That's just your interpretation!

A highly agitated performance by apostate Randal Rauser

https://randalrauser.com/2020/05/what-is-progressive-christianity-and-why-does-alisia-childers-think-its-so-dangerous/

1. Throughout the video, Rauser plays his dogeared hand about how conservative Christians collapse their interpretation of scripture into scripture itself. Yet his application of that distinction is totally one-sided inasmuch as he exempts his progressive interpretation from the distinction he urges on conservative Christians. The conservative understanding is just their interpretation whereas his progressive interpretation is true. 

2. He says the OT prophets had a false understanding of God because they didn't believe in the Incarnation or the possibility of an Incarnation. But that fails to distinguish between lacking belief in something, due to ignorance, and denying something. For instance, they didn't know that Jesus would be the messiah. That doesn't mean they disaffirmed the messiahship of Jesus. They just had no idea who Jesus was. They didn't know who the messiah was going to be at that level of biographical detail. But that hardly implies that they'd be opposed to Jesus as the fulfillment of messianic prophecy.

Notice how radical Rauser's position is. The messiahship of Jesus requires OT validation. Yet Rauser says OT prophets had a false concept of the messiah. Evidently he interprets the OT in unitarian terms. 

The question at issue isn't whether OT prophets were consciously Trinitarian but whether OT theism is consistent with or open to the revelation of the Trinity and Incarnation. 

In addition, while the OT witness of the Trinity is oblique, the OT contains many passages that dovetail with the more explicit witness to the Trinity. This isn't a reversal of OT theism.

A fundamental purpose of the OT is to correct false views of God. Pagan views. Not to substitute a different false view of God.

3. He also attacks the imprecatory psalms as expressing false views of God. That's another hobby horse of his. 

He says we should use Jesus as our standard of comparison to correct the OT. But that's duplicitous because, as he's expressed elsewhere, he regards Jesus as a fallible, timebound, culturally-conditioned teacher, based on Rauser's Kenotic Christology. Rauser's yardstick isn't Jesus but Rauser's moral intuitions. 

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. 

A self-defeating argument for unitarianism

OT monotheism is defined by the point of contrast. The God OT monotheism stands in contrast to creatures and pagan false god.

In that regard I'd like to draw attention to a self-defeating argument by unitarians. Unitarians don't simply deny that the OT teaches the Trinity. Rather, they don't think the concept of the Trinity even existed in OT times. Indeed, they don't think the concept of the Trinity existed in NT times. They think the concept of the Trinity was invented by Nicene and post-Nicene church fathers. No one ever thought in those terms until the 4C AD or later.

But that has ironic implications. It means that on unitarian grounds, OT monotheism can't stand in contrast to Trinitarianism since that idea wasn't even in the air back then. Since, moreover, the Trinity is not analogous to things that do supply the point of contrast (creatures, pagan false gods), OT monotheism can't rule out a Triune God–even on unitarian grounds. So the unitarian objection backfires.

The Trinity in the OT

I'd like to make an elementary observation that's typically overlooked by unitarians. It isn't necessary for Trinitarians to demonstrate the Trinity in the OT. It's sufficient to demonstrate that OT monotheism isn't unitarian. 

At the risk of stating the obvious, it isn't necessary to find every Christian belief in the OT. In the nature of the case, the NT often goes beyond OT teaching. The NT provides additional revelation on many theological topics. 

Can God die?

My side of an exchange I had on Facebook with a unitarian pastor, regarding this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgIk_N4IfI

These are pointless conversations because they're so repetitious. Debating unitarians is like debating atheists. It's always the same arguments. They always expect you to start from scratch, as if we haven't been over this ground many times before.

You're recycling hackneyed objections to Trinitarian theology as if there are no preexisting answers to these stale objections.

