10 or so dumb reasons to reject the Trinity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YHjvkTbJuI

Good thing it amounts to a nice round number. If they only had 9 reasons, I might still be hanging in the balance, but that tenth reason is the clincher tipping the scales for unitarianism!

In fact, their ten reasons seem to be more than ten in some respects, but repetitious in other respects, so my numbering will go over ten. 

1. God cannot die

An obtuse objection to the Incarnation. If Jesus just is God, then Jesus can't die. But of course, that's not the Trinitarian position. Rather, Jesus is a composite individual: the divine Son in union with a human soul and human body. So Jesus vis-a-vis his body can die. 

That's analogous to dualism; we say Methuselah died when he underwent biological death, even though he has an immortal soul.

The physical death of Jesus is a necessary but insufficient condition for atonement. 

2. Does God need to be resurrected?

This piggybacks on the same blunder as #1. If Jesus just is God, then he doesn't need to resurrected, but God Incarnate is subject to resurrection. 

3. Unless you're a hypostatic union–a composite of two natures–Trinitarian the resurrection offers no hope for you

That's hard to respond to because it's not an argument. It's unclear what the claim amounts to. It's not incumbent on Trinitarians to reconstruct the intended argument.

Is the claim that unless the redeemed are just like the redeemer, there's no hope for the redeemed? Is that the general principle? If so, how does that follow?

In the case of Jesus, what is resurrected isn't the hypostatic union but the body. The death of Christ didn't dissolve the hypostatic union. The soul remained in union with the Son.

What was lost was biological life. Why must the nature of Christ parallel human nature in every respect for the physical resurrection of Christ to parallel the physical resurrection of humans? 

Strictly speaking, a resurrection doesn't require an atonement but an exercise of divine omnipotence. At the general resurrection, the damned will be raised, but not because they were redeemed. 

4. Jesus can't be a mediator between God and man if he is God

The video keeps repeating the same blunder. If Jesus just is God, then he can't play mediator between God and man. But once again, that's a straw man. Why are the unitarians on this video unable to accurately represent the position they presume to debunk? 

5. A God-man can't be tempted and so can't overcome sin–because he was made in every way like this brothers

i) That does raise some theologically significant issues. I've discussed this objection on several occasions. For instance:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/04/was-god-incarnate-tempted.html

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/04/is-desire-to-sin-sinful.html

ii) To begin with, Heb 4:15 is hyperbolic. Taken without qualification, this means Jesus is tempted to have sex with teenage boys or handsome twenty-something males. Yet that's only be possible if Jesus is homosexual. And if he's homosexual, then he's impervious to heterosexual temptation. At best, a unitarian has to contend that Jesus is bisexual. 

iii) The unitarian alternative fails to explain what makes Jesus sinless. What makes him the exception to the universal rule that humans are sinful? Did God protect him from succumbing to sin? What gave Jesus a special advantage to resist sin? 

6. A God-man can't ask God to bypass the cup because he'd already knows the answer 

i) In a two-minds Christology, the human mind of Jesus is not omniscient.

ii) In addition, it's psychologically possible (indeed, commonplace) to know your duty but be emotionally conflicted about your duty and wish to avoid an especially onerous obligation. And keep in mind that this was a voluntary mission. A self-imposed duty. The Son had no absolute obligation to save sinners. 

7. A God-man can't authentically overcome to succeed where Adam failed. Only a human Jesus can set the example 

i) This assumes the primary role of Jesus is to set an example. Yet even on unitarian grounds, Jesus often does things most of us can't, like performing spectacular miracles.

ii) Salvation isn't a contest between evenly-matched contenders. It's not about fair-play. If a weak swimmer is drowning until a lifeguard saves him, that's because the lifeguard is a stronger swimmer. You might complain that the lifeguard has an unfair advantage, but that's why he can rescue weaker swimmers from drowning. It's not about emulating the lifeguard. His role is not to set an example. He role is to have superior swimming skills.

8. Different versions of the Trinity

True, and there are different models of unitarianism. A unitarian can be an Arian, Socinian, deist, Molinist, open theist, fatalist, predestinarian, Muslim, Rabbinic Jew, or goddess worshiper. 

