The TRINITY is NECESSARILY True!

Something I love about your book is you got a lot of fancy illustrations.

And that was one of the first things that I found.

I was like, you know what?

I got to figure these bad boys out and so I read your book twice and I read chapter 9

a Dozen times because that's where to me it all came down to because tell rebuke me if I'm saying

this wrong but when you talk about an interpretation and refinement of the

theological apologetic of Cornelius of Antille.

It seems like you were taking Van Til's thought one step further in this way.

Because when I debated the Mormon I had Van Til in the back of my mind and when I'm asked the question How

why is God one in three Van Til rightly pointed out Christians rightly point out?

Well, that's the God who has revealed himself to be and so we live in the scriptures.

We go back to the scriptures say it's right here.

This is the new name right of Yahweh, but he is father son in spirit.

So I said that but your book tell me if you can say it differently almost says the God who

revealed himself is Necessarily one in three and so chapter 9

really gets into the philosophical categories of why we can Confidently

say God is who he is Necessarily and he's revealed to himself in a very particular

way.

And you gave us some really awesome illustrations that I would like to talk about while I have you on here.

Is that okay?

Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna cheat though.

Because this one is not your illustration I looked at all your book today and because I want to talk about

the problems of a Unitarian God a bininity a two -person single God and

then I want us to talk obviously we're gonna talk about the Trinity and the Beautiful harmony and the perfection that we see there

loving eternal relationship and then the problems of a quadrinity plus because in my debate

that was leveled at me as Jeremiah you're making a big stink out of the problem of the one and the

many and the Trinity is the Only thing that can settle it.

Well, I can just come up with other conceptions of God with multiple persons.

Not just three either two four plus and he said a hundred and so this is why chapter 9 in

your book was my favorite because this is what you deal with and.

So I want to talk a little we've already been talking about the problems of a Unitarian God with Islam and Allah, right?

But this is how I've explained it to people.

Yeah, I think I'm a little bit behind you and understanding these things and so that's why you're on to help me out.

So I have a few categories listed here that I think Unitarianism fails to account for

now it tries to but when we look in our context in this universe.

Right, we experience so many things like person -to -person Relationships, right?

We have a temporal relationship and.

And so it goes on and on we have a temporal knowledge a finite knowledge of things that we truly know.

But we live in a context of this Impersonal universe and so

that's all we get into the of how do we know what we know epistemology and what's the justification?

For human intelligibility.

Well, we know biblically started with the Bible worldview that this world tells us many features about the Creator,

right?

We got Psalm 19 1 well God's Creation is his handiwork and it glorifies his

and points us back to him.

Romans 1 like you quoted earlier points us back to God.

And so we see many things in this world that tell us very specific things about the the Creator

who made everything.

Right, and so in order to ground knowledge you have to solve the problem

of induction.

And so how I've kind of said it is we can only have probabilistic knowledge.

We can never be truly certain because we do not have an omniscient mind.

And so I'm getting at is God Must be eternal.

How do we know that?

Well this temporal world presupposes that We have a finite knowledge, but that

presupposes an eternal absolute omniscient mind and We have person -to

-person relationships in this impersonal void therefore God in some way has to rise

above all the problems that we have and be an Absolute person in order to

ground Knowledge.

Okay, and so with Unitarianism, I love the question that you've been posing.

Where is he?

Right?

So I couldn't put my I couldn't do it I couldn't put this Unitarian deity above created reality because it

just can't work in any way.

Like you rightly said this is the imagination of man conceiving of man just on a bigger plane

right because that's right this deity is a radical concrete one and so

Immediately fails for the multiplicity and diversity in this created world.

Right and so I just I put X's on all the big categories as far as I'm concerned because look at

the context in Which this Unitarian deity exists?

Who knows?

It's a void of nothingness and he couldn't even know right?

You like my little question marks going on there.

What do you think?

Yeah, no, I think you know, I think that's right.

I mean, it's you know, the problem is really.

Perhaps if I were to represent this I would actually I'd have the Unitarian Deity

inside of created reality with the creature.

Oh, there he is.

There you go.

Because here's here's why he's in in the realm of the unknown, you know when we have a conception of God

who is nowhere.

Who has no relations who has no others?

