The Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity holds that God is one being (the Father) who eternally begets the Son and proceeds the Holy Spirit, with all three persons sharing the same divine essence while remaining distinct persons; this doctrine is supported by biblical passages like John 1:1, John 17:3, and the Anaphora of St. Basil, which emphasize the Father as the only true God while affirming the Son and Holy Spirit as divine by nature, not by identity.
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Debate Review: EO LAWYER vs UNITARIANAdded:
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Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.
What's going on everybody? Um, I had wanted to do this last night and then got caught up doing some other stuff, so I wasn't able to do it and then I was going to do it a little later this morning, but I got a bunch of stuff to do today. So, I'm going to get it out of the way and whoever could watch it live watches it live and whoever can't, they can catch it on a replay. But, it is a beautiful day to be alive. What's going on classical papist? How are you? God bless you.
It is a wonderful day. It's like 70 degrees outside and sunny. Very nice. So hopefully could get some stuff done outside later today. Just dropped my car off to get the brakes done. So I got to handle that later. It's going to be a busy day. But I wanted to get to this before this debate is so old that it's completely irrelevant.
And I'm going to be reviewing today.
Um maybe do this one. No, let's do this one. Ah, let's make it bigger. All right, I'm going to be reviewing today the debate between metaphysics Mike and Alex Saurin. So, Alex Saurin is an Eastern Orthodox believer. He is a lawyer. He burst onto the debate scene recently in the past few months. I believe he has now done three or four debates. I remember he debated Elijah Yassie on the papacy. I thought he did very well in that debate. Um, I scored that one for him. I think he debated a Church of Christ minister on apostolic succession.
Um, I to be honest with you, I I can't really remember the details of that one.
I don't know how I scored it. I mean, obviously, I would agree with Alex's position in general, but I don't remember how well he did in that debate.
And I think he had another one that um is escaping me at the moment, but this one is the kind of stuff I'm interested in. Trinitarianism, Unitarianism, and I was expecting a really good debate. Unfortunately, um the Unitarian Metaphysics, metaphysics, Mike did not deliver what I thought he was going to deliver because I've seen him jump on different panels. I've seen him speak before. I've seen a couple of debates and he just I I don't know. He did not give a good presentation in this one and I think even the greatest unitarian presentation is still garbage. But he didn't farewell. But we're going to look at it. We're going to examine it. I'm more interested in metaphysics Mike's presentation than I am with Alex's. But we're going to rush through Alex's just to see where um he did well or where I think he could have done better. So without further ado, uh let's jump into this. So, we're starting with Alex's opening statement, and they both had powerpoints prepared. So, here's Alex.
I'm going to be playing it at 1.5 just to get through it a little quicker. All right, let's go.
Yep. Okay, so the topic for tonight's debate is Trinitarianism or Unitarianism, which is correct. Now, Mike and I both believe in one God, and we both believe uh both claim to believe in the God of the Bible. Nonetheless, we've come to different conclusions about our doctrines of God. So, I'll briefly explain the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, and then I'll show the history of how we got there. The orthodox doctrine of God is monarchic.
Just like we say in the creed and in John 17:3, we believe in one God, the father almighty, who is a true, one, only unchanging God. We pray this during our services. As you can see in the anafra of St. Basil right here, it reads, "Oh master, you are Lord God the Father Almighty and adorable. It is truly proper and just and befitting the magnificence of your holiness to praise you, to sing to you, to bless you, to worship you, and to thank you, to glorify you, the only true God." It's very important in the Orthodox view to emphasize that God is a father. This is part of his. So right there, I'm just going to say both east and west affirm the monarchy of the father. Um lately, and I'm talking about probably the last decade there, you guys have heard me talk about this many times before, there's been this rise of this thing.
They're calling it monarchical trinitarianism. It's championed by Bo Branson. Most recently, Dr. Joshua Siguati. And Sidati is calling his view the consiliar view. And it's this idea that as to identity, the father alone is the true God. As to predication, the son and the spirit are true God. Meaning um in metaphysics, Mike is going to bring this up later in the debate, but the the gist of it is this that um there's only one person of the trinity who is properly the true God. And because he shares his essence with the other two, they're they're God, but not by identity. by predication. So they have the quality of being God. They have the quality of being divine >> without being strictly identified as the one true God. Um so he shows here, let's real quick.
>> Uh so he he does the anafa >> and it says, "Oh, oh master, you are Lord God the father almighty and adorable. what is truly proper and just and befitting the magnificent the magnificence of your holiness to praise you to sing to you to bless you to worship you to thank you to glorify you the only true God so it's saying God the father is the only true God agreeing with of course biblical language like John 17:3 and it says um and with repentant heart and humble spirit to offer you this our spiritual sacrifice for you have granted to us the revelation of your truth so it's the anafra of St. Basil the Great.
But you could look to other hymns and prayers of the Orthodox Church and you could see that the son is also called God. Um so this monarchical view claims to just be the orthodox view from you know from the beginning to present and it just is what it is and they follow John Bear and some others and you know when I read the prayers and I read some of the hymns I I'm not sure that it bears that out at all times and in all places and then there's this oration theological oration by St. Gregory of Nazanthis, St. Gregory the theologian, it's the 25th oration where he says basically he's like listen when we're talking about Jesus by himself we call him God. But if we're talking about him when he's with the father we call him Lord to distinguish the two. And that gets interpreted to mean that by identity Jesus cannot be the one God because the father is the one God. Therefore Jesus is divine by predication not identity. So when he's close to the father and you know in terms of our speech about him we wouldn't refer to him as the one god because we don't want to come off like modalists or something of the sort. So I'm just throwing that out in the beginning. Um, I am still not convinced that this this version of so-called monarchical trinitarianism or consiliary trinitarianism just is the orthodox expression of the trinity from the beginning of time to now. I'll throw that out. You know, I'm softening to it, but I'm still not totally convinced. So, anyway, let's keep going.
>> True God. It's very important in the Orthodox view to emphasize that God is a father. is part of his identity at all times in all possible worlds. In John 17, we see that even before creation, God was a father to Jesus, the son of God, and that the father shared his love and glory with the son even before the foundation of the world. It's probably worth mentioning, too, that the heretic Arias, who was known for rejecting the divinity of the son of God, was actually deposed primarily for denying that God is eternally a father. If God is eternally a father, then it follows he must eternally have a son.
>> Yes, >> the son or word of God was begotten by God outside of time from everlasting. In a similar way that a human son has the same nature as his father, the eternal son has the divine nature from God, the father. John 1 employs the Aramaic theme of the memora, the word of God to communicate the pre-existence and divinity of Jesus which is confirmed by John the Baptist who when he sees Jesus says this man is greater than me because he existed before me. Jesus affirms his pre-existence and divinity in John 8 Jesus says that he saw Abraham and Abraham rejoiced and the Pharisees said what do you mean you're not even 50 and Jesus says to them before Abraham was I am and they tried to stone him for that.
Later on in John 10 they make clear that they're upset that Jesus makes himself equal with God. Jesus doesn't take it back uh and he escapes in Acts 20. St. Paul refers to Jesus's blood as God's own blood and demonstrating that Jesus is a divine person. And Micah 5:2 prophesying about the birth of Jesus says that his going forth are from everlasting again showing eternal pre-existence. Like John 1, Colossians emphasizes the existence of the son, the image of God before created things, making him uncreated. Colossians 1 and 2 emphasize that the fullness of God and deity was in Jesus. We believe that God's holy spirit eternally proceeds from the father. As it says in the creed in John 15 and in Hebrews 9, an analogy the holy fathers sometimes use is that if the son is the word of God, the holy spirit is the breath. Now in Luke 4, Jesus pulls out an Isaiah scroll to read in the synagogue. He reads from Isaiah 61 and says that it has been fulfilled.
Isaiah 61 actually mentions all three persons of the trinity. The speaker has the spirit of Yahweh upon him because Yahweh anointed him and then identifies himself as Yahweh prefigur.
>> So right here I I wish Alex would have hammered down on this point a little bit more. So Isaiah 61 does have all three persons of the Trinity in it. He's he's going to go on to quote some scholars um Daniel Boyerin, Alan Seagull, I think uh Schaefer, these guys that argue for two powers. There's another recent book by Andre Orlof that's very good on the subject, but it it's almost as if he builds his case on, okay, well, you had these Jews back here before the New Testament was written, before the incarnation of Christ, who had this benitarian conception of God, this two powers, um, God is somehow plural, but it's not trinitarianism. And there are guys out there, there's a there's a black dude, I forget his name, but I've seen him debate on I think Donniey's channel, and he's a Benitarian, right? So, I I believe he thinks the Holy Spirit is not a divine person or something like that.
So, for him, it's the father and the son. I can't remember his view, but Benitarian gets you Benitarian. It doesn't get you trinitarian. And if you're trying to say there's some kind of development from the Old Testament to the New Testament, you know, I don't think that'll do because the idea is that God is who God is from all eternity. And my argument for many years has been this that the Old Testament, it does present us with a doctrine of the Trinity. It's just not the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity. And it's not the nine doctrine of the Trinity. And it's not the medieval or the reformed period or any of that doctrine of the Trinity. Right? but it's there. So, I wish he would have built a a more solid trinitarian case from pre-incarnational texts, right? And I I think it could be done very easily, actually. But that would be one critique.
Good on him for this part. He's talking about the Trinity in the Old Testament, but he doesn't really develop on this the way I would have liked him to during the Son's incarnation and earthly ministry. So, the doctrine of the Trinity is simple. We have one God, the father, the uncaused cause, who eternally begets the son and eternally processes the spirit. The relations distinguish each person. So it's also important to note that we use the word god differently for the father than for the son or the spirit. The father is god in the sense of the proper noun and the son and the spirit can be referred to as god by virtue of possessing the same nature with the father.
So right there that's the is of identity is of predication thing. Metaphysics Mike is going to ask him about it later and he could have just said you know refer back to my slide there. He kind of he stumbled a little bit on that one saying he didn't really know exactly what Mike was getting at and he didn't want to answer incorrectly. So I would have just said refer back to uh refer back to my doctrine of the trinity slide the the last part. The father is God proper noun uncaused cause the son the spirit they're god by nature right >> of the proper noun and the son and the spirit can be referred to as god by virtue of possessing the same nature with the father. Now, let's evaluate where this doctrine of God comes from because this is important. And we'll start with the second temple traditions and theologians. We'll go to the New Testament church after that and then the holy fathers of the church. Judaism in the second temple period was not monolithic and was composed of a vast diaspora. Jesus's ministry extended far beyond Judea into the greater Middle East and a Greco Roman world. Jewish synagogues and communities extended from Babylonia and Persia all the way to Italy and Egypt. Throughout the entirety of this expansive Jewish diaspora, there were numerous Jewish theologians and traditions teaching various doctrines of God. Now, one of the tensions these second temple, >> so that's a very important point to make, right? Some scholars don't even like to speak of Judaism. They talk about Judaisms because there's such a diversity of beliefs. And even, you know, by the time you get to the New Testament era, it's still considered second temple Judaism, right? But you have your Pharisees, you have your Sadducees, you have your Essenes, you have the Zealots, you know, that's more of a political movement, revolutionary movement. Um you have even within pheriseaic thought different schools you have h and shamai. And to top it off you could include the early church as a variation of Judaism, right?
