Trinities

In this second part I review my own opening statement ("Man, that guy makes a lot of good points!") as well as Dr. Sijuwade's rebuttal.

After you hear this episode, you'll understand a lot more of the philosophy that came up in this debate. More than one person has told me that they understood our opening statements but got lost after that. This episode will equip you to digest the whole debate.

Among other things, I discuss the three or four (not two) theologies at issue in this debate, and explain how Sijuwade's "Conciliar Aspectivalism" relates to his "Conciliar Trinitarianism." I also explain how the latter is essentially a marketing term, and I expound the point of Dr. Sijuwade's thought experiment about the statue and the lump of clay, as well as some very controversial metaphysical claims that he appeals to in order defend his views as coherent. I also go a little deeper on what to make of talk of God's spirit or "the holy spirit" in the Bible, explain what I call the problem of the missing amigo for Trinity doctrines and any view on which there are three divine Persons, and explain why an informed trinitarian should think, based on what Dr. Sijuwade said in his rebuttal, that he lost this debate, as he in effect concedes that his theology is not orthodox by the normal, catholic standards.

Below are a few slides that will help you to follow some of my key points.

Auto-generated chapters:

0:30 The Conciliar Trinity Debate
1:14 Opening Case: Scripture Versus Later Doctrine
5:00 Why Trinitarians Disagree About the Trinity
9:16 Jesus as God’s Human Messiah
13:59 Identity Claims and Conciliar Trinitarianism
18:14 Four Theologies and the Problem of Confusion
29:38 Is the Holy Spirit a Divine Person?
47:22 What Jesus’ Worship Means
53:02 Sharing God’s Throne and Authority
57:47 Jesus’ Authority to Forgive Sins
1:00:35 The New Testament’s Limited Messiah
1:04:19 The New Testament’s Human Jesus
1:08:43 What Makes Jesus Truly Human?
1:12:00 From One Divine Person to Three
1:16:09 The Rebuttal Turns to Metaphysics
1:19:21 How Should We Count Gods?
1:25:00 Challenging the Shared-Divinity Argument
1:30:59 Identity, Difference, and Modalism
1:43:51 The Statue, the Clay, and Aspects
1:56:52 Applying Aspects to the Trinity
2:01:49 Did the Rebuttal Answer the Case?

Links for this episode:
podcast 403 – Is Conciliar Trinitarianism Biblical and Orthodox? Debate Review – Part 1

How Trinity Theories CONFLICT With The Bible with Dr. Dale Tuggy (a video version of chapter 3 of Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible)

This week's thinking music is "Write Hear Right Now Instrumental" by Pipe Choir.

AI-generated Long Summary:

This episode, we review the second part of a debate with Dr. Joshua Sijuwade on whether conciliar Trinitarianism is biblical and orthodox. We present our opening statement, arguing that the New Testament identifies the Father as the only true God and describes Jesus as God’s human Messiah. We also distinguish this view from both tripersonal Trinitarianism and Sujuwade’s account, which identifies the Father as the one God while treating the Son and Spirit as fully divine persons.

We discuss disagreements among Trinitarian theologians about what “person” means and whether the Bible teaches doctrines such as the Son’s eternal generation and the Spirit’s procession. We argue that the New Testament does not present the Holy Spirit as a third divine person, citing the absence of worship and prayer directed to the Spirit, passages that mention the Father and Son without the Spirit, and biblical descriptions of the Spirit as God’s presence or power.

We also examine New Testament portrayals of Jesus, including his worship of God, his authority under God, and his limitations in knowledge and mortality. We argue that Jesus’ role as Messiah, servant, prophet, and descendant of David presents him as a human person rather than a fully divine person. We discuss how Jesus’ worship and sharing of God’s throne can be understood in relation to the authority God gives him.

In the rebuttal, Sijuwade defends the coherence of conciliar Trinitarianism through metaphysical arguments about how divinity is counted and how the divine persons relate to one divine substance. We respond to his claims about shared divinity, numerical identity, and the possibility that one thing can differ from itself through distinct “aspects,” using examples such as a statue and the clay from which it is made.