That such a disingenuous comment since the question at issue is not the ability to quote scripture but what the passages mean. I've already interacted with some of your quotes. The video quotes 1 Cor 15:28, but in the context of Paul's eschatological Adam typology, it refers to the economic role of Jesus as the Last Adam. The video quotes Jn 14:28, but in a father/son relationship there can be both equality and inequality at different times. For instance, a crown prince has less authority than the king until the crown prince assumes the throne after his father dies or abdicates.

Disingenuous comment from you. First of all, there's the interpretive question. Not just quoting a statement, but what it means. Contextual considerations. Words with more than one sense. In addition, you arbitrarily confine the relevant evidence to finding one passage that says it all.

Jesus is a composite being: the divine Son in union with a rational human soul in union with a human body. So the "contradiction" is equivocal and simplistic. God qua God cannot die. God qua Incarnate can die in with respect to the body he assumed.

If Scripture teaches the two-natures of Christ, then that makes him a composite being. Yes, Scripture refers to the Father as the one God. It also refers to Jesus as the one Yahweh. Jn 17:3 isn't setting up a contrast between the Father and the Son but between the true God and false gods. The "one true God" is a synonym for Yahweh. But the NT frequently identifies Jesus as Yahweh. It's a demonstrable fact that the NT frequently equates Jesus with Yahweh. Do I need to give you a list of verses?

The argument that Jesus isn't God because God can't die is hamhanded. The unitarian apologist fails to appreciate that if your objective is to show that Trinitarianism is inconsistent, you have to assume the Trinitarian viewpoint for the sake of argument. You must show that it's inconsistent on Trinitarian grounds. But to say God died in the person of the Son Incarnate is perfectly consistent with Trinitarian theology.

Once again, you're not following the argument. If the claim is that Jesus can't be God because Jesus died but God can't die, that is claiming that the Trinitarian position is inconsistent with those two propositions. But when you attempt to accuse the opposing position of inconsistency, then the onus is on you to show that it's inconsistent on its own ground. That means you have to adopt the viewpoint of the opposing position for the sake of argument, then show (in this case) that the two propositions are contradictory. This is just a point of logic. And as I've explained, the two propositions are perfectly consonant with Incarnational theology. What Jews allegedly believed is a non sequitur, since the point at issue is whether the opposing position is logically consistent, not whether it's true. That's a separate argument. So the unitarian argument in the video is philosophically inept in that regard.

As for the pre-Christian Jewish background, scholars have documented that 2nd Temple Judaism had a two Yahwehs doctrine. Another line of evidence is illeism. Finally, the fundamental question isn't whether OT Jews believed in the Trinity, but whether the Trinity is consistent with OT monotheism.

i) Sorry, but you're the one who missed the point of the video. The video is using two different kinds of arguments. One kind of argument is to quote stock unitarian prooftexts. 

The other kind of argument involves the implicit claim that Trinitarian theology is contradictory because Jesus died, but God can't die.  So there are two different types of argument in play. You need to distinguish them. I've commented on both.

ii) You then repeat a misattribution which I corrected in a previous comment. I for one never said only the "human nature" of Jesus died. My own statement was narrower. The human nature includes body and soul. It wasn't the human nature in toto that died, but the body. The soul survived (as well as the divine nature). 

iii) Christian theologians don't argue that the divine nature in isolation is necessary for the atonement, but the divine nature in a particular combination with the human nature.  The divine nature is necessary but insufficient condition for the atonement. So your objection is confused and uninformed. 

Milton's flawed masterpiece

1. Milton's Paradise Lost is a flawed masterpiece. Now, when a great artist fails by overreaching, his work may still touch heights of genius that flawless work by a lesser artist can only dream of. But it's interesting to ask what makes a flawed masterpiece flawed? 

2. Part of the problem is the unrelieved heavy style. It becomes oppressive and monotonous. 

3. Then there's the subject matter. The plot operates on two levels: the fall of Adam and the fall of Lucifer. Now Gen 1-3 doesn't provide much material to scale up into an epic poem. Mind you, life in the garden could be fleshed out in some detail, but that doesn't interest Milton. He doesn't seem to have the romantic view of natural scenery. And domesticity isn't his forte.  That demands the lighter touch of a lyric poet rather than an epic poet. Shakespeare or Racine could expand on the relationship of the first couple, but that's not Milton's metier. 

