{"id":40290,"date":"2018-05-25T21:07:52","date_gmt":"2018-05-26T01:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=40290"},"modified":"2018-05-25T21:08:31","modified_gmt":"2018-05-26T01:08:31","slug":"steve-hays-fails-to-rebut-the-charge-of-tritheism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/steve-hays-fails-to-rebut-the-charge-of-tritheism\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Hays fails to rebut the charge of tritheism"},"content":{"rendered":"
At tritheistblog, tritheist Steve Hays tries to exonerate himself<\/strong> from my charge that his Trinity theory entails tritheism<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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\"\"First, I’m happy to observe that he admits his several disagreements<\/strong> with other much more prominent trinitarians and with central planks of pre-Reformation (and much post-Reformation) trinitarianism. As with many who’ve thought much about this, his views are somewhat idiosyncratic. Just remember that, next time he poses as the heroic defender<\/strong> of something all Christians (or nearly so) are for.<\/div>\n
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I don’t classify the Father, Son, and Spirit as “concrete beings<\/strong>“. Since, on my view, God subsists outside of time and space, that’s abstract rather than concrete.\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
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As I (and many) use the term, “abstract” beings<\/strong> are by definition causally inert – they can’t be causes. Hays holds that each of these intentionally act, purposefully cause, so they must be “concrete” and not abstract. And for him, certainly, they are individual beings<\/em>, not mere properties, events, states of affairs, numbers, sets, concepts, etc. A concrete being, in this sense, may be outside of time and space. (Never mind that Jesus was obviously in both time and space – that’s another post…)<\/div>\n
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I affirm God’s mereological simplicity in the sense that since that God lacks spatiotemporal parts or subdivisions.\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
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Right. So the “Persons” are in some<\/em> sense parts or components of the Trinity, but are not parts of it like my body has parts. As you said, “The one God consists of<\/strong> three persons.”<\/em><\/div>\n
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[Dale:] “no scriptural term or phrase was then understood to refer to a multi-personal god.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

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When you pour the Bible through a unitarian sieve.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
A wholly lame retort. It is not unitarians who point this out, but historians and others who are concerned to read the NT in its 1st c. context. E.g. this leading Catholic theologian,<\/a> or this evangelical NT specialist<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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\"\"But how does Hays rebut my charge of tritheism?<\/strong> This is better summed than quoted. First, he whines that he<\/em> didn’t call them “concrete” beings or even “beings.” Then he whines that I’m using less precise words (allegedly) than he did. But of course, his claims straightforwardly imply<\/strong> that the “Persons” of the Trinity are concrete, as explained above, and that they are so many beings\/entities. He had said:<\/div>\n
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By \u201cperson\u201d I mean an individual with a mind or consciousness, and first-person viewpoint. Each member of the Godhead has a first-person viewpoint.<\/em><\/div>\n
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Right – these “members of the Godhead” are thinking, conscious beings. In Cartesian terms, minds or souls, non-physical entities or beings or (as he says) “individuals” which have mind and will, able to intentionally act. Yep – beings<\/em>!<\/strong> Three powerful realities, the sort I call “selves.”<\/div>\n
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\"Artist'sNow let’s get more specific. What else are each one of these three beings, in his view? Divine.<\/strong> What is the noun for a “divine being” or “being which is divine.” It is: “god.” Hence, his view is that “the Godhead” are three gods. His reply?<\/div>\n
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But I said<\/strong> each person is “divine”, not each person is “God” or “a god”. And I defined what I meant by “divine”<\/em>.<\/div>\n
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It doesn’t matter, of course, whether tritheist Hays calls<\/em> them “gods.” His Trinity theory straightforwardly implies<\/em> that they are. In what sense, in his<\/em> words, is he calling each of them “divine”?<\/div>\n
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By \u201cdivine\u201d I mean having all the divine attributes<\/em>.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Right – essential, defining features which any god must have, such as omnipotence and omniscience and eternity and uncreatedness. We get it. Whatever has all the features essential to being a god, is by definition<\/em> a god.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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This is not going well for tritheist Steve!<\/strong><\/div>\n
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I’d said, “And presumably, [for Hays] the three differ from one another, so they are not the same god.”His retort: To say they’re not the same god doesn’t mean they’re different gods. Rather, the Trinity is God (in my usage).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If A is a god, and B is a god, and they’re not the same god, yes, it does follow that A and B are different gods.<\/p>\n

