This is part 5 of my response to Robert Bowman. To read the previous instalments:
Bowman has edited his article to include (among other new comments) the following:
At the end of his second post responding to the original version of this article, Boylan quotes an unnamed friend of his as taking issue with my reference to the article by Huggins:
Bowman is pushing Huggins point too far that the various interpretations Joseph gave cannot be reconciled. The assumption is based on implicit evangelical bias. They *do not* have to be reconciled with each other. As the Talmudic phrase goes, the Torah has seventy faces, meaning that there are multiple facets and interpretations, each revealing something else. One 19th century Moroccan rabbi even wrote a book of two hundred interpretations of Genesis 1:1 alone. This removes the sting from Bowman’s theological critique. Sola scriptura is just not how we roll.
Well! Boylan’s article argued that Luke Wilson’s article was wrong, ignorant, incompetent, embarrassing, and indicative of “cognitive dissonance.” (If he ever explained where the cognitive dissonance displayed itself in Wilson’s article, I missed it.) Yet now Boylan, citing his anonymous friend, defends Joseph Smith’s theological evolution through various rationally conflicting interpretations of Genesis 1 and of the nature of deity by declaring cheerfully that “they do not have to be reconciled with each other.” Apparently 200 different interpretations of Genesis 1:1 are all just fine, but the 201st interpretation, advocated by orthodox Christians like Wilson, Huggins, and yours truly, is not acceptable. If there can be 200 different acceptable interpretations of Genesis 1:1, or even three, one would think that what Wilson said about one of the words in Genesis 1:1, Elohim, could also be one of many valid interpretations of that name. But no, according to Boylan, what Wilson said was wrong, ignorant, and so on, and “no scholar in the world” would ever agree with it (a claim that was itself wrong, as I have documented).
“Cognitive dissonance” refers to a psychological state of mind arising “when a person holds two or more cognitions that are inconsistent with each other.” In religion, oddly enough, many people regard adherence to inconsistent cognitions (ideas, beliefs) as spiritually admirable, and they speak disparagingly of the conservative believer who is so stuck in the epistemological mud as to think that an idea and any idea that contradicts it cannot both be true. Perhaps it is a special and more advanced form of cognitive dissonance that allows some people to criticize others for their cognitive dissonance while defending their own.
Bowman is still engaging in deception (his protestations notwithstanding) in stating that I was the author of the piece. Further, Bowman seems to have missed the point, though not surprising (see below). One should read my response to his presuppositions to see the point being made within the context of that quote as well as the entire response on the issue of sola scriputra. Furthermore, I do not find "cognitive dissonance" admirable, and try my best to be as consistent as possible (one can check my articles on this blog as proof of such). However, one can't help but realise that this is Bowman engaging in projection, something he is pretty good at when he writes “Perhaps it is a special and more advanced form of cognitive dissonance that allows some people to criticize others for their cognitive dissonance while defending their own.”
Bowman has a track record of embarrassing himself in debate, and no, this is not empty rhetoric. He has engaged in a few public debates, and in those that are available online, he has lost—badly. I will let interested readers to find out for themselves.
Debate on final authority vs. Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J. (mp3)
Is Sola Scriptura True? versus Laurent Cleenewerck (EO) (youtube) To be fair to Bowman, his opponent was pretty weak here, too.
Robert is a good Trinitarian (he is co-author of Putting Jesus in His Place [2007], which, to be fair, is better than some of the other popular works out there [e.g., Robert Morey, The Trinity: Evidences and Issues and James White, The Forgotten Trinity]), and has tried to defending this doctrine. Recently on facebook, he has taken the line that "Jesus is Yahweh and is not Yahweh at the same time" (violating the law of non-contradiction and results, if he were logical, in Jesus no longer being a single person, among other things [autistic children battle to follow implied linguistic logic; there does seem to be a spiritual autism for Trinitarians and their supporters on this and other points]). He has tried to interact with critics of various Trinitarian theologies, including Dale Tuggy, and has been refuted time and time again (e.g. A Reply to Robert Bowman on biblical monotheism, the Trinity, and the Shema).
In 2010, he had a debate with a Christadelphian (Dave Burke) on the topic of the Trinity (vs. Burke's "Biblical Unitarian" [Socinian] theology). A few days before the debate began, Bowman tried reworking the rules of the debate, trying to ensure that logic and early Church history would not be allowed to be part of the discussion. Further, there was meant to be a vote at the end of the debate, but the Evangelicals pulled the plug on that, too. One can find links to all the parts of the debate here (as well as an Evangelical appraisal thereof), as well as here for Dale Tuggy's discussions (which were fairly even-handed).
Throughout the debate, Bowman was called up, not just by Unitarians, but also scholars for his mishandling of sources, such as James F. McGrath (author of The Only True God) and his critique of Bowman in an article, "Trinitarians without Colons? Rob Bowman on 1 Corinthians 8:4-6."