4. Regarding the fall of Adam, Eve is the protagonist while Lucifer is the Tempter. But I doubt that's dramatically satisfying for Milton since they are so ill-matched. There's no contest. Moreover, given Milton's very masculine outlook, a woman is not an adequate protagonist to face off with Lucifer. Indeed, in the original account, the Tempter presumably picked on her because she was more vulnerable. 

But even Adam would be no match for Lucifer. Whether or not Lucifer is smarter than Adam and Eve, he's certainly more sophisticated and experienced. And he enjoys the tactical advantage that they are unsuspecting. 

5. Scripture says even less about the fall of angels than the fall of Adam. However, that gives Milton free rein to fill out the backstory with his own imagination. 

In heaven, the Son is the protagonist while Lucifer is the antagonist. In principle, that's more promising dramatic material. Milton gravitates to larger-then-life figures. And he can flesh it out on heroic scale in a way he can't do with life in the garden.

6. But there's a catch. And that is Milton's low Christology. There are scholarly debates about whether he was a closet Arian (or Socinian). If he was, then that generates tensions in the characterization. 

7. In one respect it simplifies his task. The backstory requires him to assign a motive for the fall of angels. If the Son is merely an eminent creature, like the Archangel Michael, then the celestial civil war is ignited by sibling rivalry. Many angels resent the Father exalting the Son over them because he's not essentially their superior. So, from a dramatic standpoint, that explains their resentment. 

Moreover, it provides dramatic parity between the protagonist and the antagonist. Lucifer and the Son are the same kind of beings. 

8. But if that's the implicit Christological presupposition of the plot, then that comes at a twofold cost. First of all, Milton must conceal his low Christology to garner a favorable reception for his poem. Arianism was a crime. So that leaves an unresolved tension in the characterization–he can't afford to relieve the tension by laying his cards on the table. It's unclear to the reader what exactly the Son is? What's his ontological relationship to the angels? Is he one of them? That would explain why they bristle at his promotion, which comes at the corollary cost of their demotion. But Milton dare not make that explicit, so the crucial psychological dynamic remains fuzzy. 

9. The other dramatic toll this exacts is that if Lucifer and the Son are both creatures, both angels, then this becomes a plot trope about fraternal rivalry, where the father is guilty of favoritism. On the one hand is the good son. The dutiful, submissive, obedient son. And on the other hand is the independent son. The bad boy. 

And in general, the audience finds bad boy characters more appealing than good boy characters. Good boy characters are usually a foil for bad boy characters. The good boy, the loyal son, is insipid, docile, and domesticated–while the bad boy, the rebellious son, is virile and daring. 

It also means that Milton can't help having a sneaky admiration for the character of Lucifer, because Milton himself was so manly. For that reason, the characterization of the Son does not and cannot ignite his dramatic imagination in the same way as the characterization of Lucifer. So that's another point of tension. Not in terms of how the characters relate to each other, but how the poet relates to his characters. 

One might object that that's too anthropomorphic, but if Milton is tacitly operating with a low Christology, then that's not anthropomorphic. Lucifer and the Son are metaphysically two of a kind. 

John 1:10

I've been asked to comment on this:

https://www.biblicalunitarian.com/verses/john-1-10

1. This verse is a reference to the Father, not to Christ. A study of the context reveals that this section opens in verse 6 by telling us, “There came a man who was sent by God.” We are told, “God is light,” and that God’s light shown through Jesus Christ and made him “the light of the world.” Though God was in the world in many ways, including through His Son, the world did not recognize him. He came unto his own by sending his exact image, Jesus Christ, to them, but even then they did not receive God, in that they rejected His emissary. The fact that the world did not receive Him is made more profound in the context as Scripture reveals how earnestly God reached out to them—He made his plan and purpose flesh and shined His light through Christ to reach the world—but they did not receive Him, even though He was offering them the “right to become children of God” (v. 12).

i) The referent in v10 is the creative Word or Son in vv1-5. The opening presents the Son as the preexistent Creator in the Genesis account. 

