Trinities

In the middle of his discussion about whether Christians can eat food which has been sacrificed to pagan deities, Paul remarks: ...yet for us there is one God, the Fathe r, of whom the all and we for him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ , by whom the all and we through him. 1 Corinthians 8:6 Dr. Burgos argues that in the passage Paul is obviously attributing the Genesis creation both to the Father and...

Why did Roman rulers and polemicists find early Christianity so alarming , rather than just another religion, like those of Rome's many conquered peoples? In his new book Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World (Baylor University Press, 2016) , Dr. Larry Hurtado explores several ways in which this new Jesus-movement was different than its competitors in the religi...

In this 100th episode of the trinities podcast I talk with Dr. Hurtado about his book God in New Testament Theology . We discuss: the theocentric basis of New Testament christology what the New Testament adds to the theology of the Old Testament God as "Father" the way Christians view God in relation to Jesus whether we need to interact with God through a mediator the New Testament picture of God...

This episode starts with some listener feedback about episode 98 with Dr. Michael Heiser : is his position, trinitarian, binitarian, or "Arian"? I address this, and we hear a little more from Dr. Heiser regarding Jacob's blessing in Genesis 48:15-16. My interview with influential scholar of early Christianity Dr. Larry Hurtado begins at 10:50 . Dr. Hurtado explains the term " early high christolog...

In this and the next episode I respond to a critique of my views by apologist, author, and pastor Dr. Michael Burgos in an episode of his podcast . We discuss Old Testament monotheism, Paul's monotheism, and the New Testament use of "Lord" (Greek: kurios ) for both Jesus and for God. This conversation began as a conversation between him and me on Twitter . I agree with Dr. Burgos on several points...

In this nicely done short piece in Christianity Today , analytic theologian Dr. Oliver Crisp discusses a " paradox " (i.e. an apparent contradiction) involving Jesus and temptation. This apparent contradiction is generated by an argument or chain of reasoning like this. (These are my formulations, but I think they roughly capture what he's thinking.) Jesus is human. Jesus is divine. Anyone who is...

In this short video , Drs. Ligon Duncan, Scott Swain, and Gavin Ortlund tell us how "the doctrine of the Trinity" is central to the good news. Of course, asking how "the doctrine of the Trinity" is central to the good news is to assume that (1) there is one such doctrine, and (2) obviously this doctrine is central to the gospel, so that any gospel that doesn't include it is incomplete. Unfortunate...

In episode 292 of his Naked Bible podcast , Dr. Michael Heiser was asked about how biblical unitarian Christians understand Old Testament texts involving "the angel of the LORD" and "the word of the LORD." He took the opportunity to dump on biblical unitarianism as rationalistic, dishonest, pitifully uninformed, self-inconsistent, not "biblical" in any meaningful sense, and simply inconsistent wit...

In this episode I interact with " A Solution to Dale Tuggy’s Argument against Oneness Pentecostal Christology " - a blog post by Skylar McManus. In this piece he critically interacts with the following argument of mine ( from this blog post ). Suppose that modalism is true about the Son. Therefore, either the Son is identical to God, or the Son is a mode of God. (2) The Son is identical to God onl...

In this second part of our conversation about his new book, we discuss some of the "extensions" of conciliar christology that Dr. Pawl defends as coherent (contradiction-free). These include possibilities of multiple incarnations, Jesus's real temptation, and the common medieval doctrine that "in" his human nature Jesus knows all past, present, and future events. We also discuss a problem which Dr...

Dr. Timothy Pawl has written the fullest and most carefully-argued defense of "two natures" christology as defined by the ecumenical councils. Now he's also written a book-length defense of those core claims plus some related claims which are advocated by many in the catholic traditions, including St. Thomas Aquinas. In this first part of our conversation we discuss: what it takes to defend the co...

Apologists, this episode is for you. Some of you hold a Trinity theory which will clearly be incoherent unless relative identity theory is true. In this episode, I explain the concept of (numerical) identity, the basic idea behind Catholic analytic philosopher Peter Geach's relative identity theory, and how all of this applies to Trinity theories. It will help you to start to consider whether or n...

