Josiah Concept Ministries

Defending the Faith Against Its Detractors

Archive for the ‘Trinity’ Category

On Omniscience

Posted by Cory Tucholski on June 15, 2009

Rey wonders out loud: “Where in the Bible does God declare that he is omniscient?” He then answers his own question: Nowhere. God never declares himself to be omniscient, or all-knowing. So we have to ask ourselves, must God declare something about himself for it to be true about himself? And, must something directly appear in the Bible for it to be true about God, or is it acceptable to deduce it from related Scriptures and/or natural theology?

Before we dive into these questions, it must be stated that I believe in the plenary inspiration of Scripture: that the Bible we possess is inspired and inerrant, and sufficient for all of the activities listed in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. The problem in this entry is that Rey, the target of the criticism that I will present, doesn’t believe in inerrancy, nor does he believe in the plenary inspiration of Scripture. Rey cherry-picks verses as inspired and uninspired to fit with what he believes about God. This is idolatry of the highest order.

That means that this criticism will likely fall under heavy fire from Rey in the form of rejecting the verses that I use as inspired.

It is not, mind you, that Rey rejects inspiration. He rejects plenary inspiration. He doesn’t believe that all of what we possess of the Bible is inspired, but he has yet to explain his system for accepting or rejecting verses.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Apologetics, Father, God, Theology, Trinity | 5 Comments »

Statement of Faith II: The One True God

Posted by Cory Tucholski on April 10, 2009

In The Jewish Approach to God, Rabbi Neil Gillman cited that Jews believe that God is echad, which means “one.” He spent an entire chapter discussing that concept at great length, and I will touch on a few brief points in this post.

First, there is the shema. Jewish men recite the shema daily. It is Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” The word for “one” in that passage is the Hebrew word echad, which implies more than just a number. It means more than, “God is a single unit,” although it means that, too. Echad means that God is uniquely God. God is unique because he is God.

So, now my atheist readers are raising an eyebrow and saying, “Ha! You worship three Gods: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! How does that jive with ‘God is one.’ Christianity loses, atheism wins!” Well, dear atheist reader, I’m going to try to explain it to you. Wipe the drool from your lower lip and continue reading.

I have outlined in this post that there is a fundamental difference between the polytheism of Indian religions like Hinduism and the monotheism of Christianity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each echad–uniquely God–while retaining their individual identities. Some atheists assert that we are worshiping three Gods in One. We are not: we are worshiping three Persons in one God.

Nothing about “personhood” suggests that it must be unique to an individual essence or soul. One could easily make the argument that an essence or soul could have multiple persons attached to it. That is not the case with humans, God’s image-bearers. Our essence contains only one person attached to it. Not the case with God; his essence carries three Persons attached to it: Father, Son, and Spirit.

Why, if we are God’s image-bearers, then do we only have one person attached to our souls while God has three? Would it not make sense that we should have three persons attached to our soul? Well, that is actually a very good question, and tough to answer. Scripture is silent in this regard, so we must be careful when attempting to draw inferences from it. The best, and most reasonable, explanation is that God chose to attach only one person to a human soul instead of three. That is our ontology, the way that God made us, and why he didn’t make us another way is simply a mystery.

One last point bears touching on before I close the discussion of the Trinity. As Richard Dawkins put it in The God Delusion, rivers of ink (and blood) have been wasted trying to explain the Trinity and Dawkins complains that much of it remains a mystery. So I ask, “Why the double standard?” Science accepts abiogenesis as a potential theory about the origins of life, despite failing in every way to substantiate it. The origin of life remains a mystery. Yet many hold out that one day, we will substantiate abiogenesis and solve the mystery of life. Why, I ask again, are you allowed to have mysteries of science, but I am not allowed to have mysteries of faith? I am doing the same thing as you are doing with abiogenesis, but for that you label me a “fundie” or “deluded.”

In The God Delusion, Dawkins explains that a certain agnosticism is warranted when the evidence is scant. Just like atheists can remain agnostic about the origin of life and still be called reasonable, we can call the Trinity a mystery and still be reasonable.

God, though three, is really one (echad). This is one of the great mysteries of faith, and instead of filling us with skepticism it should fill us with wonder. The wonder of echad is that God is the only God (see Is 44:6).

Posted in Father, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Theology, Trinity | Leave a Comment »

The Atheist Continues Reading, part III

Posted by Cory Tucholski on November 19, 2007

Second, is the god depicted in the Old Testament books I have read so far (Genesis through Numbers) the same god that I will encounter in the New Testament, or are these two different gods? If it is the same god, then it would seem that reading the Old Testament is worthwhile because it will teach me quite a bit about the character of this god, even if the covenants change. On the other hand, if we have two different gods here, then I should probably stop reading the Old Testament, as it is really telling me nothing useful. (source)

Yes, the God from the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament.

