Fatscript Podcast Episode 8: Joel

Totally chuffed to co-host today with my brother, Josh! Remember, my book chapter is out! Check it out here.  Did you like the transition music? Check out the whole song here and even download it for free! Thanks for listening!

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.

It all started with **B A P T I S M** (4): The Star Points To Another Who Points To Another

IF ANY FIRST-century historical individual could be credited with the largest pressure on the primitive Jewish Christians to adopt a form of trinitarian thinking, it would be the wilderness apocalyptic preacher known as "John the Baptist". It sounds kind of whacky, but it's true! Let's take a moment to recap our Journey thus far, in this the last of four instalments into John the Baptist, and why I reach this conclusion.

In Part 1, I just wanted to get straight to the point and offered 9 bullets that reconstruct how John's ministry was necessarily contrasted with Jesus' baptism with the Holy Spirit, and concluded: This trinitarian saying [trinitarian baptismal formula] was said over converts by Jewish Christians in the latter half of the first century as a part of their baptism rites, and the confusion was at last resolved. This mutation of Judaism had astarted to vocalise, ritualise and (although they did not know it) immortalise its "Triune Hub".

In Part 2, I wanted to demonstrate how significant John the Baptist was from a non-Christian source, the Jewish historian Josephus. Here John receives as much attention from Josephus as Jesus. He is understood to have had massive influence such that even that God himself would overturn Herod's army in vengeance against the execution of his beloved prophet, John.

In Part 3, I took on the problem of the date of John's death, which is problematic if you cross the gospels' chronology with that of Josephus, but also a good angle from which to look at how the portrayal may have developed over the later stages of the first century. Here I present, gospel author by gospel author, the portrayal of John the Baptist, noting first in Mark the basic events and assumed death of John and Luke's expanded version which includes John's own birth narrative alongside Jesus'. Then we saw that Matthew almost seems to take on the challenge against the Josephus chronology, integrating narrative that explicitly informs Jesus of John's tragic demise. Finally, we saw in John's gospel that the author simply allows Jesus to "steal the show", allowing John to slip from view once he has served his purpose to point to the light.

What I failed to note in looking at Matthew (and regular readers will know I have a special relationship with Matthew!), is the relevance of the date of Antiquities, where Josephus describes John's ministry and death. It was written no later than 94 AD, but possibly earlier. Given all the other late indicators I am seeing for Matthew, I would suggest that this over-emphasis on Jesus' interaction with John's death is a firm contribution to a composition date of Matthew around the 90s close to John. It obviously contributes to the strong consensus that composition by the disciple Matthew is very unlikely.

Another thing we didn't do was look at the passages in Acts that refer to him. We'll not lose too much time on them individually now, as there are actually 9 of them, but they really do consistently echo what we have been saying all along: the contrast between the two main first-century Jewish figures, and that John points to Jesus. For that to mean something big so much decades later, can only mean that John's ministry continued to make a huge splash in Judea and beyond for decades.

Thus, regardless of when John really died, John's memory is dedicated to being that of a star player that nonetheless pointed to the hero and saviour of all, Jesus Christ, the inaugurator of the new Eschatological Age of the Spirit! It is with these ideas in mind that I called this last part: The Star Points To Another Who Points To Another.

Thank you for following the journey, blessings.

For reference, those 9 bullets again, followed by all New Testament references to John.