We conclude by assessing the rebuttal, arguing that it does not address the central scriptural points of our opening statement or the cited Christian authorities on orthodoxy. We preview the next episode’s discussion of the remaining debate.

AI-generated brief summary:

In this episode, we review the second part of our debate with Dr. Joshua Sijuwade on whether conciliar Trinitarianism is biblical and orthodox. We discuss our arguments that the New Testament presents the Father as the only true God and Jesus as his human Messiah, including passages concerning Jesus’ worship, authority, knowledge, and mortality, as well as the role of the Holy Spirit.
We examine disagreements over the meaning of “person” and doctrines such as the Son’s eternal generation and the Spirit’s procession. We then respond to Sijuwade’s metaphysical arguments about divine substance, identity, and the relations between the divine persons, and assess whether his rebuttal addresses our scriptural arguments.

This episode is part one of my review of my July 2026 debate with Dr. Joshua Sijuwade. (Video version here.) It consists of his 35-minute opening statement, with my comments and critique.

He spends the bulk of it arguing that what he calls "Conciliar Trinitarianism" best explains New Testament teaching about God, his Son, and his spirit.

He then argues that this theology, or something much like it, was taught by the second and third century "church fathers," such as Justin, Tertullian, and Origen.

Finally, he argues that this is the teaching of the "ecumenical" church councils.

Some notable things in my discussion include: my critique of traditional rhetoric about the Son being "on the Creator side of the Creator-creature divide," the utter lack of scriptural support for the eternal "procession" of the Holy Spirit, and the meaning of Dr. Sijuwade's talk of a "relational distinction" when it comes to the Father and the Son.

Auto-generated chapter marks:

0:29 Debate Review Starts
3:24 Defining Conciliar Trinitarianism
9:56 Best Explanation Claims
17:20 The Five Pillars
19:38 Father as the One God
22:33 The Son and Preexistence
42:29 The Spirit and Procession
55:20 Identifying God’s Marks
59:59 Jesus Bears Divine Names
1:05:33 Jesus Has Divine Attributes
1:12:24 Jesus Creates All Things
1:22:55 Thrones and Worship
1:32:00 Explaining the Evidence
1:43:56 Fathers and Councils
2:04:05 Creed of 381

Along the way I critique this argument for Jesus being the creator.

Links for this episode:

The original video produced by the Unitarian Christian Alliance and Premier Unbelievable.

Tuggy, Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible

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

the fulfillment fallacy

J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Theology

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

"What John 1 Meant"

How John 1 was intelligible in the first century

podcast 63 – Thomas Belsham and other scholars on John 8:58

Hebrews 7:3 @ biblicalunitarian.com

Kapusta, Scripturae Contra Trinitatem - The Epistle to the Hebrews: An Anthology of Quotations, Alternative Expositions, and Critical Commentaries on Common Trinitarian Proof-Texts

Does Colossians 1:16 Refer To The Old or New Creation? Sean Finnegan at UCA UK Conference

podcast 227 – Who Should Christians Worship?

Gaston, Dynamic Monarchianism: The Earliest Christology?

Origen on the Challenge to Jesus is God Apologists

trinitarian or unitarian? 7 – Origen uncensored

"the Holy Trinity, the one God" at the Orthodox Council of Blachernae held in 1285.

This week's thinking music is "Sun Moon Stars and You INST" by Cillek.

AI-generated summary:

In this episode we begin a detailed review of a debate on whether Conciliar Trinitarianism is biblical and orthodox. We explain that the discussion will be analyzed slowly, with attention to historical claims, proof texts, and the debate strategy itself.

We summarize the definition of Conciliar Trinitarianism as presented in the debate: one God, identified with the Father, and two relationally distinct divine persons, the Son and the Spirit, who share the same divinity as the Father. We note that the case is framed as an inference to the best explanation, using simplicity, explanatory power, fit with background knowledge, and unification.

We then work through the biblical arguments for the Son, focusing on John 1, John 17, Philippians 2, and Hebrews 7. We explain that we dispute readings that treat the Logos as the same as the preexistent Son, and we argue that these passages are better read in terms of personification, agency, exaltation, or disputed preexistence language rather than full deity.

