¶1Hello everyone and a very warm welcome [music] in every sense of that word warm to the guild church of St. Katherine Cree in the heart of London. I'm John Nelson and tonight on Unbelievable we're here for a very special debate co-sponsored by the Unitarian Christian Alliance. I I don't know about you, but what I love about debates is that there's always this electricity in the room beforehand, a sense that a clash of ideas is coming, but also an excitement that we will get to learn so much from the exchange. Tonight's debate will, I'm sure, prove no exception to this norm, as it concerns a difficult topic at the center of Christianity.
¶2Is Consilia trinitarianism, the trinitarianism confessed by the historic church councils, both orthodox and biblical? To debate the question, we have two extraordinary theologians and philosophers arguing that trinitarian trinitarianism is neither biblical nor orthodox. We have Dr. Dale Tuggy. Dale earned his PhD in philosophy from Brown University and was professor in the philosophy department at the State University of New York at Fredonian from 2000 to 2018.
¶3He is also, as many of you will already know, the host of the immensely popular Trinities podcast and the author of numerous articles and books on the Trinity, including Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible. And arguing in favor of Consilia Trinitarianism is Dr. Joshua Siduard. Josh earned his PhD at the University of York with a thesis on the metaphysics of the Trinity and is now a teaching fellow in philosophy at the University of Birmingham. He is also the author of a wide range of books and articles in the philosophy of religion including the coherence of the trinity a philosophical exploration.
¶4Could we give a very warm welcome to our debaters [applause] to give you a sense of how things are going to run tonight? We don't quite have the two months of the council of Nika, but we are going to try to explore the question of the trinity in detail, beginning with 35 minutes opening statements by each speaker. Following this, we will have 10-minute rebuttals which will run continuously and then a short break. After the break, we're going to have 20 minutes of discussion followed by 20 minutes of audience questions. So, there will be space for you to write down your questions and we'll collect those in the break.
¶5So, without further ado, for our opening statement in defense of Consilia Trinitarianism, please welcome Dr. Joshua Siguard. Okay, thank you very much everyone. So, Consilia Trinitarianism is the conjunction of all claims about the trinity found in the authoritative consilia sources, the creeds, definitions, cannons, anthmas, and endorsed documents of the seven ecumenical councils. The doctrine is this.
¶6There is one God, the father, and two relationally distinct divine persons, the son and spirit, who are of the same divinity as the father. Three terms here require clarification. Of the same divinity means a son and the spirit possess the same divine substance, essence, and power as the father. Relationally distinct means each person is distinguished by relations of origin. The father is unbegotten, the son eternally begotten by the father, and the spirit eternally proceeding from the father.
¶7And the one god when used as a referring term identifies the father the sole fundamental divine person. That is the doctrine I defend tonight. I argue not merely that consiliated trinitarianism or what I term CT for short is compatible with scripture and history but that it is the best explanation of the evidence and the best explanation of evidence satisfies four criteria. First simplicity. The best theory explains the same data with fewer core claims and fewer extra assumptions since each ad hoc commitment reduces simplicity.
¶8Second, explanatory power. It makes the same data we find expected. So the data would be surprising if the theory were false. Third, fit with background knowledge. It fits what we already know, which here is a strict monotheism of ancient Judaism.
¶9Fourth, unification. It explains and thus ties together diverse kinds of evidence within a single coherent framework. Now, these criteria matter because a theory may be possible without being the best explanation. The issue tonight is therefore not whether my opponent can propose alternative readings of individual texts, but whether he can offer one coherent framework that explains the whole body of evidence better than CT. Consider a detective at a crime scene.
¶10The best theory needs the fewest assumptions. explains the evidence, fits with what's known about the suspect, and unites fingerprints, motive, and testimony under one narrative rather than coincidence. I'll apply the same criteria tonight to show that CT satisfies all four and is therefore the best explanation of the data. Thus, it is both biblical and orthodox. The biblical and historical case has five claims.
¶11First, the father is the one God. Second, the son is relationally distinct from the father. Third, the spirit is relationally distinct from the father. Fourth, the son is of the same divinity as the father. And fifth, the spirit is of the same divinity as the father.
¶12These are the five pillars of CT. Now, let me begin with scripture. My opponents and I agree that scripture identifies the father as the one God. So I shall be brief. Four lines of evidence establish this.
¶13First, text explicitly name the father as the one God. Second, scripture repeatedly uses father and god as co-referential terms in the title God the father. Third, scripture regularly uses the unqualified term God for the father as in John 3:16, Romans 8:3, and Acts 2:33, where the sending of his son identifies God as the father. Fourth, scripture consistently portrays God as a single personal subject, speaking, acting, and sending, and entering covenant as one. CT leads us to expect precisely these four lines of evidence.
¶14So far, no disagreement. But the big question now is how are the son and the spirit related to the one God, the father? Here the paths diverge, focusing first on the son's personhood and relational distinction. Philippians 2:6-7 attributes three intentional pre-incarnation actions to him. He considered, emptied himself and took the form of a servant.
¶15These are acts of a personal agent, not an impersonal entity. John's gospel presents the same pattern. The son is relationally distinct as the father's only begotten son whom the father sends 41 times. And in John 17, Jesus prays to the father as a distinct personal subject. Yet, as Philippians 2 shows, his personhood does not begin at the incarnation.
¶16John 1:1 states in the Greek that the word was proton Theon meaning with God which indicates a genuine relational distinction. Verse two retains the same subject Hutas an enontheon. This one was in the beginning with God. Verse three then attributes agency to him declaring that all things came into being through him. The sequence is decisive.
¶17The word is with God, remains the subject of the passage and acts as the agent of creation. This is the language of a personal subject who stands in relation to God and exercises agency, not an impersonal quality within God. Now, this matters because my interlocator may argue that the word is merely a plan, attributes or mode within God. Yet a mode, which is a way that something exists, is not literally with what it modifies any more than my manner of walking is with me. Had John meant an attribute or mode within God, the preposition n meaning in was available.
¶18Instead, he chose the Greek term pro meaning with or toward, thereby placing the word in personal relation to God. John's point is therefore clear. The word is personally distinct from the father while possessing what God is by nature. And John 17 confirms this reading in verse 5. Jesus asked the father to glorify him with the glory I had with you before the world existed.
¶19The first person I and the language of glory with you indicates a personal subject existing with the father before creation. Verse 24 strengthens the point. Since the father loved the son before the foundation of the world, an attribute or mode does not possess glory with someone or speak in the first person of its own prior existence. While treating the son merely as a plan reduces the father's precation love to a strained metaphor or figurative language, the literal personal reading explains both statements directly. Now, admittedly, Jewish wisdom literature personifies wisdom as standing beside God and participating in creation.
¶20Yet, John's case rests not upon the term with or creative agency alone, but upon the subject's continuous identity. The same word who was with God and was God and through whom all things came into being, becomes flesh, possesses the glory of the Father's only son, was loved before the world's foundation, and is identified as Jesus Christ, who reveals the Father. Personification may poetically speak an act. But my interlocator must then reduce Jesus's first person recollection of pre-existent glory and reciprocal love with the father to further figurative language. John plainly moves beyond poetic personification.
¶21The literal reading therefore best explains the evidence. A continuous personal subject relationally distinct from the father and possessing divine glory, not a mere plan, attribute or mode. Focusing now on the spirit's personhood and relational distinction. First, Jesus says that the spirit proceeds from the father in John 15:26, a relation of origin distinct from the son's begetting. Paul calls the same spirit both the spirit of God and the spirit of Christ in Romans 8:9, revealing permanent relations to both father and son.
¶22Moreover, the father sends the spirit in John 14:26, naturally distinguishing the sender from the one sent, just as the father's sending of the son presupposes relational distinction. In John 14:16, Jesus calls a spirit another helper using the Greek alos, another of the same kind, rather than hetos, another of a different kind. Hence the spirit does not merely replace Jesus functionally but continues his personal ministry by teaching, reminding, testifying and guiding together with his procession from the father in John 15:26. This reveals a cumulative pattern of procession sending personal agency and distinct relations to father and son. Furthermore, the New Testament does not present the spirit as an impersonal force or power.
¶23In Acts 13:2, while the church worships and fasts, the Holy Spirit says, "Set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them." This is not the language of an impersonal force or power, but of a personal agent who speaks, commands, calls, and directs the church. The pattern continues throughout the scriptures. The spirit teaches, testifies, guides into truth, hears from the father, intercedes, makes decisions, and can be lied to, grieved, resisted, and insulted. These are marks of a personal agent. If CT is true, this is exactly what we would expect.
¶24A Unitarian who reduces a spirit to an impersonal force or power must explain why the New Testament repeatedly attributes personal action and treatment to him and add that such language is again merely figurative. CT however needs no rescue device. The spirit is personally active, related and distinguished while remaining inseparable from the divine life of father and son. Yet relational distinction and personhood are not tonight's central dispute. The decisive question is whether these distinct persons are creatures or are of the same divinity as the father.
¶25And this is where CT's explanatory superiority becomes clearest. Here background knowledge is crucial since the New Testament must be read against the background of ancient Jewish monotheism and its fundamental creator creation divide. The distinction between the God who creates and rules all things and every created reality depended upon him. Although ancient Judaism recognized exalted intermediaries, it maintained this decisive boundary between creator and creature. Richard Bourham therefore argues that Jewish monotheism centered on God's unique divine identity.
¶26God was not merely the greatest being within a class but occupied a category wholly his own. Larry Hutardo reaches the same conclusion through cultic practice arguing that the clearest indicator of divine uniqueness was the worship and devotion offered to the one recognized as uniquely God. How then did the ancient Jews recognize God or identify him? Well, just as the king of England might be recognized by the unique title he bears, authority, functions, throne, and honor. So, ancient Jews recognized God by five features.
¶27First, he bore the unique divine name Yahweh as in Exodus 3:14. Second, he possessed unique divine attributes above all eternality as in Psalm 92 and Isaiah 40:28. Third, he performed unique divine actions creating and sustaining all things as in Genesis 1:1 and Isaiah 44:24. Fourth, he occupied the supreme throne of universal rule as in Isaiah 6:1 and Psalm 103:19. And fifth and finally, he alone received the full range of religious devotion as in Deuteronomy 6:13 and Exodus 23.
¶28These five categories, names, attributes, actions, rulership, and devotion mark the divine side of the creator creation divide. Now consider what the New Testament as a whole does with Jesus. First, the New Testament gives him God's names. John calls him God at three strategic points. The word was God in 1:1, the unique or only begotten God in 118.
¶29Thomas's confession, "My Lord and my God in 2028." On faithful Jewish lips, Thomas's words constitute worship of Israel's God, especially in light of Psalm 35:23. Jesus is also plausibly called God in Romans 9:5, Titus 2:13, 2 Peter 1:1, Hebrews 1:8, and 1 John 5:20. The New Testament also calls him Lord Curios over 600 times. Yet the decisive point is not the number, but the application of Yahweh texts to him. Philippians 2:10-11 applies Isaiah 45:23 to Jesus.
¶30Romans 10:13 applies Joel 2:32 to calling upon his name for salvation. And Hebrews 1:10 applies Psalm 102 to him as creator of heaven and earth. This sustained attribution of divine names is not decorative language, but strong evidence that the early church placed Jesus on the creator side of the creator creation divide within Jewish monotheism. Second, the New Testament gives him God's attributes, decisively eternality, which Borham identifies as the metaphysical attribute of God, most often encountered in Jewish literature. Several texts teach the son's pre-incarnate existence.
¶31John 1:1 places the word with God in the beginning. Philippians 2:6 says, "He existed in the form of God before emptying himself." And John 17:5 speaks of glory shared with the father before the world existed. Yet pre-existence alone is insufficient since a creature could in principle pre-exist the present created order. What matters here is that the sun is never presented as coming into being. John makes this clear through his verb usage.
