Engaging Tim Keller on the Trinity
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- Jon continues a short series on Tim Keller's theology.
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I am always so amazed at how insightful Jon is every time he approaches these difficult subjects.. Jon, you are such a gift to the church.. I cannot thank you enough for your willingness to speak the truth with such love and integrity.. you are one of my favorites in these very very confusing times... !!
I recently found Jon this year 2023 and am happy to have his Biblical conversations.
As someone who used to listen to Tim Keller on the regular, this series has been so helpful
Here’s my take: both Mark Driscoll and Tim Keller evangelized in deeply secular cities characterized by the kind of longing and emptiness that John lays out in the podcast. What’s interesting is that Keller is like the mommy version and Driscoll is like Daddy 29:06 . Redeemer is soft and gentle, nurturing, inclusive, and reconciling. Not necessarily bad things. Mars Hill is firm, strong, clear, aggressive, polemical, and hierarchical. Are these 2 ditches in trying to reach the same demo, are they personality results?
Perceptive. I think Mommy won.
Brilliant : anima, amd animus.C.G Jung
@@ConversationsThatMatterpodcast no New York won. Amd Keller never got fired. Or lost his ordination in the PCA . Which says a lot.
Thanks so much for making these Jon! My wife has a cousin who loves Keller and she's been talking to her about that. You've helped me equip her for her upcoming conversation.
On the Hell video my wife was convinced you took Keller out of context, so we watched the whole sermon and it is BAD!
I don’t blame your wife. I was shocked and had to double check.
Compare Keller to Jonathan Edwards' sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
Tim Talks…..that’s what his preaching sounds like…..
I really love these deep dives. You got the makings of a book!
Excited to see another of these!
I am new to this and plan to watch and listen to the whole conversation. It interests me because ever since we changed churches, I have been hearing Tim Keller's name, and I did not know who he was. Now, 5 months later, he has recently passed away. I did not know he had cancer. Wow. It seems the key word is "social" these days and am trying to gain a better understanding. Thank you, Jon. 😊
26 MINUTES IN...YES. I commented last night that this was reminding me of The Shack.
Really? Wow! I did not read the book nor have I seen the movie but have heard about it.
You're so right about him being brilliant! Devious though is the better word though
I have noticed that people put him on a pedestal.
Tim Keller refuses to stick to confessional standards like so many "Reformed" biblicists. Like others said, he's trying to appear to an upper middle class Ted Talk audience rather than preach.
He is in no sense a biblicist lol
Not here to nit-pick, but you might use Biblical and not “Biblicist” as the latter has a different definition. If I understand correctly, a Biblicist is someone who needs a Bible verse to attach to each belief. Rather than understanding overarching themes and context, a Biblicist will only believe something if it’s obvious in a verse. For example, one might hold to some of the five points of Calvinism, yet not hold to limited atonement cause “there’s no verse that says that.” This despite that understanding what the Bible tells of the character of God would indicate that it would be contradictory to require appeasement for the same sin twice. Anyway, not trying to nit-pick, but it did actually make me stop and think for a little bit on what you meant.
Hope you and yours have a Merry Christmas brother!
@Lance Patterson By that definition the WCF is a biblicist document since it uses proof texts. Everyone proof texts. Question is whether the exegesis is correct.
Tim Keller is a heretic - Part 3 🍿once again the problem with Keller is he doesn't preach the word of God. He gives his own thoughts as he lectures on the philosophy of religion.
Agree. I've often said that Tim Keller philosophizes everything. As a result, he comes off sounding like he can't defend anything, or like he's trying to please everyone and not commit to anything. And sometimes he just sounds smarmy.
Back in the more sensible 20th century who could have foreseen that the most exalted personality in American evangelicalism would be somebody who was fond of citing as an authority an open homosexual Frenchman who publicly advocated abolition of age of consent laws, Michel Foucault?
@@jeannet7443Lol, I love it when Christians pretend other Christians are going to hell because of disagreements. The ego you must have is astonishing to
Wow, we have lost our minds!! Lord have mercy!!
Social Trinitarianism sounds a lot like panentheism, where our big problem is that we don't realize our connection to the divine, not that our sins have angered a Holy God. Sounds like a gateway to New Age Spirituality.
I haven't made my way through all one hour and 22 minutes, but I have a couple questions and concerns:
1) Three AND one is very fundamental to our overall view of the trinity. The diagrams of God as both one and three speak to this and subsume this within them. By definition the Bible is dealing in a paradox, which is why reflecting on this is so challenging.
