Ep. 180 Was Nicaea Good or Bad? Tyler McNabb vs Steven Nemes

[Music] So in case you didn't know, this is the 1700th anniversary of the Council of NICIA. The Council met in 325 to debate various issues related to the doctrine of the Trinity. Another Council was held in the year 381 at Constantinople, and this final Council is where we get the version of the NICIN Creed that all of you listening are familiar with. NICIN theology proclaims that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all consubstantial or homoacious. This is said to secure the equal divine status of those three persons. Further, NICIN theology teaches that the Father eternally generates or causes the Son and Spirit to exist. Of course, there's a split later on in Church history over whether or not the Father and the Son together cause the Spirit to exist. But no one in this episode today is Eastern Orthodox, so maybe that just doesn't matter. I don't know. We'll we'll we'll find out soon. So let me introduce the my guess for today. So I have with me Tyler McNabb and Stephen Nemist. They've both been on the show in the past, but why don't we just have you guys introduce yourselves in case anybody does not know who you are. So Tyler, why don't you go first? Yeah, so my name is Dr. Tyler McNabb. You know, I had to throw out that doctor in there to make it official. No, no, I'm just joking. People just couldn't call me Tyler. I'm a associate professor of philosophy at St. Francis University and I have six kids, you know, in part because I'm Catholic. So if the prior probability of me being a Catholic in case in case the audience was confused today about who was Catholic or who is not just remind you can remind yourself I have six kids. So yeah, and I liked to publish an epistemology and in comparative philosophy. Now Tyler, when I first met you, this was I think this would have been like 2014 maybe. And I remember your wife is pregnant. What what number kid was that? That was number two. That was number two. Okay. It's been it's been a minute. We have six. So it's it's had lots of in fact number two turns 11 Wednesday. So I have a 13 year old and 11 year old as my oldest. My goodness. Okay. All right. So yeah, there's been a bunch of kids since we first met. All right. Steven, tell everyone about yourself. Well, I'm Dr. Steven Nemesh. I have a PhD in theology from fuller theological seminary where I studied officially under professor Oliver Chris and unofficially under professor Valley Monte Carcayne. Those are the only two professors that I took seminars with. So I say that I studied under the both of them because I took an even an even amount of seminars with both of them. And they were both readers for my dissertation. After I finished my PhD, I did not get a job working in theology. So since then I have been working as a middle school and high school teacher at a classical education charter school in Phoenix, Arizona where I teach Latin and humane letters. And I've also taught Greek on one year. I taught Greek. I have a few books written on various topics in theology. A book about this issue, Trinity and Incarnation. I have a book about the Eucharist. I have a book about theological authority in the church and a couple others. And lately I have been trying to wean myself off of theology and philosophy of religion altogether because I have lost my interest in talking about it or thinking about it very much. It doesn't do for me any more what it used to do. But I am always interested in having a nice conversation with friends. So I don't mind doing something like this. It's the the academic, you know, professional side of things that has become less fulfilling for me since then. So that's about it. I'm trying to reinvent myself as a novelist because I do even though I don't want to write academic theology anymore, I do have this obsessive need to write. So I thought that maybe by writing fiction I could pursue this impulse to write in my own fascination with ideas in a different venue. Although that's extremely difficult and it's much easier to get discouraged doing this than doing theology. Academic theology is easier to write than fiction. So it's a bit of work. I'm sort of starting from scratch. But that in brief is me. I am married and I have one son. I should say that much. So you're a fun family. Yeah, yeah. So you can tell that I'm the Protestant when I only have one kid. Exactly. That's what I was about to say. So I'll be Peca Vino who's the head of the theology department in Helsinki. He's written a bunch of fictional stories as well. So you know, there's any sense you've like studied under a fin. You know, you just you just go and finish with your theology right now. That's right. Yeah. Take some detours and some fiction for a while and come back. Fin maxing for sure. Yeah. Exactly. All right. So we've got today we're going to do four big questions that we want to have a very friendly debate about or maybe an ugly debate. We'll see how this goes. So here are the four questions we want to ask in this in this debate today. So was the council of Nicaea a good thing for Christianity is nice in theology coherent is nice in theology consistent with the Bible and then finally should nice in theology be binding for Christians today. And so naturally we're going to start with the first question. So was the council of Nicaea a good thing for Christianity. So we're going to give Tyler about five minutes to do an opening statement. Then we're going to have Stephen give his five minutes and then we'll have a little bit of cross examination before we get into the second question. So Tyler take it away. Stephen would you say about my mama? I can't repeat it. Right. So I think that the church articulating fundamental truth about our salvation is a good thing. Since nice a trinitarianism articulates fundamental truths about our salvation the council of Nicaea would be a good thing. Now as an analytic philosopher you might poke at this and say something like well what if your fundamental truths that you're telling you're telling them a little too early for a community to truly understand to truly grasp maybe you're telling them too early they're going to cause lots of fights by telling these fundamental truths too early that sort of thing. And so maybe we can't really gauge whether or not the Nicaea is good in the sense that it was at the best optimal time. Right. Because maybe there's other times it could have been better and this kind of just seems beyond my my kin my capability my cognitive grasp of things this is something that God knows but not not me. But I do think generally fundamentally kind of telling truths about our salvation that's a good thing. And so I like Nicaea. I know again prior probabilities in some of the Catholic liking Nicaea going to be high. Right. Kind of a different way to understand the question. Right. Also the question is nice good since that it tells a great story. Right. And I think it does. I think that it is a great source. I'm going to kind of piggyback from Plantega and you know Ophelix Copa but apply this kind of more triterionally. So here's my view. I figure I'll use this time. The three minutes or so that I have left. I'm going to use this time to kind of just explain my view where I'm coming from and why I think it's a really good story and then we can go from there. Right. So explanation for all things all that exists. And in order to avoid secular accounts or bootstrapping accounts or overly quantified accounts of the grounding of all things God cannot be a thing that needs to be explained following the neoplatonic tradition. God quite literally is no thing. Right. And right now it's punching the air. Another way of putting it is that God transcends the realm of things. He is beyond existence. Now I think we can only understand God by saying what God is not or best by way of using analogies. Analogies are great. Of course, some being more apt than others. Then the lesson, some sense we can say God is both one and three. And ologically speaking, we can say that the Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. So in another sense, we can say that there are three persons that exist. Each one is fully God. Each person is not reducible to another. As the Son is eternally be God and the Spirit logically proceeds from the Father and the Son, sorry orthodox bros, God exists in three persons. He doesn't partly exist in each person, but fully so. Stealing a line from the great Buddhist philosopher, at Dill Popa, that's right, Buddhist philosophy, and it's an experience that we can go around that if anyone is interested. For him, the Buddha nature was one essence. Yet at the same time, it existed as a primordial family. So that's kind of what I'm taking Trinitarian theology as well. One essence, I think this primordial natural family that exists for him was the Buddha nature, for me. I'll call it God. The primordial family then creates other families. And other other things. Yet this creation rebels against the natural family, but the natural family loves their creation to the point where God the Son takes on human nature and dies for a rebellious creation. This pleases God the Father to where the Father raises the Son from the dead by the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and doing so God tells the greatest story ever told as he reconciles creation to himself. This is a great story in great news. The story is even better than the story where there is no cosmic Father giving up his Son or his Son willingly gives up his life for his Father. It's also a better story where God needs to use a mediator rather than himself to communicate, save and reveal himself, say like maybe a more classic Aryan sort of you. So to me it does seem like trinitarianism is good news and that Nicaean conveying this good message, this great story is a good thing. Thanks. Excellent. Okay, so Stephen, tell us why it's not a good thing. Yeah, thank you Tyler for the the response or for the initial statement. I think Nicaean was a bad thing for Christian teality. I think it was a really bad thing actually. Entirely apart from the question of whether Nicaean theology considered on its own has various qualities, attractive qualities, whether it tells a nice story, things like that. Regardless of whether a nice scene theology is particularly intellectually fruitful, which is an argument for example that David Bentley Hart makes about the value of nice scene theology, despite its lack of continuity and coherence with earlier Christian theology in his book Tradition and Apocalypse. Entirely apart from whatever good things you might be able to say about nice scene theology, I think Nicae itself, the counsel of Nicae itself was a bad thing for Christian theology for two reasons that I'll mention today. The first reason that the counsel of Nicaean was a bad thing for Christian theology is that it implicated the state in theology. We know that the counsel was presided over by the emperor Constantine. We know that subsequent councils were declared ecumenical basically by the approval of the emperor that the emperor tried to enforce councils that he took to be ecumenical, that emperors after