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In this fourth and final part of his presentation on the Monarchy of the Father, Dr. Branson again presses what he claims are unresolvable problems for my definitions of the terms “trinitarian” and “unitarian.”
He also argues that I’ve painted myself into a corner by (in some sense) endorsing the views of Samuel Clarke, which Dr. Branson argues are substantially Eastern Orthodox views, or what Dr. Branson calls “monarchical trinitarianism.”
Finally, he ventures an argument against biblical unitarian theology. He argues that it either collapses into monarchical trinitarianism, or it can’t avoid the “wonky metaphysics” relied on by various “egalitarian” (Western, Catholic) understandings of the Trinity.
Next week, I start to reply to his many objections.
Links for this episode:
- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
- Dr. Branson’s homepage
- Dr. Branson’s slides with his unedited audio are posted here (today’s episode covers the end of his Part 4 and his Part 5).
- This week’s thinking music is “Clusticus the Mistaken” by Doctor Turtle.
Dr. Branson’s goal is to conform his theology about God to the Church Fathers, aka “historial tradition”. But why? The theology of the Bible is distinctly Hebrew. Either we go with Hebrew definitions or later Greek distortions of the Hebrew definition of God. Do we read the Bible and define what it says based on what Greek thinking church leaders say, or what it meant to the Hebrew people? The two are quite incompatible. You cannot have two simultaneously different truths.
Dr. Branson wants us to believe in the eternal Fatherhood of God – that there never was a time when the one ultimate God was not a literal father who had an eternal literal Son. But is that how the Hebrew scriptures are written? What is the use of the word “father” as it relates to the one God in the Old Testament? God is “a father to Israel” in Jer. 31:9, “our father” in Is. 64:8, father as creator in Mal. 2:10, “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?”, and many other metaphorical or functional references could be added. The one Hebrew God is a single “he” in Deut. 4:35, “there is no other besides him.” Jesus identified himself with this same Hebraic/Jewish God. (John 4:22 is one of multiple passages.) The eternality of the “father property” or “fatherhood” is either absent or viewed in an entirely different sense than later “orthodox” Greek Church Fathers understood.
The Bible says that God is love and God is creator. But it is fallacious to say that this would require that there be an eternal object of His love, and an eternal creation. The same goes with the term “father”. Yes, God is father, but I always understood this in the same sense that He is love and He is creator.
Dr. Branson’s case hinges entirely on the orthodox claim that the one ultimate God is inherently and eternally a father. He can show that a majority of the Church Fathers held this view, but he never goes to the Bible to make his case. Nowhere does the Bible say that “fatherhood” is some essential property of Yahweh, the one ultimate God. The biblical use of “father” in a metaphorical and functional analogy is being converted into an eternal literal “fatherhood”, and that is just plain wrong. God is father in the sense that all things are derivative of Him, but this does not mean that all things have eternally existed.
The Hebraic view of God requires no “wonky” metaphysics at all. Dr. Branson claims his view does not either. But that is because he is denying the obvious. If God was eternally Father, and Jesus was eternally this Father’s Son, then the terms “Father” and “Son” have no real meaning, but are equivocations. A father always exists before his son. Furthermore, for a son to not exist sequentially after the father does require some kind of “wonky” metaphysics. Perhaps you have to have the son eternally preexisting within the father and then at some point the father gives birth to a son, thus making father become mother! Or, maybe there is some other wonky explanation.
I think that Dr. Banson is assuming that Biblical Unitarians are trying to be “orthodox”. But he is missing the word “Biblical”. He is thinking “Orthodox” Unitarian. But that is a mistaken assumption. We do not go to the Church Fathers for core doctrine. The Bible stands alone as our primary source. Everything else is men speculating, and is not to be a doctrinal standard, orthodox or not. We call the one ultimate God “Father” because he is the father of all that exists, including His son Jesus. But not because fatherhood is some essential property. (Or, at least that is my view. Obviously some Biblical Unitarians may differ.)
At minute 52:53 Dr. Branson says that Biblical Unitarians want to maintain the biblical identification of “God and the Father”. Meaning, I suppose, that we claim that God has been eternally a father. But I haven’t seen that among Biblical Unitarians, unless I am missing something. Yes, the one ultimate God is called “Father” by Biblical Unitarians, but only so as to specify and remove Trinitarian ambiguities over the word “God”, not to claim eternal fatherhood as some property.
I do want to thank Dr. Branson for disagreeing in a respectful tone. Very few people are able to disagree with Biblical Unitarians and keep their emotions out of it. Now I look forward to Dr. Tuggy’s response.
I think you made some great points. I would only disagree about one part, that being where you said that if the Son is eternal then it would be meaningless for him to be the Son. I don’t think this is the case, precisely because from that viewpoint the Father being eternally independent can be contrasted with the Son’s being eternally dependent on the Father for all things. I don’t see anything logically which would demand a preceding of the Father to the Son in time in order for the relationship between them to be real or genuine. The fact that we as creatures experience things in a chronological, linear order shouldn’t mean God must experience things this way.
I understand the logic of the Orthodox understanding of the Father-Son relationship. But what I don’t get–and it’s not well explained in any Orthodox material I have read–is the relationship between the one God (the Father) and the Holy Spirit. The word “spiration” is used of the Spirit’s origin from the Father, but how does origin through “spiration” differ from origin through “begettal,” and since the Spirit eternally proceeds (by spiration) from the Father, what does that mean as to God’s eternal nature? To clarify: (1) God in very nature is a Father; therefore, he has always had a Son. (2) God in very nature is a ___________; therefore, he has always had a Spirit. Can anyone fill in a word that corresponds to “Spirit” the same way “Father” corresponds to “Son”? And, in relation to the question of the difference between begettal and spiration, why is the Spirit not a second Son of God?
Good point, Vance. It was seeing the discrepancies regarding the Holy Spirit that pointed out to me that something was wrong with the Trinity doctrine. I held the Son part as so untouchable that I couldn’t see the problems, but when it came to the Holy Spirit, I saw right away that something was off.
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