Figures who have impacted my journey: Larry Hurtado

Some notes:

- Book chapter is out! Check it out here. Almost works as a standalone paper.

- Quote from James McGrath review of Ehrman's most recent book:  Accurate memory is preserved, even in the process of distorting or reinterpreting it. And so it is frustrating when Ehrman discusses the work of famous form critics such as Bultmann and Dibelius but talks only about the fabrication of memories to meet the needs of churches in the pregospels period, to the neglect of the more interesting question of how the needs of those churches might have led to the reinterpretation of things the early Christians remembered about what Jesus said and did that were not pure fabrication (64–65). Some will suspect that Ehrman is still influenced here by his fundamentalist background, which tends to think of matters of authenticity or historicity in an all-or-nothing manner.

By the way, apologies to McGrath for probably mispronouncing his name!
- John's gospel criticism, please don't misunderstand me on the Jesus is/is not God thing!
- Dr. Hurtado's blog: https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/
- Dr. Hurtado's interviews on Trinities here, here, here and here
- Dr. Hurtado's personal recommendation to my series on his post here
- Tetragram/tetragrammaton , relief from trinity work. First contact. Explain the project *dormant*

- My "gleanings" from my first response series (first series summary here) to Lord Jesus Christ

- Key terms: programmatic inclusion alongside. Binitarian.
- Question of centrality (see my post on Hurtado's opening words here)
- mutation proponent, and "unsuccessful mutations"
- methodology
- Jesus as LORD/Lord.... more on that next time!

Sample Chapter is out!

I have no idea how much time I have spent crafting this chapter. I feel like I have written it several times over the last couple of years!

This opening chapter of my book manuscript introduces a new combination of already established theological concepts. It applies hermeneutic principles of interpretation to the historical development of the doctrine of the Trinity, thus opening a middle ground between "Triune God advocacy" and Biblical Unitarianism and, I hope, increase the opportunities for productive dialogue between these traditionally-opposed schools.

This, the opening chapter, is a very personal one.

Particular credit goes to Marc Gallagher who gave me some fantastic constructive criticism and advice on it a few months ago, although quite a number have contributed in various ways to the development of the thesis of this book, which I extract here from the uploaded chapter:

First century Christian faith did indeed seem to have – at least in the more successful strands of Christianity of the time – an all-new trinitarian hub, and indeed did not yet feature a tri-personal God. The latter would be the expression and safeguarding of the former. That is the thesis of this book: the Triune God is the fourth-century expression and safeguarding of the first-century triune faith.

Please read or download the chapter in full here.

As readers may have learned already from a previous post, I haven't had much luck with my first three publishers, so until the book situation changes, I will tend to prioritise my other goals via this blog. Hopefully, folks might at some point realise that the Triune Hub hypothesis could give new leverage and clarity to the trinitarian enterprise. If that does happen, I may not even be the best person to publish on it. I'm more committed to getting a more accurate perspective of the past and improving the state of Christian apologetics to mind too much, although I have wondered and prayed about a partnership. But this chapter remains one of my most nurtured, careful and developed pieces I have written to date, so if you would like to read it I'd love to hear your feedback.

Blessings.

Big T Little t: It's time to call in the A-Team!

Remember The A Team? What a great show!

One of the great characters from that 90s classic was Mister T. You don't mess with Mister T!
Today I want to reflect again on Tuggy's dichotomy between little-t big-T, which continues to bug me. I have already blogged on the Jewish Roots of the Trinity and especially in my Responding to Dale Tuggy on Trinitarian Conceptualisation. Dale's amazing at showing distinction where there appears to be just mud. He's a trained analytic philosopher, he's just doing his job and doing it well. But there are problems in applying dichotomies across time and culture, especially with regards to this multi-personal God issue that has provoked so much inquiry in his own life and also in my own.

I've hinted at this before, but I'm going to emphasise it again now. Biblical Unitarians - to whom I owe so much and whom I love, at least those that I have had the privilege of meeting - are fully capable of accepting quite unaware the very fourth-century categories they so firmly oppose. Let me give you an illustration of what I mean. Not so long ago, I blogged quite a successful blog summary (What On Earth Has John Been Up To?) in which I included some of my next goals (one of those was a study on John the Baptist, which is already completed, hurrah). Believe it or not, my intuition about the Restitutio interview seems to have been pretty well dialled in - presenter Pastor Sean Finnegan read my blog summary hyperlinked above and has expressed interest in doing an interview. So, that plug aside (watch this space!), my point is that in preparing to speak to Sean I looked up a debate he did on Youtube way back in 2008ish, up against a Trinitarian. I didn't make it all the way through. It was the sort of debate that just makes you think how do those people even think that fast?! One sentence caught my attention, however, where Sean said something along the lines of: "no, I do not believe that Jesus is of the same essence as the Father". The same essence?

I should be careful here! Sean, you might even be reading this, so in maximum warp-speed 10 respect, please hear me right. I'm just trying to point out that it is very easy for any of us to take our opponents' categories for granted. Perhaps Sean wouldn't say that nine years later, either way, it doesn't matter for the purpose of this example. Back to Small T vs Big T.

Dale Tuggy's point is that "small-t" trinitarian refers to a triad. All "small-t" trinitarians are in fact, according to Dale's tightly defined definitions, biblical Unitarians. That is to say that God himself, remains one individual, no matter how much he and his actions are bound to his Son and his Spirit. Over the past year or so, I have come from a point of curiosity, through scepticism now to rejection on the possibility of some almighty conceptual switch. As I have understood the dichotomy thus far, the radical switch from Point A (God Is A Single Person Deity) to Point C (God Is A Three-Person Deity) shift is too great. As I stressed in my response to Dale, to which his response is still due at some point I hope, there has to be a Point B. That Point B is not adequately described as "biblical Unitarian". I'm sorry, but I find that almost as guilty as the back-projecting as some Trinitarians are in their own apologetics.

In my view, the whole perspective is upside down. It wants to start with ontology, which is precisely where Paul Ricoeur has warned us not to begin. If we begin there and disregard the goals, loyalties, injuries, politics, history and other stakes then we can miss important data - this data is so much more complex and nuanced its complexity and nuance require a more hermeneutic approach. It is this hermeneutic approach that says: how do we perceive? How do we conceptualise the seen realm and the unseen realm? If we do that, and we are able to factor in the historical probability of the first-century Christian mutation of Judaism having started to vocalise, ritualise and (although they did not know it) immortalise its "Triune Hub" via the baptismal rites, then we are released into realising that it is, in fact, the Triune God version of the Trinity that should receive the "small T", since it is interpretative of that which precedes it. It is, therefore, the earlier, Jewish-Christian expression and understanding from which it is developed is that which should truly bear the "Mister T" belt.

According to my own definitions, then, I think that makes me a Capital-T Trinitarian! It might frustrate, however, to realise that it is not in any way an outcome of a one-self or three-self decoding process of the ontology of God, since it begins with the social human psyche.

Some more thoughts on the interpretative process around The Father Is Greater Than I

LAST TIME RICOEUR was examined here on this blog we established three fundamentals:

1. Hermeneutic task of discerning the apparent and hidden meanings
2. Group persons are real agents, with memory, desires, goals, moral responsibility, etc. Personality is like a culture and vice versa.
3. Hermeneutic understanding of oneself via understanding of other. On this third point I am reminded of the "wildly divergent" (Holmes) attempts of certain Trinitarian theorists to see their own vision of the Trinity as a blueprint for the church. Take John Zizioulas, for instance. He sees the Trinity this way, and yet sees the connections between the Members as fundamentally relational not ontological. What would Ricoeur suggest this reflects about him and his relationships between churches or within churches? Leonardo Boff is adamant: Zizioulas' proposals are far from relational, they are heavy and political:

[T]he trinitarian vision produces a vision of a church that is more communion than hierarchy, more service than power, more circular than pyramidal, more loving embrace than bending the knee before authority. 

(L. Boff, Trinity and Society, (Liberation and Theology, vol. 2), Tunbridge Wells: Burns & Oates, 1998, p154.)

The similarity in the goals between these two Trinitarian theologians seems to illustrate the point well. It would seem that the perception of the church and of God are indeed tightly bound up with who we are as persons and our personal history.

