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Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 8 – Rational Reinterpretation, cont.

Moses Stuart (1780-1852), professor at Andover Theological Seminary,
and NOT a fan of Rational Reconstruction (image credit)


What, if anything, is wrong with with the strategy of Resolution through Rational Reinterpretation? And why are most theologians so cold towards this strategy, while most Christian philosophers love it? Consider this quote by Moses Stuart on one of Leibniz’s takes on the Trinity:

The celebrated Leibniz was requested by a Loefler, who had undertaken to refute the writings of a certain English Antitrinitarian, to give him an affirmative definition of the persons in the Godhead. He sent for answer the following: – “Several persons in an absolute substance numerically the same, signify several, particular, intelligent substances essentially related.” On farther consideration, he abandoned this, and sent a second, which was, – “Several persons, in an absolute substance numerically the same, mean relative, incommunicable modes of subsisting.”

If Leibniz actually understood this, I believe he must have been a better master of metaphysics than any person who has ever read his definition.Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 8 – Rational Reinterpretation, cont.

Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 7 – Resolution by Rational Reinterpretation

This brings the total of R’s to 6. Wish I could say there weren’t more coming! We’ve looked so far at two ways Christians may respond to apparently contradictory doctrines: Redirection and Restraint. We now move on to a third strategy: Resolution. In brief, the Resolver holds that the apparent contradiction can be banished, made to disappear. She doesn’t change the subject (as the Redirector),… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 7 – Resolution by Rational Reinterpretation

Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 6 – Restraint, implicit belief, and Stalin

A story about implicit faith… Once upon a time, there was a virtuous and patriotic Russian peasant named Georgy. Georgy lived a simple life among simple people, in a village so far out in the boondocks of the USSR that World War II – what Russians call the Great Patriotic War – passed by practically unnoticed. The farming life had treated Georgy and his family… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 6 – Restraint, implicit belief, and Stalin

Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 5 – Aquinas on Implicit Faith (Dale)

We’re exploring the response of Restraint – when confronted with an apparently contradictory doctrine, might it not be a good idea for the believer to simply admit that she doesn’t know what it means? Last time we looked at the idea of “implicit faith”. What, if anything, is wrong with this? Consider this exchange: Doubter: Do you believe X? Believer: Heck yeah. Doubter: Doesn’t X… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 5 – Aquinas on Implicit Faith (Dale)

Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 4 – Restraint and Implicit Faith

One way to deal with an apparently contradictory doctrine in your religion is the response of Restraint. There’s a connection here, with the medieval Catholic doctrine of “implicit faith”, so I thought I’d explore it a little, and in my next post, I’ll apply this to the issue of Restraint in the face of an apparent contradiction. I welcome any Catholic friends out there to… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 4 – Restraint and Implicit Faith

Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 3 – Restraint (Dale)


Don’t ask me what this doctrine means… I only believe it.

Last time we briefly explored Redirection, the first of our four ways to respond to apparent contradictions in theology.

The response of Restraint is a little more reasonable. This person realizes that a certain way of understanding, say, the doctrine of the Trinity, seems inconsistent. The Christian walking the path of Restraint declines to endorse that way of understanding the Trinity, or any other clear formulation. “Sure, if it meant X, then it would seem contradictory… but maybe it doesn’t mean X.”

The Restrained believer neither affirms nor denies X, exercising Restraint . He declines to say precisely what the great Doctrine in question is, because (he says) he doesn’t know what it is supposed to be. Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 3 – Restraint (Dale)

Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 2 – Redirection (Dale)


The smell of this will get you off the trail…

Last time we briefly distinguished four ways Christians respond to apparent contradictions in theology. Here, we look at what I call Redirection. When confronted with an apparently contradictory doctrine X, the Redirector changes the subject. She says something to direct your attention away from X, or at least away from the apparent inconsistency of X. The Redirector is either not arguing in defense of X at all, or she’s committing a red herring fallacy.

An example:

Doubting Don: What’s this Incarnation business? Jesus was God and a human? But isn’t that saying that he is and isn’t God?

Redirecting Rebecca: Isn’t it amazing that God loved us so much, that while we were yet sinners, he sent his only Son to redeem us?Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 2 – Redirection (Dale)

Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 1 – the four R’s (Dale)

This chart has been brought to you by the letter “R” and the number “4”.

In this series I’ll describe 4 basic ways Christian thinkers respond to apparent contradictions in theology. I don’t claim these are complete. Maybe ya’ll can help me clarify and add to this scheme.

I’ve been working for a while on what I call “mysterianism”, and a main purpose of mine here is to locate this defense strategy and contrast it with others. (Mysterianism is a kind of Resistance.)

Above is my basic division. Future posts will give more detail, but here’s a brief illustration of each sort of response.