Because all of the earliest believers are Jewish believers in Jesus. Many of them Pharisees, some of them from other traditions. You could throw the Samaritans in there, right? The Samaritans are, you know, fractionally Jewish and they have diversity of belief. So there there's not just one Jewish belief. And when we treat it as monolithic, right? When when the Unitarian wants to say, "Well, Jews never believe this and Jews never believe that," you have to say, "Well, which Jews are you referring to?"
Because there's a lot of different Jewish sects and there's a lot of different Jewish beliefs. So, uh, good for Alex for pointing that out. Jewish theologians sought to reconcile in their doctrine of God was the supposed contradiction between the seen Yahweh and the unseen Yahweh. Throughout the entire Torah, we see this tension. Just a few examples here, we're told that Yahweh appeared to Abraham. Jacob saw God face to face. Moses and the elders saw the God of Israel when they went up the mountain. But this tension becomes palpable in Exodus 33 wherein we're told in verse 11 that Moses spoke to Yahweh face to face. And literally nine verses later, we're told that no one can see Yahweh's face. No one can even see Yahweh and live. A particularly bizarre instance, however, is in Genesis 18.
Yahweh and two angels visit Abraham appearing as three men. Sometimes they speak with one voice. They eat together.
We see Yahweh praying to Yahweh seeking his own counsel. Yahweh prays that Yahweh will bring to fruition what Yahweh has spoken about Abraham. Later we see that Yahweh on earth reigns fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from Yahweh out of heaven. The implication here being that there are two Yahwees. A Yahweh that can be seen and a Yahweh that cannot be seen. And modern scholarship agrees on this. Alan Seagull in his famous works two powers in heaven talks about >> So you got to be a little careful with the way you word that. You're saying there's two Yahwehs there. So you know a unitarian's going to take that and run with it and say so you're telling me there's two gods. And you're like, well, no, there's two persons that are God.
So, I would say you can see that there are two persons who bear the name Yahweh there. Not that there's two separate Yahwehs, right? But two persons who bear the name and who speak to one another in like this I thou relationship, right?
Shake, what's going on? Good morning.
So, that's one thing I would say. The other thing I would say is unrelated to this, but related to what he was just talking about with Genesis 18. If I'm not mistaken, I think Al Garza was trying to say that that's the whole trinity that shows up in that passage. I I got to track it down, but I'm pretty sure I heard him say that in one of his debates that it's not it's not just the pre-incarnate son with two angels, but it's actually father, son, and holy spirit. um that I cannot go for, not for one second. But let me, you know, take that with a grain of salt because maybe I heard it from somebody else and not Al Garza, but I think Al Garza said it and if I can track it down, I'll, you know, I'll link it in the description, but um yeah, that that's just a weird view. All right, let's keep going about first century Jewish thought, including a binarian god. Peter Schaefer pushes the date even further back, claiming that a binarian to God's doctrine is present in post- exilic Judaism and in late anti-Judaism and makes it a point to specify that this doctrine is genuinely Jewish. Daniel Boyarin concludes binitarianism was present in Judaism from before the Christian era and may have even been the majority view within Judaism in the first century. One of the best evidences of this is the book of first Enoch, which being compiled and circulating in about the 1st century BC takes Daniel's son of man figure and explains that the son of man was named, chosen, hidden, and preserved from before the creation of the world. you see the most parallels with first Enoch in Joan literature, especially the apocalypse where John sees.
>> So, interestingly enough, um when you read the parables of Enoch or the similitudes of Enoch, right? You have two figures, two main figures. You have the Lord of Spirits and then you have the chosen one or the son of man, right?
Same chosen one, son of man, same figure. Now, the parallels between the son of man or the chosen one and Christ while there they're superficial like and that's the thing you you really don't want to build your case on that and I'll explain why a buddy of mine Chris Tilling wrote a book many years ago was his doctoral dissertation and he published it and he's got a chapter in there I forget what chapter it is I'd have to look it up um I want to say it's like the eighth chapter but actually let me look give me one sec I got his book pulled up here but Um in this chapter he does this thought experiment and the purpose of the thought experiment is this. He says it's oh it's chapter nine name of the chapter is Jewish relation to figures other than God in the Pauline Christ relation.
So real briefly, Tilling's whole thesis is that we can present a divine christologology based on the risen Lord's relationship to believers, right?
And it has as its only real analogy Yahweh's relationship to his covenant people.
That's the only analogy. So when people want to talk about divine agency and you know this one and that one yeah are there parallels there are parallels there are certain points of contact but in the grand scheme of things they're superficial the closest parallel the most striking parallel is Yahweh and his covenant people the risen Lord and um the church right believers so what he does is he says let's let's take this beyond simply the the Christian Bible.
Let's look at these intertestamental texts. Let's look at these apocryphal texts and he takes a sampling. He does like the life of Adam and Eve. He does the similitudes of Enoch. Um what else does he do? He does um give me one second. Uh Sierak chapters 44 through 50. So he does all of these things where scholars like to draw these parallels and they'll say, "Well, look, here's precedents. Here's precedents in these texts for uh Christ devotion and so on and so forth." And Larry Herertado wrote a book called One God, One Lord where he examines these like inner testamental um divine mediator figures, personified divine attributes, so on and so forth.
And he's saying like you could take all of that but Jesus goes above and beyond that. And Herertado's thing and I think I mentioned this in the last stream is that he goes beyond what act texts say like forget what's written. He goes to real life practices and there's real life cultic devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. So Tilling says yeah that's all good and well but that doesn't get us far enough. We have to look at the relation between the risen Lord and believers and see what the analogy to that is. And it's Yahweh and his covenant people.
It's Yahweh and Israel. But on top of that, he says that it's a pattern that Paul himself would arguably recognize and he goes through, you know, point by point by point all of these different things. So his argument is not that we can piece this together after the fact.
He's saying Paul is cognizant of this stuff and this is why Paul presents his material the way he does present his material. So bringing it back to the son of man and the chosen one in the similitudes of Enoch, we look at these parallels and you see that there are certain things that line up but again they're superficial. And when you look at what kind of a text First Enoch is, especially you know this section of it, a lot of this stuff is esqueological. It really presents the son of man or the chosen one as this end time judge and it doesn't delve too deep into the relationship between the Enochic son of man, chosen one and God's people. But now if you shift gears and you look at the Lord of Spirits in these texts, right, the Lord of Spirits clearly is God. the Lord of Spirits. The parallels between the Lord of Spirits and the Risen Lord are far more striking, far more wide reaching. And you know, that's the real analogy there. So, I would just say this to anybody arguing this stuff in debate or if you want to write up something formal on this, check out what the similitudes of Enoch say about the Lord of Spirits. Compare that to what Paul says about the risen Lord Jesus.
And you're gonna find that that's the real analogy.
And again, arguably Paul is cognizant of this stuff. Paul realizes this and he's doing this purposefully. He's saying in all of these texts where you have these intermediary figures, you can look at what it says about them and sure, yeah, there's some stuff matches up, but look at what these texts say about God and it overwhelms it in favor of God and Jesus rather than this figure and Jesus, right? So, keep that in mind. So, you know, I I know most people aren't thinking along those lines. I'm not going to fault him for not using that, but I'm just saying that um for your edification.
>> Jesus as the pre-existing son of man figure, the alpha and omega, the first and the last, just as God is the alpha and omega, the first and the last. You see the same thing in John's gospel where we mentioned earlier, the Baptist sees Jesus and says this man, this not this idea or this plan, this man has existed before me. But the parallels don't end merely with the pre-existent son of man. Both first Enoch and Revelation show a thousand thousands and 10,000 10,000s before the throne. four living creatures before the throne. The son of man and the ancient of days sitting interchangeably on the throne.
In the same way that in Revelation, Jesus and God sit interchangeably on the throne. Sha and Hades give up their dead. The son of man is also at the same time recognized as the same person as the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one. Just as Christ also is the son of man, the Messiah, and the anointed one, the son of man produces life-giving water just as Jesus produces life-giving water. And we have all those citations there on the slide. Another ancient tradition that St. John St. John draws from is the Jewish tradition of the memory explains that the mera is simply the Smitic equivalent of logos or word and functions the same way as logos would. He says in all the Palestinian Aramaic translations of the Bible, the term mera as a translation of various terms that in Hebrew either simply mean God or are names of God is legion and theologically highly significant because these usages parallel nearly exactly the functions of the logos. The duteros theos which that just means two gods in Logos theology. The belief in an intermediary a duderos theos and even perhaps binitarian worship was common to early Christians and other Jews. Pulling from the Palestinian tarans points that the memora is creating in Genesis 1:3 which corresponds to the usage of the term logos or word in John 1. So in the beginning was the memor and the memora was with God and the memora was God. The mera was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through the memor and apart from the mera nothing came into being that has come into being. The memor is speaking to Adam and Eve in the fall of man in Genesis 3:8. The mera is revealed to Abraham at the oaks of memory in Genesis 18. The Memora is raining down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. And the Memora, the word is leading the Israelites through the desert in Exodus 17, which corresponds to the New Testament in Jude 5, which says that Jesus, having once saved the people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. So St. John draws from an older binarian Jewish tradition preserved within first Enoch and the Memor tradition and identifies Jesus as the pre-existent Mea, the son of man, the Messiah through whom all created things were created, eternally residing with the father as the alpha and omega, and is hidden in the father until he is revealed, who talks to Adam and Eve in the garden and led the Israelites out of Egypt. This is not Greek philosophy improperly entering the church centuries after the fact as Mike tends to claim as shown in first Enoch, the memor tradition, in seagull, in Schaefer, in Boyarin in numerous rabbitical traditions that are preserved in these works. St. John draws from the ancient Jewish interpretation of the two powers doctrine. We also see at about the same time as Christ, a Jewish theologian named Philo.
>> You know that is one of the main stays of Unitarian PMICS and apologetics, right? It's that oh this doctrine of the trinity it's just based on Greek philosophy that infiltrated the church to which I would say so what let's let's say that's true let's say they did draw from Greek philosophical categories and they did you know but so what so what what what is the point there is is the point that um people don't inhabit the same world of thought that ancient Hebrews could by no means have similar conceptions to ancient Greeks.
Like is that the claim that's being made? Because if so, you're going to have to show that, right? You can't say, "Oh, they didn't they didn't use these words, so they couldn't have thought these thoughts." Now, you can use different words to express the same kind of concepts, right? So if the language thing is your biggest argument, oh your Greek philosophical terms. So what what was the book? Um I think it's the father spirit of sunship. It's by Thomas Wine Andy, right? And in this book you offering some idiosyncratic view of the trinity. He's trying to say uh basically it's not just an argument for the filioquay but it's saying you know each person persons the other person right so not in like we would say that the relationships are mutually constitutive right mutually constitutive if you speak uh English but meaning the the father is the father because he has a son the son is the son because he has the father the spirit is the spirit of the father and the son. So you know the persons constitute one another as persons by these orders of relation right father begets the son spirates the spirit so on and so forth but wineandandy you know he wants to say each person persons the other person to the point where not only does the spirit proceed from the father and the son but the son in some sense is begotten by the father and the spirit now you know that's that's weird and to my mind heretical but whatever And throughout the whole book, I I think he throws around like Arisatellian or something like he keeps calling people arisatellians and acting as if Let me look it up.