We can't conceptualize any qualities about that God except as he is the creek.

He's the something that made this universe.

He's the question mark beyond beyond this universe.

You know the the concept of Unitarian Deity everyone does he have self -knowledge.

What is the content in nature of that knowledge?

Does he have you might say a word?

Does God know himself using impersonal categories like we do when we call

something mammal and we call something?

Animal.

Did there just is there this universe of ideas that Plato?

You went into discussing in great depths that just they just are and any Conscious being kind of

has to rely on then appeal to them.

You see the Trinitarian answer is that God has an eternal word Who is so

sufficient to define and comprehend him?

It can't be an abstract impersonal thing.

His word is his son his word is the second person of the Trinity.

He has a language that Comprehends himself.

That's what we're talking about.

This isn't just a jumbo in the first chapter of the Gospel of John.

This is The deepest insight right one can have into God.

Now look it gives us the ability to say that we know anything about him.

Albeit.

We know it analogically.

There's nothing in this world.

That is exactly like God.

And so we say we know him truly but not exhaustively the unbeliever in the Unitarian.

They know something exhaustive about their God that he's unitary in the one in one strict sense and could never be.

Three.

Human reason is that powerful to tell us what God can and cannot be and on the other hand

They they know at the same time nothing about what that

unit actually has inside of it and hence it reduces to.

Just pure chance.

Hmm.

Now tell me okay, so I've also explained it this way To be personal

Presupposes another person it doesn't make sense to say I'm a radical one person

in there.

It's in a context where there's no other persons to have a meaningful interaction.

So to be personal Presupposes at least.

So this is where I want to kind of dispel Unitarianism is it doesn't make any meaningful sense to say

that a Unitarian God is personal at all.

Well what context.

Because it's not in a personal context to be personal presupposes Another person.

Right.

That's.

And that corresponds with our experience right.

You and I are two persons in a particular Context having a meaningful meaningful back -and -forth

Relationship.

And so God has to be able to account for that rise above.

Not be within or you know descend beneath.

So I'm saying Unitarianism fails to even be personal.

And My inner Johnny max a long time ago talked about how love

Presupposes multiple persons.

We're gonna see the beautiful harmony of that is three, but one fails.

That's right.

You know.

And to be clear when we say that it corresponds with our experience.

We want to be clear that it corresponds with our experience.

As.

Christians interpreting reality the world is Christians because we.

We know this because we are covenantally represented by a person who was created in relationship to a divine person.

We have zero conception in our worldview of a unitary person person and the unbeliever is gonna go

no I see I actually do conceive of myself as potentially Unipersonal or what which is still a bit ridiculous

because you're born by other persons all of those things and you know I actually kind of do think of myself as

ultimately just my own individual and read and What we will hit him back with of course again and again and again.

Is that that sort of autonomy that autonomous unit you're describing can't know anything.

And we're gonna keep driving that home with you.

And when you just described to ultimate reality a bigger uniperson like yourself, it doesn't solve

the problem.

In fact, it just it raises the question.

Where is he?

Conceptually, where is he?

Materially spatially all of those things what context is sustaining his self -conception

and until you arrive at the point that he is self -contained as The you know that the track

the Trinity you're nowhere.

But it's more than that until you can get to the point where he's not only self -contained.

But he solves the problem of your rebellion against him.

He solves the problem of the fact that we've constantly been denying him and he does so with the solution that is

Equal to his person with a personal Savior.

See we have to be really clear we're not working with the Trinity as a sort of

unit of knowledge as a base premise by talking about the trying God who's revealed himself in

Scripture and Interpreted us so thoroughly in this story.

All of those things stand and fall together.

And of course then it becomes really ridiculous is the unbeliever.

You're gonna tell me about another worldview that he has where he doesn't call the being the Trinity his multi -personal

God is called Dan and You know, he sent his son into the world to die for our sins.

His name is Billy not Jesus and his his Holy Spirit is the one who puts us into

Christ.

And it's not called the Holy Spirit.

It's called by Raven, you know what we'd say to that person is.

The real problem here is not that you're proposing an alternative to Christianity the problem

here is that you're speaking in tongues without interpretation because all of those things are just my worldview

and the fact that you've smacked another names on it is.

