The
Trinity is frequently, indeed, usually, discussed in rather abstract,
theoretical terms. Expounding and debating various philosophical models of the
Trinity.
Of late,
the Trinity is coming under increasing attack on various fronts. There are
different culprits. The Trinity is offensive to Muslims. The Trinity is an
obstacle to ecumenists like the late John Hick. And the Trinity has been
targeted by Unitarians like Dale Tuggy. Strikingly, we even see the reputation
of “semi-Arians” like Samuel Clarke rehabilitated by some followers of Gordon
Clark.
Overemphasis
on the theoretical or philosophical aspects of the Trinity can obscure the
indispensable practical value of the Trinity in Christian piety. Let’s pause
for a moment how much the Trinity contributes to our understanding of God.
Consider
how much we learn about God when we read about Jesus in the Gospels. How much
we learn about God by observing Jesus in the Gospels. Eavesdropping on Jesus in
the Gospels. Watching him. Hearing him.
Then
consider how much less we’d know about God if Jesus wasn’t the Incarnate Son of
God. Consider how much less we’d know about God if we didn’t have the Gospels.
If we didn’t have that historical record of a time when God came to dwell among
us.
Likewise,
consider how much the Spirit teaches us about God. For the Spirit is the
primary author of Scripture. The agent of inspiration.
Without
the Spirit, we wouldn’t have the Bible. Consider how much less we’d know about
God without the Bible.
Try to
mentally blank out Jesus, then consider what’s left in your knowledge of God.
Try to mentally blank out the Spirit's role in giving us the Scriptures,
then consider what’s left in your knowledge of God. This is so engrained in
Christian consciousness–and rightly so–that it’s almost unimaginable to consider the cost of
losing it.
Moreover,
absent the Trinity, not only would we know less about God, but there would be
less about God to know. Indeed, we’d know less about a lesser God. For a
unitarian deity is a very different kind of deity. A more distant deity.
Unitarians deny the Incarnation.
And a
unitarian deity has no internal social life. No inner fellowship. In that
respect, he has far less in common with social creatures like human beings than
a Trinitarian God.
A
unitarian deity is more in the nature of a background condition, like the way
time or logic conditions our existence. He’s the ground of being, but not much
else. An existential precondition rather than an object of worship. Less a person than a principle. Not
someone you look up to. Not someone whose character informs your ideal of
goodness. You trust him (or it) in the sense of trusting the law of gravity.
Steve, you seem to have little idea of Christian unitarian theology. If you did, you'd know that we too believe in a self-revealing God, who by his spirit inspired the prophets and apostles, and through them the Bible, and who loved us so much that he sent his only Son as the best and last revelation of him - "He who has seen me has seen the Father." Indeed.
ReplyDeleteIf he absent? Of course not. He's ubiquitous and provident.
Does God lack an "inner social life"? Yes, but this is no imperfection, and the arguments that it is have never really got off the launch pad:
http://trinities.org/dale/SinglePerfect.pdf
Your last paragraph is a bunch of non sequiturs. The God of a Christian unitarian is a perfect self, same as the Father of Jesus, same as Yahweh, same as the being argued for in the long tradition of "perfect being theology."
Think this is incoherent? Show it - don't just assert it as the Word of Steve. Start with: God is perfect, and God is not a Trinity. Now, using only uncontroversial premises, derive a contradiction from that, by a patently valid argument. Then, you've got us. Good luck.
Dale
ReplyDelete“Steve, you seem to have little idea of Christian unitarian theology.”
When your lead sentence begins with an oxymoron (“Christian unitarian theology”), that doesn’t set a promising precedent for what follows.
“If you did, you'd know that we too believe in a self-revealing God, who by his spirit inspired the prophets and apostles…”
Of course you’re equivocating. What’s the ontological status of God’s spirit (which you put in lower case)? Is the spirit a creature whom God sends? Is the spirit a personification of divine action? Which?
“...and who loved us so much that he sent his only Son as the best and last revelation of him…”
And what is his Son on your definition? A creature? Something God caused to be? A contingent entity?
“He who has seen me has seen the Father.”
That only follows on Johannine Christology, not unitarian Christology.
“If he absent? Of course not. He's ubiquitous and provident.”
So is a background condition, like time or logic. Hence, you’re not offering a counterexample to what I said.
