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As I explained last time, Skylar McManus in his previous post, and in the first portion of his second post, didn’t really go beyond asserting that my definitions are bad because they classify Branson’s “monarchical trinitarianism” as unitarian. But now he tries to show that my definitions suffer from some terrible problems. To wit,
If Tuggy’s definitions can allow M Ts to be both Trinitarian and unitarian, they don’t “divide at the joints.”
Yes, that would be bad! But on the face of it, I’m not committed to such a thing.
He then discusses my paper “On Counting Gods.” In my view, this is the most important piece of research that I’ve done. But although McManus has a few gripes, I don’t see how this really matters to the dispute at hand, about “monarchical trinitarianism” and whether it really should be thought of as a kind of trinitarianism, even though by definition it (arguably) implies that there is no triune God. So omitting a chunk of his discussion, let’s go to where he focuses on my analyses in that paper of the concepts god and deity:
S just is a god if and only if (a) S is a deity and (b) S is an ultimate.
three necessary and sufficient conditions for deity: (i) being a self, (ii) power much greater than ordinary humans, (iii) supernatural power.
As Tuggy says in the paper, he conceives of God along “theistic personalist” lines. (His friend Edward Feser has some good blog posts on this.) When we consider Tuggy’s numbered table, in the column under “g = 1 (u = 0),” #5 and #8 are types of monotheism if and only if they are theistic personalist views.
. . .the M Ts I have in mind are not theistic personalists.
Well, so what? It looks to me like M T as so minimally defined by Dr. Branson is silent on whether the so-called “classical theists” are right about God or the so-called “theistic personalists” are right about God (a.k.a. “the Father”). McManus says,
I take it the U C A isn’t going to take a stand on this point, and therefore is going to allow some form of [what Tuggy’s paper classifies as] atheists, or “Ultimists,” who are also M Ts into the fold.
In reply, outside of academia, among Bible-focused Protestants, “classical theism” (see here for a definition and here and here for a deep, critical discussion by two good philosophers) is basically non-existent. This is like McManus’s earlier criticisms that the Affirmation will open the gates to “deists” or to “Unitarian Universalist” types. But yes, I think the U C A is wise not to take a stand against (the polemically-named) “classical theism.” Some U C A members may in fact be sympathetic to elements of it. Could someone whom Tuggy considers to be an atheist manage to gain membership to the U C A? Yes! Most plausibly, it would be someone who has a highly rarified concept of “God” on which it is not a self, but rather an Inconceivable Something. But, who cares? The U C A is not Tuggy’s club. It’s a non-profit run by a Board, which is trying to serve a coalition of unitarian Christians. What Tuggy thinks, per se, is not relevant. When Tuggy is “asleep” and waiting for the resurrection, the U C A, it is hoped, will still be serving this movement.
Next, McManus constructs an argument. Making a minor couple of corrections, it reads:
(1) S just is god if and only if (a) S is a deity and (b) S is an ultimate.
(2) The Father is a deity.
(3) The Father is an ultimate.
(4) Therefore, the Father is a deity and is an ultimate. (Conjunction: 2, 3)
(5) Therefore, the Father just is a god. (1, 4)
I think this is a sound argument. And since a god (in my analysis of the concept) is by definition unique, if the Father is a god, he must be the god, that is, God. But McManus here is trying to show that my definition of “unitarian” is too wide, that it lets in too much. This is indeed a fundamental failing in a definition, so if he shows this, I will have to go back to the drawing board. Thus, immediately after giving the above argument, he comments,
Since we’re talking about Christian theology here, if we reach the conclusion at (5), it follows that the conditions for Tuggy’s definition of “unitarian” are met.
No!
Do you see the mistake?
Check out my analysis of the concept of a unitarian theology, for example here. Do you see how someone could agree with the claim that the Father just is the one God, and yet not be a unitarian, and obviously so?
Next time: the mistake explained, and the rest of McManus’s post.
