Dale Tuggy and his Unitarian Errors

Recently, Dr. Michael Brown debated Unitarian Dale Tuggy on the question, Is the God of the Bible the Father alone? The debate boiled down to a discussion of the deity of Jesus. I had the pleasure of moderating this debate and although I was not permitted to take sides while in that role, I can do so now. I will keep this as brief as I can. For a longer, more detailed critique of Tuggy in this debate, go here. Here are some problems I had with Tuggy’s views.

Denial of pre-existence of Jesus

Unitarians are often compared with Arians for their denial of the deity of Jesus. But Arius believed in the pre-existence of Jesus, and while many Unitarians also do, Tuggy does not. Despite John 1:14, Tuggy believes Jesus did not exist until he was born of a virgin. He says the Logos of John 1:1 is not the same as Jesus. the Incarnation is not the pre-existing Son of God becoming flesh, which the wording of John 1:14 indicates. It is subtler than that. Likening it to the Wisdom of God, he says the Logos, whatever that is, was revealed in Jesus. God made Jesus a special, exalted man, but he is not divine.

The problem is, John does not say that. He says, “The Word became flesh.” To say Jesus was being infused with the Logos, or had something added to him while he was a fetus in the womb, does not do justice to the word, “became.” To become flesh means he had a separate existence prior to what he became. If John did not believe in the pre-existence of Jesus, he would have used different terminology in his prologue.

Discomfort with consciousness after death

Repeatedly, during the debate and the Q and A session that followed, Dr. Brown was challenged with the contradiction that God died on a cross. God cannot die, so if Jesus died, he could not be God. That sounds logical, but Jesus is both God and man. The man died, but God did not. Similarly, when our bodies die, our spirits do not. This is not a difficult concept, but none of the Unitarians present seemed unable, or perhaps unwilling, to grasp it. Patripassionism is a Trinity-denying, 3rd century Monarchian heresy that says the Father suffered on the cross. It is not what Trinitarians believe. What is ironic is that Unitarians criticize Trinitarians for merging Jesus and the Father into one, yet as soon as we distinguish between the two at the cross, they cry foul.

One issue that forces Unitarians into a corner has to do with the concept of Jesus having an eternal spirit that did not die with his body. Tuggy and other Unitarians present were uncomfortable with the idea that this is true of Jesus and of believers. It is clear that Jesus was alive in spirit after his death because he told the Jews, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (Jn 2:19). How can a dead man resurrect himself? If Jesus were merely an exalted man, this would be impossible, but Jesus is divine, and he raised himself by his divine Spirit. That is why Jesus can say he raised himself from the dead, while in other places it says God raised him (e.g., Rom 8:11). The only way both can be true is if Jesus is God.

Distortion of the Trinitarian Jesus

Tuggy wants to deny that the Trinitarian Jesus is even human, claiming a divine spirit inhabiting a human body does not make the spirit a man any more than a demon inhabiting a body makes it a man. To be a man, by Tuggy’s definition, one must either be a “first human or he exists because of at least one prior human.” (https://trinities.org/blog/podcast-235-the-case-against-preexistence/). Never mind that this definition is completely the creation of Dale Tuggy. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that he is right. Jesus was born of a virgin and existed because of her, making him human. All Trinitarians believe this, so Tuggy is off base in denying that the Trinitarian Jesus is human. His problem is a failure to understand that God’s divine Spirit is the spirit of the man Jesus. All humans have a spirit (this, by the way gets closer to an accurate definition of what it means to be human than Tuggy’s self-manufactured definition), and if a man’s spirit is God’s Spirit, why is it impossible to believe that the outcome would be a person who is both God and man?

To avoid this logical consistency, Unitarians try to deny or at least question the idea of humans having a spirit and a soul. That, at least, is what happened when I tried to discuss this with a couple of Unitarians after the debate. Interestingly, Jehovah’s Witnesses (and Seventh Day Adventists) also have a problem with this. Referring to it as soul sleep, they deny that a person is conscious between death and resurrection. JW’s also deny the deity of Jesus. This is not a coincidence. The implications of denying Jesus’ deity include a denial of the existence of an eternal spirit of Jesus, because that is where his deity would be found. But if humans have an eternal spirit, how can we deny that Jesus does? If Jesus has a Spirit, which he does (Rom 8:9; 1 Pet 1:11; Gal 4:6), then how can we deny that he can be divine while also being human. In Rom 8:9 the Spirit of Jesus and the Spirit of God are interchangeable terms:

“However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.
But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”

So Jesus has a divine Spirit, which proves he is divine, while also being human. Tuggy has a beef with the many Catholic creeds about Jesus, but it is not necessary to hold to the letter of those in order to prove Tuggy’s exalted man theory wrong.