Constantine took sides in these debates. For example, many of the immediate successors of Constantine were actually pro-Aryan or pro-Yanomian or whatever they might have been or they might have taken some sort of mediating position between extremes and there were other councils between Nicaean and Constantinople I. There was another council in Constantinople if I'm not mistaken in the 360s, which actually was taken to be ecumenical and was taken to have establish a consensus for about 20 years until Constantius rises to the throne or is it theodosis? I think it's Constantius. Maybe it's theodosis. I don't remember. He takes the throne. He establishes Nicene orthodoxy in Constantinople. He punishes the Aryan bishop to kick them out and then he organizes the Constantinople council in 381. The problem with implicating the state in theology is that statesmen have one set of goals and things that they're trying to accomplish. Theologians, at least in so far as they're acting scientifically or engaging in logos and reasoned discourse, have a different task. And these things can sometimes come apart. They can sometimes clash, or rather I should say. The statesmen is concerned with unity with coherence, with integrity of the state, with protecting their own power also. It depends on how selfless or selfish the particular rulers may be. A selfish ruler is concerned for the integrity of the state for his own sake so that he doesn't get toppled and overthrown and that he can enjoy his rule further. A selfless ruler is more concerned for the state itself. But still, what matters to these people is the state. That's what they care about. But there is no reason. I'll pre-orey why a theological discussion, the conclusion of a theological discussion should be favorable to the state. Because theology is its own thing. When we talk about God and when we try to figure out what God is, there is no guarantee ahead of time that the conclusions that we come to are going to be favorable to the states that we live in. Just like for example, if a council were convened in an Islamic country, debating the topic of the Trinity, and for whatever reason, after much discourse, they arrived at a Trinitarian conclusion. That's not very good for the Islamic nation state that they live in, but that's where the discussion led. So the way I think, there is no reason why theology has to be accommodating or favorable to particular state arrangements. And by implicating the state in the theological discussion, that ruins, that taints theology. Theology is always going to have to be compromised by the state in that case. Because the state has the knives and the guns, not the theologians. So there's inevitably going to be a compromise of theology when the state is involved. The second reason why I think the council of the ICA was a bad thing for Christianity is that it introduced a fallacious mode of reasoning into theology, namely the appeal to a council or the appeal to, you know, you can call it the argumentum ad concealum. There is nothing about a group of people getting together and talking about something and then stating their conclusion that entails that their conclusion is true. Because all those people can be wrong. Many people can be wrong. You know, first of all, even if we do have a group of people who get together and they form a council and they come to a conclusion, that conclusion has to be tested. The reasons that they gave, the arguments that they gave for their conclusion, the evidence that they had at their disposal, that all has to be called into question. It could be that later on we have another council. We think about the same arguments. They're not as convincing anymore. We think that they've misinterpreted evidence and we come to a different conclusion than them. Well, you can't just say, well, we already settled this at ICA, so there's not going back on it now. That's just not how reasoning works. People always reason within the limitations of the time and the place where they happen to be, within the limitations of their own intellectual strengths and gifting. And there's always a fallible, revisable element in our reasoning about things. It's always possible for us later to realize that, oh, we got this wrong. Maybe we weren't right about this. This argument actually is not that convincing. And later generations will try to lead us in a different direction. Maybe we should revise our conclusions. Well, given that this is obviously how human reason functions, the argumentum at Concealium, so to speak, is just a purely fallacious argument. It says, we don't have to worry about all that. We don't have to worry about natural human valibility because this council has already been decided. This issue was already decided at ICA. That's a fallacious argument. It's obviously fallacious. The only reason people find it compelling is when it serves their own interests. So if I were to appeal, for example, to the council at Constantinople in 360, or whenever it was, which provided a non-NICEME sort of compromised homo-ucin position in favor of that point of view, nobody would accept it. Nobody would accept appeal to that council, but they would accept an appeal to NICIA or to Constantinople 1. Why is that? Because those councils justify their theological conclusions and the other council that I mentioned doesn't. So I think that the argumentum at Concealium is just plainly a fallacious mode of reasoning. It's unfortunate that it's as common as it is in Christian theology, but it was really the council of NICIA that introduced this form of reasoning into theology. So that's why I think that the council of NICIA is a bad thing. Tyler, do you want to have a question or possibly a response to something Stephen said? Yeah, sure. So thanks for that, Stephen. In reference to the first point, that opens up a whole 'nother can of worms, right? What relationship did church have with the states? We will probably have differing views on all of this. But nonetheless, we can both agree that God reveals himself and culture and society. And this is the culture and society that the fathers of the council had. And I think that utilizing what was available to God, so to speak, might have been a good idea to include certain measures in which he utilized and so forth, even if generally speaking, that's not a good thing. Nonetheless, maybe it was the appropriate thing to do. In this case, I see reveals himself to the particular culture where it had its particular views and government and so on and so forth. So anyway, just a point, I just went kind of out. What are your substantive replies? Regarding, did it introduce informal, polacious reasoning, appealing to the consensus? Is that a bad thing? Then your other point was that just the idea of, I guess, appealing to a council and saying that it's final and you can't go back on it and change, right? Those were the two main points. My first point was that the council of NICA was bad because it implicated the state in theology. And the second point was that it introduced a polacious mode of arguing into theology, nearly the appeal to council. Okay. Yeah. So, and then there was the bit about not going backward. So, in a bit, I guess, I'm going to argue the opposite. I'm going to argue actually beliefs can be justified and rational by appealing to consent, that appealing to authorities is not irrational or necessarily an informal fallacy. So, I suppose I'll get that. But Acts 15, right? I mean, there is a council of Jerusalem and obviously, I know Catholics. and higher church Anglicans and Protestants are all gonna differ in how they interpret Acts 15. But Acts 15, obviously Catholics are gonna say, no, there is a council, and that's exactly what happened, the apostles, the bishop, so it was to be a God together, and they made a binding decision. Everyone else had to follow through. It's not an invention of Nicaea. It's something that's grounded in scripture. So yeah, and the idea about not going back, I was just gonna say, Catholics, of course, are gonna appeal to on their paradigm. Passages like Matthew 16, where the gates of hell are not supposed to prevail, and I would interpret that as the church or the church and Christ, possibly, as you know, the fathers oftentimes took a yes and interpretation to scripture. And passages were like the Spirit's supposed to come and to present all truth, to teach all truth, and to be an advocate for the message and teachings of Jesus. And so the idea ultimately that the church is going to be a pillar of truth, Paul says, in Timothy. And so it seems like if the church could, they'll just constantly get all these main things wrong and stuff, it would sit at odds with this kind of parodomatic picture. Of course, there are gonna be different ways you can interpret these passages, right? And I'm familiar with your ways, feel free to bring them up. But I think that'll turn into kind of a larger debate. I'm gonna appeal to later about scripture kind of not being super clear, at least according to me, than we can talk about that later. But anyway, so I guess long story short, it just seems at odd with the idea that the church is just like utterly fallible, can get into lots of different heresies and be utterly wrong, and that sort of thing. It seems to be at odds with these certain interpretations of scripture that I'm referencing, and there does seem to be some precedent, not just in Isaiah, but in the council of Jerusalem as well. - Well, I will say this much. One, I don't think the council of Jerusalem ever happened. Two, nobody appeals to the council of Jerusalem in the New Testament or in the second or in the third century. There is no such thing as an argument against Judaism, Christians, or whatever, by appeal to the council of Jerusalem in the second and the third century. Paul never talks about the council of Jerusalem in his own letters. So just, my claim was that the council of Niciah introduced the argument to Matt Concilium into Christian theology, and it seems to me that that's true, because the only really example that you can point to prior to that of a quasi-accommodal council is Jerusalem, which did not happen as far as I'm concerned, but also even if it did happen, nobody ever appealed to it in an argument for a theological position. So even then, however you want to make sense of the significance of the council of Jerusalem, you have to reckon with the fact that nobody apparently thought that the council of Jerusalem represented an infallible council that you could appeal to as a premise in an argument for theological conclusion. That's one thing I want to say. A second thing that I want to say is that I agree that appeals to consensus is, our fair game for showing that a belief is, let's say, reasonable, at least prima facie reasonable. That's fair. But that's not what is going on with Nicaea. And certainly my own objection to Nicaea is not just like it's an argument to a consensus. First of all, there is no consensus at Nicaea, because Nicaea was a handful of all the Christian bishops who existed in the world, and not all of them agreed, first of all, among themselves, or about how to interpret the terms of Nicaea. Even then, there