{"id":39621,"date":"2017-10-20T14:20:23","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T18:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=39621"},"modified":"2017-10-20T14:21:37","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T18:21:37","slug":"hays-on-attempts-to-argue-from-theism-to-trinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/hays-on-attempts-to-argue-from-theism-to-trinity\/","title":{"rendered":"Hays on attempts to argue from theism to Trinity"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Triablogue apologist Steve Hays has posted on my critiques of purely philosophical arguments from theism to the Trinity. It is worth saying at the outset that most trinitarians don’t put any stock in such arguments<\/strong>. By far most have never so much as heard of them. And among trinitarians with some philosophical education, enough to understand how such arguments are supposed to work, the wiser among them see how tenuous they are. A very proper and reasonable skepticsm kicks in. In my view, which is also the view of many trinitarian philosophers and theologians, we should think that whether any Trinity theory is viable should depend on whether or not it best explains scripture<\/strong>, and not on any argument like this.<\/p>\n

\"\"But, these arguments are enormously<\/em> tempting<\/strong> for trinitarian apologists. Wouldn’t it be neat to have a philosophical club to wield against any and all non-trinitarian monotheists? In other words, wouldn’t it be awesome to show that their god is impossible<\/strong>, something that couldn’t be real, like a square circle? You just want<\/em> to pick that low-hanging fruit, don’t you?<\/p>\n

Hays feels that temptation. He writes<\/a>,
\nA. Some Christian philosophers and theologians have proposed a priori arguments (i.e. arguments from reason) for the Trinity. … Tuggy has attempted to debunk these arguments on more than one occasion:<\/em><\/p>\n

http:\/\/trinities.org\/dale\/SinglePerfect.pdf<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Are persons essentially relational?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n