2) Does God not communicate with Jesus? Does God not communicate with the Holy Spirit implicitly as in to do His commands? Is that not social? How are you defining social? What is the threshold for social-ness?
3) It's new theology and therefore it's wrong seems to be a little premature. Not to mention I have very little doubt that we can find elements of the social trinity in Augustine.
4) Confused, your claim that God is anti-social or non-social? What is the evidence against this theology?
The presumption that God isn't social, would be challenged by a singular scripture, much less dozens of scripture on the question. I"m not sure what good it does to think about these issues without engaging what Keller actually says and the scripture he actually quotes. Otherwise, it's two ships passing in the night and this isn't particularly helpful or fruitful, as they are functionally strawpersons of the argument. It's not particularly hard to refute or deny strawpersons if we haven't actually read the original documents that are being discussed. And once we traffic in strawpersons as our primary basis and then spread those strawpersons to 1000s of others, I'm not sure how much value this hour and 22 minutes of content is going to have.
In order to get to the root, we have to read the root. How can you be 14 minutes into the video without a full presentation of what Social Trinitarianism is and how it justifies itself. That's a first order concern in order to be able to get a clear view of what it says.
I apologise if I am off base. But hopefully this can be a reflection point to think about these issues in context. I believe you're coming from a good place, but I think the speed at which you've turned out this content may be a bit too much. This isn't Twitter or cable news. Give yourself time to listen and reflect. Give it some time to ruminate. If the thought is to create evergreen or pillar content, I might suggest articulating it in a form that is conducive to that. Getting your definitions and the justifications of the other side correct is key to understanding the overall edifice of their argument.
We're reminded of the Biblical admonitions to about listening and patience. Admittedly, I need to do better myself. But I can see the blue print and structure of this presentation going astray.
Agreed
Paradox implies seeming contradiction and the Trinity doesn’t seem like a contradiction so I wouldn’t embrace that language. That’s why I used the language of mysterious. I never denied that communication exists among persons of the Trinity or that they aren’t “social” in that sense. I outlined my issue with the view labeled social trinitarianism throughout the video. I appreciate the concern and encouragement to reflect. If you have information on where you think I was inaccurate I’m open.
I'm about to wrap up Simply Trinity by Matthew Barrett. It's a great read and would get you up to speed on Social Trinitarianism vs. Classic Theism debate.
Hi Jon, i really appreciate you for what you are doing. i am praying for you that our TRIUNE GOD continue to enable you to discern and clarify the subtle errors/heresy of Keller.
Keller is making people attracted to GOD while making same people forget how sinful they are… making them believe & feel good in themselves… attracted to a god that is not the
GOD of the Bible, leading to hell.
Keller provides super intellectual stuff that is not needed.
The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is clear.
i thank the Lord for you Jon.
Sincerely,
aggie
Very new age ideas. Thanks for the discernment.
I appreciated Jon’s inclusion of Steve Mcvey in this discussion, I have been battling hyper grace in my Church, but unaware of his relevance
When you mentioned the "divine dance" all I could think of is Rohr... who is a rank heretic
You should think of CS Lewis since the idea is originally from Mere Christianity, which Keller acknowledges.
This guy should read Keller. He makes it INCREDIBLEY clear that sin leads to Hell and the repentance is needed for our Salvation
See part 1 and 2 where I read Keller.
Wait, I am lost. I waited an hour last night, chatting, and didn't see you doing the video...and now you took it down? Sorry if I missed something.
I enjoyed a very interesting book called, Delighting In The Trinity, by Michael Reeves. Does anyone know if it’s an orthodox teaching on the Trinity?
I’ve read Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves and believe Reeves is on the same page as Keller and other social trinitarians; he’s much more subtle and understated in that book, though.
@@Willsmith-cg4db Thanks for your input. I’ll re-examine Reeves opinions to see if it amounts to a man centered doctrine.
This gained popularity with the emergents. If I remember from Bob De Waay's teachings and book Undefining Christianity, they were teaching 'God is a community of 'love'' and aggressively promoting their communitarian views this way. In fact some called the Holy Spirit 'She', and some like Doug Paggit added to this the Bible (also a 'she') as part of the community. I think Chris Rosebrough pointed it out too. The agenda seemed creepily obvious even then.
Thanks for the rewrite. Tim Keller's view of the trinity is more pantheism than biblical. There is no understanding that the Fall of Man brought sin into this world. One example: Tooth and Claw; the killing and death we see among animals and in all of living creation.
