Trinities

After our December 2019 dialogue Dr. Cole followed up on his Understanding Christianity podcast, mounting some new arguments that according to the New Testament God is the Trinity. In this episode I start to evaluate these arguments. Pastor Cole particularly focuses on this famous text:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..."

Matthew 29:19, ESV

According to a famous 19th century unitarian Christian scholar, a better translation would be:

"Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of al nations; baptizing them to the Father, and to the Son, and to the holy spirit."

I discuss why he thinks this, and what I make of this passage, and of Dr. Cole's claim that it teaches the one God to be the Trinity.

Then pastor Cole argues from the Gospel according to John. He doubles down on some of his claims about ch. 1, and also mounts an argument from the "I am" sayings of Jesus in that book. Is Jesus here claiming to be God himself by applying God's own name to himself?

He also argues that John 1:18 teaches that "Jesus is God." I explain why I think this is mistaken, as is Dr. Cole's claim that John 20 teaches that Jesus is the one God.

Next week I'll evaluate his arguments based on the writings of Paul.

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In the second half of our dialogue we start by discussing John 17:1-3.

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

John 17:1-3, NRSV

I argue that this passage straightforwardly supports my position, that in the New Testament the Father is the one true God, not the Trinity.

We then give our closing summations of our respective cases, and our host Marlon Wilson has us answer some questions from the online audience, which relate to many passages. (Most of the passages mentioned and discussed are listed below.)

What did you learn through listening through this dialogue?

And in your view, which side made the stronger case, and why?

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In this first part of my dialogue with pastor Sean Cole, we introduce ourselves, offer brief opening statements, and then we discuss which Trinity theory he thinks is taught in scripture, and how we understand the famous first chapter of the gospel according to John. In his opening statement Dr. Cole essentially expresses some core convictions of catholic traditions about the Father, Son, and Spirit, and appeals to the famous "Great Commission" passage at the end of Matthew. I base my opening case on four indisputable facts about the New Testament - that these facts best fit my thesis that the New Testament authors are unitarians, that is, Christians who think that the one God is Father alone, not the Trinity. These facts are:

If you accept some triune-God theory, how do you explain these four facts?

Next week: the rest of my dialogue with Dr. Cole.

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In this special episode of the trinities podcast current board members of the UCA discuss our vision for this new parachurch organization.

Sean Finnegan, Kegan Chandler, Mark Cain and I discuss:

Are you a unitarian Christian? If so, please join the UCA and stand together with us. And after you create your personal profile please (with the consent of its leadership) create a Group profile for your church, house church, or Bible study.

A special thanks to Mark Cain for editing this episode.

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Two of the four gospels contain accounts of Jesus's birth. Does either of them portray Jesus as "becoming Incarnate" - in other words, having always been divine, he becomes human when Mary becomes pregnant with him? Do they teach that an eternal divine Person came to earth from heaven? That a divine nature "assumed a complete human nature, body and soul"?

In this episode we look for the sorts of ideas that would indicate that the gospels according to Matthew and Luke are committed to the Incarnation of Jesus. We'd expect to see some reference to (1) a before-state, where he is only divine, not human, (2) the transition, when he becomes incarnate, and (3) the after-state, where he is both divine and human, a godman, God in human baby form.

What if we don't find any such ideas in the Jesus-origin-stories in Matthew and Luke? What then should we conclude about their christological commitments?

I discuss this inconsistent triad of claims. It seems that a thinking Christian ought to deny one of these claims.

Which do you deny, and why?

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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 Father, 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 to the Son.

I explain why he fails to demonstrate that, and argue that there are two more plausible ways to understand what Paul is saying here.

The keys are realizing that (1) nothing in the context of 1 Corinthians 8 demands that Paul is talking about the Genesis creation in verse 6, (2) "all things " (Greek: ta panta) typically does not mean the sum total of created things, and (3) clear Genesis creation texts in the New Testament assume that the one creator is God, a.k.a. the Father.

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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 religious marketplace of what we now call the first few Christian centuries. In this interview Dr. Hurtado answer questions such as:

[spp-tweet tweet="Why did Roman rulers and polemicists find early Christianity so alarming?"]

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In this 100th episode of the trinities podcast I talk with Dr. Hurtado about his book God in New Testament Theology. We discuss:

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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 christology" and what it means when applied to his own work. He discusses various angels and men who in various ancient Jewish writings are in some way exalted and honored in God-like ways, and how these cases differ from that of Jesus. Dr. Hurtado has argued that in the early years of Christianity we suddenly see a distinctive pattern of Jesus-worship, as evidenced by the earliest books in the New Testament. Such practices don't derive from a second or third century, Gentile Christian context, but rather from the earliest, largely Jewish Christian context.

In his view, the New Testament portrays Jesus as having "divine status." Does this mean that they thought Jesus and his Father to be the same god? Dr. Hurtado discusses this in light of various passages in the gospel according to John, and also the statements of 1 Timothy that God is immortal. (1:17, 6:16) The New Testament, he observes, emphasizes that Jesus was a genuine human being, a man, although in his view it also presents Jesus as existing even when the world was made, in a pre-human phase of his existence. God and Jesus, in his view, are closely linked, but also distinguished in the New Testament. God exalts Jesus to divine glory, which is why we must worship Jesus, according to early Christians. Worship of Jesus, he argues, has a theocentric (God-centered) justification or basis.

He also comments briefly on James Dunn's Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?, the idea that "worship" by definition can be given only to God, and whether we should start our christological thinking with fourth century or with first century sources.

Our next is the 100th (!) episode of the trinities podcast: another new interview with Dr. Hurtado, about his God in New Testament Theology.

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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 that he makes about the famous Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) and about Paul's discussion of food offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 8.

But there is plenty to disagree about as well. I argue that New Testament monotheism is not only the claim that there's only one god, but also includes the claim that this one God just is the Father. I also argue that Dr. Burgos's claim that "Lord" is "a title of deity" is either trivially true or obviously false - either way, of no help in interpreting Paul's remarks in 1 Corinthians 8:4-6. Like other biblical unitarian Christians, I claim that the key to understanding the innovative New Testament usage of "Lord" is the much cited Psalm 110:1, which in Greek translation features two who are referred to as "Lord" (or more precisely, "the Lord," i.e. God, vs. "my Lord," i.e. the human who is here being exalted by God).

I also discuss his newfangled reading of 1 Corinthians 8 which imagines that Paul is there "reformulating the Shema," and why unitarian Christians think that the Father is the one creator of the heaves and the earth.

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