Let me look it up because I don't I don't want to say it's either Platonist or Arisatellian.
But either way, uh let me see. father's spirit of sunship.
You know, you just make the claim and you act as if now I don't have to substantiate it. That ain't it. Uh, alphabetical by author. Let's go down here. Just give me one second, guys.
Appreciate your patience. Here we go. The father spirit of shunship reconceiving the trinity.
Let's see. Uh blah blah blah.
Yes. What's he say? His central thesis is that the father begets the son in the spirit and thus that the spirit proceeds from the father as the one in whom the son is begotten and so in turn proceeds from the son as the one in whom and through whom the son loves the father.
Right? So that's his central thesis and he says this is the one act by which the one god is a trinity of persons in which act both the father and the son are conformed to be father and son in the spirit. Right. Um, so let's see, let's see, let's see. You know, neoplatanism, that's his thing. So the whole book he's saying, you know, in the east, in the east with his doctrine of the father's monarchy in the east there all these neoplatanists, neoplatanism, neoplatanism all over the book. He just keeps saying that as if we're supposed to go, "Oh my god, neoplatanism.
Run far and fast. God for God forbid we use neoplatinist terms."
forget where the terms come from. The the question is does it comport with what scripture says and does that comport with how the fathers explained what scripture said? That's the question. So, you know, all this stuff about um people using Greek philosophical language and categories, so what? Who cares? Why can't you reframe something as something else? If if I was going to explain something that is hard to understand, I would say in other words, and then I'd use other words to explain the concept. So if the early Christians come along and take Greek philosophical categories to explain Jewish concepts to a largely Greekeaking and Gentile audience, why would they not use terms that they're going to understand?
Think about it. It's not rocket science, folks. All right, let's keep going.
living in Alexandria, Egypt. Now remember earlier in my presentation when I was talking about Abraham's three visitors at the oaks of memory here is how Pho understand that passage and keep in mind that he's speaking like representatively symbolically iconically here. He says that the one in the middle is the father of the universe who in the sacred scripture is called by his proper name I am that I am. And the beings on each side are those most ancient powers which are always close to the living God. Always close to the living God. One of which is called his creative power and the other his royal power. And the creative power is God. For it is by this that he made and arranged the universe.
And the royal power is the Lord. For it is fitting that the creator should lord it over and govern the uh creature.
Therefore, the middle person of the three being attended by each of his powers as by bodyguards presents to the mind which is endowed the faculty of sight a vision of at one time one being and at another time how many? Three. One and three beings. This is Pho right.
>> Four minutes left. Mike or Alex.
>> Thank you. In Genesis 16 where Hagar sees God. Pho says that Hagar saw the angel work.
>> Yes. So I guess Pho takes that view that I'm attributing to Garza. Again, I got to track it down. I don't know if Garz has said it, but I I do not believe that Genesis 18 has the trinity there. I think it's the pre-incarnate Christ, the angel of the Lord, and the other two are just regular angels. But anyway, bird as the image of God himself. So, Pho already associates the logos with the angel of Yahweh before any of these councils in any of these spirit fathers that Mike is always complaining about.
And by the way, does all this talk of like the images remind you of something?
St. Paul pulls from this. Hebrews 1:3 says that the sun is the exact representation of the father's hypothesis. And likewise Colossians says that the son is the icon of the invisible God along with Pho identifying in God both one and three and the revelation of God's word and express image in the memora the eternal logos.
We see in the Bible that the Holy Spirit of God is the standing from God who himself dwells in unapproachable light.
The spirit speaks it can be grieved can be lied to and takes part in creation.
So we end up seeing the New Testament authors carrying the torch of this ancient Jewish tradition that recognizes distinctions in God. It comes from the binarian tradition that is uncovered through progressive revelation in traditions like first Enoch and the Memora and through theologians like Pho.
This peaked with the revelation of the holy trinity in Christ Church carried on by the apostles. The holy fathers guarded that faith which was once and for all delivered to the saints as Jude says and they exposited the doctrine of the holy trinity in the nian constant apolitan creed. The doctrine of the trinity as a direct line of continuity to that genuine second temple religion while it seems Mike's doctrine of god comes from an innovation centuries after the fact when rabbitical Judaism declared the two powers doctrine or really any power that's more than one as a heresy. So as I explained at the beginning, it's one God, the father, who is the sole source of all things, the uncaused cause, the word of the father, which is begotten eternally of God. All things that are created were created through him. And we have the Holy Spirit who is proceeding eternally from the father and is of the same nature as the father. So moving forward, Byzantine, good morning. Good to see you. So I you know I guess my biggest issue I don't know how I did that but I guess my biggest issue with um that line of reasoning that all right here we have this authentic Jewish strain of benitarian um theology and that grows into the church's trinitarianism.
Then you kind of open yourself up for what these there there was a guy named um who was it Herbert Armstrong right and he started I forget what it was Church of God whatever United Church of God there's all these splinter groups that broke off but it was like the United Church of God the restored church of God then I think the way international came out from them there was another one that actually converted to um and went orthodox in their theology not bigo orthodox sucks but small o but the point is like he had this doctrine of God as more than a trinity right God ever expanding his family and himself so you kind of open yourself up to a view like that now you could say it's not ancient it's not apostolic but um you know who cares right because if if it's constantly developing and there's there's progressive revelation you And you can make the argument that, you know, this it just progressed further.
We learn more, we have a better understanding now, so on and so forth.
So I I just don't like that it starts off as Benitarian and then, you know, we get trinitarianism from that. same for the same reason I don't I don't like when James White takes BB Warfield's you know the Trinity was revealed between the testaments type of thing because the New Testament is obviously a record of what was going on during Jesus's life but the events of that happened before it was written down. So he's saying that the you know the incarnation of the son and the sending of the spirit it happened between you know after the old testament was written before the new testament was written but that's when it was revealed and then the new testament we get it you know I I don't like it I don't like it I think it's there from the beginning I think it's there from Genesis you know specifically Genesis 1 1 through3 but that's me um having said that he's almost done. And then we're going to really focus in on metaphys metaphysics.
Mike >> proceeding eternally from the father and is of the same nature as the father. So moving forward, I'd like for Mike to explain how he can hold a view in direct opposition to the pillar and ground of the truth, the church. His view, in fact, is not held by Christians in the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth centuries, the church. Mike's view is closest to rabbitic Judaism today out of the two of us. And he's standing in direct opposition to Christ and his church, making his view untenable. Thank you.
I seed my time.
>> All right. Yeah, you had about a minute left. Let me go ahead and start the timer for Mike and I'll start it this soon as you start speaking. Sir, did you want to share your screen as well?
>> You're muted, buddy.
>> Yeah.
>> Talk. All right. Can you hear me?
>> Yeah. Okay. Let me know when you want to share screen.
>> Yep. I should be shared. I'm going to pull up also my own timer here. And you said it starts when I begin talking, right?
>> Yep.
>> Awesome.
Like even the title of his presentation, the one God in one person, right? That's a Greek metaphysical category. Why why are we talking about God being a person?
And funnily enough, uh I think Mike falls into this category. A lot of Unitarians do. They have this Carteesian sense of personhood that they apply to God. you know, they of course they believe that God the Father is the only person um who's truly divine like that he's the one true God. But even in trying to argue against the Trinity, they act as if we treat the persons as in this Carteesian sense. And when I say Carteesian, I'm talking about um Decart and his view, which basically would make God just like a a really powerful human.
So they think the trinity is like we're we believe in three really powerful humans that are all united in one sense.
But we don't conceive of God like that.
We don't think the mind of God is a onetoone correspondence to the human mind, right? Uh Alex gets into this a little bit later in the debate when they're talking about mind and consciousness and stuff like that, but it it all flows. Unitarian theology really flows from creature to creator.
you know, really does. So, keep that in mind. But I you, if I wanted to be pedantic, I'd be like, why are you using these Greek metaphysical categories? Why why are you saying the one God is one person? Where where does the Bible describe God as a person, right?
He said he really dislike Mike. He acts too smart for his own good and never takes advice. Yeah, I'm not, you know, I've seen him on other channels and there's something about his presentation that irks me. Like he's he's too high energy, but like there's a smuggness about him. That aside, um he did I thought terrible in this debate. I've seen him do better on other channels and I would have thought he would have hammered down more on the logical problem with the Trinity stuff. He didn't really get into that too much in this one, but um yeah, that being the case, if if people have tried to correct him and he hasn't taken the correction or the advice, you know, I what can you do with that? Some people are uh not not everyone's willing to learn. And he says at one point in this, you know, I was a I was a trinitarian for a long time maybe, but from his explanation of it, it doesn't seem like he understood it while he was a trinitarian, right? Because he doesn't really seem to know what it is that trinitarians believe, right?
All right. My claim tonight is simple.
In the Bible, the one God is the father alone. The Holy Spirit is the father spirit and Jesus is his exalted human messiah. And the idea that the one God is actually three persons which include all of them is just not an early Christian belief. And I see already that there's a ton of confusion about what it even means to believe in one God. Folks, trinitarianism is ahistorical. It ignores mountains of evidence which expose it developed. It avoids viable better interpretations of God's monarchy Christology and itself depends upon extremely dubious metaphysics borrowed from paganism. Now listen, I know hearing that to some trinitarians is like, you know, nails on a chalkboard. I was a trinitarian for most of my life.
But friends, the truth is often stranger than fiction. And there's something common to human nature where large established institutions on every level can become corrupted. And the church is no exception. Now, I have three lines of evidence that I >> What's going on, Jonah? So, even like notice how he even opened it up. You know, I was a trinitarian for most of my life. Great. Who cares? You know how many Catholics I know that are Catholic their entire life? They couldn't tell you the first thing about Catholic theology.
That's a vast majority of the Catholics I know don't know anything about their faith. So just because you were a so-called trinitarian most of your life doesn't mean you understood the doctrine. But even that he's saying there are things that are common to human nature. Notice how he frames that to human nature. That's going to become important later. So let's continue. I hope you find simple and persuasive. So the first is that the scriptures identify the one God as the father. Now as we already hear, Alex agrees to this.
He already agrees to this folks. The central confession of Israel and early Christianity is the shama hero. Oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. So what does the Lord refer to?
What does one mean? Well, this can easily.
>> So again, you know, for 20 years plus, I've been arguing this point. I prefer the translations the JPS Tanakh both the original 1917 and then the 1985 update as well as the New Living Translation that translate this hero Israel the Lord our God the Lord alone and alone because when you start using this as a text to defend the metaphysics of God one way or the other doesn't matter if you're unarian doesn't matter if you're trinitarian you've lost sight of the context of the passage and really it begins way back in the beginning of Deuteronomy. It starts off with God saying like look, you're about to inhabit this land and there's a bunch of people in the land who have all of these idols. Do not go after their gods. Don't partake in their sacrifices and the feasts that result from the sacrifices.
