podcast 341 – Reflections on my debate with Dr. Andrew Loke
In the New Testament, is the Father God himself, or does the Father rather represent the one God?
In the New Testament, is the Father God himself, or does the Father rather represent the one God?
0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:24:05 podcast 33 – Albrecht vs. Tuggy debate – Was Tertullian a trinitarian? Part 1 Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify On March 29, I debated Catholic apologist William Albrecht on whether or not Tertullian was a trinitarian. In this episode, our opening statements, and rebuttals, slightly edited (“cleaned up”) from… Read More »podcast 33 – Albrecht vs. Tuggy debate – Was Tertullian a trinitarian? Part 1
“The dissolution of a mythology is no less natural a process than its growth, and is indeed secured the moment we have discovered how it has grown…”
What I call positive mysterianism about the Trinity is the view that the doctrine, as best we can formulate it, is apparently contradictory. Now many Christian philosophers resort to this in the end, but only after one or more elaborate attempts to spell the doctrine out in a coherent way. On the other hand, some jump more quickly for the claim, not really expanding on or interpreting the standard creedal formulas much at all. These are primarily who I have in mind when I use the label “positive mysterian”.
I ran across a striking version of this recently, in a blog post by theologian C. Michael Patton, who blogs at Parchment and Pen: a theology blog. In his interesting post, he says that all the typical analogies for the Trinity (shamrock, egg, water-ice-vapor, etc.) are useful only for showing what the Trinity doctrine is not.
This contrasts interestingly with what I call negative mysterians. Typically, and this holds for many of the Fathers, as well as for people like Brower and Rea nowadays, they hold that all these analogies are useful, at least when you pile together enough of them, for showing what the doctrine is. Individually, they are highly misleading, and only barely appropriate, but they seem to think that multiplying analogies like these results in our achieving a minimal grasp of what is being claimed. Maybe they think the seeming inconsistency of the analogies sort of cancels out the misleading implications of each one considered alone.
In any case, in Patten’s view, the best you can do is to Read More »Mysterians at work in Dallas
A pound of misunderstanding and irrelevance together with a little pinch of relevant but inadequate response.
Does the NT teach that Jesus is a man, or that he is a godman?
Former Episcopalian G.W. Hyer on the confused mind of the trinitarian layperson.
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.
Suppose you want to really study my entry “Trinity“ in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. If you’re like me, when you want to really read something, you’ll print it out (and then proceed to destroy it with a pencil and a highlighter). And if you do print it all out, it’ll make your printer burst out in tears. The whole thing, with supplementary discussions, comes… Read More »“Trinity” in paperback form
Why did Eusebius have to submit his own creed at the famous council of Nicea in 325?
I recently read this somewhat disturbing post by our friend Fr. Aiden Kimel. Though he lightens things up with humor a couple of times, it is a pretty thorough condemnation of analytic theologians. A charge he makes by implication against analytic theologians (i.e. those trained in analytic philosophy who work on topics in Christian theology) is that like the “Arians” of old, we suffer from… Read More »against despising analytic theologians
Andrew DeFord undertakes a refutation of the main argument of podcast 248.
— “Daddy, why do trees branch out?”
— “So you can climb in them, Jimmy.”
Patristic scholars tell us that the doctrine of the trinity was really developed in the 4th century. The question is: what exactly is the ‘development’? If you read many of those scholarly big books on patristic theology, you’ll occasionally come across the idea that there were two major theories of the trinity floating around in the 4th century: the ‘derivation view’ and the ‘generic view’. But what exactly are these two views, and who held them?Read More »Derivation vs. Generic Theories — part 1 (JT)
Synopsis: I’m not Eastern Orthodox, so am incompetent to discuss the Trinity, and I’m somehow missing the whole point.
A trinitarian ought to say No. But why? Doesn’t he accept “the deity of Christ”?
Mutual interrogations, closing statements, and audio Q&A. In your view, which side won?
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
My friend Dr. William Vallicella has yet another long and interesting post on the “same god” controversy. Along the way he makes a number of good points. Philosopher-style, I’ll hone in on the points I disagree with, in this and a follow-up post. Bill says, in part: 3. Now consider these conflicting beliefs: God is triune; God is not triune. Please note that it would… Read More »the “same god” controversy and Christian commitment – Part 1
Dr. James White’s stated reasons for not debating me are based on misunderstanding.