First of all, it just goes to show that just the folly of evil and sin the links will go to.

But you're actually affirming that only the Christian worldview places you on this firm foundation.

Mm -hmm.

I'm really redemption in Christ.

I want to be clear.

We're not saved by a worldview the world views the right.

Yeah.

Well, so we're just trying to dispel the the Unitarian version of God and it tries to

be eternal.

But we realize at the end of it.

It can't even reveal to us if that's the case it fails to account for multiplicity the the diversity in our

world.

And.

Cannot be personal not in a true meaningful sense.

I liked how you re -emphasized in in our Christian experience.

We see that this Unitarian God is just blown up and I try to really press the point to be

personal presupposes More than one person and so this and then so

someone has come along and say well, okay fine.

You can have a bind entity that way you can have more than one person Jeremiah to solve the the the

person the personal Problem that you're putting forth like fine.

Yes.

And so this is where this is yours.

This is original with you this diagram and this took me a long time to understand what you

were getting in.

But give me first cracks if you don't care.

Okay, sure.

So earlier the conversation we're talking about Content the word context every

person to person relationships has a context or a

map that's Facilitating that that personal relationship, right?

And so yes, you're also bringing out the question.

Where is God?

What's the context in which he exists and has revealed himself?

And so, you know when something when I bring up the problem of a Uni person is no person at

all because you need another person to have that that relationship.

They say fine take father and son.

Well, they're personal.

Why can't a bind entity ground human intelligibility?

Well, you talked about asking the question.

Well, what context would facilitate the bind entity?

So like in the diagram here, you got that circle, right?

So we're asking the question What is that context and so I want to say timeout because when we go back to the

human plan then rebuke me.

If I need it here, yeah, you know, I brought up the problem of induction earlier I think that's something that

pervades our human experience.

We have person -to -person interaction, but in an Impersonal context of this

created world, right the universe just on its own.

It's an impersonal Context and so here with a bind entity you have

person one and person two in an undefinable void that's

Impersonal and in some way, this is how I've explained it.

They would be problem that they would be subjection to the the problem of induction and you cannot ground

Intelligibility in this model, but I'm sure it's way deeper than that.

Well, I mean, that's right.

I mean.

The.

Situation in this in this model you might put it this way what it's a father and son are related.

You know, what language are they speaking?

Where did that language come from?

Did they come together and make that language together and say hey, let's let's have this word mean that to even begin

that conversation.

They're speaking a language.

So so so where is there has got to be a unity between Them

that is not in personal space not in personal time not even an abstract language.

For which you could simply ask my goodness Where did these words come from any of these sorts of contexts that you can

imagine or that we tend to?

Impersonalize as Creatures not recognizing, you know, the the ultimate creator person behind them all.

They're gonna fail when understood as such.

In fact the father and the son have got to be in the context of the spirit with whom they are one being

so that they are comprehensive of their own their own context they are

one with their context and That that context is not what you'd call a an

artificial Production that they make coming together.

That's not a personal context.

In fact a Production produced by the coming together of two immense

deities presupposes already Some context in which productions

can be produced.

It actually renders God mutable.

All of these things become a problem when we don't say that in fact the context within which the

father and the son are is the spirit whom they share and With whom they are one

being.

That's gonna be happy.

Yeah, and so when I understood this to some degree so I'm thinking okay father son

By an entity does not work because that relationship is existing in some

indefinable impersonal abstract void.

Okay, and this is where we see the harmony of the Trinity because you take that impersonal

Undefinable impersonal void and in my language we flip it

into a third person in which.

Facilitates perfectly the relationship between father and son.

In what context the father and son relate to one another in the spirit.

In What context does the son and the spirit relate to one another in the

father?

And I think the word you used in your book was perichoresis.

Which is a term that the early church fathers used as well.

Is that right?

That's right.

You know, I mean, it's a word that means the dance.

You know and and really you're describing the dance of our mind when we try to think it because it's thoughts.

You know, you try to think the father and son.

You think the spirit you're like, where's the spirit?

He's related to the father.

He's in the son and but in reality, you know, obviously in reality.

The Trinity is just absolutely infinitely self -contained as one simple God.

And by simple I'm using that term in the theological sense that the divine being is not divisible.

