Craig: how Nicene orthodoxy rules out the full deity of Christ
Equally divine or not? Dr. Craig on generation, procession, and the Logos theologians.
Equally divine or not? Dr. Craig on generation, procession, and the Logos theologians.
Do Christians and Muslims worship the same god? Many are inclined to think that trinitarian Christian and Islamic theologies are just too different for the two groups to even be referring to the same being. But as many have pointed out, be careful with that argument! For one thing, it may give you the unwanted conclusion that various Christian groups aren’t talking about the same god.… Read More »the “same god” controversy and Christian commitment – Part 2
Last time, what I thought I heard from Steve was this (this is my summary):
In sum, the one God is a perfect being, a perfect self, who is the Trinity. He has within himself three parts – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each of these parts fully has the (universal) divine nature, and so, each of the essential divine attributes. Each is a divine self. And these three parts are indistinguishable from one another, or nearly so, though they be numerically distinct.
Steve has now responded twice, here and here. These contain a lot of extraneous material, which I’ll pass by. My question is, what did I get wrong above? Here’s what I hear (bulleted):
Right – “nearly so.”
Because he says this nature is shared, I’m going to infer that it is a universal – something capable of being had by multiple subjects.
Steve, it’s not because you think God has multiple attributes. (Yes, I too reject the classical doctrine of simplicity, though I don’t think God has parts.) Rather, I’m trying to figure out what the relation is, in your view, between God/The Trinity and those three Persons. If it isn’t whole-parts, help me out!
Sure you do Read More »What is the Trinity? A Dialogue with Steve Hays – Part 2
Last Christmas season I posted in a slightly Grinch-like way about catholic Incarnation theories, and about some Christians’ lack of critical thinking about them.
There’s an interesting human impulse observable here. The best analogy I can think of right now is posters like the one to the left. The ladies love them.
Why? There’s the sex appeal of the dude. And the cute baby. Everyone likes a cute baby.
But there’s something else, something affecting about a big, strong, tough manly man, stooping to gently cradle a teeny, vulnerable baby. He’s made himself so vulnerable. Of course, that adds to the “sexy” part. My point is, the affecting nature of the man’s condescension is a distinct element of the appeal.
Now imagine that God, big strong God, becomes an ignorant, weak, dependent little baby. There’s a similar, recognizable emotional tug there. What an amazing idea! Of course, it may be amazing in part because it’s contradictory. But I’ll not argue that here.
Instead, a bit of cross-cultural comparison. Christians aren’t the only ones who go in for the idea of a god who comes down from his mighty position, to be a cute, puny little baby.
The Ramayana is an epic poem, and a sort of scripture in Hinduism. Parts of it go back perhaps to the 400s BCE, though it comes in many versions, some of which are from the high middle ages. The clip below is from a wildly popular Indian television series from 1986 called Ramayan. If you’re interested in Hinduism, I recommend it, but it’s a real time commitment to watch the whole thing. I’ve edited some bits of it, to include the more theological parts, and to get it down to youtube length. It’s here, Ram or Rama, is supposed to be an avatar of the god Vishnu.
My point is notRead More »God the baby – Rama / Ram, avatar of Vishnu
Origen, many other ancient catholics, takes the Word (logos) of John 1 to be the pre-human Jesus.
For the record, I don’t think that is correct. But I won’t contest it here.
In the quotes here, he’s commenting on “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is from an long commentary on John, this portion of which was probably written in 231-2 AD.
Many people who wish to be pious are troubled because they are afraid that they may proclaim two Gods and, for this reason, they fall into false and impious beliefs. They either deny that the individual nature of the Son is other than that of the Father by confessing him to be God whom they refer to as “Son” in name at least, or they deny the divinity of the Son and make his individual nature and essence as an individual to be different from the Father. (Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel According to God, trans. Robert E. Heine, p. 98, bold added)
Permit me to paraphrase: people think that this Word who is with God and yes is God must be another God, a second God. But that seems wrong – isn’t monotheism true? Thus, they either think Father and Son to be numerically one (the same God) or they deny that the Word, that is, the pre-human Jesus to be divine – to be such that the word “God” applies to him.
Immediately following the passage above, Origen gives his solution.
Their problem can be resolved in this way. Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 8 – Origen on “God” vs. “a god”
Please leave a written review of the podcast at iTunes! This is the #1 thing you can do to help other interested people to find the podcast. Here’s a quick video walk-through for reviewing the trinities podcast in iTunes, and in Stitcher: Or if you prefer it written out: iTunes: On your desktop or laptop computer, open your iTunes application. (If you don’t yet have… Read More »Review at iTunes
Last time, I explained why I don’t think that it is possible for anything’s essence to just be its existence. If that is impossible, then one can’t explain why God is a necessary being by saying that his essence just is his existence. Is there another way to explain why God is a necessary being? I think there is. It is important to understand that… Read More »Dialogue with the Maverick Philosopher: God is a being, not Being itself – part 6
Incredibly, in 1551 they discovered an intact statue of Hippolytus (pictured here). This may exist because he was revered as a martyr shortly after his lifetime.
