Date and Burgos Aftermath : Comments from listener's

"I was amazed at how much time was spent discussing things that did not actually pertain to the debate. They spend much of their time twisting up David Bernard, Robert Sabin, and Jason Dulle and not the debate. They did admit that some OT passages that Trinitarians use as proof texts were, in actuality, not good proof texts of the trinity. LOL OP's have been telling them that for years. I guess it's finally sinking in."

"Interestingly enough they did mention a few comments from some Trinitarians who didn’t like some of Mike’s comments during the debate and said, “he gave away the farm.” Evidently he couldn’t convince some of his own fellow Trinitarians. I think Chris discerned this."

"They did bring up the fact that James sounded easy to listen to and that he seemed to be the more dynamic, charismatic speaker. Then they went into a dialogue about Mike needing to improve in his speaking ability. That he needed more debating experience, and that he was nervous and didn’t know what James was going to bring up. Well, la-de-da!! Chris and Mike seem to leave people with the impression that Mike was a novice debater and this was possibly his first debate when in reality this is far from the truth. Mike has had several debates (verbal and written)...This should tell people how he thought the debate went. Incidentally, they also forgot to mention that this was Bro Anderson’s first debate, he was probably nervous also, and he didn’t know what direction the debate was going to move either."

"They talked about interpersonal communications between the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit and and selected comments from David Bernard. They ridiculed him yet never answer his arguments. This wasn’t information discussed in the debate."

"Chris and Mike left the impression that their Trinitarian view of the Godhead subsists in three centers of consciousness. No important Christian theologian has argued that there are three self-conscious in the Godhead. This would be theological suicide."

"Toward the end of the program they tried to patch up Mike’s answer to the question of how many spirits did Jesus have. He admitted he said what he did for “the sake of brevity” (actually he let Chris put words in his mouth) now he wanted to clarify (fix his mistakes) what he meant."

"The Host, Chris, seems like a likeable guy and comes across at being fair, but definitely shows his bias by taking two days of his program time to attempt to “patch up” the blunders Mike made. I tend to like Chris but think he should let the debate speak for itself, if he wants to come across as being fair, instead of propping up his own Trinitarian biases. Anyway these are just my personal thoughts."

Comments posted (5.13.2011) from a listener on Theopologetics:

"Thanks for this, Chris. I missed the original debate, but this discussion was thoroughly interesting. I was brought up with the Trinity drilled into me. But I was also reading the Bible daily from a very young age, which is why preterism came so easily to me when I finally learned of it. And I’ll be honest, the concept of the Trinity has bothered me for years. It’s not that I disagree with what people say about the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It’s just that the way people talk about the Triune God doesn’t seem to be completely consistent with the way the Bible talks about God the Father, His Son and the Holy Ghost. But I see now that you and many others have studied this subject a lot more in-depth than I have.

Listening to this show gave me a lot to think about. I’m still unsettled in my opinion of the Trinity concept, but it was great to hear about some perspectives I hadn’t thought about before. I sure appreciate what you do."

Patching Things Up : Burgos and Date

Date and Burgos

Recently I had a debate with Michael Burgos on Theopologetics, click here for information and links to the mp3's. The thesis I denied was "The Son personally preexisted the incarnation with the Father." Burgos affirmed. The debate went well and Burgos made the typical Trinitarian mistakes. His proposition was never sufficiently supported without considerable doubt upon the Trinitarian interpretation and articulation of those texts. 

Shortly after the debate I received an email from a listener to the debate. Here are his words:

I also thought it was very interesting that the Host wanted Burgos back on the program next week to discuss the debate. Evidently they want to patch up things.

Apparently Date saw a need for this before the recording of the debate was ever complete. Indeed the patch up can be downloaded and listened to here. It is in two parts, episode 41 and 42.

At one point Burgos even calls the Word and God of John 1:1 two "personal beings" which are also separate from each other (see Burgos/Sullivan debate). Burgos plays this off as an error but it is simply to be expected. If anyone has listened to only a handful of debates with Trinitarians such errors always pop up. Trinitarians can hardly avoid such language given the nature of their psychological tritheism. Ironically, while Burgos is a fan of James White he didn't seem to like White's “God is one what but three whos.” Obviously Trinitarian apologists are still formulating their conclusions. Burgos' appeal to each person being exhaustive of one another is clearly a hint of Van Til. 

In the opening statements of the original debate Burgos offered around 20 verses from the New Testament. That is around 1 per minute of his 20 minute opening remarks. Burgos did not appeal to the Old Testament because this is not high ground for any Triniarian apologist, despite their mumblings to the contrary. Burgos stated, "In the Old Testament we see that God did not immediately reveal the entirety of His nature and character, simply because additional revelation has been provided in the New Testament."(Progressive Revelation and Doctrine of God)  In the patch up you can tell that Date originally feels the Old Testament is high ground and even reads from disgruntled Trinitarians saying Burgos "gave up the farm". Burgos conflates his view with some hesitancy to allow for Date's presuppositionalism in this regard.

