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Thursday, December 27, 2012

Jesus walked on H2O

Drake is having conniption fits:



It has become abundantly clear that Steve Hays thinks he can appeal to completely unverifiable and undefinable concepts in a debate over Theology Proper. When I accuse him of worshiping three gods, he simply appeals to anthropomorphic tri-theism and thus over-rules any inquiry into his view by falling back on the unverifiability and undefinability of his words.

i) That’s a very telling accusation. I didn’t appeal to anthropomorphic tritheism in response to Drake Shelton. Rather, I made that appeal in response to Dale Tuggy. Nice to see Drake’s inadvertent admission that he and Tuggy see eye-to-eye.

ii) Unitarians have always accused Trinitarians of tritheism. It’s not incumbent on Christians to justify the tritheistic appearance of Trinitarianism. For Biblical theism has a tritheistic appearance. God reveals himself in ways that look tritheistic.

It’s not particular formulations of the Trinity that generates that appearance. Rather, it’s the primary data of Scripture that generates that appearance.

In Scripture, God is apparently tritheistic. That, in turn, is counterbalanced by the fact Scripture also discloses a monotheistic conception of God.

Christians shouldn’t be made to feel defensive about the apparent tritheism of the Trinity, for that is based on God’s self-revelation. That’s normative–as far as it goes.

Now we know from the monotheistic passages that the Trinity is just apparently tritheistic, not really and truly tritheistic. But it’s not as if the monotheistic passages take precedence over the “tritheistic” passages. It’s all inspired. It’s all revelatory.

Moreover, even the monotheistic passages were more contextually qualified than unitarians make them out to be.


He claims that eternal generation cannot be true because it is a metaphor.

One wonders if Drake is actually that simple-minded. Was that my claim? No.

I never said–or even suggested–that eternal generation cannot be true because it’s a metaphor. Rather, I said that because the sonship of Christ is a metaphor, you must make allowance for the disanalogies as well as the analogies.

A metaphor both compares and contrasts one thing with another. You’re not entitled to arbitrarily pick-and-choose what you think carries over from the metaphor to the analogue.


 I ask him what he means by metaphor and he simply cops out by saying that the Bible does not define metaphor. 

That’s an amusing complaint from a Scripturalist. Well, the Bible doesn’t define metaphor, so why is a Scripturalist requiring an extrascriptural definition of metaphor?

Of course, it’s easy to define a metaphor. But that’s really not the point. Drake acts as though you have to provide a full-blown theory of analogical predication before you can recognize a metaphor or draw any distinctions reasonable between the analogous and disanalogous features of the metaphor.

But the Bible itself clearly makes no such assumption. It doesn’t demand that from its readers. They were expected to exercise common sense.

Take the sheepish metaphor, where the Bible uses sheep to symbolize Jews and Christians. You don’t have to have a theory of analogy to intuitively grasp the limitations of that comparison. You can tacitly appreciate both the similarities and dissimilarities between men and sheep when the Bible draws that comparison.

Drake is acting like Christians couldn’t know what it means for Jesus to walk on water unless they could define water as a chemical compound consisting of one oxygen molecule to two hydrogen molecules connected by covalent bonds.  But you don’t have to be Linus Pauling to understand the account of Jesus walking on water.

Likewise, take the sonship of Christ. You don’t have to begin with a general theory analogical predication. Rather, you can just study what the Bible says about the sonship of Christ. What’s the significance of that metaphor in various scriptures? How does that function in the argument or the narrative of a particular Bible writer? That’s how you determine the parameters of the metaphor. 

3 comments:

  1. I wish you would stop referring to Drake as a "Scripuralist." A "Scripturalist" is first and foremost a Christian. Drake doesn't qualify as the latter so he certainly doesn't qualify as the former. In his rejection of the Son he is at best a Unitarian who thinks he has prophetic gifts even claiming; "God gave me an understanding into things that maybe a handful of people alive understand.” Drake is also one of the vilest racists I've ever come across and if John Robbins, not to mention Gordon Clark, were alive they would repudiate him as a mentally unstable nut job.

