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podcast 265 – What apologists don’t understand about the terms “being” and “Person”

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Dr. White offers Dr. Tuggy a Strawman trophy, on the foolish assumption that Tuggy ignores actual Trinity theories.

In this podcast I explain why I am not vulnerable to changes of “begging the question” or “assuming unitarianism” when it comes to the terms “being” and “Person” as used in Trinity theories.

In short, I let the trinitarian define his technical terms and go from there. When I’m pointing out that some Trinity theories collapse the Father and Son into one and the same being/entity/thing, I’m not using “being” in any technical trinitarian sense. Nor do I assume that a “Person” must be a thing/entity such as a self. To the contrary, some trinitarians say that a “Person” in their theory is a self, and others strongly deny it. Each theory must be met on its own ground. Of course, I do insist that in the New Testament, Father and Son are clearly two different selves.

I also award Dr. James White with the prestigious Stevie Wonder Trophy for Willful Blindness to Relevant Scholarship, and explain why Dr. White’s assumption of a false yet traditional narrative blinds him to the world of competing Trinity and Incarnation theories that analytic theologians have carefully delineated and evaluated.

The ball is in his court, when it comes to responsibly responding to carefully crafted objections to his speculations.

I also revisit a portion of my debate with Chris Date, and explain why we ran into some communication problems regarding the terms “being” and “Person.”

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23 thoughts on “podcast 265 – What apologists don’t understand about the terms “being” and “Person””

  1. I thought this was the funniest podcast Dr. Tuggy has ever done. Jesus said his Father is the only true God. YHWH alone is God the Father. That’s it, debate over. Any trinitarian who doubts this has to honestly ask themselves this question: “Why is the triune god not only God the Father?”

  2. Hello Dale. This was the first of your podcasts that I’ve listened to. I am an atheist but I believe it is wise for all of us not silo ourselves and only listen to views similar to our own. I want to be open to the truth so long as it’s rational. So I tried your podcast for the first time. Before I start let me just say that I’m not a troll, I am serious about searching for truth and I truly wanted to give your podcast the benefit of the doubt. Since I am an atheist and hold views so contrary to your own, I don’t expect you to take what I have to say seriously but nevertheless, you might want to hear a perspective from outside your own silo.

    I was a little bit surprised as to the nature of this specific podcast and a little disappointed. The debates about the trinity seem to me like arguing about the colour of the tutus worn my the fairies dancing on the head of that proverbial pin. Interesting no doubt but utterly meaningless. The fact that there seems to be an entire industry that has evolved among christian circles that delves in such minutia is I truly astounding and, frankly, a little disappointing. It seems to diminish the awesome potential of humanity. A few specifics really made me cringe. In your critique of Dr. White I heard you defend your position by appealing to reason. I found that a little too much because, of course, from my stand point, trinity or no trinity there is nothing about christianity that is rational. Also, I felt the battle of the ignoble awards was very un-christ like. If there is a trinity, what would they, he, it have to say about what I just heard? One thought I had while listening to this podcast was what if you had been born into a muslim society? You would be similarly musing and arguing about some esoteric aspect of allah or the prophet Muhammad. And in this sense the trinity seems to be nothing more than a trivial accident of birth.

    I wanted to be enlightened by a view very contrary to my own but unfortunately podcast 265 did not provide it. I will have to give another of your episodes a try.

    Sincerely,

    MikeM

    1. Hi Mike. It’s good to see an atheist that will take the time to hear what the other side has to say. I commend you for that. The reason we argue these points is because truth matters. Right theology is important in defending the faith. When we share Jesus with the world, we need to be united in who He actually is. Furthermore, I would assert that Trinitarian Christianity is the only worldview that can make reasonable sense of the reality we experience.

      My question to you in regard to rationality is, how do you answer the age old question of “why is there something rather than nothing”? The way I see it, you have two possible answers. A) The universe is eternal and B) the universe sprang into existence with no cause. Obviously, there are variations of those two, but they are the basic two. If the universe is eternal, you have the problem of an infinite regress which is irrational and if the universe (all existent things) sprang into existence from nothing you have a mathematics problem of 0+0=1 which is also irrational. As an atheist, how would you defend the claim “nothing about Christianity is rational” when your worldview can only have its own foundation as being irrational?

      God bless…

    2. Mike,

      Found your post quite interesting. If you’re interested in getting outside your silo, I commend you for that. Nice to see something like that when we are basically bombarded with the idea of enshrouding ourselves inside our own echo chambers and imagining the worst versions of people who aren’t like us by the media and our current cultural climate.

