Demolishing Triablogue: Steve Hays' unedifying rants about Trinitarianism

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled

Is the Trinity tritheistic?

Is the Trinity tritheistic? Compared to what?

Is a pancake a fruit?  Compared to what?  Gee, you were born to grasp issues early on.

What's the point of contrast in biblical monotheism? Pagan polytheism.

The question more likely to instigate objective answers is how likely it is that the ancient Hebrews viewed their god as a single 'person'.  They likely did.

Physical humanoid gods with superhuman, but finite abilities.

 I don't see the contrast with the biblical god, since the biblical god's powers are also limited:

 19 Now the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots. (Jdg. 1:19 NAU)

 Don't forget, as you rush to pay your resident apologist to answer this "alleged" discrepancy, that the reason Judah couldn't win the battle in the valley, is stated in the text rather clearly and it isn't "they lost faith in their god."  Try "because they had iron chariots."  Sorry Steve, but I care more about what the biblical authors actually meant, not whether what they said can be spun to avoid clashing with the untouchable foregone truth of bible inerrancy.

Gods who come into being, usually through sexual intercourse between a god and goddess.

That's how Matthew and Luke say Jesus came into existence, though of course Christians tweaked that motif to make it unique.

Gods who can pass out of existence. Gods who are physically and psychologically separate from each other. Who come into existence at different times. Some are the offspring of gods.

"we are all his offspring", Paul, quoting a pagan theological text in Acts 17:28.  If Paul didn't mean this in the original polytheistic way it was intended by the original author, then he took it out of context.

By contrast, Yahweh is immaterial.

A rather meaningless statement.  What's next?  A monograph on how incorporeal beings can move physical objects?  What else do you do in your spare time?  Wonder what life would be like if "cat" was spelled "d-o-g"?  Let's just say Steve Hays is anything but a threat to atheism.

Yahweh has no beginning or ending.

Neither does the universe. Now tell us all the reasons why you think all the creationist Christians at ICR are deaf to the holy spirit, all because they deny the big bang.

If there's internal differentiation in Yahweh, it's not tritheistic in the sense of pagan polytheism. Yet that's the biblical frame of reference by which something would be tritheistic.

 Then tell us, Steve:  Did the Father will for Jesus to say "let this cup pass" in Matthew 26:39, yes or no?  Did the father intend for Jesus to draw the conclusion that he was abandoned by the Father, as Jesus clearly thought when saying "Why have you forsaken me" (Matthew 27:46)?

Or will you write several articles on why only fools think "why have you forsaken me" implies being actually forsaken?   So, Steve, if God forsook "Jesus", does that permit drawing the conclusion that the First person of the Trinity (Father) abandoned the Second person of the Trinity (Jesus)?

Demolishing Triablogue: God forced you to sin, but you still 'deserve' to be punished for it...and other dreck

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled

Accident of birth

    Stephen J. Graham
    @sjggraham
    Suppose God sent to Hell everyone who was born in South America before 10am. The rest of us go to heaven. Is there any reason on Calvinism to think there is anything wrong with God holding people morally accountable for being born in South America before 10am?
    Secular Outpost Retweeted

    Stephen J. Graham
    @sjggraham
    Can South Americans born before 10am complain to their creator "Why did you make me thus?" Who are they that they should talk back to God? (cf Romans 9:20)

    Stephen J. Graham
    @sjggraham
    I'm asking whether it makes any moral sense for God to hold someone accountable for something beyond their control. I don't think the issue is about divine command ethics.

I wouldn't normally comment on some random tweet by an atheist, by since this was retweeted by Jeff Lowder at the Secular Outpost, I'll bite:

i) God wouldn't be holding folks morally accountable for when and where they are born, but for their sin.

But under Calvinism, God caused them to sin no less than he caused them to be born in certain times and places.  Your attempted distinction is illusory.

For instance, if an arsonist trips a silent alarm, and the police arrest him before he had a chance to get away, he wasn't held accountable for his poor timing. That's an incidental circumstance.

But if the police caused him to commit arson,it wouldn't make sense to hold him accountable.  Yet police causing him to commit arson is more analogous to the Calvinist god who causes people to sin.  Your attempt to justify the way God holds us accountable, fails.

ii) Since many South Americans are Christians, it would be morally wrong for God to damn them.

