My Trinity-rebuttal to AnnoyedPinoy

"Annoyed Pinoy" regularly posts at Triablogue.  See here.  He defends the Trinity doctrine at one of his own blogs.

I posted the following challenge to him at that blog (see here).

I now crosspost that here in case it happens to disappear:

Trinitarians get around Mark 13:32 by limiting Jesus' confession of ignorance solely to his "human nature".  But since one's "nature" is their inherent feature and thus something the person cannot avoid implicating, then if Jesus had two natures, it would be perfectly reasonable to say that BOTH of them were implicated in his confession of ignorance (i.e., the divine side of Jesus admitted being ignorant of something). 

The reasonableness of implicating both of his alleged "natures" is not going to disappear merely because you feel forced under biblical inerrancy to automatically favor any view about Jesus that will make sense of the premise that he could both know and not know one single factoid at the same time. 

You probably believe that a person's mind is their "spirit", and if so, this would be the case with Jesus who became a "real" human being (i.e., became a higher-order mammal whose mind was capable of operating separately from its body).  Ok, was Jesus speaking with his "mind" when he confessed this ignorance?  Is Jesus' "mind" the same as his "spirit"?  Was Jesus' speaking from his "spirit" by divulging the ignorant state of his "mind" in Mark 13:32?  What exactly would be "unreasonable" in saying Jesus' was speaking from his "spirit" in Mark 13:32?   

Was Jesus' spirit separate from the Holy Spirit?  Mark 3 would seem to disallow this with its warning that accusing Jesus of demon-possession constitutes blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, as it falsely equates the Holy Spirit with demons...which implies that Jesus' "spirit" is the Holy Spirit, there is no lesser "human spirit" in addition to his "Holy Spirit".  Jesus also breathes on the disciples in John 20 and says "receive ye the Holy Spirit" powerfully supporting the notion that his spirit is the Holy Spirit, and there is no fourth identity called "human spirit" in existence here.  

Therefore, if Jesus was speaking his "mind" in Mark 13:32, he was also speaking from his "spirit" in Mark 13:32, and thus his confession of ignorance constitutes the Holy Spirit's ignorance, which then saddles god himself with this ignorance. 

Was the day of Christ's return missing from Jesus' "mind"?  Was it missing from his "spirit"?
If you try to get away from this by positing that Jesus had a "human mind" that was separate from "Holy Spirit", you'll end up with 4 people in the Trinity...at least during his earthly life, even if there were only 3 people in it before the incarnation. 

Remember, there are only 3 persons you are allowed here, no extras!

Seems to me that reading Trinitarian theology back into Mark 13:32 comes at great intellectual sacrifice, and doesn't even conform to normative hermeneutical convention, since what the originally intended audience likely understood Mark 13:32 represents a normative rule of interpretation, and common sense would insist that Mark's orignally intended audience, back there in 60 a.d., likely had views of Jesus far less theologically sophisticated than the views espoused by the "orthodox" at Nicaea.

So Mark's originally intended audience would more than likely have denied Jesus' alleged omniscience, and if other parts of Mark indicate Jesus knew all things, this is either typical Semitic exaggeration, or Jesus inconsistently held an unrealistically high view of himself, or Mark's gospel is merely inconsistent about the matter.

I personally prefer  the second.  Mark's obvious apathy toward Jesus' childhood is more consistent with the theory that he was something of an adoptionist, even if, like most people, his entire story is not consistent with everything adoptionist.

Regardless, bible inerrancy is a false doctrine, so I'm quite  reasonable to feel comfortable with the possibility that the interpretation of Mark 13:32 that causes Mark to contradict himself, is the correct one. 

This is despite the fact that Mark nowhere claims that Jesus is equal with God. 

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: 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?

Matthew as resurrection witness: did Irenaeus quote, or corroborate, Papias?

Generally, the less independent corroboration, the weaker the case for traditional authorship of Matthew, but the more independent corroboration, the stronger such a case would be (barring discussion of the credibility of the sources for the independent corroboration).

2nd century church Father Irenaeus asserts that Matthew authored a gospel. 
 

1. We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed “perfect knowledge,” as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles. For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God. Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies,Book 3, ch. 1

Schaff, P. (2000). The Ante-Nicene Fathers (electronic ed.). Garland, TX: Galaxie Software.

Irenaeus elsewhere admits that he also got things not just from Papias, but specifically from the same Papias-authored 5-volume “Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord” that Eusebius depended on for crediting Papias with the earliest post-apostolic statement of Matthew’s authorship.  See Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 5, ch. 33.

