The Irrational Christian: The John Loftus Trinity Argument

Some things are hard to explain in a video, but Rhetorical Bullshit gives it a try:



Any questions?

58 comments:

Anonymous said...

the continual use of terms like "3 people but 1 person" and "3 beings but 1 being" shows this guy does not understand the trinity as defined by theists. if this is a remake of loftus' argument, and loftus uses the same language, loftus doesnt get it either.

its hard to criticize something you dont understand. however if either does actually understand it, but explains it like this on purpose, then both are just attacking a strawman, and purposfully misrepresenting the trinity in an effort to make Christians appear illogical.

philosophers a great deal smarter than these two, even atheists, recognize the trinity as properly defined, is not illogical.

Brad Haggard said...

Questions:

1. How does Occam's razor apply when conceptualizing the Trinity? We aren't comparing explanations at that point.

2. Wouldn't John 1 and Philippians 2 show that the Logos is pre-existent, and took on bodily form in Jesus? (not that the Logos "began to exist" at some point)

3. Isn't Jesus is in His resurrection body "exalted" with God, per 1 Cor. 15?

4. Has he ever read Moltmann, or even a little bit of Fred Sanders?

Brad Haggard said...

Oh, one more:

How is incredulity a serious logical argument?

Anonymous said...

Hey, keep in mind what I wrote is in my book and I ONLY endorse what I actually say. You did read it didn't you?

Nonetheless, "incredibility" is unquestionably a logical argument. It is a probability one which appeals to the background priors someone has.

Anonymous said...

But the difficulty has to do with the three different stages of the Logos.

You can find what I wrote about it right here.

Rob R said...

I second the motion of brad.

Something is hard to undertand/isn't fully disclosed isn't the same as showing that it is irrational.

I'd like to see this guy take on quantum mechanics:

"So if my dad was a subatomic particle, then he wouldn't travel discretely and smoothly through space? Gee, do physicists really think about this?"

Anonymous said...

I never said it was irrational, folks. I do think it's irrational to believe it, but that's an epistemological dispute we have here on a daily basis.

ildi said...

Oooh, Brad invokes Brevet's law this early in the thread...

ildi said...

Oops, meant Rob.

matt the magnificient said...

Believing that god exists is the adult equivelant of a child believing that santa exists, with the same expectations: wonderful gifts in exchange for behaving as their religious leader/parent demands.

Anonymous said...

matt--
I was not a Christian theist until my early-mid 20's. I grew up in a secular houshold, neither hostile nor affirming of God in general.

I have never been told by any pastor or parent that I will receive any presents for obedience to the church or to the parents.

so...?

matt the magnificient said...

please, john. christianity is all about desire to have a home in a magical sky kingdom- your "present" that you are promised every sunday for "christmas" (your death and resurection). and i don't care how fancy you and others can word things, it all boils down to two things if you believe in god. fear his stick, and crave the carrot.

matt the magnificient said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
matt the magnificient said...

and john, as to your comment "the continual use of terms like "3 people but 1 person" and "3 beings but 1 being" shows this guy does not understand the trinity as defined by theists".

i was raised catholic, and converted to christianity. and every church i have ever attended explained the trinity in exacly this manner. 3 beings existing as one, that are the same being.

so i may not be a philospher, but apparently neither were any of the preists and pastors who explained it to me. most church going people rely on church leadership to make sense of things for them, so if the trinity is not being explained as "theists" and "philosphers" "properly define" it to the general god fearing population, maybe you should go set THEM straight, then worry about atheists getting it right.

Anonymous said...

I'd love for lowercase "john" and Bran Haggard to explain what the Trinity is, in their own words.

Because I must admit, I thought the description in the video was one of only two descriptions of the trinity. The other description being "It's like water having three stages: liquid, solid, and gas/vapour."

Is the water analogy something lowercase "john" and Brad are trying to argue?

Rhacodactylus said...

It's funny, as someone who truly doesn't find the bible compelling, the trinity was never one of the things I got hung up on. Every church I have been to gets hung up on it because even fundamentalists have basic math skills, but it never really stuck out to me as even an unusually absurd aspect of the bible.