Have you read Gavin Ortlund's review of "Engaging Keller" on TGC's website? Sounds like bad doctrine cover...
I watched 1/2 yesterday but then it disappeared from your channel now I can't hear it. I was hoping to watch it I really appreciate your work.
Yeah, on my smartphone there was no sound but on laptop I can hear it. Weird.
@@doctrinalwatchdogactive6454 all I have is a smart phone 😞
@@jenniferherb5212 if there is a smoking gun clip I'll post it on my channel
@@doctrinalwatchdogactive6454 appreciated
The ballet performance looks like a Corky Sinclair, (Waiting For Guffman) production.
Keller saying Christ dies to glorify and revolve around us makes me want to puke. 1:06:00
That’s what really made me go WHUT?
Exactly. He is putting the focus down towards man, instead of lifting our eyes up to Jesus. It's really disgusting.
I don't need Jesus to 'center on me'. I need him to save me so that I can worship him.
Dr. Matthew Barrett has some great recent works on this.
A few months ago our church taught us a series on the Trinity, and I have to say that I came away from those studies way more confused and frustrated than I have ever been from any teaching on the topic.
I am a seminary graduate and feel pretty confident in my understanding of the triune nature of God, but after that series, I was all messed up.
Read Gordon H. Clark's book, The Trinity.
What church denomination? Did they use an outside source or teaching, like Keller?
Only IN Christ am I good enough. If I'm doing this dance, it's in Him as he's doing it, not me.
No sound either. Was looking forward to listening on my way to work this morning, then it disappeared. Now it's back and no sound. Hopefully Jon can sort this out, looking forward to listening
God is the Most Set Apart. The idea that the Creation is God's dance of self-expression is pantheistic and worships the Creation as if it is the Creator.
I am not so sure that Keller and Roher are so very far apart. I think they are just varying forms on the esoteric belief spectrum.
Sometimes listening to/reading Keller is like reading Schleiermacher.
Curious to know what you think of Steven Nemes and his arguments against the Trinitarian formulation, and how that will affect discernment preaching going forward, when it comes to identifying heresy on the Trinity.
Social Trinitarianism = "Trinitarian Paganism" per Craig Carter
Sounds very 'emergent church' to me. Moving from 'the image of God' to the likeness of God. Heresy.
Jon, you may find it interesting to know that Van Til was a big Social Trinitarian.
As you were talking it reminded me of a book that I had started, but not finished: “Judicial Warfare: Christian Reconstruction and It’s Blueprints for Dominion,” by Greg Loren Durand. It’s his refutation of theonomy and reconstructionism. He begins his chapter on theonomy’s denial of the covenant of works. (I would note here that I do not believe this to be true of all who claim to be theonomists, but it is certainly true of some.)
I do not believe the podcast host knows enough reformed theology to benefit from the nuance you are conveying here. He is Baptist.
Jon, every time you get to the point in your podcast when you play the Keller clip, it's sounds just like what my previous pastor would say! It's insane really. It's almost like he plagiarized Keller's "sermons". It makes me sick to know we sat under that for more than 10 years.
I have to ask, did your pastor teach based upon three points?
Finally someone brave enough to point out that Tim Keller is a false teacher. Why does the PCA tolerate someone like Tim Keller as a teaching elder?
OK I overall agree with you John, but 1st John States God is love isn't an attribute of God God is love. And what I would argue is that God's wrath is a part of his love. God's discipline is a part of his love. God kicking Adam-and-Eve out of the garden to keep them from eating from the tree of Life was so that they wouldn't live forever being sinful. Everything that God does is a part of his love. It's like the phrase "tough love", which I don't think is correct. It's just plain old love. That's what I think Is missing in this conversation. Is people separate the Actions of God like wrath and discipline as separate from his love, which I don't believe it is. And I think Keller makes a mistake of separating those things as well, just like separating men and women, like aligning the feminine with love and masculine with wrath. Men and women are both loving and wrathful.
Well done!
I’m just saying- Is this not problematic “I’ve studied social trinitarianism for a morning, I now I have the answer to it”? I’m not trying to be uncharitable, you might have but really have you dwelt on the scriptures and prayed over your response? Genuinely not trying to side with Keller (whom I have concerns about)…
A heresy like this should be easy to spot if you’re grounded in biblical truth.
