{"id":3573,"date":"2012-03-18T13:37:02","date_gmt":"2012-03-18T17:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=3573"},"modified":"2015-02-22T21:25:28","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T02:25:28","slug":"craig-white-and-cerberus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/craig-white-and-cerberus\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig, White, and Cerberus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"First, I suggest we stick with “SER-ber-us”<\/strong> because pronouncing it “Ker-ber-us” fills some people’s\u00a0 heads with images like these. And we can all agree, that is not<\/em> a good thing. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Last time<\/a>, I mentioned Bill Craig’s recent public assertion of his Cerberus analogy for the Trinity. Here’s a remix by an Islamic apologist<\/a>, with snickering commentary by Reformed Christian apologist James White<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I take it White is not a “social” theorist like Craig, but rather a negative mysterian<\/strong> (refusing to assign much intelligible content to the doctrine) – like those Dallas Theological Seminary folks<\/a>. In that video linked above, he just asserts that Craig doesn’t know what he’s talking about.<\/p>\n

This (that he’s a negative mysterian) in confirmed by this follow up video<\/a>.\u00a0 (Or at his blog<\/a>.) In the name of just sticking with what the Bible says, he just repeats traditional catholic creedal formulas, and tells us that Craig’s choice of analogy strikes him as odd.<\/p>\n

Well, it shouldn’t be a surprise<\/strong>, first of all. Craig’s book came out in 2003, and he’s been criticized in print<\/a> in 2006 by a well known Christian philosopher, Daniel Howard-Snyder, in the journal Philosophia Christi<\/em>. And there’s this<\/a>.<\/p>\n

White’s diagnosis is that Craig’s problem is that “philosophy is the final authority<\/strong>“… :-\/ This is the sort of thing you hear from people who don’t realize how much in the grip of various theories they are. (Often patristic-vintage, in this context.)<\/p>\n

Then he alleges that Craig doesn’t promote “full throated Christianity”. This is a cheap shot. Craig knows how to argue, and so in a mixed religious setting, of course<\/em> he argues from premises shared in common between Christians and non-Christians, focusing on what may be argued from common grounds. Perhaps there’s a dispute lurking here about “presuppositionalist” approaches to apologetics…<\/p>\n

White: Maybe his problem is that he’s not a Calvinist.<\/p>\n

Sigh.<\/p>\n

8:62 – He finally comes around to analogies. All bad<\/strong>. This is indeed a patristic theory; I find this in Augustine. How about this one: God is our heavenly Father. I say, that<\/em> one fits.<\/p>\n

But that’s not an analogy for the Trinity<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Right. But it shows that in the Bible God<\/em> is not<\/em> so unique that he can’t be compared with any created thing. He can. Another example: we’re made in his image. Resemblance is symmetrical; if I resemble him, it follows that he resembles me. Indeed, this is how nearly all Christian think about God – as a non-physical self<\/em>.<\/p>\n

These ancient “fathers” were under the strong influence of trendy platonic philosophy; and so like many platonists, they wanted to say that the divine being is ineffable – beyond any human concept. But Christians should reject this. Indeed, I don’t think they consistently held to that claim. We should be aware that an old<\/em> theory is still a theory; back to the sources – that is the only test.<\/p>\n

If your theory is such that it can’t be understood, maybe<\/em> this is because you’re dealing with super-transcendent reality. But you need to rule out that your theory is just confused<\/em>! In my view, defenders of Trinity theories must show that their theory is the best overall explanation of the texts; it won’t do to try to deduce it from those texts (it doesn’t clearly follow). And to meet this burden, they need to compare it with the best rivals…<\/p>\n

Back to White: he gives us an analogy<\/strong> not of the Trinity, but of the revelation thereof. Basically, now we know more about God than we used to. So the Trinity must be<\/em> consistent with the OT.<\/p>\n

13:50 Asserts that at the very least, Craig must SEVERELY qualify any analogy<\/strong> he might give – basically, taking back with one hand what he offers with the other. To my ears, this is Augustine talking again.<\/p>\n

If you make no clear assertion, you can’t be refuted; this is the payoff<\/strong> of negative mysterianism about the Trinity, or about any religious doctrine. Works like a charm. And if anyone has an understandable take on the matter, you can’t let it stand – you must say they just don’t know what they’re talking about.<\/p>\n

My hat off to Craig<\/strong> for his attempt to give intelligible and well-motivated content to the catholic formulas. I think he’s mistaken about what the Bible says, and I don’t think his theory does what it is supposed to do, but I salute him for trying hard to make it all fit together, knowing that folks like White will sneer at the attempt and insinuate that he’s not much of a theologian. This is simple truth-seeking, though, and responsible use of the abilities God has given us: daring to say something which is in principle refutable.<\/strong> So long as we’re open to refutation, this is how we all get out there, make our mistakes, and learn. In this respect (and others) he’s serving as a good example to us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First, I suggest we stick with “SER-ber-us” because pronouncing it “Ker-ber-us” fills some people’s\u00a0 heads with images like these. And we can all agree, that is not a good thing. \ud83d\ude42 Last time, I mentioned Bill Craig’s recent public assertion of his Cerberus analogy for the Trinity. Here’s a remix by an Islamic apologist, with… Read More »Craig, White, and Cerberus<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3574,"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":[37,21,6,4,8,38,20,9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-bible","category-complaints","category-heresy-orthodoxy","category-linkage","category-monotheism","category-mystery","category-philosophy","category-theologians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3573","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=3573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34815,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3573\/revisions\/34815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}