Hello William, I found your analysis thoroughly engaging. The key takeaway here is that irrespective of where you stand in the debate, it's crucial to identify and condemn abusive debate tactics. Whether the aim was to intimidate the opponent or coerce the audience into compliance, such behavior has no rightful place within Christian discourse.
I didn't know all these rules about debating, so thank you for clarifying. But just from watching other debates in the past I was shocked by many things Dr. White did during the session. Especially at the beginning of his rebuttal I couldn't believe what was happening. So thank you for explaing some background and pointing out many more mean/false tactics, Dr. White employed. And thank you Dale Tuggy for always staying calm even though your opponent is so abusive. You are a bright shining light and an example! May God's grace and protection be over you and your ministry
Great analysis, William. We also need a psychologist to analyze White's tactics. All he does is gaslight and project his own errors onto Tuggy. It's infuriating.
I agree it would be nice to get a psychological evaluation of White's behavior. I think he shows narcisistic tendencies, which I guess most shrewd debaters would have anyway. White's behavior after the his embarrassing performance in the unconditional election debate with Dr. Flowers tells a lot. White's personal attacks against Flowers and his conspiracy theories about "Baal Gate" clearly indicate that there is something wrong with the way White behaves and thinks of himself
I kept being frustrated by how much White projected his own errors on Tuggy. The Trinity came from later philosophical speculation which is what he accuses Tuggy of doing.
Very thoughtful and objective analysis! I also noticed that Dr. White appealed to the masses quite a bit in the debate. For instance, when he is emphasizing that the debate is philosophical, he is assuming that because Dr. Tuggy’s position isn’t mainstream it can’t be scripturally supported.
On a Unitarian channel it's not surprising that the vast majority of comments will lean positive toward Tuggy. I watched the whole debate and felt the tension. I was more shocked with the tone of Tuggy.
Great analysis. Sean and I discussed much in overlapping in our forthcoming Restitutio episode. This debate, sadly, didn’t meet expectations because White didn’t engage the arguments seriously and with charity.
100% perfect response. I find White to be patronizing and arrogant without addressing most of Tuggy's points truly. White is clearly a man who understands rhetoric and how to speak in ways to win the audience that a) already thinks like him and b) the people who are not able to see past his rhetorical schemes. One thing I do have to say, however, is that I do not like this traditional debate structure. Quite frankly, it is not very conducive to finding and fleshing out truth. Which actually makes me think of another point I noticed. White also usually talked AT Tuggy. Never did I have the impression that White actually truly listened to him. I don't want to say this was the case, but I could go as far as to say it was a manipulative tactic to keep the imaginery upper hand.
@V_George 90% of his points. Look, I am interested in both sides of this issue. I am somewhat open to either sides being right. I will actually read White's books because I'm interested in his points. What he delivered in this debate was not good, though. Unless you already believe what he does and have closed the chapter for good, not being open to potentially being wrong, which obviously is the case with you. PS: To your point of Tuggy sounding like an atheist philosopher. Come on! What a bad faith way of talking about him. But, to be honest, this is one thing I see much more with Trinitarians. They speak in the worst way of Unitarians. It often borders on how the Papacy and Pharisees talked about the "normal" and "unenlightened" folk.
@@ChiSoter_2024i side with stafford but he did the same cross examination mistakes tuggy did lol. also i couldn't tell if james had him on "karakter" or whatever. stafford claims it means copy and a copy always comes after the original. white says karakter isn't used that way. so i dont know.
Main problem I have with the debate is Tuggy didn't go right at the main debate question and instead focused on contradictory dual natured Jesus. That may be a part of the debate sub-topic...but it made his arguments look avoidant. White then avoided them too because it didn't focus on the main question. For such a short debate I wish Dale had focused on the YHWH texts to prove they are mainly the Father and other representational meanings usually.
There are a few problems with that idea: 1. The “YHWH texts” are problematic for many reasons, and so by focusing the debate on those texts, it limits the discussion arbitrarily. 2. I think Dr. Tuggy did go after the topic. His bar is proving that Jesus is human and not divine. If Jesus is not divine in the highest sense, then he isn’t YHWH. That said, another opening on the same question would use the OT framework to answer the question. That’s what Dr. Dustin Smith and I did in our debate last year.