The referent is consistent through 1:1-18. The same divine Son. 

ii) His title as "the light of the world" traces back to the creation account, where God is the maker of sunlight, moonlight, and starlight. The Son is "the light of the world" because he's the divine source of mundane light. 

iii) However, "light" in the Prologue is a double entendre. It hearkens back to the origin of physical light, but in addition, it is now a spiritual metaphor. The contrast between light and darkness evokes the creation account, but this time it carries moral and spiritual connotations. "Light" as an emblem of new life. Spiritual renewal. In contrast to spiritual rebels. 

iv) The Creator who made the world is now entering the world he made, and the Baptist is a witness to that event (vv6-8). 

v) The irony or paradox is that creatures fail to acknowledge their Creator even when they meet him face-to-face. 

2. Some scholars make the phrase, “the world was made by him,” a reference to the new creation only (see Col. 1:15-20, Heb. 1:2, and Heb. 1:10), but we see it as a double entendre referring to both the original and the new creations. (see #7 under John 1:1)

That's circular because it assumes that Col 1:15-20 and Heb 1:2,10 refer to the new creation. But there's no good reason to think that unless you're a unitarian who requires them to refer to the new creation. In context, they refer to the original creation–just like Jn 1-5. 

The Failure of Unitarianism: Titus 2:13

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzu6r3jGuZg

Unitarian prooftexts

I've often commented on unitarian prooftexts, so some of this will reiterate my stated interpretations. However, I'll add a few new things. Finally, there's value in pulling that together in a single post. So in this post I'll evaluate what I take to be the major unitarian prooftexts (such as they are). The most popular, most quoted unitarian prootexts. A few general observations before I comment on specific passages:

i) If we didn't have any prooftexts for the Trinity or deity of Christ, then some of the unitarian prooftexts would be more persuasive. But Trinitarians aren't reading these passages in a vacuum. Since Trinitarians rightly think the deity of Christ is multiply-attested in the NT, it becomes a harmonistic issue. 

ii) In my experience, most unitarians are so lacking in critical detachment that they don't know what it means for a Bible verse contradict Trinitarian theology. They fail to appreciate that when you contend that a Bible verse is inconsistent with Trinitarian theology, you have to argue that point on Trinitarian grounds. You have to take the Trinitarian paradigm into consideration, you have to adopt that viewpoint for the sake of argument, then show how the verse is incompatible with Trinitarian theology given Trinitarian assumptions. 

Instead, they quote prooftexts that are inconsistent with Trinitarian theology from a unitarian viewpoint. They don't bother to ask themselves how a sophisticated Trinitarian would respond. They don't play devil's advocate with their own position, to anticipate the counterarguments. This is true even for someone who ought to know better, like Dale Tuggy. 

iii) In addition, some unitarians are so uninformed or uncomprehending that they don't even know what the opposing position represents. They haven't stopped to consider the implications of the opposing position. They never studied the other side of the argument. 

The quaternity argument

Call it the Quaternity Argument:

1. If something intentionally communicates using a human language, it is a self.

2. According to the Bible, God intentionally communicates using various human languages.

3. Therefore according to the Bible, God is a self. (1,2)

4. According to the Bible, God is the Trinity.

5. Therefore according to the Bible, the Trinity is a self. (3,4)

6. Each Person of the Trinity is a self.

7. None of these are numerically identical: Father, Son, Spirit, Trinity.

8. Each of these is divine: Father, Son, Spirit, Trinity.

9. Therefore, there are at least four divine selves. (5-8)

https://trinities.org/blog/the-quaternity-argument/

That's simple-minded. The Trinity isn't something over and above the three persons that communicates in distinction to the three persons. The Trinity just is the three persons. It isn't the Trinity communicating in contrast to the three persons–individually or in combination. The Trinity doesn't operate independent of the three persons. For a philosopher of religion whose specialty is the Trinity, Dale is hopelessly muddled-headed about the concept of the Trinity. He can't even grasp what the position represents. A hack philosopher. Call it the Dale is out of his depth argument. 