was no consensus after Nicaea, because like I said, Nicaea happened in 325, and a great part of the whole Christian world basically went on as if nothing ever happened. Athanasia had to continue to write works, and UCBS also continued to write works, justifying the theological conclusions of Nicaea. There were other councils that took place between Nicaea and Constantinople I, which came to different conclusions, which repudiated Nicaea, and one of those councils, specifically a council in the 360s from Constantinople before Constantinople I, was basically accepted as a Cumentical for about 20 years. If you had the bad luck of dying in the year 375, you would have thought that the Catholic doctrine is not Nicaea, but this other council that happened in the meantime, right? And you would have been within your rights as a well-meaning, you know, faithful Catholic with a lower-case-see Christian, to say, actually our doctrine is not what Nicaea said. That was a Robert council. The real ecumenical council is this one that happened 15 years ago in Constantinople. But then if you had the good luck of living in other five years, and you got to go around to the other Constantinople council, the one that stuck, because the emperor killed people who disagreed with him, then you would have said, no, that was a Robert council. That one was fake. Nicaea is real, and this Constantinople is real. Like there just is no consensus. Ever since Nicaea, in every single generation of Christians that existed since then, there have been people who disagreed about Nicaea. There have been people who thought that Nicaea theology was incoherent, that it didn't square with what the Bible said. And for a very long time, all those people were laughed out of town in the best case, or, you know, killed, beaten up, excommunicated, et cetera, in the worst cases. So when they beaten up, killed, and so forth, and laughed out of town, because there was a consensus. And there's minor-- That's not a consensus. Where's the consensus? If it happens again and again over history, how is that a consensus? It's a false consensus. There's actually not-- I mean, what's your account of consensus? Something like everyone in the world believes in it, or like, I can't have any rational disagreements in it. Or it seems like if the vast majority of peoples and officials and so forth are saying this is the case, it seems like that's a consensus enough. And then I really wasn't sure if-- Let me go find this as well. My apologies. So I can agree that there is a sense of the word consensus, where, like, if just everybody just happens to believe this, and all the people who have the force, you know, the means of force available to kick people out of disagree, all those people just happen to agree about something. That's a consensus. That's fine. You can call that a consensus. However, it's rationally worthless, because that, by itself, does not prove anything. Just the fact that everybody happens to agree, in those conditions, is not at all conducive to the truth of the thing about which they agree. What would be convincing is if you could give arguments, and then you could persuade a bunch of other people by your arguments without the threat of violence whatsoever. And when people rise up again and again to contest what you're saying, you can respond to their objections to their own satisfaction and convert them. And you don't have to kick them out and you don't have to use this word against them. If that could happen, then it would be a rationally impressive consensus. So maybe all not all consensuses are the same. Some of them are more supportive or more indicative of the truth of the proposition at question than others are. So if you do get to the point where you have everybody agreeing, but it's only because all the people who ever disagree have been kicked out or killed, that is no longer a rationally compelling consensus. There's no longer for me any reason to believe that that's a consensus around the truth rather than around something else. So I think that that's to say that it's not a rational consensus. Like, obviously there were arguments given, even to Aryans and the Neo-Aryans and so on and so forth. There was actually rational dialogue and debate going on. Of course, when the state gets involved, it sees its own interests and it sees disunity and it sees perhaps public harm, they might get involved in that way. But to act like there weren't kind of like rational arguments being spread back and forth, there was and still majority of those who existed were supporting after the Council on ICA happened. There became a growing consensus where today, that consensus still exists. But I just wanted to get clarification on the ax thing. So were you saying that ax 15's of forgery? Yeah, I don't think that ever happened. Not part of the original ax or-- I'm not saying that it's a forgery. Because I think the text of the ax is a second century text. I think it's written in the second century. It's not like that story about Jerusalem was added to a preexisting text. I think it's a second century text. The first time we have any attestation, what's that? Even later, since NICIA is after that, and you're saying that the origin is NICIA is to what invented this kind of council high views of the ecumenical council. No, I'm not saying that ax was written after the Council of NICIA, that's what I'm saying. Because we have external attestation to the Book of Acts in the late second century by dynasties of Corinth and Ironaise. But we don't have any attestation to the Book of Acts at all until then. So as far as-- and all the texts that we have, there is no record of anybody knowing about or having read Acts until dynasties of Corinth in the late 170s. And then Ironaise, a couple years after him, I think, ax was written in the second century. It's a work of fiction. I don't know whether the person was intending to write fiction or intending to put together pieces of details that he had and blending it with stuff from his own mind. I don't know exactly. But I certainly don't think the Council of Jerusalem ever happened. There's no evidence in Paul's text-- at least in Paul's undisputed text-- that there was ever a Council of Jerusalem. If there was a Council of Jerusalem, it would have been very useful to him to appeal to it, at least once or twice, in dealing with the very same issues that come up in Romans, in Galatians, in Philippians, and so on. But he never does. And especially if the Council of Jerusalem were some sort of proto-economic council that handed down an infallible announcement that every Christian was supposed to take for granted, just because the apostles all came up with it in Jerusalem, you would think that Paul would mention it. He never does. So if there was a Council of Jerusalem, it did not have that significance that Nicae will later have. But I think it's doubtful that there was a Council of Jerusalem at all. So you're going against the vast consensus of scholarly-- there's no force. There's no evil people behind the door that are going to burn us at the stake if we disagree. But the overwhelming consensus of the field-- things to act you go against that just want to know why is it an overwhelming consensus I know I know scholars who agree with me that the Scott that acts was written in the second century So you don't think it's consensus? I don't think it's a I mean I don't know whether there's a consensus. I think if you here's here's another thing the majority of people who work in biblical studies are evangelicals or otherwise religiously conservative and Even if they think they're perfectly justified and have good arguments for their conclusions They still are normally informed by their religious convictions They normally are concerned to come up with conclusions that justify their own theological convictions and their own ecclesial commitments and so on So they're not exactly unbiased, you know Researchers it makes a difference to their personal lives the conclusions that they come to so this nest this necessarily affects How they treat the evidence in my experience? That's also true in theology most people especially in the American context where it's not just every university has a theology department Basically if you want to teach theology in America, you have to go to a confessional school And that means that you have to sign on to the things that they're expecting you to say because the confessional schools being privately owned and funded Necessarily belong basically in the pockets of people with specific theological visions that they're trying to enforce Okay, well if those are the conditions in which I'm working then naturally I'm gonna spend all of my time researching Conclusions that I already agree with coming up with new arguments for them or finding you know new ways of Justifying my beliefs in another different just the whole process is tainted I think actually there are very good arguments for thinking that acts is not a first century text That it's a second century text that it's not historically reliable That the council's just will never happen and I just gave you a couple of them first of all that there is no attestation to Acts except in the late 170s Second of all that Paul himself never references this council that nobody until Aronneus actually not even that nobody in the second or the third centuries ever refers to the council of Jews from as an Infallible council as a premise in a theological argument like this. This is all just read backwards after I see I have this holy new notion of what a council is and then you interpret Jerusalem that way, but it wasn't that Well, you most people right they will take Galatians was written before The council of Jerusalem for this reason because there doesn't there isn't an appeal to The council of Jerusalem and Paul's letter to her name to say hey guys shut up We've already discussed right so I mean I could go either way right it could be that council didn't exist or it could be that Hey, for example, it just didn't happen yet I mean if you date Paul's letters early and if you date the the gospels early and so forth Which actually more and more innovative scholarship? You know is doing then To answer at least a portion of that concern Yeah, I guess the bigger disagreement would be on kind of I guess dating when did Paul date that but I don't know What would you expect? I mean like Galatians is obviously that one letter that you definitely would expect X 15 to be mentioned in But like when it comes to to To Jews and our do Christians need to be circumsized that sort of thing. I mean maybe Romans Outside of that I'm not sure Why he would appeal to that in the context of the of his letters? I mean they're mostly to Gentiles and so forth. So Yeah, I guess it's not so clear to me that you would just simply expect Paul to just constantly know appeal to X 15 and all of his letters Given the context of his letters and his audience and if again if you think Galatians like a lot of scholars do was written Then you wouldn't really even expect that in Galatians either Well, it doesn't I'm sorry. I would like to keep going down this rabbit hole because I'm