¶32In John 1:1 he uses the Greek imperfect ain meaning was for the words continuous existence in the beginning. In John 1:3 he uses the Greek term egenoto meaning came into being for the created order. He does not say that the word came into being. He says that word already was reserving came into being for everything created. Jesus repeats this contrast in John 8:58.
¶33Before Abraham came into being ganest thi he declares I am ago ami. This recalls Psalm 92 in the Greek Old Testament where before the mountains came into being, God simply is. And Jesus's hearers recognize the implication, immediately taking up stones. Moreover, Hebrews 7:3 adds typological witness to this. MelkiseDC is without beginning or end and made like the son of God.
¶34The direction matters. MelkiseDC resembles the son, not the son Melkisedc. His scriptural portrayal reflects a son's eternal priesthood. So together, John 1, John 8, and Hebrews 7 place a son not among creatures, but eternally with God. Third, the New Testament gives Jesus God's actions above all creation.
¶35John 1:3, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Colossians 1:16, and Hebrews 1:10 attribute to him creation of the original physical universe, not merely the new creation. As Colossians 1:16 is explicit, all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, came into being through him and exist for him. The Son is excluded from the created order. Since if all created things came into being through him, he cannot be among those that are created. Yet, creation is not the only divine action.
¶36As a son sustains all things by his powerful word in Hebrews 1:3, authoritatively forgives sins in Mark 2:5, gives life to whomever he wills in John 5:21, raises himself from the dead in John 21:19, sends the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:33, and judges all humanity in John 5:22. These functions span all of time. Creation in the primeval past, sustaining and forgiving in the present, judgment in the age to come. The son is thus active at every horizon of divine action. Fourth, the New Testament gives him God's rulership.
¶37Revelation 22 speaks of the throne of God and of the lamb, yet continues in the singular, his servants will serve him and they will see his face. Importantly, the verb latrusin in this passage denotes sacred service characteristically offered to God. God and the lamb are therefore distinguished yet united in one throne, one reign, and one object of sacred service. Likewise, Paul speaks of the judgment seat of God in Romans 14:10 and the judgment seat of Christ in 2 Corinthians 5:10, indicating that Christ exercises the final divine judgment. Fifth and most decisively, the New Testament accords Jesus the devotion due to God.
¶38As Burman and Kichesky document, he receives the full range of religious devotion. Worship offered to him, prayers addressed to him, benedictions invoking him, doxologies directed to him, hymns sung to him, baptism in his name, and the Lord's supper celebrated in remembrance of him, and participation in his once-forall sacrifice. Even faith, hope, fear and love are directed towards him in forms characteristically reserved for God. Faith in the Lord becomes faith in Jesus. Hope in God becomes hope in Christ.
¶39Fear of the Lord becomes reverence before Christ. And love for the Lord becomes love for the Lord Jesus. Moreover, Revelation 5 presents the clearest example of cultic devotion. Every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the sea offers the same blessing, honor, glory, and dominion to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb. The dilemma is unavoidable.
¶40If Jesus is a creature, then all creation directs divine worship to one of its own members, committing the creature worship condemned in Romans 1. CT avoids this conclusion, however, because the sun does not belong to the created order. As Hitardo argues, this devotional pattern places Jesus within the divine identity from the earliest Christian period. So which explanation best accounts for all of this? CT says the son is of the same divinity as the father.
¶41If CT is true, we would expect him to bear God's names, possess God's attributes, perform God's actions, share God's rulership, and receive God's devotion. That is precisely what we find. And here unification is decisive. These are five kinds of evidence from different authors, genres, decades and contexts unified under one framework. No rival achieves this.
¶42Rivals try to isolate a single piece of evidence. But CT explains why all five point in the same direction. The sun belongs on the divine side of the creator creation divide. A Unitarian regards Jesus as a creature and must therefore explain why he uniquely bears at their highest intensity every identifying feature of God. Two alternatives are usually offered.
¶43Either God exalted the man Jesus or Jesus functioned as God's appointed agent or image receiving the names, attributes, actions, rulership, and devotion. Yet both hypotheses face serious difficulties. First neither explains the evidence without separately reinterpreting each category. His names become honorary, his attributes delegated, his actions performed by proxy, his rulership merely functional, and the devotion he receives something less than worship. This introduces five additional assumptions whereas CTI explains the convergence of the five categories without such reinterpretation through a single claim.
¶44The son is of the same divinity as the father. Second, both hypotheses threaten the creator creation distinction central to Jewish monotheism. Although ancient Judaism recognized exalted agents, no created figure bears the complete combination of God's names, attributes, actions, universal rulership and devotion. Thus, granting all five to a creature would erase the very distinction Jewish monotheism protects. And no precedent exists for such a figure.
¶45My opponent may appeal to exaltation texts such as Philippians 2:9-11, Acts 2:33, and Matthew 28:18. CT, however, explains them more naturally. The Father publicly vindicates Jesus by manifesting the glory already his before the world existed, rather than conferring uniquely divine prerogatives upon a creature. Moreover, the pre-exaltation evidence remains decisive. John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16 place him on the creator side of the divide while Philippians 2:6 presents him as exalting existing sorry in God's form before emptying himself.
¶46These alternatives therefore fail both on background knowledge and simplicity since they either compromise Jewish monotheism or introduce extra assumptions. Now the biblical case for CTI does not rest on the son alone for the same five categories apply to the spirit. He's identified with God in Acts 5:3-4, called the Lord in 2 Corinthians 3:17, and named the eternal spirit in Hebrews 9:14. He also performs divine actions, creating, regenerating, giving life, inspiring scripture, raising Christ, distributing gifts according to his will, interceding with divine knowledge, directing the church, and making believers God's temple. He's also the recipient of devotion by being included with the father and son in the singular baptismal name of Matthew 28:19 and as a co-source of blessing in 2 Corinthians 13:14.
¶47These are not creaturely functions but place a spirit within the same divine identity marked by names, attributes, actions, rulership, and devotion. The biblical case is now complete. Let me turn to orthodoxy. Does this reading correspond to the consensus of the fathers and the authoritative consilia statements? We must not ask whether every father produced a fully developed trinitarian system that includes all five pillars of CT since none was writing a modern systematic treaties.
¶48Rather, what is important is their collective witness. What they affirmed taken together across centuries, regions, languages, and controversies about the trinity. One father emphasizing the son's eternality, another the spirit's divinity, another the father's identity as the one God. Individually, each gives part of the picture. Together, as I will demonstrate, the pattern is consilia trinitarianism.
¶49From the earliest period, the fathers confessed one God, the father. The shepherd of Hermas says, "Believe that God is one who created and established all things." Irenaeus calls God alone God, alone lord, alone creator, alone father. The first pillar was not contested then, nor is it tonight. the issues whether the fathers also confessed the second to fifth pillars of CT. I will now show that they did.
¶50Ignatius of Antioch writing the early second century repeatedly calls Jesus God. He speaks of Jesus Christ our God. Says believers are stirred up by the blood of God and describes Christ as God existing in flesh both of Mary and of God. He further states that Christ is above all time eternal and invisible yet who became visible for our sakes. Concerning the spirit's divine origin and personal role, he writes, "For though some would have deceived me according to the flesh, yet the spirit as being from God is not deceived.
¶51For it knows both whence it comes and whether it goes and detects the secrets of the heart." In Ignatius, then the son's divinity and distinction from the father together with the spirit's divine origin and personal agency are already evident. Justin Martyr writing the mid-second century says that the word is numerically distinct from the father yet not separated from him since the beginning as he writes is not by obsision but like fire kindled from fire without loss or division. Malito Sardis then gives the same high Christology in the language of creation. He calls Christ created together with the father and says that he is in the father the son in God. He also says the crucified Christ is the one who hung up the earth in space, fixed the heavens and bore up the earth.
¶52So Justin gives us distinction without division while Molito places the crucified Christ, the son on the creator's side of reality. Athanagoras then gives the same pattern in explicitly triadic language. He says that Christians acknowledge God the father, God the son, and the holy spirit. He says that they declare both their power in union and their distinction in order. Athanagoras thus gives us one triadic confession that includes real distinction together with unity in the divine power of father, son and spirit.
¶53Irenaeus then gives the decisive second century formulation. He states, "The father is God and the son is God. For that which is begotten of God is God." And so in the substance and power of his being, there is shown forth one God. But there is also according to the economy of our redemption both son and father. The father and son are therefore relationally distinct.
¶54yet one in divine substance and power. Urenaeus also places the spirit alongside them saying now this God is glorified by his word who is his son continually and by the holy spirit who is the wisdom of the father of all. CT's basic pattern is thus clear. Father, son and spirit are distinct while the son and spirit belong with the father within the one divine substance and power. In the third century this faith is further precified.
¶55Hippolytis writes, "When I speak of another, I do not mean two gods, but as it were, light from light, water from its source, a ray from the sun, language later adopted at Nika. Origin likewise precisifies the son's sameness of divinity with the father and his eternality writing that whatever belongs to the nature of deity is common to the father and the son while describing his generation as as eternal and everlasting as the brilliancancy which is produced from the son. He further states that the omnipotence of father and son is one and the same. That the son is not of a different goodness but of that only which exists in the father. And lastly that there is unity of nature and substance belonging to father and son.
¶56Similarly total describes the father son and spirit as in his own words three not in substance but in form not in power but in aspect yet of one substance one condition and one power. He affirms that the word is both always in the father and always with God. So despite ongoing questions regarding their subordinationism, both origin and Tatalian clear clearly affirm the son's eternal pre-existence and sameness of divinity explicitly rejecting any creaturely nature. Theosis of Alexandria follows the same trajectory and importantly Athanasius cites him in the 4th century to prove that Nika did not invent its positions. As the agnosis writes, the essence of the son is not one procured from without, nor acrewing out of nothing.
¶57He then says that the son's essence sprang from the father's essence and describes it as an effluence of the father's essence while insisting that the father's essence suffers no partition. So forth agnosticus, the son is from the father's essence, not from nothing, and is also of the same essence as the father as na would affirm 55 years later. Dionius of Rome goes further against triism. He warns against those who, as he states, divide and cut to pieces and destroy the divine monarchy. Scripture, Dionius says, teaches a triad.
¶58Yet neither Old Testament nor New preaches three gods. Equally, he writes that it's not ordinary, but even the highest blasphemy to call the Lord in any sort a handiwork, meaning a creation. We must therefore, as he states, neither divide into three godheads, nor call Christ the work, but confess God the Father Almighty, Christ Jesus his son, and the Holy Ghost, so that in his words, both the divine triad and the holy preaching of the monarchy will be preserved. Dianis of Alexandria, whom Athanasius also cites, was accused of denying Christ's unity of essence with God and treating him as a creature. He rejects both charges directly declaring I do not hold that the word is a creature and call God not his maker but his father.
¶59He writes that the son could not be outside the essence of the father and insists that he disproved the charge that he denied Christ to be of one essence with God. Dianis also affirms the son's eternal generation stating there was no time when God was not father for as he explains God was always father and the son always exists with the father. Dianius thus provides a clear pyian witness to the son's unccreated status, eternal generation, personal distinction, and unity of God, unity of essence with the one God, the father. Gregory Thamatugris offers an especially important third century witness to the perfection of all three persons, describing the father, son, and spirit as a perfect triad whose glory, eternity, and sovereignty are neither divided nor estranged. He excludes every creaturely interpretation declaring that within the trinity there is nothing either created or server nor anything added later as if it formally did not exist and was subsequently introduced.
¶60He concludes that neither was the son ever wanting to the father nor the spirit to the son and confesses the holy spirit as having his subsistence from god. Gregory thus places a son and spirit within the father's unccreated and perfect divine life sharing at the same glory sovereignty and eternity. At the century's end the council of Antioch in 268 condemned Paulo Samosarta for reducing the son to a non-subsistent word. The bishop state and I quote, "All the scriptures inspired by God revealed that the son of God is God and God before the ages not in fornowledge but in essence and subsistence." The term not in fornowledge is decisive here. The son is neither a divine plan nor an impersonal mode possesses real pre-emporal subsistence and divinity.