Moving onward today to p. 42 in Conflit des Interprétations, Ricoeur points out a certain insufficiency of the Cartesian "I think therefore I am". What's wrong with it? You have to start somewhere, don't you? The issue, for Ricoeur, is that you don't only start there, you stop there too. It is a deposited truth claim that can neither be verified or deduced: The cogito is not only a truth as vain as it is invincible; we must add, as well, it is like an empty space which has, from all time, been occupied by a false cogito. We have indeed learned from all the exegetic disciplines and from psychoanalysis in particular, that so-called immediate consciousness is first of all "false consciousness"... a philosophy of reflection must be just the opposite of a philosophy of a philosophy of consciousness...textual exegesis of consciousness collides with the initial "misinterpretation" of false consciousness. Moreover, since Schleiermacher, we know that hermeneutics is found wherever there was first misinterpretation. 

This is a long quote, but you'll see why we need all of it, please keep reading:

Thus reflection must be doubly indirect: first, because existence is evinced only in the documents of life, but also because consciousness is first false consciousness, and it is always necessary to rise by means of a corrective critique from misunderstanding to understanding.

Yes, you may have noticed that the translations are pretty good today - I have found an officially translated version of Conflits available here, p. 18, trans. Kathleen Mclaughlin).

I'm hoping readers are beginning to get the picture. Lots has been said in hermeneutics about how readers today might interpret a text (or misinterpret a text), how that interpreted meaning spirals back into a larger conceptual whole that is an integrated part of our being, modifying it, affirming it and preparing the person for the next interaction with that text. But since hermeneutics is associated with the contemporary task of interpreting important texts such as the Bible or the State Laws, it seems to have slipped our notice that this might well be a vital historical phenomenon as well. In fact, from all that we have seen of Ricoeur thus far, I would say it utterly confirms it, especially when we accept with List and Pettit (2011, 162-163) and Copp (1979) that we can correctly deduce "joint control" in a group via a mechanism of "multi-level causality", that the ecumenical decisions made were groupal and in response to opposing groupal misinterpretations.

So what you would do if you were an intelligent-but-stranded Amazonian who dug up an English Bible, somehow taught herself to read through it and read "the Father is greater than I", what a Unitarian might read when she reads "the Father is greater than I", and what a Trinitarian (Triune God Advocate) might read when she reads "the Father is greater than I" are three quite different processes, all of which contain groupal and multi-level components.

Let's take the Amazonian first. She has spent months, maybe years, trying to cypher this enormous book - not because she wants to waste her time, she has plenty of other tasks she would normally be doing to help maintain her tribe as specialised in fishing and preparing the tar needed to make fishing vessels. But time has been thrust upon her, and she is reading out of curiosity that is fed by the dream that she might one day be rescued and returned to her tribe to share her knowledge with her kinfolk. The fact that this extraordinary Jesus character even could have been considered as great as the creator god may simply add to her marvel of this historic man, and she may not gloss over it so quickly.

The Biblical Unitarian's core tenet, please excuse me Biblical Unitarians reading this and please feel free to correct me below, is that Jesus is not God since only the Father is God, and so when a member of this "tribe" comes across this Jesus statement, the thought flashes through her mind: What more evidence do you need?! She certainly is less likely to gloss over it, it will be actively affirming and feeding the self-knowledge of the reader in a profound way in preparation for subsequent readings. This is a particularly important process of integration of interpretation for the Biblical Unitarian, since, like with many small denominations, they represent a small minority, that sense of identity needs to be more carefully and intentionally hewn. Someone deciding to become a Catholic hardly need consider themselves too deeply with theology or church practice, but a thinly-spread minority group with a non-mainstream reading of the Christian texts, needs to have well-affirmed readers. Notice the potential for emotional reaction. That reaction is in line with the group's marginal status and potential for rejection. It is also a development within the Biblical Unitarian's interpretative matrix precisely because there exists a perceived misinterpretation (or "false consciousness"). Readers do well at this point to remember that we all belong to groups and that we as individuals are simply unable to fully bear the loads of our predecessors.

What about the Trinitarian coming to this passage? Well, I used to be a Triune-God advocate myself, as most readers know, and I also for a short time considered myself a Biblical Unitarian. Now I have run out of theological carparks to park my car, although I hope the Trinitarians might still find some space for me in their basement. My feeling is that Trinitarians probably read the text in the widest variety of ways. As Christians, we are free to read the text slowly, fast, for facts, for deep meditation, reading plans around a topic for a "biblical understanding" on a topic. We might put it to music or commit it to memory. As such, a single text to the human mind becomes a veritable plethora of meaning that cannot be reduced to any simple layer of meaning. It truly does dance and shape our sense of self. But what happens when the Triune God Advocate reads "The Father is Greater than I"? Such an apparently contravening statement to the idea of co-equality in the godhead might seem shocking, but as my exchange here with Sam Fornecker illustrates, there is no "feeling of tension" generated by this text that you might for Triune God Advocates - literally, none (I am still waiting for Sam to pick up the conversation there, I think he has left some of my questions in an unsatisfactory state of suspense). No feeling of tension in the face of such a "clear" text might leave the Unitarian at something of a loss for words. But the bigger interpretation is too deep, too historical, too liturgical, much brought forth in prayer and worship to be swept aside by a verse putting co-equality into question, as if for the first time. Generally speaking, the careful Trinitarian reader will simply keep reading. For any "difficult text", the general advice is almost invariably to "step back" from the text and try to get the bigger picture of what is going on here. However, and I mean no disrespect here, the majority of readers are not highly nuanced "Triune God Advocates". They are simply Christians reading through the popular gospel of John and looking for ways to deepen their faith and sense of connection with God. They may quite simply just keep reading, drinking in the depth of the outplaying of this threefold relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They may be imploring the Holy Spirit to now come powerfully into situation X, Y or Z in this amazing way that Jesus said we would do things, even more, with even more "greatness" than he did.

The Christian apologist, however, has a quite different reading process in mind. Like a great chess-player, he is trying to foresee his imaginary opponents' next moves and is not really in a deep interaction process of his own. Rather he or she is going through his armoury, checking the ammo stores are full, the key citation grenades pins are primed and the lie-guided missiles fully online... that's right, he's a warrior! A great fighter for the Church! I don't even want to probe his or her next steps on this verse. I tend to find some of their efforts a little sickening.

Notice not only the variety of these examples but their huge limitation. There are many, many more contemporary possibilities and nuances today, both individual and denominational (or groupal). Even if such an in-depth study were possible, it would be representative of the interpretative ranges operative today. That is why it is important for us to study the church fathers - and I intend to do some longer excursions on this blog in the future - in order to see how interpretation was operated in both "victorious" (orthodox) groups and, as far as it is possible to ascertain, the "unvictorious" groups.

To return, then, to the insufficiency of cogito, we see a disenfranchised uni-layered reading as both a non-starter and a non-finisher. It is nothing. But interpretation rises or rather arises out of a corrective movement by a victorious group of interpreters over misinterpreting opponents. What gives rise to that "victory"? That's a huge question I shan't attempt here, I simply mention it as it seems to a necessary one to ask in light of today's steps. Nonetheless, it is probably worth noting that the Triune Hub hypothesis suggests that in order for a stable religious bedrock to establish itself, it became increasingly clear as each off-kilter wave of teaching was refuted that this stability required co-centricity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, perhaps even more than the New Testament texts, in order to hold the New Testament texts. Every time the church went through a process of refutation, via apologists such as Irenaeus or Justin Marty, by ensuring the co-centricity of the Father, Son and Spirit, the church herself was constructing her own stability, her own "being" as the hermeneutic circle continued to turn, and so did the "WHOLE".

See also my post: https://faithandscripture.blogspot.fr/2017/07/hermeneutic-circle-and-asking-better.html

Responding to Dale Tuggy on Trinitarian Conceptualisation

AS WITH DR. Hurtado, now with Dr. Tuggy, I have received the honour of some recognition and interaction over the ideas contained in their respective fields and work. Some may have already read my response to Dale's new book, What Is The Trinity: Thinking About The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which you can of course still consult here. In fact, I would recommend doing so first and then reading Dale's response to me on his blog in order to make fuller sense of today's post.

Let's get to it!

I think I stand corrected on an important point: small-t big-T usage with the word "Trinity". I may still not quite be on the money here, but if I understand correctly, Dale is not attempting to establish some new literary practice that he came up with, rather he has seen it and wants to encourage that usage. Be that as it may, I stand by the "inoperable" assessment. If the distinction can only be made by writing the word down, then how useful and practical is it to have to say "small-t trinity"? What percentage of people are aware of this practice anyway? Finally, how practical is it when both capitalised and non-capitalised versions are not capitalised in the adjectival form, and how exactly do we go about that anyway? This creates some issues when laid out, and I think we should ask Dale which he thinks is true:

1.