That is not consistent with the bible.  Jesus did no sin (in your fable), yet God struck the shepherd.  The baby born to David and Bathsheba hadn't don't anything to deserve death, yet God "struck" that child and forced it to endure a miserable sickness for 7 days before it died.   No inerrantist has ever said Apostle Paul's sins were probably the reason God sent a "messenger from Satan" to buffet him as a thorn in the flesh, yet God caused that bit of suffering nonetheless.  And you delude others with sophistry anyway, since your hypothetical isn't even a logical possibility, for under your Calvinism, your divine-command theory makes it impossible for God to be wrong, ever, for any reason.  

For one thing, God would be breaking his promise to save those who trust in Jesus.

Thats' irrelevant, the pot is STILL never justified to say "why did you make me this way", regardless of what is actually true or not true.

ii) In addition, it would be wrong for God to damn those whom Christ redeemed. Since Christ atoned for the sins of Christians (i.e. the elect), there's no judicial basis for damning them.

Have fun trying to convince non-Calvinists that the branches in Christ that end up being heaved into the fire for destruction, were never legitimately growing in him.   Read John 15 without wearing your Calvinist glasses.

Admittedly, some professing Christians are nominal Christians, but I'm referring to the elect.

iii) Hence, Rom 9:20 doesn't apply.

On the contrary, if Paul's analogy in that verse of men to pots and God to potter be fitting, then it would NEVER be morally good for the pot to say "why have you made me this way".  That's the point of the analogy, the pot NEVER talks back to the potter, so to imagine this ever happening is perfectly absurd.  If Paul pushed his analogy too far, which he did, that's your problem.

iv) Sometimes we're responsible for things beyond our control and sometimes not. Depends on the example. If a mother leaves her newborn baby on my doorstep, I'm not responsible for the child in the sense that I'm not its father. And I didn't create that situation. But having been thrust into a situation not of my own choosing, I'm responsible to see to it that the newborn doesn't die on my doorstep from exposure or predation.

Unless, in your Calvinist communication with God, He tells you that he predestined you to neglect the child to the point of death.  If so, then you aren't allowed to use your freewill to overcome God's sovereign degree just so you can made the lemon you are selling look like a Ferrari to the customers.  If God is a piece of shit, say he is a piece of shit.  Don't dress him up in fear that his biblical ways will hurt your marketing prospects.  Call it like it really is.  Include "God ultimately causes all people to sin" when you evangelize, don't just limit yourself to the sugary crap western minds will likely be attracted to.  But perhaps that's too demanding?

And by the way, you didn't provide any examples of how you could be accountable for things beyond your control.  The baby on your doorstep becomes part of what you can control when you discover him or her.  Regardless, on the basis of Romans 9:20, you have no theological warrant to attempt to justify God's ways.  If people complain against god, its because he stirred them up to do this.  Nothing is more funny than a Calvnist who believes like a supralapsarian, but who argues as if he supports the libertarian notion of freewill.  And in your theological view, Paul's answer in Romans 9:20 has more divine inspiration in it than any of your own speculations. Apparently, neither you nor most Calvinist theologians actually believe the scriptures are "sufficient" for faith and practice.

Demolishing Triablogue: Steve Hays doesn't notice he's complaining against what God wants

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled

So many Christians–so few lions!

A standard objection to Christianity is whether inclusivism is fair.

That would likely come from unbelievers uninformed about what a piece of shit sadist the bible god really is.  Fairness isn't the problem.  Getting a thrill out of watching men rape children to death is.

Is it fair that so many never had a chance to hear the Gospel?

Yes, people who never heard the gospel were thus spared a miserable existence of telling themselves that cosmic mysteries can be explained by theologians who learn the ways of jailhouse lawyers.  Of course, some of us have far less tolerance for logical contradictions, so we can understand how Christians can have joy in the Lord and have no problems with the absurdity and inconsistency of their beliefs.  Mormons are a prime example.  So are Pentecostals and Calvinists.  Pretty much the whole bad except the liberal Christians who are honest enough to admit they do this shit more because its a club that facilitates social support.

This is an issue in freewill theism as well as Calvinism.