¶61Yet the bishops also confess that both testaments acknowledge one God. Antioch thus brings together the son's sameness of divinity with the oneness of God the father presenting this as and I quote the faith believed in by the whole church under heaven. So I will now just move quickly to save a bit of time to the consilia text because I think that's the key thing to bring this to an end. So turning lastly to the consilia evidence the definitive night the definitive statement is the nino consolitan creed of 381. It opens we believe in god the father almighty identifying the father as the one god.
¶62It confesses a son as the only begotten son of God, begotten of the father before all ages, affirming relational distinction, and as true God from true God, begotten not made, of one essence with the father, affirming sameness of divinity. It likewise confesses the spirit as one who proceeds from the father, affirming relational distinction, and who with the father and son together is worshiped and glorified, affirming sameness of divinity. The creed structure therefore is CT. One God the father and two relationally distinct persons the son and spirit who are of the same divinity of the father. CT thus receives not merely petristic support as we've just seen but explicit ecumenical consilia affirmation.
¶63Now, my interlocator may argue that the creed of 381 implicitly introduced a tripersonal god, thus replacing the one God with the father as a being who's now a tripersonal subject. However, this reading is ad hoc and lacks evidential support from any consilia text. The creed begins as we have seen with the father as the one god thus affirming CT's first pillar rather than replacing him in any way with a tripersonal subject. Moreover, my interlocus claim that CTI was absent from orthodox tradition is refuted by the fifth ecumenical council in the sixth century. It declares and I quote, "If anyone will not confess that the father, son, and spirit have one nature or substance, that they have one power and authority, that there is a consubstantial trinity, one deity to be adorned in three subsistences or persons, let him be anthma.
¶64There is only one God and father from whom all things come and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom all things are and one holy spirit in whom all things are." CT's pattern therefore remains intact within the ecumenical consilia tradition and the same pattern is seen in Constantinople blackeney and we see this stating that there is one god the father and so we have these consilia texts that are telling us very clearly that the one god is still the father and was never never replaced as a tr personal being as my interlocator will argue. So in conclusion, CT best explains the biblical and historical evidence by offering the simplest, most powerful and most unified accounts while fitting our background knowledge. I therefore submit that CT is both biblical and orthodox. And thus the correct Christian position is that there is one God the father and two relationally distinct persons of son and spirit who are of the same divinity as the father. This is grounded upon the Bible upon the petristic scholars and upon the consilia texts and thus it is biblical and orthodox.
¶65Thank you very much. For me, this debate is about the clash between New Testament doctrines and incompatible later doctrines. I've been following Jesus since I was born again as a boy. And for about the last 30 years, I've been investigating the history, variety, and alleged uh biblical credentials of tripersonal God speculations. Now, you might hear that I'm a Unitarian Christian and think my views are liberal, but my theology and Christologology are older and more traditional than those of my opponent.
¶66Disciples of Jesus should be faithful to his theology and christologology as we see taught in the New Testament. Even when these clash with prestigious long-standing speculations favored by battling bishops, popes, emperors, and the theologians of the fourth Christian century and beyond. Some doctrine of the trinity has been required for mainstream Christians since about the year 381 when the first arguably trinitarian creed was composed by a council of bishops assembled by an emperor at Constantinople. Trinitarian theology is one on which there is one god who exists in three conssubstantial persons. But the creeds don't tell us what the term person means.
¶67So even today fully informed trinitarian theologians interpret in a number of mutually incompatible ways. Three self trinitarians think the persons are three selves. Three someone's who are friends. Some talk of an eternal dance of love. For oneself trinitarians the persons they say are not persons in the modern sense.
¶68They mean not selves, but rather something like three personalities or three ways the one God lives. On this sort of theology, there's just one who there. Negative mysterians say we don't understand what the persons are supposed to be, but we don't have a better word for what God is three of. All analogies for the trinity are bad analogies. You should just say the required language and move on.
¶69No one can really understand it anyway. So which of these interpretations of the doctrine of the trinity is correct? Well, trinitarian theologians disagree. And I hate to tell you, these are not all the competing interpretations. I've discussed more in this long encyclopedia article, which you can easily Google.
¶70And a kindler and gentler introduction to this realm of theorizing is my short book, What is the Trinity? It's concerning that trinitarian theologians can't seem to agree on one theology. You'd think that if God revealed himself to be the Trinity, there would be more agreement than this about what that means. What these competing theologies have in common is the vague idea that God is tripal. In other words, that the one God and the Trinity are one and the same.
¶71The best trinitarian scholars concede that no trinity doctrine is taught or presupposed in the Bible. Rather, trinitarian theology is a broad research program. Sometimes they say a hermeneutic, a family of related ways to try to make sense of all of scripture. In other words, no trinity doctrine has been revealed, but we need some such doctrine to rightly understand what has been revealed. Right?
¶72They think it's the best explanation. After much study, I've concluded that this is a failed research program. Trinitarian speculations only get in the way of understanding what the biblical authors are saying. And any Trinitarian theology by positing the Trinity as the one God contradicts the New Testament according to which the one God is none other than the father. And the New Testament, Jesus is a miraculously conceived man, God's Messiah or Christ, not as Catholic Orthodoxy came to say, a second divine person who has in some inconceivable manner hypothetically united himself to a complete human nature.
¶73The man we see in the New Testament, of course, performs normal human actions like eating, speaking, and sleeping, shown as a blue lightning bolt there. But he's also empowered by God's spirit to perform miracles such as healings shown as a red lightning bolt. In other words, God is working through Jesus on what Dr. Siguad calls consiliar trinitarianism. The one God is not the trinity but rather a single person, the father.
¶74This theology is a remarkable retreat from trinitarianism as it throws away the core claim that God is tripal. On this theology, the only God and the father are one and the same. This is one of many things we agree on. Again, we agree on the inspiration of scripture that the son exists because of God. That the word God is used differently of God in Jesus in the New Testament and that belief in a tripersonal God is a mistake that is not supported by and actually contradicts the New Testament.
¶75Thus, we agree that most people who call themselves trinitarians are confused about what scripture teaches. Now, there are more agreements coming, but first we need to discuss some of our disagreements. Dr. Siguati thinks that in addition to the father, there are two more fully divine persons, the son and the spirit. Later, I'll show how this clashes with the New Testament.
¶76After another disagreement is over whether his theology is properly speaking trinitarian. Consiliar trinitarianism which has also recently been called monarchical trinitarianism is not despite the names trinitarian as the core idea of a tripersonal god has been abandoned. Yet as with most trinity theories the second and third divine persons are supposed to get their divinity from how they are produced. Somehow the father eternally generates his son and eternally the two of them cooperate together so that the spirit proceeds from them. Against this I agree with a broad consensus of present- day biblical scholars that there is no biblical support whatsoever for claims about eternal generation and procession.
¶77Those are just later ideas people mentally project back onto the New Testament. Now to explain some further agreements, I need to highlight one more thing Dr. Siguati says about this theology in his big trinity book. The way I've pictured it so far, it looks like there are three divine natures or essences shown as crowns, one per person. But Suati specifies that the sort of nature sharing in question implies that each person is numerically identical with that divine nature.
¶78The problem with this is that things numerically identical with the same thing must therefore also be numerically identical with one another. In other words, we're really dealing with just one thing here referred to in different ways. This theology implies the numerical identity of each person with each of the others and the numerical identity of each of them with the divine nature. Now, that last part seems to me like it's incoherent. A nature is a quality or collection of qualities.
¶79Can such a thing be a divine person? But let's focus on the first claim that the father just is the son. I would say that's obviously false. The mainstream is correct to insist that scripture requires the numerical distinctness of the father and the son. If the father and the son were numerically one, it'd be impossible for them to have ever qualitatively differed.
¶80But in the New Testament, they have differed. When Jesus's crucifixion was complete, the son was dead at that time and the father was not dead. Even though the theory implies the numerical identity of all the divine persons, strangely, it also presents a problem for monotheism. As we've heard, so-called consiliar trinitarianism posits qualitative differences between the persons. Only the spirit proceeds.
¶81only the son is generated. Only the father doesn't in any sense come from anything else. It's unoriginated. These qualitative differences imply the person's numerical distinctness. Yet each of them has all it takes to be a god, namely the divine nature.
¶82This implies there are three gods. So on the one hand, the theory seems to imply the numerical sameness of the persons with each other and with the divine nature. On the other hand, it seems to imply that each is a god, which is two gods to many. Now, in his New Trinity book, Dr. Siguad presents a heavy bunch of metaphysical speculations designed to get around these and other problems.
¶83But in my view, the cure is at least as bad as the disease. Those speculations in his book constitute another vastly more complicated theology, what he calls consilier aspectalism. But that's not the subject of this debate. As regards the theology we've been discussing, so-called consiliar trinitarianism, we agree that it seems to imply both tritheism and modalism. That's why the more complicated theory is needed.
¶84And we agree that both tritheism and modalism contradict scripture. But we should question whether consiliar trinitarianism is in fact taught by the Bible. Is God the author of confusion? Would God saddle his people with such a confusing theology that needs Dr. Suad's brand of metaphysical speculations to allegedly make sense of it?
¶85Or has God given Jesus's disciples something we can understand, believe, and preach? Elsewhere, I've argued that the New Testament authors presuppose the one God is the father rather than a tripersonal God. they never mention. But since my opponent discards the idea of a triune God, I only need to establish two things to show that his pseudorinitarian theology is contrary to clear New Testament teachings. First, in the Bible, God's spirit is not a third divine person.
¶86Second, the New Testament Jesus is described in ways that rule out his being fully divine. that is his having all the essential divine attributes. Now the Holy Spirit was elevated by Catholic tradition to full divinity by that council of bishops in 381 at Constantinople. Just prior to that council in 380, the Nyine bishop Gregory of Nazanzis admits that up to that point there had been no consensus that the spirit is a third fully divine person. He writes, "Amongst our own experts, some took the Holy Spirit as an active process, some as a creature, some as God, others were agnostic on this point out of reverence, as they put it for scripture, which is again given no clear revelation either way." Okay, that's four positions on the status of the Holy Spirit in the year 380.
¶87He goes on to argue Gregory unconvincingly that in scripture the spirit is a third divine person. Now spirit talk in the Bible is a huge subject. It's vastly complicated. Without going into all of the details of the terminology and sticking with the New Testament, sometimes spirit puma refers to something physical such as wind or breath. Sometimes to something human such as a state of mind.
¶88sometimes to created non-human beings and sometimes to something divine such as God's presence or power. And it's not always clear-cut which is meant. But a basic idea unifying these meanings is that a spirit is an unseen power. That is why Paul refers to Jesus multiple times as a spirit. Now that he's been raised and exalted, Jesus continues to be active in our world, but now he's an unseen power.
¶89He's working with and through the omnipresent spirit of God. But because of the requirements of orthodoxy since 381, many want to find in scripture references to a fully divine person who is neither the father nor the son. But there are many reasons to think that the Holy Spirit or God's spirit in the Bible is not supposed to be a third divine person. God's spirit is never an object of worship or prayer in scripture. Contrast that with countless later trinitarian liturgies.
¶90God's spirit is never portrayed in the Bible as having a heavenly throne or as sharing God's throne. God's spirit has no proper name in contrast to Yahweh and to Jesus. And importantly, the spirit is missing from many passages where a third divine person would have been mentioned if the authors had believed in such. So look at the start of all the Pauline letters in the New Testament. He never sends greetings from God's spirit.
¶91I wonder why that is. John writes, "Indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his son, Jesus Christ." You notice anyone missing there? John 17:3, Jesus prays, "And this is eternal life that they know you, the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Did Jesus just forget someone there? Again and again, the Holy Spirit is missing in action. That's because none of these authors thought the spirit to be a person in addition to God and his human son.
