SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – Burke 2

There’s a lot of meat in Burke’s second round, and both his and Bowman’s second rounds were cleaner, more free of stray punches than round 1. Here I offer some summaries and brief comments on Burke.

• In a lot of the piece, Burke lays out his positive views about Jesus. This should give a lot of people pause; it is often assumed, contrary to the long but largely forgotten history of this minority report, that unitarians are mere “deniers”, or that they can be lumped together with the amorphous “skeptics” who appear in apologetics writings, or that they are theological “liberals”, or that they are Unitarian Universalists. Not so – arguably, Burke affirms all the really obvious doctrines of the New Testament – messiah, mediator, resurrection, atonement, etc. – roughly, all the items in the “Apostles'” Creed. Burke defends what used to be called a “humanitarian” christology – that Jesus was a human, and did not exist before his miraculous conception in Mary. It would be misleading to describe his position as being that Jesus was “just a man”. In Burke’s view, he’s far from being just a “great teacher” among many, with peers like the Buddha  and Muhammad, or even being merely a prophet.
• It is striking to what degree Burke simply ignores some influential (but now largely forgotten) patristic ideas, to wit: the Jesus’ ministry obviously manifested the divine nature (through, e.g. his miracles), that Jesus must be divine so as to be able to divinize humanity, that Jesus and not the Father was the one who interacted with the Jews in OT times, that the title “Son of God” implies having the divine nature, that what is “divine” must be absolutely unchanging and simple. I say this more by way of observation than criticism. With the exception of the first, I expect that Bowman will largely ignore them as well.
• Flag: Burke says that the risen, glorified Jesus is “divine”. What does he mean by this, and whatever is meant, is there scriptural warrant for it? We know he doesn’t mean to say Jesus just is (is numerically identical to) God. Does he mean that Jesus has some, or most, or all (surely not all) the divine attributes? Or is it just that Jesus is somehow related to God? (If so, how?)
• Burke says “Rob and I agree [that] some passages apparently call Jesus “God” literally, directly, and without qualification.” I think some care needs to be taken with this point. If someone predicates divinity of Jesus, this may be done literally or not, directly or not, qualifiedly or not. But if someone addresses Jesus using the name or title “God”, one is not describing Jesus at all, but rather addressing him. There may be some explanation why you used that title, but there is no question about whether you are speaking literally or not, etc. The point may be easier to see in a non-Jesus example; consider an Indian guru, like, say this one. Two disciples address him as “God”. One does this because he thinks the guru is an avatar of God. But the other does it because he thinks God works through this guru, or because he thinks the guru is godly or god-like. One shouldn’t say that the first is speaking literally, the second non-literally. Again, suppose you address Andy Kaufman as “Elvis”. This could be because you thought he was a reincarnation of Elvis, but it would more likely be because you thought the name just fit. No, I’m not saying that Jesus was a God-impersonator! I’m saying that we often take names first used for one thing, and then use them to refer to something else, based on this something else being related to the first thing in some way.
• So many, not all, but many of the passages at issue involving Jesus – particularly the less disputable ones in Heb 1 and John 20, involve this – using “God” as a name or title for Jesus. The question, of course, is why is this done. What does this usage presuppose, or what is the best explanation of it? I don’t think Burke really suggests an explanation. I was expecting to see something about Jesus resembling God, which seems a central theme in Paul and John (e.g. exact image and likeness, etc, and  he who has seen me has seen the Father) This would merit a flag, except that Burke does point out that according Jesus himself, men may properly be referred to as “gods” (John 10), and that it is clear that sometimes in the OT various humans are called “god” or “gods”. (We’ve discussed this before.)
• Flag: after listing Jesus’ NT titles, he says “There is no suggestion here that Jesus is God.” Well, there is at least a suggestion that he is, from the application of “Lord” to him. As countless theologians have pointed out, this is the word which sort of euphemistically translates or stands in for the name “Yahweh” in the Septuagint (ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew OT). In Paul, sometimes it is not clear who is meant by “Lord” (Father ? Son?), and this is, I think, surprising, and in need of explanation. Again, prophecies which in the OT predict things about Yahweh are applied to Jesus as fulfilled by him in the NT – this too needs explaining.
• In much of the 2nd half of his entry, Burke goes through various “Jesus is God” proof texts, and using trinitarian biblical scholarship, pretty effectively shows that most of them are far from decisive, because of translation, textual, or interpretive issues. He does a particularly good job dismantling the lame argument that Jesus’ title “Immanuel” (meaning “God with us” or “God is with us”) implies that Jesus is God. This doesn’t work, any more that this argument: “Elijah” means “Yahweh my God”, therefore Elijah is Yahweh our God. Again, his treatment of John 1:18 was fair and sure-footed.
• Final flag: Burke doesn’t address some difficult passages for his view, namely passages which seem to imply Jesus’ existence before his conception. And in particular, passages which seem to say that Jesus created the universe. Again, although he mentions the text, he doesn’t tell us how he reads John 1, which most trinitarians consider a slam dunk for their side. Perhaps these will be addressed somewhere in what follows.