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What they fail to tell the same article also says: |
- Dunn rejects the deity of Christ: "So too the argument that Jesus is divine because he forgave sins ..." (Christology in the Making, James D. G. Dunn, 2nd edition, 1989, foreword, xxi)
- The first great Christological battle of the Christian period was not over docetism (Ignatius) or modalism (Tertullian); it was over monotheism. ... That presumably is why the first internal debates which capture the attention in the second and third centuries are those
which take for granted the deity of Christ (docetism and modalism), and why Logos Christology is the highroad of developing Christian orthodoxy. (Christology in the Making, James D. G. Dunn, 2nd edition, 1989, foreword, xxx)
- A final point of importance is the bearing of all this back on the
interpretation of the same key NT Christological texts which provided the focus of "Christology in the Making" and which have been so much at the centre of the continuing dialogue. What the dialogue soon brought home to me with increasing strength is the serious danger to Christian monotheism unperceived by several at least of my critics. The importance of setting these texts within the historical context of meaning and of recognizing conceptuality in transition is indicated by the correlative recognition that these developments in earliest Christology took place within and as an expression of Jewish-Christian monotheism. In contrast, the too quick resort to the 'obvious' or 'plain' meaning actually becomes in some cases a resort to a form of bitheism or tritheism. So, for example, the assumption that the Logos of John 1. 1 can be substituted by 'Christ', or the argument that Col. 1. 15 would have been intended by Paul as a description of Christ, that is, of Jesus Messiah."' In contrast, classic orthodoxy is that Jesus Christ is he whom the Word of God became in the incarnation. The mistake, or so it seems to me, is the equivalent of treating 'person' in the Trinitarian formula ('one substance, three persons') as 'person' in the sense that we now understand 'person', or, more to the point, in the way that Jesus of Nazareth was a person. If the preexistent Word of God, the Son of God, is a person in that sense, then Christianity is unavoidably tritheistic. And if we take texts like Col. 1. 15ff. as straightforward descriptions of the Jesus who came from Nazareth we are committed to an interpretation of that text which has broken clearly and irrevocably from monotheism. Likewise if we assume that the Father/Son language of John's Gospel has in view more the relationship between the Father and the Son (of Nicene and post-Nicene concern) than the continuity of Logos Christology (of pre-Nicene concern) we lose sight of the primary monotheistic control which prevents such language slipping into polytheism. (Christology in the Making, James D. G. Dunn, 2nd edition, 1989, foreword, xxxii)
- If the preexistent Word of God, the Son of God, is a person in that sense, then Christianity is unavoidably tritheistic
. (Christology in the Making, James D. G. Dunn, 2nd edition, 1989, foreword, xxxii)
- "The charge is (in Hurtado's terms) that I arbitrarily and incorrectly ignored the
pagan religious traditions of the Greco-Roman period, a charge to which I am vulnerable particularly because I dated the emergence of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation late in the first century CE, when there would have been several decades during which Christian thinking in this area could have been directly influenced by pagan cults and myths." ... "Were the point simply that I had not provided anything like a thorough investigation of what we may call here simply 'pagan parallels', it is, of' course, wholly accurate." (Christology in the Making, James D. G. Dunn, 2nd edition, 1989, foreword, xxii, xxiii)
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Our comment |
- Dunn is in his theology in that he not only rejects trinity, but the whole of incarnation itself. To reject such a clear Bible teaching is a simple matter to refute, Check for the incarnation outline under the Christology link at
www.bible.ca Dunn's view is similar to that of Hick.
- Dunn knows he is in great difficulty in rejecting incarnation in the light of the Gospel of John and must go to great lengths to "spiritualize away" the first and obvious meaning of many texts. He says, "
too quick resort to the 'obvious' or 'plain' meaning actually becomes in some cases a resort to a form of bitheism or tritheism" We, find such a view ridiculous, and just a fancy way of saying you don't believe what the Bible plainly says. But to Dunn's credit, he outright admits the difficulty of his spiritualizing such a large body of texts.
- Dunn admits that by the close of the first century right through to the Nicene era, the belief in the deity of Christ was not really questioned. He is placed in the difficult position of either saying that the apostles were confused about the specific details of the deity of Christ, or that they taught he was not divine, but were misunderstood by 100 AD. Again we appreciate Dunn's honesty in admitting this, but feel such a position is an obvious proof his overall theology is wrong.
- More praise for Dunn in admitting, that his view of Christology, finds similarities among the pagan religions that predate Christianity. He says, "
a thorough investigation of what we may call here simply 'pagan parallels', it is, of' course, wholly accurate." He is about the only one, other than trinitarians, who are honest enough to admit the parallels that exist between paganism and Christianity. In fact there are pagan parallels that pre-date Christianity in all four major positions of Christology, namely 1. Trinitarian, 2. Angel-Christology of Jw's, 3. logos-theology of Christadelphians, 4. Modalism of United Pentecostal church UPCI. We side with Dunn in his view that parallels don't automatically imply that one originated from the other. We fell that attacking opposing views of Christology with the argument, "position X was borrowed from the pagans" is itself based on wholly invalid reasoning. This is why we want to expose the Watchtower claim that Trinity was borrowed from the pagans, as dishonest and false!
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Deception Exposed: |
- Dunn labels as polytheism, any doctrine that teaches incarnation: "
If the preexistent Word of God, the Son of God, is a person in that sense, then Christianity is unavoidably tritheistic." For Jw's to quote Dunn as proof that Trinity is false doctrine is dishonest, because Dunn labels the Jw's view that an angel, incarnating into flesh, as polytheism. Of course such a claim is just as ridiculous as Dunn's view that Trinity is false doctrine.
- When anti-Trinitarians quote from Dunn to prove that trinity is not found in scripture, it is dishonest to not tell the reader that Dunn also trashes incarnation (God to man and angel to man), making Jesus nothing more than a special man.
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