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. 

My Lord and my God

http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2020/05/responding-to-kermit-zarley-on-john-2028.html

3 things that would make Jesus Yahweh

Dale Tuggy Retweeted

Ryanprott

@ryanprott

3 thing [sic.] that would make Jesus YHWH

•1)Complete Superiority 

•2)Immortality that wasn't given

•3)Without Beginning

Acts 3:13 "God has glorified his SERVANT Jesus"

1 Cor. 15 "Christ DIED for our sins"

John 3:16 "He gave his only BEGOTTEN son"

1)❌X

2)❌X

3)X

https://twitter.com/ryanprott/status/1257336497772072961

1. Once again, unitarians keep demonstrating that they have no idea how to argue with folks who don't think like unitarians. They never leave their bubble. 

If the aim is to show that Trinitarian, Incarnational theology is inconsistent with Scripture, then the onus is on the unitarian to show that the Trinitarian, Incarnational theology can't be harmonized with Scripture given the assumptions and resources of Trinitarians. You must assume the opposing viewpoint for the sake of argument, then explain how that's contradictory on its own grounds. Why is Dale unable to grasp that elementary burden of proof? Why does he plug Ryan Prott's incompetent objection? Is this social promotion for unitarians? 

2. Jesus isn't merely Yahweh but Yahweh Incarnate. Yahweh Incarnate can undergo demotions or promotions in his status.

3. Immortality has reference to Jesus as Yahweh Incarnate. Biological mortality/immortality, and not immortality in the divine sense of aseity and timeless eternality. God is not physically mortal or immortal. He's not that kind of being. But God Incarnate assumes a body which can be mortal or immortal. 

4. Dale must be aware of the fact that most modern-day NT scholars and lexicographers don't think monogenes means only-begotten, but unique, one of a kind.

5. Jesus has a point of origin in time: the Incarnation. The Son has no beginning. Jesus is a composite being. The Son in union with a human body and soul. ❌

The limits of apologetic dialogue

A common limitation or deadlock in apologetic dialogue is that one or both sides think the other side has nothing worth saying. Take debates between Christians and atheists. Many atheists think Christianity is indefensibly false. Christians only believe in Christianity due to childhood indoctrination. So when a Christian provides a rational defense his faith, the atheist isn't listening. He tunes out the explanation. He just waits for the Christian to stop talking, then the atheist launches into his prepared objections. 

The atheist has no intellectual patience for a sophisticated defense of Christianity. He assumes that's just a snow job. The more intelligent the Christian, the more sophisticated the explanation, the greater the suspicion of the atheist that he's been snowed by a blizzard of technicalities. 

The same holds true for many debates between Catholics and evangelicals, or Arminians and Protestants. It's funny how many Arminians act like compatibilism must be special pleading. An ad hoc explanation which Calvinists concocted just to defend Calvinism, even though compatibility is a philosophical position about the relationship between determinism and moral responsibility that's philosophically independent of Calvinism. But many Arminianism screen it out without bothering to understand the position. They don't think there could possibly anything worth understanding. 

The more erudite or intellectual the defense, the more preemptive the dismissal. That must be smoke and mirrors. Same thing happens in debates between Christians and unitarians. 

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. 

Was God Incarnate tempted?

A part of me wonders why unitarians churn out painfully incompetent videos like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsfxIhQ6go0&feature=youtu.be

1. A problem many atheists have when attacking Christianity is that because they hold it in such intellectual contempt, they are unable to take it seriously even for the sake of argument. But this means their attacks on Christianity are sophomoric. By the same token, the unitarians who made this video lack the intellectual patience to acknowledge and engage Christian responses to their half-baked critique. They can't be bothered to consider the implications of the two-natures of Christ. That's because they don't believe in the two-natures of Christ. But if they're going to say the Incarnation is contradictory, they have to show it's contradictory on the model they reject. If, say, a Christian theologian operates with a two-minds Christology, then it's not contradictory for Jesus to be tempted in reference to his human mind but not his divine mind. The unitarians who produced this video are too jejune to distinguish between what they think is factually true and what they think is logically consistent. 