~Rhaco

Walter said...

Three individual beings who are all somehow the same god seems pretty crazy to me, but probably no crazier than many other religious dogmas. Of course, one can always just punt to mystery, or just say "my church teaches it; I accept it; that settles it."

shane said...

To all believers.

The problem is obviously the fact that christianity evolved into what we have now.
The synoptics make it obviously clear that they viewed Jesus as the promised messiah at one point and nothing more. They saw Him as the son of God and the savior.
But....there was a problem....Jesus did not liberate the Jews from their oppressors. Jesus did not sit on the thrown of David and rule over Israel. Instead He was crucified.

The early christians began to believe Jesus would (according to the gospels) return during the disciples lifetime to claim His thrown.
But as time went on this obviously did not happen which even confused the apostle Paul who began to preach that Jesus kingdom was actually a heavenly one instead an earthly one. It was also around this time that Jesus went from being the messiah to being God Himself!

This view that Jesus was God obviously conflicts with the synoptics (at least) who make the distinction between Jesus and God the father very clear.
All-in-all, the doctrine of the trinity is a later belief and it did more to jeoprodize and jumble the christian faith then make sense of it!

Unknown said...

"How is incredulity a serious logical argument?"

That's what I would ask Behe, Dembski.

***

@John Loftus: your advanced degrees in theology have obviously blinded you to the truth revealed by the Spirit.

God is his Father and his Son and a friendly ghost (or alternately pigeon) at the same time. What is so hard to understand about that?

matt the magnificient said...

at samuel- would that be the same "friendly ghost" that according to the bible, rolled across Egypt, slaughtering children as he went on his merry way?

Tony Hoffman said...

I love the Trinity for its triple badness.

1. It is embarrassingly illogical.
2. It exposes the post hoc theology of Christianity, and the Christian willingness to embrace nonsense rather than question their faith;
3. Even were it somehow explainable and not post hoc, it remains a completely meaningless bit of theology -- "Yeah, well, my God is one except that he's made out of 3 individual beings!" It's not the kind of one-upmanship that wins you a lot of converts.

Thesauros said...

@ MTM
"it all boils down to two things if you believe in god. fear his stick, and crave the carrot."

While the issue is spoken to throughout Scripture, the book of Job, I think, explains it best. This book asks three important questions, two of which you've touched on.

. Will I worship God for what I can get?

. Will I worship God for what I can avoid?

. Will I worship God because He is worthy of being worshipped.

The answer of course is this, "Even though He slay me, yet I will worship Him."

People of faith in Creator God are promised throughout Scripture that they will be persecuted, hated, and killed because of their faith. We're promised that everything people of the world hold dear, will be considered expendable. We are neither promised nor do expect ease of living.

What we are promised and do receive here on earth is joy, peace of mind and soul and the ability to lie back into the arms of the greatest love in the universe - oh, ya, and heaven.

Unknown said...

@matt the magnificient: Clearly you have failed to read the Scriptures and employ the proper interpretation. The Holy Spirit did not roll across Egypt, it was the angel of death. After the Passover, the angel of death was no longer necessary as the Israelites realized how to make swords and kill their enemies directly. Except when Yahweh used bears instead to devour children who make fun of people.

You see the real problem in America today is that we don't follow the Bible. This bullying non-sense could be stopped quite easily if every school simply kept wild bears in the gymnasium and unleashed them on anyone who ever made fun of anyone.

Brad Haggard said...

John, I read your post and here are a couple of points.

1. Jesus in His glorified body isn't a problem in heaven. It isn't an "either/or" proposition because the Logos' nature can once again be unbounded (see Phil. 2:5-11). Jesus' bodily existence is our hope for resurrection and shows His solidarity with the human condition.

2. I think you commit a category error with "divine" and "human" will. Jesus' will was unified, based in the character of the Logos. Phil. 2:5-11 (again) shows that the main reasons for praising Jesus were His humility and willingness to suffer, not for His strength or power. This is the same character demonstrated in Jesus' life, so I think it is anachronistic to try to parse out divine and human wills.

