Continuing from the previous section , we come to what is Tuggy’s final jab at the doctrine of the Trinity, in the final section of his post . The Unitarian Tendency Towards Exhibitionism As has been noted throughout this series, Tuggy has a tendency to conflate matters, namely either through the flattening of distinct, biblical categories or simply ignoring them. This is seen most clearly in what he claims that Trinitarians have to deny in relation to his argument, It looks like the only way to save trinitarian hypotheses  (which are committed to 1, 4, and 5) is to deny 2 and/or 3. But notice that 3 follows from 1 & 2. And you don’t want to deny 1. So really, you have to attack 2 : you have to deny or at least cast doubt on the premise that the Yahweh of the OT just is the one called “Father” is the NT. (emphasis original) However, we’ve already argued that Father, Son, and Spirit, are all identified as Yahweh in the New Testament. Moreover, it has been demonstrated tha...

Following from the previous section , it serves us well to consider Tuggy’s opening statement, because it betrays a tremendous amount of confusion on his part: In trinitarian tradition, the one God is the Trinity. Most fascinating is that he provides no source  for this claim, either ancient or modern. It is simply asserted as fact. Looking into his book, What Is the Trinity? , we find a similarly broad claim, When it comes to Christian sources in the first three centuries, we should translate terms like trias and trinitas as “trinity” or “triad.” These English words are naturally read as plural referring terms, picking out Father, Son, and Spirit – whatever precisely those are, and however exactly they’re related to one another. We can then reserve “Trinity” for the one God in three “Persons” which catholic Christianity made mandatory in the last two decades of the fourth century.[1] What Tuggy doesn’t seem to hide--and subsequently leads his readers to misunderstand--is that word...

In the previous sections ( Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 ), I asserted, and demonstrated, that the first half  of Tuggy’s argument--though technically sound--is not supported by the either the biblical evidence or pre-Christian  (ie tanniatic Judaist) interpretation. As a result, it was demonstrated that his conclusion simply didn’t follow and that a new argument, one based on the biblical and historical theological data, needed to be constructed. This new argument, assembled  from the biblical data, presents as so: 1.  The God of the Old Testament is Yahweh. 2.  The Father is identified as Yahweh. 3.  Therefore, the Father is Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. The reasoning that I gave for the necessity of reformulating the argument was that, as presented, Tuggy’s argument subjected the identity of the Father to a number of heretical avenues, primarily Gnostic. Similarly, one could argue that unless he could make that firm identification, even Marcionism co...

  The Necessity of Proper Categories In the previous section , we discussed the fact that the biblical concept of “god”, “biblical” here referring to the biblical authors’ original context , was broad and not defined by a specific set of attributes. This means that the genus  of “god” was populated by a number of species that were then defined by specific attributes that necessarily distinguished one kind of “god” from another. When we have this concept firmly in mind, it allows for us to see a variegated spiritual world populated by all manner of beings with different attributes that do not contradict even though they may all fall under the same general description. Furthermore, it opens one up to the fact that we have become disconnected from the mindset of the authors of Scripture and that when we make certain pronouncements about what the biblical authors had in mind or could or couldn’t believe, we risk being refuted by that context. This means that any theological endeav...