Don't do their practices. Do not do it because if you do it, it's not going to go good for you. Right? And then you get to chapter 4 and he asked this question.
like 4:ES 35-39 when he's saying of all the nations who has a god like ours that can do x y and z and the answer is none of them because their gods compared to our god is impotent and then we get to here and he's saying here oh Israel listen the lord our god the lord alone forget all these other gods forget kimosh and deeon and uh baal and who Who's the other one? Molech. Forget all of them.
Forget all of them. It's the Lord alone.
It's Yahweh alone to whom we owe our devotion.
Right? Read the whole passage. Read Deuteronomy 6 in context. I actually got a um I when I fasted at the beginning of the year, one of my videos, I forget what day it was. It was like the day four fast video. I go through this. So, the point is Moses is not sitting here talking about the metaphysics of God.
He's not talking about the the Usia of God one way or the other. It's got nothing to do with trying to explicate the Trinity or the Unitarian God, right?
He's talking about Yahweh, whoever he is, whatever his metaphysical makeup.
It's this God and this God alone. And this bears itself out through reading the rest of the entire book, right?
Especially this section. So, you're already off to a bad start when you're like, you know, this is this is the confession. This is the confession that we build everything off of. Yeah. Sure.
Amen. But it doesn't mean what you're saying it means. So, you're you're on a shaky foundation from the start. He demonstrated to refer to the father as one person. And that's so key here. For example, in Mark 12, Jesus is asked, "What's the greatest commandment?" He cites the shama. And look at how this man responds. He says, "You are right, teacher. You've truly said that he is one and there's no other besides him.
All right. The Greek here >> is masculine singular for heist. And the following phrase, no other besides him, is third person singular.
>> And we're to the 20,000 singular personal pronouns arguments that's been debunked time and time and time and time and time again. You know, how many times do you have to see Sam Shimoon walk you through all of the instances of plural references to singular um entities throughout the Bible and of singular references to plural entities throughout the Bible. So, it's stupid, right? This has been debunked for a long time. The first time I saw it was a guy named Brent Bosserman. He debated one of the um who was it? Sean Finnegan, maybe Sean Finnegan was a big-time unitarian.
I think he's good friends with Dustin Smith. Again, we're going back like 20 years. And Brent Bosserman pointed out how there are times when singular personal pronouns are used to describe groups.
All right. So, hey, what's going on? Um, yeah, it was supposed to be last night, but unfortunately I was caught up doing some stuff. So, we're getting it in now and then I can get my day started.
What you say? Sam showed the other night. Singulars are used of entire night. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You see it in Joshua. You see it in Judges. I believe it's it's all over the place.
But trinitarianism can account for all of that. Where the unitarians have fit are when plural pronouns, adjectives, and verbs are used of the one God, right? they they got to just dance around it and act like it doesn't work for us. It's not a problem. We can go either way because we believe in one God and one God alone, right? And even on Alex's reading, so Alex doesn't take a western view where he's not saying that the divine essence is the one God. He's not saying that the trinity is the one God. Alex says that the father is the one God and the son and the spirit are God by virtue of the fact that the father shares his essence with them from all eternity. Right? So by identity, the father is God. By predication and nature, son and the spirit are God. So a lot of this stuff is really irrelevant to Alex's position. Alex could say, "All right. Yeah, of course it uses singular personal pronouns because it's talking about the father." Agreed. But from that, you don't get that the son and the spirit are not divine in the same way that the father is divine.
That's not the that's not the correlary to that. That's not the logical conclusion of that, right?
You said you think Alex had a great opening, but he didn't do the best during the cross with Mike. So, we're going to get to that. Now, I I like um in Alex's debates, I like opening statement, Alex. I do not like cross-examination, Alex.
I I don't care for how he conducts himself during a cross exam. He comes across like he's whining a lot of the time. Um, you know, and if Alex sees this, just take that as a point of constructive criticism. It it doesn't come across good to the audience, right?
And he's he's also rude and interrupts, you know, maybe there's a time for that.
I don't think so with this guy. I don't think metaphysics Mike was particularly aggressive or warranted that. And then he got into name calling at certain points. He's calling him dumb and stupid and whatever and then saying uh you know stuff like oh you done with your therapy session and just you know the mockery again like I'm not saying there's never a time and a place for mocking. I don't think this debate was it said he comes across like he needs some respectfully. Yeah I remember you you said that during the debate and I was cracking up. Um but that it does come across like that. that comes across, you know, slightly effeminate if I'm being totally honest. And I'm I'm not a fan, right? I I would suggest doing the cross-examinations differently. That being said, uh I thought in terms argumentatively, I thought he handled himself decent, but just the the behavior, I'm not a fan.
Yeah, a lot of people do, Byzantine. A lot of people do. I, you know, I don't think the cross exam is as important as many people do for the reason that, you know, you could just be a better rhetoric, right? You could just you could be you could know how to trap people into certain things and make them stumble over what they want to communicate. And it doesn't take away from the the truthfulness or the falsity of their statements. It's just you're better rhetorically than they are. So, I've seen some people in cross exam that are um that are just really good in terms of framing things a certain way and making other people look stupid even if the person looking stupid has the correct view. So, but let's continue.
So, this is not like neutral. It's not like hen it is one thing. It's he is one and Jesus praises him for it. The narrator literally says Jesus thought this response was wise and scholarship agrees. They says that he means the cardinal number one and where it takes the place of a predicate it means one person. So if Yahweh is three >> that I'm not I'm not going to nitpick over this too much but it doesn't say it exactly like he says it. If you look up the theer entry he kind of pieced this together. Um theer was a unitarian for most of his life, right? Just like Mike was a trinitarian for most of his theer was a unitarian for at least 25 years of his life and then he converted to some other congregation. I don't know if he abandoned his trinit or his unitarian beliefs and became trinitarian but hey Jacob god bless you good to see you. Um so take the with a grain of salt like there there's a bunch of stuff in that lexicon that's suspect theologically.
Having said that, the actually translated a guy named Grim's work. So what parts he just translated that were original to Grim versus what he added in his update of it, I don't know. I haven't done an in-depth study, but it is an indisputable fact that they was a unitarian. So take that for what it's worth.
>> Persons, then I think that should be reflected in the Shama, the central confession of faith. All right. in the grammar if it refers to a single divine essence then it should say that in the grammar if it refers to a monarchy of some type right that should be there but it's not the grammar presents God as one person not an abstract essence and why would it exactly by the way I mean look at what this is drawing from this is Deuteronomy the one Yahweh is said to be feared >> so again irrelevant to Alex's point Alex didn't present Yahweh as an abstract essence Alex argued that the one God is the father and the son and the spirit are God by virtue of the fact that the father shares his divine essence nature being, however you want to frame that, with the son and the spirit from all eternity, making them as much God as the father is God. Making them God for as long as the father is God, but to the identity, he would say that the father alone is the one true God. So again, you know, Mike's missing the point. He's arguing against something that Alex himself doesn't believe. So, Alex could say, "Yeah, well, I join you in repudiating that brand of trinitarianism or that understanding of the doctrine."
So, he's not hitting on that one.
You said, uh, Jesus just said the one God and the one Lord is Yahweh. Paul says one God the Father and the one Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah. Therefore, Jesus is Yahweh. Uh, interestingly enough, Alice, um, one of the legs of Alex's argument is this memor logos theology, right? So, when you read the Tarums, the memor it's it's not really generally even depicted as something alongside God. A lot of the times it's just a circumlocation for Yahweh himself, right? it it's a it's a standin to talk about Yahweh. So that strengthens the case even more, right? If Jesus is the logos, if Jesus is the memor, if this fits into these wisdom traditions, well, the memor it's it's just a way of talking about Yahweh without talking about Yahweh, right? So you're saying Jesus is Yahweh with this stuff. So in any event, there was a guy John Ronning.
He wrote a book on it. Um, it was on John's uh, God, I forget the name of it.
And back before I read the book, I had I wrote a post on my blog. I I was more convinced that John is drawing from the Hebrew Bible and, you know, the conception of the Dvar and this that, and the other. And I think Andreas Costenberger had argued something along those lines. And I was like, "Yeah, good to see it confirmed by somebody who's not me, who's a scholar, whatever."
Costenberger proved to be a plagiarist later in life, but whatever. Um, so I seen that and I said, "But, you know, I got to read John Ronning's book and yada yada yada." And then Ronning himself had left a comment on my blog and he laid out, you know, not a summary of the book, but um, quite a bit of information for me to ponder and I was chewing on it and I'm like, man, this this guy makes a really good point. like a really good point. I should dig that up and throw it on screen. But the the memo stuff, it's kind of um it's kind of devastating to Unitarianism.
So, Alex touched on that quite a bit, but really, if you wanted to hammer it home, he could have hurt him even more.
Uh he said, "Old Testament says Yahweh the angel was in the cloud during the Exodus. Wisdom and Sarak says it was Lady Wisdom." Yep. Uh, Michael Heiser points out John was getting his Logos theology from the Old Testament, not simply Greek for Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I think the beauty of the prologue of John is that it covers so much ground like 100% um he's drawing from the Old Testament, but the fact that it comports with Greek philosophy and the memor stuff, you know, again, these guys are inspired by God. So for for God to be that multifaceted in his inspiration is not surprising.
>> All right, let's go.
>> He's jealous and to have no other gods.
The Hebrew also uses the mascul singular forms of these words. So the grammar presents him as a single person, not as many, let alone specifically three who are consubstantial. I mean, if Jesus is Yahweh, the father and holy spirit are Yahweh and they're distinct from each other. You have three Yahwehs. I believe he even said two Yahwees. Folks, no, there's only one that's the father. Even popular trinitarian scholars like Richard Bachmann have to admit that like concepts like nature >> he's Russian so we'll forgive it but it's Richard Balkam not Bachmann and he said uh he said uh what did he say mas he said mascular >> forms of the feared he's jealous and to have no other gods the Hebrew also uses the mascul singular forms of these words so the grammar presents him as a single person not as many let alone specifically three who are consubstantial So then is God a man because he uses masculine pronouns or as Mike said it mascul does that make God a man because he uses masculine pronouns? And if the answer to that is no, then why does it make him one person because he uses singular pronouns? How how far do we press this into what and who God is?
Right?
I don't know. Honest question. I mean, if Jesus is Yahweh, the father and holy spirit are Yahweh, and they're distinct from each other, you have three Yahwehs, I believe.
>> Or you have three persons who bear the same name.
You have three persons who are Yahweh.
What's the problem?
>> Been said, two Yahwees, folks, no, there's only one that's the father. Even popular trinitarian scholars like Richard Bachmann have to admit that like concepts like nature and essence were just not primary categories for Jewish theology. All right, and let's take a moment to address this. So, I I am a big fan of Balkam's work, at least his earlier work. Um, he wrote a book on the Son of Man a few years ago that it not not his best stuff in my opinion. That being the case, um, Mike is doing a couple of things here.