“Does God lack an ‘inner social life’? Yes, but this is no imperfection…”
By definition, a unitarian doesn’t regard that as an imperfection. However, as I pointed out, if God lacks an inner social life, then there’s no fundamental analogy between God and social creatures like human beings. Therefore, a unitarian God is more wholly other than a Trinitarian God. And that has practical consequence, which I duly noted.
“The God of a Christian unitarian is a perfect self, same as the Father of Jesus, same as Yahweh, same as the being argued for in the long tradition of ‘perfect being theology.’”
There’s a crucial difference between a self-contained, hermitic, individual self, and a social self. A self in community with other comparable selves. You’re using traditional terms, but evacuating the terms of their original meaning.
“Start with: God is perfect, and God is not a Trinity…”
The first clause begs the question. You’re not entitled to stipulate that a unitarian God is a perfect God.
Great observations, and Steve.
ReplyDelete"When your lead sentence begins with an oxymoron... "
Exactly. I remember asking Tuggy a while back why he didn't consider Trinitarians to be heretics, given that they worship Jesus as God. Never got a response, but even on his own view he can't consider himself part of the Christian (trinitarian) tradition.
Steve - you're really flailing away, I'm afraid, at many points irrelevant to your claims I was disputing.
ReplyDelete"no fundamental analogy between God and social creatures like human beings"
Nonsense. Both are literally selves - beings enjoying a first person point of view, with reason and will, and capable of friendship. Yep - made in God's image and likeness.
OK -I invite you to actually argue for your claim, and gently toss up the volleyball for you, so you can spike it - I gave you the first two lines of the reductio - the proof that those two claims can't both be true. And you're reply is that I'm begging the question?! Can't do that, when I'm not arguing.
Meanwhile, you continue to hit a straw man, this imagined "self-contained, hermitic" God.
Jonathan - the internet can answer many questions:
ReplyDeletehttp://trinities.org/blog/archives/4037
While we wait I thought it apropos to quote from TurrentinFan's blog and a patristic's well expressed defining of the Trinity and then the work of the Holy Spirit; TF's words: "...Daillé's excellent work..."
ReplyDeleteFrom the Author's preface: "...•that to enable us to communicate of this salvation by his merits, he sends us down his Holy Spirit, proceeding both from the Father and the Son, and who is also one and the same God with them; so that these three persons are notwithstanding but one God, who is blessed forever;
•that this Spirit enlightens our understanding, and generates faith in us, whereby we are justified:...".
Dale,
ReplyDelete“Steve - you're really flailing away, I'm afraid, at many points irrelevant to your claims I was disputing.”
Saying so doesn’t make it so.
“Nonsense. Both are literally selves - beings enjoying a first person point of view, with reason and will, and capable of friendship.”
Once again, you’re equivocating. In Trinitarian theism, God is an essentially social being. And his inner social life involves peer relationships. That has a direct analogy with human nature.
By contrast, a unitarian God is, at best, a contingently social being who can only befriend his inferiors. The disanalogy is radical.
“Yep - made in God's image and likeness.”
i) You’re not entitled to claim that verse for your position unless you can exegete “self, a being with reason, will, and a first-person viewpoint” from the biblical concept of the imago dei.
ii) Moreover, if you’re going to invoke that verse, then Trinitarians can reengineer the Trinity from the social nature of humans made in God’s image.
“OK -I invite you to actually argue for your claim, and gently toss up the volleyball for you, so you can spike it - I gave you the first two lines of the reductio - the proof that those two claims can’t both be true. And you’re reply is that I’m begging the question?! Can’t do that, when I’m not arguing.”
Typical duplicity on your part. You said “Start with: God is perfect, and God is not a Trinity…”
i) I’d be starting with a false premise.
ii) Furthermore, what you’re proposing is not a reductio but a dilemma.
“Does God lack an ‘inner social life’? Yes, but this is no imperfection, and the arguments that it is have never really got off the launch pad: http://trinities.org/dale/SinglePerfect.pdf”
Nice attempt to rig the debate. Forgive me if I decline to play with your loaded dice. I don’t need a philosophical proof that God is Trinitarian to prove the imperfection of a unitarian God. I can use this type of argument instead:
i) If God is perfect,
ii) If the Bible is God’s self-revelation,
iii) If the Bible reveals God to be Trinitarian,
iv) Then a unitarian God is imperfect.
In fact, that’s actually stronger than I need. Even binitarian evidence would undercut a unitarian concept of God.
Now, that’s hypothetical, but I’ve made a very extensive case for the deity of Christ, in distinction to the Father. I’ve also discussed the deity of the Spirit, albeit in less detail.