really interested But in order to keep this episode relatively short we need to get on to the second the second big question But I'm glad you clarified because that was the exact question I had for you to it was like what do you mean by this? X that canceled it happened But anyway, let's get on to the second the second big question for today So is nice seem theology coherent so Stephen we're gonna start with you this time same deals before you got five minutes to make your case and then we hand it over to Tyler Sure, I do not think nice scene theology is coherent now I will begin with a clarification by nice seem theology I don't mean just a theology that starts with the words of the nice scene Consent and apolitan creed and then tries to work from there I mean the total complex of ideas that all the participants in this nice scene theological tradition took for granted Trinitarianism is one of them Creation X Nihilo is another and divine simplicity is another So it's Trinitarianism divine simplicity and Creation X Nihilo that together for me make up nice scene theology because even though the nice scene creed doesn't touch on all of these issues Explosively all of these things were working in the background These are things at the capitalsians that Athanasius later in his life that John Chrysostom all these guys took for granted and that informed their theologizing and you can read pro nice scene theologians Later on in history like John of Damascus or other people in the meantime and they all talk about this stuff and they all take it for granted So for me nice scene theology is more than just the words of the creed. It's Trinitarianism divine simplicity and creation X Nihilo now in my book Trinity Incarnation I spend a lot of time and many pages arguing that these Three commitments are incoherent all of them together do not produce a coherent theology For me one of the biggest issues is understanding what is the relationship between apostasis and ucia? Okay, so you have the ucia which is supposed to be one in God and then you have Epostasis which is supposed to be three of them the three epostasis our father son and holy spirit the one ucia is supposed to be the one God Well, how do you specify the relationship between ucia and epostasis? How do they relate is Ucia more fundamental than epostasis? Because in that case then the ucia would be more fundamental than the father and the father would then not be the most fundamental thing that there is He would not be a narcos as he's supposed to be in theology he would have a ground He would have something before him namely the ucia so you can't say that the ucia is more fundamental than the epostasis Well, could you say that epostasis is more fundamental than ucia? No, you can't because ucia is most commonly translated as being or nature or essence and a thing that does not have ucia is nothing That's thing that lacks ucia lacks any sort of content. It doesn't have being it doesn't have nature There's a there's nothing that it is there's nothing what it is and so if Epostasis were prior to Ucia that would mean that epostasis in itself has no ucia right because it can't be prior to it and also have it It would have by itself it would have nocia, but if it had no usia it would be nothing So how can it be prior to something if it's nothing? Right, so you can't say that epostasis is prior to ucia you can't say that ucia is prior to epostasis Could you say that they're just sort of on a plane like they're just on the same level? They're equally fundamental distinct from each other well if you do that then you have four things now You have three epostasis and a ucia and they're all on a level like you have three cats and a dog You don't have a trinity you don't have one god anymore. You just have a plurality Could you say that epostasis just is identical to ucia? Well, this is what divine simplicity implies. This is what the theological tradition says But the problem now is that the law of identity states that identity is a transitive relation if two things are identical to a third thing Then they're identical to each other So if ucia just is epostasis and there's only one ucia then there's only one epostasis at the end of the day At the same time if ucia just is epostasis and there are three epostasis then actually there are three ucia also Right because it becomes either one or three if you're trying to identify ucia with epostasis Then either you have as many ucia as you have epostasis or vice versa You only have one epostasis because you only have one ucia So then you lose the distinction between the persons you lose the trinity or else you lose the unity Now these are the only four logical possibilities in terms of how to relate these things right one can be more fundamental than the other or they can be equally fundamental or they can be identical Those are the only ways to think about it, but none of those yields are convincing or a satisfactory conclusion Every anyway you go you have trouble either with the you know the relations between the persons the processions the father being on on originated and so on so no matter what you choose you have trouble. That's one problem Another problem is this why should there only be three persons? Okay, we can present this argument in a series of steps. Let's start with this first question Does the father be get the son? If you are a nice scene you say yes because that's in the nice scene creed There are contemporary theologians who deny that the father be gets the son because they deny this whole You know processions and interrelations thing for various reasons we can talk about that later, but if you do that You're not nice seen anymore. I would say you know just like you are You are not a Republican anymore. Let's say if you are Well, at least in the olden days it could be that if you were not a Republican anymore if you're pro-game marriage or if you're a pro Abortion maybe in the present day. That's a different story But in the olden days it used to be that if you were for any of those things you want a Republican anymore Well, if you are against the processions You know between the persons you're not a nice scene anymore because this is one of the defining features of nice scene tradition Okay, so the father does be get the son does the father be get the son of the same nature as he so does the son have the same nature as the father? Yes, otherwise you're an Aryan if you say no, right because that was you know me as his position that the the son is of a different nature than the father So if you're a nice scene you have to say yes Okay, the father be gets the son. He be gets the son of the same nature as he does the father be get the son a Son of the same nature as he by nature So is it by nature that the father be gets a son of the same nature as he? Let's say you say yes in that case because the son has the same nature as the father and the father be gets the son by nature Then the son will have to be get a son of his own of the same nature as he and then that son will have to be Get another son of his own of the same nature as he and then you have an infinite regress. So you have an infinity of persons Okay, that's bad Let's the father begets the son of the same nature as he but not by nature. Okay, so it doesn't happen by nature so that we avoid the infinite regress. Well then we have two options left. He does it by an act of the will in which case the son did not exist prior to that act of the will and then you have a time when the son doesn't exist so you have a that's exactly what Nicaea anathematizes or you say that it's just a brute fact. It doesn't happen by nature, it doesn't happen by will it's just you know big question mark why does it happen? Well in that case the whole Trinity is a is a brute fact like you you've run you you run into problems with PSR here you run into problems with explaining the intelligibility of God. The father is a son basically apart from his the father is a father apart from is doing anything at this point because he didn't choose to be a father and it's also not his nature to be a father so just was sort of thrown on him to have a son. So you've run into problems right if you say that the father begets if you say that the father doesn't be get the son you're not a nice scene. If you say that the father doesn't be get a son of the same nature as he you're not a nice scene you're a heretic. If you say that the father begets a son of the same nature as he by nature then you have an infinity not a Trinity of persons. If you say that it happens by will then that means that the son does not exist prior to that act of will happening and the will does not happen by nature it happens freely outside of nature and so therefore you have a time when the son doesn't exist that's also a problem or if you say that it's not by will nor by nature but some mysterious third thing then you have you know you you're basically just saying like there is no explanation it's just like this it just is now you can pound the table and you can be dogmatic and you can say that the Trinity just is but I'm sorry that's not very compelling if a bunch of people got into a room and said that this apparently incoherent theology is the best explanation of the Bible but they can't even explain why things are that way that doesn't sound to me like a consensus worth believing. So you you undermine the intelligibility and the rationality of the Trinity when you say that it's not by the father's nature nor by his will that he begets the son but it just happens somehow at this point I think you're grasping for straws so for these reasons I think nice-seem theology is incoherent I know I've been talking a little bit long now I apologize but first of all because there's no way to stipulate how we see how it relates to ebostasis that doesn't run into problems and in the second place because you can actually generate an infinity of persons and not just the Trinity of persons without running into heresy somewhere along the lines so that's that's how I would argue. Excellent okay so Tyler tell us why it is coherent. Kostiven is wrong! No no no no all right so approach is going to be a little bit different so notice how I argued earlier that at best we can only speak of God by way of analogy this is true even when we discuss that he is one or he is three or persons or is right so I once again right definitely just singing Ryan's favorite tune here this language is only applied to God analogically right it's only it's only analogically true so following James Anderson we can accept the testimony of the creeds and scriptures maybe our own personal experience maybe if it's triune then we can read except the testimonies that God is one and God is three yet kind of rationally do so. I'm not going to like this so I already mentioned things that Ryan's not going to like who I'm going to now mention some stuff that Steven's not going to like so I'm a card carrying proper functionalist right so I would tell some sort of story about how we have wanted beliefs from the creeds so testimony is a me and so I'm a non-reductivist about testimony and I don't think it's reproducible to say inferences from deduction