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Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Isaian monotheism


One of the problems with debating Dale Tuggy is that he justifies his unitarianism by reference to Isaian monotheism, yet he’s too indifferent to actually cite the passages he’s alluding to or analyze them in context. So let’s begin by sampling some representative statements that God makes about himself in these chapters:

18 To whom then will you liken God,
    or what likeness compare with him?
19 An idol! A craftsman casts it,
   and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
   and casts for it silver chains.
20 He who is too impoverished for an offering
   chooses wood that will not rot;
he seeks out a skillful craftsman
   to set up an idol that will not move.
 
 21 Do you not know? Do you not hear?
   Has it not been told you from the beginning?
   Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
   and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
   and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
23 who brings princes to nothing,
   and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
 
 24Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
   scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
    and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
 
 25 To whom then will you compare me,
   that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
26Lift up your eyes on high and see:
   who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
   calling them all by name,
by the greatness of his might,
   and because he is strong in power
   not one is missing.
(40:18-25)
 
10 "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD,
   "and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me
   and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
   nor shall there be any after me.
 
(43:10)
 
 5 "To whom will you liken me and make me equal,
   and compare me, that we may be alike?
6 Those who lavish gold from the purse,
   and weigh out silver in the scales,
hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god;
    then they fall down and worship!
7 They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it,
   they set it in its place, and it stands there;
    it cannot move from its place.
If one cries to it, it does not answer
   or save him from his trouble.
 9remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
   I am God, and there is none like me,
10 declaring the end from the beginning
   and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, 'My counsel shall stand,
   and I will accomplish all my purpose,'
11 calling a bird of prey from the east,
   the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
   I have purposed, and I will do it.
(46:5-11)
 
12"Listen to me, O Jacob,
   and Israel, whom I called!
I am he; I am the first,
   and I am the last.
13My hand laid the foundation of the earth,
   and my right hand spread out the heavens;
when I call to them,
   they stand forth together.
(48:12-13)
 
28Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God,
   the Creator of the ends of the earth.
(40:28)
 
 5Thus says God, the LORD,
   who created the heavens and stretched them out,
   who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people on it
   and spirit to those who walk in it:
8I am the LORD; that is my name;
    my glory I give to no other,
   nor my praise to carved idols.
9Behold, the former things have come to pass,
    and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth
   I tell you of them."
(42:5,8)
 
6Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel
   and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts:
"I am the first and I am the last;
   besides me there is no god.
7 Who is like me? Let him proclaim it.
   Let him declare and set it before me,
since I appointed an ancient people.
   Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen.
8Fear not, nor be afraid;
   have I not told you from of old and declared it?
    And you are my witnesses!
Is there a God besides me?
   There is no Rock; I know not any."
9 All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame.
(44:6-9)
 
22Let them bring them, and tell us
   what is to happen.
Tell us the former things, what they are,
   that we may consider them,
that we may know their outcome;
   or declare to us the things to come.
23 Tell us what is to come hereafter,
   that we may know that you are gods;
do good, or do harm,
   that we may be dismayed and terrified.
24Behold, you are nothing,
   and your work is less than nothing;
   an abomination is he who chooses you.
(41:22-24)
 
12 I made the earth
   and created man on it;
it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,
   and I commanded all their host
 
 14Thus says the LORD: "The wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush,
   and the Sabeans, men of stature,
shall come over to you and be yours;
   they shall follow you;
   they shall come over in chains and bow down to you.
They will plead with you, saying:
   'Surely God is in you, and there is no other,
   no god besides him.'"
 
18 For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens
   (he is God!),
who formed the earth and made it
   (he established it;
he did not create it empty,
    he formed it to be inhabited!):
"I am the LORD, and there is no other. 19 I did not speak in secret,
   in a land of darkness;
I did not say to the offspring of Jacob,
    'Seek me in vain.'
I the LORD speak the truth;
   I declare what is right.
 
 20 "Assemble yourselves and come;
   draw near together,
   you survivors of the nations!
They have no knowledge
   who carry about their wooden idols,
and keep on praying to a god
   that cannot save.
21 Declare and present your case;
   let them take counsel together!
Who told this long ago?
   Who declared it of old?
Was it not I, the LORD?
   And there is no other god besides me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
   there is none besides me.
 
 22"Turn to me and be saved,
    all the ends of the earth!
   For I am God, and there is no other.
(45:12,14,18-22)



Let’s summarize what these teach:

1. These demarcate the true God from false gods. They do so in more than one way:

i) The true God is known by what he does. The true God is unique both because of what he is and what he does.

ii) Apropos (i), the true God is the preexistent Creator of the world. The true God is the only savior of his people. The true God foretells the future and brings the future to pass.

iii) The true God is also identifiable by differentiating the true God from false claimants. That’s the sense in which the true God is incomparable.

Unlike the true God, the idol-gods say nothing, do nothing, know-nothing.

