The Pauline Shema

We know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist (1 Cor 8:4-6).

My fundamental disagreement with Tuggy has been a disagreement over theological method. Where do we start?

Take this text. It’s an allusion to the Shema (Deut 6:4). More than just an allusion. This is modeled on the Shema.

Only Paul has reformulated the Shema. In the Shema, “God” (Elohim) and “Lord” (Yahweh) are two different names for the same Deity.

However, Paul has rewritten the Shema to distribute the names between the Father and the Son. Rewritten the Shema to insert Jesus directly into the heart of the Shema. Rewritten the Shema to make Jesus the “Lord” (=Yahweh) of the Shema.

So he’s creating a direct synonymous parallel. Jesus is to Yahweh as Yahweh is to the Shema.

In the way he structures his statement, counterbalancing one against the other, as well as how he restructures the Shema, Paul is putting the Father and the Son on a par.

Now suppose you’re unitarian. Suppose you come to the NT with your unitarian assumptions, and you encounter this text. How should you respond?

Do you cross your arms and say to yourself, “Whatever Paul means, he can’t me that!” Do you begin with a preconceived notion of what it means for God to be “one,” then use that as a grid to filter out any interpretation that challenges your preconceive notion? Or do you take your notion of what it means for God to be “one” from the very text at hand? Is that something you bring to the text, or something you take from the text?

Just suppose, for a moment, that Paul really did want to teach the deity of Christ. As a unitarian, that confounds your expectations, but for the sake of argument, imagine if that’s what Paul wanted to say. Wouldn’t this be one way to do it? To take the Shema has his backdrop, then write Jesus into the Shema?

You may think Paul is unitarian, but if Paul wanted to affirm the deity of Christ, what should he say differently? Is there any formulation he could use that would change your mind?

What could the NT writers possibly say to show you that you were wrong about Jesus? Under what circumstances, if any, will you allow them to correct your preconception?

Or is your unitarian framework unfalsifiable? Nothing could ever count as evidence against your prejudgment.

In my exchanges with Tuggy, he has a topdown theological method in which he begins with his preconception of what it means for something to be “one” or be the “same,” and that preemptively eliminates any possible interpretation to the contrary.

He doesn’t start by asking how Paul or John or the author of Hebrews understands the unicity of God. Rather, he begins and ends with his preconception. That dictates the outcome before we even crack the Bible open.

He doesn’t listen to the text. Rather, he tells the text what it can and cannot say.

BTW, this isn’t, in the first instance, an issue of Biblical authority. Rather, when we study a text, any text, it’s incumbent on the reader to bracket his own beliefs in the sense that he lets the writer speak for himself, whether or not the reader happens to agree with the writer. For the reader is not the writer.

When I read Dante, I bracket my own beliefs in the sense that while I don’t share the same beliefs as Dante on many issues, I also don’t make my own beliefs interfere with the interpretive process. Indeed, it would be terribly egocentric of me to proceed in that fashion, as if my prior beliefs dictate what Dante could mean.

Of course, Christians are supposed to submit to the authority of Scripture, so that’s even more reason to let the writer speak for himself. 

Reactionaries

In light of John Loftus' latest effort to shore up the sagging fortunes of the OTF, I'm going to reproduce a recent statement by Larry Hurtado:

It’s simply the case that the overwhelming majority of scholars in biblical studies (including NT and Christian Origins) come to their studies in the context of their own personal involvement in Jewish or Christian faith.  Critical study, however, which rightfully means self-critical study requires scholars to try to avoid their own personal faith and commitments from influencing unduly their conclusions.  But it’s sometimes assumed that this is a concern solely for those who identify themselves with a religious tradition, and that those who don’t so identify themselves, or who no longer do so, are immune from what I’ve called “personal stakes”.

Indeed, occasionally scholars make much of their departure from religious faith, sometimes even making that a major subject in its own right (I mention no names, and ask any comments to avoid doing so too).  But surely a moment’s reflection should indicate that there is no really neutral ground, and that those in negative reaction against their own faith are in danger of being unduly influenced (skewed?) in their work as any apologist for a given religious stance.