      I would challenge your idea about being born in a Muslim society. I mean, Dale was born and raised to believe the doctrine of the Trinity and he doesn’t believe it anymore. So it’s quite odd to me that you’d bring that up as an objection. Perhaps if any of us were born in a different society we would be different…in fact we wouldn’t be the same beings we’d be totally different beings so rationally I’ve never understood this objection. It’s like saying, “If you were someone else you wouldn’t be you and wouldn’t think the way you do.” Well, yeah you got me there. But I’m not someone else. I’m not a hypothetical person. I’m a person who really does exist so we should probably focus on finding the truth because any number of possibilities could have changed any number of historical events or made the earth as we know it a completely different place. How does that change truth or reality?

      Another thought I had is that for you to begin your inquiry by coming here is a bit like me starting my studies of naturalism by listening to a debate between two geologists where the first believes the earth is 4.5 billion years old and the other says it’s probably closer to 4.6 billion years old. While this might be an exciting debate to people on the inside of the academic world and to people with Ph.Ds it’s probably not going to appeal to an outsider who is a young-earth creationist seeking to know what the best general case is for an old earth and who wants positive evidence for the theory of evolution.

      Last, I have to challenge your assumed ideas of what it means to be “rational.” It is simply begging the question to say that Christianity isn’t rational becaue you deny there is a God of any sort, thus making any belief contingent on the belief of a God necessarily irrational. I don’t see much rational about an atheistic worldview myself. But I’m sure simply assuming my own worldview in the process wouldn’t be something you’d think is OK while I made such an assessment. You’re challenging the very foundations of my worldview, not allowing me to assume they are true. The same is transversely true. It is quite rational to believe in God, I would contend. Whether he exists or not, it is not irrational to think that an ordered world with intelligence perhaps came from a higher intelligence. In fact, we see this exact truth all the time with many examples. This is rational. Being rational doesn’t make something true, but it does make it consistent and well…rational. After that, there isn’t much left which is irrational. If God is real then I don’t see anything irrational about him acting or doing things which wouldn’t happen on their own. It simply follows that God would be able to do such a thing. And we have a lot of people who said that he did do such things. Anyways, I hope you’ll read this and think about where you are in your beliefs and life. Take care.

      1. Hi Aaron,

        Thank you for your reply. I appreciate the time and thought you put into your post. I’d like to deal with your third paragraph first. You have a very good point and you provided me a perspective I had not considered. Being uninitiated with the complexities of Christian peculiarities, I never suspected that Christians of different stripes would find the topic of the true nature of the trinity controversial. My mistake and I take your point. That said your analogy, although useful, is not completely appropriate. The earth, and therefore he age of the earth, is in the realm of the material. Although and exact age of the earth will likely never be determined, as more and more evidence is made available through the painstaking efforts to study the material world we are moving evermore closer to the real age of the earth. Opposed to this, I think the debate about a trinity can never be resolved any more than the debate about the fairies’ tutus being blue or red. If evidence for the trinity was anywhere near the quality of evidence for the age of the earth, I’d take the trinity and Christianity seriously. The evidence would lead me to the truth.

        Concerning your second paragraph, again you are right, bringing up the geographic nature of religious belief around the world is irrelevant to the issue of the trinity. I apologize for interjecting a small bit of atheistic bile but I will take the time to address your comment that you never “understood this objection”. As you suggest, the world and everyone in it would be different if any of a multitude of possibilities could have been different. But I presume your trinity and your god would not. And this is the point. If there is only one god and one truth it should be impossible for a Muslim and a Christian to both claim to have an insight to the one and only truth, never mind the myriad of other religions extant or extinct. Unless Christians have some special claim or evidence to the truth it would be very presumptuous of you to assume that your truth is the correct one rather than a false belief created by an accident of your place of birth and the religion of your parents. Compare this to your analogy about the age of the earth, the science and the principals it’s based on are the same around the world. An Arabic geologist will come to the same conclusion about the age of the earth as an American geologist.

        Concerning your suggestion that I’m simply begging the question by stating that Christianity is irrational, I don’t think I am. I assume, and it may be an incorrect assumption, that you as a Christian believe in the immaculate conception, resurrection, talking snakes, Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood not to mention, parting or the Red Sea, just to name a few. If you have any evidence for any of these irrational beliefs then I will take back the comment about Christianity being irrational. It is common for some Christian is to insert the Bible as evidence for these things but they should realize that to everyone except Christians this is not evidence at all just as the Quran is not evidence that Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse.

