 In the order of knowledge and faith, faith precedes knowledge.

A thread on Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas — the AAA team of faith and knowledge, or the relation of faith and philosophy:

 Augustine, for example, can write: "in order that we may understand it, let us first believe" (Homily 39). 

Later in history, Anselm will echo Augustine in his Prologian by saying, "For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe so that I may understand" (Proslogian §1) [Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam].

 Thomas Aquinas too will note in Summa Theologiae 1.1Q.A8 that "faith rests upon infallible truth" by which he means "Holy Writ" (the Bible).

 Put more fully, Aquinas says, "For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books, and not on the revelations (if any such there are) made to other doctors." 

 This maps unto experience. We tend to have greater moral problems to faith than intellectual. We have both, to be sure. But I am reminded of Augustine who after clearing away the intellectual problems of his faith felt that he could not give up lust. 

 He prayed to God, "Give me chastity and continence, just not yet!" Yet God answered his weak prayer by awakening him to the Scriptures.


 Speaking through children, God pointed Augustine to Romans 13:13–14: 

 "Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires."

 Following the example of Antony who heard the Word read as a direct word for him to sell all that he has to follow Jesus, Augustine obeys the Word of God. 

 And he immediately repents and follows Christ fully. Interestingly, it's only after he puts away sinful lusts and passions that he can catch a glimpse of God as he does in Book IX of the Confessions in Ostia. 

He has come to know God, but he first needed to believe, to repent, to follow him. 

 The order of knowledge and belief begins wth faith, then knowledge. 

So in the Prooemium of his Prologian, Anselm can speak of "faith seeking understanding or Fides quaerens intellectum.

 
 

Faith Before Knowledge

On Aristotle’s Categories and His Platonic Commentators
 
Aristotle’s categories have played a significant role in the history of philosophy and science. But most of us barely know what they are. 

A longish thread: 

In the following, I want to outline the main categories and some ancient criticism of them to help situate Aristotle within his time and place.
 
ARISTOTLE
 
Aristotle (384–322 BC) famously argued for ten categories that describe reality. Aristotle explains: 

“Of things said without any combination, each signifies either substance or quantity or qualification or a relative or where or when or being-in-a-position or having or doing or being-affected” (Categories §4).

Of the ten categories, substance stands in special place since it describes a persistent subject, which Aristotle calls prime substance. By contrast, secondary substance refers to the substance’s species and genus. 

For example, this man speaks of prime substance, while calling this man a man (species) and animal (genus) refer to secondary substances. 

This man (primary substance) may be in a city (where), while having a sword in his hand. That illustrates both the simplicity of Aristotle’s categories. And it goes a ways in explaining why they became standard ways to describe the world. 

One area where Aristotle’s Categories became controversial, however, was his view of the relationship between primary and secondary substances. 

Aristotle sees primary substances (this man, this horse) as the reason why other things exist and as more substantial than species or genera (§6). He writes, “So if the primary substances did not exist it would be impossible for any of the other things to exist” (§6). 

A later little he concludes that substances as primary subjects are “substances most of all” (§6). 

While reasonable, on the face of it, Aristotle appears to deny Plato’s thesis that Forms are prior to individual substances. Aristotle here apparently reverses the order of reality: the substantial subject comes first and the universal species and genera are less substantial. 

PORPHYRY
 
However, not everyone took Aristotle in that way. For example, Porphyry (AD 234–305) argues that Aristotle's Categories refer specifically to logical arguments, not to being or things as such (On Aristotle Categories, 57.–5; pp 32–33). 

He argues the case tightly on the basis of the title of Aristotle’s work and the internal argument itself. In short, Porphyry sees Aristotle as outlining how we speak about everyday objects in the physical world. He denies that Aristotle refers to being as such. 

This is important for Porphyry because, as noted, Aristotle appears to argue that substances are prior to their abstract categories (species, genera). Put another, Aristotle seems to deny Plato’s argument that Forms are prior to individual experience. 

Steven K. Strange explains Porphyry’s argument in this way: 

Aristotle calls particular substances primary substances in the Categories, according to Porphyry, because he is there discussing the classification of significant expressions, and these apply primarily to sensible individuals, and only secondarily to the abstracted universals

that are predicated of them.For the primary purpose of language is to communicate about ordinary things and their individual properties (91,8-9). 

