Trinities

This episode is part one of my review of my July 2026 debate with Dr. Joshua Sijuwade. (Video version here.) It consists of his 35-minute opening statement, with my comments and critique. He spends the bulk of it arguing that what he calls "Conciliar Trinitarianism" best explains New Testament teaching about God, his Son, and his spirit. He then argues that this theology, or something much like it, was taught by the second and third century "church fathers," such as Justin, Tertullian, and Origen. Finally, he argues that this is the teaching of the "ecumenical" church councils. Some notable things in my discussion include: my critique of traditional rhetoric about the Son being "on the Creator side of the Creator-creature divide," the utter lack of scriptural support for the eternal "procession" of the Holy Spirit, and the meaning of Dr. Sijuwade's talk of a "relational distinction" when it comes to the Father and the Son. Auto-generated chapter marks: 0:29 Debate Review Starts3:24 Defining Conciliar Trinitarianism9:56 Best Explanation Claims17:20 The Five Pillars19:38 Father as the One God22:33 The Son and Preexistence42:29 The Spirit and Procession55:20 Identifying God’s Marks59:59 Jesus Bears Divine Names1:05:33 Jesus Has Divine Attributes1:12:24 Jesus Creates All Things1:22:55 Thrones and Worship1:32:00 Explaining the Evidence1:43:56 Fathers and Councils2:04:05 Creed of 381 Along the way I critique this argument for Jesus being the creator. Links for this episode: The original video produced by the Unitarian Christian Alliance and Premier Unbelievable. Tuggy, Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible "When and How in the History of Theology Did the Triune God Replace the Father as the Only True God?" the fulfillment fallacy J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Theology podcast 384 – Mainstream Christian Theologies in the Late 100s – Early 200s and Early Trinitarian “Fool’s Gold” "What John 1 Meant" How John 1 was intelligible in the first century podcast 63 – Thomas Belsham and other scholars on John 8:58 Hebrews 7:3 @ biblicalunitarian.com Kapusta, Scripturae Contra Trinitatem - The Epistle to the Hebrews: An Anthology of Quotations, Alternative Expositions, and Critical Commentaries on Common Trinitarian Proof-Texts Does Colossians 1:16 Refer To The Old or New Creation? Sean Finnegan at UCA UK Conference podcast 227 – Who Should Christians Worship? Gaston, Dynamic Monarchianism: The Earliest Christology? Origen on the Challenge to Jesus is God Apologists trinitarian or unitarian? 7 – Origen uncensored "the Holy Trinity, the one God" at the Orthodox Council of Blachernae held in 1285. This week's thinking music is "Sun Moon Stars and You INST" by Cillek. AI-generated summary: In this episode we begin a detailed review of a debate on whether Conciliar Trinitarianism is biblical and orthodox. We explain that the discussion will be analyzed slowly, with attention to historical claims, proof texts, and the debate strategy itself. We summarize the definition of Conciliar Trinitarianism as presented in the debate: one God, identified with the Father, and two relationally distinct divine persons, the Son and the Spirit, who share the same divinity as the Father. We note that the case is framed as an inference to the best explanation, using simplicity, explanatory power, fit with background knowledge, and unification. We then work through the biblical arguments for the Son, focusing on John 1, John 17, Philippians 2, and Hebrews 7. We explain that we dispute readings that treat the Logos as the same as the preexistent Son, and we argue that these passages are better read in terms of personification, agency, exaltation, or disputed preexistence language rather than full deity. We next turn to the Holy Spirit, discussing texts such as John 15, John 14, Romans 8, Acts 13, and 1 Timothy 5. We note the claim that the Spirit is a distinct person and fully divine, but we also stress that personal language about the Spirit does not by itself establish a third divine person. We then summarize the appeal to Jewish monotheism, divine identity, and the five categories of names, attributes, actions, rulership, and devotion. We review the use of early Christian writers and councils, while arguing that the historical evidence is mixed and often reflects subordinationist or modalist views rather than later conciliar Trinitarianism.