I might have called this episode "Origen's two gods and his 'one God.'" Or even: "Origen's two deities, his one god, and his 'one God.'" In it I present the first portion of Origen's interesting Dialogue with Heraclides , from about the year 254 A.D. The backstory , in a nutshell: somehow concerns were raised about the bishop Heraclides's doctrine; apparently he was suspected of being some sort of...

I've recently participated in a couple of face-to-face debates, one about the Trinity and the other about Incarnation. But not everyone likes debates, or thinks they are overall helpful or important. In this episode you'll hear my brief, informal talk at Converge about debating theology, with some of the Q&A that followed. I address questions including: Are debates just an example of ungodly s...

In Philippians 2 Paul famously holds up Jesus as an example because he traded the "form of God" for the "form of a slave." Is he here, as many readers think, describing an eternal divine Person who decides to become human and be born on the earth? Or is Paul rather praising Jesus's humility as shown in his earthly ministry? In this episode we take a deep dive into this passage with Dr. Dustin Smit...

In this episode we hear the rest of Andrew Davis's journey from trinitarian to "Arian" to biblical unitarian whistleblower . We discuss why he had dismissed biblical unitarian theology and why he decided to give it another look , what the New Testament says you must believe to be saved, how trinitarian traditions discourage thinking about Trinity theories, and how most Protestants assume some degr...

In this episode we meet Andrew Davis, a dedicated student of the "church fathers" (early writers on Christian theology). We hear about his interesting spiritual journey, from a brush with the faith movement, to atheism, to Buddhism, to Calvinism, to a flirtation with Eastern Orthodoxy. And since his high-school years he's been diligently reading these early Christian authors and with their help re...

In this podcast I explain why I am not vulnerable to changes of "begging the question" or "assuming unitarianism" when it comes to the terms "being" and "Person" as used in Trinity theories. In short, I let the trinitarian define his technical terms and go from there. When I'm pointing out that some Trinity theories collapse the Father and Son into one and the same being/entity/thing , I'm not usi...

In this second half of the Tuggy - Date debate you'll hear mutual interrogations , closing statements , and audience questions posed by moderator Kegan Chandler. Links for this episode: Part 1 fully produced video of the whole debate at 21st Century Reformation Kegan Chandler’s blog Buried Deep podcast 76 – Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho – Part podcast 75 – Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Tryp...

In this live debate of May 31, 2019, I argue that according to the New Testament Jesus is a unique man (God's Messiah), but is not divine . My opponent, apologist and author Chris Date, argues that it teaches Jesus to be human and divine. In this episode you'll hear our opening statements and our rebuttals . The next episode will include our mutual interrogations and our answers to questions from...

Were the earliest Christians trinitarian ? This episode is pastor Sean Finnegan's presentation "The Trinity before Nicea" recorded at the Theological Conference in April of 2019. Pastor Finnegan began with a Google search, which led him to this piece by evangelical apologist Matt Slick. Slick asserts that The following quotes show that the doctrine of the Trinity was indeed alive-and-well before t...

In this episode I reply to Dr. Bowman's critique of my presentation from podcast 160 , in this blog post and this one . I concede a few points to him, but press him on some others. In particular, I press this matter of the seeming incoherence of his own Trinity theory ( not of "the Trinity," i.e. any Trinity theory - please note that I have never claimed to show that). Here below is the argument I...

Many apologists offer simple deductive arguments purporting to show that the Bible rather obviously implies a creedal Trinity doctrine. Are those arguments sound? This episode is my presentation on April 13, 2019 at the 28th Theological Conference. Because the talk is easier to follow with my slides, I recommend the YouTube version below. First, I show that this influential argument by Reformed th...

What is it to be the creator of the cosmos? And do a few New Testament passages really teach that Jesus created the cosmos (before he was a man)? Most interpreters now think so. John 1, 1 Corinthians 8, Hebrews 1, and Colossians 1 are the most often cited, and some hold that the plural pronouns in Genesis 1 also demand, or at least suggest, that the pre-human Jesus was involved in the creation of...

Many texts in the Bible clearly assert that there is one creator of the cosmos, God himself. It also consistently distinguishes between Jesus and God. Yet some passages, according to catholic traditions, are understood to teach that the pre-human Jesus (or the divine "Person" which eventually united with the man Jesus) created the cosmos. Thus a Bible reader finds himself facing an inconsistent tr...