You, by contrast, haven’t presented anything like a systematic exegetical rebuttal.
OK, this is what I get for expecting more than polemics here.
ReplyDeleteSteve, not only do you not know how to construct a non-question-begging argument, but you don't even take time to think before you start back with the flailing. It shows a disregard for the truth, and a desperate need to come off like a big man.
Unasked-for logic lesson, in case any are listening who are interested in more than polemics: with a reductio, you typically start by assuming what you think is false. This is so that you can establish that it's false, by showing that it (perhaps together with other, non-controversial or even self-evident truths) implies a contradiction.
Steve's off the cuff argument isn't even valid. iv doesn't follow from i-iii.
Unasked for rhetorical advice: if you are totally unable to argue a point, and are called on it, hit back with a torrent of irrelevant points, and try to change the subject to something you think you're good at. Here, Steve takes himself to be a master of exegesis.
And also, go for the old well-poisoning fallacy - just repeatedly assert that you're opponent is a tricky trickster, who's ingeniously playing with words, to fool the unwary.
Sigh.
Sometimes the internet lives down to its reputation.
Keep in mind that it's only belatedly that you decided to classify your argument as a reductio. You don't get to backdate your ex post facto damage control.
DeleteYou didn't present a formally structured reductio argument. What you said didn't single out a reducio argument. Indeed, what you said has more in common with a dilemma.
You can start adding qualifications after the fact, but don't pretend that that's what you said all along.
"Steve's off the cuff argument isn't even valid. iv doesn't follow from i-iii."
You mean I didn't connect the dots for you. True. It's always hazardous to overestimate Tuggy's grasp of the obvious.
If the perfect God is Trinitarian, then a unitarian God is a false God. Are you claiming a false God is perfect?
Likewise, are you claiming that both Trinitarian and unitarian divine natures are perfections?
Dale,
ReplyDeleteI don't have the time or interest to watch your lectures right now, but but it looks like you're giving the same none-despondent you gave me a while ago, I which was that Jesus is worthy of worship, and so no problem. But as I pointed out way back then, the issue isn't simply is it okay for people to worship Jesus but is it okay for people to worship him as God, and the second person of the trinity, which, of course, is how Christians worship Jesus. I might add the Holy Spirit too.
Since it looks like you still don't want to answer that question here, but I'll simply ask: does your video series address that specific issue or not?
If worshiping him "as God" involves taking him to be numerically identical to God, no, you should not do that, because he is not.
ReplyDeleteIf that phrase means worshiping him in ways similar to how God is worshiped, the answer is yes, according to the NT.
Why do I say the two aren't numerically identical? see this: http://trinities.org/blog/archives/4054 In short: the differ, yet nothing can differ from itself. On that point you, and everyone, should agree.
Dale
Delete"If worshiping him 'as God' involves taking him to be numerically identical to God, no, you should not do that, because he is not."
According to Scripture, Jesus is just as much God as the Father is. Scripture doesn't single out the Father as numerically identical to God in contrast to or to the exclusion of Jesus.
You can talk about logic in the abstract, but you're not mapping the law of identity onto Scripture the way Scripture does in reference to the Father and the Son (or the Spirit). This is one of your gimmicks.
"You can start adding qualifications after the fact, but don't pretend that that's what you said all along."
ReplyDeleteUh, yeah.
Tricky I am.
Dale
Delete"Tricky I am."
I don't credit you with that much cleverness.
Thanks for finally responding responding to the question. Naturally you already know that Trinitarians don't worship him merely in a way similar to God. I don't know why you seem so reluctant to admit that, if your position is correct, all us Trinitarians are guilty of idolatry-setting up false gods ... Perhaps it's because you're keen on presenting unitarianism as just another variety of Christian theism?
ReplyDeleteSee that first screencast re: what I think the biblical def of idolatry is.
ReplyDeleteDale acts as though you can change the essential nature of the key players (redefining the Father, Son, and Spirit) while leaving the Christian story intact. That's superficially true, but only on the surface. The meaning of the story has been radically subverted. The story of salvation is not just a series of bare events, but theologically interpreted events. Dale is acting like a positivist historian.
ReplyDeleteI've posted a reply to Tuggy on my blog.
ReplyDeletehttp://theologyweblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/perfect-being-theology-and-unitarian-god.html
I did this because my reply exceeded the word limit for the comments section.