Disproportionate reliance upon human wisdom

In talking with some Unitarians after the debate, I found, to my surprise, that some deny that God created time. Even most atheistic scientists, who know that such a belief runs counter to their view of a godless universe, have yielded on this point on the face of the overwhelming evidence that both time and the Universe had a beginning, just as Genesis 1:1 states. So why would a professing Christian want to deny this?

The answer reveals what is at the heart of Tuggy’s doctrines. A timeless God would be more mysterious, and therefore, more difficult to understand and explain. Tuggy wants a God who is like us, that we can explain fully. A Jesus who is complex and mysterious is a stench in Tuggy’s nostrils. On his web site, Tuggy emphasizes logic and common sense. He does not prefer to be called a philosopher, but an analytic theologian. Yet he thinks and speaks like a philosopher in many ways, including the desire to be able to explain everything without allowing for gaps in our knowledge. Perhaps that is as much a trait of theologians as philosophers, but a mysterious God or a mysterious Jesus requires gaps. God is unknowable unless he chooses to reveal himself (Mat 11:27). Among the things about God that we can never fully know are his greatness (Psa 145:3), his understanding (Psa 147:5), his knowledge (Psa 139:6), his power (Job 26:14), and his ways and his thoughts (Isa 55:9). That is why we worship him. Why Tuggy and his followers worship him I do not know. Why they worship a Jesus who is not God I do not know. But I find it odd that Tuggy admits Jesus should be called “god” and is worthy of worship, but he denies that Jesus is God. He denies the deity of Jesus and also denies that the Trinitarian Jesus is human. He simply cannot accept that a man can also be God. That would not be acceptable to logic and human wisdom.

Disturbing exegesis of Scripture

I classify the viability of any doctrine on the strength of the exegesis of Scripture used to support it. I was sorely disappointed at the weakness of exegesis of the full preterist position represented only weeks ago at another debate I moderated, but I was confident the exegesis of Universalist teachings would be better. I was wrong.

Tuggy’s exegetical blunders are many. Here are a few examples:
*Philippians 2:6-7, which says Jesus was “in very nature God” and that he took “the very nature of a servant. Tuggy claims this neither affirms the deity of Jesus, nor his preexistence.

*John 17:5 says: Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” According to Tuggy, this verse does not say Jesus had glory with the Father before the world began.

*Colossians 1:15-17 says that in Jesus all things were created. But Tuggy claims this is talking about the new creation, not the original one. When Paul says “all things,” Tuggy reads “new things.” There is absolutely nothing in the context of this passage to suggest a new creation is in Paul mind when he writes.

*Hebrews 1:8, says: “About the Son, he says: “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever.” But Tuggy claims neither the author of Hebrews nor the psalmist believes the Son is God.

*John 13:3 says Jesus knew that “he had come from God.” Tuggy believes this does not mean Jesus descended to earth from heaven, despite that the rest of the sentence says, “and was returning to God,” which obviously refers to Jesus ascending to heaven from earth.

The list could go on, but I will spare you. Though Unitarians raise legitimate questions that all Christians should take seriously, the exegesis of Scriptures, such as the ones above, make it impossible for me to take these interpretations seriously. Exegesis must be context-driven, not theology-driven. I know of no one who interprets any of these verses the way Tuggy does, except those who share his doctrines, which require such an interpretation. This is a major red flag for any doctrine. It is far easier for me to accept a Jesus who is both God and man than to accept these far-fetched interpretations. In the end, Tuggy presents a Jesus who is entirely human, and he does so with arguments that also are entirely human, based on the wisdom of this world, not on the wisdom that comes from God.

Can God Be A Black Woman? Spending Some Time in “The Shack”

I just watched the movie, The Shack. It is a story of a man who suffers the brutal abduction and murder of his daughter. He cannot get over his loss, blaming it on God, who did nothing to stop it, until God invites him to a shack near the spot where his daughter was killed. His weekend spent with God changes his conception of him and starts him on a new life path.

The story is somewhat autobiographical, as he reveals in his testimony, given here. The author, Paul Young, depicts himself in the leading character: a man broken, having lost everything and contemplating suicide. Along his journey to forgive himself for ruining his marriage by committing adultery, he wrote a story. That story turned into the best-selling book, The Shack. The book has stirred a lot of controversy in Christian circles, not for the portrayal of the leading character, but over the portrayal of God as a black woman. Are the criticisms justified? Does the Bible ever God as feminine?

Some argue that the divine name, El Shaddai depicts femininity, calling him the all-breasted one, i.e., a mother who nurses her children. But this is almost certainly not the origin of the term El Shaddai, as Michael Brown has demonstrated on this YouTube video. So this term for God is not a portrayal of God as a female.

