The most common reply to arguments for a high Christology is an appeal to divine delegation, or agency. A Christian might say something like, "Jesus calmed the storm in Mark, who but God can do that?" The dissenter replies, "That's because Jesus was given divinely authorized power, just as Moses was when he split the Red Sea. You wouldn't call Moses God, would you?" At first glance, the symmetry seems accurate. But look beneath the surface, and a serious problem emerges. What the dissenter is really doing is anchoring their interpretive framework to adjacent Jewish agency texts, passages featuring mediatorial figures such as prophets, angels, and messengers, or even inanimate objects like the ark of the covenant. The goal is to draw a parallel between Jesus and figures who mediated the presence of YHWH without ever being YHWH. The trouble is that no such parallel actually works in totality. Now you might be thinking, "But doesn't Jesus carry out divine prerogatives, just as those other figures did?" Yes, He does, but that's a distraction from the real point of contention. The real issue is what I'll call the overextension problem. The overextension problem: Agency-only models use Jewish agency parallels to explain more than those parallels can bear. They can account for how an authorized agent represents YHWH, but they cannot, on their own, explain why Christ personally occupies the YHWH-only subject-position. That subject-position turns on something I'll call identity-emphasis. Identity-emphasis: the way a text signals which figure is being made the focal bearer of divine significance in a given passage. How do we know this is the crux? Simple: in every proposed parallel, whatever mediates YHWH's presence and authority never retains an identity of its own, it functions purely as a channel for YHWH's speech and action. So here's the logic of the agency-only model: YHWH commands → the human agent obeys and signifies the act → YHWH completes it. Take Moses at the sea. He stretches out his hand, but it is YHWH who drives the waters back:

Was debating some Tik Tok Muslims on the Trinity and they admittedly stumped me with a couple questions. They asked if Jesus was God? I clarified that he is not God by identity (ie nominally). After some time and back and forth of them being confused, they eventually invited a friend up who asked the following: 1) Is Jesus the nominal God? When you worship Jesus, do you worship the nominal God? (My instinct was to say no. But that makes it sound like Jesus is a different God than the Father. If I said yes, it would've sounded like I was contradicting myself. What do you guys think? ) 2) He also read the following to show that I am apparently in contradiction with the church fathers that Jesus is not God by identity: “Orations Against the Arians Book I, Chapter 12, Section 49. "For if the Word were a creature, He would not be worshipped... but if He be the Son of the Father's substance and His offspring by nature, then He is God, and of the same identity as the Father." Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (NPNF), Series 2, Vol. 4.“ What do yall think? Am I in contradiction or is Athanasius referring to identity in a completely different context?

Looks like some of you are interested in getting a "Doing Apologetics on Social Media" course. I have over 13 years of experience in social media management that I'm excited to share with those of you who are looking to do apologetics online for the masses. As I build out this course as an addition to the amazing services Tim offers, I plan on hosting a weekly call for this but I need some information from you all first: 1. [[Standard Tier]] If I were to do a weekly call I would need to something either Tuesday or Thursday between 10am-3pm EST. I am a father so evenings aren't as flexible for me, and since I manage over a dozen clients, I would only be able to host this call for 1 hour weekly (or bi-weekly depending on the demand for this) **LET ME KNOW WHAT TIMES WORK FOR YOU IF YOU'RE INTERESTED 2. [[Premium Tier]] I probably won't be able to get a finished product done until summer-ish. Because I want to provide as much value for those interested in taking a course on this as I can. I also plan on providing resource lists as part of my course as well. Chime in if you have any requests for this course, or what times work for you for a weekly group call. Lots to come!

I was watching another conversation involving Dan McClellan, but this time it was with Joshua Sijuwade about the development of the Trinity, and honestly, this conversation clarified the debate much more for me. What Joshua was defending was not the very simplified “layman Trinity” that people usually attack online. He was defending what he called conciliar Trinitarianism, meaning the Trinitarianism articulated in the councils and broadly held throughout the first millennium of Christianity. And what fascinated me is that this model is much more precise than the caricatures people often debate against. Joshua’s point was basically this: According to conciliar Trinitarianism, there is one God, the Father, because there is only one monarchia, one ultimate source or font of divinity. The Son and the Spirit are distinct persons who possess the exact same divinity as the Father, but relationally: - the Father possesses divinity fundamentally - the Son possesses the same divinity by eternal generation/begetting - the Spirit possesses the same divinity by eternal procession. So the distinction is grounded in relation and monarchy, while the unity is grounded in essence. And what struck me is that Dan McClellan basically conceded that this model is much more coherent and much less problematic than the kind of Trinity most laypeople articulate. But then Dan responded by saying that if you stop random Christians on the street, they probably will not explain the Trinity this way. And honestly, I found that completely irrelevant. Laymen misunderstand literally everything. Ask random people to explain: - evolution - quantum mechanics - constitutional law - philosophy of mind. Most people will explain them badly. That says nothing about whether the actual scholarly or authoritative model is coherent. So to me, that objection has no bearing on whether conciliar Trinitarianism itself is philosophically coherent. It is simply a problem of poor catechesis and education among lay Christians.

That is something i wanted to see so badly! Dr. MCclellan and Dr. Sijuwade discussing the Trinity! I have not watched the whole thing yet, but it gotta be interesting no?!. Give it a watch and let's discuss about it. https://youtube.com/watch?v=WLauwRcfgbY&si=PqZEAnz0hp4VFRBg