Transcription
Why is it so important to offer a biblical, biblically and philosophically sound defense of the Trinity? It seems to me that what is fundamentally at stake here is the deity of Christ. We need to affirm the deity of Christ. Otherwise, his um incarnation and atoning death for our sins go by the board. If Christ was merely an ordinary human being, then his death on the cross could have no more significance than the death of any other ordinary human martyr.
Does the Bible actually teach that God is triune? Is this polytheism as some Muslims claim? Or is it actually an intelligible, philosophically sound doctrine? Well, it's no secret that the Trinity is one doctrine that sets Christianity apart. It's also one of the doctrines that has been most commonly criticized by many non-Christians.
Our guest today is back on the show, Dr. William Lane Craig, a personal friend of myself, Taba School Theology, but probably known for being one of the leading, if not the leading defender of Christianity over the past few decades. He's been writing this systematic philosophical theology and the latest volume has a section on the trinity. Dr. Craig, thanks for coming back as always. Enjoy having you on and talking on the Trinity.
Yes, I always enjoy our conversation, Sean. So, it's good to be back on the program again.
Well, let's jump right in. And my first question is really why is it so important to offer a biblical, biblically and philosophically sound defense of the trinity? It seems to me that what is fundamentally at stake here is the deity of Christ. We need to affirm the deity of Christ. Otherwise, his um incarnation and atoning death uh for our sins go by the board. If Christ was merely an ordinary human being, then his death on the cross could have no more significance than the death of any other ordinary human martyr. It certainly wouldn't suffice to atone for the sins of all mankind. So it seems to me that what really makes the doctrine of the trinity important will be the deity of Jesus Christ.
Oh, that's really interesting. So it's not so much the doctrine as a whole, but the deity of Jesus because Jesus is the one who took on human flesh and makes our our justification possible. So that's the core piece to defend when we talk about the Trinity. Is that fair?
Yes. Yes. With the deity of Christ. That implies that we have dual at least dual persons in the godhead. The father and the son uh the holy spirit can come in later uh for discussion. But I think the core importance lies in affirming the deity of Christ.
Okay. So logically speaking, one of my goals with the Trinity is often times if non-believers will raise a challenge of the Trinity, my goal is to say there's a model that's biblically faithful and it's just coherent. It doesn't contradict. That's my kind of minimal goal. Is that fair to you in terms of what a goal would be in terms of defending the Trinity?
Yes. Although I would want to say we can go farther than that. In addition to saying it's possible that it's logically consistent, I want to say that it's plausible as well, that this is a plausible doctrine of God.
Okay, I love this. So that's my my next question was going to be how far can and should we go in trying to understand the trinity? So maybe explain what you mean and what the difference would be between plausible and possible.
Well, to say that it's possible just means that this is not a logically incoherent doctrine. That's pretty minimal. Uh to say that it's free of logical contradictions. But to say that it's plausible is to say that it's reasonable, that it it's not just um free of logical incoherence, but that this is a a believable thing to uh hold.
That's great. That's that's an important distinction. We'll get into your model and how how you do this in a minute. One question I have for you is you're doing a systematic philosophical theology. So, it's really rooted on biblical teaching and showing that it's philosophically sound. That's part of the task of this series you're working on.
But a question that always emerges such as you just had in the same volume, six arguments for the existence of God which are apart from scripture through science, through philosophy, through reason, history, etc. My question is, can we do the same thing with the Trinity? Could we know that God is triune apart from scripture? And the way I've heard this suggested, and frankly, I don't know if I'm persuaded by it or not. It's just interesting to me.
Is this suggestion, I believe it was Swinburn, who talked about God being a maximally great being, love requires a lover and a beloved. But then if they're just focused on one another, a third, an expression of that love is even greater. But a fourth adds nothing. Do you find that convincing, possible, plausible? What's your sense of that?
