Burning the Strawmen
June 9th, 2008 by JohnO
In all the exchanges we’ve had in the debate and as a result of the debate, I’m seeing several charges being leveled against us that are (1) incomplete, (2) false, and/or (3) don’t follow logically from our points. These are all strawmen. I’m just going to list them here:
- That we mix creator and creation based on singular pronouns
- That singular pronouns can be used of multiple persons
- That we deny progressive revelation, or it nullifies our points
- No Unitarian statement appears in Scripture
- Misrepresentation concerning the New Creation of Colossians 1
They claim that since ‘he’ generally means a single person, a man in this case, we are “boxing God in” to being like humans. On the contrary – God chose to reveal himself with this language – it is not our choosing. Language is a discernible system. Yes it is flexible, but no so flexible that any meaning can be achieved under any circumstances.
In the example of ‘Israel’, Brant admitted that came to denote the entire family, multiple individuals. It sure did, this is called a collective noun. Therefore when Israel is singular, it denotes one single family. That family compromises of many men and women. No where does the OT, or the NT support the idea that God is a collective noun. Therefore when God is given a personal name, YHWH, and it says that he alone is God, and there is none beside him – the direct explicit conclusion is that there is only one Person who is God (not three Persons in one What/Godhead).
Progressive revelation could absolutely reveal that there are multiple personalities who are God, and that God is an essence. But as Gary Fakhoury presented – that could create some real problems. Sure, the people of the OT could have just misunderstood what was plainly there. However, Jesus’ affirmation of Mk 12 makes that option unavailable.
There are many unitarian statements in Scripture, chiefly Deut 6:4, the shema, which isn’t even the best one, as Gary and Sean pointed out in their papers. When we say that a Person YHWH is the only God, we have stated that one Person is alone capable of the title of God. Or, should the Trinitarian position want to speak ontologically, YHWH is not an essence but a Person – because essences don’t get Personal names like YHWH.
I bring up Colossians 1 because it came up on the radio program that Dustin and I called into. Unfortunately, I was hung up on before I could explain Colossians 1, only Brant’s side made it to the air. Brant assumed I am leaning on ‘en’ as ‘in’, and not ‘by’ and asserted that the list of creation is in fact the Genesis creation. I think keeping the passage in context tells us otherwise. Verse 20 and 21 talks about reconciling all the things in the list back to Jesus. And in Verse 13 we are removed from darkness and translated into the Kingdom. The passage is sandwiched by Jesus’ present actions and accomplishments. In verse 18 Jesus is spoken of as being preemminent, over all of what he is redeeming back to himself, the translation of things into his Kingdom. That is the same meaning for ‘firstborn’ and ‘before’. These aren’t timing in the temporal means, but rather a position of status. God wants all the fullness of new creation to dwell in Jesus, verse 17. Moreover Trinitarians should be scared of verse 15 – if he is the image of God, that means he is a man. God the Son is not the image of all three Persons of God.
And many of the trinitarians arguments fall flat with no support whatsoever. You’ll notice that some of these correlate to the strawmen above. Some of these are:
- Gen 1.26
- Heb 1.8
- Special pleading when talking about God as singular
- The Trinitarian Worldview
Since Colossians 1 is not talking about Genesis creation, but new creation – they have no verses whatsoever to lean on to import Jesus into the Genesis creation account. The ‘us’ in Gen 1.26, as even Trinitarians scholars tell us (see NIV Study Bible) is God talking to his heavenly angelic court. There is no basis for a Trinitarian doctrine in this verse, and it is admitted by their own people.
During the debate Brant asserted that Sean never did prove representational deity. This is a flat out lie. Sean spent plenty of time on Heb 1.8 demonstrating that it is the perfect case for representational deity. Ps 45, which it quotes, calls a human King of Israel “God”, representational deity in the OT. And Hebrews applies this to Jesus. Since Jesus is the King of the Kingdom, and is a human as well – it is the perfect case for representational deity.
Brant accused several of us of “boxing God” in to our own image of ourself, calling us idolators, mixing the creator and the creation. I find this very strange since it is his theology which makes God into a man, the most non-transcendent action God could have ever chosen – and his theology supports the worship as God of a man. Rather, when the normal rules of language are applied, that singular personal pronouns are associated with a singular noun (not a collective noun), let alone a Person with a name, Brant must go into special pleading that we must allow God to express himself as he wishes. Unfortunately in Greek there are plenty of words God could have used to express an essence and multiple personalities within it. God uses none of this language. Brant’s argument from special pleading falls limp without potency.