They're not parts right.

The divine being has no parts each person of the Trinity is the whole God functioning as

relayed to her relationship and related.

Persons.

And of course, you know, we have the you know trinitarian relations that the scriptures just impress upon us.

You know the Sun.

We use the word generation not to imply that you know, his being is made but that right he

relates to the father son.

Yes, yes, yes internally.

But but of course, yeah, this is what we're talking about.

And in fact, you know, if you flip back to the other slide, you know the one you had before.

You know others might think of you know.

The father and the son is kind of having in a relationship where the son is, you know inside of the father.

And I mean.

And that's kind of the only relationship it's like, you know, when you ask the question where'd the language come from, you know.

It came from the father and the son is you know, speaking it back or something like that.

But in that case there isn't if the son is just in the father the father you just ask the question again Where

is the father and you're kind of back in that impersonal void place, right?

You know, that's huge.

So I just I wanted to mention that again.

I mean that is the subordination ism.

Really what we're looking at there is.

Is.

Aryanism, it really does go to the place where that the father is unknowable

virtually and the son is is this.

You know this word spoken by the father who's otherwise pretty well, you know.

Just the void indefinable void.

And the son is just barely more, you know.

Definable and it loans itself to the emanation sorts of theories of early.

Gnosticism and and how I've tried to emphasize this best I can is to say relationships

always exist in a con to person -to -person relationships always exist in a type of Context and

remember the kind of context that we have here on earth is in an impersonal context

Immediately what we what we experience and so that renders us to a lot of problems where we can't justify

knowledge by just appealing To ourselves and so I asked the question what context

facilitates this person one person to by an entity.

We don't know and they don't know and that's the problem, right?

It's in an undefinable void and that renders, you know Absurdities

and and not being able to have an absolute self -contained knowledge and that's where the Trinity

Has this perichoresis this perfect harmony this this inner penetrating dance

one always within one another pervading one another so it's beautiful because

Discipleship at 12 -5, you know, I try to really hit point, you know, first John tells us God is love.

Well, love is transcendent and image bearers of God know that like even the secular world.

They want to say yes love feels you know something we experience but

is Out is outside of us.

Also, like how do we explain?

It's like well God is eternally love in a wonderful Relationship with Father Son

and Spirit perfect love shares that love, right?

So we see that in this triune form.

So I think this brings us to Another illustration as we kind of want an

interjection.

Go an interjection, but when you describe the unbeliever situation, it's also important to note

though that there Self -conception as being in an impersonal context is itself

an illusion.

It's it's the illusion of unbelief.

You know, we would say that because we live and move and have our being in God the Trinity.

That's why the unbeliever is actually getting along pretty well.

He's always hearing virtually a song that is inviting him to

dance even against his his intention and will in a way that betrays

Expectation of where things will be where things will end up how they can trust their senses you name it and they're

just always denying.

The music's playing which is so utterly clear and all that there's even when they're trying to wreck the dance.

There are certain ways to do it it where you kind of have to kind of respect the dance to even kind of

muck it up and and so the unbelievers a Lying self -conception is I we're

doing this in the context of avoid we both don't know how we're talking Jeremiah.

It's like hmm, you know, we'd say that that's that's a lie.

And if that were true, you wouldn't know anything at all and and Elon Musk would be right that maybe we are just

Maybe our consciousness right now 50 -50 chance.

We're just Emulated consciousness from the computer, you know, or is some type of experience

but what we're saying is that It's just important to put it this way our premise

that all personal relationships are mediated ultimately by Self -conscious

person is a Christian premise.

We have it in a 17 in him.

We live and move and have our being and then you know when we act that's what's exciting us to ask the

question Okay.

Well, where is God where what context is he in?

We're starting with the premise given to us from Scripture to and until calls this, you

know reasoning by implication.

We're starting on our with our presuppositions and reasoning more deeply into them hence reasoning from the Trinity

and to the Trinity.

In ever deeper ways, but go ahead and let's hit that last slide.

Why can't God write more than three persons where we're going the end to me?

This was the hardest one to wrap my mind around.

So I look give me first cracks though so In my other studies

Listen to other theologians saying, you know, the Trinity is this perfect harmony.