Abstracted universals for Porphyry, unlike the real universals, the Platonic Forms, have a merely conceptual existence, and are indeed posterior to sensible things.[1] 

In other words, Porphyry sees Aristotle as talking about abstractions like this trout is a fish (species) and animal (genus). These abstractions truly do follow from the primary substance (this trout). 

They are thus “posterior to sensible things.” By contrast, Platonic forms remain prior to sensible things. 

Strange notes: “Thus the Aristotelian abstractable universals that are the referents of general terms can be included in our ontology alongside the Platonic Forms: they are immanent universals, the Forms are transcendent universals and the causes both of sensibles and of immanent

universals.”[2] 

Porphyry may not be too far afield. Aristotle in Posterior Analytics 1.2 (71b29–72a5) does indeed argue that universals precede sensible objects in the order of nature and in the order of relation to us. 

So perhaps Porphyry rightly believes Aristotle’s categories fit into a Platonic philosophy in agreeable ways. 
PLOTINUS

On the other hand, Plotinus (d. AD 270) in his Enneads (6.1–3) rejects the tenfold Categories of Aristotle for a fivefold scheme, that he derives from Plato. He affirms that Being, Motion, Rest, Identity, and Difference make up five primary genera (6.2.7–8). 

Part of the reason why Plotinus rejects Aristotle has to do with the rational use of the categories themselves. Do they refer to only physical entities? Or also metaphysical ones? Do they actually make sense? 

Plotinus for his part sees the categories as returning to unity, and so Motion and Rest describes the movement of life and substance. Identity and difference refer to the identity or difference of posterior things to Being (6.2.8).

In any case, Plotinus does not find Aristotle’s categories to fit into his Neoplatonic philosophy easily, even if Porphyry does. 
 
NOTES

The controversy surrounding Universals/Forms being prior to or posterior largely depends on whether or not one sees Aristotle as a follower of Plato. If Aristotle follows Plato directly, then finding textual evidence for his agreement on Forms seems reasonable. 

After all, the potentially confusing passages that seem to contradict really must be talking about different things.    

But if one sees Aristotle as setting himself against Plato, as many seem to do, then the seeming contradictions in Aristotle will be affirmed without an attempt to harmonize them. 

[1] applewebdata://B2D59A9B-8EA8-4BC2-8CD3-E72AAA3554C4#_ftnref1 Steven K. Strange, trans. Porphyry: On Aristotle Categories (London, Bloomsbury, 1992), 10.
[2] applewebdata://B2D59A9B-8EA8-4BC2-8CD3-E72AAA3554C4#_ftnref2 Strange, Porphyry, 11.

Aristotle's Categories: Unveiling Ancient Philosophy

Are our conclusions about the world simply the result of our place in time and culture? Or do our observations genuinely name reality? 

A thread on the Nicene Creed and the nature of Doctrine:

If the latter, then the conclusions of, say, the Nicene Creed may name reality (with an ancient idiom) that transcends the "material conditions" for thought (contra Hegel, Marx, etc.). 

And that means rather than seeing the Nicene Creed as a case of false consciousness, but rather a specific idiom that names eternal truths. 

But today, many people point to the ancient creeds as being an interesting historical phenomenon, rooted in ancient catholicism and an overly ambitious Emperor. 

So while its conclusions could be useful, we should be wary of traditionalism, given the material conditions of the fourth century Roman world. 

But if the objects of theology, God and the things related to God, remain the same, then despite the reality of different idioms of speech, the conclusions of Nicaea should be seen as valid and truthful observations about the triune God who Is and Remains and Will Always Be. 

If we feel that theology always progresses and improves like some historical process, then the development of doctrine thesis will make us suspicious of Nicaea. 

But if we instead think that God has handed down the faith once and for all the saints, then we can say: yes, every culture has its own idioms of speech, but Christ's church has always known God, always known Christ, and so the conclusions of Nicaea, as an example, should be

viewed not with suspicion but with a hermeneutic of trust.


This line of reasoning could feel threatening to some. But I am persuaded we have in some ways been taken "captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy" (Col 2:8). 

We view history as a sequence that always brings about improvement (historicism); we view the past through a suspicious lens since everything is political (a shade of Marxism, etc.); and we lack a conviction that Christ has built his church by the Holy Spirit. 

