This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 539: Dale Tuggy's Thoughts on the James White Debate: Is Jesus Yahweh? This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Sean Finnegan: Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to Restitutio podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. Broadcast Voice: We interrupt our program to bring you this important message. Sean Finnegan: While we're taking a break this. Week from our class. Reading the Bible for yourself, by the way, did you know that there is a separate podcast just for classes without any interruptions like this? You can find it if you search your podcast app for restitutio classes. Now I had an opportunity to speak with Doctor Dale Tuggy about his recent debate with Doctor James White and wanted to share that conversation with you now, rather than waiting until the end of this class on March 9th, 2024 in Houston, TX, at the first Lutheran Church, Dale Tuggy debated James White on the question. Is Jesus, Yahweh White affirmed and tuggy denaro. Announcer: Let's get ready to rumble. Sean Finnegan: Just to give you a little background on these two scholars, James White is a professor of apologetics at Grace Bible Theological Seminary. And has a bachelors from Grand Canyon University, a masters from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a doctorate of Ministry from Columbia Evangelical Seminary. He has participated in over 180 public moderated debates. Making him the world heavyweight champion? No, I'm just kidding. But he is very experienced and he has written several books. The one that is most relevant to this is called the Forgotten Trinity, in which he presented his case that the Trinity is biblical. Dale Tuggy is an analytic theologian who has a bachelors from Biola, a masters from Claremont School of Theology, and a PhD from Brown University. He's the chair of the Unitarian Christian Alliance and the author of the book What is the Trinity, which explains the major Trinity theories and the problems. Each faces the debate lasted over 2 hours and is accessible on YouTube. You can just search for James White versus Dale Tuggy and you should be able to find it there. And I think it's also available on the Trinity's podcast of Dale Tuggy as an audio. If you prefer. And yeah, I guess it makes sense to listen to that debate before hearing our review of it. But you don't necessarily have to. And what follows I asked Tuggy how he thought the debate went and he gets an opportunity to comment. I asked him about some questions that I had as well as. His general sense of what it was like for him to go into the Lions den, as it were, and face down such a famous and experienced debater on the subject of the Trinity. Here now is Episode 539, Dale Tuggy's thoughts on the James White debate is Jesus, Yahweh. Hello and welcome to restitutio. So glad to have Dale Tuggy with me today. Welcome to the show, Dale. Dale Tuggy: Thank you very much, Sean, for having me. Sean Finnegan: So last Saturday you had a debate with James Whites at the first Lutheran Church of Houston. I guess what I'd like to begin by asking is why did you want to debate James White? Dale Tuggy: Well, you know, I challenged him way back in 2017 and I think back at that time, I wanted to debate him about the Trinity and the basis of it in the Bible. And obviously he has a big audience. He's influential. He wrote this popular book called The Forgotten Trinity, which is considered to be a go to book by a lot of apologetics. People. And so you know, honestly, I've I've thought for a while that his views don't make a whole lot of sense. But I also knew that he wanted to really stick to the Bible and not try to articulate a coherent Trinity theory and things like that. So I agreed to stick to the Bible. The debate was initiated. Actually, by the pastor of the first Lutheran Church in Houston who hosts a lot of debates and knows James White, and for whatever reason, I guess. Doctor White decided it was time to take me on. Sean Finnegan: He is certainly a well known debater and someone that is pretty much a household name among apologists, people defending Christianity for his debates against atheists, Muslims, Roman Catholics, and also Unitarians. You know, famously, he debated. Anthony Buzzard years ago. With Michael Brown and now you've debated Michael Brown and James White, so congratulations. The format of the debate was opening statements for 25 minutes, each rebuttals for 10 minutes each, cross examinations for 10 minutes each closing statements for 5 minutes each, and then questions from the audience for a total of 20 minutes. And the debate question was, is Jesus, Yahweh. Now I I realize this is not an entirely fair question, but I'm really curious what you think. James White means when he says Jesus is Yahweh. Did you ever get any clarity on that cause? That was his position, he affirmed. Dale Tuggy: I mean, the biggest difference between James White and a modalist is James, White says. I'm not a modalist. He he seems to think that the shared being of God or as if he read his book on the Trinity, he has like a going deeper chapter toward the end and he tries to say more about hypothesis and who see a or person and being. And he talks about being he seems to mean several different things. So I could never pin down like what his view of the Trinity. Actually. Is. But a lot of times he just says the being of God is Yahweh. OK, well, that's that's a person ourself. And then he says that being of God is shared with the Father, son and spirit. So, you know, the only way I can make sense of that is that they're like 3 Persona 3 personalities. And they all turn out to be the same guy, which is totally modalism, right? But even the modalists can say I distinguish the father from the son. I distinguish the son from the spirit, but they just mean they're different modes are different. One eye. So honestly, I think most of the time that's what he goes around thinking. But then sometimes he'll say things that make you think he thinks the persons really are three individual selves and not just personalities or something. My view is that he doesn't have a worked out view. He knows all the stuff to say. He claims to be able to easily deduce it from Scripture. He puts it in his own words. You know this Jesus is Yahweh stuff. This is not traditional Trinitarian confession. It just sounds like flaming modalism, but I think he thinks. It's just as. Good. And somehow it means the same thing, and some Trinitarians agree. I mean, you could call it Neo Orthodox or Quasi Orthodox or something. I mean, a lot of Orthodox Trinitarians, like, particularly the Orthodox, who really love the Councils and all the traditional lingo and everything. I think a lot of them would say this is an orthodoxy, bro. Like, I know you're trying to be orthodox, but I don't see how this is. Is. I don't see either, but you know, I guess let the Trinitarians have that fight among themselves. I wanted to stay away from the Trinity in this debate. If you want to ask, is Jesus Yahweh, then I. I'll charitably interpret that as that's your version of like traditional 2 natures you know has a divine nature and a human nature. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, I was surprised you didn't get into it more deeply to really press him on. What does he mean by that? Dale Tuggy: Yeah, I had. I think in my list of questions somewhere or at least I discussed this prior kind of attacking along this angle, saying you're parading how non philosophical you supposedly. Are, but it's clear that you're presupposing to nature's theory, and it is clear that comes out in the debate. And you know, Doctor White, it was we philosophers who came up with all this natures and essence stuff. So what do you mean? Do you mean what Aristotle calls first Asia or Second Asia? Or do you mean? Something different, you know, I could layout five options for you if you. Want. Of course I would have just made him mad. He did not want to answer philosophical questions. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, well, he also used the word person and insisted that that was the biblical definition of the Trinity of three persons. And I'm thinking to myself, wait a second. There's not a single biblical author who ever thought of person in the philosophical way that James White is using the word person. Dale Tuggy: Yeah. Sean Finnegan: This is anachronistic to use that of the Bible itself, and yet you know, he just rolls right on to the next thing. Dale Tuggy: I mean, what I usually mean by person is I think the common sense conception. It's basically the reference of a personal pronoun when used literally. It's a self. That's what I usually mean when I say a person. But if I'm right that he's thinking of a person like a mode or something, a persona, then yeah, I don't think that is in Scripture. But look, there's no there's no Trinity doctrine in scripture, right? But anyway, if we had been debating the Trinity, I would have approached it very differently. I'm like, let's do the deity of Christ. Let's talk about this God man thing. I was a little surprised that he kept trying to bring Trinity into it. He thought it helped him somehow. I guess it's like the black box that lets you pull this out of the hat, that Jesus is Yahweh himself, but also somehow. He's distinct from these other persons and this helps somehow. I don't really see how it helps, but he thought it helped. So he appealed to it and I kind of just let that go because I'm like, I'm not here to argue about Trinity. That's another debate. Kind of like when he brought up the church fathers. Right when he heard me say that our view was an early view. He went and argued as if I said nobody identified Jesus with Yahweh in the early years, which is not my view, because the modalists did. Those are the people that, you know, Yahweh is the father. They collapse the son and father. So that's that's collapsing the son with Yahweh, right? So he's quoting these early people that he's, he projects his own view on to. I was, I was irritated by that. Right. That was in the rebuttal. I didn't come here to talk about church fathers. That's another debate. Another debate would be do you see Trinitarians? Or people believing in the deity of Christ which denies modalism do you see that like in the 2nd century, like that could be a debate? But he just kind of went back to. The. Old playbook. Basically the old sort of proof text list from the 2nd century guys that sound the most like him. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, let's talk about the opening statement you had his opening statement ahead of time, correct? Dale Tuggy: Yes, at my request, we exchanged opening statements am month in advance. And the reason I did it was when I debated Michael Brown, Brown didn't prepare at all. He had no idea what I thought about anything, and it was a totally scattershot debate. And it wasn't very good. So when I debated Chris date, we swapped statements. I forget if it was a month or two weeks before or something and I just thought it led to a better debate like the rebuttals actually had something to do with the opening statements. But that didn't work for James White because I thought he totally whiffed it and just didn't engage with my opening statement. Really at all in his rebuttal that one of the parts I enjoyed was in his rebuttal, he kind of taunted me like, there's no way this Joker's going to be able to address all my proof texts in his 10 minutes. And then I got up and I did exactly that thing. As best I could, you know, in 10 minutes look the way you score something like this isn't how some people on Facebook are doing it right. They just give it a quick listen. And they're like, well, I agree with white. So therefore he won, right? Or he's talking the loudest. So he must have had the stronger case, that kind of thing. No, you keep track of the arguments. I cited 9 facts which show that it's probable that the New Testament authors thought Jesus was a man. That's that's way more probable than that they thought he was a God, man. Right? I claim they're nine rock solid facts. I had to chisel those down, man. I had, like, 16 at one point, and I knew I couldn't fit that into my opening. So I got it down to the nine that I cared about the most. And then I also made a case that here's another barrier to God, man interpretations. The concept of a God man is of an impossible. Their contradictions between essential divine attributes and essential human attributes. And so here's 6 contradictions. And if I'm right about even just one of those contradictions, then there can't be a God, man. So that's a pretty high barrier. You really need to address those six to show that you're not arguing for a foolishly incoherent. Position. In his rebuttal, he got up and complained that I didn't talk about John 1 and other things he would would have preferred to hear about. He ignored the facts. I think he just didn't know what to do with those and he ignored the alleged contradictions. I thought that was really lame. Honestly, I was. I was a little irritated by that. And, you know, he had a month to do it. And in my month I worked hard to. Carefully and quickly address his proof texts. It was clear he just decided he was going to bowl on through with his usual material. Sean Finnegan: What was your? Impression of his opening statement. He used 4 proof texts right, like Hebrews 110 through 12. First Peter 3. 15, Philippians 26 and John, 12. Dale Tuggy: It was expected because I saw it and because he does that basically the same thing in one of his. 1998 book chapters on the Forgotten Trinity. He appeals to those texts. I think it's kind of idiosyncratic to build your case that Jesus is God on those texts, particularly the one in first. Peter, I was like really like that's he's referring to this Old Testament text. And you're like, uhhh, clearly his point is that Jesus is Yahweh. His treatment of Philippians, too, was really kind of careless. In a sense. I mean, he just ignored the obvious difficulties for thinking that Jesus is Yahweh there and kind of focused on what I call a fulfillment fallacy about the ends. Right? The Isaiah Passage being referred to every knee will bow was originally about Yahweh well. It's obviously about Yahweh's Messiah here. So it's no good to say that the author is making an identity claim there. So I had to be perfunctory too, on that one John, 12. I've thought for a long time that that's just an obvious over reading. He quotes Isaiah 53 where he talks about the suffering of the always servant. And talks about him being lifted up and it's obvious that the author of the 4th Gospel thinks that the crucifixion is kind of a high point in Jesus's glory. And then he quotes a proof text for the unbelief of the Jews, which happens to be from Isaiah 6. And then he says Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus's glory. Well, Isaiah is a prophet. Of course he can foresee the glory of the Messiah, Chapter 52 and 53. But no, because the closer quotation was from Isaiah 6 and some interpreters make the flying leap that he's saying that Isaiah saw. Jesus on the throne and that Jesus and Yahweh are one and the same, which of course is not a possible interpretation of John. John thinks Yahweh and the father are one the same. So if he were saying Jesus were Yahweh, he'd be saying Jesus were the father. And that's just, that's just wrong and I think that's why some of your better Trinitarian commenters pull back. They're like, well. That's a little bit of an over reading. I don't think that's really his point