@@williambarlowEh well, for #1 that was the point of the debate. Tuggy could have exegetically gone after Mark 12 and Deut 6:4 to prove it's the Father alone as just one example. If White doesn't want to play "philosophical games" then beat him at his own game in the future. Context supports the Sh'ma being the Father alone. I think I just disagree on #2. It's a sub-topic of the main debate question from my point of view. If the debate question was "Is Jesus dual natured?" then Tuggy would have nailed that in his opening. I just see White justified in not answering Tuggy because that wasn't the question in the debate. Thanks for your analysis Will.
@Droptorzo - I agree - when White starting to list his strong-man texts beginning with Heb1.10-12, Tuggy was not able to quickly, clearly, concisely respond - serious issue.
Congratulations to the makers of this excellent production for having had to endure the torture of listening to james white. Quite honestly, james white is a Word Salad practitioner who bores his opposition sensless with monotone platitude and then celebrates their boredom paralysis as a deluded sense of victory!
Is there a package of information you guys can email me about what you believe or is there someone i can dialogue with? I've been thinking about this for sometime and i have alot of questions. Quite frankly, i thought unitarians where upc. I had no idea this line of thought was considered unitarian.
You could watch other videos on this channel, head over to unitarianchristianalliance.org, or join our Facebook group. There are many many unitarian resources available, and perhaps the folks in the Facebook group would be the best way to connect to them all.
I just thought id point out that the virgin daughter of Zion that travails in birth had never been a woman named Mary. And Romans 1:3-4 refutes the virgin birth outright. Especially the last 6 words of verse 4. I was a trinitarian for 55 years until suddenly one day Yhwh chose to remove the veil of deception over my blinded eyes. I saw things in scripture id read hundreds of times and suddenly saw things id never seen before. Such as I Peter and James 1 about us being begotten of the Fathers incorruptible seed. The same seed "Jesus" was conceived of. Everything id ever believed came crashing down. That was 10 years ago when my journey to truth started. I appreciate your channeland videos. Blessings to you all. 😊
Am I the only one who recognizes that - according to the earliest versions of the Greek - John did NOT say that Isaiah saw "Jesus", but "Him"; a reference to "Yahweh", not His Son?
@@xxxViceroyxxx in my mind it is Jn12:38-41. referencing Isaiah6:1. Isaiah had a vision of the God most high, and John references that and what followed, to explain why the jews did not recognize their messiah. "I saw the Lord and His train filled the temple..."
Hi William, excellent tutorial and analysis, thank you. One small contention that i have with your overall presentation, to be totally objective, is that you didn't criticize Dale's constant statements (as opposed to strictly questions) during the Q&A period. It seemed a bit impetuous or violating the rules, to see Tuggy repeat this offensive a little too often. I agree with all his remarks, I just think that they were misplaced. Outside of that, I think that Tuggy's an all-star, and that James White just came off as an utter fiend: despicable and desperate tactics all the way through. His logic and exegesis are deplorable. And, therefore, I couldn't agree with you more: great rhetorician, horrible debater. Thanks again for your great effort here.
I personally think that this topic was too important and too sensitive for this format. Speaking as a nonTrinitarian who is a former Trinitarian, though I don't condone Dr. White's tactics, I understand why he employed them. He simply felt he had a strong case, but no time to make it. So while I both disagree with his tactics and his conclusions, I very much understand his feeling given the importance of the topic, and its sensitive nature. This topic shouldn't be addressed in a rushed manner, because all that will happen is that both sides will leave just as they came in, or worse. I was not convinced by either party based on their arguments on the day, even though I currently hold a similar position to Dr. Tuggy, and held a similar position to Dr. White previously. Dr. White's strategy was to basically claim that his conclusions are straight from biblical passages with little or no philosophizing, which is untrue, and he knows it. There is no "godman" in the bible. There is no definition of what that is, and no single passage that says that Jesus is such a being. So no, "godman" does not come straight from the biblical passages. Rather, it is indeed the result of years of philosophizing in the attempt to reconcile two seemingly contradictory opinions of who and what Jesus actually is. But it has earlier roots in Greek and Roman mythology e.g Hercules/Heracles, a "godman"/demigod who was born to a god and a mortal woman, and who upon his death ascended to Olympus and became a god. But there is no such thing in the Jewish Scriptures i.e the bible. There is no precedent for it, and no single attempt at an explanation of what a godman is. So yes, "godman" is philosophical speculation primarily from Gentile converts to Christianity. Dr. Tuggy, on the other hand, did indeed appear to be philosophical in his tackling of the topic. I love and respect Dr. Tuggy, but he should know that a philosophical approach will only convince like-minded people who need no convincing. Dr. Tuggy should have relied on simple, plain and straightforward claims from Scripture e.g John 17:3; John 4:24; John 20:17 etc. He should have been more confident that a simple and plain reading and understanding of Scripture favours him, because it does.
