{"id":6411,"date":"2014-09-10T04:38:57","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T08:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=6411"},"modified":"2015-08-12T10:22:39","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T14:22:39","slug":"a-reply-to-robert-bowman-on-biblical-monotheism-the-trinity-and-the-shema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/a-reply-to-robert-bowman-on-biblical-monotheism-the-trinity-and-the-shema\/","title":{"rendered":"a reply to Robert Bowman on biblical monotheism, the Trinity, and the Shema"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"threeThanks<\/strong> to Rob Bowman for his thoughtful reply <\/a>to my previous post<\/a> regarding the Shema<\/em> and his argument with Sir Anthony Buzzard.<\/p>\n

While I sided with Mr. Bowman<\/strong> regarding the meaning of the Shema<\/em> (as saying that YHWH is unique – who which only presupposes, but doesn’t assert that he is a god), I think Buzzard is correct<\/strong> that ancient Jews thought that YHWH was a certain mighty self. This is plausible, even unavoidable, as they thought\u00a0he was a god<\/em><\/strong>, and in later OT writings, a unique god, the <\/em>god, unequivocally in a class of his own, but a god nonetheless. The concept of a god just the concept of a certain kind of self – of a being to whom one can speak, and who might speak to us. (Notice the personal pronouns in that last sentence.) A god<\/em> is by definition not<\/em> a mere force, group, or something-we-know-not-what. It is not relevant that they didn’t have the term<\/em> “self;” they had and used the concept.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bowman\u00a0doesn’t want to say that NT revelation contradicts OT revelation.\u00a0(I agree.)\u00a0And yet, as an evangelical, he’s committed to the old catholic language about God as a Trinity. So, he is compelled to understand the Trinity (at least in this argument) in a one-self<\/strong> way, contrary, for instance, to Bill Hasker<\/a>, Richard Swinburne<\/a>, or other three-self (“social”) trinitarians. I take him to be a one-selfer, in part, because Bowman reproduces the common theological saying\u00a0that the “Persons” of the Trinity are not “persons<\/strong> in the modern sense,” that is, what I call “selves.” The point of this move is that there is but one self, and so, one god<\/strong>, among the members of the Trinity. The “Persons” there must, instead of selves, be something like God’s personalities, or lives, or modes of being, etc. (Bowman says them to be “loci of relationality<\/strong>” – but of course it is selves who stand in interpersonal relationships. I’m assuming he means\u00a0the “Persons” to be less than selves, things which depend for their existence on a self.) This is a common move, made famous in the 20th c. by Barth and Rahner, though one may also find it, e.g. the trinitarian controversy of the 1690s.<\/p>\n

It does, in my view (but I think, maybe not in Sir Anthony’s view) count as a kind of monotheism<\/strong>. It is, strictly, consistent with what the OT teaches about YHWH. For all the OT says, why couldn’t the one\u00a0God have multiple personalities, modes of being, “streams” to his life, “loci of relationality,” or whatnot? But, this one-self trinitarian monotheism comes at a price.<\/strong> First, a\u00a0patently incoherent christology.\u00a0The christology is incoherent because in order to be the mediator between humans and God, the Savior needs to be a second self, in addition to God. Mediation is a three-way (or more) relationship – there must be at least three: a mediator, at least one who approaches through him, and at one who is approached in this indirect way. If God himself does the mediating, that’s just to say that there is no mediator! And a mode, locus, personality – such a thing is to “thin” to obey, serve, mediate – only selves do those. Second, this view of the Son is inconsistent with a central teaching of the NT: the (hierarchical) friendship between<\/strong> the Father\/God and Jesus\/the Son of God. These two talk to one another, and the former is the boss of the latter, who obeys him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.\u201d (Mark 1)<\/p>\n

“The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.” (John 5)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Statements like these presuppose that God is a self, and that Jesus is a self, and that they are two different selves<\/strong>, and not the same one. The theory at hand makes there be but one self between the Father and the Son. But that’s one short.<\/p>\n

Even \u00a0in the epistles, it is c\"\"lear that God and his Son are two selves<\/strong>, and so two beings, and not two modes (personalities, etc.) of one being. Look at the start of any letter<\/strong> in the NT attributed to Paul. He sends greetings from both of them, which’d be redundant if they were the same same. (Compare: “Merry Christmas from the President of the USA, and from Barack Obama.”) And John says that “truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3) That is, the one God, and also, the one Lord<\/strong>. (1 Cor. 8) There are two whom Christians worship<\/a>, even though many confuse the two together.<\/p>\n

Is Bowman’s one-self Trinity theory monotheism<\/strong>? Yes. Is it biblical monotheism<\/strong>, that fits the NT? No! This is a catholic tradition against the clear teaching of the NT. I urge Mr. Bowman to side with the ongoing Reformation<\/strong>\u00a0on this one.<\/p>\n

In sum, something is clear to every careful NT reader, though it\u00a0can be obscured by traditional catholic committments,\u00a0that the Lord, the one the OT calls “YHWH,” is none other than the one Jesus calls “Father.” But, just as YHWH is a god, and so, a self, so is the Father. Thus, the Father is not a mere mode of a self, not merely a way that the one God is or lives. Neither is Jesus.<\/p>\n

This post is long in the tooth. I’ll post again soon on the disagreement between Bowman and me regarding “The Father and I are one.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Thanks to Rob Bowman for his thoughtful reply to my previous post regarding the Shema and his argument with Sir Anthony Buzzard. While I sided with Mr. Bowman regarding the meaning of the Shema (as saying that YHWH is unique – who which only presupposes, but doesn’t assert that he is a god), I think… Read More »a reply to Robert Bowman on biblical monotheism, the Trinity, and the Shema<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6421,"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":[37,21,15,8,5,38,9,13,3,43,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-bible","category-christology","category-linkage","category-modalism","category-monotheism","category-philosophy","category-theologians","category-theories","category-unitarianism","category-worship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6411","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=6411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36037,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6411\/revisions\/36037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}