I certainly find Swinburn's argument that there needs to be at least a plurality of persons in God to be very persuasive. If God is a maximally great being, then that means that God is essentially a perfectly loving being. And I think it belongs to the very nature of love to give oneself away to give oneself in love to as you put it the beloved, the other. And who is then the other that God essentially loves? Well, it cannot be creatures because the existence of creatures is contingent. They haven't always existed and there are possible worlds in which God exists and is all loving, but there are no creatures. So, it seems to follow that the other whom God loves essentially must be within God uh himself and that therefore God is a multiplicity of persons at least two. Now to go beyond that and get three um I find there as you did I was a little more skeptical of Swinburn's argument there that that we could say that there needs to be a third person but this past November at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society I heard a very interesting paper by the philosopher Kurt Mcre McGregor on this subject. And I found that Kirk argued very persuasively that since God's love is essentially selflessly mutual and nonpossessive that the two divine persons would want to share their love with a third person rather than being uh just uh possessing the other for uh himself. they would want to share their love and so the divine persons would be necessarily exactly three. And so as a result of hearing McGregor's paper, I have to say I I do think now that this is a really persuasive argument for there being necessarily and exactly three persons in the Godhead.
Whoa, that's so fascinating. I'm I have so many questions about that. Maybe I'll do a whole separate show on that. Uh, we'll let that one sit for now. But that is a really such an interesting point. I want to see that paper now that you mentioned it.
Yeah, get Kirk on your program. You could do a a podcast with McGregor. He's a really good guy.
I'm making a little note here. Super interesting. Okay. So, in some ways, the argument that you've just made that God is at least a multiplicity of persons >> is not only an argument positively for God being more than one and arguably three, but it's a critique of Islam and other faiths that say God is a unity or a unitarian position.
Exactly. I think that this argument is a powerful argument against any unitarian view of God. Whether you're talking about deism or Islam uh or any other form of unitarianism, I think that this is a a really good argument that those views are incorrect. One of the other Muslim critiques, and this is not unique to Islam, is that Christians are polytheists.
It's like Jesus is God, that's one. The Father's God, that's two. The Holy Spirit is God, that's three. Therefore, there's three gods that we worship. This is how it's framed sometimes. Before we get to your defense, do both the Old Testament and New Testament teach that there is one God? In other words, does the Bible as a whole teach monotheism?
Yes. I think that this is indisputable that both Judaism and then the uh New Testament followers of Jesus all were one in affirming uh that uh the father is God, that there is one God. Um and and therefore our monotheist that is uh uncompromising.
And that's a it's uncompromising historically held and also biblically held. It's important for people to see.
Uh okay. One thing we maybe could have started with is what Christians mean when they say that God is triune and why they believe it. And I would just point out as we're jumping in, of course, the obvious point is that the word triune or trinity is not in the Bible. We're not talking about the word. We're talking about the doctrine. Like a is not in the Bible as a word. But does God teach a you and I would say yes. Exodus 3 and maybe some other passages we would point towards. So if you could explain to us what Christians mean when they say God is triune and why Christians believe that doctrine.
Now obviously there are different uh versions of the doctrine of the trinity that uh different uh confessions of Christendom affirm. But I would say that minimally uh the what I call biblical doctrine of the trinity consists of two very simple thesis. Number one is that there is exactly one God and number two is that there are exactly three persons father son and holy spirit who are properly called god. And that embodies, I think, the biblical doctrine that we call the Trinity.
I'm writing down the words because I know you're very careful with the words that you use. You said there's uh so the first tell me the first premise again if you will.
There is exactly one God.
Okay. So there's exactly one God. The second one is there's three persons who >> there are exactly three persons who are properly called God. And by the word properly, I mean they're in truth or literally, not just hyperbolically or metaphorically. Okay. So instead of saying for the second one, there are three persons who are God, you're saying they're properly called God to make what distinction from there being one God?
Well, I'm not trying to make a distinction from there being one God. That's affirmed in the first thesis that there is exactly one God. But I think that what the New Testament authors affirm is that there are exactly three persons to whom the title God can be properly applied. And again by properly I mean in truth or or literally not just figuratively. And so that would imply that there are three divine persons.
Okay. So the word this is helpful. The word trinity comes try for three inity from unity >> just like univers one uh diversity. There's a unity of a common university and then there's the diversity of say subjects or individuals. So when it comes to God, there's a threeness try and there's a oneness unity.
Yes.
So the oneness is there's exactly one God.
Yes.
The threeness is persons who are properly called God. Is that fair?
Okay.
That's exactly what I'm saying.
Okay. Excellent. So there' be a contradiction if we said there's one God and three gods or there's one person and three persons, >> right?