Years ago I read one of the finest statements about a scholar that I’ve ever encountered.  In a letter of reference for a younger colleague, a more senior scholar said of him, “He is neither captive to his tradition nor in reaction against it.”  That would be a worthy stance for anyone to my mind.

http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/scholarship-and-personal-stakes/

Identity and symmetry

DALE [TUGGY] SAID:

About identity, you ought to read some standard work on predicate logic. If you did this, you'd find that my def. is neither circular, nor vacuous, nor outdated, nor unclear. You're objections show that you are simply not clear on the concept.

= is a relation which necessarily whatever there is bears only to itself, and not to anything else. So it is a relation which must be reflexive.

By "identity" you mean qualitative similarity (not numerical identity), perhaps to a high degree. And maybe sameness in terms of structure specifically (hence, your talk of mapping).

This criticism is highly ironic. I’ve been using the concept of symmetry to model the Trinity. And that’s a natural association. After all, if God is a Trinity, then God has symmetrical properties, viz. equipollence, self-similarity.

But Tuggy says that’s inadequate because identity is a reflexive relation.

Well, what does he think a symmetry is, exactly? Symmetries are reflexive. That’s a defining feature of symmetries.

So if the Trinity is the type of symmetry (indeed, the exemplar), or relevantly analogous to a symmetry, then that coincides with Tuggy’s defining criterion of numerical identity.

If you explicate numerical identity in terms of reflexivity, then a symmetry meets the condition.

Perhaps he’d object to the comparison on other grounds, but since that’s been his central objection all along, it’s hard to see where he can go from here–except to backpeddle furiously. 

Morality: religious & secular

http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPMRAS&Volume=0&Issue=0&TOC=TRUE

Blessed Quaternity?

Dale Tuggy has posted another reply to my previous response(s).

Because he says this nature is shared, I’m going to infer that it is a universal – something capable of being had by multiple subjects.

That’s equivocal. That framework generally involves an abstract/concrete, property/property-instance distinction, in which a particular is a specific finite exemplification or approximation of an abstract property.

But the members of the Trinity subsist on the same ontological level as the divine nature or attributes. Outside of time and space.

Moreover, the individual members of the Trinity don’t finitely exemplify or merely approximate the divine nature.

If we use that framework (i.e. nature as a universal), that’s subject to major caveats.

Rather, I’m trying to figure out what the relation is, in your view, between God/The Trinity and those three Persons. If it isn’t whole-parts, help me out!

Take the Mandelbrot set. That’s a symmetry. Internally self-similar. Is the Mandelbrot set a ‘compound’ or composite entity?

That’s an odd way of characterize an abstract object. True, there’s a sense in which the Mandelbrot set is a “complex” object. Infinite iterations. An actual infinite. 

Yet it’s not a complex object in the same sense that a Swiss watch is a complex object. If a Swiss watch and the Mandelbrot set are both “compounds,” then we’ve stretched the meaning of composition to such a degree that it seems either fatally equivocal or uselessly indiscriminate.

Sure you do - this is a rough, vague concept we all have. It is a thing which is conscious (yes, of self as well as other things), which can act for a reason (can choose, has a will), which is intelligent (has knowledge), and which can engage in friendship. If you speak to something, and think it may understand, even speak back, you think it is a self. Thus, I submit that you think God is a self, as I assume you speak to him. You sort of say that any divine person will be only analogous to a human self. Well, sure. But we have a more abstract concept of a self (which doesn’t imply being a human, or even being created, or having a body) which we should both agree is satisfied by, e.g. the Father.

Since the issue of analogy often crops up in theology, now might be a good time to do a little sidebar on the issue. There’s nothing exceptional about God-talk in this regard. It’s not unique to a doctrine of divine incomprehensibility.

Whenever we compare two (or more) things, we’re moving into the realm of analogy. If I compare two Welsh Corgis, that’s an analogy. They are much alike, but the very fact that I’m comparing them, the very fact that there are two of them to compare, means they are unlike as well as like.

In one respect, two male Welsh Corgis are more alike than a male and female Welsh Corgis. On the other hand, a male and female might be more temperamentally alike than two male Welsh Corgis.