We next turn to the Holy Spirit, discussing texts such as John 15, John 14, Romans 8, Acts 13, and 1 Timothy 5. We note the claim that the Spirit is a distinct person and fully divine, but we also stress that personal language about the Spirit does not by itself establish a third divine person.

We then summarize the appeal to Jewish monotheism, divine identity, and the five categories of names, attributes, actions, rulership, and devotion. We review the use of early Christian writers and councils, while arguing that the historical evidence is mixed and often reflects subordinationist or modalist views rather than later conciliar Trinitarianism.

The Christian internet recently lost his mind when a short video went viral in which Dr. William Lane Craig points out that the New Testament does not teach that the Father "eternally generates" the Son. He also professes skepticism about that traditional, catholic doctrine. Does this make him a heretic?

In this episode I react to his follow-up video in which Craig assures those concerned about heresy that he's merely asking questions and repeats that he's agnostic about eternal generation. But as I explain, he is and long has been clearly committed to the falsity of that doctrine.

This incident helpfully highlights the questions of what we should do when later traditions clash with Scripture and whether a Protestant should view the "ecumenical" councils as authoritative. Along the way, we also look at early Christian theologies, Craig's idiosyncratic and easily refuted Trinity theories, and silliness about the immanent Trinity vs. the economic Trinity.

Here's the video version of this podcast, of course, without the customary Thinking Music (TM).

Here are some Old Testament passages in which "the Word of the LORD" is personified. Unaccountably, at one point in this video, Dr. Craig denies that there are any such passages.

“He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly.” Psalm 147:15

“So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.” Isaiah 55:11

Links for this episode:

Dr. Craig Responds to Heresy Accusations Over the Nicene Creed

podcast 291 – From one God to two gods to three “Gods” – John 1 and early Christian theologies

How John 1 was intelligible in the first century

Dale Tuggy - What John 1 Meant (UCA Conference 2021)

Rauser, "Rahner’s Rule: An Emperor without Clothes?"

R.T. Mullins, The Reluctant Theologian Ep. 201 Eternal Generation for Dummies

R.T. Mullins, The Reluctant Theologian Ep. 164 The Trinity with William Lane Craig

One God, Three Persons, Four Views: A Biblical, Theological, and Philosophical Dialogue on the Doctrine of the Trinity

Tuggy, Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible: Essays on Biblical Unitarianism

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

This week's thinking music is "Two Atomic Heroes (Instrumental)" by Lemon Knife.

Countless millions have testified to the spiritual depth and importance of the Bible, and it is the most-read and most-translated book in human history. Yet in the recent west, reading the Bible has fallen out of favor (not to mention reading in general).

Do you have a Bible or two on your shelf that are just collecting dust? Are you intimidated by this influential and important, but not easy-to-read ancient collection of Jewish and Christian writings? The main book discussed in this episode is the stepladder you need to reach the Bible's rich and life-giving contents: Sean Finnegan's Read the Bible for Yourself.

It's part of a new, three-book series of books published by Living Hope International Ministries (LHIM) for disciples, those who have been convinced that following Jesus is the only way to live, and who want to follow his footsteps in loving God and our fellow humans. The authors are three well-known unitarian Christian pastors whom I respect and unreservedly recommend (see the links below).

In this new interview, Pastor Finnegan and I discuss this some of the very different genres of the biblical books, his new book, and the other two books in this series.

Links for this episode:

Pastor Sean Finnegan @ UCA Youtube

Living Hope Community Church, Latham, New York

Restitutio Podcast

Finnegan, Read the Bible for Yourself

Pastor Will Barlow @ UCA YouTube

Compass Christian Church, Louisville, Kentucky

Barlow, Explore What We Believe

Pastor Victor Gluckin

Living Faith Christian Church, Warwick, Rhode Island

Gluckin, Follow the Way of Jesus

This week's thinking music is "Midnight Relax Blues Jazz" by Auroson Music.