I don't see why Calvinists would give a shit.  If as Calvinism says, God wants sinners to sin, and therefore wants men to rape babies, you are probably better to focus your energies on problems obviously more serious than "what about those who never heard the gospel?"

There are familiar strategies in fielding this objection. But I'd like to remark on a neglected consideration. It's striking how frequently unbelievers respond to the Gospel with seething antipathy.

Why would it be striking?  Your god bitches at us all pissed off about our bad choices, despite his possessing coercive mental telepathy abilities, Ezra 1:1.  That's like an armed guard bitching at the robbers during a bank heist, and somehow just never getting around to using his gun.  But I have an explanation:  your god is a stupid bastard in most of his ways because he is nothing more than an idol made in the image of man, an idol that keeps changing as the years roll on and people become more civilized.

It's not as if they exclaim, "That's just what I was always waiting for! Where have you been all my life!"

And you naturally wouldn't expect unbelievers to respond that way to a God who secretly wills for them to disobey his revealed will, which is what Calvinism is all about, right?

I'm not saying nobody responds that way. But notice how many people, when exposed to the Gospel, how many people, when given the opportunity, far from welcoming the message, greet the message with implacable enmity, to the point of persecuting or martyring Christians. Silencing them. Torturing them to death. "So many Christians–so few lions!"

Unbelievers can get out of control.  But if Calvinism is the right form of Christianity, then indeed, there aren't enough lions.

It's not as if many people go to hell simply because they never had a chance to hear the Gospel. As though, had they only been given the opportunity, they'd be overjoyed and feel privileged.

Sorry Steve, you won't be blaming unbelievers for their predictable rejection of "truth", as you are a Calvinist.  If unbelievers reject the gospel message, its because God predestined them to do so, and their choice to do so is effected in that direction by God's sovereign will, which is somewhat akin to throwing a dish on the floor, then getting angry at the dish for doing what you wanted it to do (break).  I think this is the part where you insist that the Calvinist God who both "wills and wills not", is the supreme example of mental consistency, and all who disagree are merely blinded by the devil.

So often unbelievers react like drowning swimmers who fight the lifeguard: "How dare you save my life!"

Blame it on god, as Calvinists are inclined to do anyway.  And under Calvinism, God is not just a lifeguard, he is also a man-eating shark.  To be consistent with your Calvinism, you need to also say that some unbelievers are like swimmers who fight the shark.

I'm not saying this covers every case, but it's worth pondering. How frequently those who need it the most are the most antagonistic. Violently belligerent. 

Blame it on god.  You Calvinists think us unbelievers are only being violently belligerent toward your God because he predestined us to act that way, correct?  What fool wishes people would deviate from the path of perdition that God forces them to choose? 

Did you forget that you are a Calvinist?

Demolishing Triablogue: Steve Hays' Trinitarian speculations violate Paul's prohibitions against foolish questions and ceaseless word-wrangling

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled 

Ares redivivus

Apostate Dale Tuggy's philosophical objection to the Trinity is that it (allegedly) violates the law of identity.

It does.  You insist that Jesus is separate in person from the Father, but that both have identical wills in all things, when in fact it is the "will" that makes the person distinct from another.  Talking about two different people who agree on absolutely everything and have the same identical thoughts is absurd, and we'd only expect false religion to spend 2,000 years trying to prove the impossible.

Some Trinitarians stray from Nicaea's ideas about Jesus and the Father, and allow for Jesus to will things contrary to the Father, but that's only because they are constrained to believe that way by the biblical evidence, not because the Trinity concept allows it.  By the way, you bible forbids the Nicaean concept of Jesus.  

 39 And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will." (Matt. 26:39 NAU)

 If Jesus had infallible assurance that the Father would never grant this request, why did Jesus make the request?  If you had infallible assurance that your boss would not let you go home from work early, would you still ask "Boss, if it is possible, let me go home early, yet not as I will, but as you will" ?  Of course not. You'd only ask such a thing if you didn't know whether the boss would allow it. In which case Jesus is asking an identical question because he wasn't sure whether God would allow it, but he probably concluded soon after that God wouldn't allow it.  The point is that you cannot reconcile Matthew 26:39 with your Nicaean view that Jesus is little more than a perfect reflection of God the Father.