So the oneness is in typically called substance or unity or being and the distinction is in the personhood or persons.
Exactly.
Okay. Good. All right. Excellent. So let's keep going. What's the goal then of offering a model of the trinity? And and I ask this because when I was teaching high school full-time before I was at at Talbot, I would have my students come up with models for the Trinity. And I distinctly remember, Bill, I think it was a freshman. The student goes, "I got it. A peanut M&M." It said the shell, the chocolate, and the peanut. And I kind of had this moment where I paused and I thought, "Okay, we're talking about God and we're comparing it to M&M's. I think maybe maybe something's gone wrong here. So, should we offer models? What's the goal of offering a model? And what errors do we want to avoid when we do this?
Um, I think that the purpose of offering a model, Sean, is to help us understand how what the doctrine asserts can be true. It's one thing to assert that there is exactly one God and exactly three persons who are properly called God, but that might leave us still wondering, but how can those both be true? H how do you put that together? And that's where a model comes in. A model can help us to understand how what the doctrine asserts can be true.
Okay. So, by the way, I forgot to mention this. We have coming on Tuesday live for Tablet Tuesday, Fred Sanders, one of the world's leading theologians on the Trinity to take your questions and challenges and clarifications from this video. So, if you write in question in caps and you're like, "This doesn't make sense. I don't believe this. Bible doesn't teach it." We will circle back and take your questions. Make sure you write those in. Okay. Okay. So when it comes to a model in some ways part of me says even without a model if the Bible teaches it and we can just see cognitively that it doesn't contradict >> we don't need a model any more than we have a perfect model to explain how light is a wave and a particle.
So we don't need it. But you're saying it's more helpful to grasp it is more the role of a model for the trinity. Is that fair?
Yes, I think that's right. Uh it's been pointed out of my work on the trinity that my defense of the doctrine of the trinity is somewhat independent of the model of the trinity that I offer. And I think that's quite true. It can be uh true and defended that there is exactly one God and exactly three persons who are properly called God even if you don't have a model of it. But I I think that we can model this and so if we can I think that can be very helpful.
Okay, good. We'll come we'll come to your model and uh try to illustrate that for folks. So very simply put if I was going to say in our model of the trinity what we want to avoid. It would seem like we would want to avoid tritheism where there's three gods that just have three and not the one or like modalism in which there's just the one but there's not the diversity. I is there anything more we need to keep in mind to avoid when it comes to modeling the trinity any other errors or is that really kind of the guiding principles?
Well, we're assuming here that we're avoiding Unitarianism, which would just deny the doctrine alto together. So, we're assuming here that the uh theologian wants to affirm three persons uh and and one God. And I think with respect to that, those would be the two errors that you would avoid on the extremes that there are really three gods or that there's really just one person. And uh that's what we would want to avoid.
Okay. Now, we're going to dive into some of your model and get into some of the philosophy. But for those who are still with us, I imagine some people are going, "Man, you guys are getting a little bit lost in some of the weeds about the philosophy. Why is this so important?" And to me, I'd say this is so important because we want to understand who God is. And this affects how we worship God, how we pray to God, how we understand how God has revealed himself, and also avoid error and heresy of missing something. Is there anything you'd add before we even get further into the weeds about why it's important to be so careful here?
Well, just that I think that the threat of Unitarianism has never been so strong as today in contemporary culture. There is even a graduate of Biola University who has gone unitarian and is uh on the internet a website trying to convince other uh Christians that the Bible does not teach the doctrine of the trinity as I just explicated it but that it teaches a form of unitarianism. And I have interacted with people online who are persuaded by this and who are abandoning what I would regard as an essential Christian doctrine in favor of these unitarian views that view Jesus Christ as just a creature uh and not as divine. So I think in this day and age Christians cannot be afford cannot afford to be asleep here. They cannot be thoughtless about this because uh especially as our youth are out on the internet and encountering these ideas. If they are not well trained in biblical doctrine, in theology and philosophy, they will or may be sucked in by these deceiving uh people.
That's really good and important. In fact, what you and I are doing or trying to do here is in line with what Christians have been doing from the beginning in different ways to the challenges that come up in that culture. How do we respond biblically and solidly to them? and we just got to keep advancing the ball. So, I love it. Here's a here's a simple one for you and then we're going to get kind of into your model a little bit is I've had it stated to me that a question. How can Jesus be God?