 2.

If the answer is 1 (whether someone believes in the Trinity or the trinity, both are "trinitarian"), then not only is the distinction difficult being reliant on a small written difference in the noun form, but once an adjective, even that small written difference is swallowed up. If the answer is 2. (someone who believes in the Trinity is "trinitarian"; someone who believes in the trinity is "unitarian"), then we still have a most peculiar rule set, whereby small-t means one (very significant) distinction in the noun form, but another quite different (simply grammatical) distinction in the adjectival form.

If the answer is both 1 and 2, then further rules (senses) seem necessary in order to prevent a contradiction. Altogether, I believe this is actually quite a complicated state of affairs indeed, and is what I meant by my assessment of inoperable.

Moving on to my criticism of insufficient definition of quite what small-t trinity actually is. Dale responds, John, you’re overreacting to the word “just” here.  In that context the purpose of it is just to let us know that the members of this triad are not necessarily parts that compose some whole, or aspects of some one thing, or even things of the same exact physical status. It is not a comment on the importance of the triad or any member in it.  The thing is, the triad might also be a Trinity.

This is very interesting. Actually, as I mentioned in my initial post, I don't perceive Dale's small-t usage as referencing something small or lesser. In the same way he sees me, according to his definitions, as unitarian, I am beginning to see him, according to my definitions as trinitarian. One of our key differences, I think, is that the model I am trying to develop does not start with the ontology of God - it's conceptual. In my post yesterday I translated some important philosophical contributions made by Paul Ricoeur, because I am particularly interested in the unstated meanings of the institutionalising 4th-century and later Church. We tend to focus on the grand ontological deliberations and damning anathemas. When the church said that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit were of one substance, three Persons in One God, the question is not only what could that mean in the apparent, ontological comprehensive sense, but what else did she mean, in the fuller interpretative sense? What were her concerns, her worries, her goals, her injuries, her loyalties, her priorities? How did "she" interpret the biblical texts to join her horizon with the horizons of the New (and Old) Testament texts? (I have already shared how insightful I find the Sirmium II Council to be into this question in my post Hermeneutic Circle and Asking Better Why Questions).

It's a terrible thing, perhaps, to say, but I actually have found it helpful to put my own beliefs to one side on this. To adopt my own rough model for the emergence of the Triune God (I'm quite enjoying testing the word "triunification" of God) requires no personal faith in Christianity whatsoever. It might help for you to care enough to think about it (let's remember what a tiny minority we are to find this so "crucial"). But an interested atheist or agnostic historian can come to this data and will naturally want to ask the kinds of questions I just stated. How did "substance" help articulate and preserve the collective beliefs and practices of the Church at the time, even if it is entirely symbolic (e.g. zero gods)? My approach is thus to say that this substantialization process is a symbolic hermeneutic that can only mean one thing: they were looking for a way to ground the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the centre in a way that they already were functioning in practice. Dale - I firmly believe history needs more continuity than the 381 eureka! moment/scenario your model seems to require, because as you say, the triad might also be a Trinity (even if we mean this in slightly different ways).

I find it slightly curious that my usage of the word "mutation" is not more meaningful to Dale. It is the go-to word for some scholars like Crossan, NT Wright and Hurtado (the last of whom has been interviewed on four occasions on the trinities podcast, here, here, here and here) to express the modifications of religious belief structures that would permit Jews to still be Jews but also a part of the new Christian movement. I've looked in detail at how each of the aforementioned scholars use the term and feel ready to borrow its usage while still critiquing some inconsistency in its use (esp. Wright). So I think I can be considered clear of simple or unthought idea-grabbing on this point. While I teetered on the edge of embracing biblical unitarianism in 2015, it was (geekily enough) recognising that unitarian scepticism around the textual soundness of Matthew 28:19 was so weakly based, especially when I had to concede the baptismal formula in the Didache, some quite ambivalent personal views I have on the gospel of Matthew (love, hate and late), that made me start to question whether or not a form of trinitarianism did indeed actually spring up as early as the first century. I actually believe it did and I can provide some good arguments to back that up and the fourth-century picture is part of that explanation.

On Tuggy's response to my response to Q5, about "absolute equality", the issue of mutation rears its head again. Tuggy points out that prior to the Christ-event, Daniel 7 provides a precedent: "But to the Jews they were not absolutely unassignable"..."that all sounds like God stuff! It is! It is from him". One of the mutations that Tom Wright highlights about resurrection in Judaism and resurrection in Christianity, is that it (resurrection) has shifted from being a marginal belief to something at the centre - he specifically identifies this relocation as a "mutation". Daniel 7 is a pretty awesome text, but, as with bodily resurrection, it does not seem to have captured messianic hopes in mainstream pharisaic Judaism, which is what Dale's comments could be construed to imply. It is unclear to me even if we can be sure that Jesus or his disciples would have had access to that particular text, although I am inclined to think that they may well have had access to the Parables of Enoch (and possibly Daniel). Larry Hurtado is much more sceptical on this point even than me: zero precedent for this kind of Jewish cultus of Christ. I would point out, however, even if this were a mainstream hope, which it most certainly does not appear to be, it would be one thing to hope for such a figure in the future and quite another to believe that this one like a Son of Man had indeed come as the Messiah and God now required that worship of him be carried out in a way only anticipated beforehand and otherwise reserved for him alone.

Dale's response to the centrality of Jesus and the Spirit is still engaging with the issue from a different standpoint - he can agree on centrality, without any modification to the theology, by which he means the unity of the one God although allowing for modification of the messianic category. But when you examine the issue historically, seeing each set of religious thinkers as interpreters of those before them, then the only way you can get from Point A (monotheistic unipersonal God) to Point C (monotheistic tripersonal God) is via a Point B. There has to be a point B - no, indeed God is not yet triune, but something has changed via his exaltation of Christ and the participative rule empowered by God's sent Spirit. This is something we can identify as a historical religious phenomenon of reconfiguration. As an atheist, agnostic, trinitarian, Trinitarian (oops, sorry ;)), Unitarian, Buddhist, Muslim or whatever your personal faith, none of that matters on this point. You can't teleport Christianity from Point A to Point C, and that Point B simply has to have something to do with the substantial changes and mutations Christianity has been firmly recognised to have brought from within its Jewish contingent. Could it not be that fourth-century ousia is symbolic for religious centrality? Reconfigured divine space? Again, I don't mean real divine space! I refer to the psychological, conceptual and, I believe it is the correct word having looked a little into Ricoeur's work now, phenomenological space hitherto accorded to Yahweh alone.

On the divine logos category, Dale asserts correctly: " It seems to me that he’s really using Jewish categories". I think I get his point, Jewish usage of this "through whom" business in the New Testament is natural and certainly precedes John, who simply clarifies it a bit more than Paul, for instance. It is worth remembering that a lot of Jews at the time may not have known much Hebrew or Aramaic - this was one of the reasons driving the third century BC translation of the Septuagint in Alexandria into Greek. It should still be considered remarkable that these "through whom"s were so readily applied to Jesus so quickly. The Jewish Christians were "primed".

Q6 is really about worship of the Holy Spirit. It is interesting here to note that Tuggy seems to side with Hurtado on this one. Hurtado points consistently to what he calls a "binitarian worship" practice among the earliest Christians. That's distinctly one less than three - however, if pushed to Tuggy's standard of "primary trinitarianism", Hurtado's binitarian usage would fail (Hurtado is not claiming that God himself is binitarian in the first century, it is the act of worship that it binitarian, see my post on this point here: Lord Jesus Christ, by Larry Hurtado, Part 9: what does Hurtado mean by "binitarian"). My argument, however, contra Hurtado, is that since religious experience would have been best understood by the central revolutionary empowering presence of God of his Spirit, that God is now more firmly located next to his Son in heaven and other distinguishing aspects I will be laying out in my presentation of the forces and factors determining the first century triune hub emergence. Although founded on some traditional creedal authorities, it would be an assumption I think for many evangelical Christians to suppose they worship the Spirit, also calling "him", "Lord". The point here is that contrary to Dale's insistence that the Trinitarians have got it wrong on this one, most evangelical trinitarian practice I know of simply agrees with the New Testament practice Hurtado calls "binitarian" (provided they haven't subsumed the Father into Christ). On over-personification of the Holy Spirit, Dale should remember I share the same reservations, and I still stand by most of what I wrote that he published on his blog, demanding more evidence from social trinitarians of the Holy Spirit as a giver and receiver of love among the other Members.