here. I just don't think that's what he's doing, right. The whole context is the unbelief of the Jews. And I think they're right. Sean Finnegan: And the concept of glory in the Gospel of John includes his suffering, not just his exultation. Right. Dale Tuggy: Yeah, his suffering all, but also just his ministry. You know, he did his miracle at Cana. It says this is the first time he revealed his glory. To his followers. And so it's the glory of God working through him and yet, paradoxically, when he's high and lifted up, I think. He's thinking literally lifted up on the cross as well. Sean Finnegan: So when you saw these four texts and they they came over and you started working on your exegesis of these, did you think to yourself? Man, you know, I'm really worried how this debate is going to go. Or were you thinking? That's it. You haven't come up with anything better since 1998 or like, what was your? I'm just curious. Like what? What was your initial response? Dale Tuggy: Closer to the second. Sean Finnegan: OK, so it wasn't intimidating. Dale Tuggy: No, I was a little annoyed that he chose to focus on two of the most unclear and disputed passages in the whole New Testament, namely Philippians to. And Hebrews 110 through 12, there's a great recent book written by a Christadelphian Unitarian Christian, Philip Kapusta. It's called scripture. I Contra trinitatis him Christological controversies in the book of Hebrews. And it goes through the various Christological passages in that book, and it quotes from dozens and dozens of commentaries, mostly Trinitarian, but also with some very interesting historic Unitarian material included in there. Then he kind of weighs in with his own views sometimes. That really helps me to bone up on kind of all the different things going on in scholarship with Hebrews 110 through 12. And actually I in in the course of studying this material, I changed my own view about who Hebrews 110th through 12. Sean Finnegan: Yeah. Yeah, I noticed that you took a father position on it rather than a son position on. Yeah. Was it Caputo's? Book that changed your mind or what? What? What brought that about? Dale Tuggy: Capustan's book pointed out to me some. Fairly serious problems with some of the competing views, and that made me reconsider. And I went back and read some things that I had found cited in historical figures I respect. I found that Andrews, Norton, Theophilus Lindsey and Thomas Emlin took this interpretation. Emlyn might be the kind of originator. Of it at. Least in modern times, but what pushed me over the edge was an article by Doctor Thomas Gaston in the Christadelphian E Journal of I think it's biblical interpretation. In in a recent article he made that point that I made in the debate about when you look at what the author does with multiple quotations later in the book, he will give multiple quotations and you are not supposed to repeat the header. It's wrong. You can just see it's wrong if you repeat it and so there's really no reason why he couldn't be doing that here. And I think it's a less difficult reading. He's still on the topic of the eternity of the Sun's rule. But he's just turning slightly to one side to acknowledge God as the source of that eternity forwards eternity. So I think it's a good reading. It's not that I think this interpretation is super obvious. I also read some stuff about this being wisdom Christology. I don't quite buy that myself, but I can understand why some interpreters want to take it that way, including that current day specialist Kenneth Schenk. So yeah, I thought I'd just give that and knowing full well that. The rest of Studio podcast had already come out for a different view, and by the way, if you ask AI for different interpretations of Hebrews 110 through 12, it will point you to the rest of studio blog posts with the seven interpretations discussed by Jerry Warwell and Sean Finnegan. Sean Finnegan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, just in, in all fairness to the rest of Studio podcast, just because I interview somebody doesn't mean I always and forever agree with what they say. Dale Tuggy: Yeah, yeah. Sean Finnegan: I do like this reading of the father. Being the referent of verses 10 through 12, it's just so easy. If you had that word, pollen, the word again in Greek, I don't think you could do it, but since it's not there, there is a little bit of wiggle room. Dale Tuggy: Yeah, I'm not sure that Pauline's going to make any difference, but another thing that convinced me was Thomas Emlyn makes the point. He took this from a kind of heavyweight Trinitarian patristic scholar whose name was Daniel Waterland. He battled several rounds with the famous. Subordinationist Unitarian. Clark. But Waterland makes the point that in early Christianity they do not use this as a deity of Christ proof text. They do in the Nicene era, like in the second-half of the three hundreds. But none of the early authors do, and I'm like what, really right, right? Cause James White thinks it's just super obvious, like it's just. Come on, how could he not be? Yahweh? Look, he's the creator. So I started pulling all nine volumes of the anti Nicene Fathers off my shelf and going through all the indexes. Like a total idiot because the last volume is an index volume and I could have just looked in there so then. But anyway I confirmed it with there. There is in one of the volumes toward the end there is a reference, but it's it's a total mistake like you realize they mean something else. So it didn't go into the index in the final volume. I think it's in one of origins works. That's very peculiar that if supposedly this was so obvious, why would they all just pass it right by? And I think the reason is they just thought it was a father creator text and like, well, of course, the father's the one creator. We got lots of better texts for that and they just didn't need it. And I think maybe a lot of them also could feel the point that I emphasized in my rebuttal. Which is that if you think Jesus is Yahweh himself, it's ridiculous to carry on for a whole long chapter about how he's recently become superior to angels. Like, that's just inconceivable. You don't go around you, you know, you just simply point out that God is superior to angels, but always and necessarily you don't go around arguing that. Well, good news. Recently, God has become better than than angels. So I mean, that that's a devastating point, you know, and you, if you get yourself all juiced up on deity of Christ. Proof text. In chapter one I mean Chapter 2 is a real come down, cause there is no deity of Christ stuff in Chapter 2 and he seems to say that what was important for atonement is that he was one of us, that he was flesh and blood. He calls his brothers and sisters. One verse, portrays him as a worship leader, worshipping Yahweh. So I had more to say about that, but didn't have a chance in the debate. Sean Finnegan: What did you make of Whitey's rebuttal? He opened by saying that you failed to engage his four arguments in your opening statement. That seemed like a a cheap shot, like you're not supposed to do that anyhow, are you? Dale Tuggy: Right. Yeah. My opening statements to make my arguments not to engage with him. Sean Finnegan: So why? Why did he say? That. Surely he knows the rules of debating being a a master debater. Dale Tuggy: I don't know. I mean, I I could just guess that he was talking on the fly and that he was looking to put a few kicks in and. He he I think he was irritated by my inductive arguments. I really think he doesn't know what to do with those arguments. And it's not just him. Some of the fanboys who are piping up. Oh yeah, James White won. Yeah. As soon as it gets released, they never mention anything about any of the arguments. And look, those arguments have some