Number one, he does the what I call the even Trinitarian scholars admit fallacy, right? Unitarians love doing this. Even trinitarian scholars admit XYZ and yet unarian they for some reason remain trinitarian. So why is it they admit all this stuff that you think proves your view and yet they just say I don't want to believe these truths that I've uncovered. I'm I'm going to stick around in what I now know to be a lie.
No, it's stupid. You take away these throwaway out of context statements and you say, "Oh, look, even Trinitarian scholars admit even this, that, and the other." Where Balkam says this. So he's he's quoting from um the online version.
This is this was actually the paper back in like I I don't even know when, 2005 or something, 2006 where I first discovered Balkam's work, but it's Paul's Christologology of Divine Identity. And that got reprinted in a book called Jesus and the God of Israel.
Right. So when Balkam says this, look at the [snorts] highlighted term. He says, "When we think in terms of divine identity rather than of divine essence or nature, which are not the primary categories for Jewish theology, we can see that the so-called divine functions which Jesus exercise are intrinsic to who God is." So let's say let's say that Balkam is right and that these aren't the primary categories of Jewish theology. He's still doing it in the context of arguing that Jesus is identified as the God of Israel.
So Balkam's not your friend here, right?
Having said that, I was critical when I reviewed this book many years ago of this precise point because Balkam says, you know, he wants to say that and functional are not the categories through which Jews um you know present their view of God and talk about God.
And then his entire presentation even though he changes the terms functions according to those categories. And then in in certain points of the book like he explicitly slips into it. There's there's a footnote in one of the chapters. I could dig it up or I can go to the review and find it but there's a footnote in one of the chapters where he's talking about Hebrews and the superiority of Christ over the angels.
And he talks about him being ontologically superior. But wait a second. I thought these weren't the categories that, you know, early Jews thought in. Right. So, yeah, Balkam is inconsistent on that point. I think he's incorrect on that point as well. And I think it's really uh a moot point because at the end of the day, even even if so-called they're not thinking primarily in those categories, does that mean that nobody can think in those categories and that those categories don't correspond to what they are saying elsewhere? See, that's the thing. Mike throws out these assertions as if they amount to anything. But nine times out of 10, they don't.
We're going to see it again as he keeps going.
Dr. Sneedker said quoting 19th century scholar George Elliot that it was certain that the Jews did not perceive God as a plurality of persons because the presumption is they knew their own language and understood the unity of God. I mean, do you know that every time one god occurs in the scripture without fail that >> Oh, so somebody somebody said it in a book some somebody said in a book a 19th century scholar George Elliot said it's certain that if any such hints that God was a plurality of persons were conveyed. Now I got to track this down because he's got it in brackets. Um the Jews never understood them. The presumption is that they knew their own language and it is certainly they it is certain that they understood the unity of God was taught by their scriptures in the most absolute and unqualified manner. Such was their interpretation of Moses and the prophets. So let's see who this is. Who's this 19th century scholar George Elliot? Let's look let's look him up. Bear with me. Uh George Elliott 19 century scholar. Let's find out.
All right, let's see. Let's see. Let's see. Let's share this tab. Let's see what we could uncover here. Let's make this a little bigger.
All right. George Elliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans.
Um, was not only one of the most famous 19th century, is this the guy? Victorian novelists, but also a formidable scholar, translator, journalist, and critic. She was one of the most intellectual women of her time, acting as a crucial bridge between German and English thought and a key figure in the 19th century crisis of faith.
So let's see, hold on.
So hold on, let's go back to Mike. What is So our heavenly father has no equals.
All right. historical arguments against the doctrine of the trinity. The author seems to be covered up there. So, let's let's see if we could track this book down.
Let's see.
What is this called? It's called Our Heavenly Father Has No Equals. If that doesn't sound like a self-published book, I don't know what does.
Oh, it's by freaking Don Sneker. Get out of here.
Doneder is the guy. Um, uh, hey, God bless you, Byzantine. Thanks for stopping by.
Yeah, I'm not I ain't debating metaphysics Mike or anybody else. I don't have the patience for that. Um, Don Snedker, was he the biblical unitarian website or was he the other guy? Hold on.
Doneder was Oh, yeah. So, he's a biblical unitarian.com, I believe.
So, he's quoting um some woman named Maryanne Evans who posed as George Elliot. That was her pen name.
If indeed that's the same person. Let's find out.
Let's go back to this.
So, she novelist blah blah blah blah blah early life and education.
care. Moved to Coventry, moved to London, relationship with George Henry Lu's career in fiction. I'm interested in her scholarship.
Um, she was considered by her contemporaries to be physically unattractive.
Interesting.
So, there you go. She she was an ugly woman who taught herself Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. And because her contemporaries thought she was ugly, she got mad at Jesus and said he wasn't God.
That's my takeaway.
Let me know if you guys agree. Anyway, so I'm just messing around. So my point is, all right, so Don Snedker, um, a notorious Unitarian heretic, he's been at the forefront of this stuff for a long time, writes a book called Our Heavenly Father Has No Equals. And in it, he cites the 19th century scholar George Elliot, who we've just learned is a woman writing under a pen name. Not that a woman can't be right about something.
I'm not saying that, but she was an ugly woman, apparently. So, you know, that makes it a little less likely that she was correct on this. And it says, uh, they knew their own language. The unity of God was taught by the scriptures in the most absolute and unqualified manner. Such was their interpretation of Moses and the prophets at the time when Christ came. In all Palestine, there probably could not have been found a single man or woman who supposeded that there was any distinction of persons such as now taught in the unity of God.
So because Don Sneker said it quoting George Elliot from the 19th century, it must be true, right?
I'm super convinced and understood the unity of God. I mean, do you know that every time one God occurs in the scripture without fail that refers to the father? Why don't we see >> um does it does it always refer to the father? I don't know. Does it?
I don't know. Interestingly enough, he's got Galatians 3 and 20 on there. If you look at the Amplified Bible, Galatians 3:20 says that God is one person. So, I'm surprised he didn't quote that version. Um, the Amplified is of course wrong there. funnily enough and connected to his point before the I believe when it says one person for one it quotes Galatians 3 and 20 in reference to that so have we not all one father has what not one God created us why then are we faithless to one another profaining the covenant of our fathers so is it absolutely certain that the one God there is the one father or is he asking two different questions? I don't know.
It's the one God that created us. If we look to other prophetic passages such as Isaiah, which he's going to bring up, says that uh Yahweh created alone, but he acknowledges that he created with the son and spirit.
I don't know. Is he involved in the God that created? You tell me.
Having said that and asked those questions, let's grant this point for the sake of argument. Alex agrees the one [laughter] God is the father, you know, to which I agree as well. I believe the one God is the father. And it wouldn't bother me if one God was only used of the father. But let's just assume that it is. That's Alex's point.
We believe in one God, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. So he's not scoring any points on that one.
>> The son or holy spirit called the one God. We're going to clear that up a bit later with Alex's unique eo view of this. But I'll tell you why. It's because of texts like Isaiah 44:24 where the Lord declares he made everything alone and by myself. They says when with this first person singular suffix it's used to express the idea of oneself.
Folks, how's that work in trinitarianism? They must affirm this like goes to the one being but beings natures they don't create apart from persons, right? How can it speak as though he's just one person? I mean clearly the simplest explanation is that because he is it refers to the father.
The title God itself virtually 95% of the time refers to the father. Paul, Peter, Timothy make this abundantly clear. Alex also gave some great text for this. And of course, Jesus himself calls the father the only true God restricting the predicate true god to the father alone. And the points out that this form of manon alone is declared to apply to one person alone.
So I want you to notice here immediately that if Alex is agreeing to this, he's conceding to my main biblical point.
So, you know, hold on one second. I just got a good text message. I just got some good news. Praise God.
Oh, one of my daughters passed a very, very important test. So, that being the case, here's something I've noticed over the years, and he kind of does it in a very short period here, right? So, we're going to backtrack a little bit.
So, he's saying, you know, 95% of the time, God refers to the father. And that's been one of the main Unitarian arguments for the longest that Jesus is never called God. And when he is called God, it's not with the definite article.
Um, so he's not the one God. But even where he is called God explicitly, there's always some kind of textual variant there. There's always a textual issue. And uh then they've kind of backed off that and they're like, "Well, yeah, of course Jesus is called God, but so is Moses and so are others. You know, so are these judges and angels and yada yada yada."
So now it's like, okay, we admit Jesus is called God, but that doesn't mean anything because anyone could be called God.
But then his point is to say that the only true God applies to the father alone. Okay. So is Jesus then a false god?
Because what would be the opposite of being the only true God? You would be a false god by comparison. Correct?
And if that's the claim, um, he's going to have a hard time proving that. Thank you, Addis. Appreciate it. You said Mike elsewhere couldn't address Hebrews 1 8-12 or Paul saying Jesus was the rock of 1 Corinthians 10. That's all I need to know. Yeah, that's a good question, Otis. I didn't see you ask that. Let's look. Let's look. Share this tab instead. Um, it's not great. It's not great. These ends look a little split and her finger waves ain't waving.
So, we'll give her a four out of 10 on her haircut.
All right, back to this.
So, yeah. So, you know, the unarians over the ages, it's like, well, Jesus is never called God except in all these places where he is, but where he is, there's textual variance. But now we know that those are probably uh the original readings. So yeah, of course he's called God, but it's not in the same sense that God is God. God is the only true God. So it's like I don't know.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Paul, Peter, Timothy make this abundantly clear. Alex also gave some great text for this. And of course Jesus himself calls the father the only true God restricting the predicate true God to the father alone. And thesis points out that this form of manon alone is declared to apply to one person alone.
So I want you to notice here immediately that Alex is agreeing to this. He's conceding to my main biblical point that the apostolic deposit is not that the one God is some immaterial substance or essence that is father, son, and holy spirit, >> which is not Alex's argument. So moot, you're you're arguing against somebody who's not there in the debate. have that argument with, you know, somebody who takes a more western view of the trinity. It ain't Alex, >> right? But no, it's just one person.
That's the father. All right. So, my next point is that trinitarianism also requires post-biblical metaphysical categories that the apostles never teach. And I want to be clear that I'm not just saying that if it's outside the Bible.
>> That's a false statement, though. He's saying trinitarianism requires this. No, there's a certain there's a certain period in the history of trinitarian doctrine that utilizes it, but it's not required. We can make the case from the Old Testament, but then you're going to say, "Oh, you know, that's not that's not talking about uh usa and hypostases and blah blah blah. Who cares? Who said that those are the only categories by which we can discuss God?" Right? You can make a biblical case and if your main critique of the biblical case is that it's not the fourth century Christian Christian case then who cares who said that that is the standard that all thought and speech about the trinity only began in the 4th century and had to stop there.
Right? So you you're off to a shaky start with that one. And he's going to admit here I'm not saying stuff that outside the Bible is bad. and he admits that philosophy drives theology.
>> So, let's go.
>> Well, then it's automatically bad. I'm just saying it can't contradict the revelation of God in scripture because philosophy drives your theology and scripture gives its own categories. But trinitarianism when they borrowed these metaphysics, they use them as a framework to redefine biblical categories. We can't do that. You must realize in the least that these statements, right, God is one, three hypoases, you know, homoius, they don't appear in the text. So, I mean, they may be later theological conclusions, but it's just not the language of Moses, Jesus, or the apostles. Now, >> what did this guy just get done saying?
