I just started to read a book by a former Christadelphian, Ruth Sutcliffe, The Trinity Hurdle: Engaging Christadelphians, Arians, and Unitarians with the Gospel of the Triune God (Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf & Stock, 2016). The book is an attempted biblical/theological critique of Socinian (AKA: Biblical Unitarian/Humanitarian) Christology. While the Christadelphian movement is the largest Biblical Unitarian (hereafter BU) denomination within the broad Christian spectrum, many groups and individuals hold to this view, perhaps most notably Anthony F. Buzzard, author of works such as Jesus was not a Trinitarian (2007) and, with the late Charles Hunting, The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity’s Self-Inflicted Wound. Interestingly, these books are nowhere discussed by the author, nor are recent book-length studies of BU by Christadelphians, such as Duncan Heaster, The Real Christ (2009).
I am perhaps the rare Latter-day Saint who has an interest in Christadelphianism and have studied Christadelphian literature on Satan/Demons, as well as Christadelphian and non-Christadelphian defences of BU for the past couple of years. I can honestly say that, while I would agree with Sutcliffe that Jesus personally pre-existed, as opposed to having only pre-existed in the mind/plan of God (notional pre-existence); that Jesus is divine, and in the personality of the Holy Spirit, she is trying to defend a dogma (creedal Trinitarianism) that relies on a lot of illogical and eisegetical leaps and jumps, as well as disregarding even basic language.
For instance, she appeals to "[what] Richard Bauckham describes [as] YHWH's 'unique divine identity'" (p. 13) to force Deut 6:4 to allow for multiple persons within the Shema. However, she is seemingly unaware that Bauckham’s work has been refuted by theologian and philosophers, such as Dale Tuggy (see here), a well-known BU advocate. If she wished to advocate Bauckham’s understanding of “divine identity,” she could have rehabilitated it by interacting with, and critiquing his opponents, but nothing of the kind was done.
With the assumption of Bauckham’s understanding of divine identity being true, on pp. 16-17 she then attempts to "prove" multiple persons within the Shema in light of Deut 6:4 (LXX) and 1 Cor 8:4-6 (cf. Rom 11:36). The problem with this is that 1 Cor 8:4-6 is not a text conducive to Trinitarianism; I would urge one to read my exegesis of this pericope, showing that it is an anti-Trinitarian, not pro-Trinitarian, text here. This is rather representative of the often shallow exegesis one finds within the volume.
On p. 14, she writes that "Time and again, the Old Testament states that God is one, there is no other God," and references, among other texts, Deut 32:39. The problem is that the earliest manuscripts of Deut 32 militates against such strict ontological monotheism (though both Trinitarians and Christadelphians/other BU advocates) will disagree with this (I am a Latter-day Saint, so I get to annoy both groups!).
Deut 32:7-9, 43 reads as follows in the NRSV:
Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father and he will inform you, your elders will tell you. When the Most High gave nations their homes and set the divisions of man, he fixed the boundaries of peoples in relation to Israel's numbers. For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his own allotment . . . Praise, O heavens, his people, worship him all you gods! For he will avenge the blood of his children, and take vengeance on his adversaries; he will repay those who hate him, and cleanse the land for his people.
One recent commentary offers the following comments on these texts:
Most High, or “Elyon,” is a formal title of El, the senior god who presided over the divine council in the Ugaritic literature of ancient Canaan. The reference thus invokes, as do other biblical texts, the Near Eastern convention of a pantheon of gods ruled by the chief deity (Pss. 82:1; 89:6-8). Israelite authors regularly applied El’s title to Israel’s God (Gen. 14:18-22; Num. 24:16; Pss. 46:5; 47:3). [with reference to the variant in the DSS “number of the gods”] makes more sense. Here, the idea is that the chief god allocates the nations to lesser deities in the pantheon. (A post-biblical notion that seventy angels are in charge of the world’s seventy nations echoes this idea.) Almost certainly, the unintelligible reading of the MT represents a “correction” of the original text (whereby God presides over other gods) to make it conform to the later standard of pure monotheism: There are no other gods! The polytheistic imagery of the divine council is also deleted in the Heb at 32:42; 33:2-3, 7.
Instead of teaching strict, numerical monotheism, the Old Testament is more consistent with what Blake Ostler labels “Kingship Monotheism”:
Kingship Monotheism There are many gods, but all of the gods are subordinate to a Most High God to whom the gods give ultimate honour and glory and without whose authority and approval they do not act in relation to the world. (Blake Ostler, Of God and Gods [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008], p. 43).