But anyway, here's my attempt to argue for the biblical unitarian case as simply as possible: 1. Jesus is the Son of God. Whoever and whatever God is, Jesus is that one's Son. So Jesus' Father is the one who is God. It doesn't get any simpler than that. 2. Jesus always addresses God in the third singular masculine person, signifying that He's speaking of someone other than Himself. This is easy to see in the use of English pronouns in the text, but in the Greek, even the word "God" is always in the third singular masculine person when Jesus speaks e.g "He (3rd person masculine) is not the God (3rd person masculine) of the dead, but of the living..." (Mark 12:26-27); "You believe in God (3rd person masculine), believe also in Me (1st person masculine) (John 14:1). In Mark 12:26-27, Jesus excludes Himself from being the YHVH who spoke to Moses in the burning bush. And in John 14:1, Jesus makes a distinction between belief in God and belief in Himself. 3. God is spirit, Jesus is not a spirit (in the literal sense). When trying to convince His disciples that it's really Him in Luke 24:39, Jesus mentions in passing that a spirit does not have flesh and bones as He (Jesus) does. Of course, we already know that spirits generally don't have flesh. But this is forgotten when the discussion of what and who Jesus is comes up. But, having Himself said in John 4:24 that God is spirit, Jesus then said in Luke 24:39 that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, and yet He (Jesus) does. 4. The testimony of saved people who didn't hear an explanation concerning the Trinity. Cornelius and his household and the 3,000 Jews who believed on Pentecost. What do these people have in common? All of them were accepted by God, and none of them appear to have received any kind of training into the Trinitarian doctrine prior to being accepted by God. Cornelius and his household were Gentiles who didn't mix with Jews prior to Peter. And the Jews on Pentecost were not followers of Jesus prior to that day. Yet when Luke notes down what Peter said to them in order to be saved, I see no "godman", no "dual nature", no three-person God. I see God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Of these three, only one is presented as God - the one whom Peter simply calls God without qualification i.e the Father of Jesus Christ. I'll leave it there so as not to make the comment too long, but an honest and plain reading of the bible without an agenda is what caused me to seriously doubt the authenticity of the Trinity doctrine. The words of Jesus Himself, and especially in the book of John, seem to contradict Trinitarian claims over and over and over again. And I'll side with Jesus over thousands of years of tradition any day. Tradition is what kept the majority of the Jews from listening to Him and believing in Him.
@@PreachingJesusShort answer, no. But there's also a long answer. The long answer, is that I don't believe that Jesus was begotten prior to His human conception, simply because He didn't ask anyone to believe that about Him. If He had, then we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we? Whether you believe Jesus literally preexisted His human conception or not, He definitely never asked anyone to believe that He was begotten prior to His human conception.
@@henryodera5726 When you say you hold a position similar to Dale Tuggys, what are the differences between your position and his (if you don't mind sharing?)
@@PreachingJesus I don't fully grasp Dr. Tuggy's position in order to have the same exact position as him. But I am aware of fundamental similarities in our views concerning who and what God is. That's why I said that my position is similar to his. But there are many things that I don't know about Dr. Tuggy's position e.g his position concerning original sin, predestination, premillenialism vs postmillenialism etc. There are several bits of doctrines of which I do not know his position, or even if he has a firm position at all. Personally, I have few firm positions that I cannot defend simply by quoting the bible word for word. I prefer it if the bible defends my position adequately even without me having to explain it. This was the attitude that I took after seeing plenty of serious problems with the Trinity doctrine that were actually posed by Scripture itself, and especially the book of John.