If the prosperity gospel is an appeal to the modern materialist, then messages like Keller's are the appeal to the modern narcissist. As I listen to your series on Keller's theology, it becomes evident that it's as heavily man-centered as the prosperity gospel that his type like to criticize. It's just appealing to a different desire in humankind.
I went down a rabbit hole that lead towards Social Trinitarianism in researching the professor of a friend after hearing some curious phrasing. In an effort to make the doctrine 'relevant' they go waaay beyond the Nicean Creed.
Check out Craig Carter as he believed it but had to put a book he was writing on hold while researching the early churches understanding.
Note he and James White are currently at odds so...
Thanks again for these videos on Keller, Jon. His influence has been very wide. I'm looking forward to learning more about the Trinity via this video.
You and your followers may be interested in reading a short critique of the book by doing a web search for "Engaging with Keller, Thinking Through the Theology of an Influential Evangelical (A Review) proclaimanddefend"
Except Keller is a liberal, not an Evangelical.
Jurgen Moltmann's Theology of Hope is very, very popular. I believe he taught at University if Tubuguin in 🇩🇪. Tim Keller's son most likely studied there for Theological studies. I think you are on to something here, but is not the trinity social? Does it diminish his Divinity to do so, not sure where you are going with your critique of tge Theology of hope. Mirolaf Volf of Yale Divinity studied under this man in Germany and he is perhaps even more influential then Dr. KELLER in liberal Theological circles. You may be critiquing a moderate instead of one of the true liberals like Mirosalf Volf a very influential Croatian 🇭🇷 theologian who teaches in New Haven , Conn today.
Thank you for a well-researched and thoughtful review of Keller’s advocacy of philosophical “Social Trinitarianism”. This iteration from traditional, mainstream Protestant teaching on the Trinity appears to be polytheistic.
There are three references to the biblical “Godhead” in the New Testament (KJV): Acts 17: 28-29; Romans 1:20; and Colossians 2: 8-10. The apostle Paul plainly taught that in the person of Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Paul compares the concept of “headship” found in biblical marriage and the individual believer’s relationship with Christ to the relationship between God and Christ - “the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3). In Colossians, Paul writes of believers’ position that “ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). Paul’s teaching points to some great mysteries of the one divine nature.
We are called to live lives of “glory and virtue”, trusting in our Lord’s “exceeding great and precious promises”, so that we might be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1: 2-4). The notion of the ‘divine dance’, visually portrayed in the clip of the three-man interpretive dance sequence at a service of Keller’s church is fanciful and idolatrous.
What is concerning is that any preacher, pastor, or teacher of the Holy Bible should preach or teach from God's Word reminding people of the truth and inerrancy of the scriptures NOT turning them to heretical doctrines or to a secular author's belief or philosophy.
Ted Bundy’s only problem is that he forgot about the dance.
Being ashamed of Jesus and his words will bring about ultimate shame upon that one. The weaving of almost truth with truth is harmful.
Moltmann also pushed the heresy of patripassionism. He said that God suffered on the cross.. Ligon Duncan and others have said that God literally has emotions. But those are anthropopathisms.
I start to wonder how much Keller influenced a previous pastor I sat under. Aspects of what he said sounded so reasonable and Biblically based, yet there was also a certain novelty to his arguments. I wonder in retrospect what I will find if I dig back out those sermons on the Trinity and take a fresh critical look. I will say this, the communal nature of the Trinity is subtle, but certainly a properly understanding deflates many surface level criticisms of God as vane or selfish or other such heresy. How you get from there to turning it around to talk about how awesome man is... that's just despicable. God is the center, not us.
No sound... problem on my end? Anyone else?
I think it's on your end.
@@ConversationsThatMatterpodcast sound doesn't work for me either.
Sound worked when I switched to my laptop
@@doctrinalwatchdogactive6454 What device didn't it work on? It worked on my phone and computer- four different browsers.
@@ConversationsThatMatterpodcast no sound on Android device. Sound worked on laptop
The Van Tilian folks are big on perichoresis and the intergenerational of all three Persons of the Trinity.
Sad to see this taught all over the place. We need to get back to eternal generation and procession. Also, inseparable operations and appropriations are important doctrines to avoid social trinitarianism.
1:19:52 LOL
Keller sounds like he was drifting off into gnosticism... and yes the ballet clearly is Tim Keller's view on the Trinity which shows three beings - isn't that modalism???
A chord of three strands is not easily broken.
At 39:00 you say that it is only a matter of degrees between Keller and Rohr. I’m sorry but this is just sloppy thinking.
