent on New Testament issues. He puts his finger on several of the key issues most Christians will have with Ehrman’s theory – places where Ehrman really goes out on a limb. For example, A second notable… Read More »First Review of the How ___ Became ___ books
“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 2
What is this adequate Trinity theory called “Sabellianism”, according to Baber? It is what I’ve called serial, non-essential FSH noumenal modalism – each “person” of the Trinty is a mode of God, a way God is during a period of time. None of these overlap (serial), they supervene on God’s intrinsic features (noumenal), and they are non-essential – if God hadn’t created, there would have been no time, and so no temporal parts to his life.
So the theory is that the one God is an everlasting self with three temporal parts, the Father (up to the time of the Incarnation?), the Son (during the earthly life of Jesus, ending at Pentecost?) and the Holy Spirit (Pentecost and after?). So the three “persons” of the Trinity are in fact person-stages of the one divine person/self, but they are also persons as well.
Following an ancient tradition of mocking modalists as “patripassians”, she seems to think the biggest or the main problem with modalism is that it identifies the Father and the Son. (pp. 1, 3) On her modalist theory, they are temporal parts (person-stages) of one being, but they are not numerically identical – they are different temporal parts of God. As she observes, on this theory, “There is… no time at while f=s.” (p. 3) Thus, her theory doesn’t identify any of the persons with one another, or with God for that matter.
Many metaphysicians, she knows, reject the theory of temporal parts, and the perdurance theory of how a thing can “last” through time.
But moving on, is this theory monotheistic? She urges,
All we need to capture the spirit of monotheism is the doctrine that at any time there is exactly one God. (3)
Huh? She draws an analogy with US Presidents; at any given time, there’s one one.
But imagine this:Read More »“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 2
John A. T. Robinson on “the Word” of John 1
“Incarnation” means initially that God’s love and power had been experienced in fullest measure in, through and as this man Jesus.
podcast 274 – McManus on Oneness Pentecostal Christology
Can a Christian sensibly say that Jesus is the Father incarnate?
more thoughts on “God,” atheism, and panentheism
Dr. James McGrath has responded to my post on belief in “God” where this amounts to an ineffable Ultimate – which, I claimed, is a variety of atheism. He seems to think that thinking that God resembles humans to any degree or in any way counts as “anthropomorphism.” I think that’s a goofy use of the term, but why quibble about words? So, in James’s… Read More »more thoughts on “God,” atheism, and panentheism
The Trinity Explained (with Reason)
The word is “Therefore…” When you are making a deductive argument, this means that what you are about to say logically follows from (is implied by) what you have just said. That is, if the former part were to be true, what you’re about to say must also be true. A non sequitur (Latin for: “it doesn’t follow”) is an invalid argument, one in which the premises don’t imply… Read More »The Trinity Explained (with Reason)
Defining the concept of a Christian unitarian
Thanks to reader Mike Gant for his question about my last post. As of now I think I’ve got a solid definition of the concept unitarian: someone who believes that the one God just is (i.e. is numerically identical to) a certain self and not to any other self. But I then tried to define the more specific concept of a Christian unitarian: someone who believes that… Read More »Defining the concept of a Christian unitarian
Hays on attempts to argue from theism to Trinity
Steve Hays has posted on my critiques of purely philosophical arguments from theism to the Trinity.