The following is a public exchange I had with Analytic Theologian, Dale Tuggy (PhD) on his Facebook Page in March, 2025 over Biblical Unitarianism. I’m grateful that Dr Tuggy took the time to engage, even briefly, as I think it allowed the core issues to surface plainly.
I’m reposting it here—unaltered—for easy reference, because I believe it highlights the critical weaknesses of Biblical Unitarianism: philosophically, hermeneutically, and theologically. Dr. Tuggy is perhaps the most prominent living advocate of this view, and even in this brief interaction, I believe it becomes clear how poorly the position holds up under the weight of Scripture and the demands of the gospel.
Biblical Unitarianism is not merely a different doctrinal emphasis—it is a modern rebranding of Socinianism, a position the global church has historically condemned as heresy. It denies the full deity of Jesus Christ, reduces the Holy Spirit to an impersonal force, and redefines God in strictly unipersonal terms. In doing so, it:
- Dismantles the Trinity
- Undermines the incarnation
- Empties the cross of divine worth
- Strips the gospel of saving power
This is not a secondary disagreement or a benign doctrinal variant. It is a first-rank gospel issue (Gal. 1:6–9), because it concerns the identity of God Himself—and therefore the One we are called to worship. The Jesus of Biblical Unitarianism is not the eternal Son made flesh, but a glorified man—an exalted creature. If Christ is not fully divine, then we have no Saviour who can reconcile us to God. That is another gospel. And by the standard of Scripture, it is not Christianity.
My aim in sharing this is not to provoke, but to equip those navigating similar conversations with clarity and conviction.
For further debates with Dale Tuggy, I recommend:
Gavin Ortlund has also had a helpful conversation with Jacob Hansen (Mormon) regarding the Trinity.
There is a treasure trove of good reading on this topic. Two stand out books that have helped me are:
- The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense by Robert M. Bowman Jr., and J. Ed Komoszewski (arguably the most direct and well-rounded modern biblical response to BU and Socinian-style objections)
- Jesus among the gods: Early Christology in the Greco-Roman World by Michael F. Bird (this book dismantles the “Jesus isn’t God until Nicea” trope and shows that early Christians included Jesus in the divine identity without breaking Jewish monotheism).
I plan on providing less academic reflections on Biblical Unitarianism in due course (maybe a YT clip or follow up post).
Dale Tuggy
Have you ever heard a Christian PhD make a case from the Bible that Jesus is not the one God himself? Well, here you go – a full debate. You can google up some debate reviews after. But I’ll just say that I’m happy with how I did.
Dave Deane
Hey Dale, it seems to me that your argument presupposes a particular identity theory supportive of Unitarianism and then critiques Trinitarianism on that basis. Trinitarianism holds that Yahweh is one being, not one person, so Jesus being Yahweh does not mean He is the Father. You’re well aware of this, as it’s been discussed in multiple forums. Your objection seems to assume that personal distinction within Yahweh negates ontological unity, but this is exactly what Trinitarians insist Scripture affirms. So, respectfully, I guess I struggle to see how your comment (and debate with White more broadly) engages with Trinitarianism; it simply restates Unitarianism.
Dale Tuggy
Dave, what I’m presupposing about identity is just part of the contents of what we call logic and critical thinking. It’s not a particularly theological (nor unitarian) concept; it’s the common coin of everyone nowadays who is educated in logic. I explain more here: https://trinities.org/blog/identity/
And here: https://trinities.org/…/apologetics-blind-spot…/
So, this idea that somehow my case depends on some Trinity-hostile theological assumption . . . it’s just wrong. Like, demonstrably wrong. Trinitarians who are educated in logic (sadly, not most systematic theologians!) all understand and use this concept, and it’s part of what they consider when giving their specific interpretation of what “the doctrine of the Trinity” amounts to. So, all the theories here are carefully steering around the sort of incoherence described in section 1.4 – because, they understand identity statements. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trinity/
So, my advice is, do better than the common apologist. Get a logic textbook, understand identity statements and how these are used in conjunction with the universal quantifier (For every x whatever . . . ) and the existential quantifier (There is some x such that . . . ) and then proceed in carefully thinking about the Trinity.
Lastly, you know where I first learned about identity statements, and the basic points I make here? I learned them in a class taught by JP Moreland at Biola! He made the point that if Jesus = God, then whatever is true of one would have to be true of the other. But the trinitarian should deny that. So a trinitarian should not identify Jesus and God. That sounded scandalous to me upon first hearing it, but when I understood the content of identity statements after learning more logic, I came to see this is obviously true. https://trinities.org/…/podcast-124-a-challenge-to…/
One last comment. This part, I can’t easily understand “Trinitarianism holds that Yahweh is one being, not one person, so Jesus being Yahweh does not mean He is the Father. You’re well aware of this, as it’s been discussed in multiple forums. Your objection seems to assume that personal distinction within Yahweh negates ontological unity” It may be that you’re thinking that any trinitarian needs relative identity theory; many trinitarians disagree, though a minority agrees. https://trinities.org/…/podcast-271-does-your-trinity…/ To understand how radical that is, you have to first understand the usual thinking about identity which I’ve explained above. On the other hand, if you have in mind this argument: Father = God, Son = God, therefore, Father = Son – this is clearly valid – I explain why in the Stanford piece linked above. This is why trinitarians like Craig and Hasker deny both of those premises! In sum, I don’t deny “personal distinction within Yahweh negates ontological unity”. I don’t even know what that sentence means, so I can’t affirm or deny it. You’d have to tell me more about what “personal distinction” amounts to.
Dave Deane
Dale I appreciate the reply, despite significant disagreement. I certainly grant that there’s no “Unitarian logic” in a formal sense. But it seems to me that the logic implicitly assumed by Unitarians is not some neutral, universal standard of “the regular contents of what we call logic and critical thinking,” like you suggest. That assumption itself is contestable. Yes, classical logic includes standard identity principles, but the way those principles are applied in theological discourse is never neutral, it always involves prior metaphysical and hermeneutical commitments. I know you’re aware of this (having listened to enough of your discussions), so I’m not saying anything you haven’t encountered before. But for clarity’s sake: it’s not as simple as invoking something like Leibniz’s Law (if A = B, then whatever is true of A must be true of B) as if that alone resolves the issue. Trinitarian theology does not claim that “Jesus = God” in the same way that “Dave Deane = me.” A more plausible way to parse Trinitarian claims is in terms of predication, not strict identity; Jesus fully possesses the divine nature, just as the Father and Spirit do, without exhausting what is meant by “God” in the absolute sense. So, the logical structure here is not one of singular identity but of shared divine nature among distinct persons. And as you (also) know, what drives this for Trinitarians is not merely a philosophical preference, but clear exegetical conclusions concerning statements about the Father, Son, and Spirit. That’s ultimately where this disagreement is settled, and decisively so, in my opinion.
I’ll leave aside the unhelpful jabs about needing to do better at apologetics and any assumptions about my education, or Trinitarians needing some basic schooling to that end, except to say: if that were the real issue, the very prof you appeal to wouldn’t be making the case against your conclusion.