So God's not going to unnecessarily add More persons God is the author, you

know of everything that is good.

Not the author of confusion.

So to add Unnecessarily persons just wouldn't make sense.

And you know what?

I want to give some credit there like You know, you know the principle of like Occam's razor things like

that Like I can see kind of some merit in them, but your book goes so much deeper You're saying no to

add a person X totally throws everything out of harmony.

Because I kind of thought okay, I can see the problems with a Unitarian model To be personal presupposes

more persons.

Not just one you move to a binary.

What's the context there between?

Person one person to what's undefinable in personal context?

Oh, we need a third person to have you know, perfect harmony there So I've always I kind of got that down

first.

I was like, okay, we're flowing we're flowing.

Oh, no.

What do we do with with four persons?

Well in your two models here I love this because we got to continue to ask the question

in what context would four persons Exist.

Okay.

Well when we have over here, you know, you got You got the Holy Spirit

to person X over here that's in relation to this other part and it's in this

bigger Context going on right and so what's happened is

now you have An impersonal group am I getting this, right?

I want you to go more into that because once you've started to have maybe two over here and two over here Well

now you have two groups, right this abstract impersonal

Thing and once you've brought in an impersonal aspect.

Well, then you you've eroded any grounds for intelligibility and so you have either two over

here and two over here or you have three over here and One over here.

If you have if you have in this model three would kind of be a group this impersonal

abstract thing Facilitating the one so I need you to say it.

Yeah better.

Yeah, okay.

What you're gonna end up doing when you try to add persons is you're gonna actually diminish the persons and you're going

to inject impersonalism as a context.

You can think about a quadrinity or you know efforts at a quadrinity in a couple of ways.

You think of it this way?

You could think of it and we'll start as maybe the simplest one.

Maybe you say that the relationship between the Father and the Son is.

Perfectly.

Mediated by.

The third person of the Trinity of the Holy Spirit.

He is that context who contains father and son perfectly and exhaustively.

And and let me express kind of what I mean by containment.

It's the idea that the relationship itself between the Father and the Son.

Didn't isn't Arbitrary.

It didn't happen because two minds came together and thought of a relationship to be in.

It's that that relationship itself is expressive of.

The.

Almighty power Wisdom and will of a person

is the self -existent person who is the one and only God.

So the first way that you could think about a quadrinity is that so you have that beautiful thing with father son and holy Spirit

and there's just a fourth person off to the side as an appendage.

There's a an obvious and radical problem that arises there.

That person if he's not involved in the facilitation of that relationship is passive then.

Mmm, it's not pure act as the divine being must be now God is

made of parts active and passive now.

We're not talking about a God who is immutable because.

To be brought from passivity to activity is to undergo change and now you're having to ask

all of these questions.

Where is change taking place?

Where is you know passivity being written read it brought into activity and now you've got a God who is

somewhere other than holy completely in himself.

That appendage throws everything off if he's inactive in facilitating a relationship.

That other person of the Godhead is less divine and we're now we're introducing Gradations

into the divine nature and now we've got a metaphysical problem where we're going.

Where does more and less come from within the divine being.

Is there a bit of non being entered?

Intermingled with God and now we don't have an absolute anymore.

We have a being who is surrounded by non being.

Kind of functioning positively and adding something to the divine nature.

He's not self -sufficient self -contained.

That's what happens if we have the appendage view of a fourth somewhere out there.

The other way to think about it is this that the father -son relationship is it appears in the

context of the We'll call it the Holy Spirit and mother relationship.

Mother will be the fourth person in the Trinity there.

Which is obviously very confused.

It again we have the same problem you could think of it this way either person's three and

four will call it spirit and mother.

Are.

Are both equally necessary to produce the single context in which one and two

are related?

That is as much as to say that neither one is sufficient.

This would mean that neither person is the absolute self -contained

Trinitarian context of the divine persons.

He's not sufficient to do that on his own.

He's in need of another part to facilitate that context if they're both necessary and

Again, once we have a divine being who lacks Sufficiency in himself to be

the whole God as the all -containing context We have something very different than a

self -contained Trinity.

We have a sort of Makeshift relation where you have two pieces of the puzzle coming together to be

the context for the picture that's contained in it.