Let's let's run this back. Hold on.
Listen to him again.
>> Biblical metaphysical categories that the apostles never teach. And I want to be clear that I'm not just saying that if it's outside the Bible, then it's automatically bad. I'm just saying it can't contradict the revelation of God in scripture.
>> And you would have to show that it does contradict the revelation of God in scripture. You have not done that. You see, philosophy drives your theology and scripture gives its own categories. But trinitarianism, when they borrowed these metaphysics, they use them as a framework to redefine biblical categories. We can't do or to explain biblical categories. He's saying redefine as if you're changing the meaning. How about they use them as a way to explain biblical categories to a predominantly Greekeaking Gentile audience who is not familiar with Semitic speech or so-called ways of thought. Here's the thing like and this irks me to no end. This idea and we get it a lot with the Catholic Orthodox stuff, East West, whatever. They're like it's such a different way of thinking.
It's it's the you know the the Orthodox they're so mysterious. Everything's mystery with them. And a lot of people level that charge at the Lutheran as well. It's all mystery. It's mystery.
It's I don't know. It's uh anty, right?
No, it isn't. And it's not that hard.
And there is overlap. And we all inhabit the same world, right? There there's going to be overlap in thought and language. and you're going to be able to communicate to one another in some way, shape, or form. Language is always going to be the biggest barrier, right? If you're speaking absolute different languages, but it's not categories that are the problem because you can map one category from one area or language or whatever to another one.
It's not that difficult. So, the idea that like Greeks could not ever understand smitic thought, it's just stupid, right? the New Testament writers are thinking smitically and writing in Greek and if later Greekeaking fathers come along and take this language and they say all right we see what they're writing now let's take these categories to categories that people who are not from this culture would understand let's use that but it translates it's it's not difficult you said uh philosophy shouldn't define our theology just as a tool to defend it. Yeah, agreed. So they say philosophy is the handmaidaden of theology, right?
But you know when you're dealing with philosophy, it it always is foundational because just anything, right?
Metaphysics, how we speak, our understanding of, you know, you can get into the philosophy of um signs and symbols, right? Seiology. So even reading a text every letter is a symbol that corresponds to something and you know letters are the building blocks of words and words are carriers of some kind of meaning. So they say I would say that you know meanings have words rather than words have meaning and that the the meaning that you wish to convey you pick the particular words that you want to convey that meaning and you can choose any number of words to convey the same meaning right but you know you get a guy like um uh who is it lower nita eugene nita and he's saying that the unit of meaning is found at the sentence level not the word level so on and so forth so what what I'm saying is philosophy It's it's there from the beginning. We can't escape it, right? Philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, um philos, you know, semiology, all this kind of stuff, epistemology, how we know anything to begin with. [snorts] It it all drives our understanding of theology.
We can't get away from it. But that said, it's not like you say, "All right, I'm, you know, I'm going to start as a platonist and then shoehorn everything that the Bible says into platonism. You know, I'm not going to make it fit these metaphysical categories and so on and so forth. That would be wrong." So, I agree with you there. Um, but yeah, philosophy, it's, you know, just can't get around it.
that you must realize in the least that these statements right God is one three hypoases you know homoius they don't appear in the text so I mean >> you just got done saying they don't have to appear in the text they just can't contradict it so you got to show how they contradict it they don't hypostases was understood to mean the these concrete manifestations of individual persons you know persons is the best word we got to translate say hypostases. We could just say hypoases, right? But everyone will speak Greek. So the point being, yeah, scripture it well, it does use and hypotheses, which he's going to point out later. But the idea that that somehow is not accurate in defining who father, son, and holy spirit are, you got to argue that. You can't just assert it. hypoatic union.
It's everywhere. Philippians 2 being the most glaring example of it. You might disagree with that, but you can't say it's not there. And then Homoius, uh, he makes much do about nothing with Homoius. We're going to get to that very shortly, but okay, the term's not there, but we agree that there's one God, right? So, Homoius is a way of explaining how the three are one.
So, doesn't make sense. He just got done saying it doesn't have to be in the Bible. It just can't contradict the Bible. Well, obviously Trinitarians don't believe that these things contradict the Bible.
>> Maybe later theological conclusions, but it's just not the language of Moses, Jesus, or the apostles. Now, we're going to address these directly, but first, let's test this one God claim. Because in or in Orthodox Trinitarianism, the claim to one God, that's not really merely sharing a nature. It's having one mind will in operation. They actually think things like mind and will are properties of only nature. Eastern theologians did a ton of work developing this. But the problem is that folks, three persons having one mind is just Disney plus theology with no basis in reality. A mind implies a center of consciousness. A will implies a center of agency. And therefore, these must be properties.
>> So again, he he takes a carteesian concept of personhood, right? And he applies that to God. He's like, "Who's a Disney Plus Disney Plus fantasy or whatever he said?" You know, I'm sure he's reading his opening statement. And the fact that you wrote that and then repeated it live to an audience of people watching it is astounding. But having said that, he was hold on, we're going to run it back because he was very he was very proud of himself for that one. Right? like mind and will or proper God claim because in or in orthodox trinitarianism the claim to one god that's not really merely sharing a nature it's having one mind will in operation they actually think things like mind and will are properties of only nature Eastern theologians did a ton of work developing this but the problem is that folks three persons having one mind is just Disney plus theology with no basis in reality a mind implies a center of consciousness a will implies a center of agency and therefore these must be properties of persons because natures don't think or will Right.
>> Again, says who?
Says who?
You're asserting things. Make the argument. You're saying that this is fantasy. This is Disney Plus stuff.
Says who? And you're saying, "Well, natures don't think." It's not It's not the fact that nature's think. Like, you're thinking that thinking and willing are the same thing. They're not.
Hold on. Give me a sec.
All right.
So again, a lot of assertion. You know, his name's metaphysics Mike. At least get into some type of literature to support these assertions. But you're just saying this isn't the way that it is. Okay. So you say, why should I believe you?
So the dilemma should be obvious. If there's only one mind and will, then you have one center of consciousness and agency. Like what exactly is distinguishing the persons? This just looks like unitarianism. All right, where God loves himself. You can see that in the diagram there with the love.
So I mean trinitarians want to, you know, use this as epistemic grounding for everything. But it's just weird.
It's wonky marvel level imaginations.
Let's just take that one example of love. How exactly can the son and holy spirit receive love from the father meaningfully if the mind that both gives and receives that love is the same? That makes absolutely no sense. Okay, this just sounds like God loving himself, which is the unitarian position. The Bible teaches that the grounding for God's love is in his.
>> So, hold on. Did we catch that? I'm I'm gonna take it off 1.5. We're going to play it back at normal speed.
Did we catch that?
Hold on. Run it back.
>> No sense.
>> Love is the same.
>> Here's his argument. If there's one mind will enact, how can the son receive love from the father meaningfully if the mind that both gives and receives love is the same.
All right, that's his contention. He's asking this question. How how does that work? Okay, but look what he says.
>> Aim. That makes absolutely no sense.
>> That makes absolutely no sense. These are his words, right? That makes absolutely no sense. Let's get going.
Okay, this just sounds like God loving himself.
>> This just sounds like God loving himself.
He just got done saying it makes absolutely no sense. What's going on, Zealots? It just sounds like God loving himself, >> which is the Unitarian position.
>> Which is the Unitarian position.
So it makes no sense for God to love himself, right? [laughter] Mind you, his argument is that one will, one mind, one action makes no sense because it's just God loving himself.
And then he says, "This is the Unitarian position."
Now, you know, at at best at best, I would have said it makes no sense for a trinitarian to take the Unitarian position on this. and this is what this sounds like, right? But that's not what he said. And I don't think it was a slip of the tongue. His his argument is that God loves himself and that God is complete within himself and he doesn't need a son or a spirit to love from all eternity. Um, so that's his argument, but he said this makes no sense for God to love himself.
So yeah, not not his best moment on that one. All right, let me speed him up again.
Oh boy.
>> The Bible teaches that the grounding for God's love is in his nature. God is love. So, he doesn't acquire that hypoatically, nor does he cease to be love if he does or does not express it.
It's just like we're commanded to >> Yeah. Nobody says that God acquires love hypoatically.
He doesn't acquire it. God is love, right? But what does it mean for God to be love? There's a book um Delighting in the Trinity by I think it's Michael Reeves. I recommend it to everybody.
Read that book. It's the best explanation of what is it? John 4, 1 John 4:8 where it says God is love. Read that book. It it's going to explain exactly why the trinity is necessary for that statement to make sense. Right?
Love our neighbor as we love oursel. God perfectly loving himself as one person is all the necessary grounding needed for him perfectly loving everything else. That's a unitarian position. Okay?
So, and just consider that this is false. Let's just say so. Well, then why does the father need the son and holy spirit to be love at all if he's fully God? Each person can have a dependency on each other and yet be God by themsel.
I mean clearly this is just counterintuitive. It's self-contradictory and it's inferior to the unitarian position. Right? And the problem here is not even just these concepts because it gets much worse.
It's that the words again these are assertions without argument. What is self-contradictory about that?
What is self-contradictory about that?
when he says each person is God in himself. Now that's got to be unpacked because if you're taking it like Calvin's autotheos um no Calvin was wrong on that point there there is no father without son and spirit. There is no son without father and spirit. There is no spirit without father and son. So to say god in himself what do you mean by that? Like there's there's no conceiving of any of the persons apart from the others. So that's one. But you're saying that this is impossible. Yeah, exactly, Jacob. It's it's a lot of assertion and no argument to back it up. So it it's just bluster. Like he's saying it, he he's hype as he's saying it, but now you're saying it's a contradiction. Where is the contradiction? A contradiction is something can't be a and not a at the same time and in the same sense.
Right? That's it. Show that. If you're saying it's a blatant apparent contradiction, self- apparent contradiction.
Yeah. That's f facious. Hypoatic properties aren't acquired. They're essential, not accidental. Absolutely.
Absolutely. So, he's saying God acquires this love. Let's All right. Let's let's be charitable. Let's for the sake of argument say God does acquire quote unquote acquire this love, right? He acquires this love the same way he acquired his wisdom in Proverbs chapter 8 from all eternity. Was there ever a time God was without his wisdom? No.
Some translations say, "I have acquired thee." Others say, "I've created thee."
Others say, "I possess thee." So, you know, uh what's the verb there? I think it's uh somewhat a K. I forget off top of my head. Um ah it's going to bother me now. Kani, I think it is. In any event, so let's say he did acquire love. He did it from all eternity. It's an eternal acquiring the same way it's an eternal begetting of the sun. Well, beget means to be brought from non-existence into existence. Yeah. for humans, right?
We're not talking about humans. We're talking about God.
So, an eternal beginning is just a way of saying that from all eternity, the father has had a son and the son has come from the father. Right? The categories change when we're dealing with a divine being versus human being.
All right? It's like it's rocket science.
Not rocket science. used to drive this theology have no basis in the Bible whatsoever. Take for example usia. It's used twice and it doesn't mean substance. It means property. It was something that you owned. Okay?