Dale Tuggy
“Trinitarian theology does not claim that “Jesus = God” in the same way that “Dave Deane = me.” My friend, I wish this were so! But in fact, many trinitarians think that way; you can tell from their “only God could X” arguments; the conclusion of those is precisely “Jesus = God.” Again, those who strongly urge that it is an apparent contradiction – some of them think exactly that way, with the standard Trinity shield interpreted all in terms of affirmations and denials of = statements. But yeah, what you say is plausible, the standard Bill Craig move, taught to most apologists now: “Jesus is God” etc. should be understand only to mean “Jesus is divine.” OK. We’re not much better off, of course – now we have an apparent tritheism problem to try to deal with. AND in the NT they clearly assume not only that the Father is divine, but also, that he is one and the same with Yahweh, the one God. In the end, yes, it is an exegetical question. BUT, evidence is evidence. There is historical evidence about historical Christian views. And there is the NT and historical evidence I deployed in the recent debate book and in my debate with James White. There’s no way to somehow close off the exegetical task from the totality of relevant evidence. In fact, no one actually does that, though some convince themselves that they are. Please forgive me with my off the cuff comments above if I offended you. I do sometimes lose patience with apologists and their fans. Not only have I been banging on about careful reasoning about = statements, but the information has just been sitting in the logic textbooks for decades now. When they train apologists, oddly, often Christian educational programs instead deploy outdated Aristotelian-style logic, which is ill-equipped to analyze identity statements. So it is the same easily avoided mistakes, over, and over, and over.
Dave Deane
Hey Dale, I think your latest comment here is a good example of where I honestly struggle to track with your Unitarian thought, so I’m going to respectfully press you here.
I concede “Jesus = God” is shorthand and imprecise or incomplete, leading to any number of interpretative confusions and misrepresentations. I think part of the problem is that contemporary debates about whether “Jesus is God” tend to assume we all know what we mean by “God”, so the debate becomes a matter of whether “Jesus” fits into some preconceived notion of “God”. But as I read the NT and the various debates leading up to the first council of Nicaea, the issue seems precisely the reverse: how does this ‘broadly recognised to be amazing bloke named Jesus’ affect our understanding of God? For the early Jews converts (Peter, Paul, James, etc), this was a rethinking of their so-called “monotheism” (and I would argue, a recognition of the ‘plurality’ or ‘elasticity’ of the ‘oneness of God’ already evident in the theological infrastructure of the Heb OT). I think it’s that train of thought starts to pull away from any insistence that the Shema necessitates strict numerical or monad-like oneness.
As to avoiding shorthand confusions, I think Trinitarians can help themselves if they’re more precise in our language. Sure, I’ll grant that. I think Trinitarians speak more precisely or completely if we affirm “Jesus is eternally God the Son” or use words that convey His eternal identity as the Son, rather than simply affirming “Jesus is God”. But, save any confusion, I personally don’t have any problems affirming the shorthand on account of its Trinitarian meaning.
As to that fuller, nuanced theological meaning of “Jesus is God”—along with logic—this, too, has been sitting in textbooks, but not just for decades—for centuries. And this is where I’d like to press you, because it seems like we’re starting to needlessly orbit. Broadly speaking, Trinitarian thought has long made this distinction clear: Jesus is divine, meaning He possesses the divine nature, but that does not mean He is numerically identical to the Trinity or to God the Father. Hence, to argue “Only God can x, Jesus did x, therefore Jesus is God,” does not necessitate an affirmation of numerical identity; for Trinitarians, again (as you know), this is a predicative claim that Jesus possesses the divine nature. This has been my issue with your argument from the outset, and I think it is critical because it addresses the actual Trinitarian claim rather than attacking an imprecise or incomplete shorthand version of it, which I think you tend to do ad nauseum. Do you recognise the distinction of predication being made here? If so, doesn’t it change the conversation and many of your other talking points around Tritheism etc. which simply fall away?
You point out that the NT consistently identifies the Father as Yahweh. No disagreement there. But the NT also applies Yahweh-exclusive passages to Jesus, passages that, in their OT context, are clearly referring to the one God. So, if Jesus is not Yahweh, why does the NT repeatedly apply Yahweh texts to him? Phil 2 applies Isa 45, Heb 1 applies Psa 102, John 12 applies Isa 6, 1 Cor 8 reformulates the Shema, and on and on we could go. If you say these are somehow ‘representational’, I’d need to see that substantiated in the original languages. Again, this isn’t about imposing Trinitarian categories onto the text, it’s about the text forcing us to rethink how we understand God’s identity in light of Christ.
So, back to my initial comment. I think you’re assuming Unitarianism as the default position, but I don’t see you justifying why it should be (against James R. White, or Chris Date, or Anthony Rogers, or anyone else I’ve seen you interact with for that matter). You keep pressing Trinitarians to resolve apparent logical tensions, but what if the real problem isn’t with Trinitarian logic, but your historically marginal metaphysical framework that is too narrow to handle what the Gk NT actually says? Unitarianism is a theological footnote in Church history for a reason. And I think this is one of them. Why should we assume that “one God” must mean one person rather than one divine essence? What’s the exegetical basis for assuming that Yahweh must be understood strictly unipersonally as a methodological prior for interpreting Scripture? I grant that Trinitarianism cannot be established by some singular biblical proof texting; as a doctrine it is a theological configuration of the nature and workings of God. But the question here is which doctrine (Unitarianism or Trinitarianism) best drives a consistent and faithful exegesis of what the Scriptures have to say about Israel’s one God and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I know, or at least I think I know, that you hold to the authority of Scripture. So in theory, we should have some common ground in interpretation. But as it stands, I struggle to see how Unitarianism’s view of Christ doesn’t just rearrange the furniture of Christian theology—it burns the house to the ground and calls the ashes ‘home.’
And to clarify, it’s not so much that I was offended by your comments, but that they simply undermined the point you were making. There is solid exegetical grounds for maintaining Trinitarian orthodoxy, which is why many skilled philosophers in logic beyond you and me have defended its coherence.
Dale Tuggy
“Jesus is God” – that’s terribly vague, yes. But “Jesus = God” as I mean it – I gave explanatory links before, is *as clear as any statement*. When I attack that, I’m attacking as clear a claim as there is. I’m not merely complaining about applying the word “God” to Jesus – I have no objection to that! (I see it in Heb 1:8-9.) My approach is generally: what you *you* mean by “Jesus is God” – then we’ll go from there. About your other points: there is zero evidence in the NT of any controversy about monotheism and how that is understood – no searching for new flexibility, new definitions, or whatnot. History shows that Jews or Muslims pounce the second any trinitarian stuff is afoot. But the core theology of Jesus and his Jewish critics is the same, when it comes to who God is – it’s the one Jesus prays to as “Father” – this is the Lord God, the one formerly called YHWH. See his friendly discussion of the Shema in Mark. “You point out that the NT consistently identifies the Father as Yahweh. No disagreement there. But the NT also” Sigh. This comment shows me that you don’t understand what I mean by “identify” – a coherent text does not identity (assert the numerical sameness of) this one and also this other one. Do you see why? I’m going to stop there for the moment, till you see what my problem is, why I think you, as a trinitarian, ought not grant that the NT identifies God and the Father. (That does not mean: call God “Father.”) Please understand the basic points of this, and we’ll continue the conversation, and I’ll address your other points. https://trinities.org/…/podcast-248-how-trinity…/ If you have questions about this, I’ll answer first before we continue.
We will get to the “assuming” bit – that is important. But, first things first.