force, and if you just let them all stand there. Mayor, the argument, the inductive arguments the from the 9 facts and the argument that a God man seems to be a contradictory concept. These arguments all have some force, especially the one about contradictions. And you can't just let him stand and just go talk about whatever you want and and win the debate. That's not how it works. So I feel like I put forward strong arguments. I rebutted his arguments decently enough. Like, you don't have to agree that my interpretations are obvious or even agree with my interpretations. My point is, there's nothing obvious about his interpretations, any of. Them. The way he wanted to kind of spin the whole thing is, yeah, there's just these Unitarians. They love their philosophy, whatever that is. And so they just refuse to believe what Scripture obviously teaches, right. So that's why, you know, Kostenberger and Thompson in their commentaries don't agree with his interpretation of John. 12. Right. That's why Perriman disagrees with his interpretation of Philippians, too. That's why most people disagree with his interpretation of that first Peter Passage. I knew he was going to cast it that way. I knew he was going to come in riding that silly horse that, you know, it's the Bible versus philosophy. It's a weird tactic, right? Because it's almost like he's he doesn't admit that he's interpreting or theorizing in any way, like he's just reading. But everybody else is theorizing, but no, him. He's just reading because he knows Greek. But look, he's interpreting just like everybody. It's really a contest of interpretations. And when you have dueling interpretations and one of them's loaded down with a bunch of contradictions. I mean, I just think that sinks your battleship like you have to go back to square one and try for a different interpretation. Sean Finnegan: Did he engage with your arguments in his rebuttal? Dale Tuggy: No, no, he he didn't at all. Right. He just talked about whatever he wanted to talk about. There are things he could have said, right. He could have denied certain divine attributes. He could have denied certain essential. What I claimed are essential human attributes. Or he could have tried to give an argument that for some reason we should just accept apparent contradictions in theology, but he did none of that right. And he's, you know, philosophy is too small. You know what I should have asked him. You know, you always think of snappy comebacks like the day after an argument. I'm terrible about this. I should have asked him, like, Doctor White, how many contradictions is your Christology big enough to contain? Does have one does have six? Does it have nine right? You want? You want bigness big enough to contain contradictions. Does that does need to be that big or are you? Didn't saying that these are just merely apparent contradiction. Speaker Yes. Dale Tuggy: I don't think he was saying either. He just doesn't care to me. It's it's mythology, it's hatred of human reason, like he just doesn't want to get into kind of critical thinking stuff. He thinks you should just be able to study some Greek, read the texts, come to some conclusions. You know, it's like. God said it. I believe it. That settles it. It's like kind of a fundamentalist approach. Sean Finnegan: In his rebuttal, he added new arguments and also in his closing, he added new arguments. Dale Tuggy: Yeah. Sean Finnegan: I thought that was strange, that instead of engaging with your points or the contradictions you laid out with his view, he just kept adding more and more arguments like he brought out John 858. He brought out Revelation 5, made a big deal, very emotional appeal. Saying that, there's no difference in the worship between Revelation 4 and Revelation 5, which you did respond to very briefly in your conclusion. But did that seem strange to you, or did you expect that he was just going to almost like go Michael Brown mode and just keep on adding more and more and more arguments rather than actually engaging? Dale Tuggy: It's hard not to do that honestly. When you have a lot to say, so I don't get too judgmental about that. I'm sure I've done that in some of. My. Debates he was brutally missing the point about revelation four and five, and the thing I noticed on the spot was I really thought he just went into shouty preacher mode, just kind of pounding the table and acting super sure of himself. Seeing all these things that weren't really relevant. He knows what his crowd wants to hear. He knows it's a very tribal exercise in a sense. And so he just started throwing red meat to the boys. If you're like, sitting there with your argument scorecard, you're just like, what is this bro? Like, what? What are you doing with this preacher mode? It's not on topic. A revelation. Four and five. What I said was contrast the reasons cited for worshipping Jesus with the reasons cited for worshipping. God, he basically just said look at the worship, isn't it the same? And then he gave his fallacious every creature's argument, which is really lame, that I was all prepared to answer. We can talk about that, but. Look, God is worshipped in. Chapter 4 on the basis that he's the one creator. Jesus is worshipped in chapter 5 because he's been found worthy to what does it break the seal on the scroll and? He's worshipped on the basis of his service to God and bringing people to God from all nations basically, and that's completely different, right? You don't worship Yahweh for serving Yahweh. And you don't worship Jesus for being the creator. Not according to Revelation 5. So it doesn't help him. I think he didn't know what to say. He just kind of. Looked at the text and says doesn't obviously support my position. Yeah, I was ready for the every. Sean Finnegan: Creature. Well, it got emotional too. Dale Tuggy: He did. He knew he needed to. That's some of the red meat like this is an outrage. The emotional sub sect is. This is an outrage. This jerk is dissing God and undermining salvation or something really bad like this. This just can't stand. Meanwhile, the arguments are just sitting there, feeling lonely because nobody will come and play with. Sean Finnegan: Them. Yeah. And I I really hope that people who are curious about this seem to be like his strongest point that he ended on. That they will just go back and read Revelation 4 and contrast that with revelation. Live Revelation 4 the praise you're right is given because he's the creator of all things, but there's also another praise section where they praise him for being the one who was and is and is to come. There's a Yahweh text, if I ever saw one, and that same kind of language is not applied to the lamb in Chapter 5, nor is the. Role of creating the heavens and the earth as it is in Chapter 4 so I think. You can just focus, I think what White did is you just focused on the similarities between the two. You could be very impressed. But I think if you also recognize the differences between the two, you get a much fuller or view of what's going on. Yes, a human being is being elevated to an astounding height, but no, he's not the same level as God. He's God is at the throne and the the lamb is next to him. You know, there's still always that subordination in the. Book of Revelation, wouldn't you say? Dale Tuggy: Yes. Ohh yes. I mean, Jesus repeatedly mentions having a God. And even seems to be among the worshippers at one point in the book. And you know, they're shared titles and so on. And, you know, it is in a way. A little bit surprising that anybody could receive that kind of honor, kind of alongside God. But yeah, this author doesn't confuse Jesus with God or put Jesus on the same level as God in any way. He's still the messy. Yeah. He's just the raised and exalted Messiah. Sean Finnegan: I really enjoyed your rebuttal. I