All that said, my sense is that we need to be careful that we don't begin believing that all theology flows out of "material conditions" or historicism ("development of doctrine" thesis). 

Certainly, we may find clarity on the deposit of faith from time to time, but we also lose clarity. Think of the doctrine of the Trinity or political theology in recent years. 

And just read the past reformational and earlier authors, the idea that we have progressed in all cases past their theological understanding does not ring true.

Naming Eternal Truths

John Mark Comer on God’s Sovereignty and the Problem of Evil

A long thread: 

About thirty minutes ago, I listened to a sermon by John Mark Comer on God’s Sovereignty and the problem of evil. I will link to it at the end. But I was intrigued since Comer sets himself up against John Piper, John Calvin, and Augustine on the question. 

Comer for his part will cite Greg Boyd, David Bentley Hart, and N.T. Wright to argue for his side.

In essence, Comer objects to the idea that God is sovereign or control over all things. He believes competing wills on earth clash with God’s. We are free agents, and Satan himself vies against God’s will. 

And more than that, the reality of chaos or accidents loom large (i.e.., what Comer defines natural evil as).

In the following, I will share my observations about his argument, attempting to fairly outline briefly without revision. Then I will add a few reflections on the form of the argument and further resources. 

To my mind, the major conflict between Comer and the Augustinian view he rejects centers on the doctrine of God.
 


(1) Observations on Comer’s Argument

John Mark Comer argues that God’s will before Augustine meant God’s moral intention. After Augustine, God’s will points to God’s will controls all things. John Calvin too confirms this new understanding of divine will. 

At this point, Comer plays a long clip where John Piper says God wills people to die. Comer takes offense of language of God being in control and sovereign because while it gives comfort at the starts, then when evil happens, how can we say that’s good (~ 5:00)?

Against the notion that anyone who dies God wills to die (6:25), Comer points to 1 Corinthians 15:25–26 as evidence that death is the last enemy of God. 

And so many things happen that God does not will; “God does not always get his way” because of human “free will.” Evil is the by-product of creative freedom of human (~7:40). His reasoning works in this way: Death is evil. God does not will evil. 

Therefore, God does not will the death of anyone. Sin, death, and evil are caused by free will, not God. He points then to 1 John 5:19 to show that the whole world is under the control of the evil one—and points to God’s battle with the evil one. 

We are in a battlefield and war on earth (8:20).

His theodicy (citing Dr. Brashears) works like this: given that Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” God’s will must be done in heaven but not on earth. So there are then, he argues, five wills on earth (11:40).

(1) God’s will (God is king, and he does what he wants). God co-opts evil for good ends too (like Babylon exile, etc.). But these times are exceptions to the rule, against the view he attributes to John Piper.
 
(2) Our will. 

(3) Other people’s will. Evil people do evil things.

 
(4) Satan’s will. God is at war with Satan, and the world is under Satan’s control (for now), he claims. He quotes Greg Boyd positively, which points to demonic creatures with free will and the capacity to do evil. He thinks C.S. 

Lewis illustrates the point well in Screwtape Letters.
 
(5) Chaos, random chance which he thinks natural evil is. Accident, luck affirmed. Not everything happens for a reason; some things happen for no reason.

If you lose your job, should we say “God is control?” No (22:30). As Comer argues, It could be good or it could be simply your fault. It could be some evil co-worker. It could be satanic. It could be chaos, natural evil. You simply don’t always know.

The answer to this problem of evil is the cross of Jesus. Comer says substitutionary atonement was not the dominant atonement theory in the first millennium but Christus Victor was (~30:00). He believes both are correct along with other atonement theories. 

But he points to Christus Victor as “the knife’s edge for how we think about the cross” (31:30), citing Greg Boyd to confirm his argument. “God suffers at the hand of evil,” Comer argues so we are not alone in it (he here affirms Greg Boyd on the cross).  

Comer points to John Piper who says that God is the cause of the 2004 Tsunami (33:30). He contrasts Piper’s view with David Bentley Hart’s online article on the Tsunami as a counter to Piper, affirming Hart’s view.

He points to hope in Romans 8, echoing Wright’s characteristic phrase “God will put the world to rights (35:00). He cites Wright at 44:29, confirming the source.
 