Dave Deane
Dale, thanks. Is it telling of how much I’ve listened to you that I can almost hear your “sigh” as I read this? 😄 Again, respectfully (and I do mean that, I have no ill-will), I can’t help but sense that instead of engaging my actual questions, you’re shifting the conversation back to a Unitarian safe space. To be blunt, I’m not willing to “understand the basic point of this” before continuing because the very framework you’re proposing is the very thing I’m challenging and it’s neither reasonable nor fair to expect me to accept the very premise under dispute before we continue. If the issue is whether your framework is valid, then asking me to first assume it is not an argument, it’s a demand for concession. Trinitarianism needs to be debated on its own terms, not Tuggy’s terms. I still don’t know, for example, what your answer is to the distinction between predication and numerical identity. Do you acknowledge that predication (Jesus possesses the divine nature) is not the same as strict numerical identity (Jesus is the entire Godhead)? If not, why?
I’m aware that Unitarians have no real issue applying words like “God” or “Lord” to Jesus in non-divine, functional ways, as in the case of Moses or Israelite kings/priests. But I have already made my position clear to you: Jesus is eternally God the Son. And I take that to be an ontological claim of divine identity, that the Son is the same God as the Father (without being the Father), not merely a functional role. That distinction matters.
Your claim that there is “zero evidence” in the NT of any controversy about monotheism is false. The entire conflict between Jesus and the Jewish authorities revolved around his identity. That’s why they wanted him dead. Mark 2:7, John 5:18, John 8:58-59, John 10:30-33, these and other passages are examples of Jewish leaders reacting violently to Jesus because His words and actions challenged their understandings of God. And while the word monotheism isn’t used in the NT (any more than the word Trinity, mind you) the concepts are clearly in play, which is why debates about Jesus’ identity didn’t stop in His lifetime, but continued into the early church, where Christians were accused of blasphemy and of corrupting monotheism, etc. Again, you know this. You’ve been told this many times. The problem, as I see it, is that it simply doesn’t compute within your Unitarian framework.
I hope I’m not boring you at this point, but since “the ‘assuming’ bit” seems to be the main bit, I also think you’ve misrepresented or misunderstood my argument about the NT identifying the Father as Yahweh. Again, I’m not arguing for numerical identity. I pointed out that the NT calls the Father Yahweh while also applying Yahweh-exclusive texts to Jesus. The point is not that they are “the same person.” The point is that the NT authors deliberately include Jesus within the unique identity of Yahweh. If this is a category mistake, then surely the NT writers were making it too because they’re the ones applying Yahweh-exclusive texts to Christ.
I think most of my questions remain open, and I’d genuinely be interested in your direct engagement with them.
Dale Tuggy
Dave, OK, you’re determined not to understand the logic of identity statements. That is on you. It is not my “framework” or some sort of blinkered unitarian assumptions. It’s like refusing to understand modus ponens. You think I’m dodging; no, I’m trying to teach you something true and important which you do not understand. But, I’m going to leave you free to continue to ignore those points. You simply refuse to hear the incompatibility between NT theology and Trinity theories. That is on you.
Lest you think I’m trying to change the subject, I’ll briefly address your other points. First, about the lazy “assuming” accusation. This is an irrelevant ad hominem, to the effect that I’m just closed-minded. People reach for this when they deploy their favorite proof-texts on me and I am unmoved. He must just be biased, they think. OR, maybe I’m well-familiar with the sort of explanation you’ve put your trust in, and I have moved on to a better explanation. What is most ironic is that those most freely throwing the “assuming” charge are often people who’ve really only ever considered the trinitarian side of the question. In an innocent and trivial sense I’m “assuming” of course, just like you are: when I read the Bible, I’m trying to make sense of it all in light of other things I know (or think I know). People see me, they think, looking at the same evidence that they are looking at, and I’ve come to a different conclusion. (Although very often, I’m looking at a wider set of evidence.) So, this silly Tuggy fellow must be assuming some *crazy* philosophical things that are steering him wrong. But no one has ever shown what those are. There just aren’t any. I am and always have been a Bible-oriented evangelical. My philosophical views are very vanilla and a good fit with Christian and theistic claims. In epistemology I’m a Reidian/Plantingian, for instance. The stuff about = that I was trying to help you understand: every trinitarian analytic philosopher (and many of their students) understand exactly those things. (Even the minority relative identity theorists, who disagree on some important points.) OK, but different people with different theological commitments almost always view the texts through that theological lens. Realizing that for this reason proof-text wars are futile, I have in the last seven or eight years adopted an inductive style of argument that *indisputably does not beg the question* (assume the point being contested). See this in trinities podcast 189 (and the resulting book chapter – it’s on Academia.edu), my debate with James White, and the recent debate book. That should be put to rest the lazy objection that I’m merely “assuming unitarianism.” In the debate book, see how the other three respond to my facts-based arguments. I think it is very revealing.
“I take that to be an ontological claim of divine identity” This is the insidious influence of the confused and confusing new “divine identity” lingo coined by Bauckham. See my “On Bauckham’s Bargain” for why that doesn’t get us anywhere.
The texts you cite show controversies about Jesus and his claims, of course, but not controversies about what monotheism means or how many “Persons” God is. His enemies wanted him dead, yes, but not because he claimed to be God. They would have gleefully thrown this in his face at his trials, but according to our evidence, they did not. To address one of your texts in a little more detail, in the famous incident in John 10 Jesus corrects them: he’s claiming to be God’s Son (a title of the Messiah). https://trinities.org/blog/jesuss-argument-in-john-10/ NT scholars discuss “the misunderstanding motif” in John. “The Jews” there, his Jewish opponents, are consistently portrayed as point-missing. It is wrongheaded to say, especially in this book, “See, his Jewish contemporaries understood what he was saying.” No, the message of the whole book is that Jesus is God’s Christ.
“I pointed out that the NT calls the Father Yahweh while also applying Yahweh-exclusive texts to Jesus.” No, let’s be more careful here. The word YHWH doesn’t occur in the NT. And “Lord” is used ambiguously, for God, and then also for Jesus. That this is so, just look in a lexicon, means that we can’t just substitute “Yahweh” for “Lord” in the NT. Usually the context makes clear which is meant, God or Jesus, but not always. Here again, your identity-blindness is tripping you up. If you argue, 1. Only Yahweh can A. (do something, be called something, or whatever). 2. Jesus can A. What follows is 3. Jesus = Yahweh (that those are one and the same). Now, that, as a trinitarian, is not a claim you should want, as it rules out Trinity = Yahweh! What you’re not seeing is the logical structure of premise 1. The standard analysis is, and again, this is just logic textbook stuff: For any x whatever, x can A only if x = Yahweh. That is what you’re saying when you say that Only Yahweh can A.
I think what you mean to say is rather this: 1. Only someone with the nature of God/Yahweh can A. 2. Jesus can A. Therefore, 3. Jesus has the nature of God/Yahweh. This is also a valid argument, and doesn’t disastrously collapse together Jesus with God. In cases like this, I generally will deny premise 1, as it is not taught in scripture anywhere, nor is there any other good argument for it. And the man Jesus seems to be the counterexample that shows it to be false. e.g. forgiving sins, serving as an atoning sacrifice, saying “Before Abraham was, I am he,” know what is in people’s hearts, etc.