Yeah.
And the father be God but then Jesus not be the father.
I think that this is the most important thing that we are going to say today John.
Okay. And that is that statements like this are not identity statements. Our listeners need to understand that fundamentally these are not identity statements. An identity statement would be like Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens. That is to say, these are just two names of the same entity. There's just one thing there that can be referred to. um in different ways. And when we say Jesus is God and the father is God, these are not identity statements. Uh and that's clear because the identity relation is a transitive relation. Um if A is identical to B and B is identical to C, then A is identical >> to C. Um and so in that case if Jesus is identical to God and the father is identical to God then Jesus is identical to the father which the new testament clearly does not teach. So these sorts of statements cannot be plausibly construed to be identity statements. So what are they? Well, they are predications. They are predicating a property of Jesus and the father. So for example, suppose I say that Belshazzer is king and Nabonitis is king. I'm not saying that Belshazzer and Nabonitis are the same person. Rather, I'm asserting that they are both royal. They both hold that royal office. And so there is a co-regency. Uh there are two kings in that case. So in a similar way when we say the father is God, Jesus is God, the holy spirit is God, we are not making identity statements. We are predicating deity or predicating divinity of those persons.
That is such a helpful distinction. I remember my father and you and a few others encouraged me when studying theology to do some philosophical work. And when we don't do that, we miss these nuances. So maybe this will additionally help because you said this is so important. If I said Shawn is the husband of Stephanie, that's an identity statement because Stephanie is the, you know, the wife of Shawn or I I rephrased it, but we get the point. That goes both ways.
Yeah. Now, if I might interrupt here, Sean, uh that really isn't an identity statement. I I think that's also a predication because um you are not necessarily the husband of what was her name?
Stephanie. Yeah, that's okay.
Stephanie. Yes. You're not necessarily the husband of Stephanie. Um and so this really isn't an identity statement any more than saying Trump is the president of the United States is an identity statement. These are also predications. So the place that we usually encounter identity statements would be where you have two names of the same thing. For example, >> the evening star and the morning star in ancient Babylonia were called hesperis and phosphorus. And the Babylonian astronomers didn't realize these were identical. Uh that hesperus is phosphorus. They're both the planet Venus, but they didn't understand that. Or or if I say um uh Charles Dodson is Lewis Carol who is the author of Alice and Wonderland. That again is an identity statement where I'm picking out a single individual using two different names. Um so those would be better examples. you we we use identity statements a lot in mathematics. When we say >> 2 + 2 equals 4, the equal sign there doesn't really mean equal. That's the logical sign for identity. So what we're really saying is 2 + 2 is identical to four. And if we say three equals the square root of 9, we're saying that three is identical to the square root of 9. So in these equations mathematically is where you very often see these sorts of identity relations asserted. So identity is it requires a necessity then behind it rather than right now Shawn is the husband of Stephanie that is identical right now but it can change so it's not an identity statement like Lu Cinder is Abdul Jabar >> another good example >> that's what's necessary for identity okay that's that's really helpful clarification uh okay good we'll keep it at that for now and keep moving Now, there's two different at least two different core models for the trinity. Uh, social trinitarianism and what's called antisocial trinitarianism. What's the difference between these two terms and why does this matter?
Well, uh, the, uh, term antisocial trinitarianism is is a little bit tongue andcheek here. Um those who identify with that point of view wouldn't call it that but I I've called it that. Uh on social trinitarianism the emphasis is that in God there are three literal centers of self-consciousness. Three individuals who can each say I think that or I am the father I am the son. I am the holy spirit. That would be social trinitarianism. Uh what I call antisocial trinitarianism or sometimes called Latin trinitarianism seems to think that there is only one self in God. Uh it it looks like modalism frankly, but >> these proponents of antisocial trinitarianism seem to deny that there are three literal centers of self-consciousness in God such as I described.
So I wanted to ask next why you reject antisocial trinitarian models, but it sounds like >> you reject them, whatever they're called, because it's really a form of modalism. And would you say it's unitarianism when it's all said and done it and doesn't capture the distinction between the father, son, and holy spirit?