(2) Reflections on Comer’s Argument

Comer argues for a theodicy, solving the problem of evil thru a proposal of competing wills in this world. God wills good morally, but people, others, Satan, & chaos confound this moral will towards to the good. This is because of free will. 

God does not cause sin, evil, death, although Comer admits he can do such things rarely as the Bible tells us.

Fundamentally, Comer misunderstands the Augustinian and Reformed doctrine of God. The word cause as in God causes all things means not a physical cause in space and time as we might think of it. (Tho sometimes it can mean that)

Rather, God, because he is beyond space and time, is the cause of all things in ways befitting his Spiritual, timeless, and immutable nature.

Hence, someone like William Perkins (or Peter Vermigli) will speak of God’s causality as the First Cause outside of our order of experience, which itself ENABLES OUR FREE or CONTINGENT choices—secondary causes.

In short, God as First Cause of all things enables contingent or free choice in the level of second order causality. This explains why so many reformed authors and confessions will point to free will and choice as remaining in us after the fall.

It’s why even AUGUSTINE whom Comer cites believes God does not will the substantial existence of evil (a key point!). God is not evil, nor creates evil, but Augustine argues orders evil. 

We are the cause of evil which is in our choice, as we pervert created goods by our corrupted desires.

Ontologically, to say that God does not will everything but chaos, Satan, or others do also implies the non-existence of things in this world. In God, we live and move and have our being, as Paul says in Acts 17. 

This is because God the Father holds all things together by the word of his power as Hebrews 1 notes (see also Colossians). That Word is Christ, the Logos (John 1).

As to the arguments about Satan and demons being the cause of evil and the citation of Paul’s thorn in the flesh, Augustine affirms this. Psalm 78 explicitly says God uses evil angels to make way for his wrath (78:49–50). 

The whole book of Job, as Gregory the Great notes, illustrates the point as well: “Satan unknowingly serves the purposes of God’s hidden justice” (Moralia, 2.20.38).”

But that’s the point: God’s order of causality differs qualitatively to his creation’s order of causality. The Creator-creature distinction does not disappear when it comes to God’s will! To use language in Gregory of Nyssa, there is a diastema between us and God! 

Hence, God can work all things for good to those who love him (Rom 8:28).

The notion that Augustine changed the definition of God’s will here frankly … not rooted in the historical documents themselves. The order of Providence finds deep root in the Apostolic and Church Fathers. 

I feel no need to cite sources here to make the case, since it seems too obvious. But if there are comments asking for evidence, I will supply it.

While I could say much more and cite many more Bible verses, the problem here fundamentally hinges on the identity of God. Is God’s order of causality within our creation or not? 

Comer implies yes, which is why he cannot conceive of God being in control of all things AND real freedom of choice.

And it’s why he finds the cross being that great act whereby “God suffers at the hand of evil,” a statement from Greg Boyd which echoes Bonhoeffer’s “Only a suffering God can help us now,” which was theologically developed by Jürgen Moltmann on the decades after.

While Comer does not delve too deeply here, it seems clear given his sources for argument and his view of God that he must affirm a version of passibility, something the earliest Christians would not have affirmed about God (see my article on the topic below).

I’ll leave my comments here without saying more, but point to further resources. Words never seem to end. And these are my brief thoughts, so please take them as such. I am eager to read more Comer and come to understand him, and perhaps I have misunderstood him here. 

If I have, I am eager to find out where and correct myself.
 


(3) Further resources
 
Wyatt Graham, “Calvinists are Uncommonly good at Affirming free will https://wyattgraham.com/calvinists-are-uncommonly-good-at-affirming-free-will/.”

Wyatt Graham, “Do we have free will? Yes. Peter Vermigli's view of Human Freedom https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/detrinitate/do-we-have-free-will-yes/.”
 
Wyatt Graham, “What was Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh?” https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/detrinitate/what-was-pauls-thorn-in-the-flesh/
 
Wyatt Graham, “Only the Impassible God Can Help Us Now.” https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/detrinitate/only-the-impassible-god-can-help-us-now/

John Mark Comer, “Sermon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGF75xym8RE,” “transcript https://realitysf.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/BC_Week23.pdf,” official site https://bridgetown.
church/teachings/the-sage/why#:~:text=June%25205%252C%25202016%2520%E2%80%A2%2520John,propose%2520a%2520better%2520way%2520forward.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/wagraham/6U14xXj

John Mark Comer on God's Sovereignty and Evil

John Davenant disagrees with Thomas and Bellarmine whom he claims argue that the sacraments are a physical cause of the grace of God.