Hypostasis is used five times. It doesn't mean person. And it's also translated in nature. Just the opposite.
I mean this is so well known in scholarship. You'll read from RPC Hansen from J&D Kelly that hypoasis and he acts as if this stuff is like hidden as if people don't know this stuff yet they were synonymous originally.
words can come to take on different meanings. Or again, as I would argue, if you mean something, you could choose a variety of words to get your meaning across. If I tell you I'm going to bed, you understand me to be saying I'm going to sleep, even though that's not what I said, right? I don't just mean I'm walking over to the bed. I mean, I'm going to the bed to sleep in it. And I could say I'm going to bed and not even go anywhere near the bed. I often fall asleep on the couch, but when I go downstairs, I say I'm going to bed and then I sit on the couch and turn on the TV and pass out.
So, I don't know why this guy thinks that these are somehow revelatory statements that are going to make Trinitarians, you know, abandon their faith.
JD Kelly, uh, Hipposis and Usia were originally synonyms. Woo!
So what meaning real existence or essence that which a thing is but while he posts retains this connotation in origin he more frequently gives it the sense of individual subsistence and so the individual existed right and what was the one he cited before that >> I mean this is so well known in scholarship you >> yeah Hansen's search for the Christian doctrine of god right the state of affairs as regards the use of hipposis and usia several alternative ways of treating these terms were prevalent.
They could be regarded as synonymous and used either to describe what God is is three or what he is as one. A hippostases could be used to describe the persons of the godhead and usa either ignored or rejected or hypostases could be used for distinct existence and usia for nature. So what is he proving here? Is he proving that words are not fixed in their so-called meaning?
Is that what he's trying to tell the audience that words can be used differently in different contexts at different times by different people?
Whoopde-doo.
What's the issue?
>> Read from RPC Hansen from J&D Kelly that hypoasis and ducia were originally synonyms. I have a video on my channel where I go through all the significant controversies they had to develop this ch this uh system. Even at the council of Nika, their anathema used these words as synonyms. Folks, the the doctrine developed. The language necessary for it had to evolve. It's over. It's done.
These guys just closed their >> So again, what does he mean when he say the doctrine developed? Does he mean the way we talk about the doctrine developed? Sure. Yes.
As time goes on, people use different words to convey the same thing.
Which is why my insistence is you can present an Old Testament doctrine of the trinity, a new testament doctrine of the trinity, a petristic doctrine of the trinity, a medieval scholastic doctrine of the trinity, right?
We is is the argument that we can only use words in the Bible. You know, funnily enough, um I wish I wish I had it ready at hand. This is one of the things that Athanasius rebukes the Aryans for.
Athanasius is like, "Yeah, the Aryans say we can only use words in the Bible and they they criticize us for using these words that are not in the Bible when we're talking about um the Father and the Son, you know, and the Trinity."
And he's like, "But these idiots use a bunch of words not in the Bible to express their heresy." He's like, "They they talk about there was a time when the sun was not." Well, where's that in the Bible? You know what I'm saying? So, it's not like metaphysics Mike is not using unbiblical or extra biblical language to talk about the things that are in the Bible. You know, these unitarians, he's going to go on, he says this, Dustin Smith says it, a lot of people say it. Um, he's going to go on in the debate to talk about Jesus being the embodiment of God's wisdom.
What does that mean? Explain that to me.
What does it mean for God's wisdom to be embodied?
So God's wisdom became incarnate. Is is that our understanding?
If Jesus is a mere human, an exalted human, but a human nonetheless, well, what does that mean? Does it just mean he's really wise? That he he has a really close relationship to God's wisdom? What does it mean for Jesus to be the embodiment of God's wisdom? Like he says these words, the Bible doesn't say that, right? But he has no problem with him doing it, but when trinitarians do it, it's an issue.
I don't know. I don't get it. But I I just I really don't understand it. Are we supposed to be locked in to a certain language in all times, in all places?
And if so, you know, why why is he having a debate in English? He should just be talking in Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic.
See, he tries to use development in a postmodern sense implying innovation and novelty. The Petristics reject this idea and understand development as clarifying expounding on the deposit of faith.
Absolutely. So that's what I'm saying.
Development in language is not the same as development in doctrine.
We found better ways to explain it. But we're explaining the same thing.
Again, that's why analogy exists. That's why the phrase in other words exists because we're trying to explain something in words that people are not grasping for whatever reason.
Imagine this. the same book he quotes RPC Hansen's like right in the beginning he says when when the debates were raging between the Aryans and the pro pronine party um they had to appeal to language outside of scripture to explain what is in scripture because if at the end of the day all you're doing is quoting the text back and forth to each other you're not going to get anywhere.
Bible says in the beginning was the word. Yeah. In the beginning was the word. No, no, no, no, no. In the beginning was the word.
Yeah. No, I'm telling you the word was in the beginning, right? You're not going to get anywhere. You're just quoting the same stuff back and forth.
You got to step outside the text to explain what's in the text.
Eyes to these very basic facts. And speaking about the the uh the Nine Creed, let's address Homoius. Yo, where'd that come from? It's well de demonstrable through primary sources that the suggestion of this word >> didn't come from the B didn't come from the Bible. I should have five. I timed myself when I started.
>> Oh, sorry. I was going off the stream.
Yeah, you're right. Okay. So, I got five minutes. All right. So, came not from the Bible. It didn't come from the church fathers, but the emperor of Rome, Constantine. Okay. The homosius comes from the emperor of Rome. And they debate whether he got it from the heretic Tertullan or I think likely his religious adviser Latantius, who quotes poress to him 14 times as his religious adviser. Christopher Steed wrote the book on it. He cataloged every use of homosius prior to Nika and proved with the work of Beatatric that it comes from pagan hermeticism. They are the ones who employed this theologically and it was introduced to Christianity first through Gnostic Christians. That's a fact. Take it to the bank. And >> okay, I took it to the bank. Um they said, "So what?" [laughter] Like, "So what?" He's saying the word homoius was used by other people um before the Christians used it and it came into Christian parliament by uh gnostic hermetic hermeticism.
So what what's he trying to say? Is he trying to say that the early Christian trinitarians were gnostics now? I mean is that the argument?
Who cares how it came in?
Has he read anything? every word that he's ever read about anything came from somewhere prior to him reading that.
Right? What if what if I let's what do they call that? The etmological fallacy, right? Let's look up some fallacies. We could say uh etmological fallacy or perhaps um genetic fallacy. So genetic fallacy would be you find some kind of fault in the um in the origin of a thing. Right? And because of that fault in the origin of the thing, now whatever the thing is is tainted. So let's look that up first.
Genetic fallacy. Let's look at these informal fallacies. Right?
So let's share this. Make that bigger.
So, the genetic fallacy is a logical error that dismisses or accepts an argument based on its origin, source, or history rather than its actual content.
It occurs when someone argues that a claim is false because of where it came from or true because of its noble origins, ignoring the substantive evidence. So, that could apply here. But he's not really talking about arguments.
He's just talking about a word. Well, this word came from the uh from the Gnostic hermits, right?
All right. So, now let's go to uh etmological.
Oh, look at that. Perfect.
Make that bigger. So, the etmological fallacy is a flawed argument that assumes a word's true or proper meaning is its earliest original definition. It ignores that language evolves and current usage, not history, determines a word's meaning. This fallacy holds that using a word differently from its root is incorrect, which is a misunderstanding of how language changes over time. So, I could see aspects of both of these in what he's doing here.
He's saying Christopher Ste wrote the book. I have the book, by the way. Um, yeah, it it's a nice study of the word homoius throughout varied periods of history. So, what it was used differently? Look at the Old Testament.
Hold on one second. Um, who was it?
Michael Brown, right? Dr. Michael Brown.
If you don't know him, uh, check him out. He's good. Had a little bit of a scandal a couple years ago. Whatever.
But Michael Brown, he wrote the five volumes on Jewish objections to Jesus.
And when he was a young teenager and he first became a Christian, his parents had a meet with rabbis. And the rabbis were trying to dissuade him. and they're saying like, "Look, you know, yeah, you memorize the Bible. You can fool these Jehovah's Witnesses, but you can't fool us because we read it in Hebrew and you don't." So, that bothered him. And he went on to, I think it was NYU, I believe it was New York University, and he got a PhD in Semitic languages and literature, right? So, he's a semitist.
And he said now when he talks with the rabbis, he can tell them, "Oh yeah, you're saying this about this Hebrew word, but did you know uh it comes from this ugit term or it comes from the Acadian blah blah blah or it comes from this or it comes from that." Everything comes from something else, right?
Everything was used by somebody else before it was used by whoever is using it. So what do we uh what do we do with the fact that in uh Canaanite literature we have the god L, right? Well, the Bible calls God L. Does that mean L is Canaanite? The the Hebrews are borrowing from the Canaanites.
Metaphysics Michael would be like, "No, of course not."
Yeah, exactly. Because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where the word comes from. How is the person using the word using it?
Uh I think Athanasius tells the Aryans the use of homosius has been used by the fathers for over a century. If it's good enough for the church, it's good enough for us. Language doesn't equivocate to falsehood. Amen. Yeah. I got to find I got to find the passage from Athanasius.
I think it's in the contra aranos whatever. Um let me see if I can look it up. Hold up.
I definitely I know I quoted it last year, the year before. I did um Marcus Rogers did some live stream on exposing the demons from the Council of Nika and I know I did a live or not a live stream, I did a couple of videos in response to that and that was one of his sticking points. He's like, "They keep they keep using all these words that aren't in the Bible." And I'm like, "Yeah, well, you know, the Aryans did the same thing."
So, let me see. Uh, videos.
Where's the one Marcus Rogers?
Oh, I always forget I could search my channel.
All right. Uh, let's see.
Hold on. See if this is it.
Nah, that ain't it. [sighs and gasps] Give me one sec, guys. And I got to get out of here soon. I got some stuff I got to take care of. Uh, this one.
See?
Nope.
Let's try this one.
Nah, I can't find it. Anyway, no big deal. Bottom line is Athanasius dealt with this with the Aryans back in the 4th century. It was a bad argument by them back then. It's a bad argument by this guy now. And I still don't get his point. Like, take that take that to the bank. Take what to the bank that a word was used by somebody else before Christians used it. So what what is the point? already condemned prior to the council at the Senate of Antioch where they condemn Paul of Samosada. I could go on and on. All right, the simple fact is that the very language the doctrine of the trinity depends upon, all right, evolved. They were constantly responding to disputes prior generations couldn't resolve, formulating doctrine more precisely than before and condemning views which were once held by respected bishops and theologians. Really consistent doctrine.
Unitarianism is wrong. You guys didn't even have >> Yeah. God forbid that they clarify things over time and speak more precisely to avoid misunderstanding.
Terrible. Those terrible Christians >> has figured out until the end of the fourth century. Thank you very much. All right. So my last point is that you know everything else comes down to agency.
>> All right. Divine agency explains every other question that you may have about this. Let's start with the crown jewel.