Unlike the gods of pagan cosmogony, who are (literally) begotten by other gods, or beget other gods, the true God has no forebears or descendents. He is the “first and the last.”

Unlike the true God, who is the increate Creator of the world, the celestial gods of pagan astrolatry and astromancy are part of the created order.

By contrast, the true God made the stars. By contrast, the true God governs the stars.

iv) In that sense, God will not share his honor with another.

v) That’s what is meant by the frequent refrain that there is no other God besides Yahweh. This is what makes him the only true God.

The unicity of God isn’t a distinctive property, in distinction to these other distinctive properties. It’s not another attribute on a list of attributes.

It’s not as if the unicity of God is a detachable property, over and against, or over and above, these other properties. Rather, these properties are what constitute the unicity of God. This is how Isaiah explicates the unicity of God.

To say there is no other God besides Yahweh is to say there is no one else who is the preexistent Creator of the world, whoforetells the future and brings the future to pass, who saves his people, &c.

2. According to Tuggy, Isaian monotheism contradicts the Trinity. But how is that entailed by the passages I cited?

By Isaiah’s criteria, whoever has one or more of these properties would be Yahweh. Whoever has one or more of these properties would be the only real God.

How does that logically exclude the possibility that Jesus is Yahweh (so defined), or the Holy Spirit? Or that Father, Son, and Spirit meet these conditions?

Remember, Tuggy keeps leaning on logic, so he needs to demonstrate that his position is strictly deducible from Isaiah’s descriptors. That no alternate construction is logically possible given the same data.

Maybe I missed something, but I haven’t seen Tuggy do anything even approaching that level of rigor. Yet if he’s going to keep invoking the law of identity, then that’s the onus which he’s set for himself.

3. But Tuggy has another problem. We have various passages in the NT that ascribe these properties to Jesus. Sometimes this involves quotations or allusions to some of the same Isaian passages I cited. Sometimes this involves quotations or allusions to other OT passages which say the same time. And sometimes this involves this involves the direct assignment of one or more of these properties without the literary mediation of an OT text.

Tuggy tries to reconcile this practice with his unitarianism by invoking the notion of creaturely agents. But one fundamental problem with this harmonistic device is that his Isaian frame of reference explicitly and emphatically reserves these properties for Yahweh alone. That’s what makes Yahweh Yahweh. Yahweh’s exclusive possession or exercise of these distinctives.

By appealing to creaturely agents, Tuggy is decoupling the unicity of God from the very properties by which Isaiah delineates the unicity of God. But if these properties are not unique to Yahweh, if they are transferable to creaturely agents, then there’s nothing to distinguish the true God from false gods.

That’s how Isaiah frames the alternatives. Tuggy can’t simultaneously use Isaiah as a benchmark to chisel out (unitarian) monotheism, only to turn around and suddenly sand down the benchmark to the point where it’s now at the same surface level as the created order.

4 comments:

  1. For all the reasons you've cited Steve, and more, it's abundantly clear that Dale Tuggy worships an idol god of his own devising and fashioning in contradistinction to the One true and living God of the Holy Bible as He has revealed Himself therein.

    The irony here is delicious.

    In Christ,
    CD

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  2. Steve, I concede. I am no match for your cutting and pasting skills. ;-)

    I'm not reticent to exegete; in fact, in a forthcoming paper, I devote considerable, detailed attention to the contents of Is. 40-55. Not a line-by-line exegesis, of course. What I'm hesitant to do is to engage in useless proof texts wars, where we just dump our favorite verses in front of one another and yell "SEE!", accomplishing nothing.

    By Isaiah’s criteria, whoever has one or more of these properties would be Yahweh. Whoever has one or more of these properties would be the only real God.

    Again, you seem to take the point to be about deity - that whoever, however many selves have the features you mention, those would be truly divine. The point, though, is that Yahweh himself is the only one with the features you mention. He being the only true God in that sense (i.e. having those features), then no one else can be. I'm not sure where you see the "leaning on logic" in this rather pedestrian point.

    Your own view has desperate problems with these very texts. In your view, three distinct selves are, each one "Yahweh" that is, you understand, truly God. There are three with those features you highlight here, in your view. You deflect this obvious problem by posing as a defender of "the" doctrine, against the dastardly logician. But your own troubled theory has no legitimate claim to be "the" doctrine; it's but one of a crowd of incompatible theories. You would be a spokesman and defender of the Tradition, but I'm afraid you, like me, and just a Christian with a theory you want to put out there as the best. That's fine, but I'm getting tired of your not engaging, diverting attention by constantly trying to catch me out in some stupid, obvious error or other. I could be wrong, terribly and tragically wrong about all this, but as a minimally competent philosopher, I'm probably not making some silly beginner's mistake, right?

    But Tuggy has another problem. We have various passages in the NT that ascribe these properties to Jesus.