I thought it was kind of hysterical that he took that cheap shot at you saying ohh he didn't even respond to my arguments in his opening statement, which, like anybody who's watched debates before, would know that's not what you're supposed to do. So then when it came time, you systematically. Succinctly, and in a very convincing way, went through all four of the texts. Explain what they mean, and then he was kind of made to look the fool because he didn't do that to you. So he had just gone through new material and made some emotional appeals and guffawed and said, how could anybody believe this? But then you systematically really respected his arguments enough to give the the answers. And I think the take away from the audience was. Oh, these biblical Unitarians are biblical. What? What does that mean? I I think a lot of people are just so underexposed to our position that they're just used to thinking ohh, we're just. Crazy liberals who just don't like this part of the Bible. So we just made-up our own doctrine. I think you really brought a strong case to those four, so maybe that's why he kept, like, bringing new and new and new arguments up, but I still it still just drives me nuts. Like, why didn't he engage with the contradictions? That you brought up, I mean, I would not have been able to resist engaging with those. Dale Tuggy: I don't know. I mean, I reread his book in preparation for this debate over the last several months. It's remarkable in there, how he just doesn't care about any possible contradictions like he's so confident in his reading. He knows it just has to be true. And therefore it's just not going to even entertain the possibility of contradictions, right? Someone with more integrity, like William Lane Craig is going to say, you know, how could Jesus be omniscient when he's a baby in the Manger? And how can he be omnipotent and you know, be hungry and thirsty and and stuff like this, right. He's going to set it up as apparent contradictions, and he's going to come in with his two natures theory and try to knock them all down. Right. That's what you do if you care about the truth. But I think he cares about truth, but I know he's just so over confident that he's not going to lift a finger to deal with that. Kind of stuff. Again, more tribalism, right? I don't know if you noticed, but he really prominently tried to lump me in with Jehovah's Witnesses and with Mormons. Look, this just this guy is just another outsider who doesn't get it, who just refuses to believe what's obviously there. The subtext is you don't need to listen to this. Right, you don't need to have any answers to these arguments either. A lot of Trinitarians are better than that. Some of them talk to me after the debate they came up. And what about this passage? What about that passage? They were very nice and respectful. I enjoyed talking to. Of them and some of my philosophy colleagues are like that. They're they're way more serious. They they do want to get rid of contradictions and they don't want to just convince themselves that their Greek ability just kind of magically is going to lead them to the correct interpretation and kind of let that push. All other considerations aside, another thing that shocked me was. He called it isogenous. When I appealed to the opinions of experts in the field. And what they think because he was saying these heretics just refused to believe and because of this sin, basically they're just denying the obvious. Right? Well, but these Trinitarians aren't heretics, and that's just not what's going on. They're just applying historical critical reading. And trying to figure out what the author actually meant when they wrote these things, and at one point toward the end. He's like, Oh yeah, that was ice of Jesus. And I was, I probably rolled my eyes really big. I was trying not to be a smart Alec and make a lot of faces. Still, I can't help it when people say ridiculous things like it hurts, like listening to someone squeak a note on a clarinet, or it it hurts to hear nonsense and like really like, that's why I said I think in my closing something like, hey, these, these these folks are better qualified than either one of us to have an opinion about these. You can't just dismiss it. Says. What does even mean? Ice to Jesus? Sometimes I think that people. Throw the word exegesis around like it means. Is. Using Greek to deduce their views and anything else is ice Jesus. But that's not what it means. Anybody who's seriously trying to pull the meaning out of it. Trying to get at what the author really meant is doing exegesis successfully or unsuccessfully. The isogeny is the guy just flies in with their own theory and just merrily projects it onto the passage. Well, I guess debate watchers have to decide who they think is doing, which in this debate. Sean Finnegan: He brings the presupposition of Trinitarianism of person as distinct from being of a thoroughgoing, compatible, dual natures view that that's possible. You know, he brings a lot of assumptions into his reading of the text. He's not just reading out from the text what it says and you. Know the the real. Time, in my opinion, is he's not reading it within the context of the 1st century. He's reading it as like blatantly as a 21st century person. Like you made this point about this shoddy argument on 1st Corinthians 8/6, which was not in his opening and should not have been a discussion point, but you engage anyhow. And you said, well, nobody really. Dale Tuggy: Hmm. Sean Finnegan: Knew that view of that Paul was expanding the Shamah in first Corinthians 86 before the 1980s. You know, he had no response to that at all. He was just he's kind of caught with his hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. Dale Tuggy: Yeah, it's so weird. I mean, I've looked high and low for that in ancient times, and I've never found anything remotely like it. And it just seems like free association. It's like, look, there's some similar words here and some similar words here. So Jesus is being inserted to the shamai. I don't even know what that means exactly. Right, because it's all in a discussion of food sacrificed to idols. Paul doesn't say. Hey, guys, let's revise the schema. Since we have the Trinity. Now or with the deity of Christ, it takes a lot of cajones to just come in and say that's what Paul's doing. But you know, a few big names have done it. And so now it's just this commonplace that's thrown around. But as Doctor James McGrath points out in the schema, the one God and the one Lord are assumed to be one and the same. It's the same guy. There is no room to, like, divide it up. You, you don't, you don't divide up one person into two. Doesn't make any sense. The God of the Shema is the father. That's clear by all of the intros to all of the letters attributed to Paul in the New Testaments. And Jesus is somebody else. And it's interesting that now he gets this title Lord. Another thing that that White does and I find it really odd, you know, it's just a commonplace of all commentaries that Lord is ambiguous between Jesus and God. The general rule is it's usually Jesus, unless it's an Old Testament quotation. And then it's usually God, but not always. Pens and sometimes he carries on just like it's just like the same word as Yahweh or something, or it's just like a dead giveaway. I find that really weird and a little dishonest. Maybe I think ordinary people, if they just hear him present this sometimes they'll just. They just think that kurios is the Greek form of Yahweh. It's not. It's a different title. It was a word that was piously substituted for it, and I think it has about four meanings in the New Testament. Not one. Sean Finnegan: Yeah. So in the cross examination time. White had kept expressing frustration because you were making comments instead of