Here are some gems from the debate from Bowman (with my comments in square brackets):
Jesus explicit said, “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” You can’t know the Father unless the Son reveals him to you. Your reference to the lack of any mention of the Spirit in this text is an argument from silence and misses the progressive nature of biblical revelation. The revelation of the distinct person of the Holy Spirit was yet to come. [Read: The apostles preached a gospel that would fall under the anathema of Gal 1:6-9, as they did not know/preach the personality of the Holy Spirit!] (source)
Did God create the world ex nihilo (out of nothing), ex Deo (from God’s own being), or ex materia (from preexisting matter)? The Bible does not answer this question explicitly . . .
[Anthony] Buzzard offers four arguments in connection with the Shema in support of his conclusion that it teaches that God is unipersonal.
(1) This is how Jews historically, both in Jesus’ day and to this day, understand the Shema. Indeed; but this is a historical argument, not an exegetical one. What if the understanding in Judaism is incomplete or imperfect at this point? Buzzard also states the point this way: No one, having only the Shema, would ever have arrived at a Trinitarian understanding of God. Again, true enough; but so what? It is completely unnecessary for Trinitarians to try to extract the full doctrine of the Trinity from the Shema alone. The Shema may establish one core element of the doctrine of the Trinity—that there is only one Jehovah—without establishing the rest of the doctrine.
(2) The efforts of some Trinitarian apologists to argue that the word echad means a composite unity, or that the plural form for “God” (elohim) implies a plurality of divine persons, are linguistically fallacious. I would agree; but this negative result does not establish Buzzard’s position that the text means that God is unipersonal.
(3) Other texts in the Bible use the Hebrew word echad or the Greek word heis in the context of speaking of a human being as one person (e.g., Lev. 4:27; 14:10; Josh. 23:10; Mark 14:20, 69; Rom. 9:20). Well, we know this because we know that each and every human being is one and only one person. This has nothing to do with the meaning of the words for “one,” which is simply one, and leaves undetermined whether the one Lord God is in fact unipersonal. These other texts do not tell us in what sense the Shema means that Jehovah is “one.”
(4) Galatians 3:20 states that “God is one” in a way that Buzzard claims indicates that he is one person. Translating literally, Paul writes, “Now the mediator is not of one; but God is one.” Buzzard likes the Amplified Bible’s paraphrase: “There can be no mediator with just one person. But God is only one person” (Buzzard, Jesus Was Not a Trinitarian, 314-15). But this is not what Paul wrote or meant. His point is that a mediator always mediates between two parties, or two sides, in an agreement, whereas God is only one party to the agreement. Hence translations like the following: “Now a mediator involves more than one party; but God is one” (Gal. 3:20 NRSV; NIV and NASB are similar). The other “party” to this agreement, by the way, was Abraham and his offspring (vv. 16-19). So the number of persons in each “party” to the agreement is not indicated by the word “one” (heis). [In other words, the most important commandment, per Christ's words in Mark 12:28f, and the Jewish confession of faith, is incomplete and can lead to a serious theological confusion] (source)
In identifying Jesus as God, Thomas did not of course mean that Jesus was the Father. Earlier in the same passage, Jesus had referred to the Father as his God. (This statement is consistent with the Gospel’s teaching that Jesus was the Word made flesh; as a human being, the incarnate Word-Son properly honors the Father as his God.) [the problem for Rob is that John 20:17 is after the resurrection of Jesus, so this apologetic fails]
. . .
(1) I don’t agree that John 17:3 is “clear” in denying that Jesus is God. I agree that John 17:3 clearly teaches that the Father is the only true God and that Jesus is distinct from the Father. [Father is the only true God; Jesus is not the Father; ergo, Jesus is not the only true God?] (source)
Commenting on Rob's deficient Christology (vis-a-vis the humanity of Christ which Trinitarianism fails on), Jonathan Burke ("Fortigurn") posted:
Rob,
Jesus was a man. He had a human body and a human soul or spirit; he was conceived in his mother’s womb, born, and grew up; he worked, sweated, thirsted and drank, hungered and ate, slept and awoke, walked and got tired; he had friends, lost friends, touched and was touched; he felt love, joy, anger, compassion, sorrow, dread, pain, shame, and abandonment; he died and was buried. That’s a real human being. You cannot specify anything essential to the nature or experience of being human that I do not regard as true about Jesus. We even both agree that Jesus experienced the ordinary range of human temptations and yet never sinned.
There are a couple of serious issues here:
* You claim that Jesus had a human soul or spirit
A human soul or spirit is a person in orthodox Christianity. You are therefore claiming that God the Jesus entered a human body which was simultaneously inhabited by a human soul. This is called ‘possession’. You are actually describing God the Jesus as possessing a human being. You are not describing God the Jesus as a human being. The reason for this is that you don’t believe God the Jesus was ever a human being, you believe he was, and always will be, God the Jesus.