The Christian internet recently lost his mind when a short video went viral in which Dr. William Lane Craig points out that the New Testament does not teach that the Father "eternally generates" the Son. He also professes skepticism about that traditional, catholic doctrine. Does this make him a heretic? In this episode I react to his follow-up video in which Craig assures those concerned about heresy that he's merely asking questions and repeats that he's agnostic about eternal generation. But as I explain, he is and long has been clearly committed to the falsity of that doctrine. This incident helpfully highlights the questions of what we should do when later traditions clash with Scripture and whether a Protestant should view the "ecumenical" councils as authoritative. Along the way, we also look at early Christian theologies, Craig's idiosyncratic and easily refuted Trinity theories, and silliness about the immanent Trinity vs. the economic Trinity. Here's the video version of this podcast, of course, without the customary Thinking Music (TM). https://youtu.be/bIsJyycA8eI?si=LG_uXYxnoravUH6X Here are some Old Testament passages in which "the Word of the LORD" is personified. Unaccountably, at one point in this video, Dr. Craig denies that there are any such passages. “He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly.” Psalm 147:15 “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.” Isaiah 55:11 Links for this episode: Dr. Craig Responds to Heresy Accusations Over the Nicene Creed podcast 291 – From one God to two gods to three “Gods” – John 1 and early Christian theologies How John 1 was intelligible in the first century Dale Tuggy - What John 1 Meant (UCA Conference 2021) Rauser, "Rahner’s Rule: An Emperor without Clothes?" R.T. Mullins, The Reluctant Theologian Ep. 201 Eternal Generation for Dummies R.T. Mullins, The Reluctant Theologian Ep. 164 The Trinity with William Lane Craig One God, Three Persons, Four Views: A Biblical, Theological, and Philosophical Dialogue on the Doctrine of the Trinity Tuggy, Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible: Essays on Biblical Unitarianism Craig, "Is God the Son Begotten in His Divine Nature?" This week's thinking music is "Two Atomic Heroes (Instrumental)" by Lemon Knife. https://youtu.be/l_ZeKzAvaYg?si=W4FhhzPS_IZrH9Is

Countless millions have testified to the spiritual depth and importance of the Bible, and it is the most-read and most-translated book in human history. Yet in the recent west, reading the Bible has fallen out of favor (not to mention reading in general). Do you have a Bible or two on your shelf that are just collecting dust? Are you intimidated by this influential and important, but not easy-to-read ancient collection of Jewish and Christian writings? The main book discussed in this episode is the stepladder you need to reach the Bible's rich and life-giving contents: Sean Finnegan's Read the Bible for Yourself. It's part of a new, three-book series of books published by Living Hope International Ministries (LHIM) for disciples, those who have been convinced that following Jesus is the only way to live, and who want to follow his footsteps in loving God and our fellow humans. The authors are three well-known unitarian Christian pastors whom I respect and unreservedly recommend (see the links below). In this new interview, Pastor Finnegan and I discuss this some of the very different genres of the biblical books, his new book, and the other two books in this series. Links for this episode: Pastor Sean Finnegan @ UCA Youtube Living Hope Community Church, Latham, New York Restitutio Podcast Finnegan, Read the Bible for Yourself Pastor Will Barlow @ UCA YouTube Compass Christian Church, Louisville, Kentucky Barlow, Explore What We Believe Pastor Victor Gluckin Living Faith Christian Church, Warwick, Rhode Island Gluckin, Follow the Way of Jesus This week's thinking music is "Midnight Relax Blues Jazz" by Auroson Music.

Photo credit: Jerry Wierwille. In this second episode you'll hear the second half of the debate: rebuttals, open discussion time, audience questions and answers, and closing statements. Subjects discussed include: traditional, Chalcedonian views about Christ's two natures and whether these imply one too many persons the worship of Jesus which claims are essential to the gospel whether an immortal being can die the meaning of theos (god or God) as applied to Jesus in a few New Testament passages whether it is coherent to suppose anyone is both human and divine John 8:58 Jesus's faith in God whether a Protestant should trust the "ecumenical" councils practical and spiritual consequences of viewing Jesus as God's human Messiah vs. as a Godman Some of the arguments for Jesus's full deity deployed by Dr. Bird here are addressed in my UCA Conference presentation in Sydney, about a week after this Melbourne debate. And many of the topics are also covered in my newly released book Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible (UK)--such as the meanings of theos in the New Testament (ch. 1). Links for this episode: Tuggy, Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible Dr. Michael Bird’s YouTube