…why not say that there is a single substance, God, but that the existence of this substance grounds other, non-fundamental entities [i.e. the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit] that perhaps can be considered parts of God. …the existence of the whole is prior to the existence of the parts. For someone drawn to a social trinitarian sort of view that takes the members… Read More »Linkage: Ian’s search for a new Social Trinitarian theory
Found at here at Ian’s Philosophical Orthodoxy. Thus saith Marilyn McCord Adams:
Renouncing society’s right to say who we are and what we mean, frees us for full communion with Our Creator, with that gay men’s chorus, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. (emphasis added)
Uhh… hmm. [speechless]
Looking at the rest of this speech, a few other things stuck out. Read More »Quote: A new trinitarian analogy
Time to close out this long series with a brief summary of my own observations on and objections to Trinity Monotheism. These aren’t all the one’s I’ve mentioned, but only the ones I think are the most relevant. And I should say that Joseph has raised some others as well, both in his guest post and in his comments. The whole parts issue is a… Read More »Trinity Monotheism Part 9: Some final thoughts and objections
Check it out. I think this is all excellent advice. His website provides this link to more Craig on youtube. To my fellow academic philosophers: grad school teaches you to be over-specialized, overly technical, and overly cautious. If you want to communicate with a popular audience live or in print, about theology or anything else, you’d do well to imitate Craig. Technorati Tags: William Lane… Read More »Linkage: William Lane Craig on doubts
A couple of equally “bugly” ladies. In his attack, Dan Howard-Snyder goes through four different things one might have in mind by saying there are “two ways to be divine”. Continuing his defense and elaboration of the theory of Trinity Monotheism, Bill goes through each of these, declaring that Dan’s objections beg the question, or saddle the Trinity Monotheist with commitments she needn’t make. I’ve… Read More »Trinity Monotheism Part 8: Bill Fires Back, Part 2
Last time we looked at Daniel Howard-Snyder’s published attack on Moreland’s and Craig’s Trinity theory they call “Trinity Monotheism“. Bill Craig, never one to duck a fight, fired back. (“Trinity Monotheism Once More,” Philosophia Christi 8:1, 2006, 101-13) First, he complains that Dan “fusses terribly over the analogies” they use (e.g. a human, Ceberus) while not saying much about the actual proposal. This is a… Read More »Trinity Monotheism part 7: Bill fires back, part 1
In this post, I’ll take a crack at summarizing a lengthy salvo against Trinity monotheism launched by Daniel Howard-Snyder. Dan is well known and respected for his work on the problem of evil and in theory of knowledge. He has a hard-hitting and thorough style, very Alstonian (which is no accident). Generally, Dan is a nice guy, with a good sense of humor to boot.… Read More »Trinity Monotheism part 6: Attack of the Dan
In what sense, according to Craig and Moreland, are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each “divine”? Well, consider Rover. They’d say that the following four things are canine: Rover Rover’s nose Rover’s tail Rover’s left ear So, just as the parts of a dog are just as canine as the dog, so maybe “we could think of the persons of the Trinity as divine… Read More »Trinity Monotheism part 5: “divine”
In the words of Moreland and Craig,
We turn finally to Trinity monotheism, which holds that while the persons of the Trinity are divine, it is the Trinity as a whole that is properly God. If this view is to be orthodox, it must hold that the Trinity alone is God and that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while divine, are not Gods. (589, their section 3.2.2)
Leftow, in the essay we mentioned last time, gives a complicated objection to this whole approach, which Moreland and Craig represent in the following helpful chart. (p. 590)
Leftow’s point is that no matter how you develop Trinity monotheism, you end up with an unacceptable theoryRead More »Trinity Monotheism Part 4: parrying Leftow
To fully understand a philosophical theory, one needs to understand not only the content of it, but the reasons for which it is held. This is why I’m patiently going through how Moreland and Craig reject what they see as the competing Trinity theories, before giving their own.