        You say it is rational is to think that an ordered world with intelligence would have come from a higher intelligence. First, I’m not so sure the world is as ordered as you think. One small example is that most biologists believe on evidence that more than 99 % of all species have gone extinct. If you are assuming a higher power it certainly would be a capricious one. Second, you are suggesting the existence of intelligence requires a higher intelligence. Well would not a higher intelligence in turn require an even higher intelligence?

        Thanks again for your response. All the best.

        Mike M

  3. Hi Dale,

    One more very quick point. I think there’s an unexamined assumption you’re making, that if there’s one Divine Being, then there has to be some person (e.g. the Father) or group of persons (e.g. the Trinity as a whole) who is/are identical with that being. Why?

  4. So often I hear the claim that none of the early Church Fathers taught the doctrine of the Trinity. My answer is: what about Athengaoras? I’ve noticed that anti-Trinitarians always bypass his writings. Why? I’d really like to see an article by Dale about him. In “A Plea for the Christians,” Book X (176-177 A.D.), he writes:

    “But the Son of God is the Logos of the Father, in idea and in operation; for after the pattern of Him and by Him were all things made, the Father and the Son being one. And, the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son, in oneness and power of spirit, the understanding and reason (nous kai logos) of the Father is the Son of God. But if, in your surpassing intelligence, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by the Son, I will state briefly that He is the first product of the Father, not as having been brought into existence (for from the beginning, God, who is the eternal mind [nous], had the Logos in Himself, being from eternity instinct with Logos [logikos]; but inasmuch as He came forth to be the idea and energizing power of all material things, which lay like a nature without attributes, and an inactive earth, the grosser particles being mixed up with the lighter. The prophetic Spirit also agrees with our statements. ‘The Lord,’ it says, ‘made me, the beginning of His ways to His works.’ The Holy Spirit Himself also, which operates in the prophets, we assert to be an effluence of God, flowing from Him, and returning back again like a beam of the sun. Who, then, would not be astonished to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and their distinction in order, called atheists?”

    In Book XXIV, he adds:

    “For, as we acknowledge a God, and a Son his Logos, and a Holy Spirit, united in essence — the Father, the Son, the Spirit, because the Son is the Intelligence, Reason, Wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit an effluence, as light from fire…”

    Sounds quite orthodox to me.

  5. Interesting and thought provoking. We can differ on a friendly basis. I don’t believe it is necessary or God’s will to construct a theory about the trinity in order to believe in the trinity. Nor that I am obliged to do so in order to attempt to win over unitarians to my way of thinking, if it were possible. If they are not convinced by scripture then so be it. Philosophy can only attain to a limited understanding of the nature of God. Theories are at best approximations of reality. Attempting to define what is transcendental by the finite seems to me to be a fools errand. Which is why to me it seems a waste of time trying to analyse or construct trinitarian models of the nature of God. They are doomed to failure anyway. So don’t expect me to give you unitarians the pleasure of just having another target to shoot down.

    Having said that I would say the Logos cannot be with God, with which it is identified, if there is no difference between it and God. The God that is not the Logos. The Logos can only be with God if there is some difference between it and the God it is with. x cannot be with y unless it is not y in some sense.

    But John also says that the Logos is God. He identifies the Logos numerically with God, “the Word was God”.

    The Logos is then described as something possessing the creative power of God and which also has the power to provide and sustain the intellectual activity of all men:, “which lighteth every man that cometh in to the world”

    This makes me, along with Colossians and Hebrews, a trinitarian unless unitarians can come up with a better explanation/interpretation of the texts. Which they have woefully failed to do up till now in my humble estimation.

    1. Hi Paul,

      I find your next to last statement interesting (This makes me, along with Colossians and Hebrews, a trinitarian unless unitarians can come up with a better explanation/interpretation of the texts), since while I presently identify as a Unitarian Monotheist, and argue for it vigorously on CARM, the reality is that I’m not fully satisfied with the current Biblical Unitarian explanation/interpretation of the texts of John 1:1; Heb 1:10, and Phil 2. Colossians, as I presently understand it, seems to make the best sense from a Oneness perspective (I’m ex-Oneness).

      While I definitely agree with Dale’s sentiment, “what matters is what makes best sense of the passage,” the problem I see with this is that this is purely subjective.

  6. The great irony here is that Dr. White owes a lot to philosophers. It took centuries of controversial speculations by philosophers to develop the traditions and language that he so staunchly defends. It took philosophers to get us into this mess. It may take better ones to get us out.

