Last time, we saw tritheist Steve Hays lay out his own Trinity theory, which of course includes an assertion of monotheism. It was an incoherent mess, and so is something which anyone has a strong reason to think is false. He wrapped his little pig in a thick blanket of mystery, trying to pass it off as a baby, but we could hear it oinking.- There is only one god.
- Any fully divine being/entity is a god.
- There are three fully divine beings.
This may help some: it is merely the structure of claims 1-3 that makes them an inconsistent triad. Compare with this group of claims:
- There is only one dog.
- Any fully canine being/entity is a dog.
- There are three fully canine beings.
They can’t all be true, and this is obvious. (Never mind that the obvious response in the dog case would be to deny 1.) So there’s nothing about the content of the first triad of claims that is going to help; it’s their logical structure which makes them such that they can’t all be true. Those claims really are, indisputably, an inconsistent triad, a group of claims such that it can’t be that all of them are true. But the first triad of claims has exactly the same logical structure. So, pick one to deny, if you intend to affirm only true claims.
Understanding the first and third claims requires, ultimately, grasping the concept of numerical sameness. Now, like all people, Hays does grasp it, but in Trinity conversations he persistently confuses indistinguishability, a high degree of similarity, with the concept of numerical sameness / identity. But to help you see it, we can paraphrase 1 as: There’s a being which is a god AND any being which is a god just is (i.e. is numerically the same as) him. And 3 can be stated as: there’s some x, some y, and some z such that none are numerically identical to either of the others (they are numerically distinct, non-identical – these are all false – x=y, y=z, x=z), AND x is fully divine, y is fully divine, and z is fully divine.
Lest I put a burden on another that I am unwilling to carry, briefly:
The NT clearly asserts 1, and does more than that – it tells us who this one God is – the Father. (John 17:1-3; 1 Corinthians 8:4-6) 2, yes, is true by the definition of “fully divine.” I deny 3. One of the “fully divine beings” or persons for three self Trinity theories is supposed to be the Son of God, the man Jesus. But he is not fully divine, for as he tells us, there was a time when he was not all-knowing, (Matthew 24:36) whereas God is essentially all-knowing. Again, he was tempted (Hebrews 4:15), but God can’t be tempted. (James 1:13) Again, it is a central NT teaching that Jesus died. But we should think on the basis of scripture and of reason, that God can’t die. The NT also portrays a Jesus who put his faith/trust in God, something a fully divine being would not do. Finally, the Jesus of the Bible has a god over him – God, aka the Father, the same one who is the god over us. (John 20:17). All of these rule out that Jesus is fully divine. He’s not a god, but rather, the unique and now exalted human Son of God. He is now worthy of worship, due the the position God has given him (Psalm 110:1, Revelation 5), and this is to the glory of God. (Philippians 2:9-11) A Christian should not want to say that Jesus is a god, for he couldn’t be the same god as the Father, since (all agree that) he has differed from the Father.
MS Word says that is 262 words. Can you, in about as many words, give your justification for denying one of 1-3 above?