or Bayesian reasoning or you know anything like that I think it's its own unique thing and that we can achieve knowledge through testimony and that our cognitive faculties are set up in such a way where they're inclined to accept the testimony of others. If our cognitive faculties are accepting the testimony of others and you know say the belief the testimony is true and it's in a the belief is warranted that I'm accepting that belief itself is warranted right it's in its kind of a a warranted testimony will chain as PlanoGo calls it as long as I accept the testimony right then then assuming my faculties are functioning properly and of truth and that sort of thing then the testimony that I'm accepting can be rational so say Claire and if you don't like proper functionalism fine we can do this with seemings for phenomenal conservatism we can do this for other epistemic theories as well obviously very much so general process for libelism that sort of thing so say Claire she's my dog by the way comes to believe her name's actually Saint Claire because we're at a Franciscan school so Saint Claire comes to believe that God is one and yet God is three he sees the tension but nonetheless possesses warrant for both of her beliefs and she has independent warrant for each one she has independent warrant for the God is one independent warrant for God is three right maybe because the creed say both maybe because her pastor her church her own reading of scripture her own religious experiences that sort of thing all right so she has independent warrant from believing both things Claire can nonetheless rationally believe both propositions and doesn't have to think that there is a contradiction here since language about God is an allogical whatever we mean by one in three or persons etc won't map on to God in the same way these concepts would map on to us or be applied to things in this case there's are going to be as James Anderson points out unarticulated equivocations that are beyond our kin to resolve so rather than a contradiction it's possible this is this is just a paradox and it's not a true contradiction so I'm not going to go to the JC Biel Ralph there in this case libertarianism is true and Claire does actually have independent warrant for believing the God is one and God is three you can still be rational and holding to both these beliefs continuing to to from both these beliefs and just kind of understanding that's beyond her capabilities to kind of figure out exactly where the conflict really lies like why why why this is not actually a contradiction and so you know James Anderson gives this nice case of a continental theologian coming in and you know pretend you're like a freshman in college or something maybe not a theology major and they maybe haven't even had like a whole lot of sleep the night before right and the continental theologian says for any of you who are familiar with kind of ladian terminology here right the kingdom of God is here and then you space out you do totally start checking social media and that sort of thing and then you come back to it at the end of the lecture you think oh I'm going to be graded on this I need to pay attention and you hear the kingdom of God is not here and then the lecture ends you can think well this guy probably knows better than me he's an expert in the field I'm just going to trust him that both propositions are true even though I don't know how to show that they're both true and both consistent or of course you can just say well I since I can't figure it out it must be the case that it's it's it's inconsistent that there's a logical contradiction here right so you can go those two ways but again because of the doctrine of analogy and especially motivated by the the analogy of being right so I call all the way down via analogy this seems like this is kind of almost this the theory predicts that there will be unarticulated equivocations that we should expect paradoxes right if God's not a thing but beyond the realm of existing things he's beyond being that I'm going to expect paradoxes right like I'm not going to be too surprised that there are paradoxes if that's what we're talking about we're not categorizing God in to say a more neoclassical theistic way or Swinburne in a Craig Plantigian way right maybe you wouldn't expect as much paradoxes on these accounts but on this this god this apathetic view it seems like that that shouldn't be too surprising so in summary I'll close with this because I don't like 30 seconds over and summary I like what Karen killby says she's a theologian out of Durham she says we know what must we know we must say each of these things about God talking about being three persons one essence but we do not know how to understand them and most particularly we do not know how to understand them altogether we cannot integrate them and derive a unified picture a concept a vision or a holistic trinitarian understanding in quote and that's again because the apathetic theology and so what we mean by one what we mean by three yeah maybe that's inconsistent what we mean by person what we mean by begotten what we mean by proceeding from the father in the sun maybe as we would understand it as applied to creatures as to things yeah maybe that that pair contradictions emerge and all these sorts of metaphysical situations that were that Stephen is is talking about emerge but again if we're using analogical language then obviously that's not necessarily the case okay so Stephen do you have a in order to keep this a bit shorter do you have like one question you want to ask Tyler um oh you're making it hard for me I'm sorry I'm sorry There were a few things. I didn't have so much questions as maybe responses. I can make like three quick responses. I'll try to be fast. In the first place, I think that the appeal to analogical language is unconvincing here. Because I think that analogical language does not represent a true third category between equivocal and univocal language. I think I agree with Thomas Williams who wrote an article about this on SCOTUS. Analogical language can be reduced to univocal language. Basically, you say that A is F and B is analogously F. Well, it's always possible in that situation to specify some second predicate G where anything that is F is also G, but not necessarily vice versa. So for example, if the C is massive and God is massive, well, both the C and God are such that I cannot comprehend them entirely with one act of the mind. Anything that is massive in the literal physical sense is such that I cannot comprehend it entirely with one act of the mind. And God is also massive analogously because this predicate, but notice the predicate you prize univically to the C and to God. The analogy here can be reduced to maybe a less impressive, less poetic, literal description of a predicate to both God and the C. So I don't believe that analogy is a real third category. If we do use analogical knowledge language in relation to God, then we should be able to specify in what sense is God as a person, in what sense is he one, in what sense is he three? If you can't specify that sense, then we can start talking and we can see whether my arguments survive this clarification of sense or not. But if you can't specify the sense, then I'm going to say you don't know what you're talking about. Because you say that it's analogous and not equivocal, not univocal, but you also can't tell me what you mean. So how do you know that you're even right about what you're saying if you don't know what you mean? How do you know that the church is telling you something correct? If you don't know what the church means and the church apparently doesn't know what it means. So this would be a first point that I would make about analogy. A second point. I think people are not as credulous and not as easy to believe as Plantica makes them out to be in some of his literature. I think if a student stepped into class heard the words, the kingdom of God is here, spaced out, and then at the end of class heard the kingdom of God is not here. He would not just think, you know what, this teacher knows better than me. I'll just accept both of them. Probably that student would say, I don't understand what this guy is talking about. I'm confused. This is all beyond me. This guy, maybe this guy doesn't even know what he's talking about. Or he would just say, I must have missed something because maybe the professor is contradicting the guy that he mentioned at the start of class. So maybe the professor disagrees with the guy that he started that he started out with. So I just don't think people are as credulous as Plantica makes them out to be. I think Plantica actually is trying to avoid submitting his beliefs to the acid bath of critical reflection and rational critique by just making himself out to be piously credulous. And well, God says it, so I believe it. I mean, yeah, sure, there are some considerable arguments here, but I have really good reasons to believe that God is trying to try you. And I'm just going to go on and believe, actually, you don't have really good reasons. That's one of the points that people are always trying to make against this proper functionalist line of responses. That whatever your reasons are, I have arguments against you now. So let's see how good those reasons are and let's see how good my arguments against you are now. You can't just sort of pull back to it. This is another point I wanted to make. The question was whether nicetiology is coherent, not whether a person can be rational in believing it. Surely you can be rational in certain circumstances to believe something that upon further reflection you would find is incoherent. So the question about whether a person can be rational justified in believing nicetiology is one thing. Whether nicetiology considered in itself is actually coherent, that's another matter. And this is what we're supposed to be discussing. And then finally, this point about expecting paradox. Why is it that apparently as a justification for an evidently incoherent theology, we have this view of God as like so far beyond us that we would expect that if God speaks to us, he wouldn't make any sense. We would expect that if God speaks to us, it would be hard to answer all the questions that naturally arise in a person's mind about what he's saying. Why would we assume that God communicates that way? Why not think that God can communicate clearly, that he can actually make us capable of understanding himself, that he can actually communicate in clear terms what he is and how he is? Would it make God look better if he were like that? And would it make the bishops look a lot worse if they were trying to justify their apparently coherent theology by turning God into a paradox monger who likes to speak to us in puzzles and riddles and things that we can't understand? And oh, by the way, also, you could go to hell forever if you refuse to believe this stuff that we can't explain to you. It doesn't sound compelling at the end of the day. When you pull back a little bit and you see the whole big picture of the situation, it does not seem like there's much reason for thinking that this is the