3. Satan did the tempting in Matthew 4. Jesus is the subject of "tempt" but it is in the passive voice. Also, in Hebrews 4:15 the same verb is in its participle form, showing that Jesus was presented with these temptations, but was not drawn astray by them. I think you have a bad definition of "tempt" in that argument.

Magnumdb,

Read Moltmann and you'll get a much clearer exposition of the Trinity. The core of the doctrine is the intense mutuality in the relationship of the three persons. It really makes a difference in how you look at the world. I also would recommend Fred Sanders.

Matt the Magnificent,

You may have had some bad experiences at churches, but you aren't expressing current theological thought on the Trinity. It actually sounds a lot like Freud warmed over.

Tony Hoffman,

You're going to have to show some logical impossibility before you claim that it is illogical. I do agree that it is post-hoc, but contra Shane, the synoptics do reflect Trinitarian thinking (uh, Jesus' baptism, anyone, or the Great Commission in Mt. 28?), and that doesn't even matter because Philippians and 1 Corinthians pre-date them anyways. To see how it does matter, read Moltmann or Seamands, or Sanders.

Thesauros said...

It certainly is a curious group that on the one hand claims to not believe in God while on the other hand sits around writing lectures on trying to understand the Trinity.

matt the magnificient said...

brad you said "You may have had some bad experiences at churches, but you aren't expressing current theological thought on the Trinity. It actually sounds a lot like Freud warmed over."

well brad, my experience was as i stated, and i just spent an hour going to multiple religious websites searching for an alternate explanation of the trinity. and they all prety much say the same thing.

"The Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. The doctrine, one of the most important in the Christian faith, states that God is the Triune God, existing as three persons, or in the Greek, hypostases" , which agrees with what i stated i was taught, and the statements made in the video.


so apparently, the "current theological thought" you refer to has not made its way to popes, pastors, priest, bishops, clergymen, or the common church going person yet. so whatever this "new" explanation is, please feel free to educate us as to what the differences are between the new "current theological thought" and what all other christians seem to be wrong in believing about the trinity, as we have been discussing it here today. and try not to sound like Freud warmed over when you do it, as it seems to insult "higher" levels of intelligence than mine.

Unknown said...

@Matt: This is how it works. You take a square. Then you take a circle. Now combine them to get a squircle. It's a hypostatic union. Don't get it?

You're probably just doomed for not being pre-destined (Calvinism).

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

It's very embarrassing seeing someone engage a topic he obviously does not know anything about..

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

Sam,

man itself is a hypostatic union of soul and body. So unless you find even that concept hard, I'd suggest you find yourself another paradox to ponder.

Walter said...

The Trinity is some silly concept dreamed up so that Christians could convince themselves that they are not violating the first of the Ten Commandments.

Unknown said...

@Lvka: "man itself is a hypostatic union of soul and body."

Evidence?

Brad Haggard said...

Matt,

Look up the Classical Greek distinction between "person" and "substance" (ousia). This is what RB confuses in is video, and they are the basic distinctions hammered out in the creeds and the Cappadocian fathers.

Brad Haggard said...

his video*

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

It's not about "evidence", it's about understanding the concept: if you have no trouble with understanding it (I said "understanding it", not "agreeing with it"), then why do you act so "super-shocked" by the hypostatic union of divinity and humanity in Christ? :-|

word-verif.="light"

Walter said...

Robert Ingersoll says it best with this timeless quote:

Christ, according to the faith, is the second person in the Trinity, the Father being the first and the Holy Ghost third.

Each of these persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither father nor son, but both.

The son was begotten by the father, but existed before he was begotten--just the same before as after. Christ is just as old as his father, and the father is just as young as his son.

The Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and Son, but was equal to the Father and Son before he proceeded, that is to say, before he existed, but he is of the same age as the other two.

So it is declared that the Father is God, and the Son and the Holy Ghost God, and these three Gods make one God. According to the celestial multiplication table, once one is three, and three time one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar: if we add two to one we have but one. Each one equal to himself and to the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity.