You are taking references to the divine dance or perichorasis, which is an ancient church teaching, and conflating it with teachers who are pantheistic and new age in their ontology.
Social trinitarianism has significant problems, but just referring to perichoresis, and love being at the heart of the Trinity doesn’t even make one an out and out social trinitarian.
And even to compare Keller and Rohr on this level as if it’s a matter of degrees or that Keller’s views will lead to Rohr’s rank heresies, it’s just reckless and has no basis in fact.
Aspects of social trinitarianism are seen throughout evangelicalism on account of Barth’s influence. There are correction to be made, but you have not even established that Keller’s view is social trinitarianism (which metaphysically moves from the many to the one, rather than from the one to the many).
If there are criticism of Keller on what he does teach, you shouldn’t poison the well with these other teachers who arn’t even teaching accepted social trinitarianism.
I’d encourage you to be more judicious and tailored in your criticism.
Yuck to the dance and the analogy, and I am a fan of the arts.
This entire concept, social trinitarianism, sounds like it inevitably leads to polytheism and pantheism.
agreed. Honestly, even more traditional trinitarian formulations lend themselves to pagan conceptions of God. Or are limiting. And then there's the Sunday school illustrations of water-ice-steam or the "divine family" or the famous egg analogy. Yikes.
Personally, I try to stick stubbornly to explicit Scriptural language about the one God (Father and Son and Holy Spirit).
God's words are infallible. Our words are not.
You have failed to define love, Jon. Is it an emotion? What is it?
"of course scripture says God is love but there's also other attributes that God has and so what Tim Keller does is arbitrarily choosing this one attribute to make this is the the activity that God engages in and it's fundamental to or the same as his Essence it's is who he is it's the the the very being of God is love that can very easily collapse into well God's an activity and I don't see how you really Escape it in the long run."
I don't see how this is arbitrary at all. If scripture can say "God is love" it has to be fundamental to his essence. It is who he is, because scripture says God is love. And obviously that can collapse into something heretical, but the statement itself isn't overreaching at all when scripture itself goes even further. Not only is God's essence or activity love, but scripture says God is love. Every other attribute God has must come from love, because God is love, and those attributes come from God. Even God's wrath must come from love, because God is love.
No sound for me 😔
Had to switch to laptop for sound. Weird
I finally have sound.
Bottom line: Tim Keller is a master of man- centered feel good preaching full of shoddy theology hiding behind nuggets of orthodoxy.
Yes.
What orthodoxy?
The universe is made in the image of God?
The definition of Social Trinitarianism has shades of the LDS view of godhood to me. The God collective versus becoming a god.
Pantheism? God is community? Is God a family????
The best exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity I've come across was done by Nabeel Qureshi. I think one of the reasons he explained it so eloquently was because of his Muslim background.
Lol... I'm reading these titles and I know Tim K isn't actually engaging with you. The guy is an untouchable.
He doesn't engage.
It’s the title of the book I’m reviewing. I actually have engaged with Keller and Relevant Magazine Online did a piece on it. It was back when I had Twitter. Keller of course obfuscated.
Why would he bother to engage this stuff?
Conversations that matter person is very wordy!
Get to the point instead of meandering, please!
The glory that Jesus has given to His followers is His Righteousness. God created man in His Image without sin in the likeness of His Son. The glory of God is His Holiness. After the fall man lost that glory therefore man is separated from God. But by the redemption man can receive the righteousness of God through repentance and trust in His Name. God once again breathe His Spirit into His followers as He did when He breathed into Adam. And so Jesus is able to His followers to be Holy because His Father is Holy.
Thank you for using the word "man" for humanity. I am tired of all of this gender neutral language.
Sounds like these authors desire to be godlike. Nothing new, same old pride problem.
Such a cringy “dance”. This is one reason why artists get a bad name
Trying to make sense of this stuff is a bit of an exercise in futility..
It's interesting but ultimately doesnt matter.
LGLO
I presume we'll understand more fully once we're in the reality of the other side..
Please, get to the point!
Tim, and the others, are so far from the Christian faith that I don't think they will ever come to salvation. Ever. These are enemies of Jesus Christ. That is another god, another gospel, and another jesus. Every concept is dead wrong.
Even the woman saying she won't doubt herself...she is saying she is perfect and without sin. This is insane!
I think I'd rather listen to Joel Olsteen than this drivel from Tim Keller. I'll trust in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not whether or not I can "dance" or not.
At least Olsteen doesn't try to hide his heretic beliefs behind big words