Unitarian weasel watch

Apostate Dale Tuggy attempted to refute a post by Jonathan McLatchie:

http://trinities.org/blog/mclatchie-argues-that-acts-is-trinitarian/

I assume he means here something like a substitutional theory of atonement. That’s right, I don’t think anyone has to believe that in order to be saved. A person doesn’t have to believe any developed theory about the mechanics of forgiveness, i.e. a theological atonement theory, in order to be saved. That is as it should be. All Peter tells them in Acts 2, is if they repent and get baptized, they’ll be forgiven.

Tuggy's response fails on two levels:

i) There's an elementary distinction between what's necessary to believe to be saved, and what's necessary for the Christian faith to be true. For instance, a convert might be ignorant of the fact that Jesus is, among other things, the Davidic messiah. A convert might not believe it because he doesn't know that much. He could exercise saving faith despite that theological lacuna. 

However, the truth of Christianity depends, in part, on the fact that Jesus is the definitive heir of the Davidic covenant. The fact that knowing and believing that may be inessential to salvation doesn't render it inessential to the Gospel. It's a necessary presupposition or precondition of messiahship.

ii) In addition, there's a difference between innocent unbelief and defiant disbelief. There's a difference between not believing something because you don't know that you're supposed to believe it, and refusing to believe something you're supposed to believe, after you've been informed about your epistemic duties. 

Here Mr. McLatchie introduces a red herring, a distraction. The use of “philosophical categories” (i.e. terms) is irrelevant. I would count it here if in any way, the tripersonal God were mentioned as such, or the “deity of Christ” or the two natures of Jesus were taught. The terms needn’t have time-traveled back from Constantinople (381) or Chalcedon (451). Any sort of explicit statement or clear implication would do.

That's the tactic of framing an issue to the advantage of your own position. Why require an "explicit statement"? "Clear implication" in reference to what?

For instance, when addressing a Jewish audience, Jesus and the Apostles take many things for granted. Because a Jewish audience has a background in OT theism and messianic prophecy, the deity of Christ is implicit in many statements and actions by comparing NT statements by or about Jesus with the OT exemplar. It is, in part, generated by a relationship between the OT and the NT. That's different from a theological formula. 

Next, McLatchie serves up an example of the fulfillment fallacy.

i) Here Dale resorts to well-poisoning tactic by inventing a prejudicial label which he slaps onto Trinitarian hermeneutics. 

ii) In addition, Dale is appealing to his refuted arguments:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-jesus-as-yahweh-heresy.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/03/jesus-is-one-yahweh.html

Amazingly, Mr. McLatchie celebrates having (he thinks) proved the numerical identity of Yahweh and Jesus, and then immediately mentions that they qualitatively differ!…Right Jesus received the spirit from the Father. (Acts 2:33) The Father didn’t receive his spirit from anyone. It follows that they are numerically two. Mr. McLatchie needs to learn this self-evident truth, the indiscernibility of identicals, and then theologize (and interpret scripture) accordingly.

i) To begin with, if the Trinity is true, then that's a necessary truth. God is a necessary being. What is true of God's essential nature is necessarily true. 

ii) The indiscernibility of identicals isn't Dale's starting-point. For instance, Dale believes in the reality of change. He takes that as his standard of comparison. Yet change makes something different. So is it the same thing? 

That forces Dale to weaken the indiscernibility of identicals to make room for his common sense belief that personal identity is consistent with change. 

If you want an example of a philosopher who takes the indiscernibility of identicals as his standard of comparison, consider McTaggart. He denies the reality of time because he takes the indiscernibility of identicals as his starting-point and standard of comparison. Dale does the opposite.

Ironically, Dale is, in that respect, using the same methodology as Trinitarians. Our understanding of reality conditions our metaphysical commitments.