The answer is quite simple, and therefore should be answered in this simple manner: NO, Jesus is not yahweh. It goes without saying, Jesus never called the Father Yahweh; he actually preached about a wholly different God compared to that of God written about in the Old testament. Jesus, the son of man and son of God, can't be that which and/whom his Father is. If the Father begat him, it is obvious that the Father must be greater than his son. in other words, the son has an absolute and unqualified Source which/whom he calls, "...my Father and your Father, my God and your God." Doesn't this show that Jesus, in origin, is like us, man. Sure, there are many places in the scriptures in which Jesus is shown to have some divine aspect, but Jesus, as he does in many places, also teaches that we have the same divine, active and dynamic principle in us. It could be correlated to the fact that the kingdom of heaven is within us... And where does the Father reign supreme? Jesus preforms many miracles, yet he states that we shall do grander ones. Jesus is the light of the world, we too are that light according to Jesus- although he proclaimed this to his apostles, we are too apostles via the priesthood of all believers. There are so many examples, better ones at that, they prove our equality in ontological existence with Jesus, and the verses where Jesus has some divine property, Jesus, the way shower, tells us that we are no different. in short, the unitarians are correct, but the trinitarians are correct because of view of a non static ontology of divinity. An example of that would be that Jesus is a divine being, unfortunately they miss his plane words that we too, even before his exhaltation, were, are, and will continue to share in those divine aspects. It is worth mentioning that I am in no way saying that Jesus or we, man, are equal to the Father in nature, status attributes etc. To put it another way, Jesus is the first amongst equals in the one body of humanity. He is a head, the leader and Lord of us all.
Sure, White committed some fouls. As a Biblical Unitarian (BU), is a "debate" the way you reclaim a wayward brother in James 5? Or is Dr White seen as a false teacher? Per 2 John then, he should not be received or even wished God speed. Debate is a sin per Romans 1:29 KJV. The biblical pattern is teacher - student (disciple), or Church discipline. Dr White's heretical views would bar him from membership in any BU church, and vice versa for Dr Tuggy. Dr White's book was called The Forgotten Trinity. Even Dr White admits the churches haves forgotten this false teaching, no one preaches it, it receives only lip service. But BU's on the other hand have no other doctrine they will discuss or write about, they appear to creedless except for their one hobby horse, Unitarianism. BU's should also address other truths if they want to draw real Christians from the mass of fake Churches.
Debate "tactics" aside, being un-swayed by them, I found Dr Tuggy's reasoning on the subject, "unconvincing." And the scriptural evidence that Dr White presented, more compelling. Also, you claim to be making an "objective" analysis, however, that is clearly not true. How could you be since you are biased to start with.
@@xxxViceroyxxx If it’s so obvious that Jesus is YHWH, why does every Old Testament Messianic prophecy refer to YHWH and His prophet, messiah, or king as a separate being? See for example Psalm 2 or Psalm 110.
I will challenge any of you regarding the pronunciation of YHWH and how it is not pronounced "Yahweh". You people are the classic example of: repeating something enough, then people will accept it.
Hello William, I found your analysis thoroughly engaging. The key takeaway here is that irrespective of where you stand in the debate, it's crucial to identify and condemn abusive debate tactics. Whether the aim was to intimidate the opponent or coerce the audience into compliance, such behavior has no rightful place within Christian discourse.
I didn't know all these rules about debating, so thank you for clarifying. But just from watching other debates in the past I was shocked by many things Dr. White did during the session. Especially at the beginning of his rebuttal I couldn't believe what was happening. So thank you for explaing some background and pointing out many more mean/false tactics, Dr. White employed. And thank you Dale Tuggy for always staying calm even though your opponent is so abusive. You are a bright shining light and an example! May God's grace and protection be over you and your ministry
I must compliment William Barlow for his excellent evaluation of this debate!
Great analysis, William. We also need a psychologist to analyze White's tactics. All he does is gaslight and project his own errors onto Tuggy. It's infuriating.
I agree it would be nice to get a psychological evaluation of White's behavior. I think he shows narcisistic tendencies, which I guess most shrewd debaters would have anyway. White's behavior after the his embarrassing performance in the unconditional election debate with Dr. Flowers tells a lot. White's personal attacks against Flowers and his conspiracy theories about "Baal Gate" clearly indicate that there is something wrong with the way White behaves and thinks of himself
I kept being frustrated by how much White projected his own errors on Tuggy. The Trinity came from later philosophical speculation which is what he accuses Tuggy of doing.
