{"id":2771,"date":"2011-06-15T14:07:23","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T18:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=2771"},"modified":"2014-10-05T07:59:06","modified_gmt":"2014-10-05T11:59:06","slug":"cross-cultural-dialogue-theologian-and-philosopher-dale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/cross-cultural-dialogue-theologian-and-philosopher-dale\/","title":{"rendered":"Cross-Cultural Dialogue: Theologian and Philosopher"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/object><\/p>\n

A while back I posted<\/a> on a short, popular piece by Biola theologian Fred Sanders. He’s now responded<\/a>. I’m going to continue the conversation, I hope shedding light on the differing assumptions and methods<\/strong> of present-day academic theologians and philosophers. I agree with Fred that responses-to-responses are usually boring. Here’s a greater crime: a (long) response to a response to a response. \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n

I\u00a0guess what set me in motion was his claim, which struck me as unreasonable, that it’s a good thing<\/em> that there’s no “Trinity verse” <\/strong>in the Bible – i.e. one which explicitly and clearly \u00a0states the doctrine.<\/p>\n

In fact, up until I think some time in the late 19th c., trinitarians thought they had something pretty close<\/strong>: 1 John 5:7<\/strong>. (Compare the KJV with any modern translation.) This was shown by Isaac Newton and a number of others to be a late corruption. Needless to say, this verse was much appealed to – none of the trinitarians were wishing it gone, so they could instead appeal to the whole Bible.<\/p>\n

Surely, I argue, it’d be better if there were<\/em> such a verse (assuming there is a true Trinity theory), because then Christians wouldn’t spend so much time puzzling and fighting about the matter, as we fairly frequently have through church history.<\/p>\n

Now to Sanders’s response<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Tuggy the analytic philosopher working on trinitarianism was interesting to me… Tuggy the analytic philosopher working on anti-trinitarianism drops several notches on my scale of interestingness. Arguments are still arguments, and need to be dealt with on their own merits, of course. But research programs are motivated, and knowing the motivation helps me decide where to invest my study time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The assumption here, it seems to me, is that all this unitarian-trinitarian stuff was settled long ago<\/strong>, and so anything Tuggy says will only be a tiresome rehash of crummy arguments. I used to assume this, but then I went back and looked at the arguments, the arguments, that is, on both<\/em> sides. On some core points, the unitarians come out better, as I see it. And I found out that their arguments were not so much answered as smugly forgotten<\/strong> by the mainstream. Don’t take my word for it, by all means; weigh the arguments for yourself.<\/p>\n

As to motivations<\/strong>, Fred seems to suggest that my motive all along has been to promote my present views. Not true. I started thoroughly confused (like most evangelicals). Then I was a social trinitarian. Then, a subordinationist unitarian (but sort of thinking this was really trinitarian). Finally, my present view. I’ve been motivated all along to make some orthodox theory or other fly! This is why I set off trying to find a workable version<\/strong> of the doctrine – which is what most evangelical philosophers do. (I’m referring to the theories in the main body of my SEP entry<\/a>.) Frankly, it was an embarrassment to me that the mainstream did not seem to have a coherent, believable view in mind, in asserting those famous formulas.<\/p>\n

I think we disagree already: I think trinitarianism is a spiritual reality, owned by the people of God since the Father sent the Son and the Spirit, and confessed rightly by those without special training. Philosophers and theologians are allowed to work at the task of clarifying and refining it, but they didn\u2019t invent it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So from the beginning, Christian have “owned” (interacted with?) the Trinity – sure – if there is such a thing. But Fred here seems to assume that they also (imprecisely) believed<\/em> it all along<\/strong>, i.e. since biblical days. But this is demonstrably<\/em> not so – by the standards of 500 CE, there were no “orthodox” trinitarians in 170 CE. What there were (in the catholic mainstream) \u00a0were unitarians of various sorts! Pretty clearly for many of them, not even that vague picture was there.<\/p>\n

Tuggy thinks there is no such thing as \u201cthe\u201d doctrine of the Trinity, and that there couldn\u2019t even be one until thought rises above a certain threshold of analytic clarity and terminological precision. I\u2019m all for clarity and precision, and I need collegial help attaining it in my doctrinal thinking. But when I say Trinity, I am not pointing to a successful thought project or mental model. I\u2019m pointing to something real, something given by God, something that Christian devotion and orthodox categories pick out, but sub-trinitarian theologies fail to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I understand Fred here, the “something real”<\/strong> is sort of like a mental image or a vague way of thinking, expressed by the standard formulas. I think there is something to this – roughly, that God is somewhat like three selves but those are somehow unified – which often does accompany use of the traditional words. But it is not the sort of thing that can be true or false, or for which one could seek evidence in any form. I think – and please correct me if I’m wrong – Sanders is in the Negative Mysterian<\/strong> camp, which it comes to interpreting the traditional formulas. Yes, to me, this is just one way to read them, a way which must be weighed against the others, others which have been suggested by smart, sincere, and faithful men.<\/p>\n

Compare: the claim that God is provident<\/strong>. The Calvinists, Arminians, open theists, Molinists, Thomists, process theists – they’re all understanding divine providence in incompatible ways. I think one can be a mysterian too here, either positive or negative… and perhaps that’s a fairly popular way of interpreting “providence.” Yes, I think that for many purposes, just sticking with the vague idea that “God is in charge” is enough. But some of us are compelled to get more precise.<\/p>\n

About “logic<\/strong>,” no I got the point; like a lot of philosophers, I get a bit grumpy with logic-rhetoric. I didn’t meant to offend, or to suggest that Sanders knows no logic. By “logic” here, I think he just means something like structure, not what he says – “principles of demonstration that are appropriate to a subject” – but maybe a point of structure could be a source\/principle from which to argue, i.e. the grounds for some premise.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the pattern, the flow of thought, the drift, of my little article: I wasn\u2019t just \u201cquoting a few passages in which the three are mentioned.\u201d Instead, I was building a pattern of expanding scope. From 3 verses, to 5 verses, to 12 verses, to 6 chapters, to 16 chapters, to a whole gospel, to the whole Bible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right – in Sanders’s view, the whole Bible shows a pattern of the members of the Trinity at work together. I don’t think this is true, and if we’re careful with what we mean by “members of the Trinity” here, many through church history would also demur.<\/p>\n

In any case, I criticized Sanders is “spinning<\/strong>” an obviously bad thing as a good thing – this lack of any clear statement in the Bible about the Trinity, as opposed to it being (supposedly) discernible diffused through the whole Book.<\/p>\n

But I think that in Scripture, God succeeded in revealing the Trinity the way he wanted to. I understand why that seems like \u201cmerely spin\u201d to Tuggy, but I mean it in earnest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I wasn’t accusing him of being insincere. But I think if there was a secure verse like 1 John 5:7, or more specific, Fred would gladly use it as a lead proof-text, and never lament its presence. The key point here is “the way he wanted to.”<\/strong> Because it is<\/em> this way, and because God is all-provident, Sanders holds this to be the best way. This, in my view, is a serious intellectual vice in present-day theology. Assuming, in theology, that things are as they are because they’re supposed to be that way. This is in practice an all-purpose reason to stay mentally “in the box.”<\/p>\n

To be clear: I believe wholeheartedly in divine providence. I’m an open theist, so for me the mechanics of providence will be different, but I think nothing occurs without God’s permission, and that he constantly guides the course of events, above all, those involving the followers of Jesus. But I think lots of things happen that go against his will. For whatever reason, he seems to govern, on a grand scale, with a loose hand.<\/p>\n

Think about how this sort of providential conservatism<\/strong> would’ve hurt you in the past:<\/p>\n