¶92A common use of spirit is to refer to a humans or to God's inner life, intention, mood, or disposition. In such cases, a spirit is a quality or aspect of the one whose spirit it is, not an additional someone accompanying them. Yes, a spirit can be grieved, but that just is God or the human himself, the one whose spirit it is being grieved. If you say, "My spirit is grieved and I too am grieved," you don't understand how this sort of spirit talks. God's spirit never really becomes an additional character in the narratives.
¶93For example, the various groups receiving the spirit in Acts, that reception never really seems like they're meeting a new person. And though the spirit is given by God to Jesus and then by him to the church, the spirit is never really portrayed as a third agent who's cooperating with God and Jesus. Spirit in many passages can simply mean God's presence or power. God's spirit is often referred to using words for things that are not persons. Water, fire, wind or breath, anointing oil, a dove, God's finger.
¶94God's spirit is spoken of in mostly impersonal terms. It can be distributed, divided or possessed in varying degrees. It comes upon and rests on people suggesting divine authorization, inspiration or empowerment to prophesy, preach, etc. Not inhabitation by someone accompanying God. This is an Achilles heel of so-called consiliar trinitarianism.
¶95Its claim that the Holy Spirit is a third fully divine person person has at best only very weak scriptural support. Gregory of Nazanzis, a leading voice at that 381 council, admitted this to the new nying claim that the spirit is a fully divine person. Gregory reports that some of his contemporaries objected. Where did you get this strange unscriptural god you're bringing in? And where is the scriptural authority for worshiping or praying to him?
¶96Where did you get the idea? Good questions. Gregory argues thus. See, the thing is the Old Testament proclaimed the father openly and the son more obscurely. The Newifested the Son and suggested the deity of the Holy Spirit.
¶97Now the Spirit himself dwells among us and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of himself. When he says now, he's referring to the 370s and the 380s when he and his colleagues are making newly minted controversial and not very convincing arguments about the status of the Holy Spirit. So, we're supposed to think that God finally really revealed the spirit as a third divine person in the 370s and the 380s. Give me a break. This view of God's spirit literally prevailed by imperial force.
¶98And force is the only way it could have become a majority view so quickly given the scriptural facts that we've just seen. Now, what about Jesus? He is worshiped in the New Testament. Doesn't that show they understood Jesus to be fully divine? No.
¶99Interestingly, it does not. The main and ultimate recipient of worship in scripture is Yahweh, that is to say, God the Father. The New Testament portrays the man Jesus as a worshshiper of God, both as one raised as a faithful Jew, worshiping according to the Mosaic covenant and also in Revelation 15. And about worship, the visions of Revelation 4 and 5 are most instructive. In Revelation 4, the Father, the Lord God Almighty is worshiped because he created all things.
¶100In the visual in the vision of revelation five, Jesus representing a lamb looking as though it had been slain is praised by the heavenly host who as they honor him mention why they are doing so saying for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God. Then they worship the newly exalted son of God and his and our God. Both are honored but for different reasons. God because he's the creator, the almighty who has saved us by his faithful human son and the exalted Jesus because of his sacrificial service to God. As Paul tells us, because of Jesus's exaltation by God, so not because of his essential divine nature, Jesus is worshiped to the glory of God the Father.
¶101The New Testament view is that honoring Jesus is a means of honoring God. In a manner of speaking, the honor given to Jesus also passes through him, stopping at the God who is over him. But of necessity, one who is divine in the highest sense cannot be worshiped to the glory of anyone else who is over him. For there can be no one over him. Scripture never says only worship a divine person.
¶102What it says in the famous ten commandments is directly about the alleged deities of the nations and the idols representing them. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. The implied point is that they must only bow down to and serve Yahweh, the unique God, not those many alleged gods. This explains why even though the New Testament Jesus is a man, no author is worried by the prospect of Jesus being worshiped. They understood the worship of Jesus not to violate the Old Testament prohibition against worshiping the deities of the nations and their idols.
¶103Our Lord Jesus Christ is not one of the alleged deities of the nations. He is not a rival to Yahweh. He is the man about whom God said, "This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased." To refuse to worship Jesus is to disobey his and our God, the one who exalted him to a worship worthy position. It is to deny Jesus's lordship under God. This is why I worship Jesus.
¶104I worship him not as God, but as the unique human Lord who has been exalted by his and our God. As we see in Revelation five, another argument for the deity of Jesus is that he is said to share God's throne. Some naively assume that only a fully divine person could share God's throne. That's not the biblical perspective. In the Bible, a mere man can share God's throne.
¶105In 1 Chronicles, we read, "Then Solomon sat on the throne of Yahweh as king. In the Bible, a throne sharer is not equal to but is below the one whose throne he's sharing. That is below them in authority. In Revelation 3:21, Jesus says to his followers in Leodysia, "The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne." No disciple of Jesus is at his level of authority. And yet, a disciple may share Jesus's throne.
¶106Neither does Jesus sharing God's throne imply that Jesus has the same level of authority as God. To the contrary, it implies that Jesus is below God in authority. This is no surprise to the New Testament reader who has seen Jesus humbly submit himself to God's will in his Gethsemane prayer. And as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 15, the exalted Jesus is forever subject to God. As he says elsewhere, the head of Christ is God.
¶107It's a clear New Testament teaching that the father is Jesus's God, the God over him. This rules out Jesus being equal to God in authority. To have a god is to be under that God's authority. Nonetheless, the exalted son, like an ancient Israelite king, can be described as sitting on or sharing God's throne. And yet, as we just heard, the son has his own throne.
¶108Perhaps literally, but certainly in the sense of having a position of authority that's distinct from and under God's position. In some the exalted Jesus is our Lord, our direct ruler or authority. But this is under his and our God. Jesus being second level in authority and this because of God's exaltation cannot be fully divine. One who's fully divine would necessarily be top level in authority as the ultimate source of everything else.
¶109Another traditional argument for Jesus's deity brutally misses the point of a famous gospel incident. Jesus forgives the sins of the paralytic who'd been brought to him for healing. And to prove he has this authority from God, Jesus heals the man. Mark tells us that upon seeing Jesus's act of forgiveness, some critics thought to themselves, "He is blaspheing. Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Now, the author expects the reader to say to herself, "Those silly critics, they're wrong on both counts." But some readers eager to find a deity of Christ proof text agree with Jesus's unbelieving critics that only God can forgive.
¶110And like those critics, they missed the point. Before healing the man, Mark quotes Jesus as saying, "The point of the miracle is that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins." In calling himself the son of man, referring to the vision of Daniel 7, Jesus distinguishes himself from God. And of course, the point is that he has this authority on earth to forgive because God gave it to him, which rules out Jesus having that authority because of his own divine nature. At the end of the passage, the bystanders don't praise Jesus because he's God or a fully divine person. Rather, Mark says they glorified God, obviously for empowering his human son to do such astounding deeds, as Matthew makes explicit in his version.
¶111Fully divine person would as such necessarily have all authority and power and would necessarily be the highest authority in all reality. The New Testament authors simply don't think that Jesus is a fully divine person. They think he gets his mission, authority, message, power, and now his second level position from God. Further, the authors of the New Testament imply in several ways that God's Messiah had limits which a fully divine person couldn't have. Whereas God's assumed to be essentially perfect in knowledge, Jesus, in contrast, doesn't know the day and hour of his future return.
¶112Whereas God is assumed to be essentially immortal, so in principle immune to death, Jesus died on the cross for us, demonstrating his mortality at that time, and also his lack of essential immortality. Whereas God can't be tempted to do wrong, Jesus was so tempted, although he faithfully resisted. These are crystalclear implications of Jesus's limits during his first earthly ministry. But the authors never warn us not to infer that Jesus isn't fully divine. That's because they don't think he is.
¶113Nor do they foist on us the nonsense that he is mortal as human but immortal as divine. Or imperfect in knowledge as human but perfect in knowledge as divine. that their Jesus is not divine is confirmed by the evangelists thesis and big reveals. In the synoptic gospels, the big reveal about Jesus is when he asks the disciples who they think he is. And Peter speaks up, you are the Christ, that is God's Messiah.
¶114In Matthew's version, Jesus congratulates Peter for this deep insight and attributes it to God's supernatural revelation. Do you think Jesus would be so excited by Peter understanding that he's God's human Messiah when by far the most interesting truth about him is that he's God incarnate, a fully divine person who has somehow taken on a human nature? And in Luke's and in Matthew's version, this is the big secret about Jesus that he asked them not to reveal yet that he's God's Christ. Think about it. Would that be the big secret about Jesus if he were a God man?
¶115Now, that big reveal is just one expression of the obvious main point of all four gospels that Jesus is God's Messiah. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are not tricky or overly subtle books. This main point is communicated in many ways. The narrator says it, the bad guys say it, the good guys say it. Jesus says and implies it.
¶116Somehow even the demons know it. The authors beat the reader over the head with this their main point. And it would not be their main point if these authors thought Jesus to be a God man. To be sure, the fourth gospel is a harder to interpret book. And yet the author couldn't be more explicit about his main point that Jesus is the Christ.
¶117I know there are long-standing traditions of mining the fourth gospel for alleged implications of Jesus's full deity, but think about it. Would an author who believed in Jesus's full deity make it his main point that Jesus is God's Messiah? That their Jesus is a man and so not a divine person is confirmed by the gospels numerous descriptions of Jesus that imply that he is a human person. together with their total lack of warnings against thinking that he's only a man or a mere man. Jesus is always portrayed as a real human person.
¶118He's conceived by and born to a woman. He grows up. He eats and sleeps. He cries and bleeds and dies. Again, especially in the fourth gospel, Jesus is called a man.
¶119And in the earliest recorded Christian sermon, Peter described Jesus as a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him. A prophet is by definition a human person. Jesus is explicitly a prophet. A Messiah is by definition a human person. Jesus is explicitly God's Messiah.
¶120a servant of God. It's by definition a creature of God. Clearly, the New Testament Jesus is a man, not an angel. Again, Jesus is explicitly taught to be a literal descendant of the ancient King David among others. A descendant of a human is by definition a human person himself who exists in part because of that human ancestor.
¶121One who is fully divine exists eternally and so necessarily lacks human ancestors. All of this screams that Jesus is a human person and so not a divine person within the triune God and not one of a triad of divine persons as my opponent thinks. Now against this mountain of evidence that the New Testament Jesus is a real man who at that time had limits a fully divine person could not have, many seek refuge in the post-biblical speculation that Jesus is a divine person who also has a human nature. Yes, I know all about such theories, but they're just not relevant to interpreting the New Testament. They're an abyss of conflicting post-biblical speculations.
¶122And as with Trinity theories, sympathetic scholars are still developing competing two natures theories. In this forthcoming chapter, I describe and critique six varieties of two natures christoologies. But again, no New Testament author appeals to two natures in an attempt to avoid christoologgical contradictions. They don't need to because they don't teach that Jesus is essentially omnipotent, omnisient, omnipresent, or morally perfect in a way that rules out his being tempted. In conclusion, in mainstream theology, the count of fully divine persons went from 1 to three over the course of the 300s.
¶123In the New Testament, the Father is, in Jesus's words, the only true God, which is a way of saying the only fully divine person. It wasn't until 381 that a council implied the full deity of the Holy Spirit, which as we saw was a shameless innovation. At this point, non-nying Christians were loudly objecting that this theology is tritheism, which is why some of the later nyines such as Gregory of Nazanzis veered into sometimes thinking of the one God as the trinity. Right after 381, we observe both Eastern and Western theologians thinking of the one God as the Trinity. Of course, my opponent thinks that God as trinity guys like Augustine are just confused about what the tradition teaches.