  7. To rework a line from Upton Sinclair, “It is difficult to get a theologian to understand something, when his theology depends upon his not understanding it!” Reformed Baptists like White and Date have a foundational commitment to a particular reading of penal substitutionary atonement that requires Jesus to be YHWH. Denying that Jesus is YHWH would undercut the entire theological structure. This came up briefly in the debate, but I don’t think it got the time it needed given how much turns on it. I don’t think a logical argument is likely to carry the force required to change a mind so invested in this particular theological perspective. I think that’s at bottom why White responds to your arguments in the dismissive way that he does.

    1. Well said. Unforntunately, many Christians and most Calvinists have no interest being confused by facts or logic 🙁

      1. Well, that’s a bit strong, and I don’t think it’s entirely fair. White and Date are both very smart people — probably much smarter than I am. They are clearly perfectly capable of reasoning, and are in possession of a great many facts. But facts have to be interpreted relative to each other, and the conclusions your logic gives you can only be as good as your assumptions — which themselves don’t have origin in logic. I think it was Hume who observed that reason is the slave of the passions, and in my experience that seems to be right. We all endeavor to make sense of our world and experience, and the stories we tell always come at some price or other.

        I’m reasonably well-acquainted with the Reformed Baptist theological structure, and appreciate the enormous psychological (and probably social) cost that would be borne by someone in that system who became persuaded by Dale’s arguments. The higher the stakes, the greater the pressure to find alternative interpretations of facts and different clusters of assumptions that will reinforce safer conclusions. (This seems to have played a role in traditional formulations of Trinity doctrine in the first place.) I think that’s the best explanation of White’s casual dismissal of Dale’s logical arguments. I personally find them very powerful, but I’m not heavily invested in a particular systematic theology and can afford to entertain them.

  8. I call the problem (i.e. the Tri{3}nity) what it is – a one and the same “Identity” heresy. It really is as simple as that. It is a flawed theory that attempts unsuccessfully to identify three identies:

    1. the Son (Jesus)
    2. the Father (YHWH)
    3. the Holy Spirit (? the Paraclete)

    – as one and the same “Identity.”

    In my decades of research into the Post-Biblical professed Christian writers, I cannot find “the” genuine “Tri{3}nity” teaching actually being taught by genuine Christians anywhere before/prior-to “Modalism” (more commonly known as “Sabellianism” etc) began. Only from the era/age of Praxaes, Noetus, Epigonus, Cleomenes, Callistus, Zephrinus, Sabellius, and the Montanist (Phrygian “New Prophecy”) heretic Tertullian does one start to find the beginnings of the three identities as/into one and the same “Identity” heresy.

    Tri{3}nity came from Modalism, not Modalism from Tri{3}nity. Chronologically/Historically Modalism came first, Tri{3}nity later.

    This also explains why the faulty logic of the Tri{3}nity functions in the same way as Modalism = it has the same result = three identities into/as one and the same Identity.

    Montanist Tertullian (then free from the constraints of “Orthodox” Christian teachings) simply modified some of Modalism’s (one Person behind three masks etc) basic formulas into his own unique theory (with a “New Prophecy” twist). He invented the counterfeit name for the new (“New Prophecy”) counterfeit Identity = “Trinitas”, i.e. “Tri{3}nity”. Men (not the Apostles) have also invented other masks (personae) for this Modalist (foundational and functional Identity) flaw, such as: “person” “being” etc.

    Centuries of refining/developing have not removed the Modalist flaw (the end result/effect i.e. three identities = into/as one and the same Identity) in Tri{3}nity logic/workings, because it IS based on Modalism. In short it is man made logic, and therefore inherently (i.e. inescapably) faulty.

    This also explains why Tri{3}nitarian’s (even the most intelligent of them) cannot help but explain their doctrine in a Modalistic manner at some stage in a conversation and/or debate.

    Later, Equal{=}itarians, within more “Orthdox” circles, joined the heretic’s (Modalist’s, Tri{3}theists, and Montanist’s) in exalting the Christ beyond Biblical/Apostolic limits, and built/created the myth from there – leading to the two (Father and Son) into/as one Bi{2}nitarian/Dyad{2}ic identity at Nicea, and later three into/as one and the same identity (with co-eternity co-equality upgrades etc) at Chanceldon 381.

  9. Hi Dale. Despite generally agreeing with Dr White’s theology and being a big fan of his, I was a bit put off his comments. I would love to see the two of you engage directly is some capacity, but that seems a bit unlikely.

    As far as “being” is concerned. I like to define the “one being of the Deity” as “an absolutely singular existence”. Two men, who share a nature, have separate and distinct “existences”. I see the persons of the Trinity, who share a nature, as “sharing equally in the singular existence of Deity”. What is the shortcoming in that definition of “one being”?

