{"id":1929,"date":"2010-05-21T22:37:41","date_gmt":"2010-05-22T02:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=1929"},"modified":"2014-09-16T09:22:58","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T13:22:58","slug":"scoring-the-burke-%e2%80%93-bowman-debate-%e2%80%93-round-5-%e2%80%93-bowman-%e2%80%93-part-2-dale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/scoring-the-burke-%e2%80%93-bowman-debate-%e2%80%93-round-5-%e2%80%93-bowman-%e2%80%93-part-2-dale\/","title":{"rendered":"SCORING THE BURKE \u2013 BOWMAN DEBATE \u2013 ROUND 5 \u2013 BOWMAN \u2013 PART 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I still mean to comment on Bowman’s 5th round, but my inner logic nerd was drawn in by some action from round 5 here, comment 19<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[Burke:] \u201cThis week I hope Rob will show Biblical evidence for the essential relationship formulae of Trinitarianism:
\n1. Father = \u2018God\u2019, Son = \u2018God\u2019 and Holy Spirit = \u2018God\u2019
\n2. \u2018God\u2019 = Father + Son + Holy Spirit \u00a0. . .<\/p>\n

[Bowman]\u00a0I have already responded to this argument of yours. Your demand that I must prove these two statements \u201cindependent of each other\u201d is an absurd demand calculated to place an unreasonable burden on me that you know cannot be met.<\/p>\n

As you know, Dave, if statement #1 is true, and if there is only one God (one single eternal divine being), then statement #2 follows. However, you and I already agree that there is only one eternal divine being. Therefore, I do not need to argue for this premise of the doctrine of the Trinity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gentlemen, forgive me, but this is confused<\/strong>. We must clarify the meaning of “=” here. I believe <\/em>that Bowman means \u00a0numerical identity<\/a> in 1. (I’m not sure – I think \u00a0his position forces him to be unclear\u00a0about this – but let that pass.) Let us, then, add the extra premise Bowman mentions (as being held in common). We then get this:<\/p>\n

f=g & s=g & h=g<\/p>\n

(x)(y) (Dx -> (Dy -> x=y)) \u00a0 [For any x and any y, x is divine only if, if y is divine, then it just is x.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first premise is trouble, because it implies f=s=h.<\/p>\n

But what to make of “\u2018God\u2019 = Father + Son + Holy Spirit”. What does the “+” signify? One may (and some will) think of it as the combination of parts, or some kind of conjunction of different things. But this would shift the meaning of “=”. Numerical identity is a one-to-one (actually, always a reflexive) relation – never one-to-many<\/strong>. So if the right hand side is read to mean some kind of conjunction, addition, or combination, then the “=” cannot <\/em>mean identity. It might mean something like “consists of”, “is a whole constituted by”, or something like that. But whatever it means, it does not logically follow from 1 & 2.<\/p>\n

But this interpretation makes 2 irrelevant to 1. It may be that Bowman is thinking this:<\/p>\n

Df & Ds & Dh \u00a0 \u00a0[Father is divine and Son is divine and Spirit is divine. (This “is” of predication, not the “is” of identity.)]<\/p>\n

(x)(y) (Dx -> (Dy -> x=y))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From these, there is no reason to think any interpretation of “g = f+s+h” follows<\/strong>. (First we’d have to clarify the meaning of this latter claim, and then we’d have to add one or more premises, until we had a valid and sound argument.)<\/p>\n

But this follows: f =s=h.\u00a0As Homer Simpson would say: D’oh! <\/strong>Homework for interested readers. Why exactly is this something Bowman can’t accept? (There is more than one reason, I think.) Comment at will.<\/p>\n

Bowman then retreats to familiar ground:<\/p>\n

What you are really trying to do here is to claim that unless I can show some Bible verses in which the\u00a0word<\/em> \u201cGod\u201d specifically refers to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, my case for the doctrine of the Trinity fails.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But that is a red herring. All we need is a seemingly sound argument<\/strong>, for a conclusion with which Bowman agrees<\/em>, and which is arguably trinitarian! Instead Bowman brings back his apparently inconsistent set of five claims; we’ve looked at those before<\/a>. Insofar as they seem inconsistent, the argument will not seem sound<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I still mean to comment on Bowman’s 5th round, but my inner logic nerd was drawn in by some action from round 5 here, comment 19: [Burke:] \u201cThis week I hope Rob will show Biblical evidence for the essential relationship formulae of Trinitarianism: 1. Father = \u2018God\u2019, Son = \u2018God\u2019 and Holy Spirit = \u2018God\u2019… Read More »SCORING THE BURKE \u2013 BOWMAN DEBATE \u2013 ROUND 5 \u2013 BOWMAN \u2013 PART 2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,6,33,8,10,5,20,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-complaints","category-incarnation","category-linkage","category-logic","category-modalism","category-mystery","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6491,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions\/6491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}