In this second episode you'll hear the second half of the debate: rebuttals, open discussion time, audience questions and answers, and closing statements.

Subjects discussed include:

Some of the arguments for Jesus's full deity deployed by Dr. Bird here are addressed in my UCA Conference presentation in Sydney, about a week after this Melbourne debate.

And many of the topics are also covered in my newly released book Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible (UK)--such as the meanings of theos in the New Testament (ch. 1).

Links for this episode:

Tuggy, Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible

Dr. Michael Bird’s YouTube channel

Dr. Bird’s blog, Substack

Exposing The Council of Nicaea with Dr. Dale Tuggy (UCA UK Conference 2025)

Dale Tuggy - What John 1 Meant (UCA Conference 2021)

Dale Tuggy and James White debate: "Is Jesus YHWH?"

Dale Tuggy vs James White | John 1 Is Not Trinitarian

podcast 291 – From one God to two gods to three “Gods” – John 1 and early Christian theologies

Bock and Loke on Jesus’s “blasphemy” in Mark 14 – Part 2

a reading of Philippians 2:5-11

podcast 227 – Who Should Christians Worship?

A letter from the Lord Jesus: About God and Me (Revised)

Hurtado on the early worship of Jesus

Larry Hurtado on early Christians’ worship of Jesus

podcast 333 – The Arguments of “God’s Death”

Kermit Zarley on “My Lord and my God.”

Tuggy, "Craig's Contradictory Christ," TheoLogica, 2023

podcast 343 – Craig’s Contradictory Christ – Part 1

podcast 344 – Craig’s Contradictory Christ – Part 2

Jesus’s argument in John 10

podcast 143 – Dr. Timothy Pawl’s In Defense of Conciliar Christology – Part 1

podcast 144 – Dr. Timothy Pawl’s In Defense of Conciliar Christology – Part 2

podcast 63 – Thomas Belsham and other scholars on John 8:58

podcast 235 – The Case Against Preexistence

Romans 9:5 @ biblicalunitarian.com

podcast 146 – Jesus as an Exemplar of Faith in the New Testament

Will Barlow - The "Throne Room Problem" - Responding to Trinitarian Claims about John 12:41

Scott Williams, "Discovery of the Sixth Ecumenical Council’s Trinitarian Theology: Historical, Ecclesial, and Theological Implications"

podcast 334 – “Who do you say I am?”

podcast 11 – Tertullian the unitarian

Thomas Gaston - Dynamic Monarchianism: The Earliest Christology (book)

This week's thinking music is "Ship of Theseus (Instrumental)" by Lemon Knife.

This episode consists of our opening statements. In my opening statement (slides here), I first briefly explain why a trinitarian should not want to identify Jesus and God. I assume that when my opponent says that "Jesus is God" he means that Jesus is fully divine/has the divine nature. I then explain a terrible problem of the official Christology of the Council of Chalcedon in 451: the implication that the divine nature of Christ is a someone (self, person) and the human nature of Christ is another someone (self, person). They try to fix this by asserting that there is only one someone there, but that's no real solution.

I then explain how later, the fully developed Chalcedonian catholic tradition does solve this problem by saying that Christ's "complete human nature" (human type of body + human type of soul), is not, because of its "assumption" by the divine nature/eternal Son/Word, a human person. But this clashes with the clear New Testament teaching that Jesus is a man/human person. It is no help to say there there is a "human" person here, meaning a divine person who now bears some mysterious relationship to a human type of soul and a human type of body which don't compose a human person. The problem is only exacerbated by the sixth ecumenical council in 681 at Constantinople, which seems to make each of Christ's natures a person/self/someone by saying that each has a will (an ability to choose).

Against this messy, catholic Christology I set out the clear New Testament teachings that the one God is (only) the Father himself, and that Jesus, his Messiah/Christ, is a miraculously conceived man, a human person born to Mary who did not have a biological human father. Properly trinitarian (tripersonal-God-involving) ideas seem to have originated in the latter half of the 300s, and so are alien to the thought world of the New Testament. Against various later speculations, the New Testament Jesus is the Messiah (a.k.a. the Son of God), a man, not an additional, lesser god to the one true god (the Father), or the same god as the Father, or a "divine Person" in an imagined triune god. I then explain five qualities which according to the New Testament Jesus has which rule his being fully divine.