asking questions. What was the deal with that? What was going on there? Was that like on purpose to throw him off his game? Or was were you just, like, trying to have a philosophical discussion and couldn't restrain yourself to the more legal? Type format. Dale Tuggy: OK, that was my bad and literally after I finish this interview, I'm going to sit down and write a note to the pastor, a thank you note and a note to James White and apologize. They understood the debate rules to mean a strict prohibition against doing anything but asking questions during that portion. I didn't understand it that way. I've been in previous debates where either there was kind of a free for all discussion in the middle, or at least it wasn't that strict. And I was kind of thinking cross examination like in court and the lawyers in court definitely do make some little comments on the answers. So I plan to make those comments now. I could tell halfway through I was offending the heck out of both guys. So I think I stopped by the end. I didn't mean to. I I honestly I would do it different and it's on me because I should have gotten more clear about what the expectations are. Sean Finnegan: I love the closing. When you gave the nine, you said I gave 9 New Testament facts and Doctor White did not dispute a single one of those. I gave 9 contradictions. He didn't rebut any of them. You presented your case. Which you didn't touch. And you also rebutted some of the points that he added later and then you gave kind of a testimony. To the audience and appeal to the to the audience to say, look, I was just like you. I used to think people like me were terrible heretics. And then after I looked into it, I switched sides. What? What was your thinking with the closing? There's what, 5 minutes to make all the points left. And why did you pick those things? And what were your? What was your feeling doing it? Dale Tuggy: Yeah. I tried to write out what I thought might be my closing several times. That is such a short word limit. I was just like I quit after three or four tries. This. I have this device that I can write on. It's called the books. It's similar to a remarkable device. And I just scribbled some stuff on there during the debate and then just went for it. I knew it would be very easy to fill 5 minutes with all the points that I had listed down. You know, I saw him throwing red meat to his people. I saw this kind of wrath and anger towards even like, considering our position. And. And obviously, I really think it's misplaced. Look, you don't probably get that angry at Armenians. Oh, I don't know. Maybe he does. But you shouldn't anyway. Or people believe in baptizing babies or don't like. Why? Why do you get all hateful about this? These are just Christians trying to figure this out. Those 9 facts when they're first presented in a person doesn't know what I'm doing. I think they just kind of. Put them out of their mind and move on. And I think he kind of did that and he, but he was feeling a little worried that he didn't really punch back on those. Those facts to me are incredibly persuasive when they really sink into your mind. And then every time you look at the New Testament just there, they are. And they're a barrier to foisting later. Deity of Christ ideas onto the texts, and later Trinitarian ideas onto the texts. So a lot of debate viewers, especially James White fans, will be like whatever. I don't know what this is. It's philosophy. And James White says I don't need to think about it. So I'm not going to. They remember three of these facts and they keep. Popping out of the text every time they go to read the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. Then I hope it can lead people to rethink their thinking that this is obvious, or even change view. I wish. Somebody had made an argument to me like this back in 1998. It would have made it easier to figure out what I did is what a lot of. Do I held on with every single last proof text gripping it in a death grip and I'm not going to change views until I can find a halfway decent interpretation of every single passage. That, I think implies the Trinity or the deity of Christ, and so consequently it took it took years. Plus I had options in terms of Christology and different Trinity theories and that made it take a lot longer. To. And I think there's something wrong headed about that. It's unnecessary to have that death grip, because when you let those 9 facts sink in, it changes your point of view on the New Testament and you start to view it more in its context. And I frankly don't think you have to have a good interpretation of John. One or Hebrews 110 through 12 were Philippians 2 to know that the New Testament is presenting a human Jesus. I think you can stick to the clear text and look at the trend of the hole and view the hole in the bright light. And you don't have to be a bitter ender. I figured out those things little by little, piece by piece. What really helped me with them was a little pamphlet written by Henry Ware, who I think was a president of Harvard. He summarized the case the New Testament case against the Trinity, and he basically made the point. The things you expect to find there, if the assuming the Trinity aren't there and the things that you expect to find there if they're Unitarians. Are there? And then all of a sudden I made this connection to this likelihood principle that I had seen in philosophy of science. And actually in philosophy of religion making like fine tuning arguments for God's existence and things like that. That's where I encountered that principle. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, you asked earlier about how how these things are scored or how do you determine the winner. You know, I think if you look at the debate from the perspective, well tug, you made these arguments. White made these arguments tuggy rebutted not only the initial 4, but many of the subsequent ones that he brought up. Not all because you didn't have time to get into church history, and there were a couple others that you know, they're just. Dale Tuggy: MHM. Sean Finnegan: You can. You can only do so much with the time given, but he didn't. He didn't rebut any. So I think from a technical point of view, you know maybe about one or two, but you know he just didn't really engage. And so I don't think that's a a valid or helpful strategy if you're keeping a scorecard like all right, here are all the arguments made for Jesus not being Yahweh. Dale Tuggy: I don't think he did, no. Sean Finnegan: Here are the arguments made for Jesus being Yahweh. These four we have to take away because they were responded to, or at least not give anybody credit for them because they're, you know and and what kind of scorecard would we come away with? It would be a clear win for the Biblical Unitarian case. But the problem is. He used some emotional appeals, some rhetorical devices, and he had a lot of support in the room, so, you know, I don't really know what people's impression is as they come away from it. You know, I wonder what you've heard and what you think, people. Will eventually conclude after watching it. Dale Tuggy: So I mean, with the exception of my rules transgression, which I already repented of here on your podcast, I besides that I mean I think about as I did about as well as I wanted to. But like I said, there's a lot of tribalism involved, and I think your ordinary person, when they TuneIn for a debate, they really don't know, kind of what to look for and and kind of how to score it. They don't really understand what game is being played. So think about how incredibly stupid presidential debates have become, right. It's all just posturing. Trying to get a funny line trying to make the other person look dumb. It's so dumb. Like if you're an academic. Like you just you