Dale closes this point stating that he has never heard of nor seen New Testament evidence for a Triune Hub, such as I suppose, and that this idea lacks clarity for him. I take his challenge very seriously - I need to be ready to give a clear presentation of my thesis, and I am pondering doing a youtube video, while at the same time shuddering at my lack of skills in that area. Some followers of the blog will know that I have also made some approaches to book publishers with the idea, which has improved with each submission. Thus far I have tried Wipf & Stock (rejected), Austin Macauley (accepted, but I'd prefer a specialised publisher), SPCK (rejected, although some apparent interest) and now Paternoster (currently under review). If you would like to contact Paternoster to encourage them to take on my project, then please write to Authentic Media Submissions at submissions[at]authenticmedia.co.uk regarding John Bainbridge's book proposal - thanks! Of course, I can also send you what I wrote to them beforehand.

On the concept of the hub itself, I have tried on numerous occasions to summarise it into a sentence or two, so I guess I could have another go now. The model is a semantic one, it wants to look at how Jews, then Christian Jews and then later Christians could triunify God. It understands and accepts that as neurotheological research has pointed out, the human brain's association with the religious world is actually interconnected. Neurotheology recognises that there is neither a "God Gene" nor a brain "God spot". We are wired to explain a world in which establishing and influencing causality enhances our chances of survival. All cultures have developed with religious beliefs and practices, some establishing a plurality of divine beings, some with one above the rest and others with exactly one, like Islam. I'm not yet completely convinced that the Christian mutation occurred at a time in Jewish history when henotheism (multiple gods, but one above them all) was not the more accurate or representative worldview for them. The semantics and practices around the gods or god of religions are detailed and change over time, although are usually constrained for the more stable religions to ensure continuity with and preservation of sacred revelations of the past. The concept of God, however, shifted astoundingly quickly according to Hurtado. No longer was there God and his emissaries, but now, following the sudden events around the first Easter, is his Messiah forever reigning at his right hand, whom he commands be worshipped.

Such divine reverence, Hurtado argues compellingly, was reserved for Yahweh alone... until now!

"Inasmuch as exclusivist monotheism is manifested essentially...in a refusal to offer worship to any figure other than the one God". (LJC Ch. 1). Furthermore: [W]e have no analogous accommodation of a second figure along with God as recipient of such devotion in the Jewish tradition of the time, making it very difficult to fit this inclusion of Christ as recipient of devotion into any known devotional pattern attested among Jewish groups of the Roman period. [KL 919, my emphasis], see also my post on Hurtado, "Part 8: the line no-one ever crossed"). The point is that for these Jesus-worshipping Jews, their religious concepts were in a state of flux. Certain rules no longer applied. Some of these were about worship. Others were about a single-stage eschatology. Others were about resurrection. Others were about the participative (as opposed to interventionist) nature of the Kingdom of God. Others were about the temple. All of this was in sudden movement as God started to play some cards that he had previously only hinted he held. The result was Jesus-worship to the glory of God the Father in the Holy Spirit; in fact, the "proto-orthodox" church saw it their duty to sustain these revealed modifications, a process which began before the close of the New Testament canon. Matthew, for instance, one of the most Jewish books of the New Testament canon, is responding to some confusion over baptism as he has witnessed not least in reading Acts 8:14-25 and 18:24-19:8, and ensures that baptism "into Jesus" is absolutely about receiving the Holy Spirit by placing this on the authority of Jesus' own lips post resurrection. All the major acts of God begin to be reconfigured around the Father, Son and Spirit (see this Stephen Holmes video for a clearly articulated argument on this, especially the Q&A at the end).

Prior to Jesus, Yahweh filled that religious centre in the Jewish mind. It was slightly blurrily edged at times, but worship seems to be the big dividing line in the Jewish mind. I slightly prefer "hub" to centre, because you can have a static centre or core, like a building, but a hub is dynamic. It turns and interacts with its surrounding elements. That semantic hub looks different now. That's more than a couple of sentences, but I'm just trying to be clear and yet still not extend into the chapter-length necessary to deal with this new angle.

On Q. 7 about persons, Dales asks: What difference does it make if we go on to talk about this, “hub” thing? In what way are you trying to tweak either a humanitarian or a subordinationist unitarian theology? I am trying to understand how it is possible to end up with a Triune God from the New Testament conceptually, even symbolically. The clearest example we have of the paradox I discovered listening to your podcast episode 177 on the Second Sirmian Creed. The paradox, if I follow Ricoeur's encouragement to decode deeper meaning, is that the precious Trinity is both to be preserved forever, while One (the Father) is greater than the others. I believe that for a stabilising institution, this made for a lopsided and unstable Trinity. What is greatness? Might it not be religious centricity? If "all are central, but one is more central than the others", then we find ourselves in Orwell's paradoxical Animal Farm...

On my two additional comments, Dale seems to concede my point, without explicitly going back on his language in his book of the Holy Spirit's mention in 325 being an "afterthought".

On the second point about risking going around misleading people about my love for the Trinity (i.e. articulating my own spiritual life and purpose around the F, S & HS), I feel no shame nor risk. On the contrary, I believe most people need a simpler emphasis on all three (my 7-year-old was delighted to discover that there were "3 of them"! even though he does not yet need to ask quite what "them" means, and God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit remain distinct for him, or at least I hope). Most people haven't ever heard the word "Triune" before. I'd been a Christian for over a decade and only doing a Bible course to consolidate my faith and knowledge of Scripture at age 21 do I remember hearing it for the first time. In practice, I hardly ever use the word Trinity, but I simply emphasise and articulate my faith in as threefold a manner as I know how and feel remarkably safe there.

Very nearly there...

Dale says: I have the impression that you’re groping for a sort of middle ground between unitarianism and trinitarianism. I don’t see why we need that though. Queue: Paul Ricoeur. Rarely known fact: this influential Christian philosopher actually helped train French President Emmanuel Macron. The book chapter I have been doing some posts on over the last couple of days has a lot to do with arbitration, the title of the book is aptly named The Conflict of Interpretations. Having examined both sides of this trinitarian debate in some depth, I can safely say that both positions have strong points. I don't care much for "groping" - but I am indeed scoping out ways in which dialogue between these two sets of perspectives can lead to a more harmonious reading of the texts. Here's a very small example, one that set my religious foundations into a state of dangerous tremor when I began to see it just three years ago: just look at all those simple "and"s between God and Jesus. This is not a complicated "and", say the Unitarians. And they are right, but that position gets tricky when that same simple "and" (along with other sharp distinguishing linguistic features) comes between the Father and the Spirit.

Finally, Dale closes with: Before, you’ve expressed incredulity at the idea that mainstream Christianity could go from a unipersonal God to a tripersonal one, in the 4th c. I agree that at first glance, this is a big surprise. But I think I sort of see how it went, in the minds of some of the speculators whose views prevailed. At least, I’m starting to. Long story, though. Yes it is! I think that is my point - it has to be a lot longer than is sometimes implied. And it is also the key story that we are all dying to hear and that I haven't yet heard told satisfactorily. Looking forward very much to hearing more of what you have started to see :)

What a fascinating exchange! Thanks so much Dale, I have really appreciated it, and for making me think so very hard about this issue.

What Is The Trinity? A brief response to Dale Tuggy's recent book

WHAT IS THE TRINITY? A central question indeed to which author Dale Tuggy has an answer that leads the open reader dissatisfied with current explanations.

(Since I wrote this post, Dale Tuggy has responded to it over on his blog, Dialogue with John on Thinking about the Trinity, to which I now have an extended response: Responding to Dale Tuggy on Trinitarian Conceptualisation)

I liked the book - that was always probable as I have supported the trinities show for a couple of years and Tuggy's own views have been important in shaping my own, which are nonetheless distinct now from his. I liked it for Tuggy's systematic approach into an issue that for some may have always appeared impenetrable, for the author's ruthless efforts at showing where he sees inconsistencies to lie, for his deep respect for some Trinitarian theologians and philosophers and for what still appears to me to be a genuine search for Truth. Even if Tuggy's place within the Biblical Unitarian camp is now well established and appreciated by them, he is not playing to them.