Brant asserted his Trinitarian worldview based on the fact that God is one, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Simple enough. Yet, this was barely teased out of scripture at all. Brant recognized that he has a bias when looking at the text. We all do. Yet his bias is gone unchecked. Sean granted that only 2 (John 20.28, and Heb 1.8) verses ever call Jesus God (the rest lie in textual uncertainies/translations which Sean outlined in his paper). Yet how are we to understand these verses? We’ve already talked about Heb 1.8, and Sean made the same case for John 20.28. Since Sean’s position was never defeated (only asserted wrong, no reasoning whatsoever), Jesus is not God, only called God as his representative on the earth (as was Moses and Abraham before him). Brant’s presuppositional worldview falls apart.
Yet through all this, the Trinitarian position still has large difficulties that it imposes on itself when it meets the rest of Scripture:
- Jesus’ affirmation of Jewish understanding of who God is
- Jesus’ death on the cross
- Zero evidence of a debate about the redefinition of who God is in the NT
- Zero evidence of any preaching that the deity of Jesus must be believed for salvation in the NT
The Jewish people understood that YHWH was one single Person – and that YHWH was the only one that was God. This understanding was summed up in Deut 6.4. That single verse does not expound all of what they understood about God. Rather it was the medallion, the siren cry of the Israelite people – their slogan of their faith. Therefore, when the scribe asks Jesus in Mk 12 about the Shema he has the idea that YHWH is a single Person who alone is God – no other Persons beside YHWH. This is the Jewish definition of who God is. Jesus tells the scribe that because of this understanding of who God is – he is doing very well, close to entering the Kingdom. Jesus assents to the unitarian Jewish understanding of who God is. Why shouldn’t I? Moreover, how can any theory of Jesus’ divinity survive this single point? Jesus himself says there is only one Person who is God – the Person the scribe is thinking! This does not even rely on the possible meanings of Deut 6.4. If “God” was a collective noun, and the Trinitarian doctrine fits within that verse – it does not matter. Because the scribe isn’t citing the verse as a single source of proof, but rather as a symbol of his entire faith. And Jesus agrees with it!
Jesus, according to the Trinitarians pre-existed. Jesus’ identity has nothing to do with his incarnation into human form. When we talk about “Jesus” this is the being we’re talking about. Jesus is God, and God is immortal (meaning cannot die). Yet Jesus dies on the cross. Remember who we’re talking about. We’re not talking only about the flesh part. Jesus’ identity as God relies on the fact that he is the divine being who existed from all time. The incarnation doesn’t actually change Jesus, the flesh does not, cannot, add anything to Jesus, he is already God and isn’t missing anything. So Jesus, the pre-existent being who is God, and therefore immortal unable to die, dies. A contradiction in terms.
The Jewish definition of who God is was their central claim since the exile. This is their single most cherished belief, they die for it. They recite their slogan, the Shema, as they are dying. The Trinitarian position has to explain the fact that all of the early Church, the Jewish converts, willingly, silently, and without protest or debate changed their understanding of who God is. There are many disagreements and arguments recorded in the NT, not least Paul arguing with Peter about not eating with Gentiles. This seems on a much lower scale of importance than who God is! Yet we must accept that they believed Jesus to be God, in addition to the Father – without a single recorded discussion? And the Diaspora never challenged this either leaving an epistle for us? This is very hard to believe, especially considering for about 200(!) years Greeks with no vested interest in who God is argued about it!
Moreover, the claim that we “heretics” are without salvation, do not know God, and beyond hope needing repentance and conversion lacks evidence from the recorded preaching of the early Church in the NT. No Gospel presentation in the book of Acts ever required the belief and understanding of Jesus as God for saving faith.
In conclusion I find that our unitarian faith is well founded upon the Jewish understanding of who God is, and the most influencial Jew of all time, Jesus, agreed with it. And the Trinitarian position only holds on by asserting their position and positing that the Scriptures could allow for their position to exist, and since their position is assumed and asserted to be true by tradition and orthodoxy – then the Scriptures should and must be understood in their way. I humbly disagree with their entire process of doing theology, by starting with a Trinitarian understanding and then pulling that out of Scripture. Rather, let Scripture and history speak for itself.
Great point, John. It’s too bad they hung up on you before you could make them on the air. There is something else that I find troubling about the Trinity and how those who argue for it approach the subject. Language is God’s gift to humanity in order to communicate. Through language we communicate with one another and with God and he with us. However, if this means of communication is tampered with, twisted, or destroyed then we lose our ability to understand what God really said in his Scriptures. Below is a list of terms that the trinitarian redefines in order for his or her theory to stand.
> a person/being distinction — outside of trinitarianism a person is a being and vice versa
> equality applies to substance not function or rank
> singular pronouns really don’t mean singular but plural
> Jesus is immortal and can “experience” death (a clear contradiction)
> one really means three in one
> one can exist forever and yet be begotten (eternal generation)
> Jesus is omniscient but he didn’t know when he is to come back
etc.