As we’ve seen, they consider themselves to be “social trinitarians” (last time we looked at their rather vague definition of that term). They then adopt Brian Leftow’s taxonomy of social trinitarian theories, and decide that the first of these is the most promising. Read More »Trinity Monotheism Part 3: Their Set-Up, Part 2
Sometimes, all your main interests converge. Books? Check. Computers? Check. Philosophy and theology? Check. History? Check. The result: http://trinities.org/books.Read More »Books
Before going into objections to “Trinity Monotheism”, I thought it’d be a good idea to say a bit more about their long, meaty chapter in which they (eventually) set out their own theory, in this book. This’ll take a couple of posts, and we’ll allow time for discussion between them. Theologians in particular should find a lot to chew on here;they’re pretty out of step with the theological world on these issues, as we’ll see.Read More »Trinity Monotheism part 2: their set-up, part 1
Returning from my travels, it seems I’ve recently received two issues of Faith and Philosophy, dated Oct 2006 and Jan 2007. There are several bits that may be of interest to readers of this blog.Read More »Some good stuff in Faith & Philosophy
I’m very pleased to introduce Joseph Jedwab, who has some interesting comments on Moreland’s and Craig’s understanding of the Trinity. I haven’t had the privilege of meeting him, but given how he spells “center”, I gather he’s English. 🙂 Joseph is currently teaching philosophy and finishing his dissertation at Oriel College of Oxford University, on the metaphysics of the Trinity and the Incarnation. And he’s working under the supervision of one of the greatest living philosophers of religion, Richard Swinburne. Hiring committees take note – he goes on the job market next year! – Dale
I agree this is a clear account. I’m a bit worried about how the discussion might influence terminology. Moreland and Craig describe their view as Social Trinitarian and contrast this with an Anti-Social Trinitarian view. This is a mistake. Leftow’s title indicates his paper is against Social Trinitarianism (ST). It’s not supposed to be the name of a Trinitarian view. As you know, the name of the view Leftow defends is ‘Latin Trinitarianism’ (LT). Further, they say that the main commitment of ST is that there are three centres of consciousness, but it’s not clear what a centre is.Read More »Guest Post: Jedwab on “Trinity Monotheism”
William Lane Craig is a respected and extremely prolific Christian philosopher. I’d give you his c.v., but it might bring the internet to a standstill. He’s sometimes a bit pugnacious in print, but is very amiable in person. And he’s extremely sharp. His trinitarian co-theorizer, J.P. Moreland, is also influential and inhumanly prolific, and is one of the clearest, best organized writers around. He’s been called a “scrappy” arguer, which is apt, and he’s also a swell guy (I took classes from him at Biola in the early 90s, and I’m grateful for how he influenced me). A Willardite, he also writes books about Christian spirituality, such as this good one. Both Craig and Moreland are well known for their many forays into the popular area, in the form of books on apologetics, public debates and such.
Nice doggie… nice doggie… What’s Cerberus here got to do with the Trinity? Keep reading.
Read More »Moreland’s and Craig’s “Trinity Monotheism” – Part 1
According to the Arizona Daily Star, ‘Lord’ is fading at some churches, because they think it smacks of patriarchy.
When ideology has taken over to the point that you think it’s inappropriate to describe God almighty in terms that connote power (horrors!)… wow.
And then, what about Jesus?Read More »“Lord” allergies among “mainliners”
The problem I noted last time is well-known by philosophers who work in the history of philosophy (I’m not sure that mainstream philosophers who stick almost entirely to recent stuff are so aware of it). Nor do I exempt myself from this lamentable tendency. I’ll give a real example, with other peoples’ names omitted out of respect. Some years ago, I began reading a Great… Read More »more on theory-driven distortion of texts
Back in 1983, the excellent scholar of early modern philosophy Sarah Hutton published an interesting little piece called “The Neoplatonic Roots of Arianism: Ralph Cudworth and Theophilus Gale” (in Lech Szczucki, ed. Socinianism and its Role in the Culture of the XVI-th to XVIII-th Centuries (Warsaw: Polish Academy of Sciences, 139-45). Professor Hutton informs me that it will be coming out in a collection of papers on the Cambridge Platonists. I’ll just very crudely summarize the piece, and make my point about it.
Read More »Plato: proto-trinitarian, or the Father of Arianism?
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
From a few months back, a very interesting post on Isaac Newton by Brandon, over at Siris. Newton’s is a part of a big, long, interesting and interlocking set of stories about subordinationists, “Arians”, and “Unitarians” in late 17th and early 18th century England. A good place to start is in chapter 29 & 30 of Wilbur’s 1925 book Our Unitarian Heritage, though his interests… Read More »Linkage: Isaac Newton on the Father and Son