As I began to read it, I was surprised by a few typos, including on the back cover and early on. But readers shouldn't be put off by those - this is not a slap-dash book, and those seem to disappear as you get further in.

Readers should remember that Tuggy is a philosopher, so at times, although he has deliberately aimed this short book at a wider audience, reference is made to philosophical and logical constructions that not everyone will be immediately familiar with. The examples he gives to illustrate his points often include that dry wit that many of us also appreciate in Dr. Tuggy.

Today, it is not my goal at all to engage with the book in depth - there are other ongoing projects as regular blog readers are aware - I will just take the opportunity to respond to Tuggy's takeaway questions, that can be found on p. 133-134, which might illustrate nicely where our common and uncommon ground lies, and then two other comments.

1. Does the New Testament in any sense appeal to "mystery" about the Trinity or the trinity? If so, what is meant by "mystery" there?
No it doesn't, although I now disagree that the Trinity/trinity distinction is operable in that format. The clearest example of mystery in the New Testament to my mind is the inclusion of the Gentiles into God's people.

2. Does the New Testament anywhere mention or refer to a Trinity, or only to a trinity? Neither, if we are on explicit criteria. If we are on the implicit side and we accept that Trinity = The Tri-personal God alone, then God is certainly not referred to with that idea in mind. However, Tuggy does not integrate the significance of what he calls small-t trinity in sufficient depth. At another point in the book (sorry I'm going for a speedy post today, so no page reference) he refers to this trinity as "just a triad". Don't focus on the word "triad", when he says this. Focus on "just" and "a". In my view, that is a wholly inadequate description of the way in which the Jewish-Christian religious semantics underwent a profound reorganisation ("mutation") through a relatively short number of decades including the divine core itself, which I refer to as the "hub". I want to keep these answers short so I won't say more on that here, but there are quite a few other posts on this if you look back through my archive.

3. Does it teach that there are three eternal equally divine Persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who all together in some sense "are" the one God, Yahweh?
No.

4. Does it teach that those three Persons share an ousia, and if so, what would the New Testament authors, in their first-century context, mean by that saying that?
This is a difficult question, perhaps a bit like to use the author's own analogy of wondering what someone from centuries past might have thought of the Internet. Having said that, it is true that Aristotelian ideas of substance, form and matter would have been known to some of the earlier educated Greek converts, although I don't know how well grounded in those Paul would have been. Interestingly, ousia, or substance, does not appear to be the foundational aspect of a thing. In the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (in which Tuggy is also published, unsurprisingly enough on the Trinity), there is an entry under "Form vs. Matter". Here it states: "In these cases, the thing that underlies is the matter of the substance". The substance itself is not the permanent underlier. So the question Tuggy wants to ask of a first-century Christian, assuming he is versed in Greek philosophy is doubly inconceivable since the word ousia does not seem to mean at that point in history what the church would later graft it in to mean and indeed even later adapt (into something eternal).

5. Does it teach the absolute equality of the Father, Son, and Spirit, so that each is eternally unlimited in power, knowledge, and goodness? No, but there are some important things to note in conditioning this response. Firstly "absolute equality". We all know that, awkwardly for some, Jesus goes on the record as saying that "the Father is greater than I", so at least in essential greatness, it is very difficult to go back on Jesus' own words. How do some Christians do that? Well, the passage in Philippians 2 (which is certainly not ignored in this book) may include part of the answer. The idea is that the full worship and glory can be directed at Christ "to the glory of God the Father". One of the key building blocks to the "meta-mutation" of the Triune hub is the recognition of the unforeseeable incorporation of the Messiah into the sphere or individuals worthy of worship, as explained in detail by Larry Hurtado (see my summary post here for a good access point into my series). Hitherto, that space was occupied fully by Yahweh. Jesus receives "all authority". From a New Testament standpoint, the Father's presence and anointing in his son were quickly proven supreme, such that many of these hitherto presumed unassignable qualities of God were indeed shared with the one whose own (essential, I would say) humility was of equal match. If you can be as geeky as I am then you may have already tried doing some New Testament word-counts. I have done this on references to God and Jesus. They both number at around 1200. That's pretty astounding and points to a roughly shared centrality in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit does not fare so well on that criterion although is central on other criteria. Again space here limits me on this, but the primary distinctive that was necessary to make between John the Baptist and Jesus were on the central issue of the Holy Spirit - whose distinction from the Father was an outworking of the going of Christ to "be with the Father" (at his right hand).

On eternality (man, Tuggy's question is dense!), then the New Testament is significant on one understated point. On awareness and influence of Greek ideas (see also question 4), insufficient work has been done on first-century logos incorporation into Christian discourse. The way in which Jewish writers Paul and his followers (some of whom also wrote epistles), the writer of Hebrews and later, John simply assume the agency role of the logos in creation and sustenance of the universe. This can only mean that that which we have fortunately preserved in detail in the writings of Philo likely knew much wider Jewish acceptance than simply one Alexandrian writer. There has to have been something that Jesus said or was ascribed to him early on for him to "transgress" purely human messianic categories and fit so neatly within this adopted Greek one. The parables of Enoch are a likely part of the answer to this pre-Christ, Jewish-Greek convergence that justify the offhand New Testament references. On the Parables, may I recommend Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of the Parables, by Gabriele Boccaccini (2007), especially Part 6: "THE DATING", and the chapter by J.H. Charlesworth "Can we discern the composition date of the Parables of Enoch?" pp. 450-468.

6. Does the New Testament teach or positively portray the religious worship of: Father? Yes. Son? Yes. Spirit? Not "of", but "in". Does it teach or show worship of the three of them together, worship of the triune God as such? There is no Triune God yet - although the New Testament describes a reconfigured hub of the Jewish faith hitherto occupied in its entirety by Yahweh.

7. Does the New Testament teach that the only god just is the Father himself or does it teach that the Father is but one of three Persons "in" God? The former, although see my other comments above about the reconfigured monotheistic space/hub.

8. Does the New Testament make catholic bishops the successors of the apostles, with apostle-level authority to settle questions of Christian doctrine, working together in official, emperor-convened councils? As the reader now knows, this describes a scenario much later than the New Testament one. Slightly curious question.

Besides this, there is a lot to commend in this book, whose structure in particular has been thought through carefully with some excellent chapter titles! I am in agreement with a fair bit of the presentation and despite having been exposed to a lot of Tuggy's work already still learned some important things. A lot of this book is not an attempt at promoting (while not hiding) the particular views of the author. I will, however, before signing-off, highlight two assumptions that I do not feel are good characterisations of the historical data, that may also be where the personal views do interact with the analysis of the data.

Firstly, p. 89, the chapter is wittily entitled "Substance Abuse" and concerns the fourth-century controversies. In the Nicene Creed, it can seem striking that so little is said about the Holy Spirit, but look at Tuggy's assumption:

The 325 Creed ends with the seeming afterthought: "and in the Holy Spirit". (p. 89)

Especially in light of his comments elsewhere about the nature of the 325 Creed (its focus is refuting Arianism), it was not attempting to be some kind of eternal declaration that would shape core Christian belief for millennia. Rather, it was clearing up an Arian controversy that messed with Jesus' divine status. If Arians were not perceived to contravene the catholic interpretation of the Holy Spirit to the same degree, then it might seem sufficient to provide a simple mention on this occasion. Meanwhile, the more Trinitarian Creed of 381 can fill this out, without necessarily be seen to "correct" it. We should remember that since the end of the first century, Christians felt it necessary to specify that baptism into the faith was in the name of Father, Son and Spirit. In many ways, I believe that the debates from third to fourth-century act as a mirror to some of the earlier first-century developments, both culminating in a triune result. The first was a Triune Hub of Jewish-Christianity, the second was a Triune God.

My second comment follows on from this and a general disagreement about the distinction method (Trinity vs. trinity) described in chapter 3, over which I was lucky to have some dialogue with Dr. Tuggy. I'll mention that in a second, but first the text of p. 113: What sort of being is "God" supposed to be? Your answer to this will constrain your options when it comes to thinking about the Trinity. The "Trinity" (in the primary sense of the term, as saw in chapter 3) is supposed to be none other than the triune God...". (p. 113, my emphasis).

