Skip to content

podcast 300 – Does the New Testament teach Trinity Monotheism? – with Dale Glover – Part 2

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | Email | RSS

In this second part of my conversation with apologist Dale Glover, I object to the argument he presented in part 1 (see below).

Topics discussed include how to understand “the Holy Spirit” in the Bible, why we can’t (I argue) treat the New Testament like those authors treat the Old Testament, the significance of personal pronouns when it comes to interpretation, the fact that there is no biblical passage which clearly teaches that God is tripersonal, Yahweh identifying features, Yahweh distinguishing features, divine immortality and how a divine Jesus could possibly die, and what it is to die.

Dale Glover’s argument that something like Craig’s “Trinity Monotheism” is implied by the New Testament is:

  1. There is only one (“echad” not “yachid”) God. 
  2. In the Bible God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are distinct individuals/persons (standing in interpersonal “I-THOU” relations to each other).
  3. According to the Bible, anything which has one or more of the Yahweh-identifying features is, minimally, a proper, distinctive, and essential part of God/Yahweh. 
  4. God the Father, Jesus & the Holy Spirit have ONE OR MORE of the Yahweh-identifying features.
  5. The Trinity Monotheism model entails that God the Father, Jesus and the H.S. are distinct individual persons subsisting within one God named Yahweh proper (i.e. one thing/Being/immaterial or spiritual soul) – a model that is at least consistent with the biblical data.
  6.  Therefore, there are three distinct individuals/persons named God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit who are (minimally) proper, distinctive and essential parts of the one God/Yahweh (i.e. Trinity Monotheism model affirmed in Jewish language as opposed to Greek philosophical terminology of the later Creeds). This is consistent with the Biblical Data.

What’s your reaction to the whole discussion? Which side made the stronger case, and why?

Links for this episode:

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

Book review: Randal Rauser's Faith Lacking Understanding
A Few Thoughts on Sudduth's Open Letter
podcast 228 - Buzzard and Hurtado on God and Jesus - Part 1
Jesus and "God" - Part 7 - What did the Shema originally mean?
new co-authored paper: "Dormant Dispositions, Agent Value, and the Trinity"
trying to prepare a sermon on the Trinity
Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 23
podcast 16 - How is Jesus "the one Lord"?
trinitarian or unitarian? 11 - a trinitarian passage in Hippolytus?
podcast 136 – Dr. Dustin Smith on debating Jesus’s preexistence

1 thought on “podcast 300 – Does the New Testament teach Trinity Monotheism? – with Dale Glover – Part 2”

  1. Luke Jones

    Dr Tuggy, you had a lot to say and I really don’t think Mr. Glover got close to refuting anything you objected with. I think the God can’t die/Jesus died discussion is really telling. Mr. Glover was not comfortable agreeing with any of the corners you put his view into, but common-sense thinking requires those corners.

    I think the biggest take-away I got from this discussion (and many like it) is that it is quite easy for a Unitarian Christian to state their case quoting entire passages of scripture verbatim, while the Trinitarian (any category) must write essays of qualifiers for each of their main pillars as they draw from biblical sources. The former is clear, simple, and discussed in the bible, the latter is wildly confusing and never clearly discussed in the bible.

    I still wonder how people claim to believe something they don’t understand (although I was one of those for a number of years).

Comments are closed.