Neither one of them contained the whole that God is in themselves.

And of course.

Then we're right back in the same place a God who is mutable That's a God who's in time.

Then you have a God who has gradations of being because they're not all of the deity in themselves.

Now you have the injection of non -being as the metaphysical principle and we're right back to a God who is

in nowhere and some measure of nowhere interjects itself into

the divine being and he is marked by gradations and so when we think

about it in those terms, it really does radically undermine God's status is self

-sufficient if Persons three and four and I'm looking at the right -hand side of your image

you know, the father -son group are facilitating the you know person X and the Holy Spirit

relation.

A group is not a person.

A group is something artificial that comes together and

It is not expressive of the Self -existence of God and it's a real

problem if God is not in his own self -existent personal context.

That's the whole problem of unbelieving thought.

Yeah.

So when you were studying these things.

When did when was the Eureka moment when you were kind of like, oh a group is an

abstract Impersonal thing like to me.

Yeah, that's just so remarkable.

Do you remember when that was first kind of, you know, the pieces were coming together with that?

Yeah.

Yeah, I remember I was really excited about I was in my pajamas in my stairway walk down the stairs where it really like I was

a deep in Deep in Thesis

thought and things like that and.

Yeah that I mean and I was like, yeah, I think you know I think I really got something here and you know.

Obviously you go through all the motions of you know.

Writing something and try to be your own worst critic and sometimes you can see it.

Sometimes you can't even when I go to these conversations to be honest with you I really have to make sure

that I'm well rested and like if I'm gonna hit it super hard.

Because that that is a reality that it's dangerous for presuppositional.

It's not to be aware of that.

You know as we are a mind body unit.

You know our physical exhaustion does affect all of these things and this is where having Trinity as our

presupposition.

It is just the place where it's place where we go to bed man.

It's a place where we rest even when we Don't feel like we can expound these sorts of depths.

But another way to put all this that is I think maybe much more practical Jeremiah is this.

We discussed the personal problem of sin and how it requires an utterly personal solution.

It requires a tri -personal solution.

You know a very another practical way to put this is I'd like to know from the quadrennia Terian.

How were reconciled to the fourth person of the Trinity?

I know why we're reconciled to the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.

In.

Theological situation that we're in and again, I just say the not that they're they're gonna find themselves in

trying to to develop a quadruple version, you know of salvation and why is

This fourth appendage even necessary at any point in this in this portrait much

less, you know, where are you gonna find, you know an inspired book that you know that has

Facilitated worship in a community reconciled to this God anywhere.

I mean all of these details are some of the more simple ways to get at this point.

But to boil down the point here, you could put it this way if you add a fourth person Then either Persons three and four are

necessary to produce one context in within which one and two are related.

If that's the case if if both are necessary, then neither one is sufficient neither one

is the whole self -contained Trinity Functioning as context to the other

two persons.

They're both lesser than the full Godhead and that right there when you interject

Gradations of being into God you mingle being and non being as your as your

Starting point and you don't have a God who self -contained and complete the other option is this that both persons three

and four are sufficient to serve as the single context of the relationship between one and two in which case

one of them has to be inactive if the other is sufficiently the the

one Divine will knowledge in power within which the other two reside

that other You know person who is the whole Godhead is off doing something else.

And so in that case You could say that They are together

They're both sufficient.

But one is is is not Actively being sufficient and and

then you have a problem of passivity and change and so so either way You are you're

stuck with a God who is not self -contained and you have all of these problems of change

mutability metaphysical non -being gradations all of these things that make something

not in ultimately personal context, but Someone who is himself fraught with

impersonality.

And so if we if we add more persons five six a hundred.

It's just all the same problems over and over and over.

Well, that's right.

Of course it is.

Yeah, you know, then it's just even becomes more ridiculous to speak of ourselves.

You know reconciled to you know, the hundred -person God who you know, we only know three of the person.

I mean this you know.

It just is Mormonism and you're at the point of that Mormon guy where it's like well I'm gonna look I'm gonna know the real God who you

know is is beyond the the Trinity that I know of.

But it's even worse than that because what you have is you don't have person as

The context of Every personal relationship you have something else time

change non -being gradations of being the non the absolute personal God.