Phil Gons

Bible & Tech

Gunton on Taxis in the Trinity

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I know I’ve been doing a lot of quoting recently, but my blogging time is limited and quoting is easier than writing—not to mention that you’d probably rather read Gunton’s perspective on the Trinity than mine anyway.

I stumbled across this relevant bit from Colin Gunton in his The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, which I have as part of the Colin E. Gunton Theology Collection. (I sure do love having a digital library!)

It is often said that when the New Testament writers use the word ‘God’ simpliciter, they are referring to God the Father, so that Irenaeus is true to Scripture in speaking of Son and Spirit as the two hands of God, the two agencies by which the work of God the Father is done in the world. Indeed, Paul’s account of the progress of the risen and conquering Christ in 1 Corinthians 15 ends with the confession that when he hands the Kingdom over to the Father, God will be all in all (v. 28). Here, however, the priority of the Father is not ontological but economic. Such talk of the divine economy has indeed implications for what we may say about the being of God eternally, and would seem to suggest a subordination of taxis—of ordering within the divine life—but not one of deity or regard. It is as truly divine to be the obedient self-giving Son as it is to be the Father who sends and the Spirit who renews and perfects. Only by virtue of the particularity and relatedness of all three is God God.

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Barth on the Son’s Subordination to the Father

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In Barth’s section on “God the Father” in volume one of his Church Dogmatics, he makes some interesting statements about the relationship between the Father and the Son.

He opens his discussion with this affirmation of the deity of the Son:

Who is the Lord and therefore the God to whom the Bible is referring? As we have seen already, it is typical of the Bible in both the Old Testament and the New that its answer to this question does not point us primarily to a sphere beyond human history but rather to the very centre of this history.

The answer is that at the climax of the biblical witness Jesus of Nazareth is the Kyrios. He is the One who approaches man in absolute superiority. He is the self-revealing God.

I, 1, 384

Just a little further he says,

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What to Do When a Baseball Is Thrown a Foot from Your Head

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Not this!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=AzGywBeWT6Q

I don’t like baseball and normally wouldn’t post something like this, but I was at this game last night, sitting directly behind home plate (albeit quite a few rows up) with my coworkers in the marketing department at Logos. This was certainly the most exciting part of the night. The Mariners lost 5-0 and haven’t scored in 22 innings.

Update: Looks like the original video is no longer available, but check out this one at MLB.com.

Xobni for Outlook

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I recently downloaded and installed a cool new plug-in for Microsoft Outlook called Xobni (inbox spelled backwards). It’s a collapsible sidebar that instantly provides lots of helpful data.

There are two main features:

Search: Find contacts, emails (organized by conversations!), related people, and shared files in an instant—all organized nicely in a sleek sidebar. Since Outlook 2007 has a built-in search for email messages, I wasn’t sure how helpful this aspect of Xobni would be. However, the ability to see not only emails but also contact info (which is even extracted from email messages!), file attachments, and related contacts makes it very handy.

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New NSBT Book on the Trinity

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Father, Son and Spirit: The Trinity and John's GospelThere’s a new book on the Trinity that I’m looking forward to picking up in a couple of months. Andres J. Köstenberger and Scott R. Swain have coauthored Father, Son and Spirit: The Trinity and John’s Gospel, volume 24 in the New Studies in Biblical Theology (NSBT) series, edited by D. A. Carson. It’s 224 pages and due to be released sometime in July.

Here’s how Köstenberger summarizes the book:

Part One situates John’s trinitarian teaching within the context of Second Temple Jewish monotheism. Part Two examines the Gospel narrative in order to trace the characterization of God as Father, Son and Spirit, followed by a brief synthesis. Part Three deals more fully with major trinitarian themes in the Fourth Gospel, including its account of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and mission. A final chapter discusses the significance of John’s Gospel for the church’s doctrine of the Trinity, and a brief conclusion summarizes some practical implications.

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Is the Trinity One “What” and Three “Who’s”?

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James White summarizes the Christian doctrine of the Trinity this way:

Within the one Being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (The Forgotten Trinity, 26)

He goes on to talk about how important it is that we distinguish Being from person.

Note immediately that we are not saying there are three Beings that are one Being, or three persons that are one person. Such would be self-contradictory. I emphasize this because, most often, this is the misrepresentation of the doctrine that is commonly found in the literature of various religions that deny the Trinity. (27)

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Moulton on 1 Corinthians 15:28

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Moulton-Howard-Turner Greek Grammar CollectionI just installed the new Moulton-Howard-Turner Greek Grammar Collection from Logos.

It comes with the four volumes of A Grammar of New Testament Greek:

  • Vol. 1: Prolegomena by James H. Moulton
  • Vol. 2: Accidence and Word-Formation by James H. Moulton and Wilbert F. Howard
  • Vol. 3: Syntax by Nigel Turner
  • Vol. 4: Style by Nigel Turner

It also includes Turner’s volume Grammatical Insights into the New Testament.

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Wallace vs. Ehrman on the Textual Reliability of the NT

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Today and tomorrow Daniel Wallace will be debating Bart Ehrman on “The Textual Reliability of the New Testament.” The debate is part of the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum, a ministry of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Here’s the announcement from DTS:

On April 4-5, 2008, Dr. Dan Wallace, professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas, will participate in a debate with Dr. Bart Ehrman, chair of the department of religious studies at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, over the textual reliability of the New Testament.

For more information, please visit www.greer-heard.com.

Wallace vs. Ehrman

Let’s pray that God’s truth would prevail.