2. I'd add that quoting passages which say Jesus was "tempted" is not very informative inasmuch as temptation can mean more than one thing. On the one hand, it can mean exposure to an external inducement. On the other hand, it can mean to feel the appeal of something. The second kind of temptation is psychological. But it's possible to be exposed to something intended to be tempting, which some people find tempting, which others may not find attractive, or may even find repellant. 

I once read about a failed attempt by Ava Gardner to seduce Anthony Perkins. Gardner was one of the all-time great Hollywood beauties, but as she quickly discovered, Perkins wasn't wired like a normal man, so he didn't find her overtures tempting. Her effort was future from the start. 

My immediate point is not to determine in which sense Jesus could be tempted, but to point out that just seizing on the word "tempted" doesn't settle the issue because the concept is ambiguous. We're apt to read into it more than the word itself implies. 

Is the Angel of the Lord a Christophany?

1. Many Christian theologians contend that the Angel of the Lord isn't just a theophany but a Christophany in particular (or a theophanic Christophany, to be precise). And that may be the case. However, Trinitarian hermeneutics and Christian messianism don't require that. Moreover, it can be counterproductive when Christian theologians are too insistent on that identification

2. It's not as if Yahweh is the Father and the Angel of the Yahweh the Son. I don't assume that when Yahweh sends the Angel of the Yahweh (or the Angel comes from heaven), that's the Father sending the Son. 

3. Strictly speaking, Yahweh is the Trinity. When I talk about three divine persons in the OT, it's necessary to have separate designations for each to refer to them, and so I use the name Yahweh to distinguish one person from the other two (Yahweh, the Angel of Yahweh, and the Spirit of Yahweh), but that's semantic rather than ontological. It doesn't mean, at a metaphysical level, that one of them is Yahweh while the other two are not. Likewise, the "Spirit of God/Yahweh" doesn't stand in contrast to the nature of Yahweh, as if Yahweh is physical. There's a difference between the ontology of the persons and the semantics of naming. Although the names represent distinct persons, Yahweh is not a particular designation for the Father. 

4. In the case of the Spirit, that designation corresponds to one particular person of the Trinity because the usage is consistent across both Testaments. Likewise, in NT usage, "the Father" and "the Son" are uniform designations for particular persons of the Trinity.

But "Yahweh" is more flexible. Indeed, in NT usage that's typically a title for Jesus, via its LXX equivalent (Kurios). 

5. Many Christian theologians think there's a direct parallel between Yahweh sending the Angel and the Father sending the Son. But not only is that comparison anachronistic, but it's apt to backfire. If you assume that the Father is the default referent of Yahweh/Elohim, then evidence for the OT divine messianism is limited to a handful of prooftexts. 

6. Keep in mind that disproving unitarianism doesn't necessitate correlating the Angel of the Lord with a particular person of the Trinity. To disprove OT unitarianism, it will suffice to show that there's more than one divine person–and not which is which or how the persons and designations matchup. 

7. In addition, it would be extremely misleading for a unitarian God to reveal or manifest himself–in word or deed–as if there's two or three of him while he inveighs against polytheism and idolatry. A unitarian God would be working at cross-purposes with his true nature and corrective agenda if he did that.

8. In many situations it is prudent not to argue for more than you need to to prove your point. If a less ambitious argument will get the job done, that's often better because it has a lower burden of proof.

Yahweh's double

1. Most of the agents in OT history are creatures. Men and angels. There are, however, three notable exceptions: Yahweh, the Spirit of Yahweh, and the Angel of Yahweh. 

Now that in itself may not get us all the way to the Trinity, but it sticks out in contrast to the rest. These three agents are categorically different from creatures. 

Not one, or two, or four, but three. So these are the exceptions. In a class apart from human or angelic creatures. 

2. A critic might say the Spirit of Yahweh (in the OT) isn't clearly a distinct person of the Godhead, but an extension of God. God's active presence in the world, or something like that. That's consistent with unitarianism.

However, even if, for argument's sake, we grant that the Spirit of Yahweh isn't clearly a distinct person of the Godhead, the representation of the Spirit is open to a Trinitarian interpretation. 

