{"id":36964,"date":"2016-02-02T09:43:45","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T14:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=36964"},"modified":"2016-02-02T09:43:45","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T14:43:45","slug":"god-in-the-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/god-in-the-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"“God” in the Challenge argument"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"thinkingStill waiting for substantial replies to my Challenge to evangelical “Jesus is God” apologists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some have worried that the meaning of “God”<\/strong> is somehow problematic here.<\/p>\n

There is<\/em> an ambiguity here, but it is deliberate, and is a virtue of the argument. You can take “God” here to be either the Father (as in the NT) or the Trinity (as in trinitarian traditions) – either way, I claim, you should agree that this is a sound argument.<\/p>\n

the Challenge<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. God and Jesus differ.<\/li>\n
  2. Things which differ are two (i.e. are not numerically identical)<\/li>\n
  3. Therefore,\u00a0God and Jesus are two (not numerically identical).<\/a> (1, 2)<\/li>\n
  4. For any x and y, x and y are the same god only if x and y are not<\/em> two (i.e. are<\/em> numerically identical).<\/li>\n
  5. Therefore, God and Jesus are not the same god. (3,4)<\/li>\n
  6. There is only one god.<\/li>\n
  7. Therefore, either God is not a god, or Jesus is not a god. (5, 6)<\/li>\n
  8. God is a god.<\/li>\n
  9. Therefore, Jesus is not a god. (7,8)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And the argument doesn’t depend on any equivocation on the term “God.” To see that, let’s disambiguate it. Call this one Trinity-Challenge<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. The Trinity\u00a0and Jesus differ.<\/li>\n
    2. Things which differ are two (i.e. are not numerically identical)<\/li>\n
    3. Therefore, the Trinity\u00a0and Jesus are two (not numerically identical). <\/a>(1, 2)<\/li>\n
    4. For any x and y, x and y are the same god only if x and y are not<\/em> two (i.e. are<\/em> numerically identical).<\/li>\n
    5. Therefore, the Trinity and Jesus are not the same god. (3,4)<\/li>\n
    6. There is only one god.<\/li>\n
    7. Therefore, either the Trinity\u00a0is not a god, or Jesus is not a god. (5, 6)<\/li>\n
    8. The Trinity\u00a0is a god.<\/li>\n
    9. Therefore, Jesus is not a god. (7,8)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      If you’re a trinitarian, I claim that you should agree that this is a sound argument. A unitarian Christian, of course, will deny 8. Oddly enough, some who profess to be trinitarians will deny 8 too. But I’ll discuss those in a future podcast.<\/p>\n

      But what if we take “God” throughout to mean not the Trinity but the Father? Here’s the Father-Challenge<\/strong> argument:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. The Father\u00a0and Jesus differ.<\/li>\n
      2. Things which differ are two (i.e. are not numerically identical)<\/li>\n
      3. Therefore,\u00a0the Father and Jesus are two (not numerically identical).<\/a> (1, 2)<\/li>\n
      4. For any x and y, x and y are the same god only if x and y are not<\/em> two (i.e. are<\/em> numerically identical).<\/li>\n
      5. Therefore, the Father\u00a0and Jesus are not the same god. (3,4)<\/li>\n
      6. There is only one god.<\/li>\n
      7. Therefore, either the Father\u00a0is not a god, or Jesus is not a god. (5, 6)<\/li>\n
      8. The Father\u00a0is a god.<\/li>\n
      9. Therefore, Jesus is not a god. (7,8)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        If you’re a unitarian Christian, you should agree that this is sound. Even some trinitarians will agree. Premises 1, 6, and 8 seem to enjoy very strong and obvious scriptural support. As to 2 and 4, they don’t seem to need any.<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/p>\n

        It’s hard to get people off their standard scripts<\/strong>! For example,<\/p>\n

        Surely he’s overlooking the Person-essence distinction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        How is that relevant? How might that help us decide whether or not this is a sound argument?<\/p>\n

        Or:<\/p>\n

        Surely, any unitarian is merely assuming<\/em> that God is uni-personal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

        Nope! Not in this argument.<\/p>\n

        Can’t\u00a0“God” be used to refer to Jesus? Yes<\/strong> – I say this in the podcast<\/a>, and give an uncontroversial NT example of it. But if “God” means Jesus throughout, then premise 1 will be obviously false; a thing can’t at one time differ from itself. So that’s not a very interesting argument; no Christian will think it sound.<\/p>\n

        Is”God” sometimes used for the Holy Spirit? Yes. We would then have the Spirit-Challenge<\/strong> argument. But I don’t propose to discuss that right now. In biblical lingo, “the Holy Spirit” or “the Spirit of God” etc. can be used<\/a>, it seems to me, for God himself (aka the Father), for a power given by God, an exercise of God’s power, and even for Jesus. So that argument is just not as straightforward as the Jesus one. And in any case, whatever we make of the God’s spirit, my point in the challenge is that no one, trinitarian or not, should confuse together Jesus and the one God.<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Still waiting for substantial replies to my Challenge to evangelical “Jesus is God” apologists. Some have worried that the meaning of “God” is somehow problematic here. There is an ambiguity here, but it is deliberate, and is a virtue of the argument. You can take “God” here to be either the Father (as in the… Read More »“God” in the Challenge argument<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36965,"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":[37,15,55,38,9,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-christology","category-holy-spirit","category-monotheism","category-philosophy","category-unitarianism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36964","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=36964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36972,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36964\/revisions\/36972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}