Curious Christians rightly ask: what is the Trinity? This question is especially pressing for Protestants, for they claim to base their theology on scripture, and yet when we look in the Bible, there is no passage which clearly lays out this idea that God is three “Persons” in one “substance.” In this episode, Prof. Dale Tuggy reviews three Protestant treatments from three books, all bearing the same title: What is the Trinity?
Two of these books, the ones by Dr. Sproul and Dr. Wells, suffer from some important historical inaccuracies, especially about the content and purpose of the famous 325 creed composed at Nicea. More importantly, the two clash on what the Trinity doctrine really means. Dr. Sproul seems to say that the Trinity is one divine self with three “personae” (personalities), but later seems to say that we really can’t understand what God is three of. Dr. Wells asserts what Tuggy calls a “three self” Trinity theory, on which each “Person” of the Trinity is a self. He’s not able to say, though, how this differs from tritheism! Instead he assures us that we don’t need to worry about that… for a surprising reason!
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Author: Dale Tuggy
Keywords: Logos, Word made flesh, Jesus is the Word, trinitarianism, Tri-unity, Pre-existent word, Pre-existence, Pre-existent, Jesus is God, God the Son, hypostasis, Jesus existed before Abraham, Christ existed before Abraham, Greater than Abraham, Existed before Abraham, Before Abraham, Trinity, Trinitarian, Preexistence, Jesus preexisted, Jesus pre-existed, Jesus preexisted before he was born, Jesus' preexistence, Jesus' pre-existence, Christ preexisted, Christ pre-existed, Christ's preexistence, Christ's pre-existence, Jesus's preexistence, Jesus existed before he was born, Deity of Christ, Deity of Jesus, Triunity, Arianism, Arian, Three in one, Three gods, Three gods one person, Three persons, Johannine comma, Johanine comma, Johanine coma, Johannine coma, Comma, False doctrine, False teaching, Arius, Arias, Nicene Creed, Nicaea, Nicea, Athanasian Creed, Athanasius, Father son holy spirit, Father son holy ghost, Triune, Three persons in one God, eternal sonship, god manifest in the flesh, God incarnate, incarnation, incarnate, God made flesh, God manifestation, eternal son, eternal son of God, Christology, Christologies, Binitarian, Binitarianism, Jesus is divine, Christ is divine, God in three persons, divinity of Jesus, divinity of Christ, Homoiousian, Homoousian, Homoousion, Adoptionism, adoptionist
Bible reference(s): Isaiah 9:6, Matthew 28:19, John 1:1-3, John 1:14, John 1:18, Joh 10:30, Joh 17:3, Joh 20:28, 1Co 8:6, Eph 4:6, 1 Tim 2:5, 1 Tim 3:16, 1 John 5:7-8
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