David Bernard´s book on oneness

[DaveC519]

Originally Posted by pelathais

He did rehearse some of the often trite Oneness arguments. But, for someone looking for a book that covers the Oneness view rather well, DKB's is probably "the standard." That this "standard" doesn't rise to the level that you and many others want is another matter.

Hello all,

I do agree that DKB's Oneness of God is still a good "standard" treatment of Oneness theology for those not wishing to engage in technical, scholastic theosophy. However, because of certain phraseology he employed which appeared to posit a Nestorian Christ, his arguments were open to criticism from Trinitarianism. Although, in his defense, I do not believe he has ever held to a Nestorian Christ, nor even subconsciously reified Christ's two natures. Other Oneness believers knew what he meant; it was mostly Trinitarians who misinterpreted him!

As to the subject at hand, I think we can say that God is the only being who exists in multiple concurrent distinctions of existence: transcendent (Father), immanent (Holy Spirit), and incarnate (Son). It is the interaction between these which the human mind tends to interpret as interactions of multiple persons, and which ultimately gave rise to Trinitarianism. Oneness theology today seeks to understand the interactions between God's existential distinctions within the framework of classic monotheism (God is one in being AND person).

[seekerman]

Anytime you try to make God two or three anythings interacting with each other as if they're distinct and separate but really aren't you have problems, be it oneness or trinitarian.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by seekerman

Anytime you try to make God two or three anythings interacting with each other as if they're distinct and separate but really aren't you have problems, be it oneness or trinitarian.

Oneness doesn't have two things interacting as though they are separate. They do have two "things" interacting that are distinctm but not separate

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by seekerman

Anytime you try to make God two or three anythings interacting with each other as if they're distinct and separate but really aren't you have problems, be it oneness or trinitarian.

God's nature is complex. Within His nature there exists "somethings" (I'll just use the most ambiguous term here) that are distinct from one another. For example, Jesus Christ died on the cross; yet God did not die. That being said, Jesus Christ is still God.

Without the complexities, this kind of a statement is inherently contradictory and must be rejected as illogical. Arianism attempts to deal with this by making Jesus Christ a lesser "god." Trinitarianism attempts to deal with it by introducing the idea of separate "Persons." That is, the "Person Jesus Christ died," and NOT the Father nor the Holy Spirit.

Yet, if Jesus really is God, how could any "Person who is God" ever die? It is at this point of wrangling with Christology and the nature of Jesus Christ (human and divine) that I think a Oneness theology offers the best hope. Nestorius may have gone a bit too far (though he appears to have consistently denied the claims of his detractors), but Oneness does offer a framework that is more workable, imho.

But, the distinctions remain. DaveC offers a very good and pithy explanation of this (above). Another route might be to look at the complexities within the human nature and compare the complexities of ourselves (in a manner of speaking) with the complexities that exist within the nature of God. Now, before we do this, it is vital that we understand that the human nature is NOT identical to the nature of God, in particular - God's eternal qualities. But the manner in which the Biblical writers dealt with the complex human nature can help to enlighten us to the ways in which they also handled the complexities of God's nature.

[DaveC519]

Originally Posted by pelathais

God's nature is complex. Within His nature there exists "somethings" (I'll just use the most ambiguous term here) that are distinct from one another. For example, Jesus Christ died on the cross; yet God did not die. That being said, Jesus Christ is still God.

Without the complexities, this kind of a statement is inherently contradictory and must be rejected as illogical. Arianism attempts to deal with this by making Jesus Christ a lesser "god." Trinitarianism attempts to deal with it by introducing the idea of separate "Persons." That is, the "Person Jesus Christ died," and NOT the Father nor the Holy Spirit.

Yet, if Jesus really is God, how could any "Person who is God" ever die? It is at this point of wrangling with Christology and the nature of Jesus Christ (human and divine) that I think a Oneness theology offers the best hope. Nestorius may have gone a bit too far (though he appears to have consistently denied the claims of his detractors), but Oneness does offer a framework that is more workable, imho.

But, the distinctions remain. DaveC offers a very good and pithy explanation of this (above). Another route might be to look at the complexities within the human nature and compare the complexities of ourselves (in a manner of speaking) with the complexities that exist within the nature of God. Now, before we do this, it is vital that we understand that the human nature is NOT identical to the nature of God, in particular - God's eternal qualities. But the manner in which the Biblical writers dealt with the complex human nature can help to enlighten us to the ways in which they also handled the complexities of God's nature.