About Dr. Bird's claim in his book Jesus Among the Gods that the New Testament Jesus is an ungenerated or unbegotten god, I point at that this is contrary to catholic traditions that say the Father "eternally generates" the Son. He also says there that the New Testament Son is supposed to "a Jewish god," but, I object, that would make him the Jewish god, and so, the Father/Yahweh. I then lay out four lines of evidence that the New Testament authors did not think Jesus to be fully divine, and rebut Dr. Bird's claim that early Christian theology should be seen as "incipient trinitarianism."

Dr. Bird says that he holds Jesus to be the second Person of the Trinity because this is what best makes sense of all of Scripture. The Bible teaches monotheism, that there is, strictly speaking, only one god, the creator, Yahweh. He points out that the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher-theologian Philo rejected the possibility of a human becoming a god and the possibility of God becoming a human. He suggests that if Philo had read John 1:1-14 he would have accepted all but the final verse. The author of the Fourth Gospel, Bird says, believes that Jesus in the eternal, divine Son, the Word--not (only) a man attested by God. The one God is known through his actions and is said in the Old Testament to create by his word and by his wisdom. Also, "the angel of the LORD" seems to be both God himself and someone else--a contradiction, or maybe a merely apparent one, a paradox. New Testament authors, he suggests, did not consider Jesus to be only human. In particular, the give him religious worship. They all thought Jesus to be "divine"--the only question was: In what sense? As Thomas said (John 20:28), Jesus is his god. Jesus is worthy of our worship. Paul closely associates together Jesus and God, often mentioning them together. Engaging with Jesus is engaging with the divine.

Jesus in the New Testament doesn't claim to be God, Bird argues, but texts like Mark 1:1-3, where the author applies a Yahweh text to Jesus, imply that he is Yahweh returning to Zion. Again, in Mark 2 we see Jesus forgiving human sins, which only God can do. And in Mark 14, before the high priest, Jesus claims that he will be co-enthroned with Yahweh, so that Jesus has divine authority. And John 1 teaches that God's Word is one and the same with the man Jesus. Philippians 2 teaches the full deity of Jesus and says Jesus is worthy of worship--and so we see that Jesus participates in the divine identity.

In 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, Bird says, Paul gives a revised, duality-including version of the Shema. And in Hebrews 1:3 Jesus is a representation of God's own being, not a mere man. This Jesus has a unique relationship with the Father, enabling us to have a relationship with him. His opponents understood (John 10:33) that he was claiming ontological equality with God. Thus in Revelation 5 we see the Lamb getting the same worship that was given to God Almighty in the vision of Revelation 4. But Jesus does not deserve that worship unless he is fully divine. It would be blasphemy to worship Jesus if he were a creature. Jesus's full divinity is also implied by prayer to Jesus. Of course, it took mainstream tradition a few centuries to work it all out. But Bird cites Eusebius the historian, Melito of Sardis, the Sibylline Oracles, Justin Martyr, and Ignatius of Antioch as early recognizers of the deity of Christ. He also mentions two pagan testimonies of the early worship of the Son--yet more support for "early high Christology."

Bird says that he's not impressed with analytic theology, but at any rate, many analytic theologians are trinitarians, such as Oliver Crisp. He says that he is an exegete, historian, and theologian, suggesting that he is more qualified to answer historical questions about early Christianity. In his view early Christians closely associated Jesus with God and thought Jesus was "from the same source of divinity." Trinitarian theology, he suggests, is not so much taught in the Bible as it is a hermeneutic, a way of reading it, a way of making sense of what the Bible as a whole affirms and denies. He points out that it does better, for instance, than modalism when it comes to reading the accounts of Jesus's baptism.

Contrary to what I said it my opening, Dr. Bird says we should think and take comfort in the fact that God was and is one of us, mentioning this 1990s song. In this way, he says, God moved from empathy to sympathy. This was far greater, he says, than sending "a super-human Messiah" to help us.