When I compare a four-legged dog to a four-legged chair, that’s analogous. Which is more analogous–a four-legged dog and a four-legged chair, or a three-legged dog and a four-legged chair? (Say the dog lost a leg in a traffic accident.)

Which is more analogous, a Welsh Corgi and a Russian Wolfhound, or a real Welsh Corgi and a wax statue of a Welsh Corgi?

On the face of it, a sundial and a digital watch are quite dissimilar, yet they are functionally identical. Which are more alike, a sundial and a digital watch, or two digital watches–of which one is broken?

I’m just making the preemptive point that it wouldn’t be special pleading for a Trinitarian to note the inherent limitations of any theological analogy.

I think I basically got his view right: there are four divine selves: God (The Trinity), the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

I think Tuggy is now insinuating that the Trinity devolves into the Quaternity. But that’s equivocal. The Trinity would not be a “self” in the same sense that the constituent members are “selves.” The Trinity is not a fourth person, over and above the three persons. Rather, each person is conscious of what the other two are conscious of. Not just that each person is conscious of the other two persons, but conscious of their consciousness.

This is confirmed by what he says after noting that in his view, each Person of the Trinity has a first-person point of view…This “corporate viewpoint” must have an owner, a subject, and that can only be the Trinity – that complex self.

No. The “owner” of the “corporate viewpoint” is each member of the Trinity. That’s because each person not only has his own first-person viewpoint, but is also privy to the viewpoint of the other two.

Sorry, but I think this is confused. If I think, as an American, that football beats the crap out of soccer, that’s just another first-person point of view. It is just that the explanation for my having it, we’re assuming, is that I’m an American. The analogy would rather be this: just as each American has a first person perspective, so does America. So in his view, if e.g. the Son has a viewpoint as member of the Trinity, that just means that some subjective state of his is caused or explained by his relations to the Father and Spirit. This would be a three-self view of the Trinity, not a four-self view, which I think Steve holds to. But I’m sticking with the four-self interpretation, which is what I take it he thinks, or usually thinks.

This ignores the fact that I was using an a fortiori argument. Suppose Americans were telepathic. In that event, you’d have their collective consciousness as well as individual consciousness (or self-consciousness).

Yet that wouldn’t be something over and above the individual minds which constitute it. Rather, each mind would have access to every other mind. A bottom-up model, not a top-down model. There wouldn’t be a logically prior super-mind in which all sub-minds participate.

And that’s in the case of discrete, self-contained entities (i.e. human beings), in contrast to the Father, Son, and Spirit.

He emphasizes that this is theological speculation, which it surely is. But I was asking what this Trinity theory is, which makes such great sense out of the Bible, better sense than any rival theory. I take it that this is it. If he wants to clarify further the relation between Trinity and the members of it, I’m all ears.

i) Theological speculation is inevitable whenever we ask questions that revelation doesn’t answer. The only way to avoid theological speculation is to refrain from asking certain questions.

Theological speculation isn’t distinctive to Trinitarian theorizing. A unitarian philosophical theologian will also speculate on the meaning of certain attributes like omnipotence, omnipotence, and eternality. He will speculate on how to correlate the attributes. He will speculate on who is the real “God,” in contrast to divine projections or emanations or agents or whatever.

You have open questions in theology. That’s because answers to questions give rise to new questions. Because revelation answers some questions, wherever revelation ceases to speak, that will raise further questions.

ii) I’m not using a “theory” of the Trinity as a hermeneutical lens. Rather, a theory of the Trinity is the next step as we move from exegetical theology to systematic theology or philosophical theology.

iii) Scripture reveals that:

a) In some sense there is only one God.

b) The Father, Son, and Spirit are each divine (i.e. possessing the divine attributes).

c) The Father, Son, and Spirit are not interchangeable. 

That’s not speculation. That’s the revealed data.

iv) For instance, I say “in some sense” there is only one God, not to be evasive, but because Scripture doesn’t rigorously define the unicity of God. Rather, it uses the historic example of paganism as a foil. 

As such, the Bible leaves a certain amount of elbowroom for more than one possible formulation. At the same time, any alternate formulation must integrate the totality of the revealed data.