Amen
Thank you for this analysis. I have never been aware of the debate structure in this way until now.
Very thoughtful and objective analysis! I also noticed that Dr. White appealed to the masses quite a bit in the debate. For instance, when he is emphasizing that the debate is philosophical, he is assuming that because Dr. Tuggy’s position isn’t mainstream it can’t be scripturally supported.
He is very good at steamrolling his opponents and speaking in an overconfident manner, which unfortunately wins a lot of people over.
On a Unitarian channel it's not surprising that the vast majority of comments will lean positive toward Tuggy. I watched the whole debate and felt the tension. I was more shocked with the tone of Tuggy.
Great analysis. Sean and I discussed much in overlapping in our forthcoming Restitutio episode. This debate, sadly, didn’t meet expectations because White didn’t engage the arguments seriously and with charity.
Very good analysis
Thank you for this analysis
Great analysis!
Excellent assessment of the debate.
100% perfect response.
I find White to be patronizing and arrogant without addressing most of Tuggy's points truly.
White is clearly a man who understands rhetoric and how to speak in ways to win the audience that a) already thinks like him and b) the people who are not able to see past his rhetorical schemes.
One thing I do have to say, however, is that I do not like this traditional debate structure. Quite frankly, it is not very conducive to finding and fleshing out truth. Which actually makes me think of another point I noticed.
White also usually talked AT Tuggy. Never did I have the impression that White actually truly listened to him. I don't want to say this was the case, but I could go as far as to say it was a manipulative tactic to keep the imaginery upper hand.
@@Yce_Take then you have not listened at all.
@V_George 90% of his points. Look, I am interested in both sides of this issue. I am somewhat open to either sides being right. I will actually read White's books because I'm interested in his points. What he delivered in this debate was not good, though. Unless you already believe what he does and have closed the chapter for good, not being open to potentially being wrong, which obviously is the case with you.
PS: To your point of Tuggy sounding like an atheist philosopher. Come on! What a bad faith way of talking about him.
But, to be honest, this is one thing I see much more with Trinitarians. They speak in the worst way of Unitarians. It often borders on how the Papacy and Pharisees talked about the "normal" and "unenlightened" folk.
I agree with the DR. Tuggy, not Mr. White
I believe MR. White should stop debating this topic.
White owes Tuggy an apology!
Watch White vs Greg Stafford. Stafford wipes the floor with White.
I dont think so... White did a good job actually...
@@ChiSoter_2024i side with stafford but he did the same cross examination mistakes tuggy did lol. also i couldn't tell if james had him on "karakter" or whatever. stafford claims it means copy and a copy always comes after the original. white says karakter isn't used that way. so i dont know.
thank you thank you thank you so much for making this
You're so welcome!
Main problem I have with the debate is Tuggy didn't go right at the main debate question and instead focused on contradictory dual natured Jesus. That may be a part of the debate sub-topic...but it made his arguments look avoidant. White then avoided them too because it didn't focus on the main question. For such a short debate I wish Dale had focused on the YHWH texts to prove they are mainly the Father and other representational meanings usually.
There are a few problems with that idea:
1. The “YHWH texts” are problematic for many reasons, and so by focusing the debate on those texts, it limits the discussion arbitrarily.
2. I think Dr. Tuggy did go after the topic. His bar is proving that Jesus is human and not divine. If Jesus is not divine in the highest sense, then he isn’t YHWH.
That said, another opening on the same question would use the OT framework to answer the question. That’s what Dr. Dustin Smith and I did in our debate last year.
@@williambarlowEh well, for #1 that was the point of the debate. Tuggy could have exegetically gone after Mark 12 and Deut 6:4 to prove it's the Father alone as just one example. If White doesn't want to play "philosophical games" then beat him at his own game in the future. Context supports the Sh'ma being the Father alone.
I think I just disagree on #2. It's a sub-topic of the main debate question from my point of view. If the debate question was "Is Jesus dual natured?" then Tuggy would have nailed that in his opening. I just see White justified in not answering Tuggy because that wasn't the question in the debate. Thanks for your analysis Will.