The demon-puppet objection

https://trinities.org/blog/some-additional-thoughts-about-my-demon-puppet-objection/

i) It's hard to make sense of Dale's analogy. Unless you're a physicalist, a body without a soul is a corpse. If a demon takes possession of a fresh corpse, then it's merely piloting a human body. The combination isn't a human being. But from the standpoint of a Cartesian dualist, a body without a soul isn't a human being anyway, whether or not the body happens to be co-opted by a demon. So the demon part of the analogy is superfluous. 

ii) At best the analogy would only apply to Apollinarian Christology. On that view, one could indeed say the Son is merely piloting a human body. The combination isn't a human nature. But so what? W. L. Craig excepted, most Christians reject Apollinarian Christology. 

iii) Of course, the Incarnation isn't supposed to be reducible to a human nature. That's a necessary but insufficient condition. The combination isn't supposed to be just a human nature, but a union of two natures. 

iv) So Dale then has to stipulate that the demon deactivates the soul. Okay, it's his thought-experiment, so he can tweak it however he pleases. If the soul is deactivated, then the demon is merely piloting a body. The combination isn't functionally human. But a body with a deactivated soul wouldn't be a human being anyway. Demonic possession doesn't add anything in that respect. 

v) More to the point, the Incarnation doesn't deactivate the soul. In the Incarnation, the soul is fully functional. A union of the Son with an intact soul and body. 

So his thought-experiment is hopelessly confused. Rather than illustrating the Incarnation, his thought-experiment illustrates Dale's intellectual impediments as a philosopher. He's just not up to the challenge. 

Reading between the lines

1. In his ill-fated debate with Chris Date, which I reviewed here:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/06/tuggy-v-date-jesus-is-not-divine.html

Dale Tuggy accused Trinitarians of "reading between the lines"–unlike unitarians, who read the lines. Supposedly, unitarians just go with what the text says whereas Trinitarians are forced to go behind the text. Ironically, Date cited numerous examples in the course of the debate where Tuggy was reading between the lines to salvage unitarianism whereas Date accepted the text as it stands.

2. But now I'd like to make a different point. In the past, I've documented how Tuggy has a very naive grasp of semantics, and this is another example–albeit of a different kind. Evidently, it never occurred to Tuggy how much communication relies on the ability to read between the lines. A technical term for this is implicature. At least, that's one dimension of the phenomenon. For instance:

Cases in which what a speaker means differs from what the sentence used by the speaker means. Consider the following dialogue.

Alan: Are you going to Paul's party? 

Barb: I have to work.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/implicature/#Phe

On the face of it, Barb's response doesn't answer the question. If you just go by the meaning of the statement, that's unresponsive to the question. That's because the answer is compressed. Alan is expected to be able to fill in what was intended, but not actually stated. She's not going because she will be at her job at the time of the party, and she can't get off work. Yet the speaker doesn't say all that. It's up to the reader to complete the train of thought. 

3. There are many examples in which speakers say less than they mean (mean more than they say). The onus is on the listener to read between the lines. That's similar to the distinction between high-context and low-context communication, where low-context communication relies on the explicit meaning of the statement whereas high-context communication relies on the implicit meaning. Low-context communication is more dependent on the speaker's contribution while high-context communication is more dependent on the listener's contribution. For instance, take cinematic genres like science fiction movies about time-travel or parallel worlds. Or horror films about vampires or werwolves. These take for granted stock conventions which the viewer is supposed to recognize without exposition or explanation. Consider how puzzling a vampire flick would be to a viewer with no background knowledge of the vampire mythos. 