For Davenant, "nothing can be a physically operating cause in the production of grace but God alone" (Col 1:33). 

🧵

And importantly, since according to Davenant, grace is "the gratuitous love of God towards us" (1:33), then he can claim: 


"The love of God does not find us worthy, but makes us worthy of his love" (1:33). 

So here, Davenant's critique of Thomas and Bellarmine follows from a desire to vouchsafe the free grace of God from any physical causation. 


As he says, grace or "this love flows immediately from the Divine will, is not called forth by human merit" (1:33). 

Grace or gratuitous love flows from God's will, not our merit. So viewing the sacraments as physical causes of God's grace doesn't work.

Theological Disagreements on Sacraments and Grace

I think if you don't get regular encouragement in non digital life, X gives some people a place to feel encouraged, special, and on mission.

A thread (🧵):

Good families and church work should provide the material and spiritual conditions for encouragement and validation. But when those places don't (or people don't find them there by choice), then X becomes an arena for glory.

X is a jousting tournament. It's a place to win and gain glory. If we win there, we could do whatever we want now. Guys want this success, this notoriety.

Have you ever read the book "Status Anxiety" (Alain de Botton)? I think there is a basic idea of status chasing that X fills.
Or think of Becker's The Denial of Death. Fame, glory, and honour—X gives it, although I'd argue in a corrupt or imperfect way.

Romans 2 (pursue glory, honour, and immortality) positively gives a place for these pursuits concretely in good works (thus glory) and right approbation (so honour) and the reward (and so immortality).

Also, X doesn't require personal charisma or stature like TikTok and YouTube do. Nor does it require stable character like church work does; nor does it require leadership skill like institutions do.

So it frees one up to gain status and fame without the moderating influence of the pressure of regular life

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/wagraham/RJDW3LC

X And The Quest for Glory

Some brief thoughts on making YouTube videos for a month:

1. I think of at least 3 kinds of media that I like to use to share ideas: fresh ideas/quick thoughts, online writing, and book writing. Each progressively takes more time. 



YT videos take me 5-10 minutes. Easy. Quick. I like that. I tend to read in the mornings or in the evenings. So I can record a ten minute video, based on what I have been reading or thinking about it. It helps me solidify my ideas, and it seems some people like to hear about it. 

So in my schema above, I try to restrict YouTube videos to ten minutes. Then it takes a few minutes to upload. It's pretty easy time-wise. So that helps me to get ideas out that are not ready for the written word. The spoken word is much more forgiving. 

2. I doubt people under 35 can read anymore, by which I mean can understand arguments. So YouTube might be a way to reach non-readers. Neat. 

Here is a short video where I explain myself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi3VzwQ6ZMY&t=12s

3. I am having fun sharing what I am learning. Here is a video that people seemed to live on CS Lewis and what he meany by "men without chests." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9fYXGqxe0&t=98s

Now, perhaps this could become an article later. But this took 10-15 minutes in total to create and produce.  An article of this kind would tkae 4-5 hours. But the latter would better improve my thinkning and create a more careful argument. So the trade off is real.  

4. The channel is helping me work through ideas that don't touch upon my regular life and ministry. For example, I am planning to record at least one long video on my favourite movie of all time, "My Neighbour Totoro."



YouTube might be the only place I can find people who are interested in such things. 

5. I realized that I needed a niche. So I create a tagline: "I answer today's questions by finding answers in great books and other works of literature." I think that helps, but can I count Miyazaki as literature? I guess not. So I will cheat a bit.  

6. I tried to crosspost on IG, but that was not that useful. Now I think I will just share 90 second clips as a reel in the hopes people might find my YouTube channel. 

7. I kind of want to upload to TikTok, but my goal is to make a ten minute work flow, so that I can make this a long term discipline. I don't want to spend more time on this except when it comes to My Neighbour Totoro, since I am a fanatic for it.  

Anyway, do subscribe to my channel. I think it will help me get the word out faster. That is, if you want to: 

https://youtube.com/@wagraham?si=KvGUAoWHSmYS5Ffh 

The YouTube Video Journey

Divine impassibility is the answer to the question, "Does God have flesh like we do?