@Droptorzo - I agree - when White starting to list his strong-man texts beginning with Heb1.10-12, Tuggy was not able to quickly, clearly, concisely respond - serious issue.
Congratulations to the makers of this excellent production for having had to endure the torture of listening to james white. Quite honestly, james white is a Word Salad practitioner who bores his opposition sensless with monotone platitude and then celebrates their boredom paralysis as a deluded sense of victory!
Is there a package of information you guys can email me about what you believe or is there someone i can dialogue with?
I've been thinking about this for sometime and i have alot of questions. Quite frankly, i thought unitarians where upc. I had no idea this line of thought was considered unitarian.
You could watch other videos on this channel, head over to unitarianchristianalliance.org, or join our Facebook group. There are many many unitarian resources available, and perhaps the folks in the Facebook group would be the best way to connect to them all.
@@UnitarianChristianAlliance i don't do fb, but i will watch the videos on the channel 👍
I just thought id point out that the virgin daughter of Zion that travails in birth had never been a woman named Mary. And Romans 1:3-4 refutes the virgin birth outright. Especially the last 6 words of verse 4. I was a trinitarian for 55 years until suddenly one day Yhwh chose to remove the veil of deception over my blinded eyes. I saw things in scripture id read hundreds of times and suddenly saw things id never seen before. Such as I Peter and James 1 about us being begotten of the Fathers incorruptible seed. The same seed "Jesus" was conceived of. Everything id ever believed came crashing down. That was 10 years ago when my journey to truth started. I appreciate your channeland videos. Blessings to you all. 😊
Am I the only one who recognizes that - according to the earliest versions of the Greek - John did NOT say that Isaiah saw "Jesus", but "Him"; a reference to "Yahweh", not His Son?
Not many logical thinkers among the trinitarians I am afraid. You are right.
whats the verse in question here please?
@@xxxViceroyxxx Jn.12:41
@@xxxViceroyxxx in my mind it is Jn12:38-41. referencing Isaiah6:1.
Isaiah had a vision of the God most high, and John references that and what followed, to explain why the jews did not recognize their messiah. "I saw the Lord and His train filled the temple..."
Hi William, excellent tutorial and analysis, thank you.
One small contention that i have with your overall presentation, to be totally objective, is that you didn't criticize Dale's constant statements (as opposed to strictly questions) during the Q&A period. It seemed a bit impetuous or violating the rules, to see Tuggy repeat this offensive a little too often. I agree with all his remarks, I just think that they were misplaced.
Outside of that, I think that Tuggy's an all-star, and that James White just came off as an utter fiend: despicable and desperate tactics all the way through. His logic and exegesis are deplorable. And, therefore, I couldn't agree with you more: great rhetorician, horrible debater.
Thanks again for your great effort here.
How can we expect from man who believe in the Mestery Doctrine? 😊
I personally think that this topic was too important and too sensitive for this format. Speaking as a nonTrinitarian who is a former Trinitarian, though I don't condone Dr. White's tactics, I understand why he employed them. He simply felt he had a strong case, but no time to make it.
So while I both disagree with his tactics and his conclusions, I very much understand his feeling given the importance of the topic, and its sensitive nature. This topic shouldn't be addressed in a rushed manner, because all that will happen is that both sides will leave just as they came in, or worse.
I was not convinced by either party based on their arguments on the day, even though I currently hold a similar position to Dr. Tuggy, and held a similar position to Dr. White previously.
Dr. White's strategy was to basically claim that his conclusions are straight from biblical passages with little or no philosophizing, which is untrue, and he knows it. There is no "godman" in the bible. There is no definition of what that is, and no single passage that says that Jesus is such a being. So no, "godman" does not come straight from the biblical passages. Rather, it is indeed the result of years of philosophizing in the attempt to reconcile two seemingly contradictory opinions of who and what Jesus actually is. But it has earlier roots in Greek and Roman mythology e.g Hercules/Heracles, a "godman"/demigod who was born to a god and a mortal woman, and who upon his death ascended to Olympus and became a god. But there is no such thing in the Jewish Scriptures i.e the bible. There is no precedent for it, and no single attempt at an explanation of what a godman is. So yes, "godman" is philosophical speculation primarily from Gentile converts to Christianity.