You hit the nail on the head.  The covenants change, which is why the seeming change in character.  I assure you, however, the Father is every bit as wrathful as you see in the Old Testament (cf. Rom 9:22-24; 1 Cor 11:32b; Rev 3:19).  It is the Holy Spirit that shows the nurturing side of God’s character, and the Son who bore the Father’s wrath so that we, the elect, don’t have to.  For a good outline of the Father’s continuing wrath, see this recent post.

Because God is a Trinity–three Persons of one essence–anything spoken of one can also be spoken of the others.  So Jesus Christ–God–is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8), and so is the Father.  His character has not changed, His wrath is merely sated in a different fashion.

By all means, read the Old Testament.  It will give you insight into God’s character.  He does punish, He does destroy.  He is vengeful and full of wrath when His children sin.  He smites the disobedient.  But He is more complex than righteous anger.  He loves the world so much, that He offered us the means of salvation (Jn 3:16) if we only confess faith in Christ (Rom 10:9-10).  A single confession that will change your life forever for the better.

Posted in Apologetics, Atheism, Bible Thoughts, Theology, Trinity | Leave a Comment »

It is Finally Here: My Long Awaited Answer to DA’s Vicar of Christ

Posted by Cory Tucholski on October 27, 2007

I know that I have promised this and promised this. I’m sorry it has taken so long. New parents and anyone who has suffered depression in their lives will totally understand. I’m sure that many of you have doubted that it would ever arrive. But here it is, in PDF format. I hope that it was worth the wait. Enjoy!

Posted in Apologetics, Father, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Papacy, Roman Catholicism, Theology, Trinity | Leave a Comment »

Good Luck with all This

Posted by Cory Tucholski on September 18, 2007

Although this lawsuit is filed with a specific political agenda in mind, it is interesting for its theological considerations as well.

I thought that I’d take a moment to ruminate on the possibility of actually suing God and winning. The reason is that, by necessity, I have been studying the philosophical aspects of the Trinity in order to write a much more serious article in response to Dave Armstrong than this humorous and philosophically entertaining one. The primary concept that I’ve been looking into is perichoresis–the inherent coexistence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and their indwelling within the elect. It is this indwelling that creates God’s omnipresence. This lawsuit states that, since God is omnipresent, He is therefore present in Douglas county (which is the venue of the suit).

That is very true. God created the universe, so He is not contained by it. In fact, the universe is contained within Him, and it is in Him that the universe takes its identity and in Him that the universe finds its being. He is the only reality, our reality is only at His will and pleasure. As a result, to borrow a simpler way of putting it from my brother-in-law Nate, “God is the only reality, and we are ‘less real’ by comparison.” Truly, we can only define ourselves in relation to Him.

This is God’s Sovereignty. The Bible makes it clear that we derive everything from Him (Gen 1:26): our identity, our dominion of land and animals, our likenesses. Everything was His first, and He gifted some of it to us. As I’ve often said, “We owe Him everything; He owes us nothing.”

So, if He is the perfection that we aspire to become but cannot attain, if He is the only way by which we can define ourselves and the Ultimate Cause of Everything, how are we able to properly obtain an injunction against that which is His divine work? More importantly, how could this injunction possibly be enforced?

We are gifted with a limited sovereignty over God’s creation–He gifted that to us. He defined the relationship we have to the rest of the earth, and we use His Ultimate Sovereignty as the model for the limited sovereignty He gave us. The point is that He is the One who defines these rules–in fact, our laws are only a model of the divine laws He gave us in His word, the Bible. We don’t just exist because of Him, the way we live is defined in relation to Him.

He shouldn’t be subject to our laws or even our ideals of Him. Doing so is trying to contain Him. But we don’t contain God, He contains us while penetrating and surrounding us–that is the essence of perichoresis (which, according to Wikipedia, is Greek for “envelope”). This model of creation is derived from the Trinity itself: each member of the Trinity surrounds, penetrates, and contains each other member. All are God, and God is all. But each has a unique ministry that the others are present and take active roles in as a consequence and extension of their identity as a Trinity. This is the same way creation is expressed: God is in and through all of it as a consequence of His identity as God, the creator, container, and sustainer of this all.

It is as beautiful as it is mysterious, and it gives me a greater sense of wonder as I worship God, my Creator (Father), my Savior (Son), and my Helper and Comforter (Holy Spirit).

Posted in Apologetics, Bible Thoughts, Humor, Morality, Theology, Trinity | Leave a Comment »