hate presidential debates. They're just bull. They're bull through and through. They're terrible. OK, like when philosophers debate, it's nothing remotely like that. Totally. It doesn't even resemble that. And when you know, debate club in high school and college debate, it really doesn't look like that your average person there. OK. Tuggy's gonna debate white if tuggy wins, that means white gets humiliated and he's like, off in a corner, whimpering and sucking his thumb at the end. And tug, he's. Tuggie's. Than this right? No. But white. He's he's loud. White's louder and he seems confident he's still loud and confident at the end, right? So he couldn't have lost, right? They they're kind of viewing it just like this. Kind of. For lack of better phrase, mine is bigger than yours contest. That's just all wrong, right? You need to list the arguments and draw a line bigger or smaller depending on how much force you think it has. Right. And if the other guy gives a good answer, you know, erase some of that, maybe leave some there if you think it's not a fully convincing answer, but you know, erase some of it. And then see how many of the other guy addressed, and then that's how debate referees look at it. And if I think you looked at it that way, I think it's. I don't think it's very close to be. Honest. When you do this kind of thing with a figure like James White, you know going into the fanboys, they're going to say you got your **** hand. It's no matter what happens. But a lot of the Trinitarians are smarter and more honest than that, honestly. And some of them are going to be disturbed. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, I I'd like to ask you about one such Trinitarian who hopefully will be disturbed, and that is William Lane Craig. Do you think he'll watch this and say to himself? Oh man, now I you know, you send a boy to do a man's job or you know if you want it done right, you got to do it yourself. That you think some sort of rhetoric like that will occur to him and he'll say, you know what? Somebody's got to put this tucky in his place. Now, do you think it's possible we would see a a debate with William Lane Craig and you and the. What the next year or two? Dale Tuggy: I hope so. I hope so it would. It would put the fear of God in me. People often say to me ohh, I know this must have been hired whites. Such a great debater. He's he's a very experienced debater. He's a he's a good rhetorician, but I don't view him as being good on the arguments. Craig is good on both. And when he's on his game is like a judo master that can put you on the ground after you swung your first punch and missed. So that would be a very different fight. The interaction I had with him before, like I said on my podcast, I feel like he hadn't. Fully devote his attention to and put all of his preparation that he would put into for a debate. So him, he has a long history of just wiping the floor with atheist debaters, even fellow philosophers who were good at arguing he doesn't always win. Sometimes your case just isn't that strong. But. When he sticks to topics that he's strong on, I don't know that I've seen a better debater. So it would be an honor to debate him. I hope he wants to. There's a lot more to say about his view and my view. I think we barely kind of scratched the surface. Sean Finnegan: When we interacted before, talk about this book that you're working on, the one with the multiple views. Dale Tuggy: Oh, the four views book. The four views book has been all turned into the publisher for, oh, at least six weeks now. And so that is a view with me facing off against 3 Trinitarians. And it's meant to be Bible focused, even though it's for philosophers. So we try to focus on especially the New Testament evidence. The other three guys are really good in different ways. William Hasker is a very accomplished Christian philosopher who's done a ton of good work on things like open theism. The problem of evil and many other topics. I disagree with him strongly on the Trinity topic, but he has a highly developed theory far more than most Trinitarians, so you know he does have an answer. What he means by person and what he means by essence. What do you thinks the Trinity is? Where God fits into this like he does have answers for all this stuff and it's a pretty convoluted theory, but it's kind of worked up in that sense. It's it's not just that he's repeating the language and kind of hoping for the best. And then Bill Craig is in there, William Lane Craig and he has his own kind of, I would say, a little bit idiosyncratic Trinity theory that he's been putting out there for about the last 20 years. He first published it in a chapter in his apologetics book. He wants to say that the triune God is 1 soul. With three complete sets of cognitive faculties, which somehow gives rise to three persons in some sense. And then the third person, in addition to me is Doctor Beau Branson, who's a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy. He's one a little bit of a following online for what he calls monarchical Trinitarianism. Which I call subordinationist, Unitarianism. It's. It's basically like an origin type view or a view like you see in basil of Cesario. And he would say it's in all the Cappadocian. So the one God is the. Mother. But eternally, he emanates out. The you know, there's eternal generation and procession, resulting in an equally divine son and spirit. And this should all be counted as one God because of his. Highly developed views about how counting should work for things like this, and so that's all in the book. His his stuff is harder. To get your head around, but it's interesting in various ways, and I think he adds a lot to the book. It'll be out soon. I think it's called one God, three persons, 4 views. So it's got a catchy title, it's edited by Doctor Chad McIntosh. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, let. Let me ask you this with with this book, expose people to Unitarianism who would not normally be aware of it because you you also have these other views as well. Dale Tuggy: Oh yes, it absolutely will. I think people will buy the book to see what William Lane Craig thinks now and then. I was very happy with my opening chapter in that chapter. I have 20 facts which I claim make it more likely that the authors think the one God as a father than that they think the one God as a Trinity basically. To paraphrase and simplify a little bit and the 20 facts are pretty overwhelming, and two of the three authors basically just agree with them and then try to say it's not relevant because theology develops or something, and then Craig tries to deny some. But I don't think it goes very well. And so it's an invitation to the reader, you know? Do I want to deny these facts or do I want to? Somehow argue this evidence is overcome or undercut it somehow. I mean, I really think these are hard to deal with facts for a Trinitarian like just to give one easy example. There isn't any word in the newer Old Testament that was then understood. To refer to a try personal God right. So if you look in the patristic Greek lexicon. One of the uses of God is for the Trinity. You see this in Augustine and many others around that same time. If you look in the Bdag latest edition under Theos, there is not any meaning of Theos as Trinity. That word didn't get used in that way back then. OK, but there isn't any other word or phrase either. It's not just that that word isn't there. There isn't any word there. What's the chance they believe in a triune God, and they have no linguistic way to refer to it? It's almost nil. It's possible, I guess, but it's incredibly tiny percentage of possibility. You know, that's a really hard problem, but that's just for starters. Sean Finnegan: That's the value of the debate as well. It's not so