channel Dr. Bird’s blog, Substack Exposing The Council of Nicaea with Dr. Dale Tuggy (UCA UK Conference 2025) Dale Tuggy - What John 1 Meant (UCA Conference 2021) Dale Tuggy and James White debate: "Is Jesus YHWH?" Dale Tuggy vs James White | John 1 Is Not Trinitarian podcast 291 – From one God to two gods to three “Gods” – John 1 and early Christian theologies Bock and Loke on Jesus’s “blasphemy” in Mark 14 – Part 2 a reading of Philippians 2:5-11 podcast 227 – Who Should Christians Worship? A letter from the Lord Jesus: About God and Me (Revised) https://youtu.be/l_ZeKzAvaYg?si=4DXENxVYIQIqTkZp Hurtado on the early worship of Jesus Larry Hurtado on early Christians’ worship of Jesus podcast 333 – The Arguments of “God’s Death” Kermit Zarley on “My Lord and my God.” Tuggy, "Craig's Contradictory Christ," TheoLogica, 2023 podcast 343 – Craig’s Contradictory Christ – Part 1 podcast 344 – Craig’s Contradictory Christ – Part 2 Jesus’s argument in John 10 podcast 143 – Dr. Timothy Pawl’s In Defense of Conciliar Christology – Part 1 podcast 144 – Dr. Timothy Pawl’s In Defense of Conciliar Christology – Part 2 podcast 63 – Thomas Belsham and other scholars on John 8:58 podcast 235 – The Case Against Preexistence Romans 9:5 @ biblicalunitarian.com podcast 146 – Jesus as an Exemplar of Faith in the New Testament Will Barlow - The "Throne Room Problem" - Responding to Trinitarian Claims about John 12:41 Scott Williams, "Discovery of the Sixth Ecumenical Council’s Trinitarian Theology: Historical, Ecclesial, and Theological Implications" podcast 334 – “Who do you say I am?” podcast 11 – Tertullian the unitarian Thomas Gaston - Dynamic Monarchianism: The Earliest Christology (book) This week's thinking music is "Ship of Theseus (Instrumental)" by Lemon Knife.

This episode consists of our opening statements. In my opening statement (slides here), I first briefly explain why a trinitarian should not want to identify Jesus and God. I assume that when my opponent says that "Jesus is God" he means that Jesus is fully divine/has the divine nature. I then explain a terrible problem of the official Christology of the Council of Chalcedon in 451: the implication that the divine nature of Christ is a someone (self, person) and the human nature of Christ is another someone (self, person). They try to fix this by asserting that there is only one someone there, but that's no real solution. I then explain how later, the fully developed Chalcedonian catholic tradition does solve this problem by saying that Christ's "complete human nature" (human type of body + human type of soul), is not, because of its "assumption" by the divine nature/eternal Son/Word, a human person. But this clashes with the clear New Testament teaching that Jesus is a man/human person. It is no help to say there there is a "human" person here, meaning a divine person who now bears some mysterious relationship to a human type of soul and a human type of body which don't compose a human person. The problem is only exacerbated by the sixth ecumenical council in 681 at Constantinople, which seems to make each of Christ's natures a person/self/someone by saying that each has a will (an ability to choose). Against this messy, catholic Christology I set out the clear New Testament teachings that the one God is (only) the Father himself, and that Jesus, his Messiah/Christ, is a miraculously conceived man, a human person born to Mary who did not have a biological human father. Properly trinitarian (tripersonal-God-involving) ideas seem to have originated in the latter half of the 300s, and so are alien to the thought world of the New Testament. Against various later speculations, the New Testament Jesus is the Messiah (a.k.a. the Son of God), a man, not an additional, lesser god to the one true god (the Father), or the same god as the Father, or a "divine Person" in an imagined triune god. I then explain five qualities which according to the New Testament Jesus has which rule his being fully divine. About Dr. Bird's claim in his book Jesus Among the Gods that the New Testament Jesus is an ungenerated or unbegotten god, I point at that this is contrary to catholic traditions that say the Father "eternally generates" the Son. He also says there that the New Testament Son is supposed to "a Jewish god," but, I object, that would make him the Jewish god, and so, the Father/Yahweh. I then lay out four lines of evidence that the New Testament authors did not think Jesus to be fully divine, and rebut Dr. Bird's claim that early Christian theology should be seen as "incipient trinitarianism." Dr. Bird says that he holds Jesus to be the second Person of the Trinity because this is what best makes sense of all of Scripture. The Bible teaches monotheism, that there is, strictly speaking, only one god, the creator, Yahweh. He points out that the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher-theologian Philo rejected the possibility of a human becoming a god and the possibility of God becoming a human. He suggests that if Philo had read John 1:1-14 he would have accepted all but the final verse. The author of the Fourth Gospel, Bird says, believes that Jesus in the eternal, divine