• John's impact was really very big indeed and his renown mid-first-century may have been comparable with Jesus', see for example Apollos' of Alexandria's familiarity with his ministry in Acts chapter 18 and Paul's encounter with 12 disciples in Ephesus in the following chapter.
• A clear historical relationship connects these major first-century Jewish players of John and Jesus; some credible scholars, have Jesus first being John's disciple before starting his own movement.
• We have no texts of any followers of John.
• For Jesus followers, Jesus has to be bigger and better than John. If John was great, and Jesus much greater than him. This could only have contributed to his final exalted status.
• Contrary to popular Christian apologetics, killing a leader does not necessarily kill off the sect he started unless he is resurrected. John is solid proof of that. 
• John and Jesus are firmly differentiated on the following grounds:
• the Christ was more successfully understood to have really been raised back to life, unlike the rumours that surrounded a resurrection for John, 
• John's humility seems genuine and may indeed have heralded the coming Messiah, turning down offers of honour, recognition and prestige (which ironically had the opposite effect), while Jesus combined humility and the messiahship,
• Jesus baptised with the Holy Spirit; John baptised with water.
• Since both martyrs were hugely influential baptisers and their ministries overlapped, their baptisms (and order of death) were at times confused.
• Someone, somewhere, decided: enough is enough and came up with the threefold baptismal formula to clear it up once and for all. This may have been the author of Matthew's gospel, (whom I strongly believe wrote later than Luke and Acts, which bear witness to the confusion), or it may have been the author of the part of the Didache that also contains the baptism formula. Since both those sources are Jewish, that someone was almost certainly a strongly Jewish Christian (leader). 
• Conclusion: This trinitarian saying was said over converts by Jewish Christians in the latter half of the first century as a part of their baptism rites, and the confusion was at last resolved. This mutation of Judaism had started to vocalise, ritualise and (although they did not know it) immortalise its "Triune Hub".

New Testament References

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

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".

Fuzzy science Mike

One of the podcasts that I really enjoy listening to is Ask science Mike. At the moment he is doing a speaking tour in the United States, to promote his new book Finding God in the Waves - which I like by the way.

In his most recent podcast he is as interesting,  witty, thought-provoking and yet fuzzy as ever as he does a live show from Portland, Oregon.

Atheist question, would God exist if we didn't? He "thinks" no. He hopes, comtemplatively and mystically, "yes". The reason for this apparent dissonance is because there are ways of understanding and experiencing and expression that cannot be explained by empiricism. I have a feeling that Mike might need to de-fuzzy a bit what he describes as "existence". At one point in the Portland show, he clearly states that Superman and Batman don't exist. Not "don't exist in the real world", they simply: "don't exist". What about his psychosocial models? Do they exist? What about the inexpressible mystical experiences? Do they exist? Does his memory of what happened to him on the beach exist? Does my idea of Batman exist (in my mind and in millions of minds)? Surely the answer is "yes" to all these examples? The problem then is that there are things that exist - most things in fact - that exist about which no-one has any idea, like each individual blade of grass in the field or photon of light that goes anywhere except towards our tiny planet. God, according to Mike's confessed pantheistic definition of God, cannot exist without the universe he sustains.

Funnily enough, and I would be surprised if he knew it yet as he probably is not as insanely interested by the Trinity as me, this role reversal has been attempted in theology quite a bit already. In recent times, various theologians have attempted ways of understanding the Trinity or the cross of Christ in such a way as to make God dependant on his creation and its failure - even on man's sin. People have asked the question: is God essentially a saviour, or did he incidentally become one when his creation got itself into a pickle? There is then a popular current that says yes, voluntarily so, God has submitted himself in a sense to a state of dependence on what he has made. Science Mike's conclusions are remarkably in sync with that Trinitarian movement.

He speaks with surprise at his popularity among Calvinists. He really is not a consistent Trinitarian though, so I'm not sure what he is criticising when he says that "God who sends his son to be murdered as a sacrifice to himself, and that sacrifice is himself to himself", when the alternative of incarnational love sounds like a pure, no-distinctions modalism! A couple of times in the past, he has attempted an answer to his audience about the Trinity which does not come close to satisfying me that he is really engaging with it - except that it is mysterious, and mystery is good. For instance, in this episode he states (4'20" approx.) that "God is a [one] being" (my emphasis), yet when discussing the Trinity elsewhere, I have heard him go to a completely different extreme and say that God is three beings. To be honest, I don't think he knows what he really thinks about the Trinity, which to be fair, is probably the position of most folk.