Even if you ever get clear about identity statements, you may still ask why on earth NT authors are saying that Jesus fulfills OT texts which were originally about Yahweh. That is an excellent question. The short answer is that they believed Scripture, as inspired, can have multiple meanings and so multiple fulfillments, even ones unknown to the original human author. This is obviously happening, e.g in Matthew, “Out of Egypt I have called my Son” (originally about the chosen people) and Immanuel (originally about a baby in Isaiah’s time). The author’s point is NOT that Jesus is that same baby, or that (nonsensically) he is the ancient Jews. More generally, there is a clear interpretive fallacy here. https://trinities.org/…/the-bible-teaches-that-david…/ About the NT authors – look at the context of any of these re-applications of what were originally Yahweh texts. You’ll find that the author does not, ever, conclude that Jesus is Yahweh. No, they keep right on distinguishing the unique Lord from the unique God (Eph 4), and the Father is still the God of the Lord Jesus (Eph 1). Now, something else may be going on in some texts too, e.g. make straight the paths of Yahweh. The author may be making the point that Yahweh himself is fulfilling the prediction through the actions of his human Messiah. In that case, it would be the original meaning. This all falls under the scholarly topic of “NT use of the OT.” One last point: this argument from fulfilled Yahweh texts is a modern phenomenon. I don’t see any ancient author arguing this way, that Jesus is Yahweh himself or “belongs to the divine identity” (whatever that means!) because he fulfilled a predication originally about Yahweh. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if some ancient modalist argued this way. It’s a natural way to argue that Jesus is God himself! After all, “Yahweh” is a personal name, a proper name, a label for a someone, like Jeff, or Sally. Many, like James White, who express what they imagine as trinitarianism as “Jesus is Yahweh” seem often to be thinking simply that Jesus and God are the same someone. If you’re a one-self trinitarian, this may be what you think. But other trinitarians will cry, “That’s Modalism, Patrick!”
What’s ironic about people denouncing my “philosophy” and repeating Bauckham’s “divine identity” stuff, is that his whole train of thought there is inspired by poorly done philosophy. “Identity” is short for “personal identity” i.e. being the same person as. But this is what it is for A to be the same person as B: A is a person, B is a person, and A = B. For more on Bauckham, https://trinities.org/…/podcast-213-has-bauckham…/
” I still don’t know, for example, what your answer is to the distinction between predication and numerical identity. Do you acknowledge that predication (Jesus possesses the divine nature) is not the same as strict numerical identity (Jesus is the entire Godhead)? If not, why?” Um, yes. I have understood this for a very long time. Just look at my “Trinity” entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia. Most of those authors affirm that Jesus is divine and deny that he = God. I claim that the NT does not come anywhere close to teaching the full divinity of Jesus. If you want to argue that he’s to some degree or in some way divine, that is less clear. But all the essential divine attributes. No way. That is why subordinationism is so prevalent before Nicea. https://youtu.be/l_ZeKzAvaYg?si=AWdVRNN_-zKLm1ah
” as I read the NT and the various debates leading up to the first council of Nicaea, the issue seems precisely the reverse: how does this ‘broadly recognised to be amazing bloke named Jesus’ affect our understanding of God?” Eventually, yes, around 381 they as it were move the Son into the godhead / make him one of there divine “Persons.” Before that, you basically have modalists, dynamic monarchians (basically my view), and logos theorists. But no trinitarians. Logos theorists, like me, thought the one true God and the Father are one and the same. What catholic traditions do is that ignore the views of the logos theorists which rule out their being trinitarians, and sort of grandfather them in as proto-trinitarians, or defective trinitarians, or trinitarians who are struggling because they don’t have the terminology they had in the time of Augustine. But not, they just aren’t trinitarian, as I explain in detail in some recent lectures. Here is one https://youtu.be/KxYtTQDo1dA?si=6cz27rdmkmUCkzyt
This is really a fundamental issue. You’re committed to the trinitarian narrative that somehow the tradition was always trinitarian – it merely struggled to express it, and finally got more clear. But that story doesn’t survive a lot of careful investigation of the primary sources. I would recommend the works of Origen and Novatian as particularly instructive in this regard. They most clearly display the 3 camps in that time: theirs (Logos theory), the modalists, and the dynamic monarchians. Catholics find it easier to see the falsity of the trinitarian narrative, as they can say, “I don’t care if early Christianity was properly speaking trinitarian, because for me Church tradition is primary, and well, they’re teaching it now!” We Protestants need it all to be packed into the NT. Well, a lot of things are, but not a Trinity doctrine.
Dave Deane
Dale, I appreciate you taking the time to write such a lengthy response. However, I have to be honest—I find it to be scattered and unfocused, shifting between different topics rather than engaging with the arguments head-on. It’s like you’re throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, making assertions without justification, and, once again, using rhetoric to undermine disagreement rather than engaging the arguments head-on. I’ve not called you lazy, I’ve not called you crazy, I’ve not lowered my commentary to ad hominem at any point, as far as I’m aware. All I’ve done is what I think anyone with a PhD in philosophy should be willing to accept: challenge to implicit metaphysical assumptions. You’ve admitted key distinctions (like predication vs. numerical identity) but then continue to argue as if they don’t matter. This makes it increasingly difficult to track your position, but I’ll do my best.
On Logic
“determined not to understand identity logic… like refusing to understand modus ponens… closed minded. People reach for this when they deploy their favorite proof-texts on me and I am unmoved…”
Dale, this is a clear mischaracterisation of what’s happening here, and I’ll be so bold as to prove it. You claim I’m refusing to understand identity logic, yet I’ve explicitly pressed you on the distinction between predication and numerical identity—a distinction you’ve acknowledged. If I were truly “identity-blind,” why would you still be engaging with me? (I do appreciate it, by the way). Equating what I’m saying with ‘refusing to understand modus ponens’ is, with terrible irony, a fallacy. Modus ponens is a self-evident rule of inference, your numerical identity approach to understanding NT relations of Father, Son, and Spirit, is not. That’s been my point all along. So, if you’re assuming that your identity-based argument in support of Unitarianism is as self-evidently true as modus ponens, you’re telling me that you’re simply assuming the conclusion of the point under dispute, as I said in my very first comment to you.
Lest there be any confusion, let me illustrate this as simply as I know how.
Modus ponens:
(P → Q) If it is raining, the ground will be wet.
(P) It is raining.
(∴ Q) Therefore, the ground is wet.
There is no controversy here. This is a universally accepted logical rule.
Tuggy’s Identity-Based Argument:
(1) If Jesus is Yahweh, then Jesus must be numerically identical to Yahweh.
(2) Trinitarians say Jesus is Yahweh.
(∴ 3) Therefore, Trinitarians are making a claim of numerical identity.
(4) But numerical identity would collapse the Trinity into one person.
(∴ 5) Therefore, Trinitarianism is logically incoherent.
The flaw: your first premise is not self-evident like modus ponens. There is zero controversy about this.