Son, the Word--not (only) a man attested by God. The one God is known through his actions and is said in the Old Testament to create by his word and by his wisdom. Also, "the angel of the LORD" seems to be both God himself and someone else--a contradiction, or maybe a merely apparent one, a paradox. New Testament authors, he suggests, did not consider Jesus to be only human. In particular, the give him religious worship. They all thought Jesus to be "divine"--the only question was: In what sense? As Thomas said (John 20:28), Jesus is his god. Jesus is worthy of our worship. Paul closely associates together Jesus and God, often mentioning them together. Engaging with Jesus is engaging with the divine. Jesus in the New Testament doesn't claim to be God, Bird argues, but texts like Mark 1:1-3, where the author applies a Yahweh text to Jesus, imply that he is Yahweh returning to Zion. Again, in Mark 2 we see Jesus forgiving human sins, which only God can do. And in Mark 14, before the high priest, Jesus claims that he will be co-enthroned with Yahweh, so that Jesus has divine authority. And John 1 teaches that God's Word is one and the same with the man Jesus. Philippians 2 teaches the full deity of Jesus and says Jesus is worthy of worship--and so we see that Jesus participates in the divine identity. In 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, Bird says, Paul gives a revised, duality-including version of the Shema. And in Hebrews 1:3 Jesus is a representation of God's own being, not a mere man. This Jesus has a unique relationship with the Father, enabling us to have a relationship with him. His opponents understood (John 10:33) that he was claiming ontological equality with God. Thus in Revelation 5 we see the Lamb getting the same worship that was given to God Almighty in the vision of Revelation 4. But Jesus does not deserve that worship unless he is fully divine. It would be blasphemy to worship Jesus if he were a creature. Jesus's full divinity is also implied by prayer to Jesus. Of course, it took mainstream tradition a few centuries to work it all out. But Bird cites Eusebius the historian, Melito of Sardis, the Sibylline Oracles, Justin Martyr, and Ignatius of Antioch as early recognizers of the deity of Christ. He also mentions two pagan testimonies of the early worship of the Son--yet more support for "early high Christology." Bird says that he's not impressed with analytic theology, but at any rate, many analytic theologians are trinitarians, such as Oliver Crisp. He says that he is an exegete, historian, and theologian, suggesting that he is more qualified to answer historical questions about early Christianity. In his view early Christians closely associated Jesus with God and thought Jesus was "from the same source of divinity." Trinitarian theology, he suggests, is not so much taught in the Bible as it is a hermeneutic, a way of reading it, a way of making sense of what the Bible as a whole affirms and denies. He points out that it does better, for instance, than modalism when it comes to reading the accounts of Jesus's baptism. Contrary to what I said it my opening, Dr. Bird says we should think and take comfort in the fact that God was and is one of us, mentioning this 1990s song. In this way, he says, God moved from empathy to sympathy. This was far greater, he says, than sending "a super-human Messiah" to help us. Finally, while conceding that some early Christians may have thought something like what I presented, he suggests that the closest analogue to the Christology I presented was the Christology of the pagan Neoplatonist and critic of Christianity Porphyry, who acknowledged Jesus as (only) a pious and wise man. Bird's Christology, he suggests, far better fits the Bible and the facts of history. Which side put forward the better opening case, and why? Leave us a comment below. Here below is the UCA-produced video. Special thanks to Canterbury Christadelphian Hall for hosting and recording this debate, and to UCA Podcast host Mark Cain for his expert help in producing the audio for this episode and for the video. https://youtu.be/tJKFqF7lYKY?si=KIfP2ez2tekxkztH Links for this episode: Dr. Michael Bird's YouTube channel Dr. Bird's blog, Substack Bird, Jesus Among the Gods (interview on Transfigured) Bird, Evangelical Theology, 2nd ed. Ehrman, Bird, and Stewart, When Did Jesus Become God? podcast 270 – Origen’s “one God” podcast 348 – Novatian’s On the Trinity – Part 2 – Two Thieves and Three Arguments podcast 277 – Was Christ tempted in every way? podcast 391 – Jesus’ Temptations and Ours – Part 1 – Luke 4 podcast 392 – Jesus’ Temptations and Ours – Part 2 – Things Apologists Say podcast 384 – Mainstream Christian Theologies in the Late 100s – Early 200s and Early Trinitarian “Fool’s Gold” podcast 381 – Mainstream Christian Theologies in the year 240: What Trinitarian Apologists Don’t Know Tuggy, Nicaea at 1700: Myths vs. Reality podcast 291 – From one God to two gods to three “Gods” – John 1 and early Christian theologies biblicalunitarian.com Catholic Theologian Hans Küng on New Testament theology This week's thinking music is "Ignite! (instrumental)" by Lemon Knife.