Now it occurs to tritheist Steve to solve his problem by saying that only the Trinity is a god<\/strong>, so that none of the persons is a god, none of them is fully divine. Our tritheist needs to go back to the drawing-board, it would seem. He’s just denied <\/strong>the third claim in his own summary<\/strong> of his Trinity theory<\/a>. It does work, to escape the tritheism of this theory, to switch to the view that only the Trinity is a god, though none of the “Persons” is a god. (Like me, then<\/a>, he’d be denying that there are three fully divine beings.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For those keeping an eye on the Bible – he’s now in the teeth of the NT<\/strong>, which plainly teaches that the Father is the one true God (i.e. the only god), and so implies that he must have all the features necessary for full divinity. Unfortunately, Hays (if<\/em> he really commits to this escape), has demoted the Father to somewhat less than full divinity, in order to elevate the Trinity to unique and full divinity.<\/div>\n
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About my queries\/objections about whether or not the Trinity is in his view a self<\/strong> (it must be, to be fully divine – for some divine attributes like omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence imply being a self), Hays only whines about my terminology. Ridiculously, and without explanation, he asserts that it is a “pseudoproblem” whether or not the Trinity is a self.<\/div>\n
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Actually, it’s a problem that Hasker has expended great energy on, and to lesser extents, Swinburne and Craig.<\/div>\n
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Hays hopes that the three gods’ mental access to each others’ minds will somehow help<\/strong>, somehow breaking down the “dichotomy” that separates one mind from another. But still, his scenario of all-around telepathic access is described by him as involving three minds, each had by a different thinking being. So it seems to get nowhere.<\/div>\n
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In my second post, I offered him an inconsistent triad<\/strong><\/a>, inviting him to explain which he denies and why. He declines to give a answer (despite his move above in the direction of denying 3). Instead, he concocts some sci-fi scenarios, and asks how they relate to my structurally parallel triad of claims, about dogs rather than gods.<\/div>\n
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He doesn’t say what his point is. Is it that he, absurdly, thinks that the three claims could all be true? Or is he trying to argue that we should doubt our judgment that they can’t all be true?<\/div>\n
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\"\"It’d be fun to discuss time travel and “parallel universes” some time, but I think here they’re a distraction from that fact that our tritheist needs to respond<\/strong> to this inconsistent triad:<\/div>\n
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  1. There is only one god.<\/li>\n
  2. Any fully divine being\/entity is a god.<\/li>\n
  3. There are three fully divine beings.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n
    As we’ve seen, Hays is a tritheist because he affirms 3, and is committed to 2, as it’s true by definition. This is a failed Trinity theory.<\/strong> Such are supposed to be monotheistic and not also tritheistic – somehow, the Trinity is supposed to amount to a single god, God.<\/div>\n
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    His desire to shift the conversation to sci-fi scenaries shows that he may not realize the weight of my point that the mere structure of these claims<\/em> renders them such that they can’t all be true. That is why clever speculations will not help. The only thing that would refute my claim would be stating a scenario which appears to be contradiction-free, in which 1, 2, and 3 are simultaneously true.<\/div>\n
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    But the better way is to man up, and do what I did<\/a>. Explain in one paragraph<\/strong> which, according to scripture and sober reasoning, should be denied, and why. If you think scripture is sufficient to address this problem, let’s hear it.<\/div>\n
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    \"\"If tritheist Steve Hays tries to lecture you<\/strong> on “the doctrine of the Trinity,” or to police your views as heretical or not, ignore him. As a tritheist, he is not something any trinitarian should aspire to be<\/strong>.<\/div>\n
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    If “the doctrine” is to be understood as monotheistic and not also as tritheistic – then he simply doesn’t know<\/strong> the doctrine.<\/div>\n
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    If he calls you a “heretic,”<\/strong> you can reply “it takes one to know one, my tritheistic friend.” Or you could urge him to repent of his anti-biblical theology, and join the ranks of self-consistent monotheists.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A would-be teacher on trinitarian topics is merely an incoherent tritheist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40295,"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":[37,21,6,4,38,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-bible","category-complaints","category-heresy-orthodoxy","category-monotheism","category-protestant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40290","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=40290"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40304,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40290\/revisions\/40304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}