In Dale's lovely understated tone, I can respond: "Nope". The use of the word "primary" here is, I believe, quite misleading. Although I still haven't gotten round to Robert Jenson's The Triune God, I do value his and Fred Sander's distinctions of a "primary" from a "secondary" (only explicitly so with Sanders) trinitarianism. So, no, I don't think we can simply accept that there is only one form of trinitarianism, which is precisely why Tuggy's blog and podcast is called trinities. He might point out that this is a reflection that the "Triune-God" presentations are multiple and contradictory in important places (to which I'd agree), but that still doesn't make that whole tier the primary form - in fact, it divorces them from it. The Triune God is phase 2 of an insufficiently detailed mutation of the religious core of Jewish faith and practice among Christians in the first century. It is thus the secondary (or even later) sense, not the primary.

Regarding my exchange with Tuggy, since it was semi-public on the trinities facebook group, I feel I can show it again here:

JB: Enjoying what must be one of the first copies of What Is the Trinity to reach French shores, by a certain Dale Tuggy. On Chapter 3: Trinity vs. trinity: Why attempt the distinction this way? Why not reclaim an earlier understanding of a mutated Jewish 3-fold religious core, allow that to be called trinity or even Trinity, and reserve a special term for the fourth-century version that we all get so upset over (my proposal is Triune God advocates/advocacy)? Something along these lines would be more effective in reducing ambiguity, rather than possibly adding to it, as the following (ironically) illustrates: "But it gets confusing, because unitarian (non-trinitarian)..." (p. 29) - by which Dale seems to contradict the central distinction of the chapter, except: no, the adjective should not apparently be subjected to such consistent distinctions (p. 33). Wow.
I used to think the distinction worked, but I personally don't think it's going to catch or even should.
Sorry for the quibble, I think everyone knows I am a big fan, hence my indulgence. :)

DT: Hi John. I'm not sure I understand this idea of a "mutated Jewish 3-fold religious core." About terms like "Trinity" or "trinity," there seem to be only three options. (1) they don't refer, (2) they refer to something, (3) the refer to some plurality of things, i.e. to more than one thing. I propose that it's helpful to use "Trinity" as referring to the triune God of catholic orthodoxy, and "trinity" to refer to the triad of God, his spirit, and his Logos. About the earlier Jewish view - that's just "God" right? Aka "the Father," "the King of the Universe," "Yahweh" - a mighty self, the creator. Yes?

JB: Hey Dale. I'm sorry for the lack of clarity in my explanations about the Triune Hub idea, although I have tried to explain them before in a couple of our other exchanges. On the subject of options, I would also want to place before a BU the following options: is this triad, small-t trinity, or whatever anything special in Christianity, including Jewish Christianity, or not? In your interview with Sean Finnegan I think you imply that it is special if the Bible might indeed be "all about" the small-t trinity. My Triune Hub hypothesis attempts to provide precisely the "thing" that we need in the absence of a first century Triune God. Expanding on Larry Hurtado's comments about how central Jesus is to God discourse for the first-century church, the accepted parlance of "mutation" by leading scholars such as Hurtado, Crossan and NT Wright, and the "Jewishness" of some of the sources that even correct misconstrual of Jesus' baptism with respect to his predecessor John (cf Acts 8:16, Matt 28:19, Didache 7:1 and even "unsuccessful mutation" of GThomas 44:1-3), the mutation I am proposing is that the central religious *space* or focus now includes a consistent articulation with the Son and Spirit. "Personhood" discussions aside, these three appear equally individuated in these significant references and to share **hitherto** (albeit with some conceptual "foreshadowing") - apperently - unassignable - divine (aka religiously-central) prerogatives.

DT: If I understand you, you suggesting that "Yahweh" turns out to really be there beings, functioning in a unified manner. Is that right?

JB: I'm not sure about "beings", certainly entities. I want to account for what you describe as "primary" trinitarianism (see your use on p. 113) in a way that makes better historical sense (ie Triune God advocacy as a "stable" interpretation of that which was primary, which has to be something other than "just a" triad). Otherwise we are still left with the impossible theological switch problem (wake up one day in 382 and decide that God is tri-personal). I have just completed a fuller response over on my blog to your excellent little book here: [link to this post]. Thanks for the exchange, always a real pleasure!

Thanks Dr. Tuggy for a great yet stimulating little book, very well referenced and clear. I have since been lucky enough to earn a response from Dale over on his blog

(Since I wrote this post, Dale Tuggy has responded to it over on his blog, Dialogue with John on Thinking about the Trinity, to which I now have an extended response: Responding to Dale Tuggy on Trinitarian Conceptualisation)

Important Trinity article: Women theologians and Jenson's primary vs secondary distinction

Let me please interrupt my series on Hurtado's Lord Jesus Christ book to share what for me was an important article recently written for Christianity Today by Fred Sanders: you can read it here. Entitled, We Actually Don’t Need a Trinitarian Revival, it drew my attention to two important points. Firstly, that there have been important contributions made to Trinitarian theology by female theologians of whom I confess to total ignorance; indeed I lament their absence in my manuscript of Mutated Faith & the Triune Hub.

Secondly, Sanders emphasises that there are indeed two distinct stages of trinitarianism, and even refers to Robert Jenson as the possible inaugurator of "primary trinitarianism" vs "secondary trinitarianism" distinctions. Robert Jenson has been described by Dr Stephen Holmes as (my rough paraphrase according to memory) the greatest living theologian. Clearly I have some reading to do - I promise to update the blog in the future about the female contributions (Catherine Mowry LaCugna and Cynthia Bourgeault, maybe others) and precisely how Jenson stakes out this distinction, and (critically) if he attempts to show how primary led to secondary.

Back soon...

Hillsongs Creed song - subtle difference between English and French accidentally reflecting an ancient move

It's been a while since I posted about a worship song - but as a former worship leader and a thinker on the prominent role that worship has on shaping our theology, it is still very dear to my heart.

This morning at church I was introduced to a powerful 2014 Hillsongs song of "Oui je crois (le Crédo)", which quite powerfully resonated for me as someone passionate about the Trinity. Here is the official French video of that song along with the French words. In a minute we will, of course, have a look at the original version in English and reflect again how the Triune Hub model can marshal reconciliation with older Christianity.

Notre Père Éternel, 
Toi qui a tout créé, 
Dieu Tout-Puissant. 
C'est par ton Saint-Esprit, 
Que Jésus fut conçu, 
Christ Notre Sauveur.

Oui je crois en Dieu notre Père,
Oui je crois en Christ son Fils,
Oui je crois en ton Saint-Esprit,
O Trinité divine.
Oui je crois à la résurrection,
Que nous vivrons à jamais, 
Car oui je crois,dans le Nom de Jésus.

Notre Juge et Défenseur,
Tu souffris à la croix,
Le pardon est en Toi.
Descendu jusqu'aux ténèbres,
Tu es ressuscité, 
A jamais élevé.

Oui je crois en Lui 
Oui je crois qu'il est Vivant
Oui je crois, que Jésus est Seigneur.(x2)

Oui je crois à la vie éternelle,
Je crois que d'une vierge il est né,
Je crois à la communion des saints,
Et en ta sainte Eglise. 
Oui je crois à la résurrection,
Quand Jésus reviendra,
Car oui je crois dans le Nom de Jésus.

A quick word about the visuals first. I really like the French video - I like its urban setting, which speaks of relevance to a 21st-century audience. That is important. By attempting a song of ancient Christian truth it is necessary to bind it through to the present, and the visuals play an important role in assisting this.

The French is led by a male singer without choral backing - I'm not so fussed about this point. Part of me likes the impacting clarity of a single voice, while another part appreciates the classic Hillsongs sound which includes the choral backing, even if it gets a bit "samy" to my ears.

