Trinities

In this episode: mutual interrogations, closing statements, and audience questions and answers. Which side put forward the stronger opening case? Which did a better job in rebuttal? What if anything was revealed by the mutual interrogations? What if anything was added by the brief closing statements? And which answers to audience questions did you think were important, and why? You be the judge. I...

This episode contains the Pro and Con opening statements and rebuttals from the debate on March 9, 2024 between James White and Dale Tuggy in Houston, Texas. The debate question is "Is Jesus Yahweh?" Which side makes the stronger opening arguments? Which side does a better job at rebutting the other's opening arguments? Because of our many slides, the fully edited video version below is recommende...

This is the final part of my response to some recent podcast episodes by Dr. William Lane Craig here and here . Dr. Craig accuses me of being disingenuous in claiming that his minimal, so-called "biblical" doctrine consisting of two sentences is not enough to count as a trinitarian theology. I stand by that claim, and point out that it is unclear why Dr. Craig thinks that those sentences say anyth...

In this episode I first explain what I mean by "the best Craig" and why in my view we're not getting that in some recent responses to my arguments. I then respond to some recent podcast episodes by Dr. William Lane Craig here and here , where Craig is not engaging with my arguments , instead dismissing me as a fringe kook who can be safely ignored. I note how quickly he jumps from the Trinity to t...

This episode is the final portion of the EPS session devoted to the forthcoming book, One God, Three Persons, Four Views , edited by Dr. Chad McIntosh. You'll hear the entire Q&A portion of the session, plus my commentary thereupon. Topics include: Jesus and the "one like a son of man" in Daniel 7 Jesus' claim in Mark 2 and in Matthew 9 to be authorized to forgive sins the accusation of blasph...

In this second part ( part 1 here ) you'll hear the mutual interrogation portion of the EPS session on book One God, Three Persons, Four Views , with plenty of commentary by me and some extra relevant audio. This portion of the session contains a number of interesting exchanges . Among them: Hasker (via McIntosh) asks me whether my views entail that God's spirit has failed to lead the Church into...

In this episode you'll hear the four opening speeches in a book session at the Evangelical Philosophical Society conference in San Antonio, Texas in November of 2023. The book is One God, Three Persons, Four Views , edited by Chad McIntosh , forthcoming probably deep into 2024. (See UCA podcast #77 for the back story about the book.) The speakers are the co-authors William Hasker (his paper presen...

( Image credit ) In this episode Dr. Nemes and I discuss chapter 6 of his new book Trinity and Incarnation: A Post-Catholic Theology. Clearly the Jesus of the New Testament is supposed to be special, indeed, unique, and in some sense he must be "divine." But in what sense, exactly? And what if anything does this have to do with God's giving Jesus his spirit? Topics include: whether the full deity...

The thing about objecting to Trinity theories is that they are many and different , and generally speaking mutually inconsistent, so that an objection which applies to one Trinity theory will not apply to others. But in chapter 3 of his new book Trinity and Incarnation: A Post-Catholic Theology , Dr. Steven Nemes gives a destructive tetralemma argument which applies to Trinity theories generally....

Biblical unitarians often face the stock objection that according to us Jesus is a "mere man" --that is, a human who is not also divine, disparagingly described as "mere." This objection assumes that a human only Jesus couldn't possibly do all that is ascribed to him in the New Testament. But as Anna Shoffner Brown shows in this insightful original presentation from the 2022 UCA Conference in Ohio...

In the famous creation scene in Genesis God says, "Let us make man in our image and likeness." Genesis 1:26 About such passages trinitarian theologian Dr. Fred Sanders writes, Outside of the New Testament’s revelation of the Trinity, it’s hard to make sense of the singular/plural dichotomy in these passages. Engaging them with a trinitarian understanding sheds new light on their possible implicati...

In this episode you'll hear my edit of the second, longer half of this excellent debate : two rounds of cross-examinations, closing statements, and audience Q&A. Which side surprised you? What arguments here struck you as important? Did either side make important mistakes? Which side made the overall strongest case? Leave us a comment below. And after you listen you can check out the post-deba...