In the previous post, we saw that in his theology, the divine (but less divine than God) Logos came to exist from God a finite time ago, so that God could create the cosmos by means of him. On two counts, then, this makes him not a trinitarian – that the “persons” are neither co-equal nor equally divine. But is he a unitarian?
In the most important work we have from him, he says,
The first and only (one God), both Creator and Lord of all, had nothing coeval with Himself… Therefore this solitary and supreme Deity, by an exercise of reflection, brought forth the Logos first… Him alone He produced from existing things; for the Father Himself constituted existence, and the being born from Him was the cause of all things that are produced. The Logos was in the Father Himself, bearing the will of His progenitor, and not being unacquainted with the mind of the Father. For simultaneously with His procession from His Progenitor… He has, as a voice in Himself, the ideas conceived in the Father. …when the Father ordered the world to come into existence, the Logos one by one completed *each object of creation, thus pleasing God. …[God, via the Logos] formed the ruler of all [creation, i.e. Adam]… The Creator did not wish to make him a god, and failed in His aim; nor an angel… but a man. For if He had willed to make thee a god, He could have done so. Thou has the example of the Logos. Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 10 – Hippolytus on the identity of the one God
Perhaps the greatest issue for Social Trinitarians with respect to the Holy Spirit is “his” personhood.
I explain my view that arguments from truth are a greater threat to human freedom than are arguments from foreknowledge, and I argue against the all-false view about statements about future events that (as of now) may or may not occur.
Was 381 the dawn of imperially enforced confession of a triune God?
Against Celsus is not the only important surviving book by Origen. Origen’s On First Principles is often called the first systematic Christian theology. It was written some time before 231. It is a bold and wide-ranging work, and in Origen’s day Christian theologians could speculate a fair amount.
But the curtain was brought down on this era of freedom by ecclesial-political events of the fourth century. While many still considered Origen a great scholar, the atmosphere was such that one might lose one’s church career if people thought you were too sympathetic to his views.
Among his admirers was the great scholar Jerome (translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible), but Jerome had do distance himself from Origen lest the heresy hunters get him. But still, people wanted to read Origen. Answering this need, Rufinus (d. 410) translated Origen’s On First Principles into Latin. Problem is, Rufinus systematically cut out and/or changed numerous passages that would not fit the new Pro-Nicene hegemony.
How do we know this? Because Rufinus tells us! He argues that heretics must have corrupted Origen’s works, since there just could not be a difference between those and the new catholic orthodoxy. Also, we have from other sources, e.g. letters of his contemporaries, the Greek texts of some of the cut and altered passages. In the excellent modern edition of the book, the editor-translator restores these to the text. Sadly, Rufinus’s Latin version is the only complete version we have of Origen’s book, so as it stands, the book is riddled with suspicious passages that don’t fit what we otherwise know about Origen, but which we have no textual grounds to correct. (On the whole crazy affair, see the above edition, pp. xxxi-lii.)
Here are some of the cut and restored passages; if you’re familiar with the “Arian” controversy and the trinitarian orthodoxy that coalesced and acquired the power of the Roman emperor at the end of the fourth century, you will not need an explanation why Rufinus cut them.
…the Saviour… is an image of God’s goodness, but Read More »trinitarian or unitarian? 7 – Origen uncensored
Here. On the whole, a well done piece. Craig is indeed a fearsome debater, and a bold and insightful scholar. His devotion to apologetics makes him a bit uncool among professional philosophers. But I would guess that his work is probably read by more average people – Christians, atheists, Muslims, and who-knows-what – than any living philosopher. The reason is that it has many good… Read More »William Lane Craig in the Chronicle of Higher Education
My posting has been infrequent lately. That’s because I’ve been working on an old paper of mine which isn’t on philosophical theology. But it’s also because I’ve been working on a couple of very exciting blog-related things behind the scenes – stay tuned.
My recent exchange with Brandon Watson got me to thinking. This is going to be boringly methodological, but I need to think about this issue, as it’ll come up again and again. As a philosopher, I’m interested in evaluating theories on their merits – consistency, fit with the evidence, coherence with what else we believe, explanatory power, and so on. When I look at the history of theological debate, it is very often marred with the ugly weapons of rhetoric Read More »Some thoughts on labeling others’ theories
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
In the first portion of this episode Dr. Thurow offers objections to subjective theories, and to penal substitution, ransom, and christus victor theories of atonement. Dr. Thurow then sketches his own, original approach to understanding atonement, which focuses on the collective sin of the human race.
Over at Faith and Theology a theologian lists what he views as the ten most important latter-day books on the Trinity. An interesting thing about this list is that it shows the radical divide between philosophers (philosophy of religion specialists, philosophical theologians) like me, and (theologically trained) theologians. None of these books has been big topic of discussion among the former, and I’ve read pretty… Read More »Linkage: 10 Important books?
Did you know that “Trinity” has long been an ambiguous term?
Most Orthodox theologians agree with Catholics and most Protestants that the one God is the Trinity.