A theory can go beyond the evidence as long as it doesn’t contradict the available evidence. But by the same token, a theory that goes beyond the evidence is underdetermined by the evidence, and so we’re not going to wax dogmatic about the conjectural details, viz., philosophical extrapolations or interpolations.

I’m speaking as a Protestant. Obviously there are theological traditions which do wax dogmatic about extrabiblical details.

To evoke Quine’s celebrated web of belief, some threads are more important than others. You can snip various threads, yet the essential structure will remain intact. However, some threads anchor the web to branches. Snip one of those lines and the entire web collapses in on itself. 

UFO Interview with Biola Magazine

http://reflectionsbyken.wordpress.com/

Methobapterianism

So much for "30,000" denominations:

I was raised a Presbyterian, not that that made much difference. As one wag observed, in the Deep South there was only one Protestant religion, Methobapterianism. The message was pretty much the same whether you went to your church or a friend's. My best friend was a Baptist, and I went to his church a few times. The only difference I could tell was that his preacher was quite a bit louder and the services did not end as promptly as Presbyterians liked. The hymns were pretty much the same, as was the message and the worshippers looked and acted very similar.

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/06/religious-reminiscences.html

Are infidels brain-damaged?

According to Keith Parsons, 

If, as I suspect and as mounting evidence appears to indicate, some people are neurologically inclined towards unbelief, what will God do for these individuals?

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/06/unabashedly-self-promoting-blurb.html?showComment=1308754830744#c4291213142293408619

Apparently they need postmortem brain surgery to correct their mental impairment. Good thing we have a doctrine of the general resurrection.

How to Know Who Should Take an Outsider Test and When

There's currently a lot of needless debate over taking an Outsider Test for Faith. Should we take it, or shouldn't we? Now, it must be remembered that the outsider test for faith is just an application of a general rule to a specific instance. The general rule is an "outsider test," and it is applied in the current dialectic to faiths. However, it could just as easily be applied to philosophical beliefs, cultural beliefs, scientific beliefs, etc. Here's how this goes as presented by John Loftus:

1. Rational people in distinct geographical locations around the world
overwhelmingly adopt and defend a wide diversity of X-beliefs
due to their upbringing and culture.

2. Consequently, it seems very likely that adopting one’s X-belief
is not merely a matter of independent rational judgment but is
causally dependent on cultural conditions to an overwhelming degree.

3. Hence the odds are highly likely that any given X-belief
is false.

4. So the best way to test one’s X-belief is from the
perspective of an outsider, with the same level of skepticism used to
evaluate other beliefs.

And 'X' is a pretty large container. Math-beliefs, science-beliefs, religious-beliefs, ethical-beliefs, sociological-beliefs, etc., can substitute for X. (1) - (4) as stands is fallacious and unsound, but leave that aside.

As I said, there's been all manner of ink spilling and hair pulling trying to figure out who has to take these tests and when. I will do my part to help out. Let me propose a test of my own, it's the Test for Knowing When to Take an Outsider Test for Anything: TKWTOTA

Step 1. You realize that you believe that p.

Step 2. You realize other tribes believe ¬p.

Step 3. You then examine the grounds for your believing p.

Step 4. You cannot find even one reason to believe that p other than the fact that p is believed by you merely because your tribe believes that p.

Step 5. Your tribe is not in a good position to know that p, or your tribe's believing that p isn't a reliable indicator of the truth of p.

Step 6. After 4 and 5, you may be less confident that p is true.

So, only if steps 1-6 apply should you even think about taking an outsider test.

Now that we have the standards, I hope all this business about who should take an outsider test and when is cleared up. The answer, if you're wondering, is that hardly anyone should take an outsider test.

What Makes one Catholic..err catholic?

http://www.thinkinggodsthoughts.com/2011/06/what-makes-one-catholicerr-catholic.html

Who was Isaiah talking about?

Dale Tuggy asks:

We can ask here, of whom is Isaiah speaking? Who is this YHWH? We might well think it is the Father, since the NT plainly presupposes that the Father of Jesus and the one true God Yahweh are one and the same. Of course then anyone else, would not be the one true God.