Texts such as those found in Isaiah are about the supremacy of Yahweh, but they are not statements about the non-ontological existence of other gods in His midst.--in fact, such is required by the biblical data when one takes a pan-canonical approach to theology and the Bible (just as one example, take Psa 29:1 "A psalm of David. Ascribe to the Lord, o divine beings [Heb: בְּנֵ֣י אֵלִ֑ים beni-elim], ascribe to the Lord glory and strength" [1985 Tanakh, Jewish Publications Society]).
It is interesting that, to support the “Oneness” of God in the New Testament, she points to texts that distinguish between, not just the persons of the Father and the Son, but God and Jesus, such as John 17:3, where, on p. 5, after referencing this text writes that “Jesus said that to know the only true God is eternal life.” However, John 17:3 is a non-Trinitarian text, as Jesus puts the person of the Father into the category of “only true God.” For Jesus, that category is exhausted, not by a “being” shared by three persons, but one person, His Father.
After citing 1 Tim 2:5 under the heading, “The New Testament affirms the Oneness of God” she writes that: “Contrary to what may be implied from some Christadelphian writings, trinitarians affirm the full humanity of Jesus . . . Paul is emphasizing that there is only one way of salvation, i.e., into relationship with the One God, and that is through Christ. There is one God. There is one mediator, whose humanity qualifies him for that role." (p. 18)
Firstly, I would argue that, notwithstanding the belief, defined at Chalcedon, of Jesus being both fully/truly human and fully/truly divine, the Hypostatic Union makes nonsense of the humanity of Jesus (see my discussion of the doctrine here under the heading "The Hypostatic Union Examined"). Additionally, as with John 17:3, there is a distinction, not just between the Father and the Son, but between God and Jesus.
On pp. 47-48, she lists Old Testament Yahweh texts and their use in the New Testament for Jesus. However, her treatment is pretty superficial on this score and no real discussion of the Jewish concept of the Shaliach. Furthermore, her superficial treatment results in a lot of logical nonsense. Consider her claim:
The Old Testament says “x” about Yahweh
The New Testament says “x” about Jesus
Conclusion: Jesus is numerically identical to Yahweh
Sounds good, doesn’t it? However, there are problems with this.
The promise to rule with a rod of iron from Psa 2:9 is given to all believers in Rev 2:27
Jesus is said to rule with a rod of iron in Rev 12:5, 19:15
All believers are numerically identical to Jesus
See the blog post by Dale Tuggy, "The Bible teaches that David is God" to see the problems with this superficial approach to the identity of Jesus in the New Testament.
What I also found interesting (read: annoying, as I know the literature well) is that the BU use of Psa 110:1 is never interacted with. This is the single most popular text employed by Anthony Buzzard and current BU defenders, as the text distinguishes between Yahweh and adoni (“my lord”), the latter referent being Jesus in light of New Testament revelation (e.g., Mark 12:36), notwithstanding this text being discussed on pp. 54-56. To read two articles representative of current BU apologetics, see Anthony F. Buzzard, Confusing the Two Lords of Psalm 110:1: A Way to Guarantee a Misunderstanding of the Bible and Jaco Van Zyl, "Psalm 110:1 and the Status of the Second Lord--Trinitarian Arguments Challenged," in An E-Journal from the Radical Reformation: A Testimony to Biblical Unitarianism, winter/spring 2012, pp. 51-60. Also, see "LORD, Lord, and lord" by Christadelphian apologist, Dave Burke ("Evangelion") to see a Christadelphian summarisation of the data from Buzzard and Hunting.
Much more could be said about the many failings in this book. However, from what I have read thus far, it does not look like a volume I would recommend to anyone who wishes (1) to understand the best exegetical case in favour of creedal Trinitarianism and (2) a completely persuasive refutation of BU theology, though I do look forward to how BU apologists themselves will interact with this volume (if they find the book noteworthy for review), as an outsider (though an informed outsider; I am well read in historical and modern BU literature and the scholarship they cite [e.g., Ohlig; Dunn; Kuschel]), I am hesitant to speak for a movement I am not a part of, though I am sure BU proponents will agree that this is not a “slam dunk” refutation of such a Christology.