Dr. Tuggy, on the other hand, did indeed appear to be philosophical in his tackling of the topic. I love and respect Dr. Tuggy, but he should know that a philosophical approach will only convince like-minded people who need no convincing. Dr. Tuggy should have relied on simple, plain and straightforward claims from Scripture e.g John 17:3; John 4:24; John 20:17 etc. He should have been more confident that a simple and plain reading and understanding of Scripture favours him, because it does.
But anyway, here's my attempt to argue for the biblical unitarian case as simply as possible:
1. Jesus is the Son of God. Whoever and whatever God is, Jesus is that one's Son. So Jesus' Father is the one who is God. It doesn't get any simpler than that.
2. Jesus always addresses God in the third singular masculine person, signifying that He's speaking of someone other than Himself. This is easy to see in the use of English pronouns in the text, but in the Greek, even the word "God" is always in the third singular masculine person when Jesus speaks e.g "He (3rd person masculine) is not the God (3rd person masculine) of the dead, but of the living..." (Mark 12:26-27); "You believe in God (3rd person masculine), believe also in Me (1st person masculine) (John 14:1). In Mark 12:26-27, Jesus excludes Himself from being the YHVH who spoke to Moses in the burning bush. And in John 14:1, Jesus makes a distinction between belief in God and belief in Himself.
3. God is spirit, Jesus is not a spirit (in the literal sense). When trying to convince His disciples that it's really Him in Luke 24:39, Jesus mentions in passing that a spirit does not have flesh and bones as He (Jesus) does. Of course, we already know that spirits generally don't have flesh. But this is forgotten when the discussion of what and who Jesus is comes up. But, having Himself said in John 4:24 that God is spirit, Jesus then said in Luke 24:39 that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, and yet He (Jesus) does.
4. The testimony of saved people who didn't hear an explanation concerning the Trinity. Cornelius and his household and the 3,000 Jews who believed on Pentecost. What do these people have in common? All of them were accepted by God, and none of them appear to have received any kind of training into the Trinitarian doctrine prior to being accepted by God. Cornelius and his household were Gentiles who didn't mix with Jews prior to Peter. And the Jews on Pentecost were not followers of Jesus prior to that day. Yet when Luke notes down what Peter said to them in order to be saved, I see no "godman", no "dual nature", no three-person God. I see God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Of these three, only one is presented as God - the one whom Peter simply calls God without qualification i.e the Father of Jesus Christ.
I'll leave it there so as not to make the comment too long, but an honest and plain reading of the bible without an agenda is what caused me to seriously doubt the authenticity of the Trinity doctrine. The words of Jesus Himself, and especially in the book of John, seem to contradict Trinitarian claims over and over and over again. And I'll side with Jesus over thousands of years of tradition any day. Tradition is what kept the majority of the Jews from listening to Him and believing in Him.
@@henryodera5726 Do you believe Jesus pre-existed as one begotten by the Father before the world was create? Not eternally begotten but begotten.
@@PreachingJesusShort answer, no. But there's also a long answer.
The long answer, is that I don't believe that Jesus was begotten prior to His human conception, simply because He didn't ask anyone to believe that about Him. If He had, then we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?
Whether you believe Jesus literally preexisted His human conception or not, He definitely never asked anyone to believe that He was begotten prior to His human conception.
@@henryodera5726 When you say you hold a position similar to Dale Tuggys, what are the differences between your position and his (if you don't mind sharing?)
@@PreachingJesus I don't fully grasp Dr. Tuggy's position in order to have the same exact position as him. But I am aware of fundamental similarities in our views concerning who and what God is. That's why I said that my position is similar to his.
But there are many things that I don't know about Dr. Tuggy's position e.g his position concerning original sin, predestination, premillenialism vs postmillenialism etc. There are several bits of doctrines of which I do not know his position, or even if he has a firm position at all.
Personally, I have few firm positions that I cannot defend simply by quoting the bible word for word. I prefer it if the bible defends my position adequately even without me having to explain it. This was the attitude that I took after seeing plenty of serious problems with the Trinity doctrine that were actually posed by Scripture itself, and especially the book of John.
I thought that Tuggy was indeed overly philosophical.
Yes - this approach is problematic for the average person - and does not service....