If one reads the text of Scripture with the presuppositions of Creedal theology then they will find the Trinity. The Trinitarian interpretation is a forced reading that must adapt the plain and clear meaning of Scriptures by which no man comes to the Trinity. Trinitarians read their presuppositions back into the text since there is no one verse that describes the Trinity nor is it found conclusively in any of its passages. Burgos conceded as much in the early parts of cross-examination. He had to admit that there was no verse he could go to in order to explicitly prove the Trinity. 

I did not have time to respond to all 20 of his verses nor could I satisfactorily in such a debate. Burgos was merely flooding his initial speech with verses of which many simply point to the Incarnation or Deity of Christ and not the Father and Son pre-existing in a person to person relationship. The verses I primarily focused upon where Phil 2, John 17, Heb 1, and John 1. 

I highly recommend listening to the patchwork done by Burgos and Date. Especially the circular logic used by Dates and Burgos to support the argument for the Trinity using love. This is an argument emerging from a response to 20th Century theologians like Karl Barth and Karl Rahner who have a significantly different view of the Trinity. Essentially, Date asked me about the object of God's love. I answered creation, you, me, etc. I never said God must have creation in order to love I was simply answering his question. Date then suggests that proves his point and that God being love also necessitates Him being three persons. This simply replaces the contingency upon creation with the contingency upon needing more than one person in order for God to be a complete and perfect self. Just so happens this contingency only relies upon three. One must ask, why not a fourth? 

It was apparent that Burgos presented more verses than time would allow to answer but he also voiced an objection to my use of scholars. In the words of another listener to this debate, "It speaks volumes." This is only par for the course since during the actual debate Burgos called the Louw-Nida lexicon "fringe scholarship". This makes Burgos' entire case suspect given such abject ignorance.

Burgos suggests his appeal was to the scriptures but instead interpreted his verses with post biblical theology and concepts. He had no answer to Isa. 46:9. An appeal to the uni-personal nature of God is valid in this regard. Trinitarians merely saying it isn't so does not amount to it not being so. He made a complete mess of his view of One Yahweh but each are Yahweh’s. As typical Trinitarians end up articulating more than one Yahweh. Consider the proposition that Glen Burt, a Church of Christ, debater said he would affirm:

The scripture teaches that the Godhead (one God) is three divine beings. (Click here for more info)

I have moderated a couple debates with Church of Christ debaters (Bruce Reeves, Glen Burt). I even attended the one with Tom Wacaster and Bobby Sparks a few years ago. It seems Reformed apologists make some of the same mistakes but the Church of Christ are even bolder and more clear about their claims. Such Trinitarians are advocating for a divisibility in the eternal nature of God. Let this be anathema.

Debate : "The Son personally preexisted the incarnation with the Father." Burgos and Anderson

I will have the privilege of debating with Michael Burgos from Onenesspentecostal.net. Burgos is a Reformed Trinitarian and is equally adamant about his faith. This should be a good debate and discussion. The debate will be on Theopologetics next Tuesday, April 5th, at 8:00 pm. It will be live and recorded to mp3. I am very thankful for Chris Dates for hosting this debate. 

After reading some of Burgos' material and having heard a previous interview on Theopologetics I sent him an email asking him if he was willing to do a debate on the Trinity and Oneness theologies on Chris' podcast. Previously, Burgos had challenged me to a public debate. We were going to do a debate in public some time this year but we  have agreed to this venue instead for now. Burgos has spent alot of time and effort concentrating on Oneness Pentecostal beliefs. I pray that we will both learn something from this discussion.

I ask you to keep me in prayer as I pray and prepare. I hope to make the mp3 available on the blog and the audio page at Evidentialfaith.com. Chris Date will also be posting the mp3 at the below link.

http://theopologetics.podbean.com/

Burgos affirms and Anderson deny : "The Son personally preexisted the incarnation with the Father."

Format:

1 hour and 15 minutes

1.  5-minute introductions and prayer by the moderator

2. 20-minute opening affirmative from Mike

3. 20-minute opening negative from James

4. 15-minute rebuttal from Mike

5. 15-minute rebuttal from James

 (50 minutes)

1. 5-minute negative cross examination (James asks Mike Q’s)

2. 5-minute affirmative cross examination (Mike asks James Q’s)

3. 5-minute negative cross examination #2

4. 5-minute affirmative cross examination #2

5. 10-minute questions from me/my listeners (alternating between James and Mike)

6. 10-minute closing negative from James

7. 10-minute closing affirmative from Mike