A 🧵

" since the Bible often locates passions in the flesh such as when Peter speaks of "the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul" (1 Pet 2:11) or when Paul speaks of “the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24).

Now, the answer is that God does not have nerves, lungs, hormones, etc. God is Spirit (John 4:24). And when Paul and Barnabas claim to be human and not divine they speak of themselves as having like passions (ὁμοιοπαθεῖς) as other humans (Acts 14:15).

From this point of view, God does not get hangry due to hunger; short of temper due to lack of sleep; or tired due to exhaustion. No flesh with its limits limit God.

But this does not mean that God lacks Love, Joy, and other attributes that the Bible affirms of him. It simply means that God loves without flesh; he loves as Spirit.

To be blunt, we might misuse love because of lust; God can’t. He is Impassible. So his Love for us remains sturdy—no tiredness, hungriness, or exhaustion will prevent his love from coming to us. He is fully Love.

Yet by claiming God is Spirit or lacks created flesh—as Jesus teaches and Genesis 1 tells us!—we also know that God is not a combination of flesh and Spirit, that is, he is simple—not a combination of being and created stuff (on this, see John 1, Gen 1, etc.).

All things that came into being, John tells us, did through the Word of the Father (John 1). So God is before all things, and so he is not a “created” thing.

Now, downstream of this basic biblical teaching are what we might call right and necessary consequences of divine impassibility. Sometimes this looks like the denial of any passion in God of all sorts.

When such arguments are made, most of us think: how can God have compassion then? How is he love?

But remember: what impassibility denies is that God is created flesh like the greek gods! The Bible still affirms he is Love, compassionate, etc. So we must affirm those truths according to the nature of God as expressed in Holy Scripture.

So we affirm compassion in God as Spirit, uncreated, fleshless. That does make “compassion” less—since our compassion is a created analogue of God’s. His is prior, more real than ours.

There is more to say, but this is a clarification of something I said yesterday. I’ll write on this in a fuller way at one point.

But all that to say, impassibility is one of the basic biblical teachings, and denying it implies that God is created flesh. Although, I completely grant that people who deny impossibility rarely mean that.

I am saying it “implies” such a conclusion, not that people make that conclusion.

Image: Peloponnisios, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Divine Impassibility: Does God Experience Fleshly Passions?

Four reasons why Nietzsche rejects Socrates as a fool, coward, and criminal:

First, Nietzsche accused the Greeks of hating life and trying to escape to another world.

The so-called “wise” like Socrates assumed life is bad, and so so-called wise men like “Socrates and Plato” are “symptoms of degeneration” (Twilight, 474).

Life cannot be judged, and one lacks wisdom if they make a value judgment about it, avers Nietzsche (475).

Socrates (and so Plato’s) hatred of life, their nihilistic attitude, can be seen at the trial of Socrates.

As Nietzsche notes, “Socrates wanted to die: not Athens, but he himself chose the hemlock; he forces Athens to sentence him” (Twilight, 479).

Using the voice of Socrates, Nietzsche sums up Socrates by saying: “’Socrates is no physician,’ he said softly to himself; ‘here death alone is the physician.

Socrates himself has merely been sick a long time” (Twilight 479).

For Nietzsche, Socrates hates life, makes up another world, and thinks that his medicine is death.

The nihilism (self-destructive tendencies) of Socrates led him, for Nietzsche, to make a choice of coward: death over life.

Second, Nietzsche argues that Socrates was a decadent monster.

After making fun of Socrates’s looks and words, Nietzsche gets to his main critique: how Socrates identifies happiness with reason and virtue (475). Such arguments went against the instincts of the Greeks, and Socrates wrongly battled such instincts.

The state that executed Socrates rightly warned that he would corrupt the youths; he did. Socrates was decadent and denied human instinct.

Basically, Nietzsche thinks the state’s accusations against Socrates were valid, and Socrates was a fool.

Third, Nietzsche believes Socrates’s dialectic (reasoning by back-and-forth conversations) shows that his ineptitude and his intentionally untrustworthy nature.

“One choose dialectic only when on has no other means.

One knows that one arouses mistrust with it, that it is not very persuasive” (Twilight, 476).