Of course we all have our assumptions and predispositions, we can’t escape ourselves. But when it comes to the exchange of ideas, they need to be put on the table and discussed. You cannot assume your framework is correct and then claim I am rejecting logic when I challenge the framework itself. Rejection of Tuggy’s identity argument against Trinitarianism is not equivalent to denying modus ponens, a universally accepted rule of inference. To be clear, by Tuggy’s identity argument, I am not charging you with adopting some formal ‘Unitarian Logic’ (there is no such thing, as I’ve said previously), it’s rather your adoption and relentless assumption of some kind of insistence that if “A” and “B” are truly identical, they must share all properties. The Indiscernibility of Identicals rules out a priori any concept of shared essence. That’s okay. That way of thinking is valid in certain contexts. But (as you know better than most) it’s not the only way identity functions in many other contexts, such as discussions about the Trinity. Simply assuming otherwise fails to engage Trinitarian theology on its own terms, as it was always operated with a distinction between identity and predication. Again, this is what is in dispute between us.
And this is why it is ironic to the point of parody to read you say, “Your identity-blindness is tripping you up. If you argue: (1) Only Yahweh can A. (2) Jesus can A. (3) Therefore, Jesus = Yahweh, then you collapse Trinitarianism into one person.” The only way you can say that is if you assume Trinitarians argue for strict numerical identity—which we do not. So who is ‘identity blind’ here? When a critique assumes what it needs to prove it’s not an argument. Calling it out is not ‘blind’, it’s ‘seeing past a false dilemma’.
So, let’s leave the accusations of irrationality to the side. I am challenging your category assumptions, which you must argue for rather than just assert and malign anything to the contrary as irrational. As it stands, and as I’ve said from the beginning, it seems to me that you’re assuming what you’re trying to prove. Unfortunately, this means that everything else which follows is still locked in this presumptive paradigm, so I’ll leave it to you to respond if you wish.
On Controversies About Jesus
It seems to me that your response here tries to separate the controversy over Jesus’ identity from the issue of Jewish monotheism, but that distinction only works if your Unitarian framework is assumed from the outset. The NT evidence suggests otherwise. The Jewish leaders’ reactions to Jesus weren’t just about whether he was the Messiah—their outrage came from the fact that his words and actions directly challenged their understanding of God’s oneness.
The expectation of some sort of explicit ‘Jesus claims to be God therefore crucify him’ kind of statement, I think that is a Western anachronism. Jesus is a Jew who revealed His true identity to predominantly Jewish people in a Jewish context in uniquely Jewish ways. What we find in the trial narratives and all throughout Jesus’ ministry, are reactions to the Jewish ways the Jewish Jesus revealed the God of Israel in both word and deed. But it’s no surprise that the Jews crafted the trial charges in a politically expedient way to get the Romans to execute him.
John 10 actually undermines your position. You assume that the title “Son of God” was understood only in a messianic, non-divine sense by Jesus and his hearers. You have to because of your prior commitments. But the reality is, Jesus’ claim in John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one”) provoked an immediate attempt to stone him, a reaction that I don’t think makes sense if He was simply claiming messianic status, but does if He was claiming to be divine. As to Jewish misunderstandings of the Messiah, let me make it worse for you. I think even the demons can be right in recognition of who Jesus is (Mark 5:1-20). Context determines meaning, not our assumptions about the characters in play. And the passages you cite do not weaken Jesus’ divine claim, they reinforce it. John 5:18 says it all. “This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” (cf. 8:58-58; 10:30-33; Mark 14:61-64; Dan. 7:13-14, etc.)
I said previously that this discussion, and the priors we bring to it, are settled by whichever allow the text to stand on its own terms. In cases like John 10 and others, I think we are beginning to see how Unitarianism and its priors simply do not deal with the plain reading of Scripture.
On Yahweh-Exclusive Texts and Divine Attributes
“The word YHWH doesn’t occur in the NT…” is linguistically true. But so what? I made that comment in the context of talking about Yahweh applied texts. If the argument here is, unless the NT uses the Tetragrammaton we can’t confidently say it applies Yahweh’s identity to Jesus, then that’s a historically and linguistically naïve line to take. I mean, for one, the NT was written in Greek, hence “Kyrios”. But to suppose that because Kyrios has multiple uses, no NT application of Yahweh texts to Jesus can be definitive, is to ignore the very context that gives it meaning. Where the NT authors apply Yahweh-exclusive OT texts to Jesus, that is not just a generic use of “Lord”—it is a deliberate identification.
I’ll grant Matthew applies a lot of fulfilment typology, but passages like Phil 2:9-11 applying Isa 45:23, Heb 1:10-12 applying Psa 102:25-27, John 12:41 applying Isa 6, and others, aren’t typology, they directly apply Yahweh’s identity to Jesus. Before you send me another link of your work, which I’ve probably already heard and been unsatisfied with (which is why I’m directly corresponding with you), can you explain to me why the NT does this if Jesus is not Yahweh? Because it seems to me that the case still needs to be made as to why Jesus is placed in passages where the OT has Yahweh alone. To simply assert that Scripture never explicitly says that divine attributes (omniscience, forgiveness of sins, receiving worship, existing before creation, etc.) require divinity is false. And demonstrably so. Scripture repeatedly declares certain attributes and actions exclusive to God. Of course, you could assert ‘Since Jesus (as a human) performs these actions, it proves that they don’t require divinity…’ but, again, that simply assumes the conclusion of the Unitarianism you’re trying to prove. And I’d press further, it’s actually a category error. Jesus as a man is the counterexample. His humanity does not negate His divine nature. Scripture repeatedly states that divine worship, forgiveness of sins, omniscience, and eternal preexistence are unique to Yahweh. Yet Jesus is worshiped (Matt 14:33, Rev 5:13-14), forgives sins (Mark 2:5-12), knows hearts (John 2:24-25), and is said to exist before creation (John 1:1-3), to name but a few.
Yes, the NT distinguishes the Father from the Son. Trinitarians have no problem with this, as you know. But that’s no reason to suppose that Jesus cannot be included in Yahweh’s identity, unless, again (and again), we’ve got a prior that is unable to predicate the Son as the same God as the Father (without being the Father). Distinguishing Jesus from the Father does not contradict Jesus sharing Yahweh’s divine identity. One example here, take 1 Cor 8:6 where Paul reformulates the Shema (Deut 6:4) to include Jesus. Paul does not simply distinguish “Yahweh” from Jesus, he places Jesus within the identity of the one Lord. Paul does not separate a ‘unique Lord’ from a ‘unique God’ in a way that excludes Jesus from Yahweh’s identity. Rather, he reformulates the Shema to include Jesus within the divine identity of Yahweh. James White won the debate on that score. The NT authors do conclude that Jesus is Yahweh, and by distinguishing Him from the Father they don’t dismantle monotheism, they lay the doctrinal foundation for what would later be called “Trinitarianism”.
Again (and again), the claim is not that ‘Jesus = Yahweh’ in the sense of numerical identity, but that He fully shares in Yahweh’s divine identity while remaining distinct in person. Trinitarianism has always made this distinction between person and essence—if you’re going to argue against that, you need to provide scriptural support for your claims, rather than just assuming Unitarianism and calling it a day.
On Bauckham
I don’t think I’m parroting Bauckham (or Craig, or others for that matter), or at least I’m not intentionally doing so. Either way, I’m seeing a trend here—when someone disagrees with you, they’re poor philosophers, and/or need to learn logic. I think I’ve demonstrated no small measure of irony about this kind of criticism in my opening remarks here (On Logic). Without belabouring the point, I’ll simply say that, again, I see an incessant need here to reframe an opponents position to your priors, so you can dismantle them. When you say Bauckham’s argument about identity only refers to “personal identity” (one-to-one sameness of persons), you have to assume that, because you’re a Unitarian. But that is what we’re debating. But I don’t think that is what Bauckham is arguing. It’s not that Jesus and the Father are the same person, but that Jesus is included in the unique divine identity of Yahweh. And I believe he is consistent with Second Temple Jewish monotheism on this score, which defined Yahweh’s uniqueness in terms of exclusive worship and unique sovereignty as Creator and Ruler. And, +1 for Trinitarians, Jesus gets both of these Yahweh-exclusives in the NT.