Here now then is the English video and lyrics:

Our Father everlasting
The all creating One
God Almighty

Through Your Holy Spirit
Conceiving Christ the Son
Jesus our Savior

I believe in God our Father
I believe in Christ the Son
I believe in the Holy Spirit
Our God is three in one
I believe in the resurrection
That we will rise again
For I believe in the Name of Jesus

Our Judge and our Defender
Suffered and crucified
Forgiveness is in You

Descended into darkness
You rose in glorious life
Forever seated high

I believe in You
I believe You rose again
I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord

I believe in life eternal
I believe in the virgin birth
I believe in the saints' communion
And in Your holy Church
I believe in the resurrection
When Jesus comes again
For I believe in the Name of Jesus

Whereas before I felt quite critical of any song that for me "missed the mark" with respect to the Trinity - especially if I felt the song encouraged Father-Son blurring - I feel more these days a sense that this is a tough challenge to take on as a songwriter. I think one of my main issues is that songs that people label as "Trinitarian" aren't really trinitarian. What people mean by this most-holy of labels is that there is a line in the song that speaks some form of Trinitarian truth that sounds deep and historical to them, often without any deeper trinitarian structure to the song. My feeling is that this song is a bit like this. It's a lot better than Chris Tomlin's song I looked at in November 2015 here, but it too runs the risk of associating the Trinity with Christ, although more through its general direction than the blatant wording of Tomlin. To the song's defense, the song itself does not claim to be a song about the Trinity - it's aim is to reflect ancient (probably a mixture of second to fourth century) creeds in a contemporary style. A creed, of course, attempts the impossible, by summarising the entirety of the faith in a few short phrases, and it is true that the creeds focussed a lot on Christ, and at some points had very little to say about the Holy Spirit (see the Council of Nicaea in 325, for instance).

OK time to point out an important difference introduced by the French translator, whom I am certain had no intention of introducing the nuance I am going to bring out here. In English, we have a direct affirmation of the Triune God: Our God is three in one. No attempt is made to clarify here of course - as I said these are short, ultradense statements that were carefully defined and rigourously debated for centuries. The way it was worked out was to build an understanding of God around the stuff he was made (although he was never made, of course). Once God had stuff, and the first introducer of the Latin word trinitas, Tertullian, was most clear on that point, it became easier to have three in one. The stuff was called "godhead" and was shared between the Father, Son and Spirit in perfectly equal measure and then at some point - probably in the early 400s, I'm still trying to find out quite when - it lost the necessity of "head", thus returning the stuff to the one called "God".

Unfortunately, although this reflects a very old form of Christianity dating back 1600 years - it does not reflect how the earliest Christians understood their Trinity. Thus it is most interesting (to me at least, as a franco-English worshipper!) to see that the French translators have unwittingly bridged that historical evolution (or "mutation") undergone by the early church. The French version states:
Oui je crois en Dieu notre Père,
Oui je crois en Christ son Fils,
Oui je crois en ton Saint-Esprit,
O Trinité divine.

Note only the Father is called God (Dieu), although all three persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit receive perfectly equal prominence. Finally, note also that these three are not called "Our God three in one", but simply "O Trinité divine" (Oh divine Trinity!)

This subtle difference is a perfect example to my mind of how we can see the hermeneutical circle functioning in the earliest centuries of the church. Every generation of the Christian faith has to establish what the texts mean to their day and age through the lenses provided them by their forefathers. The task comprises meaningful application but also meaningful safeguarding.

What we are trying to put out there on this blog via the Triune Hub model is that the Triune God, although absent strictly speaking from Christian Scripture is an interpretative move that was both meaningful and necessary according to the Greek philosophical frameworks undergirding the Hellenised church's thought process. This church knew that there had already been very early distillation of the Christian faith around a radically-reshaped core, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit (see Didache, Matthew 28, 2 Corinthians 13, etc.). Prior to that radical reshaping, the strictly monotheistic Jews reserved this core for only One: Yahweh. Yahweh alone. The parts of Isaiah that are generally agreed to have been written from a context of Babylonian exile are if anything more monotheistic than previous Israelite writings, and Hurtado claims that this tendency to monotheism just got stricter and stricter as Judaism progressed through to the Roman era in which Christianity was born out of its Jewish beginnings. To cut a long story short, this "successful" mutation of the core of Jewish faith won out over other early forms of Christianity (deemed heretical) and required naming. However, in the image of the New Testament writers, "God", that is the "ho theos" of the New Testament and the Greek Septuagint, was one of the three, synonymous with "the Father" (or even "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ", e.g. Romans 15:6). But centrality is accorded to all three, and it is in interaction with Father, Son and Spirit that the church's faith, vocation and hope crystallised and was put into practice. In the fourth century, perhaps with a few exceptions, the battleground had moved away from those early threats which blatantly denied such threefold centricity (e.g. gnosticism, docetism, ...) to a more subtle threat: creating a hierarchy between the blessed Three.

And that is what some Christian history books downplay. Written from a perspective of victorious orthodox belief it can be considered that the fourth-century threat that wanted to keep Jesus' statement of the Father is greater than I a literal one, was totally committed to upholding and preserving the Trinity! The problem with that interpretation of a hierarchy meant by implication (this is the premise of the Triune Hub model) that One member, namely the Father, would be more central thus upsetting the careful balance maintained since the beginning. That couldn't and wouldn't do.

So, back to the Hillsongs song (can anyone else out there be making these kind of connections?!), I believe we have encapsulated here as we move (back) from French to English a nice summary of how the church worked out and safeguarded its understanding of its all-new threefold core, a.k.a. "The Trinity".

Rattrappage sur la traduction du Nom Saint et Personnel et Retour à la Trinité

Cela fait un bon bout de temps que je n'ai pas publié en français, je m'en excuse! Je voudrais toucher deux mots à ce qui m'a intéressé ces derniers temps et puis le focus pour le mois à venir.

Exclusivement en anglais j'ai entrepris sur le blog une enquête sur le modus operandi des traducteurs grecques de l'ancien testament, travail réalisé pendant une siècle à peu près à partir de l'an 250 avant Jésus Christ. La tâche devant moi est vaste: tracer les particularités des divers traducteurs pendant ce siècle vis-à-vis la traduction du nom personnel de Dieu, "Yahweh". En grecque, cela a été décidé que ce serait bien de traduire et non seulement le transcrire dans la nouvelle langue. La traduction donné est: SEIGNEUR. Notons bien, il s'agit bien de SEIGNEUR, et non de LE SEIGNEUR. La traduction françaises de la Bible représentent une particularité très intéressante. Contrairement aux pratiques anglosaxones voire d'autres langues européennes, les versions françaises ont été réticentes à adopter cette traduction SEIGNEUR, en préférant L'Eternel. Il y a une traduction en particulier qui a capté toute mon attention: La Darby. La Darby est la seule traduction en français ou en n'importe quelle langue que j'ai trouvé jusqu'à présent à essayer de tracer le Nom Divin dans le Nouveau Testament, écrit et non traduit en grecque. A la place de simplement traduire le mot pour Seigneur (Kyrios) par Seigneur, Darby met un astérisque devant Seigneur - *Seigneur - lorsque le context induit fortement que le Nom Divin est en jeu. Cela, pour moi qui serais fier d'une étiquette "antimodaliste", représente un choix excellent, car cela permet une distinction légitime entre la désignation humaine du titre Seigneur et une traduction très spécifique du nom Divin, Yahweh.

Je vous ai dit qu'il fallait noter bien que la traduction grecque donnait: "SEIGNEUR" et non "LE SEIGNEUR". Ce qui est très particulier donc de cette traduction c'est qu'elle manque, dans une majorité des fois, l'article définit. Ce que cela veut dire c'est, plutôt que de dire des phrases telles que "l'ange du Seigneur", on dit "l'ange DE Seigneur". Seigneur comme traduction est en effet une mélange entre titre et nom personnel. Le jouet de Stéphanie: Stéphanie est un nom personnel, donc il n'y a pas d'article. Pareil pour Seigneur dans l'ancien testament. Plus ou moins. Mais personne jusqu'à présent a vraiment étudié l'ensemble de ces traductions du Nom Saint. Une des raisons pour cela est qu'elles comptent à plus que 7000! Mais j'ai bien démarré, en réalisant jusqu'à présent les Psaumes et le livre prophétique d'Ezekiel (ça doit faire à peu près 1200).

Mais j'ai dû appuyer sur le bouton "pause".

L'année dernière j'ai écrit un thèse sur la question de la Trinité. J'ai toujours eu le désir de compléter et améliorer ce travail, et maintenant cela devient une réalité. Cela représente aussi un très grand travail, et j'ai déjà fait des milliers de modifications, éclaircissements, références depuis la version de 2015. Le titre va aussi être modifié. Je pense utiliser le titre "Trinitarian Interpretations: Mutated Faith" (Interprétations Trinitaires: Une foi métamorphosée). Dedans je vais proposer deux solutions au problème posé par la doctrine imposée du quatrième siècle du Dieu Trinitaire. Cette doctrine qui veut un Dieu en trois personnes a des soucis logiques et bibliques, mais s'assoit sur une effective évolution de priorités des convertis au Christianisme. L'objet de la foi est devenu, pour de vrai, une question de Père, Fils et Saint Esprit. Comment exprimer cela et s'assurer à ce que cela ne soit pas corrompu?

