Tuesday, February 02, 2016

"A Brief Response to Tuggy’s Challenge"

James Anderson responds to Dale Tuggy's latest challenge.

13 comments:

  1. I enjoyed James' counterexample, but I think it would have been more fun and biting if he'd framed the argument such that "sleeping Tuggy" and "waking Tuggy" were not numerically one given their differing properties.

    Or "pimply teen Tuggy" and "midlife crisis Tuggy". The possibilities are staggering.

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    1. Dr. Anderson would not and does not make the mistake of thinking that my version of the indiscernibility of identicals rules out change over time. To the contrary, the point is always about a single time; I explicitly formulate it to allow for change.

      You'll do better to pay attention to Dr. Anderson here, who grants 2 as true and challenges 4, than to Mr. Hays's confused idea that 2 is controversial and speculative. He just refuses to be straightened out on the topic of identity.

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    2. The validity or invalidity of my proposal doesn’t detract from the fun factor. Do all unitarians suffer from a malformed sense of humor, or is it just Dale Tuggy?

      Yes, I know that's the Loaded Question fallacy mixed with a dash of ad hominem, just to save you from feeling compelled to point it out.

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    3. i) The issue of diachronic identity is not about "a single time" but change over time. Those are hardly equivalent concepts.

      ii) Either Tuggy is just too obtuse to grasp the explanation, despite repeated explanation, or he can't be honest for 30 seconds straight.

      Did I suggest that diachronic identity was "controversial"? No.

      What I said, rather, is that many philosophers make allowance for counterfactual identity and diachronic identity in spite of Leibniz' law.

      The formulation of Leibniz' law includes no exceptions for change or counterfactuals.

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  2. Great article by Anderson. If I can add my two cents.....

    There are many places in the OT where the Angel of Yahweh/Jehovah is identified as Yahweh. For example:

    1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.2 And the LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?"- Zech. 3:1-2

    Notice that the Angel of Yahweh is simply called/named "Yahweh" at the beginning of verse 2. In essence it says that Yahweh said "Yahweh rebuke you!" Why doesn't it simply say, that Yahweh said, "I rebuke you!" Clearly, there are two persons called Yahweh here and one of them speaks of another Yahweh in the third person. Similar to Gen. 19:24 where there are two persons identified as Yahweh. One of them being on earth and the other in heaven.

    Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven.- Gen. 19:24

    If anyone is interested, I recommend two of my blogposts that deal with the Messenger of Jehovah

    The Angel of the LORD by E.W. Hengstenberg
    HERE

    The Angel of the Lord; or Manifestations of Christ in the Old Testament by W. Pakenham Walsh
    HERE

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    1. More relevant than the two blogposts above is the following blogpost:

      Old Testament Passages Implying Plurality in God
      HERE

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    2. "There are many places in the OT where the Angel of Yahweh/Jehovah is identified as Yahweh."

      You must deny 2, to interpret the Bible in this way, as identifying Jesus with God. Very uncharitable, I'm afraid. Like attributing to them the view that something does and doesn't exist.

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  3. On Mr. Tuggy's "argument"--doesn't he equivocate in statement 1 by not defining in what way God and Jesus are said to differ?

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    1. Hi Ken - See the post for many ways in which God and Jesus differ. Any Christian will agree with at least one such difference, and that is enough to imply the truth of 1.

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  4. Hello Annoyed,

    Given the content of posts that you linked to above, I suspect that you will be interested in THIS RECENT THREAD.


    Grace and peace,

    David

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    1. Hey, David, long time no chat. :-) Thanks for the link. Reading it now.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. http://trinities.org/blog/dr-james-andersons-brief-response-challenge/

    BTW, Anderson's reply is much more plausible than Steve's.

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