    Blessings…

    1. avraham rosenblum

      The best way to defend the Trinity is by Emanation. That is that God light is drawn into the world and that there is no separation between God and his light. This goes back to Plotinus and to me it seems to be the way Christians defended the Trinity until Aquinas. [Aquinas decided to take a more Aristolean approach]

      1. To Avraham and Andrew,

        I think the weakest part of your explanations is that I don’t understand what you’re saying. It seems like you’re conceptualizing to some extent, which is fine, but what exactly is happening in this view? Andrew, I assume Dale would say that if the two persons are sharing in the one existence of the deity then he would ask how are they doing different things and not just the same person? This question might reveal some misunderstanding on my part (sorry if it does).

        Avraham, I don’t understand how simply declaring that God is light and yet distinct from his light but not separated from his light answers the question. It would seem to be the same thing as saying that God is 1 in being and 3 in person just because he is but then conceptualizing him to actually be either three or one (or going back and forth depending on the circumstance). I just don’t see how it solves anything. Maybe you could clarify?

        Thanks Guys,

        Aaron

        1. Aaron,

          My assertion is that the Deity is tri-personal. That would preclude Him from being uni-personal and allow for each person to take differing functional roles. The “God is Love” argument for the Trinity, if you are familiar with it; argues that loving, interpersonal relationship is a proper mode in which God necessarily exists. Each person subsists in His own mode within that framework. The Father eternally loves the Son as a father, and the Son eternally loves the Father as a son. The Father and the Son eternally love the Spirit as He is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. In the one God, there are eternal roles within a singular and complete existence. Hope that helps and doesn’t further confuse.

          In Christ

          1. you are imagining three actors when you identify the 3 persons, my question is , what is the one being doing ? you are looking at things from “3 in 1 ” perspective, but what is the external perspective?

            so imagine a father, a son and a brother shared the one human being. the father uses the one being for cementing, the son uses the one being for brick laying and the brother uses the one being for cement mixing. each person is using the one being as if it is the 1 being. so when the father does brick laying, he has an experience THROUGH the one being that the son or the brother does not have.

            that sounds like 3 human beings and thats what the trinity sounds like, 3 gods.

            1. Robin,

              The one being is doing a multitude of things in three persons.

              The finite members of the hypothetical family do not share a singular existence, whereas the trinitarian persons are infinite and share a singular existence. The infinite Trinity and the finite family are categorically distinct.

              Blessings…

              1. while the son is doing an action is the ENTIRE singular being used?
                or do you mean the single being is “fragmentized “in the 3 separate individuals?

                i am aware that their is categorical distinction, i used the 1 human being example since it is a single being.

                x uses the entire being to perform an action
                y uses the entire being to perform an action
                z uses the entire being to perform an action

                all at the same time

                is this what is going on in the trinity?

                so when the son does something, the father is not doing what the son is doing. like the human being who builds the house. they are doing same act of creating, but doing different things within the 1 act.

                1. Ok. I think I’m following you. Within the context of creation, I’m inclined to say that while the Son was eating bread and fish with the disciples, the Father was not also eating bread and fish. However, from a top down view, when salvation is looked upon as a whole, the Triune God completed it as a singular being. Salvation was decreed by the Father, accomplished by the Son and applied to the redeemed by the Spirit. One goal and one completed action decreed, accomplished and applied by the Triune persons. The entire Being is working exhaustively to save sinners as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I hope that answers your question.

                  Blessings

  10. I could have told you long ago that Mr. White likes to “have his cake and eat it too.” It’s okay for him to talk about logical contradictions and attempt to call you out using base level philosophy—but you, no no—you cannot sir or you’re just another person trying to fit your “god” into a box. You’re not allowed to criticize their trinity theories with logic, no way. Only they are allowed to do so. Only recommendation I would have is maybe try to find some other word other than “being” even though it makes the most sense in your argument. They’re always going to misunderstand that and conflate it with their doctrine.

    Another thing I noticed while discussing this over the years with Trinitarians. White and many other Trinitarians basically equate their “view” of God to God himself. Basically, they think their belief/doctrine is God. You cannot challenge it—if you get close to using simple logic to point out a contradiction or an equivocation they resort to ad hoc.

    This is for the general debate–not necessarily this podcast. Mr. Chris Date parroted James White’s nonsense response when you pointed out that Jesus has a God and it needs to be called out. They’re just repeating your claim when they say “Well Jesus isn’t an atheist.” This isn’t an answer. They’re not answering the logical problem it causes nor the actual argument that Jesus has a God, and that God is NOT HIMSELF. Yet, Mr. Date admitted that problem very clearly… sigh…

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