way God is or this is the way God would operate with finite creatures. So Tyler, just a few remarks before we move on to the next one. Sorry. He cheated. I think it's like in a bunch of it. Yeah, so this is the thing. Tyler is naturally much more charming than me, so I have to strike when I can. I'm much more boring to listen to, so I have to get in the attacks where I can. No, so you know, Steven mentions that, you know, analogical statements can be turned into univocal statements. Kind of reminds me, obviously, we all know of scotuses, famous arguments, right, where analogical predication is going to ultimately have to rest on univocal univocity because in order for something to be compared, there has to be some, you know, common denominator, that sort of argument. You know, how Steven's reasoning here, how Steven's also reasoning about like, well, why would God do this? Why would God reveal himself in like just like kind of barely little shadowy ways and yet send people to hell for, you know, not believing it or that sort of thing? Obviously sending people to hell, you know, I'm a Catholic, you know, I think Lumen Jensium's the voice on this, right? Hell is about knowingly rejecting what you know to be true, and so I'm not trying to say that everyone's going to hell if you don't believe in eternity or anything like that here, of course. But, you're, both kinds of arguments, right? The abiphatic argument that, you know, God, God, why would he reveal himself in paradoxical ways in order to in that condemn people to go to hell? Or why would he expect everyone to believe if he's giving out these, you know, paradoxical sort of statements? And then also the kind of, you know, idea that analogy must be reducible to univocity, both of these arguments have the same problem, right? So to make this quick for a barian sake, they both are, again, categorizing God as a thing, that of no thing, right? So saying that univocity has to, our, our, our, you, analytical language can always be reduced to univocity, um, if comparing a referent with another referent, there always has to be some, um, uh, comparison there that, that's, um, univocally valid, that sort of thing. Well, that might be true about things. Phenomena. God is not a thing. Object or phenomena. Similarly, we're not in a position to judge what God likely would or wouldn't do if God's not a person in the way that you and I are persons. Uh, if, if he is beyond, uh, thinghood, uh, it doesn't seem like to me we're going to be in a position to judge what God would or wouldn't likely do in this case. So, um, that's the rough response that I can give the quickest possible way to kind of, uh, attack most of what Stephen said without without getting into the majority of everything else. No, fair enough. Alright, so let's get into the third question. So is nice, um, that's the thing that I've seen theology consistent with the Bible. So Tyler, it's your turn to start this round. Right. Um, oh, just going to say here, let me start the clock so I don't go over. But yeah, I was just going to say the other thing I was just going to say was that simply that, um, if we have warrant, that the turnity is true, then we have warrant for thinking that there is not a contradiction that it's a consistent model, but, um, even if it's beyond our comprehension. So, alright, in reference to the Bible, right, I'm going to pull a Catholic card here. So, I think scripture is materially sufficient to derive doctor. I don't think scripture is formally sufficient. It can be likened to a construction site, which possesses all the material needed to make a building, but yet it lacks the plans or direction for the construction. I think you can make a decent case for infant baptism. I also think you can make a decent case for omelinialism. And of course, by that, I mean historic promulonialism. Um, when it comes to historical Jesus studies, I think you can make a pretty good case that Jesus was a version of Jesus that actually is, but I think you can make a case from that from scripture, from the gospels. I think you can also make a case that he actually didn't care so much about political realms at all, so kind of opposite case, and that he was all about the final judgment in the esqueton. I think you make a case that he was a pacifist, right, or not so much a pacifist. The question becomes how do we construct the material in front of us? Should we construct it in a trunitarian way or a classic unitarian way? Obviously, trunitarianism, uh, trunitarians have texts where independently the father, the son, the spirit can be understood to be a god, right, different passages that we can get into if that was a question. And you have other texts like Matthew 28, I don't know if people in the Father's Son are a whole spirit with the baptism of Jesus narrative or the spirit just sits on the sun and the Father says, "My son, will more please," where it seems like they're all three kind of distinct persons working simultaneously in an economic fashion for our salvation. So at the same time, you have passages where Jesus seems to be a mere mortal, other passages where it seems like, you know, maybe he's God, right? So it's kind of like up in the air, I think at least part of my psychology is maybe Steven's psychology earlier when he was like, "No, no." People wouldn't think that it's just beyond my kid to figure it out. They would object to the professor, right? Well, for me in my psychology, if I'm gonna confess my psychology, right? I'm just like, whenever I hear different arguments, biblical arguments for these doctrines, for the systematic doctrines, I'm just like, "Oh, yeah, oh, yes." Okay, that one too, but also that one, right? And so if left to our own devices, you might think the probability of getting most of your doctrine right is low or inscrutable. So a person, of course, believing that the probability of is low or inscrutable, they might have a defeated for trusting that their current doctrine is true, right? Which includes, you know, their unitarian views or their vote church Protestant views, right? I mean, I'm not saying this sort of reasoning would apply to all Protestants everywhere, but for this sort of Protestant that I understand my friend Steven is, that's kind of where I'm thinking. So alternatively, one might believe that the church as the pillar of truth will be guided to articulate all the relevant truths relating to salvation. The Vigates of Hell, after all, will not prevail against her. One then might think that one should trust the church's authority and teaching instead of her own. So it seems like if the Catholic Orthodox paradigm is true, one would be better off epistimically by believing what the church taught, namely, "Turnitarianism." And in doing so, she would not be in a grave epistemic situation. If this is every man for himself Protestantism, if that's true, especially the version that Steven's been articulating, then it seems like you're not in a likely good epistemic situation. And you probably have a defeated for believing in your particular Protestantism, where unitarianism, where all the other doctrines that you think, you probably have a defeated for thinking that you've got it mostly right. So in summary, I think the "Turnitarian" interpretation of scripture can be made. Like I think there is a plausible case. I'm not arguing that it's the most obvious case. Advocating that there are no alternative cases that can be made. It's one case that you can read from scripture. And it seems to me that we need to rest on the church's authority and her wisdom for explaining why this interpretation is of another interpretation, given that I think that is only materially sufficient and not formally sufficient. We need the church, we need the spirit of truth, we need the spirits and guide us into all truths. We need the pillar of truth in order to figure out perhaps, or at least have a higher credence for a particular doctor. And I don't think you can make the similar sorts of stories told with Steven's position. - Okay, well let's find out if that's the case. So Steven. - So the question is, is nice theology biblical? - I think not. I think Ryan already agrees with me for example that divine simplicity is not a biblical doctrine. And in my way of speaking, divine simplicity is an essential element of nice theology. So I'll be a point at least that Ryan and I have in common. I think nice theology is not biblical. I think, I agree with Tyler that in a sense, scripture is materially sufficient for nice theology. You can take the stuff that's in scripture and add some supplementary thesis and come up with nice-seen doctrine. But you can do that with any text about anything. Because texts left to themselves, left to their own devices are indeterminate in meaning. Every time we are reading a text, we're taking symbols on a page and subconsciously, unconsciously, we are importing a bunch of meaning and context to those words and making them mean something. And we can have moments where we realize that the meaning that we are importing into the text is not what the author had in mind. So for example, a lot of misunderstandings between my wife and I, we will take the same phrase or the same words. She means one thing by them. I mean something else. She says it and I think to myself, "Okay, if I were ever to use those words, "I would mean this." So I assume that that's what she means. And then we have this whole problem because actually when she uses those words, she does not have the meaning in mind that I would have. She has a different meaning. And then we have to argue for half an hour or maybe a few hours and we have to have a bad afternoon. Until finally, we can realize that, "Oh, when I use those words, "you mean something," or when I use those words, I mean this, when you use those words, you mean this. Okay, so there's all this background stuff that we're not there in the words themselves that I had to import myself to make sense of them and I was just importing the wrong stuff. Any text whatsoever is materially sufficient for any system of ideas whatsoever. You can just provide whatever supplementary thesis you want. Now, these supplementary thesis may have varying levels of historical plausibility. Maybe the context that you're proposing for a particular text is not likely the historical context. So that doesn't mean that every reading is individually plausible or equally plausible, but it is true that every text can be reconciled with any thesis whatsoever by just making statements, making assertions about what the context of that text is. So in my opinion, I think that you can make a perfectly fine and adequate reading of the New Testament along Socinean lines. There are some texts that lend themselves better to perhaps a kind of an Aryan reading where Jesus is a pre-existent spiritual being, not just a human being who began to exist at his birth, but it is still somehow inferior to God and separate from God. So I think you could read the New Testament in mostly Socinean lines, occasional Aryan passages here and there and you could do just fine. I think you can come up with a perfectly adequate reading. But I do think that Nysine theology is