I I think that's true. Sometimes uh these views are called one self views of the trinity. And it seems to me if there is only one self that God is, then God is a single person and hence unitarianism is true. And I don't think that this can be biblically defended because when you read the gospels, Jesus and the father each use appropriate first and second person pronouns in relationship with each other. Uh the father will say, "You are my beloved son >> with whom I am well pleased." Um, and so, uh, the use of these personal pronouns indicates, I think, a multiplicity of persons.
Yeah, that's so interesting. I'm not quite sure how someone would get around that, but that would take us aside a little bit. So, maybe explain to us, if you will, what your model is of trinity monotheism. Maybe why you choose that term and what your model is.
Well, I'm not wedded to the term. Um, and I think in fact in the volume you refer to the systematic philosophical theology, I actually uh replaced the term trinity monotheism with tripersonal theism which I think is a better label for the view. And the idea here appears appeals to the notion of a soul. A soul is an intellectual substance uh endowed with cognitive faculties. Now uh animals uh which are sentient um may have in the views of many people primitive souls that are conscious but are not self-conscious. They're not persons. But when you get to human beings, there you have souls who are endowed with rational faculties that are sufficient for personhood, for self-consciousness, rationality, freedom of the will, moral agency. And so it occurs to me that God just is a sort of soul. God is an intellectual substance um endowed with rational faculties. But in God's case, he is a soul which is endowed with three sets of rational faculties, each sufficient for personhood. So just as our souls are more richly endow uh endowed than the souls of horses and turtles and penguins, God's soul is even more richly endowed than ours in that he has three sets of rational faculties sufficient for personhood where we have only one such set. And so each of us is one person but God is tripal.
Okay. Okay. So to make sure I understand that it's not that God has three souls. Each center of consciousness is not a distinct soul. God is one soul. So an animal is one soul. A human is one soul. God is one soul. But within God's one soul are three distinct persons or centers of consciousness. So it's the soul that brings the unity together. and the centers of consciousness or the persons is where we get the diversity.
Yes, that's right. That's >> that's the model.
Okay. So, one of the objections that I've seen uh people raise against you and you do address this in your your latest volume is that this model divides up God into parts. And when it sounds like parts, it feels like, you know, there's there's parts of a puzzle or pieces of a pie. And so now we're dividing God up too much and we're losing maybe the unity might be the root of the concern. How would you respond to this idea that your model divides up God into parts?
Well, I would say that it I don't mean by that uh that God is composed of pieces which are somehow put together. What I simply wanted to say is that one member of the trinity is not the whole trinity. that God the father is not the whole godhead that there's also the son and the spirit and that's all that I meant to affirm by saying that uh each one is a part of the whole godhead in the most recent work as you say I suggest that we don't need to use the language of parts uh instead we can talk about uh possessing properties that are unique to the divine substance had by each one of these three and it is in virtue of those properties that they are each divine. But the other alternative would be to say each one is a a part of the whole uh in the sense that each one is not the whole.
Okay. Help me out here if I'm getting this because sometimes the moment I feel like I got the trinity then it like slips away and I go, "Okay, wait a minute. What exactly is going on here?" Yeah, >> which by the way doesn't bother me because we're talking about the character of an infinite all- knowing all good God. If we can't understand quantum mechanics, it doesn't bother me that we're not going to fully understand God in a way that it maybe used to when I was younger.
Uh, but we're saying the father, son, and the holy spirit >> individually have all the attributes of divinity. So they're truly God.
Yes. But we don't just say Jesus is God. Although he's truly named or properly named God. God is the father, the son, and the holy spirit.
Right? This recurs to the point I was making before that I said is so important. When we say Jesus is God, we're not making an identity statement. You see, we're not saying that Jesus is the whole godhead and that they're identical. We're saying that Jesus has the unique properties of divinity, omnipotence, omniscience, assay, moral perfection, eternity, and so on and so forth. These are predications.
Okay. Essential predications of >> Yes. >> God. Okay. Good.
Yes.
Tell me if if this illustration works as far as it goes. So, we clarified what we meant by identity. Shawn being the husband of Stephanie and saying that's not necessarily identity. Uh because that could change and that could shift as opposed to Lu Alcinder and Kodul Jabar that those are identity statements.