Robert said...

What is Brevet's law? Google turns up nothing.

matt the magnificient said...

@ samuel So now god (and me, apparently) is a squircle? religion sure has changed since i gave it up for reality. I like old testament god better, his angry way of explaining thins was so much easier to keep up with. bring back the bears!!!!

ildi said...

My bad; it's Bevet's law, and this is more like a reverse-Bevet. Actually, I was trying to find the equivalent of Godwin's law for the habit people have of eventually invoking quantum mechanics as a reason to justify believing in all sorts of woo.

Unknown said...

@matt: I advocated for bringing back the bears on my blog.

(http://okiephilosophy.blogspot.com)

Shameless self-promotion I know.

@Lvka: "It's not about "evidence", it's about understanding the concept:"

Exactly.

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

..so you honestly DON'T understand the body-and-soul concept?.. :-\

Papalinton said...

Lvka
"man itself is a hypostatic union of soul and body"

This is a purely theological concept, with absolutely no substantive corroborating evidence to support the claim.

It is not even a philosophical concept unless such is discussed within the ambit of theistic philosophy.

As Mark K. Bilbo says: "The very need for a thing called 'apologetics' is an example of the weakness of the theistic argument. 'God' always needs apologies, rationalizations, explanations, equivocations, excuses."

Cheers

Papalinton said...

Hi Walter
Ingersoll was astute.

My take is: God had himself born, had himself tried, had himself crucified, had himself buried, had himself live again, had himself ascend into heaven, and had himself sit on the right hand side of himself.

Not bad for a one-man show, was it?

And I'm still trying to figure out how he died for every persons' sins when he was only dead for a little over 48 hours [From Friday to Sunday morning]. Not much of sacrifice really, there have been many a good people who have been in a vegetative coma for a far greater time than the piddling 48+ hours that jesus was dead for.

In the beginning there was the WORD - at the end just a CLICHÉ.

Sheesh

shane said...

Samuel.

Do you even know what your talking about?
You said-"God is His own father and His own son and a friendly ghost all at the same time, whats so hard to understand about that"?

Samuel think about what your saying, your comment does not make any logical sense to the human mind as it works.
You try to make the concept of the trinity out to be something totally reasonable....but it defies reason bud.

Jesus (apparently) said in the garden before His arrest "Father I pray that this cup be passed from me, but your will be done, not my will"...........

-If the gospel author wanted us to believe Jesus and God were the same being....then why tell us Jesus and God have two seperate wills?

-If Jesus and God are the same being, then why would Jesus ask if the cup could be passed from Him? Didn't He know His own will?...Why would He ask Himself a question?

Once Jesus divintiy was established (mostly by vote) is when the doctrine of the trinity came into play....and like I said, all it did was make christianity even more illogical!

shane said...

Here is another reason why the trinity does not make any sense-

Jesus (apparently said), that any sin or blaspheme against Him or God can be forgiven. But any blaspheme against the holy spirit will not be forgiven in this age or the next (the unforgivable sin).

This begs the question-If Jesus,God, and the holy spirit are all the same person, then wouldn't baspheming one of them also be blashpmeing all of them?

If there is only one God and He is made up of all three persons, then why would blasphmeing two of those persons be forgivable, but blasphmeing the other one is not?...according to christian theology THERE SUPPOSSED TO BE THE SAME BEING!
The gospels dont even support the modern theology.

matt the magnificient said...

@ shane

Samuel was making a joke.

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

Papa Linton,

don't preach. -- I didn't ask you or Sam to convert, all I've asked you two was to stop using double standards. That you don't agree with something is one thing; to accuse it of internal incoherency or inconsitency is quite another.

Tony Hoffman said...

Brad,

I tried responding twice now to your question, but it seems that it didn't take yet. I'm trying again.

Brad: "You're going to have to show some logical impossibility before you claim that it is illogical."

I think that this is illogical:

1 + 1 + 1 = 1
Jesus is 100% human and 100% God.
God sent himself to sacrifice himself for something that God blamed on the creation he made that behaved according to the way God made it.
Etc.