really contradictory or inconsistent with biblical statements, at least in one case. I'll give one example. This is an example that I argued in a recent paper of mine to which Scott Williams was invited to write a response and I have written a rejoinder to Scott Williams that I'm trying to get published in a different journal. I think that Nysine theology is inconsistent with the assertion that the father created the world through the sun and I will try to explain how. OK, so first of all, you find that language in the Bible. Hebrews 1, verse 2 explicitly says, "The sun through whom he created the worlds." OK, so you have this proposition, the father created the world through the sun explicitly in Hebrews 1, 2. You also find it implicitly in John chapter 1 where it says, "Through him all things came into being." You have it also in Colossians from whom through whom were all things and so on. So you have these different passages in the Bible where the suggestion is apparently made that the father created the world through the sun. Now, I think that it's a clear rule of language that when you say A does something through B, OK, and A and B are not just different names for the same thing. In those situations, there's something that A does, that B does not, and there's something that B does, that A does not. And I will give you an example. If I go to a foreign country, let's say I go to Spain, I don't speak Spanish, and I speak with a local through an interpreter, OK, in that situation, there's something that I'm doing that the interpreter is not doing, namely speaking in English. And there's something that the interpreter is doing that I am not doing, namely speaking in Spanish. So when I speak through an interpreter, there's some one thing that I am doing that the interpreter doesn't do, and there's some one thing that the interpreter does that I do not do. Or, for example, if a king sends a message through a messenger, there is something that the king does that the messenger does not do, namely dictate the contents of the message. And there is something that the messenger does that the king does not do, namely deliver the message in person. So in these sorts of situations, where we say A does X through B, A has his own proper action, his own proper power of acting, that he exercises independently of B, and B has his own proper power of acting, right? Because there's an action that A is the subject of and B is not, and there is an action that B is the subject of and A is not. Now, what does this have to do with the father created the world through the sun? If the father created the world through the sun, according to the ordinary logic of this preposition through, that means that there is an action of which the father is the subject and not the sun. And there is an action of which the sun is the subject and not the father. Now, how is this inconsistent with Nysin theology? According to Nysin theology, the actions of the divine nature to the outside, Adukstra, are indivisible. That means that father, son, and Holy Spirit are all equally the subject of one action. There is no such thing as an action that the father performs which the sun is not as subject of. Because between father and son, according to divine simplicity, there's only one power. There are not two powers, the father's power and the son's power, and the father activates his power independently, and the son activates his power independently. It's not like that. There's only one power, there's only one operation, there's only one action, there's only one knowledge and so on, which is equally the possession of all three persons. So that means that there is no action of which the father is. is a subject but not the sun. And there is no action of which the sun is the subject but not the father. Now there are tricks that Nicene Theologians try to pull here in order to be able to say that the sun incarnated, but it would be kind of strange to say that the father incarnated or the sun died, but it would be kind of weird to say the father died. So there's all these rules of language about appropriation and all this stuff that Nicene Theologians get into in order to make sense of ordinary ways of speaking that we have. But strictly speaking, according to divine simplicity, and then I see in tradition, father, son, and Holy Spirit are equally the subjects of one and the same indivisible divine action. Okay, if that's true, then you cannot say that the father created the world through the sun because that preposition through the function of that preposition in our language is to call attention to the fact of two agents cooperating, making unique contributions to this emergent state of affairs that we describe as A doing X through B. So the king sends a message through his messenger because there's something the king does, namely dictate the message, and there's something the messenger does, namely deliver it in person. And there's at least one unique action, particularly to each agent. Okay, if that's true, then you cannot say as a Nicene Theologian that the father created the world through the sun. And yet, that preposition exists in the Bible. And people will even point to that proposition in the Bible in order to justify belief in a high Christology, in order to justify belief in the divinity of Christ. So this is why I say that Nicene Theology is actually inconsistent with the Bible. Not just the formula, the words of the creed, but the whole complex of Nicene Theology, which includes divine simplicity and this thesis about divine action and so on. - Okay, good. So Tyler, if you brief for responses here. - Yes, Steven's getting these long responses. I'm getting these short responses. I don't know about this. Ryan, is this your way of coming out against Trinitarian and my own own? - No, I'm not. - This is my way of not paying attention to the clock and going, I should have said it, Tyler. (laughing) - Right, so yeah, Scott Williams article that you're talking about. I think it's an interesting article. And for those who are not familiar with it, basically a quick summary to long-distance read version is that you can use different language to mean the same action, right? You use different sense and structures to refer to the same action. And people like St. Basil, for example, he would argue that through the sun was used, through the sun is specifically being used to dim it to show that it's a distinct person, but yet having the same action. And so he argued that actually, the reason why it's there, the kind of designating through the sun, is to show that the sun is actually doing the same power as the father. And so you have these kinds of, you know, I see in post-Nicene theologies that have different ways of interpreting these texts. Now, of course, Steven might go, no, that's just not plausible, right? That's not what the text says, or that's not how we should best interpret the text. But then it becomes kind of like a, okay, Nicene Fathers or Steven, which one should we go with, who has the more epistemic weight here, in which case, right? I'm Catholic, obviously, so I'm going with the fathers. But they didn't think it was inconsistent. I think more to the point, more than even what Scott Williams argued. This is another example of being a god, once again, through anthropomorphic lenses. And I know Ryan's probably just super triggered by now many times I've used this response. - But I think that this is-- - I think that this is-- this is actually a relevant point here. When we're talking about God's actions, when we're talking about begotten, when we're talking about through, when we're talking about creating, these are all analogically understood. And so trying to make a contradiction is also towards being used seems to fit much better, much easier if you anthropomorphize God and if you ultimately assume university. So that's how I would respond to that. - Stephen, really quick response. - I would say that the appeal to Basel is unconvincing. I agree that when the king sends a message through a messenger, the messenger is participating in the same action as the king. That's true. They're participating in the action of sending a message. But in that situation, there is something that the king does, which the messenger does not, and there's something that the messenger does, which the king does not. If there was nothing that the messenger does, which the king does not also do, if the messenger did not have a unique action of his own, if the king and the messenger were equally the subjects of every action, then you wouldn't say that he was sending a message through the messenger. You would say that he's just sending a message and so is the messenger. There's no throughness there, because there's nothing that the messenger is contributing that the king does not also contribute. So I just think Basel is wrong about this. I mean, I agree, yes, if the king sends a message through a messenger. - This is a number of - Partication. - Okay, that's specified. - That's specified once again. - Specify what is meant by "threw". Specify exactly how do you mean he creates through the sun. - Yeah, I was curious about this as well, 'cause I did not understand what the analogy is supposed to be in this case of "threw". - Well, just creating, creating, like that's an analogy, creating "threw", right? That's an analogy. And so the idea here is that whatever, it might be the case that if Tyler were to create, I don't know, an alien called him "zork", right? And I created "zork" through Stephen, right? It might be the case that, you know, this is gonna assume at least two different modes of being or two different acts, that sort of thing. But when we're looking at these words as the analogies for what's going on at the heart of the matter, then it seems to me again, you're not in a position to judge whether or not the same entailments follow. And so that seems to me to be like, not just in the case, if you think that these are just analogies, rather than univocal provocation, just because it corresponds with humans and how humans create or subjects or creatures or things create that you're gonna have the same implication with God, if your view of God is not a thing and you're talking about all disease being analogies. - Yeah. - But nicene theologian specify that there is no action which is unique to the sun and is not equally the action of the father. So where is the analogy? Because it's not only that they're saying the father creates through the sun analogically, they're also making a further assertion that seems to undermine the possibility of any analogy at all, because that's not how the word through works. You can give examples at infinitum. Every time you say a does something through b, in every situation there's gonna be something that a does, which b does not, and something that b does, which a does not. - Especially that's assuming the realm of things, and we're not talking about the realm of things. - So why is it that you can use the word through about us something that isn't about nothing? Why is it that the use of the word through is appropriate about God? - For analogical reasons? - Like why would you think that it's appropriate? - Scripture