¶124But at any rate, a theology on which there are three fully divine persons clashes with the teachings of the New Testament about God's human son and God's spirit. This theology of three divine persons, one of whom is the one God, is not the original Christian theology, nor is it taught in scripture, nor is it properly speaking trinitarian, nor is it clearly consistent with monotheism, nor does it clearly avoid modalism, that is collapsing the persons together. It's just a mess. In contrast, the simple, believable, and preachable New Testament view of God and his son is neatly portrayed in the martyr Steven's vision in Acts 7. Steven full of the Holy Spirit gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
¶125The one God is the not quiteseen father on his throne. Jesus, his raised and exalted human son, stands by him. God's spirit is within Stephen, causing this glorious vision. That's New Testament theology in a nutshell. It stands on its own.
¶126Needs no help at all from councils and speculating theologians of late anti antiquity in the middle ages. In our theology and christologology, we should be disciples of Jesus, Paul, Luke, and John, not of Gregory of Nazanzis, Augustine, Aquinas, or Calvin. If you agree, welcome to the Unitarian Christian Club. You should join the UCA as we encourage others to re-evaluate traditional speculations in light of clear scriptural teachings about the one God and his human Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you.
¶127[applause] >> So my interlocator has now presented his case and has raised some interesting issues. However, given the limits of time, I intend to address the objections that stand at the heart of his case and I shall gladly take the others further in the discussion if needs be. My reason for choosing the specific objections I'm going to look at is simple. If these objections fail, then his case fails with it. The first objection is focused on the idea of tritheism.
¶128That was one of the issues that he brought up that potentially considered trinitarianism is a tri-theistic understanding of God. Now, he didn't unpack it as much as would have been helpful for the audience. So I'm going to steelman his position but then also show from this steelman position that it's not um successful against the argument that I've put forward. So what we can understand is that through my interlocator's position that consider trinitarianism is tritheistic. You need to first understand certain philosophical terms.
¶129An essence is something that an entity has that makes it what it is. And normally an essence suffices for its kind. So that whatever has divinity is a god. And therefore three persons who each have the divine essence means three gods. That's the position that I I believe that my interlocator was sort of indicating at that with the consili trinitarianism on the one hand you have this triistic position where you have three divine persons divinity sufficient for a kind thus you have three gods.
¶130However, I'm now going to show that that inference turns upon how gods are counted. So, I'll now carefully set out what I believe is the correct rule for counting gods. Firstly, what we are looking at here is the term god used as a predicate, not in its most important sense as a name. What I call the nominal sense of the word which is used for the father alone. Now a predicate is a describing term such as human or divine.
¶131When we count by a predicate, we are not counting the bearers of it simply as bearers. We are counting instances of the nature that the predicate names. Adam and Eve are two humans because there are two instances of humanity. One holy in Adam and one holy in Eve. And we know that there are two instances there because they come apart in every way.
¶132instances can two bodies, two lives, two minds, two wills. Take away the multiplication of the instances, however, and the count goes with it. So the rule is this, and I accept it without any qualification. A god in the predicative sense is an instance of divinity. So that one instance of divinity is one god.
¶133And three instances of divinity are three gods. If there were three instances of divinity in my position that is consiliated trinitarianism, then my interlocator would be right. It is tritheistic. It is polytheistic. So the key question is then how many instances of divinity are there on consiliate trinitarianism?
¶134Well, the answer is one. The son's divinity is not a copy of the fathers, not a duplicate, not a second instance made upon the same pattern. It is numerically the one instance the father has. The father is not divine by having one divinity and the son divine by having another exactly like it. There is one divinity and each has it wholly and undividedly.
¶135And so notice what follows from all of this and it's the point on which his objection turns. The number of persons makes no difference whatever to the count. Divinity is not counted by counting who possesses it. And so three persons possessing one instance of divinity is one God. Precisely as one person possessing one instance of divinity is also one God.
¶136So that is where my interlocator's inference is erroneous. It requires the further premise that each person has its own instance of divinity. So without that premise there is nothing here to count three of. And that premise is exactly what is in dispute between us. It has not been argued for.
¶137it has been assumed and so the objection as it stands fails to derail the argument that I've provided for consiliated trinitarianism. Now the second issue is to do with what he was saying the position leading towards modalism. Now the way that he sort of um puts this forward again in a steel man way is that he argues that if each person is identical to the one substance then by the transitivity of identity the father is the son. So I'm left with modalism and with something else called patriopathianism since a father who is the son is a father who suffered upon the cross. However, everything in that inference turns upon a single ambiguity.
¶138So let me take this in order. Firstly, there are two distinct notions in play and his argument runs them together. The first is numerical identity which concerns quantity. How many things there are? Clark, Kent, and Superman are numerically identical.
¶139There is one man there and not two. The second notion is qualitative incarnability, which is the sharing of every property being in no respect distinguishable. It is sometimes loosely called qualitative identity, though it's not a second kind of identity. So the rule is this. Numerical identity and qualitative incisernability ordinarily coincide since a single thing will usually present no difference by which it could be distinguished from itself.
¶140So now that we have these two notions to hand, what does his argument establish? Well, numerical identity that the father son and the spirit are numerically identical. And I do not run from that conclusion. I actually embrace it. It is the homusion taken with full seriousness as Augustine said plainly that each person is the one indivisible divine substance from the numerical identity affirmed within the trinity.
¶141My interlocator then infers qualitative in disccernability namely that the three can differ in no respect whatsoever. Yet he has not offered any argument for that further step. He assumes that none is needed because he treats numerical identity and qualitative in disccernability as inseparable without exception, although they are not. To see this, consider a statue standing on a pedestal. The lump of clay existed before the sculptor began and would survive being squashed, whereas the statue came into existence through the sculpting and would be destroyed by the same act.
¶142They therefore differ in their histories and persistence conditions. Yet, apart from those already committed to a contrary metaphysical theory, we ordinarily count only one thing standing there. And what makes this possible is the philosophical notion of an aspect, which some of you may have encountered in my written work or in that of Donald Baxter. An aspect is a real and particular way in which a thing is numerically identical to its bearer while differing qualitatively from that other bearer's aspects. We express an aspect through the phrase in so far as.
¶143So consider the statue and the lump again. There is one material object standing upon the pedestal of which the statue is one aspect and the lump another. The material object in so far as it is a statue and the material object in so far as it is a lump. Both aspects are numerically identical to the one material object. Yet they differ qualitatively in readily identifiable ways.
¶144The material object in so far as it's a lump is a week older than the statue and would survive the squashing and destroying of it. The same object in so far as it is a statue is a signed and insured work of art. Whereas it is neither of those things in so far as it's merely a lump. Notice then what happens when this is applied to the trinity as I have done in my work. The persons are numerically one and qualitatively three permanent and simultaneous aspects of the one divine substance.
¶145There is one divine substance in so far as it's the father. The one divine substance in so far as it's the son and the one divine substance in so far as it's a spirit with each possessing a first person perspective and a distinct relation of origin. Given this account, neither the charge of Selianism nor that of patriopathianism succeeds. Selius taught sequential manifestations. What I mean by selianism is modalism.
¶146And Selius taught sequential manifestations in which one person appeared first as the father and later as a son. By contrast, the one divine substance in so far as it's the father, the one divine substance in so far as it's the son, and the one divine substance in so far as it's the spirit are permanent, simultaneous, and personally distinct. Thus, what we have here is one divine substance, three real persons without modalism or a plurality of gods. So, the objections that stand at the heart of his case have failed. And notice what kind of objections they were.
¶147Neither provided the single coherent and unifying explanation that we were looking for. They were arguments about how gods must be counted, about what identity must entail. attempts to show that my explanations cannot be true rather than attempts to show that his explains more. But an objection is not an explanation. Had every one of them succeeded, the evidence would still be sitting there waiting for somebody to account for it.
¶148And that is what I've not heard tonight. So that is what I'll be asking for in the discussion. I'm looking for a successful explanation. And so Dr. Tuggy, I'll be hoping to get one in the discussion.
¶149Thank you very much. >> [applause] >> All right, let's see how much I can respond to in 10 minutes. So, most of the fathers he cited are clearly subordinationists. In other words, they do not think the son and especially the spirit are divine in the same way that the father are. Justin thinks that when it was time to create God externalized his his word, his his eternal wisdom basically and then created through him.
¶150He calls this a second god. It's really a lesser god. He thinks this the logos the word can be incarnate. and he thinks it's impossible for the father to be incarnate. Tertullian says the father is literally older than the word and the word is made of a portion of the substance whereas the father is the whole.
¶151Um the holy spirit presumably is a yet smaller portion. Origin is very clear that God the father is just all around greater than the word. uh he says explicitly that the Holy Spirit is the greatest of the creatures that God made uh through the word. Um about that last point, we probably can maybe get a little more into aspects if we have to later, but what he's admitting is that his view about all of this uh depends on something differing from itself at a time. And I just say that's obviously impossible.
¶152uh whenever it's true that A just is B, then A and B can't simultaneously differ because they're one in the same thing and it can't be and not be a certain way at a certain time. So if the the theory depends on that, it's just doomed. This inference is just as secure as 1 plus 1 is two. It's just part of the concept of numerical identity. John 1, huge topic.
¶153I cover this in an online lecture called what John 1 meant. Notice a couple of things in the book. The author pointedly never calls Jesus the word. He doesn't want to do that later in the book because that would confuse you about what he's doing in the prologue. He's personifying God's word which has kind of been merged with the character of God's wisdom in previous wisdom literature.
¶154And he's saying it was this God the wisdom or word by which God made all things that became flesh in the man Jesus Christ. pre-existence really isn't relevant. I mean, I could grant eternal pre-existence for the point of this debate because full divinity does not u follow from it. But yeah, Matthew and Luke presupposed that Jesus began to exist when his mother miraculously conceived him. Um, about the triism, yeah, we're not counting uh instances of an individual property.
¶155We're counting things that have the property of being a god. And just by definition, divine nature is sufficient to make whatever it whatever has it a god, just like human nature is sufficient to make anyone that has it a human being. So yeah, if you want to insist that it's one one uh token, one individual property, uh either that does or doesn't entail that they're numerically the same. If it does, we're back to modalism. If having a single individual trope or individual property of identity, doesn't imply identity, then it's consistent with being three different things.
¶156And each one of those things has everything it takes to be a god. Um, let's talk about the hands arguments or he uses this now popular argument that Jesus must be divine because he shares the honors, attributes, names, deeds, and seed of God. I already refuted the honors part in my opening statement and the deeds part. The New Testament view is he's empowered by God to do these things. And I've refuted the seat part about the attributes.
¶157I claim the New Testament doesn't apply any essential divine attribute to God. No, not omnipotence, not omniscience, not omnipresence, not the kind of moral perfection that rules out even being tempted. uh about names. I mean, I think that's a super lame argument to argue that Jesus is fully divine because he's called God and Lord. Uh look at Hebrews 1, they're quoting Psalm 45 where in [clears throat] ancient times presumably some Israelite king, you know, therefore God, your God, your throne, oh God is forever.
¶158Therefore, God, your God has anointed you. It's using God in two different senses. one for the king on his throne, presumably named that because of his likeness to God uh or his close association with God. And then the one true God. So yeah, Jesus being called God a very few times doesn't imply or really even suggest that he's fully divine.
¶159Um so I think this is a pretty easy to refute argument. It's not nearly as strong as many think it is. Many don't even try to make this kind of argument for the Holy Spirit because it's really weak. There's really weak material there. So, as I pointed out, the Holy Spirit doesn't have a throne, doesn't share a throne, is never worshiped, is never prayed to, um is never right.
¶160So, there's your honors and your seat. Um the Holy Spirit, yeah, can be said to have divine attributes because it's God's spirit. So, it's going to be eternal. It's going to be omnipresent. Um, and you know, just as uh talk of spirit can sometimes refer to Jesus, as I mentioned in Paul, sometimes it's just a way of referring to God via one of his attributes or actions.
¶161So, yeah, there's some attributes there, but you don't get a third divine person. Um, yeah, as God's power, you know, God by his spirit created Jesus by the power of God's spirit does miracles and preaches. So I I think this is a really poor argument for the deity of the spirit. Um this is a harder passage in John 14. Um but just to make a couple of brief points about it.