Again, if you want to critique Bauckham’s argument, you need to actually engage its core claim rather than reassembling the straw and starting a fire.
On Predication
Thank you for acknowledging the distinction, that is a start, but now I’d like to press you to engage with it, specifically, whether the NT presents Jesus as fully sharing in Yahweh’s divine nature. I’ve read your Stanford Encyclopedia article, a number of times (before I knew anything about Biblical Unitarianism). But I’m pressing you here, in this conversation, for a reason. You’ve said that the NT doesn’t come close to teaching that, but I’ve given multiple examples at multiple times to the contrary, and I’d genuinely be interested in something more than a hand wave here. I have done my best to engage with where you’re coming from and traced it into passages of the NT, and I would value the opportunity to learn in kind from what you have to say about where I am coming from rather than simply dismissing it.
We can start with a simple question: If Jesus is only “somewhat divine,” what kind of divinity does he have? The NT attributes all essential divine qualities to him, so what exactly is missing?
On Trinitarianism Formulation
I’m familiar with the late-stage fabrication approach to Trinitarianism. I don’t think anyone is denying (or at least I certainly am not) that the doctrine was formalised later on. That’s trivially true. But there are historical contingencies for why this is so. The issue here isn’t ‘when’ the Trinity was framed as a doctrine, but whether it is conceptually present in Scripture and clarified over time. The reality, so far as I have read, is that early Christian writings show a variety of ways to express Jesus’ divinity, but the underlying conviction of Christ’s divine status remains intact in some way. But if diversity of expression disproves a doctrine, then every Christian doctrine (including your own strain of Unitarianism) is in trouble.
At the end of the day, Dale, I think this ultimately comes down to which framework best accounts for everything Scripture affirms about God’s identity. I am convinced that the Trinitarian framework does this most faithfully. The doctrine of the Trinity is not an artificial imposition on Scripture but a theological formulation that arises from a careful, holistic reading—seeking to make sense of what the Bible both explicitly states and necessarily implies about Israel’s one God and the distinct persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In that sense, it is both deeply rooted in Scripture and thoughtfully clarified through theological reflection, as the church wrestled with the full implications of divine revelation.
Dale Tuggy
Communication can be difficult! This argument that you attribute to me: “Tuggy’s Identity-Based Argument:
(1) If Jesus is Yahweh, then Jesus must be numerically identical to Yahweh.
(2) Trinitarians say Jesus is Yahweh.
(∴ 3) Therefore, Trinitarians are making a claim of numerical identity.
(4) But numerical identity would collapse the Trinity into one person.
(∴ 5) Therefore, Trinitarianism is logically incoherent.”
NOPE. I have never said this anywhere, or anything like it. You’re on the hunt for some dumb substantial assumption I must be making, that I assume that the trinitarian must understand “is God” or “is Yahweh” sentence in terms of numerical identity. NOPE. I have never said this. One more time: what I’m assuming about = is how this is used in logical analysis. It is a basic concept which all humans have and regularly employ; they just don’t realize it, not unlike modus ponens reasoning. A trinitarian may make ALL the same assumptions I am making about how the concept of identity is used in logic, and many DO. In fact, pretty much all the philosophers/analytic theologians who write on the Trinity assume THE VERY SAME THINGS. (The only exceptions are the relative identity theorists.) About your argument, I don’t know what premise (1) means, because I don’t know what is meant by “Jesus is Yahweh” there. For instance, if the point is that the name “Yahweh” is rightly applied to Jesus, then I would say (1) understood that way is false. A trinitarian might mean various things but “Jesus is Yahweh” – At any rate, (1) is not my premise. As I said before, if someone says “Jesus is Yahweh” I will ask them what THEY mean by that, then proceed from there. So, sorry, your argument captures precisely none of critiques of the various Trinity theories. Identity claims, of course, pop up in various ways when discussing these issues, as I have pointed out. But not because I foist on the trinitarian my own preferred interpretation of HIS sentences.
“it’s rather your adoption and relentless assumption of some kind of insistence that if “A” and “B” are truly identical, they must share all properties. While the Indiscernibility of Identicals rightly applies in many cases, it does not automatically rule out the concept of shared essence” OK, if you understand the concept of identity, aka numerical identity, or just: being the same thing as, you will see that the indiscernibility of identicals really is, rightly understood, self-evident. If A and B really are just the same thing, so that “A” and “B” are just as it were two pointers to the same thing, then there can’t possibly be any time at which A is a certain way but B is not (or vice-versa). This is about on par with 1+1=2. It goes hand in hand with the distinctness of discernibles – if you discover a simultaneous difference between A and B, then it is false that A = B. Again, nearly all analytic philosophers agree, though there is a complication here because some construe the Indiscernibility of Identicals as a “substitution principle” for co-referring terms. Understood that way, there are counterexamples. We can talk about that if you want. But understood as a metaphysical principle, it’s just saying that one and the same thing can’t at one time being and not be a certain way. Now, some argue that there can be “numerical sameness” which is a “weaker” relation than identity, which doesn’t force total qualitative sameness; see the “Constitution” Trinity theory by Michael Rea. Going back to = as I mean it, sure, A = B is compatible with A and B having the same essence, since everything has the same essence as itself!
“it’s not the only way identity operates, especially in discussions about the Trinity. Simply assuming otherwise fails to engage Trinitarian theology on its own terms, as it was always operated with a distinction between identity and predication. Again, this is what is in dispute between us.” It’s like you’re not listening. I already agreed, and have made the point many times, “A is F” can be interpreted as A = F or rather as A has the quality of being an F. So NO, that is not the dispute between us. More importantly, you assumption that trinitarians have some one way of understanding sentences like “The Son is God” is false – just read the encyclopedia entry! Some say it is an “is” of predication, some identity, some constitution, some it terms of relative id. Again, YOU TELL ME what you think “the doctrine of the Trinity” means, and then we’ll discuss from there. That has always been my approach.
“And this is why it is ironic to the point of parody to read you say, “Your identity-blindness is tripping you up. If you argue: (1) Only Yahweh can A. (2) Jesus can A. (3) Therefore, Jesus = Yahweh, then you collapse Trinitarianism into one person.” The only way you can say that is if you assume Trinitarians argue for strict numerical identity—which we do not.” Dave: mind the “if.” IF you argue. Notice too how you presume to speak for all trinitarians, like you can inform me about what they all say, and that it is that “is God” statements are predications. Dave, I know better! Now, why did I even bring this up? Because YOU made an “Only Yahweh can A” style of argument, and you don’t seemingly don’t understand how that, YOUR statement, employs the concept same-thing-as 😊).