Answering a question about Otherness: I didn't like the way he dealt with this. Followers of this blog know that I love distinction, the ultimate one of which is that between the Father and the Son. If there is no space between those two, then there is no room for love between them. It is love that binds persons distinct in their personhood together. But all too quickly, because of our experience of conflict through difference and intolerance of difference, Mike wants to immediately go for pure unity. He cites research done on even the most introverted of folk, who must have contact with others, as we are social animals. This research is only half the story, however. We are also made for distinction. Fusional relationships have been shown in the social sciences to be harmful in child-parent relationships to the child's sense of autonomy and responsibility.

Finally a hilarious moment in this episode that made me laugh out loud: Science Mike prayed as a kid Satan would accept Jesus into his heart. Solved problem of evil! Actually, that reminds me of when I was a kid and my parents taught me about the existence of the invisible Satan character, and I threw him a punch! Great how as kids we already want to kick evil in the teeth.

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!

Louer le Christ et Dieu le Père: comment Philippiens 2:11 remet droit dans des endroits bizarres

Les chrétiens charismatiques et évangéliques sont souvent très passionnés de louer Jésus: et c'est super ! C'est précisément ce que la Bible enseigne de manière explicite. Dans cet article, cependant, nous allons voir comment les évangéliques et les unitarians peuvent se louper tous les deux, en ce qui concerne un des nuances les plus importantes de l'église primitive (et pour une fois je ne distingue pas l'église du premier siècle et celle du quatrième, malgré les énormes développements pendant cette période).

A droite de cet article il y a un ensemble de mots clés en anglais: is vous cliquez sur le mot clé "worship", vous vous rendrez compte que c'est un sujet qui pour moi a un réel intérêt, en partie puisque j'ai participé à la direction des temps de louange pendant une dizaine d'années. Ces articles (qui un jour devront être intégrés dans un site à part qui militera contre les expressions modernes du modalisme) croisent les paroles, les vidéos et des analyses théologiques sur quelques chants de louange les plus récents. Ca va de inoffensif au choquant, dont le pire a été acclamé comme le "grand-père" de la louange trinitaire moderne (le chant par Chris Tomlin s'intitulé en français O Dieu Tu Es Grand, voir ici). Le problème c'est que pour certains de ce chants, l'idée de louer Christ à la gloire de son père est absent, comme si on ne voulait adopter qu'une partie du poème christologique de Philippiens 2.

Comment réagissent ceux qui ne se décrivent pas comme "Trinitaires", lorsqu'on évoque l'idée que la louange est destinée uniquement à Dieu? D'abord, il est dit que le mot proskuneo en greque a un sens plus large qu'en français, et que c'est appliqué et attendu en présence de la royauté humaine, comme devant un dieu. Un passage de l'ancien testament souvent rappelé, là où Yahweh et le roi David reçoivent la louange du peuple (1 Chronicles 29:20  Et David dit à toute la congregation: Benissez l'Eternel, votre Dieu. Et toute la congregation benit l'Eternel, le Dieu de leurs peres; et ils s'inclinerent, et se prosternerent devant l'Eternel et devant le roi.)

Puisque les mots en hébreu et en greque veulent dire d'origine "se prosterner", les versions en français sont généralement prudentes à préserver cette signification.

Deuxièmement, il est rappelé que dans le livre de l'Apocalypse en particulier, la louange pour Jésus le fils de Dieu est spirituelle, religieuse voire "divine", mais que même dans ce contexte-là, Dieu et Jésus sont toujours clairement distingués (peut-être d'une manière similaire à ce qu'on retrouve en ephésiens 1, là où Jésus, exalté et assis sur son trône avec autorité sur toute la création, Jésus est aussi distingué du père et dieu de Jésus. Deux fois en plus.) Mais est-ce que cette louange de Christ est du même ordre que celle décrite dans l'ancienne testament pour le roi David, à côté de Yahweh?

Non.

Paradoxalement, comme certains auteurs de chants évangéliques aujourd'hui, les non-Trinitaires ne méditent pas assez non plus la fin du poème christologique au deuxième chapitre de l'epitre aux Philippiens.

