Al Kidd's latest reply to Bowman!
Rob Bowman attempted to take Al Kidd to task for Al's support of Greg Stafford.
Below we present Kidd's crushing surrejoinder to Bowman.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by Al Kidd on June 09, 1998 at 13:09:28:
Kidd Against Bowman
The question before us is: Are there (1) works and/or (2) attributes both (a)
unique to the Father and (b) necessary (per Scriptural revelation) for a
definition of what it means for a person to be the Almighty God? If we know that
we can truthfully give an affirmative answer to the question, then we also know
that only the Father is the Almighty God. I encourage the reader to familiarize
himself with the following Bible verses for what follows: John 15:26; Acts 2:33;
Ephesians 1:17.
Holy spirit is God's holy spirit: God is not a recipient of holy spirit, but it
is from Him alone that holy spirit gets any procession of itself because every
procession begins with
God and takes place at His (the Father's) pleasure--yes, according to His will
(John 14:16). The ability to make procession of holy spirit at will is an
ability or attribute
that belongs only to God the Father: the Father is the only person whose essence
of Being--whose beingness! (not a difficult word at all, is it?)--precludes that
he be a
recipient of holy spirit. Holy spirit first proceeds from the Father alone, and
may go thence--may go from that Source--to the Son. No, there is no procession
of holy spirit which did not originate with God the Father. This fact does not
disallow that holy spirit may be channeled through person(s) not God after its
having proceeded from Him (from God the Father). Even so, the original link in
that which, in the event, has become a channeling of holy spirit is a link that
must be identified with the Father alone.
Clearly, then, Jesus' words as respects the matter of the One (the Father), Who
has a certain attribute that defines Him as the One Who can do the work of
originating a procession of holy spirit--the One alone from Whom holy spirit
proceeds for its first manifestation outside the being of God--, are words that
disallow the Son from being God, for it is God's holy spirit that becomes _the
object of a work originating with God_ whereby holy spirit gets any procession
of itself from God as a procession that originates from Himself, from the Father
alone.
Before one goes cavalierly and perkily citing Galatians 4:6 and certain other
verses in the Scriptures in an effort to build argument for overturning the
exposition given above, I think he should be aware that 2 Kings 2:9 and Ezekiel
1:20 are just a few of the verses in the Bible which we can use to undo the
rejoinder--if I have correctly anticipated what form the rejoinder might take.
Now we are in position to consider Jesus' words (which see at John 5:19, 20)
about the works of the Father and the works of the Son. They are words that
cannot have as their context something that holds the meaning "Absolutely
everything that the Father wills to do in connection with His holy spirit MUST
OF A LOGICAL NECESSITY INTRINSIC TO THE SON be works that the Son was ever
equicompetent in performing in connection with his will over holy spirit."
Well, then, what is the context of Jesus' words? Jesus said that the works he
does are a result of his having seen the Father at work (John 5:20; compare John
8:23, 26-28 where we read that Jesus was instructed in heaven before the
flesh-taking event, before his coming to earth)--and Jesus said that there were
even greater works that the Father would show the Son. Yes, the Father educates
His Son as respects how works are to be accomplished, and this according to the
Father's will. The Father works towards a vindication of His Universal
Sovereignty, and from the beginning of when the righteousness and goodness of
His sovereignty first came under attack, the
Father began specially working in preparing an arrival in due course of time of
an administration that should bring restoration to all things. It ever pleased
the Son in all
that time for him to be a co-worker with the Father in doing works that
complement the Father's, this so that they are works done in a like-manner
fashion to the Father's (John 5:20). The works done by the Father and the Son
finally amounted to a sufficient means whereby men observing Jesus'
Father-vindicating and mankind-saving ministry should come to faith in the
Father and His Son. The Son has had a complementary hand in all that the Father
has been doing according to the context discussed above.
Jesus' words give us to understand that he means them to be applicable as
respects certain works that are fulfilling--and would in future support--a
certain purpose authored by his Father (compare Ephesians 1:3, 9, 10; 3:10, 11).
Jesus' words give us to understand that all of the Father's works he has
reference thereto are works the Father is doing within a framework of reference
that allows us to "marvel" at them. Jesus' words do not have application as
respects a frame of reference in which absolutely all of Jehovah's works ought
to be referenced, for we cannot get to know and "marvel" at absolutely all of
them! But as respects the more limited frame of reference as set forth above,
why . . . Yes! Jesus is associated with his Father in ALL
OF THOSE works.
The exposition set forth above rips away the core of Bowman's response to Greg.
But I should like to add a few more things before I post this effort.