“I am challenging your category assumptions” Dave, you have not put your finger on any controversial or question-begging assumption of mine. As a former professional philosopher, I’m actually pretty good at (1) listening to what the other side is actually saying and then (2) arguing in ways which don’t assume the point at issue. You have bought into the “He’s just ASSUMING UNITARIANISM” slander, but of course, that is not true. Keep trying, though, if you think you can find some wacky, unitarian-favoring philosophical speculation that I’m assuming. Now, I can screw up like anyone, but again, as a philosopher, I’m pretty good at separating what is obvious from what needs arguing for. You also seem to have bought into a notion that I rely on rhetoric and avoid hard questions and change the subject . . . or something like that. Dave, I have avoided nothing with you. When you think I’m off topic, frankly, you’re not following me. Maybe that’s on me; I’ll try to be clearer. But I’m not failing to engage.
And let me clarify: there are various coherence problems with various Trinity theories, in different ways. But this idea that I think that “the doctrine of the Trinity is contradictory” – that is a character who haunts the (sometimes guilty) imaginations of apologists, but, that’s not me. My main objections are (1) the NT doesn’t actually motivate any triune-God theology – it’s neither implied by the texts, nor is it the best explanation of them, and (2) any such theology clashes with the NT teaching about the one God. And OK, if we get into the guts of some developed Trinity theory, yeah, there could be incoherence problems, but it totally depends on just what they think “the doctrine of the Trinity” is! In my short book What is the Trinity, I’ve got a chapter on ousia, and a chapter on hypostasis, and I go through the various things those terms might mean, things which various trinitarians have said. So, “the doctrine of the Trinity is contradictory” – that’s not my approach, as I don’t think “the doctrine of the Trinity” is any one set of claims. What we have are traditional sentences, and then various trinitarians come along and make decisions about the various interpretations, as you have been doing.
“passages like Phil 2:9-11 applying Isa 45:23, Heb 1:10-12 applying Psa 102:25-27, John 12:41 applying Isa 6, and others, aren’t typology, they directly apply Yahweh’s identity to Jesus.” I have no idea what you mean by that. I’m surprised that you don’t realize you’re channeling Bauckham there and elsewhere in this comment. I’m getting pretty tired of the dumb accusation that I just think what I do ’cause I’m assuming. Yes, context is everything. Pretty much every way I interpret your favorite “divine identity” texts is based on what that same author says in the context of the passage, chapter, or book. John tells us elsewhere what Jesus means by saying “I am he” and in what sense he and God are “one.” “I’m seeing a trend here—when someone disagrees with you, they’re poor philosophers, and/or need to learn logic.” Dave, this is a mean ad hominem, and I’m about to lose patience with this conversation.. Maybe you should actually read my short paper critiquing Bauckham instead of popping off like this? Or, you could read the recent debate book, and try to count up how many times I dismiss Craig, Hasker, and Branson as poor philosophers. That should be instructive. The trend I’m seeing is that you’re into ad hominems but refuse to read anything Tuggy has written, ’cause he’s just a silly assumer.
The stuff I’ve linked above that you’re chosen not to read or listen to abundantly answers why I don’t think the NT teaches Jesus’ divinity. The idea that the Trinity somehow naturally arises out of the Bible – yeah, that is refuted too, in the recent lectures where I do through the actual mainstream theological landscape c. 190-250 CE. e.g. the “Fool’s Gold” one and the Year 240 one. The idea that the Trinity best accounts for “God’s identity” – that is something no trinitarian ever said in the whole history of Christianity until Bauckham came along. If you ever read that paper of mine on him, you can understand why I don’t think it’s helpful. “The NT attributes all essential divine qualities to him.” No, not even close. To say that this claim is controversial is a massive understatement. As best I can tell, no one prior to Nicea thought this except for the modalists, aka modalistic monarchians. Justin, Origen, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Novatian – they all deny that the Logos/Son has all the essential divine attributes. But they were big-time defenders of mainstream Christianity in their day. That fact should give you pause. Dave, step 1 of critiquing someone’s work is doing all the work it takes to understand what they think and why. You have hardly started that when it comes to my work – I suppose, because of your dismissive assumptions. If you get some way into step 1, I’ll be up for more conversation. God bless!
Dave Deane
I respect your intellect and the work you’ve put into this discussion, which is why I am engaging seriously with your arguments. However, there is an obvious pattern where, rather than addressing my critiques directly, you have made insinuations about my learning and character while simultaneously accusing me of ad hominem. If I have misrepresented anything, I welcome constructive correction. But I am not interested in engaging at the level of personal jabs. I am committed to a substantive and respectful exchange. If you are prepared for the same, I would appreciate a direct and clear response to the following.
Clarity on Identity Logic:
You have repeatedly said that you are “just using the standard logical concept of identity.” But asserting that you’re using standard logic is not itself an argument against Trinitarianism. If you believe that identity logic alone refutes the Trinity, then you need to clearly explain how and why, without assuming your conclusion.
Please provide a direct response to the following:
You claim that Trinitarians do not make a strict numerical identity claim, yet you continue to argue against Trinitarianism as if it does.
Exhibit A: “NOPE. I have never said this anywhere, or anything like it. You’re on the hunt for some dumb substantial assumption I must be making, that I assume that the Trinitarian must understand ‘is God’ or ‘is Yahweh’ sentence in terms of numerical identity. NOPE. I have never said this.”
Here you claim that you do not believe Trinitarians assume numerical identity between Jesus and Yahweh.
Exhibit B: “Your identity-blindness is tripping you up. If you argue, (1) Only Yahweh can A, (2) Jesus can A, (3) Therefore Jesus = Yahweh, then you collapse Trinitarianism into one person.”
Here you argue that Trinitarians collapse Jesus and Yahweh into one person, which would only be true if numerical identity were assumed.
It seems to me that you can’t have it both ways. Either you admit that Trinitarians are not making a numerical identity claim, and therefore your argument that Trinitarianism “collapses into one person” falls apart. Or you must continue arguing that Trinitarians are making a numerical identity claim, which directly contradicts your denial above. Which is it? This is not a rhetorical game. It’s a matter of intellectual consistency.
Biblical Basis:
You have still not answered my direct biblical question: If Jesus is not Yahweh, why does the NT apply Yahweh-exclusive texts to Him? This is not a question of mere typology, as you have previously suggested, and these texts clearly go beyond simply saying that Jesus is “God’s agent” or “representative.” I’m claiming they are Yahweh-exclusive statements about God’s eternal existence, creation, and worship—and they are applied to Jesus. So I ask again: If Jesus is not Yahweh, why does the NT do this? I am asking for a clear and direct exegetical answer in real time in light of our discussion—not a link to a blog or a video, not a philosophical argument, but actual exegesis of cited texts.