But if I said Shawn is human, of course that's not an identity statement because we wouldn't flip it around and say human is Shawn. But humanity is an essential characteristic of being me as it is other persons. Is that more what we mean by the statement Jesus is God that it's an essential characteristic or is that not quite get us there?
I think that that does get it. Uh that that's right. And uh I would agree with you that you are essentially human. That Shawn could not have been an alligator or a hippopotamus. Uh that would be a different being. So you are essentially human. And Christ, the father, the holy spirit are essentially divine.
Okay. By the way, side note, this is one reason I take issue with reincarnation where if I came back as an alligator, it wouldn't actually be me because I would lose something essential to me. But we digress. That's a conversation for another time.
Here's another objection I've heard uh to your model, Bill, is that your model does not allow us to affirm the Nyian Creed. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty. Yeah, this is a biblical um quotation and I don't think that we should understand it as an identity statement. It could be taken to be an identity statement. I grant you. But I think that upon careful reflection, we should say that when we affirm that the father is God, we are not making an identity statement. We're predicating divinity of the father.
Okay. I so glad you emphasize the importance of these identity statements because we're seeing it run through and come back and hopefully bring in clarity for people. So it we could say we we believe in the one God, the one and only son, Jesus Christ, or we believe in the one God, the Holy Spirit, just as we say we believe in one God, the Father Almighty. If they're not identity statements, then it seems like we could say this about all three.
Yes, I think that's right. If they're not identity statements, then that's unproatic. It only gets problematic when we start construing these as identity statements.
Okay, good. So, let let me push this from the other angle. Then then how can three persons compose the same being but not be three separate beings and move into a triism?
Yes. Think again of my model. There is one concrete object that is God. This soul, this intellectual substance, there is one of these. But it is so richly endowed with rational faculties that it has three sets of rational faculties, each sufficient for personhood. And so this one soul is tripersonal rather than uniersonal.
Okay. This is really helpful. And let me just clarify because I know at this point some people are saying raising this question. They're saying, "Okay, Bill, none of this is in the Bible. The Bible doesn't say that God is one soul endowed with three persons. You're reading into this model." Your answer would be what?
My answer would be that there is a distinction between the biblical doctrine of the trinity and Bill Craig's attempt to provide a model of it. Remember what I said the biblical doctrine of the trinity is? There is exactly one God and there are exactly three persons who are each properly called God. That's what's in the Bible. And I and and in the book I give abundant scriptural support for those statements you did.
Um, but then to help us understand the biblical doctrine as I said it can be helpful to have a model. And so this is a a human construction uh that can help us to understand how what the Bible asserts can be in fact the case.
Okay. Good. So there's a difference between saying something that goes against the Bible and saying something that meant to expand and illustrate and capture what's consistent with the Bible. Those are very very different things. Now before before we move on the next question uh two things for audience. Uh number one this might be an interview you want to go back and listen to two or three times. Sometimes on important topics for me, I will relisten to certain interviews and try to explain them and share them with somebody and then I realize, oh, I get it. I realize I don't get it. So, I used to power through as many books, as many interviews, and I've learned to realize sometimes slowing down and focusing on something helps me understand it better. So, we're talking about the character of God. It's going to take some time for it to sink in. So, this might be one you want to come back to. And by the way, if you still have questions or challenges or clarifications, I'll be live Tuesday with Fred Sanders, one of the leading experts in the world, who's written on the Trinity, a colleague of mine at Biola to address some of those questions. So, don't miss that. Okay, Bill, I've got a really just two more core questions for you. uh one is if God is this tripersonal being then how should we make sense of intra trinitarian relations between the father and the son and the holy spirit.
