In this episode I, a Biola University alum (B.A., Philosophy) interact with this video by two current Biola University professors, Dr. Fred Sanders, and Dr. Sean McDowell.

Their goals are to show that the doctrine of the Trinity is coherent (not self-contradictory) and that it fits well with Scripture.

Issues they discuss include:

In my commentary I point out that Dr. McDowell and Dr. Sanders are for the most part avoiding harder objections and issues pressed by unitarian Christians like me. When harder objections are brought up, their answers are lacking. In particular, the biblical problems are much, much harder then they are assuming. How does the Bible teach that the one God is the Trinity when it seems to clearly teach that the one God is the Father, the one formerly called “Yahweh”? How does the Bible teach the full deity of Jesus when it straightforwardly presents him as having limitations which God must lack?

They also ignore that different, incompatible doctrines, such as one-self and three-self Trinity theories all offer the same traditional language–thus, repeating that language does not suffice to clearly communicate a trinitarian theology. Their talk of “the doctrine of the Trinity” mistakenly presupposes that theologians loyal to trinitarian traditions are teaching the same things. They are not.

In the next episode I interact with the remainder of their presentation.

Links for this episode:

podcast 252 – Fred Sanders on Seeing the Trinity in Scripture, and his Secret

podcast 193 – Review of Sanders’s The Deep Things of God – Part 2

podcast 192 – Review of Sanders’s The Deep Things of God – Part 1

podcast 194 – God: One Person or Three? Sanders vs. Buzzard debate

Dustin Smith’s The Biblical Unitarian Podcast

Sean Finnegan’s Restitutio Podcast

Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (2nd ed.)

Tuggy, “Trinity,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Baber, “Trinity,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Dustin Smith – The Plural of Majesty

podcast 11 – Tertullian the unitarian – Trinities

Cartwright, “On the Logical Problem of the Trinity”

Date and Tuggy, Is Jesus Human and Not Divine?

Tuggy, “When and How in the History of Theology Did the Triune God Replace the Father as the Only True God?“

podcast 330 – Dr. Joshua Sijuwade on the monarchy of the Father

McIntosh, ed. – Craig vs. Hasker vs. Branson vs. Tuggy – One God, Three Persons, Four Views: A Biblical, Theological, and Philosophical Dialogue on the Doctrine of the Trinity

podcast 189 – The unfinished business of the Reformation

Craig, “Is God the Son Begotten in His Divine Nature?”

podcast 248 – How Trinity theories conflict with the Bible

How Trinity theories conflict with the New Testament

Loke-Tuggy debate: Does the NT Teach that Jesus is Truly Divine?

The Tuggy-Brown debate: Dale’s opening statement

podcast 334 – “Who do you say I am?”

podcast 260 – How to Argue that the Bible is Trinitarian

podcast 384 – Mainstream Christian Theologies in the Late 100s – Early 200s and Early Trinitarian “Fool’s Gold”

podcast 381 – Mainstream Christian Theologies in the year 240: What Trinitarian Apologists Don’t Know

the concept of a triune God an anachronism in the first three centuries

podcast 26 – Pastor Sean Finnegan on “the Holy Spirit” – Part 2

podcast 25 – Pastor Sean Finnegan on “the Holy Spirit” – Part 1

podcast 271 – Does your Trinity theory require relative identity?

the apologetics blind-spot on numerical identity

This week’s thinking music is “Ridgeway Drive” by Mr. Smith.