Dale Tuggy
“If Jesus is not Yahweh, why does the NT apply Yahweh-exclusive texts to Him?” The answer is: because these authors believed either (1) God himself was fulfilling that prediction about God’s own actions through Jesus, or (2) they believed – and I gave clear and uncontroversial examples of this sort of thing – that they had detected another layer of meaning in what was originally a Yahweh text, and on this new meaning it is not about him, but rather about Jesus – not the Lord God, but the one Lord in distinction from the Lord God (e.g. 1 Cor 8:6, Eph 4:4). This makes sense given their interpretive methods, and it’s like what they do with other texts and Jesus, e.g. taking Psalm 110:1 in which the “my Lord” mentioned was some ancient king, or Heb 1:6-7 re-using Ps 45:6-7 – what was a wedding song for some ancient king – that king is the “God” there who God is over. But now for the author of Hebrews, it’s a prediction about Jesus – he’s the “God” who God is the god over. The recently (but not historically) popular idea is instead that somehow these authors are hinting that (1) Jesus “is Yahweh” or (2) that Jesus “belongs to the identity of God.” This second is terminally (and I believe deliberately) unclear. But at any rate, it is wrongheaded to think that NT authors would go about hinting in such away about Jesus’ full deity, assuming they hold to it. These are not occult works in which important theses are slyly encoded in, so only the insiders can discern them. If they had wanted to say that Jesus is divine, they had enough words to clearly say so. But instead, they flatfootedly portray him as having limitations they thought God could not have, e.g. sleeping, not knowing something, being tempted, dying. Here again, we arrive at my demonstrably non-question-begging arguments – debate with James White, podcast 189 (and book chapter), and recent debate book. Those fact-based arguments are what you should concern yourself with. They should, when taken seriously, cause you to re-examine some of your exegetical moves. But so far as I can tell, you’re ignoring them on the grounds that I’m some sort of rhetorical trickster who just can’t be honest about what “the doctrine of the Trinity” really is.
Dave Deane
Hey Dale, thanks for your response to my second question. I’ll respond to your examples before making some further observations that I think tie into the first which remains open re. Exhibit A and B.
Example 1: “God himself was fulfilling that prediction about God’s own actions through Jesus”
This idea—that the NT isn’t identifying Jesus as Yahweh but simply saying God is doing Yahweh-type stuff through Jesus—is one I know you’ve supported with some outlier journal articles and niche commentators. But there’s a reason this Unitarian take is a historical footnote: it simply can’t bear the weight of the text.
Take Phil 2:9-11 and Isa 45:23 as a case in point.
Phil 2:9-11 (NA28):
διὸ καὶ ὁ θεὸς αὐτὸν ὑπερύψωσεν
καὶ ἐχαρίσατο αὐτῷ τὸ ὄνομα
τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα,
ἵνα ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ
πᾶν γόνυ κάμψῃ
ἐπουρανίων καὶ ἐπιγείων καὶ καταχθονίων
καὶ πᾶσα γλῶσσα ἐξομολογήσηται
ὅτι κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς
εἰς δόξαν θεοῦ πατρός.
Isa 45:23 (LXX):
ἐμοὶ κάμψει πᾶν γόνυ, καὶ ἐξομολογήσεται πᾶσα γλῶσσα τῷ θεῷ
This is not a loose allusion. Philippians is quoting Isaiah verbatim—same syntax, same phrases, same universal submission. In Isaiah, Yahweh alone receives this worship, while in Philippians, the bowing and confessing are directed explicitly to Jesus—not via Jesus, not on His behalf, but to Him. I know you’ve argued elsewhere that προσκυνέω doesn’t automatically mean divine worship, and that’s granted. But here, προσκυνέω isn’t even the point. The verbs κάμψῃ and ἐξομολογήσηται are used identically in Isaiah and Philippians, and in both cases the object of that worship is the one receiving cosmic, Yahweh-exclusive devotion. If there is a category within Jewish monotheism for this to be redirected to a creature I have never heard of it.
But Paul’s only getting started. Add to this the phrase τὸ ὄνομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα—“the name above every name.” You know the significance of “the Name” (ha-shem) in Second Temple Judaism: it’s a circumlocution for the divine name. Paul says Jesus is given the name, not just a name. Not a title. The Name. So, when every knee bows and every tongue confesses, it’s not a poetic echo. It’s a deliberate transfer of Yahweh’s identity to Jesus. Not agency—identity.
So when you say “God fulfilled this action through Jesus,” the grammar, the structure, and the object of the worship in Philippians say otherwise. The NT authors aren’t sneaking in divine worship through a side door. They’re flinging open the doors of monotheism to reveal that Yahweh has come in the flesh.
Example 2: “They believed… they had detected another layer of meaning in what was originally a Yahweh text, and on this new meaning it is not about Him, but rather about Jesus—not the Lord God, but the one Lord in distinction from the Lord God (e.g. 1 Cor 8:6, Eph 4:4).”
Honestly, I find this even more puzzling. You’re saying Paul doesn’t include Jesus in Yahweh’s identity but reassigns these Yahweh-texts to “another Lord”—yet that’s exactly the opposite of what Paul is doing in 1 Corinthians 8:6. Again, run the texts:
1 Corinthians 8:6:
ἀλλ’ ἡμῖν εἷς θεὸς ὁ πατὴρ,
ἐξ οὗ τὰ πάντα καὶ ἡμεῖς εἰς αὐτόν,
καὶ εἷς κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός,
δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα καὶ ἡμεῖς δι’ αὐτοῦ.
This is not Paul assigning a new role to Jesus. This is Paul reconfiguring the Shema. In the LXX, Yahweh is rendered κύριος. Paul is applying that directly to Jesus: εἷς κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός. He isn’t replacing Yahweh. Paul is not backing off from monotheism—he’s intensifying it by placing Jesus where Yahweh stands. And this is not two gods, the very grammar of the passage forbids the dichotomy you’re suggesting. This is one divine nature shared between Father and Son. If you disagree, please prove your case from the text.
The same is true in Eph 4:5-6: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.” These are not categories of divinity vs. non-divinity. They are parallel affirmations in a unified monotheistic confession. And your distinction between “the Lord” and “the Lord God” isn’t in the text. And when I ask the question ‘How did Tuggy get there?’ I can’t help by see it’s symptomatic of your metaphysical priors/assumptions. You’re importing a distinction the authors don’t make to end up with a fringe Unitarian take. Paul’s language doesn’t invite that division; it forbids it. And I’m not smearing your character when I say that, Dale. We all carry assumptions with us—but we should at least own them when they’re pointed out (again, and again).
Example 3: “It is wrongheaded to think the NT authors would go about hinting in such a way about Jesus’ full deity… If they had wanted to say that Jesus is divine, they had enough words to clearly say so.”
I find it ironic that you criticise “divine identity” language for being unclear yet now accuse the NT authors of being too clear about Jesus’ humanity and too vague about His divinity. But Dale, they did say so:
- John 1:1 – “The Word was God.”
- John 20:28 – “My Lord and my God!”
- Titus 2:13 – “Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
- Heb 1:8 – “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.”
- Col 1:16 – “By Him all things were created…”
- Phil 2:10–11 – Yahweh worship applied directly to Jesus.
They said it plainly, repeatedly, and with theological precision. And yes, they also said He slept, wept, died, and rose. Because He’s not a demigod. He is God incarnate. I know you have your responses to each of those passages locked and loaded, and I’m ready to show the exegetical fragility of each one. But I’ll just end with this:
I appreciate you now working with the NT. But as I see it—
- You seem to flatten clear divine Christological claims by subsuming them under typology or agency.
- You deny that the NT ever truly intends to say Jesus is Yahweh, because apparently the authors never use the “right” words or sufficiently explicit language.
- And I think you do all of this because of an a priori commitment that Jesus cannot be Yahweh, which constrains your interpretive freedom.
Dale, my encouragement to you is: let the Scripture speak for itself, rather than building a system that filters and reframes all “Yahweh=Jesus” implications. You may just find that it’s not the Scriptures that are unclear, but certain assumptions that refuse to let them speak plainly.