* You claim Jesus worked, sweated, thirsted and drank, hungered and ate, slept and awoke, walked and got tired; he had friends, lost friends, touched and was touched; he felt love, joy, anger, compassion, sorrow, dread, pain, shame, and abandonment; he died and was buried’
But in reality you actually only believe these things happened to the human body possessed by God the Jesus. You don’t believe God died, you believe a human body inhabited by God the Jesus died. You don’t believe God was tempted, you believe a human body inhabited by God the Jesus was tempted. You don’t believe God was seen, you believe a human body inhabited by God the Jesus was seen.
This is why other Trinitarians have raised the charge of Nestorianism against the Trinitarianism you hold.
* You don’t believe Jesus was the literal son of God
Your definition of what constitutes a father is contrived. You say the only options are:
1. That Johnny procreated Billy as his literal offspring.
2. That Billy shares his nature with and derives that nature in some way from Johnny (or both).
This is an artificial presentation. You have omitted any reference to the absolute criterion of literal fatherhood, which is that the father must be responsible for bringing the son into existence. That can be performed by means of a number of acts, of which the physical act of procreation is only one.
You fail of course to remind readers that Luke refers to Adam as the son of God, despite the fact that neither did God procreate Adam as His literal offspring, nor did Adam share with or derive his nature from God. How then is Adam called the son of God by Luke? Because God literally brought him into existence.
Of couse Trinitarians deny that God the Father brought God the Jesus into existence. They believe God the Jesus has always existed along with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
With regard to your own criteria, you believe only that God the Jesus shares the nature of God the Father. You neither believe that God the Father procreated God the Jesus as his literal offspring, nor do you believe that God the Jesus derives his nature from God the Father. So you do not even follow your own criteria.(source)
It should be also noted that Rob used to post on the Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board and was often refuted by Daniel McClellan ("Maklelan") and other posters. See, for instance:
Is the Spirit in 1 Kings 22:19-23 Embodied or Incorporeal? (vs. Maklelan)
On Inerrancy (vs. Maklelan)
Serious Implications of Creation Ex Nihilo (vs. Blake Ostler)
1 Nephi 10:7-10 and John the Baptist (vs. David Bokovoy [I await Rob to accuse me of deceptively misrepresenting Bokovoy on this point, too])
The Bible vs. the Book of Mormon (vs. Brant Gardner)
Bowman posted a critique of the hymn, Praise to the Man, that I stumbled upon today which shows his poor exegetical skills (see my paper, "Joseph Smith Worship?" [I will say to Bowman the same thing I said to Bobby Gilpin at the end of this article--I do hope and pray for the day we can sing that hymn together])
The Bible vs. the Book of Mormon (vs. Brant Gardner)
Bowman posted a critique of the hymn, Praise to the Man, that I stumbled upon today which shows his poor exegetical skills (see my paper, "Joseph Smith Worship?" [I will say to Bowman the same thing I said to Bobby Gilpin at the end of this article--I do hope and pray for the day we can sing that hymn together])
My friend, Allen Hansen, also took Bowman to task on his abuse of Jewish sources on theosis:
A Response to Rob Bowman: Early Jewish Mysticism
In an article Bowman wrote a number of years ago, he stated:
And yet, as Bowman is one who holds to biblical inerrancy (per the Chicago Statement and other confessions, including Reformed confessions he would subscribe to), he accepts on the basis of "God's clear revelation in history" (which he does not define) and not just on the basis of a claim to truth:
Talking donkey
Flying man who rose from the dead.
Floating axe head
The Red Sea split in two
Earth being stopped in mid-rotation (assuming a geocentric cosmology [see vol. 2 of Galileo was Wrong by Robert Sungenis showing the OT affirms such a cosmology])
Adam living until he was 960 years of age
Etc.
In an article Bowman wrote a number of years ago, he stated:
If the Book of Mormon were the word of God, then of course faith would be needed for a person to acknowledge it as such. But faith is not the same thing as credulity. Faith is believing in God and His word on the basis of His clear revelation in history. Credulity is believing something merely on the basis of its claiming to be true.
And yet, as Bowman is one who holds to biblical inerrancy (per the Chicago Statement and other confessions, including Reformed confessions he would subscribe to), he accepts on the basis of "God's clear revelation in history" (which he does not define) and not just on the basis of a claim to truth:
Talking donkey
Flying man who rose from the dead.
Floating axe head
The Red Sea split in two
Earth being stopped in mid-rotation (assuming a geocentric cosmology [see vol. 2 of Galileo was Wrong by Robert Sungenis showing the OT affirms such a cosmology])
Adam living until he was 960 years of age
Etc.
Much more could be said, but Bowman’s comments betray that he is engaging in projection--the cognitive dissonance he, as an Evangelical who holds to inerrancy, must be crippling.