Finally, while conceding that some early Christians may have thought something like what I presented, he suggests that the closest analogue to the Christology I presented was the Christology of the pagan Neoplatonist and critic of Christianity Porphyry, who acknowledged Jesus as (only) a pious and wise man. Bird's Christology, he suggests, far better fits the Bible and the facts of history.

Which side put forward the better opening case, and why? Leave us a comment below.

Here below is the UCA-produced video. Special thanks to Canterbury Christadelphian Hall for hosting and recording this debate, and to UCA Podcast host Mark Cain for his expert help in producing the audio for this episode and for the video.

Links for this episode:

Dr. Michael Bird's YouTube channel

Dr. Bird's blog, Substack

Bird, Jesus Among the Gods (interview on Transfigured)

Bird, Evangelical Theology, 2nd ed.

Ehrman, Bird, and Stewart, When Did Jesus Become God?

podcast 270 – Origen’s “one God”

podcast 348 – Novatian’s On the Trinity – Part 2 – Two Thieves and Three Arguments

podcast 277 – Was Christ tempted in every way?

podcast 391 – Jesus’ Temptations and Ours – Part 1 – Luke 4

podcast 392 – Jesus’ Temptations and Ours – Part 2 – Things Apologists Say

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

Tuggy, Nicaea at 1700: Myths vs. Reality

podcast 291 – From one God to two gods to three “Gods” – John 1 and early Christian theologies

biblicalunitarian.com

Catholic Theologian Hans Küng on New Testament theology

This week's thinking music is "Ignite! (instrumental)" by Lemon Knife.

In this short video apologist Wes Huff confidently dishes out a bunch of mostly standard apologetics "answers" designed to sooth worries about "the doctrine of the Trinity."

In this reaction video I interact with Huff's claims, clarifying what he's saying and why, pointing out what he's doing and not doing, and how he fails to engage with the seemingly non-trinitarian theology of the New Testament.

He's right that it is Christians and not only non-Christians who have various worries about what is imagined to be one single doctrine. But as I discuss, his answers should not soothe Christians concerned about (1) how one can supposedly derive a Trinity doctrine from the Bible, and (2) how Trinity speculations seem incompatible with the theology of the Bible.

Links for this episode:

Video version of this episode

podcast 397 – Debunking Wes Huff’s Viral Trinity Moment with Michael Temperato

podcast 107 – Dr. Robert M. Bowman Jr. on triadic New Testament passages – part 1

podcast 62 – Dr. Dustin Smith on the preexistence of Jesus in the gospel of John

podcast 260 – How to Argue that the Bible is Trinitarian

podcast 189 – The unfinished business of the Reformation

podcast 248 – How Trinity theories conflict with the Bible

Dale Tuggy - Trinitarian "Fool's Gold" - Mainstream Christian Theologies - Late 100's to Early 200's

Dale Tuggy - Christian theologies in the year 240

podcast 2 – the “Athanasian Creed”

fulfillment fallacy: the Bible teaches that David is God

fulfillment fallacy: the Bible on another previous life of Jesus

This week's thinking music is "Slinky" by Mr. Smith.

A befuddled student asked apologist Wes Huff about how to make sense of the Trinity. Huff's answer has gone viral (also here and here).

Obviously, Christians are enjoying and sharing Huff's answer. But how helpful of an answer is it? Is this an answer that is going to help a thinking Christian love God with all her mind? Does it point her to the relevant biblical teachings?

Unfortunately, as Michael and I explain, for a number of reasons Huff's answer is not helpful to the informed, Scripture-loving truth-seeker.

Just after the 48 minutes mark (52 minutes in the video below) I challenge Wes Huff to a debate on whether the one God in the New Testament or the Father alone. For these reasons, he probably will not debate me. But the Christian public who relies on Huff's Trinity "answers" needs some better information, and to hear the unitarian Christian side of the case. If he does decide to accept the challenge, here is my recently updated starter pack for understanding my views.