But in other places God is compared to females. We can start with the creation narrative. In Genesis 1:27 Moses tells us: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” This verse tells us that it is only with the creation of both male and female that we have the image of God depicted in mankind. This is further supported by Genesis 2:18, which reflects the time before the woman was created. Here, God says: “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” It is startling to see God declaring his own creation “not good” before sin has entered the picture. But this is the case because God is not finished creating. If he stops now, it is not good, and man does not fully reflect the image of God. Only after he creates Eve can it be said, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen 1:31).

Biblical metaphors also compare God to females, including a mother comforting her child (Isa 66:3), a mother remembering her nursing child (Isa 49:15), a midwife caring for a baby (Psa 22:9-10; 71:6; Isa 66:9), a mother hen caring for her chicks (Lk 13:34), a mother bear robbed of her cubs (Hos 13:8), and a mother eagle caring for her young (Deut 32:10-11). Writing for Moody Church, Eric Naus argues that the reason for this is that some of God’s attributes are best expressed by women:

“When we think of God’s love for those who are reconciled to him in Jesus, we not only think of a strong, protective and wise father, but we can also bask in his tender, nurturing, comforting care seen most beautifully in a mother’s love for her child. What a dynamic God we worship!”[1]

As is true of all metaphors and similes, these comparisons are to characteristics and behavior, not to physical appearance or body parts. For example, portraying God with wings and feathers in Psalm 91:4, is to show a God who protects his people who trust in him. God does not literally have wings or feathers.

But if it is just attributes of a female that are meant by these metaphors, and not the body parts, then isn’t it still wrong to portray God as a woman?

The question is: how do we portray God visually using written descriptions that compare God to females? Again, I see three options before us: (1) we can portray God always as a man and only show him expressing his female attributes in a masculine way, (2) we can portray him always as male but able to express his female attributes in the way a woman would, or (3) we can occasionally portray God as female.

The first option seems to do injustice to the metaphors, which cause the reader to picture a woman nursing, caring for, and protecting her young. These are the mages that the inspired authors want us to imagine as we read their metaphorical descriptions.

The second option would probably be highly objectionable to Christians. Any director portraying a male figure acting feminine would immediately be accused of creating a gay God, and a boycott would soon follow. That leaves us with only the third option.

So before criticizing the author or the director of The Shack, you might ask yourself, if you wanted to visibly portray God’s nurturing and caring of the people he loves dearly, how would you do it? If the author only intended to use the metaphor that best expresses the divine attributes that he wanted to highlight in his book, how is that worse than some of the metaphors of mothers and midwives that already exist in our Bibles?

I find it intriguing that Christians can turn out in groves to read or watch the Chronicles of Narnia, which depict God as a dangerous lion, and no controversy ensues. But as soon as God is depicted as a woman, there is a firestorm of controversy. If it is okay to portray God as a lower life form, which is an “unreasoning animal” and a “creature of instinct” (2 Pet 2:12), then is it really worse to portray him as a human being made in God’s image? Truly, to portray God as a human, part of this creation, is scandalous in the highest degree, and a horrible misrepresentation of God’s attributes, such as his eternity, omnipotence, and omniscience. Before the coming of Jesus, such a thought would have been mercilessly criticized by people wanting to protect the integrity of God and of Scripture. But God sent Jesus, portraying himself as a man, so we accept it. Considering the great scandal of God becoming a man, the scandal of moving the portrayal of God from that of  a man to a woman pales in comparison.

Finally, I will give three advantages to accepting the portrayal of God as a woman in The Shack. (1) The movie effectively corrects false conceptions of God, namely conceptions that he does not really love us or that he is not good. These false conceptions of God are far more harmful to people than the idea that God can be represented in female form. (2) God is spirit and spirit is not gendered. So expressing him as male may be just as inaccurate as expressing him as female. Perhaps the correct biblical viewpoint is to ignore the gender altogether and just see God’s characteristics. (3) The movie has a powerful evangelist thrust that will appeal to unbelievers. The church today is largely seen by the world as misogynistic and bigoted. Whether these charges are accurate or not, they are a barrier to people responding to the gospel. A God who is both black and female breaks through those barriers, opening the door for thousands of people to be exposed to the film’s gospel message who might otherwise have never seen the movie.

Perhaps we can find a way to look past the controversy and invite a friend, especially one who has suffered a tragedy, to come and watch this movie with you. It might open the door for you to minister the love of Jesus to that hurting person.

[1] Rev. Eric D. Naus, “God’s Feminine Attributes,” blog on Crossroads: the University Ministry of Moody Church, www.moodychurch.org, http://www.moodychurch.org/crossroads/blog/gods-feminine-attributes/, (July 12, 2011), last accessed July 27, 2017.