Objector/puzzled fellow believer/one’s intellectual conscience: “Huh? Isn’t X inconsistent?”Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 1 – the four R’s (Dale)

on believing what you don’t at all understand

Whoever says he believes what he does not at all understand, knows not what belief is, knows also not what he believes; and therefore, he believes in fact nothing, but it only seems to him [he believes]… Certainly nobody can believe something other than what he considers true… If reason is not necessary to grasp the articles of faith, then consequently it follows that the… Read More »on believing what you don’t at all understand

Is Allah God? Goofus and Gallant, Grok and Sophie

Is Allah God? Are Christians and Muslims talking about (numerically) the same God? We’ve previously linked and joined in with discussions with Jeremy Pierce and with Kevin Corcoran. To further the discussion, I present a tale to explain why it may matter less than you think whether or not the words”God” (used by Christians) and “Allah” (used by Muslims) refer to the same being. A… Read More »Is Allah God? Goofus and Gallant, Grok and Sophie

Corcoran on the God of Muslims and the God of Christians

A continuing theme in the Christian blogosphere, which we discussed before (God = Allah?) – now Calvin College philosopher Kevin Corcoran, on his blog Holy Skin and Bone, asks: Is the God of Christians the God of Muslims Too? Corcoran answers a firm “yes”, and sort of scolds evangelicals who say “no”. He also summarizes an interesting recent incident that prompted his post – check… Read More »Corcoran on the God of Muslims and the God of Christians

Linkage: Bloggers Anonymous, and six ways to avoid it (Dale)

This one goes out to our friend Bill, a.k.a. the Maverick Philosopher, a.k.a. blogger on sabbatical.

It’s going to be long month! 🙂 “Just one little post, one little post!”

Seriously, I completely understand Bill’spain. Blogging can prevent one from following up on and developing ideas all the way through – as in all the way through to publication. I would like to find a way to have blogging feed and encourage my more serious writing. How might that actually work though? This is what I’ve determined so far.Read More »Linkage: Bloggers Anonymous, and six ways to avoid it (Dale)

Pruss on a triple statue analogy for the Trinity

The human idea factory (I think he’ll take that as a compliment 🙂 ) has again returned to the Trinity: Alexander Pruss’s Blog: Another analogy for the Trinity? He imagines a scenario in which three different statues are simultaneously made of the same quantity of material. This scenario, he holds, is logically impossible. Nonetheless, he says: “This analogy seems to work moderately well as an… Read More »Pruss on a triple statue analogy for the Trinity

Derivation vs. Generic Theories – part 6: Issues for the Generic View (JT)

“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)

Baptism in the NAME

“Father, Son, Holy Spirit”? Or “Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier”? The editors of the flagship magazine of American evangelicalism weigh in here: Blessed Be the Name of the Lord | Christianity Today While I share the editors’ irritation with politically correct revision of liturgical and theological language, I think their reasoning in this opinion piece is poor. (Read their editorial, then see if you agree.) For one… Read More »Baptism in the NAME

Congratulations to Joseph

I’ll be the worm in the duncecap. JT and Scott can fight over who is which jellybean. Congratulations to trinities contributor Joseph Jedwab, who is in the process of finishing his PhD at Oxford, under Richard Swinburne. It’s been a good spring for Joseph. First, he lands a prestigious post-doc at Notre Dame’s Center for Philosophy of Religion. Then, he lands a job at Kutztown… Read More »Congratulations to Joseph

Derivation vs. Generic Theories – part 5: The Generic View (JT)

“Gee Hank, it sure is swell that communism won out.
This house belongs to all of us!”

In the last post, I pointed out some of the problems faced by an Athanasian sort of derivation view. If you found such problems to be decisive, then alternatively you could opt for a generic view. In this post, I would like to introduce the generic view.

As I mentioned in the first post, the generic view claims that Divinity belongs equally to the three persons, similar to how three people might jointly own the same house. Divinity thus belongs to no one divine person any more than another. The generic view (let’s call this GV) rejects DV in favor of this:

(GV) Divinity belongs equally to each divine person.

For both the derivation and the generic views of the trinity, Divinity is an entity that’s shared by the persons. On (the Athanasian version of) the derivation view, this shared entity just is the Father, but on the generic view, this shared entity is not the Father. The Father isn’t shared, Divinity is.

Read More »Derivation vs. Generic Theories – part 5: The Generic View (JT)

your most important Trinity questions wikified

Hi Everybody?
Trinity? Suuuure – I know all about those things!

I’ve always been interested in not only what intellectuals think about the Trinity, but also about what ordinary Christians think. Thus, this is an interesting find – five helpful wikites step in to wiki-answer the following important questions:

WikiAnswers – What is the trinity and could you be a Christian and not believe in the trinity

I’ll save you some trouble, distilling the answers down into 80-proof folk-wisdom, taking the second question first. Read More »your most important Trinity questions wikified

BBC Radio Discussion & an Australian magazine on Nicea

What’s up with that weird Angel/bird/snake thing? Is that supposed to be Arius? At BBC – Radio 4 In Our Time – The Nicene Creed – A somewhat gassy and academic but nonetheless listenable discussion. Here’s the Real Audio file link. (I thought I listened to this in another audio format, but I can’t find any such files at the moment.) Then we’ve got “Great… Read More »BBC Radio Discussion & an Australian magazine on Nicea