As we recorded this video, I thought that perhaps it's unfair to critique Huff's Trinity thoughts based on an off-the-cuff answer. So in the next two episodes I'm going to interact with two other videos where he states his views at length and fully rehearsed. Perhaps those will fare better?

Here's the video version:

Links for this episode:

Michael Temperato's YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram

Tuggy, What is the Trinity?

Stanford Encyclopedia, "Trinity"

What Would It Take To Convert You Back To Trinitarianism?

R. T. Mullins's interview of William Lane Craig on his own Trinity theory

Gaston, Dynamic Monarchianism: The Earliest Christology?

Unitarian Christian Alliance Youtube channel

Unitarian Christian Alliance

Unitarian Christian Alliance - Conference near Sydney, Australia, March 2026

podcast 137 – Daniel Whitby’s "Mystery and Revelation Inconsistent"

The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel - Dale Tuggy, Benjamin D. Sommer

on Gregory of Nyssa's On Not Three Gods

podcast 302 – The Stages of Trinitarian Commitment

podcast 262 – The Trinity before Nicaea?

podcast 249 – Tuggy vs. Brown debate – The God of the Bible is the Father alone

McIntosh, ed. One God, Three Persons, Four Views

podcast 388 – Yes, "the Trinity" is a Problem – Part 2

podcast 387 – Yes, "the Trinity" is a Problem – Part 1

The Standard Opening Move

Why I'm Not a Buddhist - Dr. Dale Tuggy

podcast 76 – Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho – Part 3

podcast 75 – Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho – Part 2

podcast 74 – Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho – Part 1

This week's thinking music is "Going Rogue" by Grumplefunk.

Other videos in this UCA series:

This final installment includes the cross-examination times, audience Q & A, and our closing statements, of course with my commentary.

The cross-examination times are revealing. As we heard in part two, I presented Dr. White with an argument that his interpretation of John 1 implies that there are at least two gods and so should be rejected. In the cross-examination here, I ask which premise he rejects and why, and he says that he rejects this one, because it assumes unitarianism, or that God can be only one Person:

4. To have the divine essence is to be a god. (true by the definition of “divine essence”)

But as I explain in this episode, that premise doesn't assume unitarianism at all, and in fact some trinitarians agree with it, holding that the Father is a god, the Son is a god, and the Spirit is a god, but also that they're the same god. Really, White's favorite "assuming unitarianism" argument is just an irrelevant ad hominem.

Also, the lexicons exchange in my cross-ex time has to be heard to be believed.

I wrap this series up by explaining which side won this debate and why.

Here are the images I refer to in my closing statement which summarize three clashing narratives about Trinity doctrines: what apologists say, what theologians say, and what historians say, that is, what one learns from a deep dive into all the primary sources up to about the year 400 (in other words, the truth). (Thanks to Mark Cain for creating these!) If you want to hear more about these pre-trinitarian theologies check out podcasts 381 and 384 linked below.

Links for this episode:

In this second of three episodes, we'll review the rest of Dr. White's opening statement and the two rebuttals. In several cases I push the discussion past what we were able to do in the confines of the debate.

Here's the argument which I gave against White's interpretation of John 1 which I give in my rebuttal. The point is that White is committed to 1-3 and that 4 is true by the definition of "divine essence." The rest follows. My response is to deny premise 2. What is White's response?

(Note: on my debate slide there was a typo at the end of the last line - it cited 7 not line 6.)

Links for this episode:

Brent Nongbri's blog Variant Readings (articles)

God's Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts

“Reconsidering the Place of Papyrus Bodmer XIV-XV (P75) in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament,” Journal of Biblical Literature 135 (2016), 405-437.

[on P66:] “The Limits of Palaeographic Dating of Literary Papyri: Some Observations on the Date and Provenance of P.Bodmer II,” Museum Helveticum 71 (2014), 1-35.

podcast 62 – Dr. Dustin Smith on the preexistence of Jesus in the gospel of John

podcast 61 – Dr. Dustin Smith on preexistence in ancient Jewish thought

This week’s thinking music is “Gemini Instrumental” by Pipe Choir.