¶162Um Jesus is talking like somebody else is going to come and help them after he's gone. But is he cryptically talking about himself? Notice he says, "I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you." And then he says, 'You will know that I am in union with my father and you are in union with me and I'm in union with you. We will come to him and make our home with him.
¶163Okay, again, do you see that pattern where Christian life consists of fellowship with God and with Jesus and there isn't any third person in there? And I think um again this isn't an easy passage but I think that should make you ask the question uh do you really need a third divine person to make sense of that because of all those other facts I named. Um yeah so with the Holy Spirit again the language is very complicated. Sometimes you're talking about something that's very closely associated with a person like a state of mind or a power or presence. Sometimes you are talking about a person.
¶164The question is do you ever need a third person and I believe the answer is no because you can explain all the passages with two with just two persons with God or Jesus. Um now about uh Orthodox tradition uh I made the claim that uh I gave quotes in my opening that it's uh trinitarian. It's actually more complicated than that. They're actually at odds with one another. So you have people like John Bear who agrees with Dr.
¶165Siguade that there is not one god the trinity but rather one god the father almighty and then you have other authors plenty of them saying the one god is the trinity you know going back to people like uh maximus the confessor and st john of damascus who were living in the times of those later ecumenical councils so you really you really do have two views although I would say on the whole people like kalist where uh are right that on the full orthodox uh theologians believe in a tripersonal god. So I guess that's something they can work out amongst themselves. Sometimes you see uh confusion on display at the seventh ecumenical council. Uh there's a letter from the pope they read and approve says I believe in one god the father almighty god the father god the son god the holy spirit I worship and glorify the three as one god. So you just you just have both views right there.
¶166Uh another portion they say we believe in one god to be praised in trinity. We kiss the honorable images. The holy trinity has destroyed the doctrine of the heretics. So yeah there is there is precedent for his view in orthodoxy. Um simplicity.
¶167I mean my view is way more simple than his. Just look at the stick figures. There's fewer lines. fewer heads and crowns, right? Explanatory power.
¶168I think it's there. Uh the reason I think a lot of people don't think it's there is because they've never examined a unitarian reading of the New Testament. They've just assumed that it that uh all right-thinking people have a trinitarian explanation for the text fit with background knowledge. Yes. the way spirits use in the Old Testament, the way that the Messiah is predicted to be a man, not God incarnate, uh, and and a bunch of other things.
¶169You know, the Old Testament is really the guide to understanding New Testament theology and christologology and unification of the phenomena to be explained. I think my view does at least as well as his. A trinitarian view will seem to do better when you consider what I call the cannon within the canon, which is all the favorite long-used proof texts. And my view, I think does better when you view the whole and don't confine yourself to the favorite proof texts. Um, I think it does at least as good on that fourth uh criterion.
¶170Thank you. [applause] >> Okay. Thank you for listening so brilliant brilliantly and intentively uh to those opening statements and rebuttals. They were absolutely fascinating. Um, we're going to move now into a time of moderated discussion, uh, where Josh and Dale can probe one another further.
¶171But I do want to I do want to start with a question of my own which relates to the trinity and the church and kind of wider theological implications of this. And I suppose it's a kind of it's a forked question. So there's a sort of side for both of you. For Dale, I suppose the question is, how did God allow the church to become widely trinitarian? And for Josh, why did it take the church, the councils and the creeds to spell this out?
¶172You know, why don't we get just, you know, a simple simple formulation of uh consilia trinitarianism within the New Testament itself? So, maybe I can I can start with you, Dale, on that. Well, we know that God lets us mess up a good thing, including divine revelation from the case of the Jews who in Jesus's time were this bunch of factions that scholars are familiar with. Jesus seems most sympathetic to the Pharisees. He says they sit in the seat of Moses and so on, but he also blasts them unmercifully on occasion.
¶173So, in a sense, uh not any of them are completely right according to him. Um, why did God allow this? Um, I think part of the reason why God allowed the mainstream to develop as it did is because they kept layering on uh new claims, but they also had the old claims with them. So, if you look at the Apostles Creed, I completely agree with the Apostles Creed as long as you don't read too much into the Catholic Church bit, uh, just the universal church like all believers. Um, and so the mainstream uh keeps propounding what I think is the real New Testament gospel that Jesus is God's Messiah alongside these other things.
¶174So it'd be worse to root it out than to allow it. Josh. >> So I would say that the consiliated trinitarian position is expressed within the New Testament. But I think we come towards the New Testament and also the um the church fathers with a certain expectation of systematization that things need to be clearly laid out in a systematic format in the way that we would sort of study theology. But you have to understand the context in which the New Testament was written.
¶175It wasn't written to be a systematic theology. Neither were the church fathers when they were dealing with the various issues that they were dealing with, writing any systematic work on any issue. They were dealing with the issues that they were trying to deal within the categories that they had available. And so within the categories available for the New Testament, we do have the consiliated trinitarian position being taught. We have the teaching that the one God is the father.
¶176We then do have the teaching that the son and the spirit are relationally distinct from the father in the sense that the son is begotten, the spirit proceeds from the father and that they are persons in the sense that I've laid out that the they do things that only personal agents could do. And then lastly, we also see the divinity of each of the persons in the way in which it would have been understood within the Judeaic context, which were the five categories that I looked I I put forward, which were the names that were born by God, the attributes that God had, the actions that he performed, the rulership that he um he exercised, and the devotion that was given to him. And those same five categories in the exact same ways are given to the son, given to Jesus and also given to the spirit. And so I would say then that we do have it but we have to understand it within the specific context that we are going to see the the trinitarian picture but within the categories that the Jews understood it which were through these identifying features. So we have one God.
¶177We have the relational distinctions, the personhood of each of the the persons and then we have the five categories of what made God God being applicable to each of the three persons. Thus we have concealed trinitarianism there. >> I I want to uh focus on that term person uh especially as it relates to the spirit because Dale raised a number of challenges to the idea that the spirit is a person. uh one of which is uh the fact that impersonal terms are often used of the spirit. Um but then you also have this kind of peculiar binitarian so the father and the son formulas showing up in the New Testament.
¶178I don't know whether there's anything you'd like to add to that. Uh now Dale before I I press that question to Josh. Yeah, I just think what you're calling the benitarian aspect uh is really important and it's you know context is everything in interpreting the New Testament and part of what is context is what's not there and sometimes what's not there is very very important evidence like right now I don't see an elephant on the front row and that's strong evidence that there is not an elephant on the front row because my eyes you know work decently enough right so that the Holy Spirit is missing in action from all those passages where God and Jesus are worshiped or share a throne or where the the two of them dwell with believers. That's that's a fact that can't be argued with and it's one of the things you take into consideration when you're looking at those passage that could be taken on their own uh where the spirit is a someone distinct from the two of those. >> Josh, what do you make of that?
¶179So that I mean my my first question is not to ask a question with a question would be when we look at acts 13:2 and I already quoted this in my opening statement and it says the spirit speaks and he says set apart for me Barnabas and Saul to the work to which I have called them. Now if he is identified with the father or if he's the father's power as you were saying that he was then it doesn't seem that that would make any sense unless you're saying that it must be figurative because he's using a first person pronoun for himself set apart for for me um he's then saying to work which I have called them to do so I'm not understanding how that doesn't have person a personal agency related to that and then secondly we also have various aspects in which the spirit is doing person things. He's speaking, he's guiding, he's teaching, he's having emotional states of being griefd. Now my then further question would be what would we need to see for him to be a person outside of these things? Because it seems like we put the bar so high because we're already assuming unitarianism so that anything that says things like speaking, teaching, guiding, if I said to you, oh my door speaks to me, it teaches me, it guides me, it grieavves.
¶180You're going to say, what are you talking? You're not talking about a door there. It seems like you're talking about a person in your house probably because those are personal attributes. And so again, my further question, sorry, would be what would we expect? What we need to see for the spirit to be a person outside of the things I've stated >> exactly what I said.
¶181You'd expect to see three worshiped and three fellowshipping with Christians. uh you'd expect to see him mentioned in passages like where Jesus says he doesn't know the day or the hour and he goes to the trouble of mentioning angels and the father but somehow skips over the spirit who as divine surely would know the day and the hour because he's not incarnate um about being grieved. Yes, often times my spirit is grieved. That is not somebody else. That's just me.
¶182So God's spirit can be grieved. Uh when God's spirit is in Peter, you can lie to Peter and at the same time lie to God because God is present by his spirit in Peter. Um God speaks to people by his spirit. Right? So when the spirit falls on prophets in the Old Testament, the resulting words are the words of God, not the words of somebody else that God sent.
¶183Um, so yeah, there does have to be a person in many of these cases, but it's hard to see why it has to be somebody other than God or Jesus. You could take that Acts passage to have to do with Jesus. I think they think he's still active in the world invisibly and so spiritually. Um, but I would think in that one text that you mentioned, probably the father's the most likely because I think the father's mentioned nearby there somewhere. I was wondering could join.
¶184>> Yeah. Could I could I just So when when it says in the book of John that he says he will hear from the father, >> how would the father's own spirit hear from him? Because it seems like there's a distinction that's made between them. >> So if my interpretation of those passages in John 14-16 is right, Jesus is speaking kind of paradoxically about himself coming to be present with them spiritually. He says, "I will come to you.
¶185I will not leave you alone. And so the stuff about, you know, he will remind you what I taught you. He will take from what is mine and give it to you and so on would need to be taken nonliterally. But my my bigger point is that's a one-off in the New Testament. Those those bits and uh in general what you see in the New Testament is what you see in the Old Testament.
¶186And it's clear to me that the old the spirit is not a divine person in addition to God in the Old Testament. Um I was wondering Dr. Dr. Sajui, if we could revisit the tritheism thing. Um, I was surprised to hear you appeal to a special counting rule.
¶187Um, clearly this is one big concern of your book and in your articles. And as I see it, you do different things to answer a triism concern. Sometimes you argue that um the term God in it some special sense only applies to one has one reference. I think that's not sufficient because a tritheist might just like God number one best and just decide to call God number one God, but then he'd still be a tritheist just that calls God number one God. Um, sometimes you redefine monotheism.
¶188So, it's not that there's exactly one God, it's there is exactly one fundamental God. Fundamental in the metaphysical sense of not being built uh out of anything or depending on anything. And then deep into the book you actually say what what um secures monotheism is the identity of each person with the divine nature. And if I understand you, you actually accept the identity of the persons. So you accept the identity of the father and the son.
¶189Um that that seems heretical to me. But anyway, so you just said the the the counting policy. Okay. I'm counting wrong because I should be counting um divine nature instances. In other words, like the individual property or trope of divine nature.
¶190Uh yes, you could count things of a kind that way. If having that one trope or whatever implied their numerical identity, then you could that would be the right count. Um, but again, if distinct things, and I'm not really sure you think they are distinct, father, son, and spirit, but if this distinct things could each have one token property of divinity, then if I just counted tokens of the property divinity that I would underount. So, could you say a little more about that? >> Um, yes.
¶191So, the first thing you were saying about because there was a number of things you stated there. So, you were saying about let's say the definition of monotheism. there's different sort of frameworks in which I express in my written work. Um, but if I've got to be honest, uh, Dr. Tugi, I'm I'm following your own lead because in your own work, your own published work in 2017 on counting gods, you stated that a god is an ultimate.
¶192So God means the ultimate deity. And then you said the Christian Jews and Muslims, they are monotheists because they believe in one ultimate. They believe in one God, one ultimate. Yet there are multiple deities. Now within my own position, how is that any different from the own definition you've given forward?