    Steve, this is a textbook case of question begging. Humanitarian unitarians don't think that the NT actually does ascribe creation to Jesus, and subordinationists think those texts make him the instrument of God's (the Father's) creation - God being the creator in an ultimate sense, and the pre-human Jesus in an instrumental sense. Both would agree on the uniqueness of the Father, and of course both with agree with trinitarians that Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. Again, both agree that the Father, YHWH, is god in a sense which not other being ever has or will be, and that he knows all. Again, in an ultimate sense, salvation is from the Father, but of course it is through the Son. So no, as far as I can see, unitarians don't have any obvious problem with Isaiah.

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  3. explicitly and emphatically reserves these properties for Yahweh alone.

    Technical aside: In the "alone" part, you're quantifying, which supposes the relation of =. Call one of these properties F. You're making a bunch of statements like this: Only Yahweh has F. In standard logic, this is rendered: (x) (Fx -> x=y) This read: for any x whatever, that x is F only if it just is YHWH. (x is a variable here, y a name for YHWH.) The quantifying is "the only x part".

    Steve, the claim I quote above makes a serious difficulty for you. First, this is not consistent with your reading as I explained in the previous comment. Feel free to correct me there.

    Second, and more importantly, who or what does "YHWH" refer to, in these passages of Isaiah?

    It seems to me that you only have 2 options; there's a dilemma here for you. First, it could be the Trinity. But as we've seen, you don't think the Trinity is a self. Well, then it can't literally know anything, much less know all. Nor can it literally perform an intentional action like creating; it's not the kind of being which can do things for a reason, if it is not a self. This would make what Isaiah says false.

    Second, it could be the Father. This is who the NT identifies with the OT God. (Acts 3:13) But then, in your view, what Is. says is false. He isn't the only God, the only one with those properties. He's but one of three.

    Solution? Be a unitarian. You can pick which kind. Go with option two, and ditch your tritheistic speculations. Or, you can show how you avoid both horns of the above dilemma.

    if they are transferable to creaturely agents, then there’s nothing to distinguish the true God from false gods.

    This is far too quick. Some properties of the Father are such that it's a contradiction to suppose them shared. E.g. existing a se. But some seem to be shareable in principle, e.g. omniscience, the right to forgive sins. Sharing terms and title is one thing, sharing properties is another. But unitarians have said a good bit on both.

    In a previous comment on another post I've already explained how unitarians have no problem distinguishing God from others, and no problem with reading the scriptures that way. So this sort of criticism doesn't even go skin deep. Someone who has actually read unitarians will see that there's no actual problem here, about their confusing God with some creature.

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  4. This is what happens when Tuggy tries to do exegesis:

    Steve, this is a textbook case of question begging. Humanitarian unitarians don't think that the NT actually does ascribe creation to Jesus, and subordinationists think those texts make him the instrument of God's (the Father's) creation - God being the creator in an ultimate sense, and the pre-human Jesus in an instrumental sense. Both would agree on the uniqueness of the Father, and of course both with agree with trinitarians that Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. Again, both agree that the Father, YHWH, is god in a sense which not other being ever has or will be, and that he knows all. Again, in an ultimate sense, salvation is from the Father, but of course it is through the Son. So no, as far as I can see, unitarians don't have any obvious problem with Isaiah.

    Let's see now. Isaiah says that Yahweh created all things by himself, that he did so all alone, and that creation is the work of his own hands - cf. Isa. 42:5; 44:24; 45:12, 18; 48:13.

    Job also confirms that Yahweh created the heavens by himself - Job 9:8.

    Isaiah further says that he formed his people for himself, for his own glory - Isa. 43:6-7, 20-21.

    The NT, however, says that all things were created in/through/for the Son, and that the Son is personally sustaining all creation by his own powerful word- cf. Colossians 1:16-17; Heb. 1:2-3.

    Hebrews 1:10-12 takes this a step further and applies Psalm 102:25-27 to the Son in order to describe him as the unchanging Creator and Sustainer of all things. However, Psalm 102 refers to Yahweh creating and sustaining all things, and further says that the heavens are the works of Yahweh's hands.

    Yet all of this is applied to the Son's role in creating and sustaining the creation!

    So let us summarize what Isaiah and the rest of the OT says concerning Yahweh's role in creating and sustaining all things, and compare that to what the NT says about Jesus:

    Yahweh alone created and sustains all things.
    Yahweh created the heavens and the earth by his own hands.
    Yahweh formed things for himself, for his own glory.
    Yet according to the NT, all things were created in/through/for Jesus.
    The NT even quotes an OT passage which describes Yahweh as the unchanging Creator and Sustainer of all things and applies that to Christ!

    Now Tuggy, can you please reconcile the explicit testimony of the OT, specifically Isaiah, that Yahweh created all things by his own hands with the NT teaching that Jesus created and sustains all things? If Jesus is not Yahweh, but a mere human being as you erroneously believe, then can you please show us how you don’t end up with a clear-cut contradiction when the OT says Yahweh created and sustains all things by himself? How could this be if the NT says Yahweh used a creature to both create and sustain all things?

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