Dans la nouvelle version nous verrons que cette nouvelle configuration mérite plus d'attention que jamais, mais aussi que la doctrine du Dieu Trinitaire a effectivement des soucis qui seront mis en évidence. En terme logique, nous avons le problème de trois "il"s vaut toujours un "il", ce qui n'est pas possible. Dieu le Père est un "il". Il aime son Fils, Jésus en l'offrant en sacrifice. Ce dernier est aussi un "il" car il aime son Père son Dieu et il s'est offert en sacrifice. Le Saint Esprit est aussi une personne, un "il", à part entière selon la doctrine qui doit aussi être magnifié et loué. Mais en même temps, il est très rare de parler de "ils" au pluriel pour ces trois là, car nous les Chrétiens nous avons une foi monothéiste, n'est-ce pas? Donc on préfère, largement, parler toujours de "il". Dieu, IL t'aime. Dieu, je T'aime, TU es bon. Je pense que tu capte le truc. Le problème biblique est la difficulté de vraiment trouvé des preuves que dans Dieu en retrouve trois personnes.

Trinitarian Interpretations va cette fois-ci tenter un travail plus constructif à proposer deux solutions au problème. La première a déjà été décrite et ne vient pas de moi: Chad McIntosh parle de "group persons", à savoir des personnes groupales si je peux me permettre! Pour moi de toutes les théories et justifications des doctrines d'un Dieu réellement Trinitaire, c'est celle qui tient la plus la route. La deuxième que je vais proposer va se concentrer sur la reconnaissance de ma part de l'inclusion du Père, Fils et Saint Esprit au centre de la foi chrétienne, que leur présence au coeur de la communauté représente une évolution importante et intrinsèque à cette nouvelle configuration, ce qui permettrait j'espère à l'ajouter à d'autres évolutions telles que les six proposés par NT Wright, la septième que Wright a accepté par John Dominic Crossan, et puis la modification donnée par Larry Hurtado.

Ah oui, en réponse à la question de langue de cette nouvelle publication de mon thèse, malheureusement je ne projète pas de le traduire en français. Cela représente plus que 50000 mots donc ce sera trop de travail pour moi de le faire. Merci pour votre suivi et votre intérêt!

Craig's minimum salvation criterion questioned for its consistency

From time to time on this blog I have shown some of the small interaction I have been privileged to have with important biblical scholars, including Dale Tuggy, Larry Hurtado and Bart Ehrman.

One Christian writer I really respect is Dr William Lane Craig, whose work I only really know through his podcasts. With my friend Reinald, we wrote him a question based on an important comment he made during a Q&A in his Defenders class. Before I get to our question to Dr Craig, I would also like to point out that I am on the look out for written reference material to Craig's view on the Trinity, which is a unique and interesting view. The reason for this is that I'd like to update my chapter in my paper on the various and conflicting trinity theories. FYI Dr Tuggy is in the process of writing a whole book on trinity theories and is going to devote a chapter to Craig's view, which like all trinity theories, will enjoy its own particular set of problems. Here's our question to Dr Craig:

Dear Dr Craig,

We've greatly enjoyed your last series on Trinity. It's been a subject of great discussion between us friends in Marseille, France, and of deep thinking about God - and how the NT authors described Him in the 1st century. Near the end of your Defenders 3 class: Doctrine of God: Trinity (Part 11), you received a question about the necessary understanding of Trinity for salvation. In response you perform three quite remarkable logical steps.

1) You recount a story in which you were personally impressed with the personal faith of a oneness pentecostal, for whom there were no real or personal distinctions between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

2) This person was quite clearly saved despite this confusion, because Christ's divinity was absolute in that person's mind.

3) You provided textual support for this from Romans 10:9, where Paul states that "if you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

How does 3 follow from 2? You clearly imply that the distinction of persons requirement is secondary to the divinity requirement, yet Romans 10:9 has distinction at its exegetical core (GOD raised HIM), and "divinity" more contingent on subsequent catholic interpretations of Kyrios (we agree with Hurtado that the Kyrios-ship conferred upon Christ by the Father, according to a few NT passages, is absolute).

In light of how you connect your experience with this oneness pentecostal and Romans 10:9, we would also be interested to hear how you would respond to a recent posting by Dr. Larry Hurtado, who - as we are certain you will be aware - is most reluctant to import or assume fourth century ontological system of categorisation on first century thought:

1) "My own plea is that we respect the historical particularities of those earlier statements and texts, and try to avoid anachronism in our historical task of engaging them.

2) "The Christological claims in NT writings are remarkable enough in their own terms and setting, and even more so the programmatic place of Jesus in earliest devotional practice."

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2016/09/26/chronology-and-ontology/ 

We look forward to hearing from you, and thank you for this most engaging discussion,

Reinald and John

As of yet, we have heard no response from Craig.

A new (very small additional) argument for a Triune Divinity from canonicity

...The second part that is overlooked is early Christianity. Did the early christians think that Jesus was Fully Divine, where that means that Jesus has all the Divine attributes? No they didn't. It's a matter of record that leading mainstream theologians taught that Jesus was not eternal, Jesus does not know as much as the Father, Jesus doesn't have the same kind of power, Jesus isn't good in the same way - his goodness depends on the goodness of God, whereas God has his goodness independently. Who am I talking about? Mainstream theologians in the 100s, and in the 200s and even into the 300s. When they came to a text like: "The Father is greater than I", they just said: yes, see: "greater". They didn't say greater with respect to his human nature but equally great with respect to his divine nature". And when he said he didn't know the day or the hour, they said "yes, only God is omniscient". Jesus isn't omniscient, he says he doesn't know something, you don't want to say he's a liar, right? You just don't find most early Christians saying that Jesus is fully divine. You see them saying things that go very clearly against that. Even after they're speculating about the pre-existent logos, the logos is divine, even after they're calling Jesus "our God", they'll turn right around and say the one True God is the Father, and only he is eternal, only he is perfect in knowledge and so on. And as we have just looked at, this claim that Jesus is fully divine is fully loaded with problematic speculations; it always was.

- Dale Tuggy, 2016, http://trinities.org/blog/podcast-145-tis-mystery-immortal-dies/ at ‘Tis Mystery all - 21st Century Reformation Theological Conference 30/04/2016

For me, originally a die-hard exegesis fan (and the die-hard is not dead yet), this argument is very significant. In my paper Trinitarian Interpretations, I argued that if we are right about the early church Fathers not believing that God was Triune, then we have a problem. One of the solutions I considered, which I have never heard argued, is that the inspired 1st century authors were so inspired that they were literally centuries ahead of their subsequent interpreters. Most people prefer to argue that the earlier (Ehrman would call them "proto-orthodox") theologians, were roughly right, but they were less refined or something like that.

I think there are quite a few theologians who believe the conciliar Christologies are basically on track and that this perspective simply takes a very long time to work out (and it is not finished yet, and its various interpretations today are multiple and mutually-incompatible). That might mean that non-triune things are said in the Scriptures, which, if all are to be considered true on a deep level, that you end up with something looking like a form of Trinitarianism. But God set the whole thing up for a huge debate from an obscure beginning in order for it to stand somehow (because it didn't come easily; paradoxically because it was not as blazingly obvious as evangelical apologists like to assume and argue today). That's an argument I'd be more open to: but I think I have another option still. These beliefs about the Triune God began around about the same time the canon was sealed, so to speak. It could be argued that the wrestling and debating going on with regard to canonicity are not independent of the christological wrestling. Had the canon been clearer earlier, then maybe the Triune God perspective would have emerged earlier too. The same church that decided these are the books, is the church that said, this is our Christ.

My position might be considered to drift. It isn't, or hasn't much. I still firmly believe given the lack of clarity and the supreme position of the Scriptures, the close proximity of the church Fathers in terms of chronological interpretive distance, that we have to allow for greater breadth and tolerance and welcome differing views of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For me, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit remain central to church life, individual faith and the advancing Kingdom of God. And that has always been the case for me.

This is where the Biblical Unitarian communities, I think, also need to be careful. They can be so sceptical of a whiff of a "divine" Christ, that it could be harder for them (I speculate) to worship Jesus, even if they knew it was to the glory of God the Father, as explicitly stated in Philippians 2.

Let the debate roll on!