Now here Sean, I think we really do go beyond what the Bible teaches. uh as the doctrine of the trinity developed uh in among the early church fathers and finally came to be codified in AD 3:25 at the council of Nya certain relations between the members of the trinity were postulated that are extrabiblical in nature. Now, as you just pointed out a moment ago, that's not to say they're anti-biblical, but they are extra biblical. And so, the church fathers thought that Christ the Son uh was begotten by God the Father and not in his human nature. I think many of us might think, well, yeah, Jesus was begotten by God the Father. That's what the virgin birth is all about. But no, no. What the church fathers are talking about is that in his divine nature, from eternity past, the son has always been begotten by the father. And they would often compare this to the rays of the sun proceeding from the sun itself. As long as the sun exists, the rays uh proceeding from the sun, this is su n. Now I'm talking an analogy. The the sunshine proceeding from the sun also exists. So in the same way they would say that the son is eternally begotten from the father and then the holy spirit is said to proceed from the father uh and sometimes from the son. here Catholics and Eastern Orthodox uh disagree on this question. Does the Holy Spirit proceed only from the father like uh as the son does or does he proceed from both the father and the son? Well, Catholics and Orthodox disagree on that, but they do both postulate this inner trinitarian relation of the procession of the spirit from the other person or persons of the trinity. And since this is an extra biblical doctrine, I see no reason to think that we have to adopt this, especially if one has reservations about it. as I do. Uh now, you're free to add that to the model uh that I've offered if you want to, but I don't think it's taught in the New Testament. Um and I don't see any good reason to add this extra biblical doctrine to what I've described as a biblical doctrine of the Trinity. You might have just stated it, but you said you have reservations about this approach and this model. What are those reservations that you have? If you don't want to go there,
to say that the son is begotten of the father and the spirit is begotten of the father seems to depreciate the person of Christ and the holy spirit because then they are not self-existent. They depend for their existence upon the father. And it seems to me that that depreciates the son a and the spirit. It would be better just just to say no no all of the persons of the trinity are co-equal, self-existent, metaphysically necessary. Uh and we don't need to have one deriving from or dependent upon the other. It would be very good for you to ask Fred Sanders what he thinks about these uh relations of procession from the Trinity. I suspect he will be far more sympathetic than I am to these. Um, but I I'm going to stick with just what the Bible says about the Trinity.
That's totally fair. All right, folks listening, if you're like, I'm not quite sure why would Eastern Orthodox and Catholics completely divide over whether the Holy Spirit, you know, proceeds from the father and the son. Well, we can come back to that on Tuesday. You might think this is insignificant and secondary, but if two major branches of Christianity divide over this, we should get some clarity in our minds what's at stake. Uh, so we can come back to that, right? And if you have a question, write question in caps and put that below and we will circle back to that with Fred Sanders and get his take. Okay. I do want to ask you in a sense what this means for how we relate to God. But before we get there, is there anything else that I missed that I didn't ask you that you wanted to say about your model or just advancing the case for the Trinity or responding to any objections? Did I miss any important points so far before we get to why this matters?
Well, the only thing I would sh say, Sean, is that we didn't really talk about the scriptural support >> for those two thesis that there is exactly one God. And then especially that second thesis that there are exactly three persons that are properly called God. Many times you'll hear people say, "Well, the Bible never calls Jesus God." >> And in my chapter, I go through, I think, around nine New Testament passages from different authors in which they explicitly affirm that Jesus Christ is God. And this seems to me to be just right at the heart of the issue. It's just essential. So the the the biblical ex Jesus of these key passages is really important.
And just really quickly for clarification, when you say it teaches that Jesus is God, do you mean it uses the terms like John 1:1 or Titus 2:13, theos is used rather than the Greek term? That's what you mean by explicitly saying that Jesus is God. Is that the point you're drawing out in those nine verses or so?