 

But if I understand him, Steve thinks Isaiah there speaks of the one perfect Self, who later, we learn, is the Trinity. Isaiah of course doesn’t say anything about whether or not this perfect Self contains or is somehow composed of other selves.

That’s a good question, but ambiguous, for we need to distinguish between original intent and the objective referent. To take a comparison:

“Did you see Dylan at the costume ball last night?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Is the answer true or false? Depends. Maybe I did see Dylan, but since he was in disguise, I didn’t know who it was.

I saw Dylan, but I didn’t recognize Dylan in the mask. I saw him, but I didn’t see that it was him. Put another way, a difference between sight and perception. 

Parsing the Trinity

Dale Tuggy has responded to two of my posts (“Defining Identity” “What is God?”). For now I’m going to focus on a few key issues:

But the main point is that I think a unitarian view better explains what the Bible says.

 

But if I understand him, Steve thinks Isaiah there speaks of the one perfect Self, who later, we learn, is the Trinity.

 

In plain English, I think this amounts to: The Trinity (“the Godhead”) is a complex whole, a compound Self who has three parts (the three divine selves), and these three parts are exactly alike one another.

 

In sum, the one God is a perfect being, a perfect self, who is the Trinity. He has within himself three parts – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each of these parts fully has the (universal) divine nature, and so, each of the essential divine attributes. Each is a divine self. And these three parts are indistinguishable from one another, or nearly so, though they be numerically distinct.

Religious morality

Infidels use two contradictory arguments to assail Christianity.

On the one hand they quote various OT precepts which they regard as morally abhorrent. This goes to show what’s wrong with religious morality. And that, in turn, indicts the religion which sponsored these reprehensible religious law codes.  

On the other hand, they assure us that OT precepts are uninspired. They simply codify the social mores of the ANE.

But if we accept the second objection, then there’s nothing inherently religious about the “offensive” OT precepts. The religious overlay is superficial. The religious establishment was merely rubberstamping the cultural ethos of the day. You’d have these social mores whether or not the religious establishment formally adopted them. 

A Reply to Hector Avalos

http://www.mandm.org.nz/2011/06/a-reply-to-hector-avalos-why-flannagan-fails-at-history.html

Man overboard!

KTHUULUU SAID:

The glee evinced by the religious at his illness only reinforces, and exemplifies the close minded pettiness that so characterizes the religious mindset.

HAVENSFIRE SAID:

So, instead of gloating, instead of celebrating the misfortune of someone you don't like, you should pray to your god that Christopher gets well and ‘sees the light.’ When you gloat, when you show your arrogant beliefs and thoughts, you only damage your own cause.

That’s a hysterical cliché which infidels trot out when they find themselves unable to reason for their position.

You damage your own cause when you two exemplify and reinforce the irrational emotionalism that so characterizes the irreligious mindset.

HAMBOB SAID:

But either way, keep in mind that he's paying for this experimental treatment.

Both he and Francis Collins are well-heeled. Why not sponsor a cancer patient who lacks their financial resources?

Whatever the outcome his participation will provide valuable data that those scientists will be able to use to improve this treatment. That improvement will help the teenager you are so concerned about.

If successful, it will benefit the test-patient now, and benefit a future teenage cancer patient down the line. It won’t benefit a current teenage cancer patient who didn’t get the same preferential treatment. For Hitchens to win, someone else must lose. Back to the lifeboat.

i find it rather sad that the atheist is risking what's left of his life to further this research and all you can do is ridicule him...

Risking his life? What a silly statement. He has terminal cancer. He's throwing a Hail Mary pass to save his life.

Shark bait

My recent post on Hitchens has elicited the predictable Pavlovian outrage from unbelievers. Since they ignore the obvious, let’s contextualize the issue a bit more:

i) The fact that someone has cancer doesn’t ipso facto immunize him from moral scrutiny. Good men get cancer, bad men get cancer. The fact that John Gotti died of cancer while serving a life sentence for murder doesn’t immunize him from moral scrutiny.

ii) I myself had cancer, so playing the cancer card to guilt-trip me into silence isn’t going to work. Try some other form of emotional manipulation. 

iii) Ethics routinely deals with life-and-death scenarios. That’s a basic part of bioethics. Indeed, the proverbial lifeboat scenario, which is how I framed my discussion, is a classic case. Other examples include Sophie’s Choice, the Trolley Problem, and the ticking timebomb.