tells us and not what the church tells us, and so we should just take it on that testimony. - But couldn't you just say that the fact that scripture uses this language and the fact that the church is theology about God undermines the intelligibility of that same language is a proof that the church has got us the knowledge of our own. - I don't think it undermines the intelligibility of the language, which is just undermines the intelligibility of univocal predication. - But you can't tell me what it means to say that the part that you decide. - To say that undermines intelligibility. That begs the question because I'm saying, oh, it's intelligible, analogically speaking. It's just not intelligently univiquely speaking, and you're continually wanting to go back and say, "Well, hey, look, this is what happens. When I make this, when I generate this, when I be get this, when I make through this, this is what follows." And I'm just saying, these are just analogies. These are only analogically true. And so, again, you're not in a position to judge whether or not this follows with it, and what comes to God. And if there were complaint is something like, "Okay, but why use it at all?" Or, "Why think this word is apt at all?" Well, again, the war would be through 'cause it's what scripture speaks, or it's what the church tells us, and that sort of thing, and which obviously our paradigms are gonna crash. - Right, but the reason why I complain about intelligibility is that you can't tell me what through means. When you say that the Father creates through the Son, you can specify, because nice theologians do specify, that there is no action which is unique to the Son. You can specify that everything the Son does, the Father also does, but you can't tell me what through means. So this is why I say that it's un- - You're nivically, yeah, yeah, I'm saying, but you can't do that with God. You can't do that with eternity. You can't do that with God creating. I mean, you can't intelligibly, this again, your complaints assuming univocal predication, and I'm just saying that's not the paradigm, that it's being assumed, and so it's not gonna be a problem for the paradigm, unless you have all the grounds for questioning the paradigm. - This whole paradigm is self-serving, because you have a dogmatic structure of language that supposedly is taken from the scriptures. You have a dogmatic complex of interpretations that you construct a system of theology about, and then you tell me also that the fact that you can't explain what your own words mean is not a problem, because we're talking about something that's bigger than, like, why should anybody take you seriously? You are, you are. - So this goes into the next argument. - Okay. - Can I go ahead and move around to the-- - Yeah, a little bit, actually, 'cause I just had one quick thought on this, but if it's gonna be in the next argument, then just say, we'll just do the next argument, the next question, 'cause I have this worry too about the intelligibility of going, I'm supposed to use these words through, in, with, and through and all that. I don't know what they mean, but I'm supposed to use them. The reason is a bunch of people in the past agreed for it, and they had reasons for saying you should use these words. What are those reasons? If they didn't know what those words meant either, I feel like somewhere along the line has to know what these words mean, otherwise I don't know what we're doing here. Well, God knows what they mean. He wrote scripture, so, and he guides tradition. Excellent. Okay, well then let's get, so, okay, so Tyler, let's do this last one here. So this final round for today's episode is, "Should Nice Seen Theology Be Binding For Today?" And so Steven, you get to go first. I think Nice Seen Theology is not binding for today, because there's nothing inherently authoritative about the bishops who gathered at the Council of Nicea. Tyler at various points today said, "Well, the Church, the Church, the Church." Okay, why should I think that those people are the Church? Why shouldn't I think that the Aryan bishops who did not participate are the Church? Or why should I think that the School of Valentinus or the Marcianite Churches are not the Church? You know, I don't accept the Catholic Churches claim to be the Church. They are a Church, perhaps, I'm willing to accept that, but to be the Church is a claim that I don't accept, and I think it's unfounded. So I would say that in the first place, Nicea theology is not binding today, because there is no inherent authority to the fact that these bishops gathered and made a pronouncement. Now, should you agree with what they have to say? I think no. I think that their theology is highly incoherent. It generates all sorts of logical puzzles. You can't say why there are only three persons rather than an infinity of persons. You can't specify how the Ussia is supposed to relate to the Ipostasace. Apparently, you can't even prove it on the basis of Scripture because you have to have this institutional ecclesial body's additional supplements to get Nicea theology clearly out of Scripture. Nicea theology makes very precise claims about God and about what He's like, and it says that you must believe this, but it also says that God is bigger than all our language can capture. But we still have to use this language and not other language because this is the best way to make certain of Scripture, but I can't prove to you just from Scripture that it's the best way to make sense of Scripture. I have to appeal to this particular community of interpreters to which I happen to belong. And no, I can't really tell you what I mean by the words that I use, but I can tell you that they are appropriate for God because the Scripture uses them. And of course, we have rightly interpreted Scripture in my preferred community. It just seems ridiculous. It seems like if Nicea theology just presented itself as one more theological option, here's what we think. This is what has worked for us. This has enriched our spiritual life. This is how we tend to think about things. You can disagree or agree. That would be fine. There would be no problem in that at all. It's when Nicea theology is presented as a dogma and not just as a theological woman that I have problems because I think it is far too rationally compromised and far too evidentially undermined to bear the weight of a dogma. I accept it as a theological woman as a thing that people can talk about and disagree about, but I think as a dogma, no, it should not be a dogma. It should not be binding for Christian theology. Tyler, you get the last word. Tell us why. Why are you wearing a white sweater? My worry here is that Stephen is throughout the dialogue. By the way, he's a friend. We actually have a secret chat that we belong to, by the way, for anyone who is a word that we are enemies or something. I won't name the chat. The chat name is interesting. The worry is that constantly, you know, Stephen is assuming univable predication that the worries of contradiction, the worries of unintelligibility. The reality is that everything needs to be ultimately understood through univocity. I do have that worry. I also have the general worry that I didn't get to hear from Stephen earlier. I'm sorry, I missed it. But on whether or not he thinks that by himself, it's a kind of Protestantism, and what are the chances of him actually getting to mostly true doctrine? I think it seems kind of low. If it is low, then you have a defeated for trusting your belief, which includes the belief that's even motivating all this. Ultimately, it becomes a distrust. A distrust for, again, even in this case, talking here about a basil's interpretation of through. He thinks through is intentionally used to actually show it is the same exact action. There are other nice-sian fathers who will go ahead and interpret through in a similar way, or in a way that's absolutely not inconsistent, or that's not the same way that Stephen interprets it. Stephen is like, "No, but it needs to be interpreted in this way." It's just like, "Who am I going to believe in? Am I going to believe the fathers? Or am I going to believe Stephen? Stephen's a good guy. I like Stephen. But I think there's more epithemic weight here with the fathers." So should nice-sian be binding today? I would say, yes, the church has recognized it to be true. It is part of the deposit of faith in one way or the other. It has been believed by all bishops and communion with the bishop of Rome, that sort of thing. All your Catholic standard answers. Now you might ask, "But why should I trust in the authority of the church?" Linda Zabzesty, a brilliant epistemologist, argues that accepting someone's testimony or accepting someone's authority can be rational or justified. If you think overall by accepting their testimony or authority, your beliefs will be more likely to be true. You might even think that's just part of our cognitive design plan to throw a sprinkle or baptize this in a little bit more plain to the language. There was a time when I was like, "No, I can't consider myself Catholic. Why? Because I need to believe in neoclassical theism. Because that seems more rational to me." You remember that Tyler probably, right? I do, I do. I can also be Catholic because of its Catholic social teaching at the time. Lord, forgive me. I was a political libertarian. I was like, "I'm a political libertarian and neoclassical because I can't be Catholic." Can you still hear me? I thought that time went away. I was like, "You know what? I just need to actually submit to the authority of the church. It's probably more reliable than I am. And over time, I actually came to be convinced of classical theism, like a very hard black-friar, formatical, tommas-type classical theism. And over time, I became actually naturally like really convinced of that political libertarianism is wrong anymore. So it's like, "Wow, maybe the church was right. The whole time, right? I try to go my way, try to make up my doctrine, but I end up back exactly where the church was the whole time." And so, you know, in saying this, it seems like to me that if you were looking around, you're like, "Yeah, doing all this by myself, seems like my beliefs aren't going to be true. We're likely true." At least, not as likely as if I just submitted my conscience to Rome. And I think if I just accept the testimony of Rome, my beliefs are more likely to be true. Well, then accepting the testimony of Rome, accepting what she says, can be justified for you. And that can be part of our overall design plan and how we're hardwired, that's supposed to work in that way. But anyway, so yeah, that would be my final pitch. Okay, well, you guys have both brought up a lot of interesting things that I want to go into further, but I can't release a four-hour episode because I'm not Joe Rogan over here. So we'll have to save a lot of this stuff for another day. But thank you both for being on the show today. This is an absolutely fascinating conversation. And there you have it, another episode of the Reluctant Theologian podcast. Stay tuned for more episodes on philosophical theology. [Music]