It is. It is Sean. Uh, you see the word for God in Greek is theos as you just uh told us. And in Judaism and early Christianity, theos typically referred to the father. >> So very often in the New Testament, Paul will say, "Grace to you and peace from God the Father." that the the the the word faos typically refers to the father. So these New Testament Christians were faced with a real dilemma here. They wanted to affirm the deity of Christ, but they didn't want to say that Christ is the father. So what do you do? Well, what they did was just brilliant. They adopted the Greek name of God in the Old Testament, Yahweh in in Greek, which is curios. And they or Lord, and they called him Jesus Christ, the Lord. And so Paul would say, "Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." And then they would quote Old Testament passages referring to Yahweh and apply them to to Jesus Christ. So typically you the New Testament authors will not refer to Jesus as theos because that would be confusing. They refer to him as curios. But on occasion the New Testament authors seem to lose all restraint and they come right out and say Jesus is haos God. And you cited one passage yourself there John 1:1 where it says in the beginning uh was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Um, and similarly at the end of the gospel of John like bookends to the gospel of John in chapter 20 doubting Thomas sees the risen Jesus and falls at his feet and he says my Lord and my God. My Lord and my God. He applies both of the titles to Jesus. Lord and God. And and Jesus says, "Do you believe now, Thomas, because you have seen? Blessed are those who believe without having seen." So this is really the christoologgical climax of the gospel of John where he uses the word God, theos haos of Jesus Christ. Just it's just amazing. That really is remarkable that and somewhat we're moving into like biblical ex Jesus which would take us aside but that John 1:1 passage in the beginning was the word the word was with God and the word was God in the sense of theos like you said if the word is with God there's a distinction but then the word is God so there's that's the substance of it like how do we make sense of this unity >> and this distinction like John starts there. And of course in John 20:28, which is arguably the climax of the gospel, >> this is not Thomas saying, "Oh my God, it's Jesus." Like that is distinctly not what he was saying. That's such a modernday reading into the text. He's calling Jesus Lord and calling him God. So, it's both, >> which of course makes sense of what we see in John 1:18 and 5:17 and 8:58 and 10:31 like just over and over again. >> Not to mention the other books. By the way, people watching saying, "Okay, you just got to the biblical stuff at the end." One of my favorite books on this is by Ed Kashevky and Rob Bowman on the incarnate Christ. I love that book. I did an indepth interview with Rob to walk through these maybe a year, a year year and a half ago and then we did a live Q&A taking the toughest objections we could find. I'll try to remember to link those below, but if you look on YouTube, you'll find that case and for me that's my single goto book, although there's some other remarkable ones. Do you have any other books that you would add in terms of like biblical exesus and making >> Yes, I do. Do do you know Murray Harris's book Jesus as God? >> Yeah. >> I I think that is essential. It It's so good. I corresponded with Murray Harris. He's still alive. He's in New Zealand in writing this section of my systematic philosophical theology. Also correspond with Ed Kashevski. Uh, and both of these works I think are essential reading for a reflective and informed Christian. Austin, that's helpful. So, this gets us to the last question kind of where I started in the sense of okay, why does this matter? And I want to know what does it mean for like how we pray? Like if somebody says, "Dear God, are they thinking of all three?" >> Do we single out and pray the father, son, holy spirit? worship songs like translate this model that you've laid out for us for how we're supposed to just live out the Christian life.
Well, how did Jesus teach his disciples to pray when they said, "Lord, teach us to pray." He said, "Pray in this way. Our father who art in heaven." And so I take it that the normal model for relating to God is to address God the Father in the name of Christ the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now that doesn't mean that on occasion you cannot just cry out to >> Lord say Lord Jesus help me or uh Lord Jesus I need you. Yes, that's perfectly legitimate. Or you could call upon the Holy Spirit to fill you and empower you. But the normal method of relating to God in the Christian life is that it should be directed toward God the Father in the name of the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
That's great. As you were saying that at the beginning, I was starting to think, well, what about Stephen in Acts nine? He cries out to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He does.
Your point is this is not wrong. It's understandable. Jesus is God.
Uh the Holy Spirit is God. But the pattern we're given to is the one that you describe. That's a really helpful way to look at it.
As always, enjoyed this, Bill. And I don't know if I should say this or not, but you've had three volumes come out and I think this is my favorite one.
And I've enjoyed all three of them. And I think it's partly because just the arguments for God's existence so intrigued me and the trinity brought some clarity in my own mind. So I've enjoyed all of them. I'm already looking forward to the fourth and fifth and we'll have you back if you will. But I think this one is a little bit more readable than the previous volume 2A on the attributes of God. That one is very high level. There are some times I was like >> am I understanding this and had to reread it even though I have a masters in philosophy. This one is very readable, at least for like college educated people with a little philosophy that want to dive in and challenge themselves. I know you're not writing for that lay audience, but I do think it's very readable as a whole and would commend it to my viewers if they want to jump in. And don't forget folks, we're going to be live Tuesday with Fred Sanders, colleague of mine, friend of mine from Biola, and again, one of the leading experts in the world on the Trinity. Not so much philosophically defending the Trinity as we have here, although he has thoughts on that and some training there, but biblically articulating and defending the Trinity. So, join us Tuesday at 4:30. That'll be fun. Bill, as always, thanks for coming on. Really appreciate it.
You're welcome, Sean.