This is a limited list but I’m sure there are more language distortion required by the model of God known as the Trinity. However, once we undermine God’s communicative mechanism (i.e. language) then we have unwittingly destroyed his communication to us on every point. The trinitarian does not like that the Bible never explains, teaches, or infers the Trinity…this makes much more work for the trinitarian apologist (and usually they don’t even try because it is so much easier to just read into Scripture the Trinity than derive it from Scripture). But, if we twist language to suit our needs then we have destroyed any confidence we had in salvation and other biblical concepts.
The unitarian reads mono-personality directly out of the text 20,000 times (every time a singular pronoun or singular verb is used of or by God). This point remains undefeated despite brilliant attempts to muddy the meaning of the word singular and to redefine it to mean plural. This simple fact of the matter is that anyone reading the Bible who has never been trained by trinitarians to think tri-personally (and even some who are) gets that there is only one God who is himself one not two or three. If God wanted to teach the Trinity in Scripture he would constantly use words like “we” and “us”, but as it stands he does not. This fact is an embarrassment and must be swept under the rug. But, the unitarian asks, why go through all the effort to re-interpret the Bible 20,000 times? Why not just redefine your understanding of God to be in tune with the Scriptures?
The 20,000 pronouns/verbs is the best argument we have. In essense, it is 20,000 proof texts!
It never ceases to amaze me how the utter obvious can be ignored.
As for the Trinitarian worldview, Sean asked in the debate to expound the doctrine from Scripture alone. Brant then came to the text, assuming that the tri-unity of God is a staple standard, along with the dual nature of Christ.
I still like Sean’s logic, Peter tempted Eve in the garden =)
Dustin
Somebody at the conference (I forget who) made the observation that many Trinitarians say that Jesus had to be God in order to be the perfect sacrifice for sin, and yet they say that it was not the God part of him that died, but the man part. This even contradicts their own theology, in addition to contradictng the Bible and plain logic.
Excellent point Mark – I have not thought of that before. There also is no Scriptural support for such statements, they sound good, like a mythological drama, but yet this can’t justify the lack of Scripture.
Alex Hall has pointed out in his recent presentation at the Theological Conference in Atlanta, that the unitarian view of atonement is superior to the trinitarian one because on trinitarianism only impersonal human nature dies whereas on unitarianism a real sinless human being really dies (ceases to live).
to listen to his talk click here, to read the paper click here.
The Narrow Mind radio interview w/ Brant is up on i-Tunes if anyone is interested.
Wow! I’m away from here for awhile and a HUGE debate breaks out! And on one of my favorite subjects too! Of course it will take me a little bit of time to listen to the debate audio and read through all the nearly 200 posts, but I did start here and I really wanted to drop a note or two.
There are many, many, MANY excellent arguements from Scripture and common-sense reasoning as to why Jesus can NOT be God. But two of the easiest IMO is the simple facts that God is immortal and that God can NOT be tempted by evil. Yet Jesus died and Jesus was tempted by Satan. It doesn’t take a “rocket scientist” to reason then that God and Jesus can NOT be one in the same.
Plus as Sean has argued concerning language itself, if one “person” is called “Father” and the other is called his “Son”. You automatically know that the two while directly related – are NOT the same being. A simple child can understand that if Jesus is called the “Son OF God” then he is NOT the same being AS God. It boggles my mind that something so easy, can be twisted into such man-made illogical word-games that ultimately can only be described as an “incomprehensible mystery”.
BTW, for any who are interested – check out this Unitarian web site from a man named “Bruce Barham” – http://www.TORAHOFMESSIAH.com. Though I disagree with him on his stance on Torah enforcement today, he is absolutely on the same page as kingdomready on the falseness of the Trinity and the importance of the true Kingdom message.
Welcome back Ron!
Those arguments have been presented in the debate and in the comments. They explain it all away by saying that Jesus has two natures – he is both fully human and fully divine – and the human part is the part that was tempted and that died, not the God part. Of course my response (which I’ve repeated so many times it sounds like a mantra) is “Show it to me in the Scriptures.” They can’t demonstrate “three-in-one” or “two natures in Jesus” from the Scriptures.
The dual natures is the one weapon that allows them to destroy any incoming objection. Ironically, it was the last bit of the trinity to develop (not until 451 a.d.). Of course it is impossible to have dual natures. The best way to show this is through Mark 13.32–in that verse Jesus says he does not know when he is coming back. The trinitarian is completely stumped here with his only response being, well he knew in his divinity but not in his humanity. Ut oh! Now we have two minds–two centers of consciousness–two persons–a Quadity not a Trinity.
Good point Sean!
But wait, we humans can’t limit God. We shouldn’t be looking to stop at 3 or 4. Maybe God is a twenty-ity or a 573-ity or a….
Or maybe an infinity-ity!