So let’s not act as if discussing life-and-death outcomes is suddenly out-of-bounds.

iv) Moreover, this isn’t just hypothetical. Take Judith Jarvis Thomson’s infamous thought-experiment about the violinist. That’s hypothetical, but it’s more than hypothetical. It’s a hypothetical that’s designed to influence public policy. To determine who gets to live and who gets to die. 

In addition, bioethicists like Peter Singer toy with various scenarios to promote to abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.

So let’s not act as if ethicists, including secular bioethicists, think life-and-death scenarios with real-life consequences are now out-of-bounds.

v) In addition, it’s not as if Hitchens himself is especially reticent in this regard.

The discovery of the carcass of Jerry Falwell on the floor of an obscure office in Virginia has almost zero significance, except perhaps for two categories of the species labeled "credulous idiot." The first such category consists of those who expected Falwell (and themselves) to be bodily raptured out of the biosphere and assumed into the heavens, leaving pilotless planes and driverless trucks and taxis to crash with their innocent victims as collateral damage. This group is so stupid and uncultured that it may perhaps be forgiven. It is so far "left behind" that almost its only pleasure is to gloat at the idea of others being abandoned in the same condition.

http://www.slate.com/id/2166337/

Did I say anything remotely like that about Hitchens? No. Rather, I raised the issue of moral consistency.

vi) Let’s move onto the specific case at hand:

Now Hitchens is one of the few people in the world who has had his entire genetic make up mapped and is receiving a new treatment that targets his own damaged DNA.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8407326/Atheist-Christopher-Hitchens-could-be-saved-by-evangelical-Christian.html

Why is Hitchens one of the few people in the world to have his entire genetic makeup mapped? Is it because he’s one of the few people in the world with esophageal cancer? I don’t think so.

No, it’s because he’s a famous cancer patient.

Now, if you were a secular bioethicist like Peter Singer, would that be the obvious way to ration medical care? Say you have two passengers in the lifeboat. There’s not enough food and water for both to survive. Who gets throw over the side of the boat?

On the one hand you have a teenage cancer patient.

On the other hand you have a 62-year-old cancer patient. What is more, he was in the high-risk category due to his voluntary lifestyle choices (hard smoker, hard drinker).

If you’re a secular bioethicist, which one becomes shark bait?

Christianity and the Trinity

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/monotheism/#ChrTri

House Churches and Households in the New Testament

It was Paul’s habit to preach first in synagogues. When that didn’t work out, Paul frequently went to people’s homes.

Acts: Acts 16:13-15: And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.

Acts 17:5-9: But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

Acts 18:1-3: After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade.

Acts 18:5-8: When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized.

1 Corinthians 16:15: Now I urge you, brothers—you know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints— be subject to such as these, and to every fellow worker and laborer.

1 Corinthians 16:19: The churches of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord.

Colossians 4:15: Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.

Philemon: To Philemon our beloved fellow worker and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house … I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. At the same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously given to you.

I’ve mentioned all of these, without yet getting into the network of house churches listed in Romans 16, to give a picture of the overall world in which the Apostle Paul traveled. Now note the greetings in Romans 16. Lane further explicates that Christians in Rome “appear to have met as ‘household’ groups in privately owned locations scattered around the capital city. They constituted a loose network of house churches, without any central facility for worship. The absence of central coordination matches the profile of the separated synagogues in Rome during this period.” (208)

Romans 16:3-4: Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their house (καὶ τὴν κατ᾽ οἶκον αὐτῶν ἐκκλησίαν).

Romans 16:10: Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus (τοὺς ἐκ τῶν Ἀριστοβούλου).

Romans 16:11: Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus (τοὺς ἐκ τῶν Ναρκίσσου τοὺς ὄντας ἐν κυρίῳ).