Fourth, rather than give Greece a real cure to their malady, Nietzsche says Socrates gave them an “apparent” (but not real) one: mastering our instincts by reason, supressing passion by self-control.

“When one finds it necessary to turn to reason into a tyrant, as Socrates did, the danger cannot be slight that something else will play the tyrant”(478).

The fanatic love of rationality, says Nietzsche, made the Greeks absurd. “The moralism of the Greek philosophers from Plato on is pathologically conditioned; so is their esteem of dialectics.

Reason-virtue-happiness, that means merely that one must imitate Socrates and counter the dark appetites with a permanent daylight—the daylight of reason.

One must be clever, clear, bright at any price: any concession to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads downward” (478).

All of this was decadence, a denial of instinct, for reason.

The whole project of Greek philosophy was a mistake—a misunderstanding not only of the problem but of the solution. “Socrates was a misunderstanding; the whole improvement-morality, including the Christian, was a misunderstanding” (478).

Rationality as a way to virtue and happiness was a total mistake. It was decadence, a ruination of society. “To have to fight the instincts—that is the formula of decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct” (479).

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/wagraham/fuF14X2

Nietzsche's Rejection of Socrates

Douglas Wilson believes that the Son's eternal obedience to the Father is his existence, while the Father's existence is authority.

He writes, the Son's "existence is obedience — eternal obedience, obedience that could not be otherwise. The Father’s existence is authority."

🧵

Source: https://dougwils.com/the-church/s16-theology/triune-botherations.html

Recently, he seems to have made a similar argument in his conversation with James White, as noted here:

https://twitter.com/TomHicks2LCF/status/1730394331079750005?s=20

In a recent publication on his blog of an old theological statement that Doug Wilson authored or at least approved of, nothing seems to contradict the claims made above:

https://dougwils.com/the-church/s16-theology/on-authority-order-and-equality-within-the-godhead.html

All of these statements are worth reading and pondering.

Recently, Jeff Moss claimed these statements mean Doug Wilson has "false teaching," which may or may not signify that he believes DW is a false teacher. If it does, that's a strong statement, given what the Bible says about false teachers.

DW responded to Jeff Moss's accusations by more or less ignoring them:

Okay, so that background is out of the way. And I am not really on team 1 or 2 here.

My main concern is Trinitarian theology, and I think it's worth revisiting the stakes here briefly since not everyone read the articles and books that came out of the 2016 debates.

But that was 7 years ago, and people who were 16 are now 23, and they may want to think through this issue more carefully, especially if they respect Doug Wilson and others. So...

In short, DW uses authority and submission to distinguish the Father from the Son, since God is one and yet three. So how is God three? DW points to authority (Father) and Son (Submission).

But that's not how Orthodoxy, Nicene, & Biblical Christians have usually said it.

Augustine, notes that the Bible (& us) say some things about God by nature: he is invisible, immortal, holy, just, sovereign, etc; and some things we say about God relationally: He is Son of the Father, and Father of the Son, and the Spirit is the Spirit of Father & Son.

Speaking of God biblically as Father, Son, and Spirit define how the three relate to one another, while words like power, love, holiness refer to God as the one God of Israel essentially.


Here is  where IMO DW gets it wrong.

He sees passages where Jesus submits to the Father, and goes: "Ah, this describes how God as God relates to himself: authority and submission."

But wait a second. The Son of God is both God by nature and man by nature.

So when Jesus submits to the Father, he does so as the Incarnate one, who is both divine and human.

And when the Son submits as the Incarnate one, he does so with a will able to submit God (the human will).

Importantly, the language of the God sending the Son does not indicate an eternal submission in the Son to the Father. Rather, the visible mission (sending) of the Son refers to the Incarnation, this work happens inseparably (inseparable operations). One will, one God.

Augustine points to Galatians 4 (and many other places) where this is clear: "God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law." The two "born" statements clarify what sending means. Sending means the Incarnation. It's the visible sending of the Son.

The Incarnation and thus the sending is an inseparable work of the Holy Trinity. It does not signify eternal submission of the Son but the one God's work of redemption by the Son assuming humanity by the Spirit.

Hence, the sending or Incarnation does explain how the will of God is one. Further, it also explains how and why Jesus submits to the Father in his role as the Redeemer. He does so according to his humanity.

Okay, that's about all I wanted to say.