Introduction

Theological Groundwork

Identity and Terminology

Observations 1 and 2

Observations 3 and 4

Observations 5 and 6

Observations 7 and 8

Observations 9 and 10

Observations 11 and 12

Observations 13 and 14

Observation 15

Analysis of the Data

Conclusion

Why Precise Words Matter 

In matters of philosophy, of which theology often appears as a subset, precise language is necessary in order to communicate the subject under consideration in the most direct and meaningful way possible. 

This desire for and attempt to speak with precision can often be seen as pedantic. But sometimes—especially when one desires to speak true things—such hair-splitting is necessary to communicate what can easily be misunderstood if not thought about carefully. 

Even those who consider themselves to be deliberate thinkers, who are trained to use language carefully and precisely can—because of the imprecision of language or their own inherent biases—misunderstand or even misrepresent a concept in an egregious manner that those who aren’t necessarily specialists in a particular area or don’t have the appropriate or apparent credentials necessarily are forced to speak up because the error is so blatantly obvious. 

If the person who is speaking as an authority says something that is completely erroneous, is the audience simply supposed to sit back and accept what is said because they haven’t been anointed into such a position, or are they to speak up?

And while such objections or even responses may be ignored because of a lack of audience or dismissed due to a lack of alleged authority on the subject, objections should still be raised simply because to not do so is to abandon one’s responsibility to the truth and one’s obligation to speak true things. 

And when a professional scholar produces work and manages to publish that work, that work both in effort of production and it’s suffering through the review process in order to be published in a journal or a volume deserves appreciation, especially when it is detailed and heavily researched. 

However, even the most vetted scholar can, in setting out what they intend to demonstrate can—on the basis of their own biased assumptions—misread a source or set up an argument that, while being logically sound in form, be utterly fallacious in facts. 

And such an argument we find in the volume Herausforderungen und Modifikationen des Klassischen Theismus (2019)[1] in a chapter titled, “The Unfinished Business of the Reformation” written by Dale Tuggy. 

About the Author 

Tuggy is an analytic philosopher, earning his PhD from Brown University, and is an independent scholar who has published about two dozen or so articles and chapters in the field of philosophy of religion and philosophical theology, which is why he has my attention. His particular focus is on Trinitarian doctrine, having written a book on the subject and even debated people like Dr. Michael Brown and Chris Date in the subject, even writing a book with the latter. 

This means that Tuggy should be a competent and careful thinker who can hold distinctions and differing concepts in mind simultaneously while not confusing them, as well as restate them  in a way that genuinely reflects what is meant to be communicated by the original thought or authorial position without misrepresentation or prevarication. 

But reading Tuggy, especially when it comes to Trinitarian theology, or history of theology, it’s questionable as to whether or not he can do that, and this is especially relevant due to arguments that he puts forward in his previously mentioned chapter.

The Problem with Theories

I suppose that I should note that I had no intention–especially on the heels of my review/response to Randal Rauser’s recent book–of going into any in-depth review or response of these arguments, but the confident boldness–seemingly bordering on arrogance–found in this chapter just called for it.

See also: My Unitarian Fallacies Series

It appears, at least from my reading of Tuggy’s work, it is that he takes issue with the fact that when it comes to philosophizing the theology of the trinitarian nature of Yahweh, there are about as many theories as there are philosophers who engage the issue, according to Tuggy at least.[2] Moreover, he seems to be concerned by the fact that the language used to articulate certain key concepts in Trinitarian thought, especially as it relates to vocabulary that was functionally “new” and that while there was a begrudging consensus on the terminology, there was—among some—a guarded reluctance to adopt it.[3] Here the issue is one simply of historical and philosophical matters as, due to the peace of the Church, with the issuance of Galerian’s and Constantine’s edicts of toleration, that Christians immersed in two worlds could now communicate freely and openly. The openness exposed the fact that in their imposed relative isolation that two theological trajectories had opened up under persecution: one marked by a degree of speculative idealization and another aimed at practical application.[4]

Indeed, if one were to look closely at the “differing” theories that perturb Tuggy and the like, they often still move along the same parallel tracks laid down those church fathers who affirmed similar beliefs but did so for disparate reasons. 

This is why, when it comes to the primary theological issues related to the question of deity, especially the deity of Christ, and how that deity relates to the created, it is necessary to not only look at what those in history may say, but how they say it and to what they appeal to in order to sustain their proclamations. 

For Tuggy, and those of his ilk, it seems as though the theological history of Christianity begins at Niceae, without any recognition of what the church might have believed before then, or that multiple streams of theology were being brought together to hammer out their vocabulary in the face of a dangerous theological position that even Tuggy and his compatriots would have to reject as false.

See also: This Paper on Historical Trinitarianism

The question though, as with any theory, is what is the evidence that is being mustered to establish the truth of any premises, especially with Tuggy’s assertion that, “all the New Testament authors assume and express a unitarian understanding of the one God…,” and that, “Mainstream, catholic Christianity was unitarian in its theology until about the last two decades of the fourth century.”[5]

In order to make this argument, Tuggy states that he will focus on, “observable, indisputable features of New Testament language.”[6] 

These statements constitute a theological theory. And such a theory must be tested. The evidence mustered and tested is that which is found in what Tuggy and I would certainly agree on: the text of the Christian scriptures. 

A theory that I shall propose and test against that of Tuggy, is not only does he err historically, in the assertion that Trinitarianism was a theological innovation that occurred centuries after the apostles and that merely muscled its way into orthodoxy, but that the apostles themselves would not have found the concept alien. That they would, in fact, reject Tuggy’s claim that they were unitarians to his face.

This is, undoubtably, a bold assertion, but it requires a certain recognition. Namely a recognition that the New Testament authors were—with at least one possible exception—themselves Jewish, and that they had a preexisting theology that they didn’t abandon, a theology that was threaded in and through the Hebrew Scriptures, and is necessary for many of the arguments that they put forward as they moved forward both historically and theologically.[7] This theology laid a fundamental groundwork that those who would defend Christian theology in the face of a number of heretical positions between the end of the first and the start of the fourth, would eventually be codified under the name “Trinitarian” by those who claimed the title of “faith that is catholic”.

And I will endeavor to unpack much of that as we move into the next post in this series.

Notes

  1. Translates as “Challenges and Modifications of Classical Theism” 
  2. Dale Tuggy. “The Unfinished Business of the Reformation”. Herausforderungen und Modifikationen des Klassischen Theismus, Aschendorf. 2019. p. 199
  3. Ibid
  4. Philip Schaff. History of the Christian Church: The Complete Eight Volumes in One. 2014. p.2681-2 (ePub)
  5. Tuggy, p.199-200
  6. Ibid
  7. For the purposes of this response, I will simply assume the attributed authorship of the works of the New Testament without regard to scholarly speculation.