Romans 16:14: Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them (καὶ τοὺς σὺν αὐτοῖς ἀδελφούς).

Romans 16:15: Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them (καὶ τοὺς σὺν αὐτοῖς πάντας ἁγίους).

It is this feature of “separate islands of Christianity” in particular that does not allow for, and most blatantly contradicts the notion of “a Petrine ministry” of a “successor of Peter” in the city of Rome, as Roman Catholicism has emphasized for so many centuries.

The strategy of situating the church in a home was sound, for it provided Christians with relative privacy, a setting where identity and intimacy could be experienced, a ready-made audience as well as a social network along which the influence of the Christian movement could spread. The conversion of households with their dependents helps to account for the growth of Roman Christianity.

The number of house churches in a given locale such as Rome is a topic for debate. Klauck, for example, contending for a plurality of meeting places, argues that the preposition κατά in the Greek phrase κατ᾽ οἶκον αὐτῶν ἐκκλησίαν in Romans 16:5 (1 Cor 16:19; Philemon 2) should be understood distributively, i.e., “the church which constitutes itself as a household.” M. Gielen, appealing to contemporary papyrological evidence as well as the fact that the formula occurs in the context of a greeting, argues that the preposition should be interpreted simply as ἐν, i.e., the church in the house of X.” Gielen is correct to point to some form of common meeting in Corinth on the basis of Romans 16:23, where Paul refers to Gaius as “the host to the whole church.” But she fails to account successfully for the greetings in Romans 16:14-15, where separate groups seem to be indicated. There may well have been meetings of the whole community in some places, such as Corinth, but in other places this may not have been the case. There is no evidence for a common meeting in Rome (Citing John Maier, “Social Settings” 34, in Lane pg. 210).

But it is not just a lack of evidence of a common meeting area (located either through linguistic evidence, or archaeological or inscription evidence) that demonstrates the structure of these various house churches. The very notion of how the role of leadership exercised itself in first century Rome provides further evidence of the internal structure of these bodies. More on that next time, Lord willing.

Defining identity

Dale Tuggy thinks the Trinity is self-contradictory because it (allegedly) violates numerical identity. And Tuggy defines numerical identity according to Leibniz law, viz. the identity of indiscernibles.

I suppose that’s adequate as a preliminary definition, but it’s a rather vacuous definition. A tautology, where you define identity by indiscernibility or vice versa.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a circular definition, but by the same token, a circular definition isn’t terribly informative.

Tuggy also defines identity somewhat paradoxically by suggesting whatever is true of A is true of B. I say paradoxical since, in that event, you wouldn’t have A and B. For the definition collapses the comparative relata.

One problem with Tuggy's appeal is that Leibniz was a 17-18C philosopher. But philosophy often relies on math and science to provide conceptual models, and a lot has happened since Leibniz kicked the bucket.

I’m been defining identity in terms of symmetry, self-similarity, equipollence. If A maps onto B in one-to-one correspondence, then isn’t that a pretty tight definition of identity? Indeed, I think that marks an advance over Leibniz law inasmuch as it explicates the principle by giving us a procedure for determining what constitutes identity. A more rigorous definition of identity than Leibniz law.

Yet here’s the catch: it’s possible for A and B to be equipollent even though A and B are not mutually reducible, if the relation is enantiomorphic.

If Tuggy deems that definition to be defective, he needs to explain why. It won’t suffice for him to repeat Leibniz law, for I’ve already discussed the limitations of that definition, as well as how my definition improves on his definition by giving us a procedure to determine when that condition is met. That's more exacting. 

Dan Corner's One-String Banjo

Out of the blue today Dan Corner wrote me anonymously [I googled his email address]:

Sir, it is great to see you reject the pre-tribulation rapture but do you believe in the teaching of once saved always saved (eternal security)? Thanks.

I wrote back:

Hi Dan,

And what is your name? [I] do not like to take the time and reply to anonymous individuals.

He writes back:

You answered by shouting to us there is something spiritually WRONG
with you! (No need to reply.)

Dan

Huh? You gotta love the Internet.