4. I once read an article about how foreign tourists sometimes find it confusing to order at American fast-food joints because customers are expected to use idiomatic shorthand. To take an example from my own experience, when I used to eat lunch at Wendy's, years ago, I'd order "double cheese mayo only". But that's not self-explanatory. The first few times I went, I ordered off the menu. I said something like: "I want a cheeseburger with a double patty and mayonnaise only". However, I noticed that when the casher verbally relayed the order to the chef, she'd translate my statement into "double cheese mayo only". After that, I used the same telegraphic expression the cashiers did. 

5. Another example: one time a supermarket employee asked me if I was going to watch the football game that evening. I asked him which team he was rooting for. He said he was a Dolphins' fan. Consider how baffling that statement would be to someone without the requisite background knowledge. How can dolphins play football? Dolphins are marine mammals. They have no arms, legs, hands, or feet? To understand the statement, you need to know the convention of naming sports teams after animals. 

6. A final example is the use of hyperbole in the Sermon on the Mount. There's nothing in the meaning of the words that flags the language or imagery as hyperbolic. Rather, that relies on the ability of the listener to read between the lines.

7. And those are just samples. Interpreting the NT isn't merely a matter of construing what the text says. For the sense of the NT often carries an OT subtext. In addition, exegesis frequently benefits from having background knowledge which was common knowledge to the original audience, but is lost on a modern audience, absent historical supplementation. What the original audience knew through cultural osmosis a modern read must acquire through study of the ancient culture. 

"Reading between the lines" isn't some ad hoc expedient by Christians to read the Trinity or Incarnation into the text of Scripture. To the contrary, reading between the lines is a universal and necessary feature of communication. 

Of course, we must guard against eisegesis. Just because reading between the lines is an indispensable hermeneutical principle doesn't ipso facto warrant just any willy nilly reading between the lines. But for Tuggy to act like the principle is eisegesis per se reveals a woeful ignorance of how communication operates. 

Tuggy v. Date: Jesus is not divine

1. Last night I watched the debate between Chris Date and Dale Tuggy about the deity of Christ:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c35_uFjEbx8

In general, I thought Date won by a wide margin. I don't say that because we're friends–since we're not friends. We're not even on friendly terms with each other. Because I'm a long-standing critic of annihilationism, I'm highly unpopular with the Rethinking Hell coterie.

A unitarian might say my assessment of the debate is skewed by my Trinitarian bias. However, I'm quite capable of saying that somebody on my own side of an issue dropped the ball. 

In terms of style, Tuggy has a better speaking voice. Mellow and resonant. But he has a flat, droning delivery. Date has a thin speaking voice, but he's a livelier speaker. Dale read from a piece of paper while Date was freer and made better use of the technology.

I admit that after listening to a few minutes of Tuggy's opening speech, I skipped to Date's opening speech. That's because it sounded like Tuggy's usual stump speech. I'm quite familiar with that, whereas this is the first time I've heard Date on this issue, so I was more interested in what Date had to say as well as the rebuttals and cross-examinations. As such, it's possible that Tuggy said something new in his opening statement that I missed, but I doubt it. Throughout the debate he fell back on his well-worn tropes.

The Failure of Biblical Unitarianism: Part 1 - History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32kaHhUzFXQ

I.Q. and paradox

Unlike many Christians, I don't find the Trinity or Incarnation paradoxical, although they are inevitably mysterious to some degree. Some Christians are too quick to resort to mystery or paradox to justify their positions. Transubstantiation is a textbook example. 

But having said all that, there's nothing essentially suspect about the idea of mystery or paradox in Christian theology. To begin with, human intelligence ranges along a continuum. As a result, things that are incomprehensible to some humans are comprehensible to other humans.

However, it's more complex than that, and in an interesting way. There are different kinds of intelligence, so you can have equally smart people who aren't equally smart about the same things. Roger Penrose and Edward Witten are far greater mathematicians than Einstein, yet they haven't made a breakthrough at all comparable to Einstein. Moreover, the basis for his breakthrough was picturesque thought-experiments. He had a knack for visualizing problems in physics. He could translate them into graphic analogies.