3. Moreover, it's not as if the Spirit of Yahweh is simply depicted as a power. Among other things, verbal inspiration and propositional revelation have their origin in the Spirit of Yahweh. But communicating words and concepts requires personal agency–from one mind to another. 

4. Then there's the Angel of Yahweh. In Gen 18, there are three "angels" ("messenger", malak), two of whom are creatures, but the third is represented as Yahweh himself. If the third is just another creaturely agent of Yahweh, the differential treatment makes no sense. 

Rather, it's more like a king with his retinue. Compare it to the theophany in Ezk 1. That's not just a theophany, but an angelophany. Not only does God appear to the prophet, but he brings an angelic entourage with him. 

5. There are also debates about whether the Angel of Yahweh is a theophany or Christophany. But for immediate  purposes we don't have to pin that down. The OT needn't present a Trinitarian deity to be incompatible with a unitarian deity. Evidence for binitarian theism would suffice to disprove unitarian theism. Conversely, while evidence for binitarian theism would rule out unitarian theism, it wouldn't rule out Trinitarian theism. Rather, it would mean OT theism is at least binitarian. 

6. If the OT depicted Yahweh as leaving heaven to visit earth (by assuming angelic form), that would be consistent with unitarianism. It would clearly be the same individual. When he's on earth there's no double in heaven. If, on the other hand, Yahweh is shown having a double, then that suggests two distinct individuals: the sender and the sent. And if that's not the case, it's quite confusing (e.g. Gen 24:7,40; Exod 23:20-21; 33:2). 

The point is not whether God has the ability to appear to be in two places at once, but whether that's counterproductive to monotheism if unitarianism is true. Is in the same individual appearing to be in two difference places at once, or two distinct individuals? If Yahweh seems to have a double, how could a reader tell the difference between a unitarian Yahweh and a binitarian Yahweh? 

7. But suppose for argument's sake we say the Angel's identity is ambiguous. The OT is ferociously hostile to idolatry. If unitarianism is true, it's unimaginable that there could be any confusion between Yahweh and the Angel of Yahweh. The very fact that the Angel of Yahweh is sometimes interchangeable with Yahweh (e.g. Gen 48:14-16; Exod 3:1-6) is baffling if unitarianism is true, given the dire OT warnings against idolatry. How could the OT afford to leave that in doubt? If unitarianism is true, then OT representations of Yahweh ought to be consistently and unmistakably monadic, to forestall idolatry. 

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. 

Christmas music

Christian Christmas music

Once in royal David's city

O come, all ye faithful

Hark! the herald angels sing

Ding dong! merrily on high

While shepherds watched

In the Bleak Midwinter

Angels, from the realms of glory

The Angel Gabriel from heaven came

Personent hodie

The First Nowell

In dulci jubilo

O little town of Bethlehem

Away in a Manger

O come, O come, Emmanuel

Quittez, pasteurs

The Infant King

As Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night

The Three Kings

We Three Kings of Orient Are

Handel's Messiah

Bach, Christmas Oratorio

Unitarian Christmas music

White Christmas

Baby It's Cold Outside

Frosty the Snowman

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Jingle Bells

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Here Comes Santa Claus

Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

"Hints" of the Trinity

Part of Dale Tuggy's stump speech is that he objects to Christians finding "hints" of the Trinity in the OT. He thinks that's special pleading. They begin with their dogma, then cast about for prooftexts. 

I'd simply point out that Christians aren't doing anything exceptional when it come to the Trinity. Christians have always taken the position that OT theology is less developed than NT theology. That's a given. Although there's continuity between OT theology and NT theology, in many cases you won't find full-orbed NT theology in the OT. Rather, you'll find adumbrations of NT theology in the OT.

That's because, unlike Buddhism, Christianity is a religion of events as well as ideas, and God didn't do everything at once. Biblical revelation is progressive in large part because theology runs in tandem with redemptive events. Doctrine provides a theological interpretation of redemptive events.

So it's not as if Christians use one basic methodology for relating OT theology to NT theology in general, but switch to something completely different when it comes to the Trinity and the Incarnation. Rather, it's the same methodology throughout. 

Text & Canon Conference

https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2019/11/03/text-and-canon-conference-initial-thoughts/

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. 

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