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  2. Also, and something you touched on concerning Christ's sonship, Drake and his little group of miscreants are the worst kind of wooden headed literalists I've come across. The idea of the eternal generation of the Son was intended to simply avoid Sabellianism by differentiating the Son from the Father and slam the door shut on Arianism by making that relationship eternal. It was never intended to imply the ontological subordination of the Son as the word "generation" was never intended to be understood literally as the Father, Son, and Spirit are one being; one God. Speaking of the eternal generation of the Son Gordon Clark explains:

    "Though we must apply to the Son some sense of the term “generation,” let it be admitted that the sense is not completely clear. Christ is indeed Son of God, and the relationship is filiation. But since this relationship is eternal, and there was no time before the Son was Son, and though there was not time before the Father was Father, and though to be Biblical we must call the first Person Father and the second Person Son, it has please God not to have revealed much further as to the nature of this relationship. At least no theologian has succeeded in extending the implications of Scripture very far. Perhaps the best we can do is to suggest that the three Persons are identical with the exception of their personal differences. (The Trinity, p. 122)"

    I should also point out Drake's rejection of the Trinity is key to his racism. For example, he believes his advocacy for the complete segregation of blacks is warranted and is even biblically justified according to his subordinationist scheme as he rants on his blog against the “the absolute blasphemy of the Tri-Theistic or Monadistic phrase ‘God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.‘” I suppose if he believed that the Three Persons were really co-equals in their being and power perhaps he would see that all men made in God’s image were equal too and he would have no way to justify his hatred of blacks.

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  3. Well foolish Steve.

    Here you go again!

    The reason Jesus can walk on water is simple.

    Here, let me help elucidate your intelligence, ok?

    Moses spoke to God face to face! Right?

    Moses knows God personally! Right?

    Moses revealed to us singularly what God looks and sounds like albeit so did the nations of Jacob's race and it scared them witless.

    Now that national fear was predicated on the reality of what they heard not on what they saw because the smoke kind of vealed what God looked like. Moses got real close so he could describe the Lord in greater detail.

    Jesus can walk on water simply because Jesus is a duck!

    Yes He is a duck.

    Do I have Scriptures to back up this unbeforeknown revelation that just a few of us know about you probably are asking right about now? Right?

    Yes.

    Here's the proof that Jesus is a duck and Peter, not wanting to become regenerated as a duck after being born again simply was swallowed up by the water. Don't let the Scriptures fool you thinking Peter was thinking something else? That's another revelation I will share with you if you must insist? Later though! Don't press me to hard on this as I am just now absorbing that revelation!! I might be ready to reveal this revelation in full detail in a month or two, who knows?

    Here's the proof and be prepared, seriously, to be spoofed:

    Psa 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
    Psa 91:2 I will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."
    Psa 91:3 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.
    Psa 91:4 He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.


    There may be some scripturalists out there that do not have the intelligence I have so I will connect the dots for them so they can rest assured God is a Duck and sent Jesus as His Duckling representative:


    Exo 33:7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp.
    Exo 33:8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent.
    Exo 33:9 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses.
    Exo 33:10 And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door.
    Exo 33:11 Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.


    Now, another thing. Clearly the reason for the smoke is to cover up this truth I have uncovered today!

    Don't go asking me from which continent this Duckling is from or what Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species of Duckling because I only know in part and I just don't have a qualified answer if Jesus is a Duckling from the East, the Middle East, Africa, Canada or, God forbid, Kansas City!

    I heard that at some gatherings in Kansas City the Kansas City prophets have seen God face to face too so to confirm these sightings there have been manifestations of feathers floating around in the air when God showed up! That was for the people's sake.

    Anyway, I hope this helps you in your battles with these guys?

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