Why is White dressing and wearing a beard like Anton Lavey? LOL 😁 There's some ad hominem for ya! 😅
White, with his ad hominem behaviors, exposes the fact that he personally hates Tuggy and those who agree with Dale.
Do you see how White is doing an Orson Welles impersonation?
Dropping his voice below his normal octave, the beard, the ornate, black garb.
The answer is quite simple, and therefore should be answered in this simple manner:
NO, Jesus is not yahweh. It goes without saying, Jesus never called the Father Yahweh; he actually preached about a wholly different God compared to that of God written about in the Old testament.
Jesus, the son of man and son of God, can't be that which and/whom his Father is. If the Father begat him, it is obvious that the Father must be greater than his son. in other words, the son has an absolute and unqualified Source which/whom he calls, "...my Father and your Father, my God and your God." Doesn't this show that Jesus, in origin, is like us, man.
Sure, there are many places in the scriptures in which Jesus is shown to have some divine aspect, but Jesus, as he does in many places, also teaches that we have the same divine, active and dynamic principle in us. It could be correlated to the fact that the kingdom of heaven is within us... And where does the Father reign supreme?
Jesus preforms many miracles, yet he states that we shall do grander ones. Jesus is the light of the world, we too are that light according to Jesus- although he proclaimed this to his apostles, we are too apostles via the priesthood of all believers.
There are so many examples, better ones at that, they prove our equality in ontological existence with Jesus, and the verses where Jesus has some divine property, Jesus, the way shower, tells us that we are no different.
in short, the unitarians are correct, but the trinitarians are correct because of view of a non static ontology of divinity. An example of that would be that Jesus is a divine being, unfortunately they miss his plane words that we too, even before his exhaltation, were, are, and will continue to share in those divine aspects.
It is worth mentioning that I am in no way saying that Jesus or we, man, are equal to the Father in nature, status attributes etc.
To put it another way, Jesus is the first amongst equals in the one body of humanity. He is a head, the leader and Lord of us all.
Jesus is YHWH (Acts 2:21).
Sure, White committed some fouls. As a Biblical Unitarian (BU), is a "debate" the way you reclaim a wayward brother in James 5? Or is Dr White seen as a false teacher? Per 2 John then, he should not be received or even wished God speed. Debate is a sin per Romans 1:29 KJV. The biblical pattern is teacher - student (disciple), or Church discipline. Dr White's heretical views would bar him from membership in any BU church, and vice versa for Dr Tuggy. Dr White's book was called The Forgotten Trinity. Even Dr White admits the churches haves forgotten this false teaching, no one preaches it, it receives only lip service. But BU's on the other hand have no other doctrine they will discuss or write about, they appear to creedless except for their one hobby horse, Unitarianism. BU's should also address other truths if they want to draw real Christians from the mass of fake Churches.
Jesus Christ, Yahweh Jr
Jesus Christ, always YHWH.
Even Jesus' name Yeshua means "Yahweh saves." And Immanuel means "God with us" It's clear to me who Jesus Christ is.
@@davidmcbrine4527 So what about the child in Isaiah 7 who is named Immanuel? Was that God incarnate too?
@@brandonr4452i think that guy agrees with you lol
@@brandonr4452 Isaiah 7:14 is the prophecy about the coming Messiah.
So yes, he is the same one in Matt 1:23
Debate "tactics" aside, being un-swayed by them, I found Dr Tuggy's reasoning on the subject, "unconvincing."
And the scriptural evidence that Dr White presented, more compelling.
Also, you claim to be making an "objective" analysis, however, that is clearly not true. How could you be since you are biased to start with.
What do you think was Dr. White’s best argument?
@@williambarlowhis only argument, the one he opened with. bible says jesus is yahweh. what more need of conversation
@@xxxViceroyxxx If it’s so obvious that Jesus is YHWH, why does every Old Testament Messianic prophecy refer to YHWH and His prophet, messiah, or king as a separate being? See for example Psalm 2 or Psalm 110.
@@williambarlowim unitarian, im just telling you what whites most compelling argument was
@@Yce_Take I hope that you are ready to receive the human Messiah that God has exalted.
I will challenge any of you regarding the pronunciation of YHWH and how it is not pronounced "Yahweh". You people are the classic example of: repeating something enough, then people will accept it.