John 1:1. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. All right. There's some question is this is translated properly but let's just acknowledge it doesn't say in the beginning was Jesus and Jesus was with the father and Jesus was God right so Jesus and the word are not numerically identical it refers to God's literal speech in Genesis they actually have the same Greek form here NRK in the beginning in the Greek okay the overwhelming majority of scholars agree with this so wisdom Christologology is the concept of applying the roles the characteristics the functions Alex gave you a ton of them of God's word his wisdom to Christ Raymond Brown says the Old Testament presentation of wisdom there are good parallels for almost every detail of the prologue's description of the Gay O Day says, "Jewish wisdom tradition is the governing view of the providential language of the prologue." And there's so much commentary about how Christians don't know this and it sounds weird to them because they're not familiar with wisdom tradition. I mean, look at this.
Pull out the best Greek English lexicon, the Bag. It says the logos literally refers to the expression of God's wisdom. That's what the word >> Yeah. So, I I was in the chat when this debate was live. I didn't I didn't stick around for the uh open panel or not open panel but the free flowing discussion but I do recall him saying that and I think father Steven D. Young was in there and he was like BDAG ain't the best. You know who said BDAG is the best? It's the one that you know it's standard in scholarship but who says it's the best? And fun fact again like I pointed out earlier how they was a unitarian so that you know it could influence some of the ways he uh defines stuff in there. And again the was translating from a dude named Grim. So you'd have to do a detailed study of Grim's work versus what the did to it.
Um, but BDAG, the the main guy, Bower, Walter Bower, he was famous for alleging that all of the early heresies were the original Christianity and the one that won out in the end. This is really the later innovation.
Right? So, think about that. Just consider the source. I'm not doing a genetic fallacy. I'm not saying what he says here is incorrect because I I really to me this is a a moot point. all the wisdom stuff. But, you know, just consider that when you're reading through this lexicon. To to think that people's theology and prior beliefs can't influence the way they understand words when they're doing lexography is just naive. I'll just point that out. Um, but yeah, Jacob, agency is absolutely their favorite cope. it it's it's the most useless doctrine because in proving so much it proves absolutely nothing.
There's nothing that you can't just attribute to agency with the wave of a hand and say uh you know it doesn't you could show Jesus bears divine names. Oh so what agency he receives worship. Yeah agency.
All of it goes towards agency. There's no line that can't be crossed. Well Jesus was called the only true God. Of course he was. He's God's divine agent par excellence. Why wouldn't he be called the only true God? I guarantee if we were to uncover a text that we were 1,000% sure was biblical, um, you know, it was from antiquity, it was written by one of the apostles, it needs to be added to the canon of scripture, God breathed, and it said in it that Jesus is the only true God. They would say, "Yeah, of course Jesus is the only true God because he's God's agent. Why wouldn't it say that about him?"
You know what I'm saying? It's just such a dumb argument. Giovanni, God bless you.
And I have a video on that, by the way.
The death of agency, it's called. Um, highly recommend that one. I think that's my favorite video that I ever produced. Let's see.
So, if you ever want to check that one out on the channel, the death of agency. And we have all these agents here. You got a little DEA agent. You got a FBI agent, a HSI agent.
I don't know what that is. Probably this guy. You can't see. That's a ICE agent.
In any event, back to it. Let's finish his opening statement and then I'm going to have to do a round two.
But let's go.
Hold on. Let me switch over >> what the word means. Okay. So Jesus he demonstrates of God's English lexicon the bag. It says the logos literally refers to the expression of God's wisdom. That's what the word means.
Okay. So the word can mean any number of things.
Right? Again words don't have meanings.
Meanings have words. So you can use logos to convey a number of things. And we were talking about this before with the Dvar, the mera, you know, the the philos philosophical conceptions, all of this stuff. It's such a fluid term that it can encompass all of these various things. So he's saying if he's trying to say that logos just means wisdom, that's stupid. No, potentially it could refer to wisdom. It could carry connotations from wisdom traditions. and he's all in on wisdom christologology as if this stuff hasn't been challenged.
Gordon Fee and uh what's the guy's name?
Kyla Lee or whatever. Um you get Gordon Fee's book uh Pauline Christologology, right? He's got a whole chapter in there like decimating wisdom Christology.
He absolutely he thinks it's one of the dumbest innovations in Christian theology to ever come into being. And then Aqua Lee, his book is from Messiah to pre-existent son. Um, same thing. He follows fe and he's like, "Yeah, wisdom Christology is stupid and here's why."
So, it's not like it's a given. Now, personally, I'm I'm fine with wisdom Christology. I think we see it in the fathers a lot. Um, I think Proverbs 8 factors in heavily, but you know, he's just asserting this stuff like there's no challenge to it. He's like this is the you know this is the scholarly view of the prologue of John depending on which scholars you look at >> Jesus he demonstrates this the best himself by saying that he is sent by God repeatedly and if you really want to believe what Jesus says well then believe him when he tells you he can do nothing on his own authority that his teachings words and acts are >> so I think Mike believes that Jesus is pre-existent it seems to be the case I could be wrong but I think he thinks Jesus is pre-existent which is another thing like the Unitarians aren't united on this. They here's what unarians are united on that they're anti-trinitarian.
It's like the friend the enemy of my enemy is my friend approach. Like they all don't believe the same stuff, but they're just as happy to lock arms with a Jehovah's Witness or a Chrisadelfian as they are with uh anybody else who's not trinitarian, right? It's not his own like they would be if he was God ontologically. And this explains every high Christologology text, folks.
Whether it's the Kmen Christi, whether it's Hebrews 1, Colossians 1, form of God, image of God, imprint of God's nature are all predicated divine agency, language, and terms. Okay? And it's the same that we see in the Old Testament with the angel of the Lord, with prophets, including prophecies of the Messiah, and even with the name as Jesus as he comes in. So again, the angel of the Lord receives sacrifice. That's reserved for God and God alone. Show me an example other than the angel of the Lord receiving sacrifice.
I could show you a bunch of examples where they tried to sacrifice to God's agents, namely the apostles, book of Acts, and they refused it. But why would you refuse sacrifice if you're an agent of God and ultimately that sacrifice is really being sacrificed to God, right? You you would expect to see more of it.
On the agency thing, the apostles are the agents of Jesus Christ, divinely elected by him, called empowered for ministry. They don't run around saying, "Hey, I'm Jesus."
Nobody sees them walking down the street and goes, "Hey, there goes Jesus."
There's no text in the early church that are applied to the apostles or to other uh godly men and women, bishops or who whoever. Well, why couldn't you apply a New Testament Jesus text to a bishop?
You know, the bishop is a representative of Christ, right?
These things don't happen because agency is bunk. It's not that there's not a biblical concept of agency. It's just that it doesn't do what the unitarian wants it to do. And the unarian wants it to do everything.
Everything 100%. Why would the angel refuse worship? He's an agent of God.
You know, it just does not work.
So listen, the last thing I want to point out is Alex is a lawyer and from what I hear, a phenomenal one. And so the cool thing about lawyers is that they're authorized representatives. A lawyer can speak in court for a client.
He can act in the name of the client, right? That at times his acts are treated like the client's acts. Yet a lawyer is not ontologically identical to the client. That's that's Alex's whole position that he just gave with all those examples of Jesus sharing in certain roles, titles, or divine prerogatives. That just does not follow.
So based on these three reasons, I think we have great evidence that it's actually trinitarianism that was a departure from the true ancient doctrine on the nature of God in Christ and it's unitarianism that seeks to restore it.
Thank you.
>> Yeah. So very very um persuasive uh opening statement. So let's see. Um you're saying Mike believes Jesus came into existence in the flesh and said it in a passive way. Oh, there you go.
There you go. So then I I would wonder how is he understanding these I was sent passages where they at him who sent me he him who sent me who sent me who sent me where sent from where to where and he only focuses on John funnily enough John's got the most self-evidently um christologology of pre-existence But even having said that, Simon Gatherle's book, the pre-existent son, he goes through the synoptic gospels and he shows pre-existence there like convincingly, right? So there's all these I have come statements plus the the Greek term ilon with an infinitive and it's, you know, it's not complex, but it it's kind of it helps if you know a little bit of the languages. But in any event, Gather Cole shows like the synoptics, they're no less presenting a pre-existing Christology than the Gospel of John or any of Paul's epistles. So, having said that, yeah, his opening statement amounted to um you're using language that's not in the Bible.
Originally, this language was used by others to mean other things.
And the father is the true God, not some essence.
All right, your opponent also believes the father is the true God, not some essence. And who cares where the words came from? And agency doesn't really amount to a hill of beans in terms of these discussions you said in the passages about having glory with him before the foundations of the earth. These guys views are never holistic. Yeah. So, he gets into that.
Um Jonah, I didn't see it yet.
I didn't see it. I I started I think um I I maybe got two minutes into Erhan's opening statement, but yeah. And I had it playing fast and I couldn't understand him to be honest with you.
So, I got to go back and watch it at regular speed, which is going to kill me because um I just hate watching anything at 1x.
But yeah, with regard to this, Mike's going to say later in the debate that John 17:05 is prolleptic. And you know, he gets he kind of mocks Alex for not knowing what prolleptic means. And for anybody who doesn't know what prolleptic means, it just means talking about something future as if it's a present reality. So when Paul says, you know, we're seated in heavenly places with Christ, some take that to be prolleptic, right? meaning um we will be in the future, but we speak about it like it's a present reality via our union with Christ. Now, I I kind of tend to believe it is a present reality either way. So, John 17:05, that doesn't fit the bill because he's not talking about oppressive reality, saying, "Father, before anything existed, we shared glory. Give it back to me." Right?
That's not prolapsis.
So stupid stupid stupid um so you said so the EO debate you wasn't a fan of it overall although I found it wild that the EO is disagreeing with saints in a council and thinks that serial used appilinarian forgeries really it's so heavy in the metaphysics I feel you'll I'll check it out I'll check it out I you know honestly I wish I was stronger in that area, Jonah.
You know, I have um a cursory knowledge of everything involved in there, but it's not that hasn't been my focus for the longest. You know, I know enough to know enough, but I don't know enough to speak on it with like any level of expertise.
Hold on one second, guys. I got to go off screen.
All right, I'm back. That was the people calling. My car is ready. So, yeah, I got to get out of here. Um, but yeah, so I'll I'll check out the debate, Jonah, and see what I see and see if it's something worth reviewing or if I'm qualified to review it. Uh, I want to finish this though. I gotta do a part two because I want to get to the rebuttals. I thought I thought the rebuttal I thought Mike's rebuttals were even worse than his opening statement. I was not impressed with his opening statement. And then if we do do the cross exam, you know, I don't know. Again, I I like opening statement Alex Saurin. I don't like cross-exam Alex Saurin. I don't care for his behavior in cross-examination, but that's me. So, anyway, look, I appreciate you guys tuning in. Um, and to everybody who catches this on the replay, feel free to leave a comment. Don't forget to like the stream, like the video once it's posted, subscribe. I can't say that I'm going to be doing this regularly, but as time allows, God willing, I'll be um I'll be streaming a little more often.
But thanks a lot, guys. God bless you all. Everybody have a wonderful day and I'll catch you in the next one.
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