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In this episode I, a Biola University alum (B.A., Philosophy) interact with this video by two current Biola University professors, Dr. Fred Sanders, and Dr. Sean McDowell.
Their goals are to show that the doctrine of the Trinity is coherent (not self-contradictory) and that it fits well with Scripture.
Issues they discuss include:
- What about the fact that the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible?
- Does the Old Testament support the doctrine of the Trinity?
- If the Father eternally generates the Son, does this imply that the Son is not fully divine, since he lacks the divine attribute of aseity (independent existence)?
- If the Father is divine, the Son is divine, and the Spirit is divine, and those are truly three–none is identical to either of the others–isn’t that tritheism?
- Understanding “who God is” through salvation history.
- Biblical language about God’s “Spirit” or “spirit” or “Holy Spirit.”
In my commentary I point out that Dr. McDowell and Dr. Sanders are for the most part avoiding harder objections and issues pressed by unitarian Christians like me. When harder objections are brought up, their answers are lacking. In particular, the biblical problems are much, much harder then they are assuming. How does the Bible teach that the one God is the Trinity when it seems to clearly teach that the one God is the Father, the one formerly called “Yahweh”? How does the Bible teach the full deity of Jesus when it straightforwardly presents him as having limitations which God must lack?
They also ignore that different, incompatible doctrines, such as one-self and three-self Trinity theories all offer the same traditional language–thus, repeating that language does not suffice to clearly communicate a trinitarian theology. Their talk of “the doctrine of the Trinity” mistakenly presupposes that theologians loyal to trinitarian traditions are teaching the same things. They are not.
In the next episode I interact with the remainder of their presentation.
Links for this episode:
podcast 252 – Fred Sanders on Seeing the Trinity in Scripture, and his Secret
podcast 193 – Review of Sanders’s The Deep Things of God – Part 2
podcast 192 – Review of Sanders’s The Deep Things of God – Part 1
podcast 194 – God: One Person or Three? Sanders vs. Buzzard debate
Dustin Smith’s The Biblical Unitarian Podcast
Sean Finnegan’s Restitutio Podcast
Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (2nd ed.)
Tuggy, “Trinity,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Baber, “Trinity,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Dustin Smith – The Plural of Majesty
podcast 11 – Tertullian the unitarian – Trinities
Cartwright, “On the Logical Problem of the Trinity”
Date and Tuggy, Is Jesus Human and Not Divine?
Tuggy, “When and How in the History of Theology Did the Triune God Replace the Father as the Only True God?“
podcast 330 – Dr. Joshua Sijuwade on the monarchy of the Father
McIntosh, ed. – Craig vs. Hasker vs. Branson vs. Tuggy – One God, Three Persons, Four Views: A Biblical, Theological, and Philosophical Dialogue on the Doctrine of the Trinity
podcast 189 – The unfinished business of the Reformation
Craig, “Is God the Son Begotten in His Divine Nature?”
podcast 248 – How Trinity theories conflict with the Bible
How Trinity theories conflict with the New Testament
Loke-Tuggy debate: Does the NT Teach that Jesus is Truly Divine?
The Tuggy-Brown debate: Dale’s opening statement
podcast 334 – “Who do you say I am?”
podcast 260 – How to Argue that the Bible is Trinitarian
the concept of a triune God an anachronism in the first three centuries
podcast 26 – Pastor Sean Finnegan on “the Holy Spirit” – Part 2
podcast 25 – Pastor Sean Finnegan on “the Holy Spirit” – Part 1
podcast 271 – Does your Trinity theory require relative identity?
the apologetics blind-spot on numerical identity
This week’s thinking music is “Ridgeway Drive” by Mr. Smith.
Regarding Dale’s comments on the Holy Spirit (53:30 – 56:00), I would suggest concluding with 1 Corinthians 2:10-11 (NKJV): “10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.” Here Paul says that just as the spirit of the man which is in him (not a separate person from himself) knows the things of a man, so also the (S/s)pirit of God knows the things of God (also not a separate person from Himself). Taken at face value, yes, the spirit of God is “God ” (divine) — but not a another, third divine person. But a Trinitarian can’t take Paul’s comparison as it reads. The Trinitarian must assume the Trinity and argue that Paul is only using a human analogy to illustrate the greater Trinitarian divine relationship. Or, the Trinitarian could say that “God” is the Father here, and it is the Father’s spirit being referred to here — not the third person which is the nameless “Holy Spirit.” Either way, the third person, Holy Spirit, would not even be mentioned in this verse. Remember, the decision on the use of upper and lower case letters is based on the translator’s theolgical decision — not the original Greek text, which does not provide such distictions here.
Sanders’s position, at least as he proposed at the end where he said that the persons are names for the singular divine essence, sounds like Modalism. He clearly doesn’t intend that, but that’s what it sounds like.