Worse, Jesus makes explicit the disagreement between his personal will and the Father's by saying "not as I will".  The negation is perfectly pointless if Jesus' will was always in harmony with the Father's.  If you and your girlfriend both desire to eat at McDonald's, do you say "if it be possible let's eat somewhere else, yet not as I will, but as you will" ?  Obviously not...unless you are just playing games.

I think this is the part where you answer one logical contradiction with another, and account for Jesus' will not being in harmony with the Father's by pretending Jesus was only speaking here "from his human nature", not his divine nature.

Ok, then what?  Was Jesus' human will at variance with the Father's will, yes or no?    Or must I become an expert on Monothelitism before you will deem me worthy of response?

Are you quite sure that when the gospel authors said "Jesus" did this or that, they sometimes meant only his human nature and sometimes meant only his divine nature?  You'll forgive me if I don't assume the gospel authors were as paranoid about upholding systematic theology and inerrancy as today's fundagelicals.  I'd rather believe the gospel authors were far less sophisticated than this, a theory more consistent with the way things were in the 1st century...which means when they attribute words to Jesus, they are necessarily implying that ALL of Jesus was in support of what he was saying/doing...and not merely his "human nature".

And that's to say nothing of the fact that having "two natures" constitutes logical contradiction.

And that's to say nothing of the fact that if we are to presume Christ was consistent and perfect, this would demand that BOTH his natures are in agreement with whatever he did or said.  So, Steve, who asked the Father for the possibility to avoid their cup of suffering there in Matthew 26:39?  Jesus?  Or the second person of the Trinity?

One issue this raises is how to define identity.

An issue which I'm sure kept Jesus' original followers up late at night, shivering with fright about the consequences of getting any of this stupid sophistry wrong.

For instance, I've argued that if A and B can be put into point-by-point correspondence, then that's a rigorous definition of identity. However, reflection symmetries meet that condition, yet reflection symmetries remain distinguishable by virtue of chirality.

Unfortunately, the bible says enough about Jesus to forbid concluding that he was in perfect harmony with the Father, so take your Nicaean "light from light" and shove it up your word-wrangling strife-loving bible disobeying ass.

But another issue is whether ancient people operated with a stringent definition of identity.

Yeah, the fact that Nicaea didn't happen until about 300 years after Jesus died, sort of deprives you of all sense of purpose in life.  I suggest you write a monograph on the shit and have it peer-reviewed.

Let's take hypothetical example. In paganism, the gods are not indestructible. One god can kill another god. In that event, he ceases to exist. No more body. No more consciousness. Yet it's possible to recreate him through sorcery.
Suppose Zeus gets really miffed with Ares and zaps him out of existence, but Hera brings him back through some magic ritual. There's a gap in his existence: from existence to nonexistence to reexistence. Would pagans regard Ares redivivus as one and the same individual?

Did you miss the part of the NT that forbids you from engaging in stupid questions?

While some metaphysicians might balk, I have no reason to think ordinary ancient people would regard Ares redivivus as a different individual from his former self.

And atheists have no reason to think Jesus' original followers would have viewed him as "light from light".  Sometimes biblical authors accidentally let the inconvenient historical truth come out.  Paul in Acts 13:33 applied the "This day I have begotten you" Sonship  Psalm 2:7 to the point in time when Jesus resurrected:  

32 "And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers,
 33 that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, 'YOU ARE MY SON; TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU.'
 34 "As for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: 'I WILL GIVE YOU THE HOLY and SURE blessings OF DAVID.' (Acts 13:32-34 NAU)

 I think this is the part where you insist that anybody who thinks this is saying Jesus was begotten of God on the day he rose from the dead, are morons for not realizing that the need to defend inerrancy is always more important than the need to understand biblical authors correctly.  Never mind that being begotten on a specific day was the original intent of this Psalm:

“Today” points to the fact that the words were announced on the coronation day, the day on which the divine decree became effective.

Craigie, P. C. (2002). Vol. 19: Word Biblical Commentary : Psalms 1-50.

Word Biblical Commentary (Page 67). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

So, Steve, when the the divine decree in Psalm 2:7 become effective in Jesus' case?  On the day he rose from the dead, as Paul taught and as the original context of the Psalm would require anyway?

Or did I forget that rule of interpretation that says NT authors are always allowed to take the OT out of context and still be correct to do so?