Great chess players can intuit a winning strategy in a way that average chess players cannot. Some humans have a particular insight that others lack. Some humans have a knack for solving intellectual puzzles.  Some mathematicians specialize in number theory while others specialize in geometry. According to The Cambridge Companion to Newton, Leibniz was an algebraist while Newton was a geometer.

Let's assume for argument's sake that the Trinity and Incarnation are paradoxical. But as I just demonstrated, and the demonstration could be easily expanded by citing additional examples, it's quite reasonable to suppose that if humans were more intelligent, or not even more intelligent, but had a different kind of intelligence, they wouldn't find the Trinity or Incarnation paradoxical. There are many examples in human experience where what's baffling to one thinker is obvious to another thinker. And it's not necessarily a difference in IQ. Even at genius level intelligence, there are different intellectual aptitudes. There's musical genius and artistic genius. What's impenetrable to one kind of intelligence may be transparent to another. As such, there are many analogies in human experience to warrant the contention that, even assuming the Trinity and Incarnation to be paradoxical, that's because we either lack sufficient intelligence or the right kind of intelligence to discern it. That's not invoking a special kind of justification for Christian doctrine, because that's easily paralleled in human experience. 

Dale Tuggy and the Biblical Basis of the Trinity, Part 2: Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Incoherent?

https://robertbowman.net/2019/04/18/dale-tuggy-and-the-biblical-basis-of-the-trinity-part-2-is-the-doctrine-of-the-trinity-incoherent/

Naturalism and unitarianism

There's a striking parallel between naturalism and unitarianism. Naturalism is reductionistic. Naturalism prioritizes parsimony. So, for instance, naturalism prefers monism over dualism because monism is metaphysically simpler. Everything is reducible to a single substance. Matter and energy are the same thing in different states. And that's all there is. Naturalism labors to explain away the need for abstract objects or minds distinct from brains. Likewise, bigger things are composed of smaller things. The ultimate constituents of reality are utterly simple (elementary particles). 

Sometimes naturalists grudgingly allow for platonic realism or paradox because reality forces ineluctable complexity onto naturalism. Likewise, naturalists may posit a multiverse to evade the fine-tuning argument, or because that's one interpretation of quantum mechanics. But whenever possible, naturalism seeks maximal simplicity. Eliminative materialism is a limiting case of naturalistic reductionism. 

By the same token, unitarianism is reductionistic. Impatient with complexity. The unitarian God is preferable to the Trinitarian God because the unitarian God is simpler. A merely human messiah is preferable to God Incarnate because that's simpler. 

Is Heb 1 about the new creation?

A while back I asked a renown Bible scholar to comment on Dale Tuggy's idiosyncratic, "new creation" reinterpretation of Heb 1. Here's how the scholar responded: 

The point of the catena [in Heb 1] is to demonstrate Jesus's superiority to the angels - or. better, difference in kind from the angels. It does not have to all relate to the exalted Jesus, but works with the standard Jewish correlation of "God is the only Creator of all things" and "God is the only sovereign Lord of all things."

"The beginning" is virtually a technical term for the primordial time at the beginning of everything (Gen 1:1; Prov 8:22-23; John 1:1). 

"You founded [past tense]  the earth and the heavens ..." would be utterly unparalleled as a way of referring to the new creation. For the NT, the new creation of heaven and earth is still very much future (Rev 21; Acts 3:21). Only in the case of individual Christians can new creation be said to have already happened (2 Cor 5:17). 

The new creation, when it comes, will not perish (Heb 12:27).

Tuggy's exegesis is ridiculously forced and quite obviously special pleading.

Functional Polytheism: A response to Dale Tuggy by Vladimir Šušić

http://adlucem.co/functional-polytheism-a-response-to-dale-tuggy-by-vladimir-susic/

Functional polytheism

http://adlucem.co/biblical-unitarianisms-functional-polytheism-by-vladimir-susic/