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In my recent dialogue with Dr. William Lane Craig, I was surprised when he appealed to “Sharp’s Rule” in order to deduce “the deity of Christ” from a few verses. In this new discussion, I say what I should have said then about this bogus, theologically-motivated modern invention.
The ordinary believer does not need to know the ins and outs of koine Greek grammar in order to evaluate “Granville Sharp’s Rule” – really, nowadays “Daniel Wallace’s Rule,” according to which 2 Peter 1:1 and Titus 2:13 assert that Jesus and God are the same person. One need only look beyond the verses in question to see each author in a wider context assuming the distinctness of Jesus and God. Charity requires that we not view each author as contradicting himself within the space of a few verses, and so, he simply can’t be collapsing together Jesus and God by only using one “the” for both of them in one sentence.
In fact, the two verses above are the two New Testament counterexamples which show the alleged universal rule to be false.
In this new discussion with Josiah of Integrity Syndicate, we discuss the above, and also the odd history of this would-be grammatical discovery.
Relevant links:
Integrity Syndicate (YouTube channel)
podcast 124 – a challenge to “Jesus is God” apologists
the apologetics blind-spot on numerical identity
I also discuss “Sharp’s Rule” with some help from Andrews Norton here: podcast 351 – Thoughts on my Dialogue with Craig on the Trinity and the Bible – Part 2
One of the critical flaws of “Sharp’s Rule” as it’s used by apologists seems to involve a deliberate blind spot that causes its proponents to either end the evaluation prematurely, or to dismiss what would seem to be a rather important consideration.
What I mean is, proponents will observe that proper names are excluded, but they fail to ask the next questions, which seem rather pertinent:
(1) Why are proper names excluded; and
(2) Is it possible that the exclusion of proper names can reveal why 2 Peter 1:1 and Titus 2:13 may be exceptions to the rule?
As to why proper names are excluded, I suspect that this is because such names have high degree of restrictive force in contexts where they appear.
Do the words “God” and “Savior” have a high degree of restrictive force in the contexts in question? Yes, clearly they do, and I would argue that this restrictive force is equivalent to that which applies to proper names.
I suspect that this is why a second article wasn’t needed at Proverbs 24:21. It has nothing to do with differences between “translation Greek” and non-translation Greek, as some have argued in an attempt to avoid the problem this text presents to those who would like to believe that there are no exceptions to the “rule.”
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