¶193I've put forward one ultimate, the father, who the son and the spirit are eternally derived from. Um, and thus according to your own definition, not mine, my position would be monotheistic. So I don't even need to use my own framework. I can use your own framework and realize I'm actually playing the same sport and game as you because monotheism according to your own published work is counting ultimates and I said the father is the one god he's the ultimate divine person thus there is only one god thus that is monotheism given your own definitions um but then secondly you were saying about the um the way of counting well it depends what you are counting specifically because if we're counting subjects or if we're counting persons then you would say yes there are three subjects there there are three persons but when we are referring in a predicative sense to the natures then we are looking at well how many instantiations of those natures are there within reality and thus within the own position that I hold to which I believe is a consilia position is that there is only one divine nature there is one only one instance of that nature which is then in its wholeness had in the father, son, and spirit. Now, you then said in your rebuttal that um this leads to numerical identity and then you didn't really put forward any argument um to show why my position isn't possible because I was saying to you that yes, I'm happy to say that they are numerically identical because the Consilia tradition holds to divine simplicity.
¶194Now, in order to hold to the divine simplicity, you would have to hold to an um elements of numerical identity of the persons. So I don't run away from that. But you need to put forward an argument rather than assuming u my position is false because what I gave you I gave you a possible scenario. I so I just ask you this question back to you. Um how did my scenario of the numerical identity of the statue and the lump not make sense?
¶195>> I didn't follow why you were giving that sort of example at all because I know you're not a relative identity trinitarian. uh relative identity person has a standard story about that but um you okay you gave me a bunch there give me a second to go through it um yes on my view being divine in the highest sense that the one god is divine implies being ultimate okay if I'm right about that then you have one god and two lesser divine beings which is heretical uh you also identify the persons which is heretical by all the anti-modalist clauses that all the trinitarians constantly give. They always say you have to distinguish father from son. You can't say they're one and the same. Um what you do is you stipulate like the capidocian fathers that divinity does not in not include aity or ultimacy.
¶196You have to do that so that divinity is compatible with being eternally begotten or spirated. Okay. So, I'm saying on your own theory, how you define fully divine, each of them is fully divine. It's no good jumping to my theory and saying, "Well, if I'm right, then you wouldn't have three gods." The point is you seem to on yours. Um, but then again, if they really are identical, uh, which I think is your view, then being identical, they couldn't be different gods.
¶197But that's why I put up the two different stick figures. I mean the view seems to be modalism. Um but when you when you um describe the differences between the persons that seems to imply their distinctness and again each one's a god. So you have three gods. Now I think what you're saying that I haven't argued for tell me if I'm right about this is that identity forces in disccernability.
¶198that if this and that are numerically identical then it's not possible that this that this could be a one way and at the same time this other thing is not that way. So like uh if Abe if Abraham is Abram then at a certain time if Abraham is married also Abram must be married for instance. That's what you're denying right but I I just think that's self-evident. Like if you don't understand that you don't understand the concept of identity. Um because again it's not telling you this is like that or this is closely related to that.
¶199It's telling you this just is that. We're referring to the same thing in two different ways. And that one thing can't at one time differ from itself. Like that's that's not good if the true theology depends on something at one time differing from itself. >> We almost have to go to audience questions, but I'll just give Josh just one or two minutes just to make a response.
¶200>> Um just a few things. So well just quoting your own self. You defined a deity as a supernaturally powerful self. I assume that you mean deity as divine. So something is divine if it is a supernaturally powerful self.
¶201You then stated godhood implies deity but deity does not imply godhood. That's in your own written work. So for me to then say that the one God is the father that doesn't mean that he's not also divine. So I'm not understanding from your it seems like there's a confusion in your own position about your own work because you were just saying very clearly as I stated Godhood implies deity but deity does not imply godhood and then again I'm just quoting this again Jews Christians and Muslims are monotheists affirming the existence of exactly one God while accepting many deities. Now how does the position of there being three divine persons if we take deity divine to be synonymous terms then three divine persons one god seems to be fitting in your own def definitional position and doesn't seem to at all be outside of what you class as monotheism.
¶202Um secondly what you were saying about numerical identity and and qualitative incarnability. I'm not arguing that these things are not the case but I'm what I'm saying to you is that you have an unrestricted view of it. I'm saying that we must have a restricted view to make sense of certain cases. Now, you dismissed without engaging with my question, which was how do you make sense of the statue and the lump? I didn't put forward a relative identity um analysis of it.
¶203I gave an aspectal analysis of it. So, I didn't go to relative identity at all. So I don't know why he brought that up, but I would like to say to you when you have the statue of David standing in front of you, it's constituted by the lump of clay, we would say, but it's also a statue. But as I said to you in the opening, the lump of clay existed before the statue. So the material object has the property of um existing let's say um at T1 and not existing at T0.
¶204So it seems to have qualitatively differing properties. So my further question will be unless you believe that there are two objects there how do you make sense of that and sorry just last one and go I'll leave everything over to you with with the questions. Um we still skirted over the main argument that I put forward which was that I was looking for an inference to the best explanation. What seems to be the case is that you gave loads of possible explanations of different data, but instead of actually putting forward a single coherent framework that explains all the data, you put forward all these different explanations and you also revisited exaltation. But I already showed in my opening statement that exaltation doesn't work because firstly, you have to reinterpret all the categories.
¶205Secondly, we have no precedent where an agent or a creature is given God's names, given his actions, given his attributes, and given his devotion. So, exaltation doesn't work. So, please can you give me a single explanation that is better than consilia trinitarianism that explains all of the data instead of all multiple explanations? >> I literally already did that. Um, so I I understand what you're doing >> because we have to go to audience questions.
¶206Maybe if you just take Yeah, just uh one minute. >> Let me let me talk about the lump in the statue briefly. Now I understand what the point is. Okay. You're thinking it's obvious uh in this example that there's really only one like physical object there and you're saying it is and isn't a statue.
¶207Basically, it isn't because it's a lump that existed a long time ago and it is a statue because it's now been formed into a statue. Um yeah, this it is and isn't a statue. People that distinguish the lump from the statue literally think those are numerically two things. That is what all these philosophers, people like Mike Ray say about it. They just think that numerically two things can be at the same space and in the same time.
¶208And so they think one of them is a lump and one of them is a statue. They have different identity conditions. The idea that this involves some one thing being and not being a certain way at a certain time is a wildly implausible interpretation of that kind of phenomenon. What most philosophers do is they deny the existence of the statue or they deny the existence of the lump or they say they are distinct but one constitutes the other. This is the first time I'm hearing somebody saying that it's one and the same thing that has and lacks the same property at one time.
¶209>> Well, well, sorry, just sorry. We really can I just go very quickly. We've already gone five minutes. >> Just just very quickly with that um well I just have to disagree with you and you might need to do more reading on this subject because there is a very clear demarcation within the literature between monists and between pluralists when it comes to this material constitution. Monist believe that there is only one object there and they give different analyses of how that could be the case.
¶210And then you have pluralists who say there are two objects there and they give analyses of how that could be the case. Now pluralists have the problem of how you can have two objects existing in the same place sharing all the same properties. So they face that serious problem. Monis have the issue of well how can we make sense of these things given their qualitative um differentiations. And so you have things like contingent identity that's given by philosophers and I've given you an analysis which is a plausible one.
¶211So when you say with credul again it's not an argument. Credul isn't an argument. What I'm saying to you is this is a possible explanation. And given that it's a possible explanation, your viewpoint of actually how could this be the case, it's impossible, doesn't stand. Okay, it is time for audience questions.
¶212And I'm going to put the first one to Dale. Um, this says in Luke 3:38, Adam is called the son of God. In John 3:16, Jesus is called the only begotten son of God. What does only begotten mean here when Adam is also called the son of God in Luke 3:38? >> I think it just means unique and Jesus is unique in his calling in his current position and his empowerment.
¶213Uh he is called the second Adam by Paul. So obviously he has things in common with Adam. I think the main thing he has in mind is like the progenitor of a of a race. Adam is where all humans come from and Jesus is where reborn humans come from. >> If you can do this in a minute, Josh, can someone who reads the Bible come to consilia trinitarianism or do you need the guidance of the church fathers and the councils?
¶214Great question. >> Yeah. So I do believe that you can come to it in the sense that you can believe that there is one god. You can believe that the per there are persons who are relationally distinct from this one god. You can believe also that these these persons seem to have the the characteristics that the one God has.
¶215They fall within the categories that Jews would have identified the one God to have that makes him divine. And so then you can see them to be divine. Now you obviously your conceptual precision will need to be um improved in a certain way to get to the state that we have now of trinitarianism. But that's only conceptual precision. we can already find in seed form um what we have in the categories of the Judeaic framework that of consiliate trinitarianism and then later on through the tradition of the church and reading the church fathers we have further conceptual precision um to understand philosophically how we can make sense of all of these things >> fantastic um to Dale considering that the current unitarian belief is that trinitarian corruption in the early church I suppose occurred how can we trust that the unitarian Ian position is correct.
¶216And how can you trust the scriptures you have are authentic considering how they were handled, recognized, and canonized by trinitarian early church Christians? I mean, I just think the science of textual criticism lets us know that we have a pretty good idea what the originals were. And all the New Testament books, or at least almost all of them, fit pretty easily into a first century context of history. Um, I do believe they're inspired. That's not an easy point to argue with a non-Christian.
¶217Um, but yeah, I what if the question is like why don't I think corruption came in earlier? Um, I mean it did it did come in. I mean, I I think the earliest big mistake that the mainstream church made was committing to the one bishop system as an expedient to throw out the gnostics and other miscreants. And this had a lot of bad unintended consequences, including the bishops seizing the power of deciding all doctrinal questions. So, yeah, I do I think there were mistakes earlier and they kind of compound as they go along.
¶218Um, but I guess you have to take that up with God. >> Josh, you claim simplicity as a basic strength of your CT claim. Yet, one theologian once said, "The Trinity is a matter of five notions or properties, four relations, three persons, two processions, one substance or nature, and no understanding." Is it not true that all the talk of essence and persons and co this and that uh seem like theologically theological gobbledegook uh not suitable for mums and mechanics and the man in the pew? How can you claim simplicity if you claim to actually understand it? >> Thank you.
¶219So what the term means simplicity in this type of context is theoretical simplicity. It means how many things are you positing in order to be able to explain the data. It's it's a way of understanding Okam's razor. Do not posit more than you need to. And so when I'm saying that it's simple, what I'm saying is well actually we have an explanation here of just five claims.
¶220And these five claims explain all of the data that I've put forward. The data from the scriptures, the five categories that God has are given to the son and spirit. So we have that and then also it explains a petristic witness and the consiliate evidence as well. So I'm committed to a few things to be um in order to get all of the explanatory power that I have. But what I'm saying with Dr.
¶221Tuggy's position is that he seems to have to have different explanations for each of the evidences. So he's going to be committed to more things unless he holds to exaltation, which he did bring up. And exaltation, as I already argued, is problematic. it doesn't seem to be a working theory at all that you can put forward to make sense of of this. Um, and so yeah, simplicity is to do with how many things are you positing more so than are you really getting it?
¶222Is it easy for me to understand on a, you know, my couch on a Sunday morning sort of thing? >> Yeah, that's very helpful. Okay, this is a question for Dale. If in your own words you worship Jesus as a unique human Lord who has been exalted, um, then can you confirm if you give Jesus cultic worship only due to God i.e. Latreu or only general reverence like an elected official.
¶223Jesus is given cultic worship in Deuteronomy 222:3 to uh I'm sorry I'm struggling to read this. Maybe we just start with the first part of the question. >> So it is true that luro is in the New Testament uh generally used uh for honor for God and not for anyone else. Whereas proaneo the core meaning of which is bowing down to uh is used of a wide variety of human figures as well as god or Jesus. Um I don't agree that there is uh some really clear distinction between two kinds of worship that mirrors that distinction of two words in Greek.
¶224I mean is it cultic worship? I approve of the kind of thing you see in Revelation 5. If you call that cultic worship then yes I believe in cultic worship of Jesus. Part of the problem is that in English and especially in modern times more than earlier times the word worship the way many people use it and I there may be an influence from Islam here when many people when they use worship they think by definition that is only honor that can be given to God. So if that's what you mean by worship then no I don't worship Jesus.
