{"id":41513,"date":"2019-07-17T19:12:30","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T23:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=41513"},"modified":"2019-11-05T21:34:30","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T03:34:30","slug":"what-is-the-son-supposed-to-be-an-atheist-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/what-is-the-son-supposed-to-be-an-atheist-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"“What, is the Son supposed to be an atheist?” – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As with many standard, constantly recycled moves in apologetics, I don’t know where this sort of retort originated, or how far back it goes in catholic thinking. (I would imagine that some version of it goes very far back.) I’ll just focus on one recent spreader of it, Stevie-Wonder-trophy-winner<\/a> Dr. James White. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In this passage from his book The Forgotten Trinity<\/em>, White has just insisted that in John 20:28-29, the author is teaching that Jesus is the one God<\/strong>. (This should be challenged<\/a>, but let’s let that go for now.) White realizes that an obvious reason not<\/em> to read John that way is that in the very same chapter (John 20:17) Jesus confesses that someone else<\/em>, his Father, is his god<\/strong>, and our god (and given the Jewish context and the rest of this gospel, this must be the unique God). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

White replies,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember the maxim: Difference in function does not indicate inferiority in nature. <\/p>The Forgotten Trinity,<\/em> p. 70.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Here White is gesturing at the catholic tradition<\/strong> that Father and Son are equally divine. (Though the Son operates subject to the Father, still they have the same divine nature.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how does this address either problem highlighted in part 1?<\/a> It looks like it just ignores both problems<\/strong>, and changes the subject back to a time-honored creedal tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The general point, I think, is true.<\/strong> If an employee functions under his boss, or a wife is in some sense subject to her husband – still, all involved are equally human beings, all selves with “human nature” (whether this be a universal property, a concept, or a type of individual property). But this is an irrelevant truth<\/strong>, when it comes to the problems at hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Never mind the general<\/em> point; anyway, in the case of Yahweh,<\/strong> he <\/em>is assumed to be subject to no god. So then, someone who is <\/em>subject to a god can’t be him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if the Father and Son being homoousion <\/em>implies that they’re the same god<\/strong> (as most trinitarians will agree), then it seems that neither should be god over the other, as just conceptually, no god can be the god over himself. Jesus says here that the Father is his god, and so a competent reader <\/strong>should infer that Jesus is not supposed to be that same god. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far Dr. White has only given a snappy comeback that utterly misses the point<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This initial reply of his would <\/em>be to the point if someone were arguing: “Jesus must be inferior to the Father in nature, because Jesus functions differently than the Father, and in general, difference of function indicates inferiority of nature.” But who on earth would argue that<\/em>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But White is just getting warmed up. Next time, the “Jesus as atheist?!” bit.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Difference in function does not indicate inferiority in nature.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"default","neve_meta_container":"default","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"off","neve_meta_disable_footer":"off","neve_meta_disable_title":"off","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,21,15,6,33,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-bible","category-christology","category-complaints","category-incarnation","category-unitarianism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41513","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=41513"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41943,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41513\/revisions\/41943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}