Does God live because of someone else's existence? No. By definition of what it
means to be the living God, then, as respects a certain matter in connection
with the essence of the God-Being (i.e., as respects a certain matter in
connection with the living God's beingness), we find that that essence must not
result from some other person's existence. But a thing that characterizes the
Son's existence is that he
lives because of the Father. He said it: "I live because of the Father" (John
6:57). Therefore, the Son cannot be God. Bowman's (mis)handling of Greg's
argument in one of its particulars is a meaningless acknowledgment of the truth
of that particular, for
when Bowman writes "2. The Son was given his life. Again, true . . . ," he shows
not the slightest awareness that that truth ("I [(the Son)] live because of the
Father") logically devastates trinitarianism by virtue of the fact that X (where
X is a fact about
God's essence that means absence of an impartation of life for the Being that is
the living God) is not a fact for the essence that defines the being Son (the
Son-Being), and this precisely because the Son is the result of an impartation
of life from another person, namely, the One who is the Son's God and Father,
the Almighty God (Jehovah).
If X marks the "spot," then Bowman really ought to see where the real X is.
As time permits, I hope to take apart very much more of Bowman's rejoinders. But
I wish to make comment upon my use of Balzer's material. I apologize that in my
extensively bracketing explanatory interpolations I inadvertently failed to use
enough brackets. I deny that I have made any substantive misuse of his material.
Consider:
Classical trinitarians imaginatively (in word-magic fashion) construct a class
of Persons out of the One and selfsame ( = indivisible, homogeneous) Substance
(Being), which
class they tell us has three objects in it, for they expostulate as follows:
'There are three persons (three necessary modes of presentation so that the
economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and the immanent Trinity is the
economic Trinity). These three objects are three "persons" distinguishable from
each other--they are different persons.'
However, an instancing (a putting before our mind's eye through use of the
Scriptures) of the class Trinity (triune God) WILL NOT put before our mind's eye
any plurality of real-world objects; it will not even put before our mind's eye
a plurality of abstract objects. Rather, the instancing of the class will expose
a logical fallacy in trinitarianism, for what gets presented is a logical
contradiction to what trinitarians tell us to look for, for we see presentation
of a a single abstract object--though trinitarians vehemently insist that we are
mistaken in our count and analysis, for they say they see three personalistic
instantiations such that all the personal God-Being is in each instantiation.
This leaves no room by use of their own terms for any essential differences in
the instantiations--no variation according to degree and number of attributes
informing
each instantiation. There is a contrariety in their God-defining terms such that
there can be no different persons, no persons which can be the subject of
different predicative propositions that would distinguish the persons from each
other.
We accordingly find no epistemologically and psychologically satisfying way for
us to acknowledge that trinitarianism gives us even one person we know from a
study of the Scriptures, and that despite the idea that one should really take
as his point of departure purely Scriptural revelation for a look (abstractly)
at the attributes that define what it means for a person to be God Almighty.
Classical trinitarianism's hOMOOUSIOS is an imaginary substance such that at any
time we try to "take a look at it"--at any time we attempt to make an instancing
of the allegedly existing Substance (Being)--, we find that it not only fails to
give a plurality of objects because of a contradiction in the defining terms
they have used, but it also fails
to present to our mind's eye any justification for one's holding that he has
even one real person before him; we can only call it word-magic when
trinitarians say they see a plurality of persons so that each justifies their
(the trinitarians') semantically signaling by use of names the existence of
three different persons. Bowman is in such a camp of trinitarians. I have not
misrepresented the position to which his dogma must logically devolve, and the
fact that he cannot or will not see the truth of the matter in no way touches
upon the veracity of my presentation here.
Balzer's material on class theory does indeed furnish us a useful tool for
schematizing the problems with trinitarianism. I SUSPECT that Bowman does not
understand Balzer; however, I am confident in my declaring that he fails to see
how Balzer's material is an effective cudgel in the hands of us anti-trinitarians.
Not that we need it for our coming to understand Biblical theology, but if we
involve ourselves in a polemic against trinitarianism for its abuse of
commonsense in our reading of the Scriptures, then we may make effective use of
certain tools in addition to the Scriptures--but never as replacement for the
Scriptures. Balzer's subject matter is not about an arcane
philosphical problem at all, but is useful theory--as is sentential calculus.
Either of the items will appear arcane to ones getting a first-time exposure to
them, but they themselves are not of an arcane, philosophical problem.
Excursus: The Scriptures do not contain express wordings reflective of a
self-consciousness in the Bible's writers whereby we might have known, in the
event of any such recording of some of the Scriptures, that the writers
themselves knew that they were furnishing God's servants material for an attack
against trinitarianism. So, when I tackle the Hellenistically inspired dogma of
Christendom's trinitariansm for getting at an accurate historiography that
uncovers sometimes contradictory formulations of it, it is possible that I may
have unfairly lumped some trinitarians in a camp with others. It does become
problematic in our presenting a COMMON ENOUGH face to trinitarianism when you
have to deal with Roman Catholicism versus Eastern Orthodoxy, and to deal with a
Lutheran Barth versus a Roman Catholic Rahner. But we can have a fairly decent
result in our efforts so that readers may get a feel for the problems inherent
in classical trinitarianism--the more especially is that the case when we turn
back the hands of time, and we go back to a times before there had yet to appear
in places other than in the Scriptures our sound understanding of what it means
for a being (an existent, an entity) to be a person. Perhaps I ought to post
something about that, too. I do not think Bowman would ever do so.
Al Kidd