9. Sola scriptura 

Sola scriptura incompatible with subordinating our theology to extrabiblical language and conclusions of later church councils? Trintarians are expected to agree with key metaphysical terms defined in the church councils of the fourth century, viz. the Tripersonality of God, how a divine essence can be shared between persons. 

i) It's true that sola scriptura is incompatible with rubber-stamping the formulations of ecumenical church councils. However, sola scriptura doesn't rule out the use of extrabiblical language. What matters is not the words we use but the concepts. Do extrabiblical words convey biblical concepts? 

ii) It's true that Protestants should scrutinize conciliar formulations and reject them if they run counter to the witness of Scripture. But many Bible scholars have made a detailed exegetical case for the deity of Christ and Incarnation of the Son (not to mention the Trinity in general). So this objection is at best directed at high-church Protestants. 

iii) Moreover, there are Trinitarians like Herman Alexander Röell, B. B. Warfield, Paul Helm, John Frame, John Feinberg who do takes issue with the Nicene paradigm. 

10. At odds with OT monotheism

i) Compared to creatures and false gods, there are three agents who stand out in the OT: Yahweh, the Spirit of Yahweh, and the Angel of Yahweh. These are presented as occupying the divine side of reality. 

ii) The representation of God as an old man on a throne is anthropomorphic. God has no actual appearance. 

iii) In the OT, Yahweh doesn't represent the person of the Father in the NT. OT usage isn't that discriminating. To the contrary, the NT repeatedly represents Jesus as Yahweh Incarnate. 

11. Trinitarians could start by explaining how two of us can share the same essence of humanity and be two beings but when three persons share the same essence of divinity, they're one being.

i) "Being" is a very generic concept. A Trinitarian could consistently say that God is one being and three beings. The word "being" doesn't do much conceptual work. It isn't a discriminating descriptor. It's more of a verbal placeholder. 

ii) Human beings exemplify a human nature, as properties instances. Each human being is an individual sample of human nature. A concrete, finite instance or copy. 

iii) By contrast, the divine nature is not some abstract generic essence that exists over and above or independent of the Trinitarian persons. The divine nature isn't separable from the Trinitarian persons. God is the exemplar. Each person exhaustively contains the entire essence, not a sample. The Trinitarian persons aren't copies of a divine nature 

12. Speculations about Jesus having two natures imagines that somehow in the one Jesus there is an eternal divine nature and also a complete human nature consisting of a body inside the one person possessing both natures is supposed to be the divine person, the second person of the Trinity.

i) This is hard to comment on because the sentence doesn't scan. As it stands, the sentence is somewhat unintelligible. 

ii) The complete human nature consists of a human soul (or mind) as well as a human body.

iii) "Person" is a term of art, and the meaning varies depending on whether we're working with Patristic usage, Cartesian usage, modern philosophy of mind (e.g. first-person viewpoint). 

iv) Some Trinitarians have reservations about an anhypostatic union. Details aside, the basic idea is that the body and soul of Jesus don't exist apart from the hypostatic union but by virtue of the hypostatic union. They have no independent existence. The combination only exists for purposes of the Incarnation.  

13. Such a divine person would be playacting anytime he didn't know something or couldn't do something or had to overcome temptation. 

Unless you're an open theist or Mormon, some of God's interactions with Adam, Abraham, and Moses are playacting, as if God is uninformed and indecisive. 

14. "God the Son" doesn't appear anywhere in the NT.

In the NT, Jesus is called" "God" and "the Son of God". So "God the Son" is a derivative biblical title that combines two things said about Jesus in the NT. 

15. Unitarians suffer from a prejudice about complexity. Yet there are things in the created order which run deeper than the human mind can fully fathom. It that's the case, then we'd expect God to be more complex than his finite creation. There's no presumption that God will be transparent to human reason. To the contrary, that's an antecedently false presumption. Unitarians worship a man-sized God. But if God exists, there will be truths about God we can't fully absorb due to our innate intellectual limitations.