Therefore, it remains a possibility that Irenaeus’ statement about Matthew authoring a gospel constitutes nothing more than him simply repeating what Papias said.   If that is the case, Irenaeus wouldn't qualify as an independent corroboration, for the same reason that witness B is not independently corroborating the testimony of witness A, if all witness B is doing is depending on witness A's statement and giving it her own interpretation.

For obvious reasons, the more conservative or fundamentalist the Christian, the more they will view the evidence in the light most favorable to Matthew's authorship, since they are already low on resurrection eyewitness testimony, they cannot afford for any of their alleged witnesses to call in sick the day of trial.

Scholar Donald Guthrie, whose "NT Introduction" is "widely acclaimed" and "a benchmark evangelical work", says Irenaeus here was depending on Papias to assert Matthew authored a gospel:

This testimony is clearly identical with Papias’ statement only if λογία is interpreted as the gospel. Since Irenaeus was acquainted with Papias’ work it may reasonably be assumed that he is here giving his own interpretation of Papias’ statement…

Guthrie, D. (1996, c1990). “Matthew, Authorship”, New Testament introduction.

Series taken from jacket. (4th rev. ed.).

[The master reference collection]. Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press.

The question to be answered in this blog is;  Is Irenaeus corroborating, or merely repeating, what Papias said?

If he was merely repeating, then he does not qualify as independent corroboration of Papias' statement, and as such, the case for Matthew's authorship is a bit weaker than it might have been.

Luke 2:52, either Jesus isn't God, or God can increase in wisdom

Luke 2:52 makes a controversial statement about Jesus, which I say logically forbids the possibility that he could have been both human and God at the same time.

46 Then, after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.

 47 And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers.

 48 When they saw Him, they were astonished; and His mother said to Him, "Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You."

 49 And He said to them, "Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father's house?"

 50 But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them.

 51 And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

 52 And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (Lk. 2:46-52 NAU)

How could Jesus, who IS God (supposedly), "increase" in wisdom?


Apologists will say v. 52 is only referring to Jesus' human nature, not his divine nature.

But "nature" is what a thing really is, it's essential properties, as opposed to what it merely appears to be.  From the Oxford dictionary:

The basic or inherent features, character, or qualities of something.

So if Jesus had two natures, BOTH of them would have to be implicated in anything the bible asserts him to have been, said or done.  There is no logical possibility for a person to act in a way that doesn't implicate their nature.

So the only way to rescue Luke from denying Jesus' divinity here is to insist, contrary to all reason, that Luke ascribed to the erroneous belief that Jesus could do things contrary to one of his natures (like acting in his earlier years in a way that involved less wisdom than he'd have acted with in his later years, when his nature as God during his early years would require that he always spoke/acted during said early years with the fullest amount of wisdom logically possible for God.)

Yes, the bible elsewhere teaches that Jesus is God, but using a teaching in one part of the bible to dictate what interpretative options are and aren't available for some other bible verse, presupposes the truth of the doctrine of full biblical inerrancy.  But since bible inerrancy has nowhere near the universal acclaim that other interpretation-tools such as "grammar" and "context" have (inerrancy is denied by most Christian scholars too, not just skeptics), I have reasonable justification to refuse to exalt inerrancy in my mind to the status of "interpretation-tool".

Since I have reasonable justification to reject inerrancy as a governing heremeneutic, I have reasonable justification to not be worried about my interpretation of Luke 2:52 causing it to contradict something else in the bible.  Something more than this must be shown before I will be morally or intellectually obligated to renounce my interpretation.  If such is not shown, then the fact that my interpretation contradicts something else in the bible, will only be interesting to inerrantist-Christians, thus showing the subjective nature of such a rebuttal.

For all these reasons, Luke's statement that Jesus increased in wisdom can only mean either a) Jesus wasn't God since God cannot increase in wisdom, or b) the divine nature of Jesus increased in wisdom. 

However, Christians who interpret Genesis 6:6-7 literally (i.e, God really does sometimes regret one of his own decisions), can safely assert that Jesus, as God, can increase in wisdom.  Their interpretation of Genesis 6 is probably correct, there is no grammatical or contextual justification for the "anthropomorphic" interpretation, only a worry that it needs to be rendered non-literal so it won't contradict other bible verses asserting God being all-knowing.  Take a look at Exodus 32:9-14  for another example of God being imperfect and needing the wisdom of humans.