A   L A   G L O I R E   D E   D I E U   L E   P E R E

La médiation (je veux dire l'équivalent de Agency en anglais) est un phénomène bien documenté en ce qui concerne la période du deuxième temple du peuple juif, et cette notion continue dans le nouveau testament aussi. Des fois en désirant tellement à souligner les distinctions nombreuses entre Jésus et Dieu dans le nouveau Testament, les non-Trinitaires peuvent perdre de vue que la médiation agit dans les deux sens. Non seulement Jésus est le médiateur du salut Dieu envers l'homme (voir 1 Tim 2:5), mais selon Philippiens 2:11, Jésus est aussi le médiateur dans le sens retour d'une louange destinée finalement au père. Je voudrais souligner que je ne pense pas que le modèle de Philippiens est totalement représentatif ou normatif, et cela en partie puisque le modèle du Chronicleur est renouvellé dans l'apocalypse.

Qu'est-ce que c'est drôle que les deux filtres interprétatifs pourraient trébucher un peu sur Philippiens 2:11, lorsqu'ils se disputent tellement sur la signification du contenu du reste du poème.

Bonne louange trinitaire!

Pas contre l'idée du Dieu trinitaire, finally something in French!

Cette publication est la traduction, plus ou moins, de ce que j'ai écrit dans ce blog en anglais en février, qui est tiré d'un mémoire que j'écris sur la question de l'interprétation et de la doctrine de la Trinité. Je m'excuse pour les fautes certaines de mon français!

Sur le mouvement, l'interaction, l'amour fondamental et la soumission mutuelle, je me retrouve ému et profondément inspiré. De nombreuses personnes, comme moi, ont aussi entendu et applaudi la rhétorique de l’unité en diversité qui est une théologie à la fois puissante et trinitaire.

Théologiquement, malgré mes questionnements actuels, je trouve que je peux aussi me détendre lorsque je me retrouve dans un environnement que j’appellerais « un environnement Trinitaire structuré – là où la prière et la gloire sont ultimement dirigées vers le Père, et que la place centrale du Père n’empêche en aucune sorte son Fils précieux notre Seigneur, Jésus Christ et Son Esprit Saint. Je ne peux pas exprimer avec suffisamment de sincérité que dans le sens structuré et historique, qui nous induit à l’admiration, à la louange je ne suis pas antitrinitaire […] C’est plutôt cela dont j’ai un réel souci qui m’a poussé en priorité à réexaminer cette fondation [de la Trinité] – et non la fondation en elle-même.

Mon inquiétude initiale et personnelle, qui ne fait pas l’objet de ce mémoire, concernait la tentation et la tendance que je remarquais à reléguer le Père à une troisième personne de la Trinité ou pire, à un rang d’enseignement utile ou élément additionnel. Pendant plusieurs années, je pense en prenant conscience que notre conception de Jésus prenait le dessus de la doxologie et théologie dans ma propre tradition d’église, j’ai essayé (naïvement) à ramener la théologie trinitaire au milieu, par les occasions régulières que j’avais en tant que conducteur de louange. De plus, pendant les quelques opportunités que j’avais à apporter un message de la Bible, je serais surpris si j’ai exclu la question du Père de mes propos. Il est curieux que je ne ressens pas cette même inquiétude lorsque je rends visite à d’autres églises théologiquement plus structurées.

Donc, si je suis devenu « anti » quelque chose, c’était « anti » l’exaltation d’un Jésus au dépens de la compréhension et la relation d’avec leur Dieu, le Père. Je ne pense pas qu’il existe encore un mot pour cela, mais je crois qu’il était Dale Tuggy ou bien Stephen Holmes qui a parlé d’une théologie d’église qui peut faire « effondrer » la trinité dans son deuxième membre, la personne de Jésus Christ. Encore d’autres remarquent – et je pense que c’est vrai – que beaucoup d’églises pratiquent une sorte d’unitarisme fonctionnel. Cela veut dire que lorsque nous nous disions trinitaires, notre expérience de Dieu était d'une seule personne et non trois, soit Jésus.