Is the Jesus of the Bible Yahweh himself? That's the question of this excellent debate. It's two vs. two, with the pro side being Dr. Kyle Essary and Samuel Nesan, and the con side being Dr. Dustin Smith and pastor Will Barlow. If you're trying to make up your mind, it will help you to work through this debate, evaluating each side's arguments for yourself. This episode is roughly the first half o...

This episode is a short informal talk I gave in October of 2019 at a missions conference put on by Kingdom of God Ministry and Missions . After explaining some ways that theological debates relate to evangelism , I then discuss some "ear closers," factors which prevent the unitarian Christian perspective from being heard. Debates, I suggest, bypass those. I also explain the usefulness of debates ,...

In a thought-provoking recent episode released before this Easter, analytic theologian Dr. R.T. Mullins suggested three reasons God would have to become incarnate, building on work by Swinburne and McConnell. The one he focuses the most on in the idea that God would be obligated to become incarnate so that he can suffer along with us , his beloved creatures. In this episode I evaluate those three...

In this episode we get into the depths of Dr. Hollingsworth's new article “Mere Social Trinitarianism, the Eternal Relations of Origin, and Models of God.” Topics include: divine timelessness creation ex nihilo the divine processions (the Father's eternal generation of the Son and spiration of the Spirit) the DERO's lack of biblical support why DERO entered into mainstream Christian tradition divi...

In this episode we'll meet analytic theologian Dr. Andrew Hollingsworth and discuss his interesting forthcoming article “Mere Social Trinitarianism, the Eternal Relations of Origin, and Models of God” in the Journal of Analytic Theology . Topics include: "mere" social trinitarianism - the core claims which any "social" trinitarian is committed to the concept of a self the idea that God has multipl...

In this episode I interact with a video by Lutheran Pastor Joshua Sullivan at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Kerrville, Texas . A listener asked him for his views on "Socinianism" and this so-called "biblical unitarianism," and why they contradict the Bible. He replies with some descriptions and definitions, and then gives some arguments as to why these sorts of views are unbiblical. I interact wit...

This episode is a short interview of Dale Tuggy by Tyler Hummel for his podcast The AntiSocial Network . He asked questions which a lot of people have about unitarian Christianity , such as: What is unitarian Christianity? How does unitarian Christianity differ from the UU (Unitarian Universalism) religion? What is the Unitarian Christian Alliance ? What are the core theses of any unitarian Christ...

This episode is a slightly updated version of my opening address to the second annual Unitarian Christian Alliance Conference in October 2022 . In it, I describe the Reformation context of today's unitarian Christian movement. Increasingly, Christians are trading in traditional confusions for New Testament clarity when it comes to the one God and his Son. After briefly outlining a unitarian Christ...

Samuel Eddy (1768-1839) was at the height of his career Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the state of Rhode Island. He was also a prominent member of the First Baptist Church in Providence . Like others, he'd just assumed that the doctrine of the Trinity is both true and taught in the Bible. Yes, he'd heard talk of unitarians, but those aren't Christians, right? So he never bothered to hear t...

There are no verses that define God as being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are no verses that define God as three, three in one, or a multiple. There are no verses that say that Jesus has two natures or two minds. There are no verses that say Jesus is a God-man, or that he is fully God and fully man. There are no verses that call Jesus “eternally begotten,” the bible says he was begotten or...

Johnny Barnes earned a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary. When he took the required class on the Trinity, he couldn't help but notice that many of the texts appealed to in order to support the Trinity were problematic in various ways. And he did not see anyone in Scripture appealing to " mystery " to attempt to deal with problems of coherence. Finding out onlin...

In this second half of our wide-ranging conversation inspired by his epic tweet thread on Trinity theories , our topics include: the "Persons" of the Trinity as modes , the New Testament authors as "primitive" theologians, divine simplicity, "social" Trinity theories, divine processions or lack thereof, mythological tales about what the three Persons before creation, the misfit between Scriptural...

Twitter is my favorite social media site. I enjoy short social media posts, and series of short posts. It's a good place for the opinionated to hold forth briefly . As they say, brevity is the soul of wit. Recently I noticed an interesting and insightful thread, a series of tweets , on "the doctrine of the Trinity" by analytic theologian Dr. Steven Nemes . I thought, "This is worth a conversation!...