much to convince James White. Who is probably as unconvinced, able as one can be, although who knows? Be great to have him on our team. Maybe it depends on how he how he behaves if he's anyhow I I think the value is not the the authors in the book obviously, but it's it's the readers and it's the watchers. And listeners of these debates that I can't tell you how many times I've had people get in touch with me and they've said ohh, I watched this debate with. Anthony Buzzard. Or I I did a debate years ago, or this debate with Dale Tuggy or this debate with Dustin Smith, and as a result of watching this debate, I for the first time got exposed to another idea of how to make sense of this biblical data. This really has a high potential. The book included for reaching people, so that's pretty exciting because we're in an era where the persecution is is much diminished from what it had been previously. The access is much less protected because of the Internet and. And people are able to to think and get exposed to all kinds of stuff that they. Would have been forbidden. This book would be on the Forbidden books list in the old days, right? So it's exciting to think about the potential for really getting exposure to people and them being able to question and think through who Jesus is. According to the Bible. Dale Tuggy: Yep. Absolutely. And I don't know why I thought of this parallel right now, but the Mormons for the last 20 years have had a tremendous. Problem which is that every Mormon young person could just hop on the Internet and and in two seconds find out all of Joseph Smith's dirty laundry. All of the crazy historical evidence against the Book of Mormon, like it's all there like people have put it into one PDF, and you can just print it. It's devastating. It's like that with the Trinity in ages past, you just have to trust your pastor or you go to library and find a theology book and the theology book says, look, this is just how it is, buddy. And you're OK. I'm not sure what to do with this. Right now you go on there and Google and you can find a well presented case for this minority report and Christianity and make up your mind for yourself. I think it is going to get attention and result in change because a lot of people have never heard our view. I never heard this view for about the 1st 32 years of my life or something like that. I first started hearing it reading historical sources before I even knew there were any Unitarian Christians running around in the US. OK. So yeah, it's going to make. A big difference. Sean Finnegan: I mean, this debate video came out on YouTube. I I don't know if it came out of Saturday, if this is a live stream they have up or if it came out Sunday or whatever. But it's only been out a few days. It's only Tuesday right now at the time of this recording and it's got 23,000 views. Dale Tuggy: Yep, and today the UCA version is going to be released. That's going to look and sound 10 times better and have all the slides and. I mean, I hope this has 100,000 views within a year or two. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just really cool to see the potential for reaching people that this really has, even though I think a lot of people are. Either annoyed, frustrated, or confused by the debate format and just the nature of you know the the the. Right. That is the debate. There are so many people that are willing to watch, so you know, I think it does justify, you know, the effort and the time and the inconvenience to go all the way to Houston and to step into the lions den, as it were. Brandon mentioned to me that people and you don't get this impression on the video. But he he mentioned to me that people. Were. Like clapping louder for James White and like giving standing ovations. Like I didn't see any of that on the video, obviously. But you know, it seemed like a lot, a lot more hostile of an environment than I realized from the comfort of my own couch. Dale Tuggy: It was, yeah. You could feel it in the room. And I mean about debates. Here's another analogy. One of my sons was a fencer for a couple of years, and he was getting really serious. Like he was working his way towards being an Olympic fencer. He didn't. He didn't keep going. But if you've ever watched fencing, it's really weird. It's supposed to be a sword fight. So expect to see these guys. Coming in with, you know, like The Princess Bride, like jumping around and swinging their swords and getting all fancy. And they just kind of they kind of go back and forth in a really precise manner. And the average person would be like what is what is this? What? Why these guys acting like such goobers holding their arms in a certain way, moving their feet in a certain way? And there's this buzzer going off and stuff and you really until someone kind of explains it to you. You have no idea even what you're even seeing. And then after somebody kind of gets you up on the rules, you're like. Oh, OK, now I see that person's a lot better than this person, but like literally you, a layperson, couldn't see it. So it's really kind of like that. But I mean, all people need to tell you is keep a scorecard of the arguments. See which ones the other side refutes and see how good do you think these arguments are and how good do you think the refutations are and kind of sum it all up? That's that's what you're supposed to do. Not just go by kind of gut feeling like, oh, this guy moved me, that kind of thing. Sean Finnegan: All right. Well, just concluding here, is there anything else you'd like to to add as far as the subject goes? Dale Tuggy: I would just like to say thanks to the UCLA for Co sponsoring it and also some really wonderful brothers went down there and were a part of the whole thing. They were sitting on the front. So Sam Tiedeman was there. Keegan Chandler hosted me. Will Barlow and really kind of helped me strategize? Mark Cain went through my slides and helped me remove a lot of philosopher language that people wouldn't understand. Those guys were just really helpful, encouraging, praying with me. Before the debate. Jerry Werrell was there. He was in the backroom, praying with me before the debate. That was, that was awesome. Couple brothers from my church were there Darrell and Ricky. That was really cool. If you're going to go into the lions den, do it with some stout, harder brothers. That's the way to. Do it. Sean Finnegan: Yeah. Good. All right. Well, thanks for talking with me today. Dale Tuggy: Thank you, Sean. Sean Finnegan: Well, that brings this interview to a close. What did you think? Come on over to restitutio.org and find episode 539. Dale Tuggy's thoughts on the James White debate and leave your comments and questions there. Would love to hear from you. Now I am hoping to put out one more episode related to this debate before getting back to our class and how to read the Bible, and I hesitate to give you any details about that because you never know with scheduling and whatnot what will happen. So I guess you'll have to stay tuned for next week to see if it pans out. Or not. I did want to also mention that if you are so inclined, and if you've been a longtime listener to restitutio and you believe in what we're doing here, would you consider giving us a review on Apple Podcasts or in whatever app you happen to use for your podcast? It really does help. And it's been a little while since we've gotten any new ones in people tend to rate the podcast both in Apple and in Spotify. We've got plenty of ratings. Five star ratings are great, but the reviews is really something that I think can help people. So if you don't mind if it's not too much trouble, please review the podcast. Well, that's going to be it for this week. Thanks everybody for tuning in. We'll catch you next week. And remember, the truth has nothing to fear.