Mr. Gordon said...

Matt the Magnificent,
I am sorry this is totally off topic. But Catholics are Christians. Actually Catholics were one of the first Christian groups. Now maybe you meant that you converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, that would make more sense. Sorry but I could not let that go by.

Harold

matt the magnificient said...

harold. well i'm not much for the semantics game, but in catholics eyes (at least my family and specifically my grandmothers who was pretty mad when i made the jump) there are catholics, and then there are christians. so fine, protestant, whatever you want to call it, i left catholicism and headed out to find jesus. but your right, i did discover there is no real diferrence, as i discovered: they all want money money money.

Thesauros said...

they all want money


http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2007/01/part-one-will-real-bigot-please-stand.html

Unknown said...

Chippy prefers acorns to money.

He's looking for preachers. John Loftus has the necessary credentials.

matt the magnificient said...

@ samuel You have made a consistant arguement and supplied the proof of the resurection of chippy. i am conviced that chippy rose from the dead on the word of the witnesses and am willing to worship chippy. please let me know where to send the acorns. is it still the standard 10% with 30% every 7 years, or does chippy require more? whatever it is, i will devote my resources and time to worshiping chippy, spreading chippys word and basking in chippy's glorious afterglow. thank you for bringing the knowlege of chippy's miricale into my life.

Jorge said...

@ Walter wrote:
Re "Each of these persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither father nor son, but both."

Here's how I understand the Trinity, from what the Bible says: The Father is God, His Son (Jesus) is God and the Holy Ghost is God. Three persons, one God.
There are biblical references for each of those statements.

@ Papalinton wrote
Re "And I'm still trying to figure out how he died for every persons' sins when he was only dead for a little over 48 hours.."

How long do you think it would have to take ;-)
The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus' sacrifice would satisfy the penalty that had to be paid to redeem His people. Not based on time issues, but in the mere action.

@ Shane wrote
"This begs the question-If Jesus,God, and the holy spirit are all the same person, then wouldn't baspheming one of them also be blashpmeing all of them?"

Jesus, God (the Father) and the Holy Spirit are not the same person. They are three different "persons", but One God in essence.

Walter said...

The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus' sacrifice would satisfy the penalty that had to be paid to redeem His people. Not based on time issues, but in the mere action

If Jesus had died from a bad case of kidney stones would you still be redeemed? He just had to die, right? Did not matter how.

Jorge said...

@ Walter wrote:
"If Jesus had died from a bad case of kidney stones would you still be redeemed? He just had to die, right? Did not matter how."

Hi, Walter. Well, no. It did matter how He died. To begin, there's the little issue of Bible prophecies that had to be fulfilled.
Then, after He began His ministry, He makes it clear what that plan was, when He told His disciples what would have to happen to Him.

Breckmin said...

a healthy debate between an ANT Monotheist and a classic Trinitarian would expose how incredibly unwise this video actually is in dealing with the meanings of personae/persona and/or hypostasis/hypostases and how these correlate with the "eternally begotten" states of the Son and Holy Spirit as meantioned in the Athanasian Creed.

there is no understanding here in the imperfection of contemporary uses of the words "person" and "beings" here - and how these do NOT properly apply to the distinctions of the Holy Trinity.

shane said...

jorge.

You said Jesus, God (the father), and the holy spirit, are three different persons but the same being in essence?

What does it mean to say they are the same being in essence?
Can you explain what essence is suppossed to mean?

Jorge said...

@Shane
Hi, Shane. Please forgive me for taking so long to answer you. I lost track of where I posted comments. In short, here's a definition from the dictionary: Essence: something that exists, esp. a spiritual or immaterial entity.
I think that closely describes God, although, like most explanations for God, it breaks down somewhere (after all, this is God we're talking about).
Another way to try to explain Him would be The Father + The Son + Holy Spirit = God.
Three separate, distinct persons, that can exist separately, yet one in essence. In other words, when we say "God", we refer to the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, depending in the "role" (or person) being spoken of in a particular circumstance.