podcast 302 – The Stages of Trinitarian Commitment

Dale;

I really appreciate your podcast. I am not a Trinitarian. But, nor am I a Dale Tuggy Unitarian.
In connection with your reply on creatorship to Douglas. You replied:

“that Now in the case of God, he’s omnipotent and omniscient, so we can be sure that he would not *need* to employ others to create the cosmos. Perhaps he might desire to share the work, conceivably; but a few times in the Old Testament he forcefully says that he alone did it. Obviously, this would exclude any of the deities of the nations’ pantheons. But on the face of it, it’d exclude “good guys” too – such as angels, or the pre-Incarnate Son. And as I mention in my Who is the one creator episodes, the clear NT mentions of creation show an assumption of one creator, who is God himself, aka the Father’

“panta di auto egeneto”
All things were made through him John 1.3

A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament by Dana And Mantey pg 162 says:
(2)The Passive With Intermediate Agent.
“When the agent is the medium through which the original cause has effected the action expressed
by the passive verb, the regular construction is dia with the genitive.”
panta di autou egeneto

“Here God the Father is thought of as the original cause of creation, and the logos as the intermediate
agent.”

I also think this genitive form is found in Col. 1.15 “firstborn of all creation”. And passive verb forms
to describe his role in creation. “ektisthe” Col. 1.16

I do believe because of your Unitarian leanings you must work your way around these text.

You said,
“he forcefully says that he alone did it.”
Now come on Dale, this is just an old trinity text ignoring agency and ascribing absoluteness to God.
When we both know that other text that seem to indicate absoluteness are not really absolute.

For instance Isaiah 43.11 Is this true or is agency involved in many occasions. Jud 3.9:1 John 4.14
Psalms 8.6 “Everything you have put under his feet. Does this mean everything? Angels, God etc.

Another text that highlights my position and also yours to a certain extent is 1 Cor.15.27, ” For God ‘subjected all things under his feet (does ‘All things really mean this absolute sense?) No, for the
text goes on to say; ‘But when he says that ‘all things have been subjected, it is evident that it is with the exception of the one who subjected all things to him.’

Of course a simple word search on the Greek word panta would testify to ‘all’ not meaning a totality. Nor do the expressions in Hebrew text “Besides me there is no God” when we both know Elohim is used of Angels, Men,and even Jesus. A lot of these text that seem to imply absoluteness are couched in with a society that worshiped idols and foreign gods. So you would expect statements of absoluteness that are truly not absolute only in relation to pagan gods.

In conclusion, I think agency and context must be considered when using text that imply absoluteness.

Thank you;
Dale
I still think you are remarkable

Interesting episode.

Since you’ve closed comments in earlier episodes with Dale Glover about the Trinity debates, I’d like to throw something out here in this space about the God created by Himself vs He needed a helper debate, and get your take on it.

When you look at famous buildings, they’re always credited to one person or group of persons: the architect. While they’re physically constructed by workmen who go unnamed. Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Ghery all have creations bearing their famous names. But not a single brick was laid by their hands, not a concrete foundation poured, not a bunch of electrical cable run.

In short, it is the designer that gets the glory. A thought I had was that the first Christians to think Christ handled the physical creation might have been thinking along these lines: the Son going to work to build the Father’s grand design.

Interested in your thoughts here, thanks.