I agree. God is the only being who possesses more than one nature (divine, human). He is the only being who is conscious of himself in more than one way (divine, human). We have nothing in the Created Order with which to compare to God. He is completely unique and, because of this, mysterious. Scripture only gives us a limited number of pieces of the puzzle to put together enough of a picture so that we may enter into relationship with him, and no more! How frustrating to humans who LOVE to solve puzzles and mysteries! We must all be cautious in how we fill in the blank spots.

[Nina]

Originally Posted by DaveC519

How frustrating to humans who LOVE to solve puzzles and mysteries! We must all be cautious in how we fill in the blank spots.

Why do You think that Jesus doesn't know when He's coming back?

[DaveC519]

Originally Posted by Nina

Why do You think that Jesus doesn't know when He's coming back?

Hello Nina,

I think that Jesus, within the context of his humanity, was a genuine human being with all of the limitations associated with being human- including not knowing all things. We know from the Scriptures that he "grew" in wisdom and "learned" obedience (Lu 2:52; Heb 5:8). This would mean that his human mind underwent normal human development just like any other human's would.

The human mind does not have the capacity to allow for the property of omniscience to operate- it simply isn't big enough! External to this context, though, he continued to exist as he always had- as unlimited Deity and with an omniscient divine mind.

The knowledge that Jesus did have would have been normal human experiential knowledge, and the exception to this would have been that knowledge which would have been supernaturally revealed to his mind through the operation of the Gifts of the Spirit. Jesus, as a man, was anointed by the Spirit, and that without measure (Jn 3:34; Ac 10:38).

So, for Jesus to say he didn't know the hour of his coming, or when he asked his disciples "who touched me" (Lu 8:45), he was expressing a genuine lack of knowledge, because the divine property of omniscience was not active in his human context.

Hope that all made sense.

[Praxeas]

I long ago abandoned the "sometimes he spoke as god and sometimes as man" stuff.

He always spoke and did things as a man. He willingly limited Himself to the human nature, not vacillated back and forth

[Nina]

Originally Posted by DaveC519

The human mind does not have the capacity to allow for the property of omniscience to operate- it simply isn't big enough!

This I can understand.

The knowledge that Jesus did have would have been normal human experiential knowledge, and the exception to this would have been that knowledge which would have been supernaturally revealed to his mind through the operation of the Gifts of the Spirit. Jesus, as a man, was anointed by the Spirit, and that without measure (Jn 3:34; Ac 10:38).

These two sentences seem to refute each other, to me.


Hope that all made sense.

I thank You for Your response,
Nina

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by seekerman

Anytime you try to make God two or three anythings interacting with each other as if they're distinct and separate but really aren't you have problems, be it oneness or trinitarian.

Consider Psalm 42:11 and Psalm 43:5. Here, the Psalmist is "speaking to his own soul." He (at least from the dialogue) appears to be treating his own soul as if it (he?) were a different person than himself. Grammatically, we have two personal pronouns ("thou" and "me") connected by a preposition ("within") that demonstrates the relationship between the two "persons." Yet, every reader of this passage unanimously agrees that there is only ONE PERSON under discussion here, the Psalmist himself.

It's just that the Psalmist (David, most likely) is so conflicted at this particular point in time, that he is "of two minds" about something. On the one hand, he wants to give up hope. On the other hand, he trusts in God. So, he depicts himself as if he were "talking to himself" and encouraging himself to trust in God. A similar example can be found in the Prodigal Son parable of Luke 15. Here the Prodigal "comes to himself." - "He" (personal pronoun) "came to" (prepositional phrase) "himself" (personal pronoun).

Cal Bisner attempted to use this grammatical construction to argue that "The Laws of Grammar" (his term) "demands" that we "always see two or more persons (Persons)" in such passages; though he completely ignored passages like Psalm 42:11 and Luke 15:17. This was during that infamous televised debate between himself and Walter Martin on the Trinitarian side and NA Urshan and Bob Sabin on the Oneness side. I was chomping at the bit for someone to show Bisner how wrong he was, but only Walter Martin saw through that argument and he gently patted Bisner on the elbow to try and get him to stop.

In any event, human language has always used the device of analogously speaking as if there were two or more persons under discussion when it is clear that just one person is truly involved. This is the manner in which Tertullian first coined the word "persona" from old Etruscan into Latin to describe the complexities within the nature of God. Tertullian had a single "actor" (or person in the modern sense) in mind, but that actor assumed different roles throughout the "play."

With God, we have an "Actor" who can simultaneously assume different roles, so the matter is truly more complex than any human parallel.