Why Does God Blame Them?

Why Does God Blame Them?

For Arminians, one of the trickiest verses of Scripture to explain is Romans 9:19-20. I am often asked the meaning of this verse, where the rhetorical question is asked, “Why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” Because most Arminians would answer this question by asserting that we are able to resist his will, they are befuddled that Paul gives a quite different response. Calvinists seize on this point, using Paul’s answer to prove the wrongheadedness of the Arminian theology.

For example, Lutzer, quotes the objection in Rom 9:19, and says, “If Arminianism were correct, we would expect Paul to answer, ‘God finds fault because men have a free will and therefore could have chosen to be obedient.’ Here is his opportunity to set the record straight. But Paul said nothing about free will” (Doctrines, 214). Sproul goes further, contending that the complaint would not even be raised by anyone who was not a Calvinist: “We wonder why the apostle raises this objection. This is another objection never raised against Arminianism” (Chosen, 152). Both these authors argue that Paul’s words betray his belief in a view of predestination that is parallel to what Calvinism teaches.

Why does Paul discuss a matter that is never raised against Arminianism? Why does he not respond to this objection with an appeal to free will? Is it because he did not believe in free will? Hardly. Is it because he did not believe free will has a role in God’s election? Quite the contrary. Once we understand the flow of Paul’s argument in Romans 9, we will see that free will was a subject that stood behind a question Paul is already in the process of answering. Let us see how this is the case.

The issue prompting Paul to pen Romans 9 is that God’s people, Israel, has rejected her messiah, Jesus. Since God has made his promises to them, it seems that God is no longer able to fulfill his promises. So Paul makes the important statement in verse 6, “It is not as though God’s word had failed.” How could it be possible that God’s word could fail? He is faithful to fulfill all his promises. He is God, and it is simply not possible for him to lie or to fail. It is because Israel, as an act of her own free will, has acted contrary to God’s will, that the thought can even be entertained.

Paul’s answer is that Israel has actually not acted contrary to God’s will. Everything is going exactly as God has planned. Pharaoh acted contrary to God’s will in refusing to let God’s people go when told to do so, right? actually, no. Well, yes, he was contradicting God’s will to refuse to do what God wanted him to do, but he was really just a tool in God’s hand to execute his will. That is why he told Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Exod 9:16; Rom 9:17). Similarly, Israel, in resisting God’s will for her, is actually playing onto God’s hand. Because of her rejection of Jesus, the gospel is being proclaimed in all the earth, and the Gentiles are receiving it and being saved, thus fulfilling the promise to Abraham that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen 12:3).

It is after making this point in Romans 9:14-18 that Paul shifts to ask the rhetorical question, “Who has resisted God’s will?” So the argument of chapter 9 has gone as follows: 1) if Israel has freely chosen to reject Jesus, then has she prevented God from fulfilling his promises to her? 2) No, not only will God still fulfill them despite her unbelief, her unbelief actually helps God to bring them to fulfillment. 3) If her unbelief is helping God, then why does God blame her for it? It should be easy to see at this point why it would be a step backwards to revert to the question of free will. That is the thing that started this whole process, and Paul needs to move forward in his argument, not backward.

The person asking the question, “who has resisted his will,” is not asking about whether free will exists. He assumes it does. He is arguing that, since Israel’s free will decision against God’s will was actually according to God’s will, she should not be judged for it. To think Paul should have said, as Lutzer suggests, that “God finds fault because men have a free will and therefore could have chosen to be obedient,” completely misses the point.

The question of Romans 9:19 is not whether Israel could have chosen to be obedient. It is that her failure to do so is actually furthering God’s purposes, and therefore, God’s word has not failed. But she is still guilty because she still is resisting God. Pharaoh’s resistance to God also furthered his purposes, but he still deserves judgment. Similarly, Israel is ripe for judgment for her resistance to God, despite that God is using that resistance to further his purposes. So when Paul responds to this question by challenging the questioner, he is taking the argument to its next logical step, the same step that Isaiah took when the same charge was raised to him. That is why Paul quotes from Isaiah 29:16 and 45:9 in verse 20. It is the logical direction for the argument to flow to implicate the questioner and to prove his guilt. So Romans 9:19-20 is really not about Calvinism vs. Arminianism. It is not about God’s sovereignty overruling man’s free will in election. It is about God’s sovereign ability to fulfill all his promises despite man’s free will decisions that seem to hinder him. Rather than hinder God, they only help him. Now that is sovereignty in action.

Sources:
Erwin Lutzer, The Doctrines that Divide: A Fresh Look at the Historic Doctrines that Separate Christians. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1998.
R.C. Sproul, Chosen By God. Wheaton: Tyndale, 1986.