Interpretive charity

According to Dale Tuggy:

The thing is, no one likes contradictions, and everyone has the concept of =, and knows the indiscernibility of identicals. And that's really all the philosophy that is at issue here. The project is finding a charitable and plausible interpretation - one which is seemingly consistent (charitable) and plausible - so it can't require any really out there thesis which only mathematicians or logicians or metaphysicians or physicists can grasp. Unitarian readings are just of this sort - they read the NT as self-consistent, and don't attribute anachronistic ideas to the authors. This is in sharp contrast to some (not all) Trinity theories.

Ironically, Jeremy Piece begins with a similar premise, but draws the opposite conclusion. For Pierce, a charitable reading which avoids imputing inconsistency to the NT writers will in fact be a Trinitarian reading.

It's pretty similar to other statements about Jesus having something that only God would be expected to have, especially when you combine it with the repeated statements in the prophets about God not sharing his glory with any other. That really does seem to lead to a contradiction unless you move somewhere in the direction of classical trinitarianism. My contention is that the doctrine of the Trinity developed to avoid contradiction in the biblical texts.

http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2006/02/the-problem-of-1.html#comment-22116

Lifeboat ethics on the sea of atheism

The proverbial lifeboat is a stock hypothetical in ethics. Given limited food and freshwater to go around, should we be altruistic when altruism is a threat to our own survival?

Christopher Hitchens rose to notoriety as a moralist. He wrote a book assailing the character of Mother Teresa. In the same vein he assailed Henry Kissinger and Jerry Falwell–among others. And his book on god is not Great is a pretext for him to vent his indignation at all things religious.

Recently, Hitchens has been receiving experimental therapy for cancer. Of course, many other cancer patients could potentially benefit from the same experimental therapy. Take a teenager with cancer.

So why does Hitchens make the cut while others do not? Because he’s a celebrity. Fame and favoritism go together.

He’s in the same boat as other cancer patients, but he gets special treatment. In effect, Hitchens is throwing other passengers overboard. After all, when he was singled out for preferential treatment, Hitchens could always say, “I appreciate the offer, but I’m 62. I indulged in high-risk behavior. I lost the bet. I’m wealthy. If I die, my dependents will be well-provided for. Why don’t you take the case of that teenager with cancer instead?”

What is God?

DALE [TUGGY] SAID:

About the "expansion" you think is plainly implied in the Bible - I'm curious about what that is. In your view, what is God, or what does it mean to believe in three persons who "are" one God? I think trinitarians need to put on the table what they think the traditional formula, in their view, mean. Only then can you compare the theory to some unitarian theory. Maybe, Steve, you should do a post on this. What is the common, pre-trinitarian concept of a god. And then, what proper, trinitarian concept replaces this, based on the Bible.

1) Just as there are varieties of unitarianism, there are varieties of Trinitarianism. In my response I’ll be speaking for myself.

2) I don’t know what Tuggy means by a “pre-trinitarian concept of a god.” Does he mean that, from a Trinitarian perspective, progressive revelation begins with a pre-trinitarian concept of God, which is gradually phased out (or abruptly terminated) as we reach a later stage of revelation?

I don’t think the revelation of the Trinity replaces a pre-trinitarian concept of God. The OT says Yahweh alone is the true God. It ascribes various actions and attributes to Yahweh. It opposes the true God to the false gods of paganism.

That concept is open to further specification. It’s not “pre-trinitarian,” but simply indefinite in various respects.

For instance, the Pentateuch identifies the true God as the God who made the world, send the flood, made a covenant with Abraham, guided the patriarchs, and delivered the Israelites from Egypt–among other things.

But that’s open to further historical developments. The same God makes a covenant with David, exiles apostate Israel, restores Israel to the promised land, and projects a future for Israel and the gentiles beyond the post-exilic horizon. Same God. These actions are also defining features of the one true God.

The Bible is sketching a picture of God. Filling in the details of the outline as time goes on.

3) Actually, we don’t need to put a trinitarian formula on the table to evaluate unitarianism. For instance, if unitarianism denies the deity of Christ, we can evaluate that claim on its own merits. We can compare and contrast the unitarian interpretation with the Trinitarian interpretation of the same passages.