Picking up from the prior section , we continue examining Dale Tuggy’s claims regarding his argument . Restating the Arguments At this point, it would probably serve us well to restate Tuggy’s argument, which is, 1.  God just is Yahweh. 2.  Yahweh just is the Father. 3.  God just is the Father. 4.  God just is the Trinity. 5.  It is not the case that the Trinity just is the Father. 6.  The Trinity just is the Father. It would also be suitable for me to restate my argument that I have created, based upon the biblical evidence that moves from Old Testament to New, avoiding the heretical pitfalls opened by Tuggy’s, which is, 1.  The God of the Old Testament is identified as Yahweh. 2.  The Father is identified as Yahweh. 3.  Therefore, the Father is Yahweh, the God identified in the Old Testament. 4.  The God of the New Testament is identified as Yahweh. 5.  The three Persons of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are identified...

  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...

 For Part 1 Right Out of the Gate It suffices to say that I was immediately struck by the opening sentence and the error inherent in it: In trinitarian tradition, the one God is the Trinity. Notice the problem? If not, read the sentence again, slowly. The problem is literally the matter of the article “the”. I mean, there are other problems but for the purpose of this examination, we need to focus in on the use of language, and the language that the writer, assuming that this is Tuggy, uses is very important.   With that being said, note the two related phrases in his opening volley “ the one God ” and “ the Trinity ”. One needs to ask, does Tuggy define these two phrases anywhere in his presentation? Reading through, I cannot find any sufficient definition of what Tuggy means by  “Trinity” or “the Trinity”. But he does give us a definition of “God”, at least as far as what needs to be concerned, and he does this in the first premise of his stated argument: when Tuggy say...