¶225But if you mean singing songs to him and and honoring him alongside God, in that sense, I do. >> Uh Josh, is it is it not highly significant that Jesus uh uh says in John 10:30, I and the father are one? Uh the Hebrew word is a um and I'm the handwriting is a bit difficult, but can you speak to that that uh phrase about Jesus uh being one with the father? >> Yeah. So I wouldn't take any ontological um sort of implications from that.
¶226Um that the idea that Christ is one with the father. Um I think that the best reading of that would be a oneness of sort of will of mind of intention with the father because then Christ likens it to the disciples being one. Um so I think the best reading wouldn't be ontological. Um and I believe that there's no need for that. We have so much more evidence that I've I've presented and others have.
¶227um so that you don't need to utilize that verse in order to to sort of state your case. Yeah. >> Thank you. Uh Dale, John 20:28 presents a single subject as both curios Lord and theos God by use of the Greek word alto unto him. Isn't this pointing to Jesus as being divine?
¶228>> Nope. Now I have a little bit more to say than that. Um so yes, um Thomas literally says it to the man Jesus. So he's literally speaking to uh one visible one there. There's two ways a unitarian can take it.
¶229Um you a unitarian can say that uh Jesus is his Lord and his God. But then God would be meant in a lesser sense like you see in Hebrews 1 and in Psalm 45. That's one way to take it. I actually think though that in the context of John, he has said earlier uh and Thomas was there that if you, you know, show us the father, but hey, I've been with you for so long. You're asking me to show you the father.
¶230If you've seen me, you've seen the father. It's a big theme of the book that God is in Christ working through him. Indeed, they're in each other. Um, so I understand that to be Thomas uh giving the primitive Christian confession. He's recognizing Jesus as the one risen Lord and he's recognizing the father as the one God who indeed has been in him the whole time.
¶231So it's not unlike what Paul does in 1 Corinthians uh 4-6. >> Thank you Josh. What is the angel of the Lord who is named using the the tetrogrammaton? Um, I mean, I'm sort of open to different interpretations of that. Um, some people would see it as the um, let's say the the pre-incarnate Christ in in certain ways.
¶232Some people would see it as a um, figure who is esteemed or highly exalted. Um, so again, I I don't really, I would say, have a um, decided opinion on it. Um but again I I I just don't think these types of verses that need to be gone to um are needed in order to establish the case. So um if the person is saying you know to make sense of this should we sort of move towards it being the person of Christ I'm happy to say that it's a possible interpretation. Um however I don't believe again it's necessary in order to establish the case.
¶233Um just because there are there's sort of different interpretations people can put forward. >> Okay. Uh I'm going to have this as our final question. Uh I'm really sorry if uh we didn't get round to all of them. Uh and I'll put this to both of you.
¶234Why do we even need to say that the son is numerically identical to his divine nature? I would simply say that the father, the son, etc. have divine nature. That avoid claiming that they are but avoid claiming that they are numerically identical. Ni is numerical identity is transitive.
¶235Yeah. So yes, some trinitarians in fact do say that the three of them share divine nature where that's understood to be not a particular but a universal particularly those who call themselves social trinitarians. What I call three self-rinitarians. I mean I don't think uh a reader of the New Testament should say that Jesus has the divine nature either as a universal or as a particular because he's mortal. He's limited in knowledge.
¶236he's temptable and I haven't heard uh answers to those obvious objections. The to me the authors are not concerned about upholding full divinity and the reason is because um they don't believe that. >> And you Josh? >> Yes. So um just to answer the the question so numerical identity I believe is what we see the church teaching very clearly.
¶237Um and so we have people let's say for example the capidosians basil says that the son has an identity of nature with the father or he has an identity of substance. So you see it in the capidosians, you see it in Augustine. I believe that you see it in earlier writers as well because there was a very um I would say strong understanding that in order to have monotheism and not to divide the persons into let's say different gods, there needs to be a strong onlogical oneness that they have and that thus means that they must be numerically identical to the nature. Um but then just with what Dr. Tuggy was saying um I do believe that we have a very clear way in which the church has always taught from a consilious standpoint that we predicate the contradictory attributes of Christ irrespective to the natures.
¶238Now how we make sense of that would be open for another debate and I'll be open to debate that with you but I have written on it and I have written on ways philosophically we can understand this but we would say that Christ for example is temptable relative to his um human nature and he is not temptable uh relative to his divine nature or vice versa for other um other attributes. So I think the consilia um answer is still the answer that I would put forward. I definitely think we need another debate but before that uh I'm going to hand over to you uh Dr. Siguard for your closing statement which is going to be five minutes and then we're going to hear from Dale. >> Okay.
¶239So we have spent this evening among texts fathers and councils but I want to leave you with a question rather than a summary. On which side of the line does Jesus of Nazareth stand? I mean the line by which Jewish monotheism divided the one creator and sovereign from everything else that exists however exalted. That line is not a slope or a gradient running upwards from creatures through angels exalted intermediaries up to God at the summit. Israel instead recognized these exalted intermediaries but maintained that one alone created and ruled all things and one alone received the devotion of his people.
¶240As we heard earlier, God was not merely the greatest being within a class. He occupied a category wholly his own. And ancient Jews knew how to recognize it. The divine names, attributes, actions, universal rulership and devotion. Together, these five marks identify the God of Israel.
¶241The New Testament accords all five marks to the son. While placing the spirit within the same unccreated divine life, of the son in particular, it applies to him passages originally spoken of Yahweh. Paul applies Isaiah's declaration that every knee will bow and every tongue confessed to Jesus. In Romans, he applies Joel's promise that all who call upon Yahweh's name will be saved. to those who call upon Jesus.
¶242And Hebrews applies to the son the psalmist words concerning the Lord who founded the earth and made the heavens. The New Testament presents all things as coming into existence through the sun. Although Isaiah declares that Yahweh stretched out the heavens by himself, he unites God and the lamb upon one throne of universal rule and depicts every creature in heaven and on earth offering blessing, honor, glory, and dominion to both. That is not merely the promotion of an exalted creature. It places a son on the divine side of the creator creature line.
¶243And the spirit is placed there with him. He's identified with God, called the eternal spirit, and performs the work of creating, regenerating, giving life, inspiring scripture, raising Christ, and directing the church. He's included with the father and son in the one baptismal name and invoked alongside him as a source of divine blessing. The spirit is therefore not an impersonal power belonging to the created order, but a distinct person within the unccreated divine life. My interlocator did not need to show that the son and the spirit are the father for I've never claimed that they are.
¶244What he needed to show was that they stand on the creature side of that line and nothing he has presented establishes it. Their difference to the father does not because they eternally derive from him as their source. Their distinction from the father does not because their that distinction is precisely what I affirm. nor does the son's exaltation because no one can be given what he already possessed. And the question presses in the other direction too.
¶245Had the earliest Christians wished to say that Jesus belonged on God's side of the line, what more could they have said? They gave him God's names, attributes, actions, universal rulership, and devotion. Nothing belonging to the Jewish identification of the one God was withheld from him. A creature described in this way would not merely be a creature honored highly. It would be a creature accorded every identifying feature by which Israel distinguished God from creation.
¶246The final word of the motion today is orthodox. So let the central council of the Christian trinitarian faith speak once more. The creed of 381 begins with the confession, we believe in one God, the father almighty. It then confesses a son as true God from true God, begotten not made, and of one essence with the father. It likewise confesses the spirit as proceeding from the father and in the creed's words as being worshiped and glorified together with the father and son.
¶247That is my position expressed in the creed's own language. So I end where I began. There is one God, the father, and two relationally distinct persons, the sons, who are of the same divinity as the father. They are not gods beside him. They are not creatures beneath him.
¶248They live by his own life because from all eternity, he communicates that life to them. That is consilia trinitarianism and it's the best explanation of the evidence you have heard and thus it is both biblical and orthodox. Thank you very much. >> [applause] >> All right. Thank you, Dr.
¶249Siguati for a good debate, a good exchange. It really kind of comes down to this. Um, and the more I listen to him, the more I think that really he embraces the identity of the persons. Um, if so, that's not an orthodox view for the reason I already mentioned a couple of times. I complained in my opening that there's no biblical justification whatsoever for generation and procession.
¶250I didn't hear an answer to that. I don't know how you would get from scripture the metaphysical claim that um not only is the son and the spirit divine but also that they share a token individual instance of divinity. Uh the kind of hands arguments that he gave if they were um compelling and they're not they would be compatible with the son and spirit sharing sharing a generic divine nature like other trinitarians think. He seemed to suggest that my view isn't simple enough. I mean, simplicity is a really important uh component of comparing theories.
¶251And I mean, it's on display in this image. Mine is a lot simpler. Maybe he's complaining that what I say about texts that mention the spirit is various. You can't you can't get too simple. Complex phenomena like spirit talk in the Bible still require very complex accounts.
¶252I would love it. It'd be really nice if talk of the spirit only meant one thing in the New Testament. Um, what more could they have said? Uh, they could have said that Jesus is panto almighty. They never say that.
¶253They could have him say, you know, truly I am the one true God and things like that and he doesn't say that. He says somebody else is the only true God, which means that he isn't of that same status. For many people, the doctrine of the trinity is a shibilef. It's something that they say to show that they're inroup members. Um, and I encourage you though to go beyond that.
¶254One who is giving saying I believe in the doctrine of the trinity whatever it is using it as a shibilith is concerned with safeguarding their group membership. But I would suggest that what matters is really what Jesus thinks because he's the one that God has appointed to judge us on that day. In one place he says,"Wh do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I tell you to do?" And I would say that Jesus's teachings include how to think, how to speak, and how to teach others about God, about him, and about God's spirit. I don't think what he says in the apostles say should be dismissed as primitive theology or confused or halfway or incipient, or trinitarianism, or seeds of trinitarianism, and so on. I just think it makes sense on its own account.
¶255Um, you don't need two divine persons in addition to God. You can understand everything the New Testament says with one divine person. That's the father. Um, I agree. Uh, Dr.
¶256Suati is right that the New Testament teaches the one God as the father, but it also teaches Jesus to be a man and he couldn't be a man and a fully divine person. It's very important I think to focus on those passages where you see a reign and an indwelling of two in believers rather than three. This is this is uh what we see in Acts is just inspired theology and you don't need the councils because this makes sense on its own. Consiliar trinitarianism developed more than 317 years after Jesus's resurrection. Dr.
¶257Dr. Siguati agrees in his book that it's a product of the second half of the 4th century. You first start seeing it really around Athanasius's later works. Um his other view consiliar aspectalism is something like 1992 years after Jesus's resurrection. I don't understand um how Dr.
¶258Siguati thinks he can get off the orthodox train at a certain part. It all kind of goes together once you get on the apostolic succession linear one bishop system. Two divine persons, three divine persons, then bam, either at that council or right after you have triune God believers. And they do mention the triune God idea at the later council. Like I said, I would say that the faith that you need to believe is the faith once and del once delivered to all the saints.
¶259You don't need these later views. And I would challenge you to examine the scriptures for yourself and see what what I've said is so and specifically look at the gospel that's preached all throughout the whole book of Acts. Does it sound like consiliar trinitarianism or does it sound like the biblical unitarian gospel that I explained with one God, a very special man, his Messiah and the spirit of God, the spirit that Jesus uh gave to the church. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you so much for coming tonight.
¶260Uh Dr. Dell Tuggy, Dr. Joshua Siduard, thank you for sharing us uh sharing with us so so richly from your wealth of knowledge. And Dell was calling at the end there for us to really examine our beliefs. And I think this debate is a really good prompt to do so.
¶261Um a reminder that you can read Josh's book on the Trinity and um and Dale's many many books on the Trinity as well. So do go to uh Amazon or any good bookshop and and find those as well. Uh can we give a very warm round of applause once and again for our debaters? Please. [applause] [music]