Biblical Unitarian Pneumatologies and the Danger of Bitheism

1. Introduction

2. Tuggy's Argument against the Trinity

3. Turning Tuggy's Argument against Unitarianism

4. Biblical Unitarian Pneumatologies

 4.1. The Holy Spirit is a divine power or energy

 4.2. The Holy Spirit is a property or aspect of God

 4.3. The Holy Spirit is a circumlocution for God the Father

 4.4. The Holy Spirit is a sub-divine, created thing

 4.5. Summary

5. A Biblical Critique of the Circumlocution and Creature Pneumatologies

 5.1. The Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father

 5.2. The Holy Spirit is divine

6. Conclusion

1. Introduction

Is biblical unitarianism bitheistic (believing in two gods)? Such a question, posed by a Trinitarian, may strike unitarians as audacious and absurd. "We accuse you of denying monotheism. How dare you accuse us of that." In this article, however, I am going to make an argument that the answer to this question is, "Yes." The argument is intended to be slightly tongue-in-cheek; its main purpose is to show that a particular unitarian logical argument against Trinitarianism is self-defeating. However, I also hope to persuade unitarians to think more carefully about their pneumatology—their doctrine of the Holy Spirit. 

I will not be arguing—though one could—that by worshipping and praying to a mere man (on which unitarians have historically disagreed amongst themselves) and ascribing the divine Name to him, unitarians are effectively making Jesus a second god. Instead, I will rely on the logic of Prof. Dale Tuggy, a philosopher who happens to be one of the world's leading biblical unitarian apologists. Tuggy has made a formal logical argument that the Trinity contradicts monotheism. I argue here that, if this argument is valid (which I deny it is), it also implies that unitarian theology contradicts monotheism, unless the Holy Spirit is defined in a way that does violence to the biblical witness.

Let me state up front that, unlike Tuggy, I am not a philosopher or an analytic theologian. So I will not be too formal or technical in my argument. If the reader spots flaws in my logic, please do let me know by leaving a comment.

2. Tuggy's Argument against the Trinity

In his research review essay, "Metaphysics and Logic of the Trinity," Tuggy briefly traces out the history of the Trinity as a philosophical theory (as he sees it).¹ Tuggy then constructs a formal logical argument against the Trinity and discusses various ways that recent analytic theologians have sought to counter it (unsuccessfully, in his view) and salvage the Trinity.

The full argument can be viewed here; the claims and justifications (without the logical and semi-logical translations) are reproduced below.

Claim	Justification
1. The Father is divine.	Premise
2. The Son is divine.	Premise
3. The Father and Son have differed.	Premise
4. Things which have differed are non-identical.	Premise
5. Therefore, Father and Son are non-identical.	3, 4
6. For any two (or “two”) things, they are the same god only if each is divine, and they are identical.	Premise
7. Therefore, Father and Son are not the same god.	5, 6
8. Therefore, there are at least two gods.	1, 2, 7
9. There is exactly one god.	Premise
10. But this is contradictory.	8, 9
11. Therefore, one or more of these is false: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9.	1-10

Tuggy observes that premises 1, 2, 3, and 9 are affirmed in Trinitarian dogma and argues that 4 and 6 follow from "Unaided human reason, quite apart from any theological concerns." If the argument is valid, it entails that the doctrine of the Trinity is polytheistic and thus contradicts monotheism (premise 9).² Tuggy maintains that it is valid, and that the best option—in light of biblical revelation—is to deny premise 2 (that the Son is divine) and adopt unitarianism. Tuggy uses the argument to describe various Trinity theories in terms of how they seek (unsuccessfully, in his view) to avoid the conclusion that the Trinity contradicts monotheism. This is usually done by denying one or more of the premises.

While I personally lack the philosophical expertise to formally argue the point, my intuition is that premises 4 and 6 are both invalid as applied to God, since they treat "Father" and "Son" as "things" and "god" as a "sort" of thing. This runs contrary to the classical Christian doctrine of God's simplicity, which posits that God is not composed of parts and implies that God is not merely the greatest of all "things" that exist, but is existence itself, and thus the ground and cause of all "things."

However, for purposes of this article I am going to assume arguendo the validity of Tuggy's argument. In the next section, we will alter the argument slightly by replacing the Son with the Holy Spirit and use the revised argument to conclude that unitarian doctrine also entails multiple gods (bitheism to be exact).

3. Turning Tuggy's Argument against Unitarianism

We revise Tuggy's argument simply by replacing all references to "the Son" (in 2, 3, 5, and 7) with "the Holy Spirit."

Claim	Justification
1. The Father is divine.	Premise
2'. The Holy Spirit is divine.	Premise
3'. The Father and Holy Spirit have differed.	Premise
4. Things which have differed are non-identical.	Premise
5'. Therefore, Father and Holy Spirit are non-identical.	3', 4
6. For any two (or “two”) things, they are the same god only if each is divine, and they are identical.	Premise
7'. Therefore, Father and Holy Spirit are not the same god.	5', 6
8. Therefore, there are at least two gods.	1, 2', 7'
9. There is exactly one god.	Premise
10. But this is contradictory.	8, 9
11. Therefore, one or more of these is false: 1, 2', 3', 4, 6, 9.	1-10

From a Trinitarian perspective, nothing has changed about the validity and implications of the argument (since, for Trinitarians, the Holy Spirit is another of what the Son is).³ From a unitarian perspective, however, the Holy Spirit is not another of what the Son is, but is something entirely different. This is precisely what makes the revised argument interesting, for while unitarians certainly deny the original premise 2 (that the Son is divine), it is not clear that they deny 2' (that the Holy Spirit is divine). Consequently, unless unitarians deny one of the other premises in the revised argument, the conclusion follows (according to Tuggy's logic) that unitarianism contradicts monotheism.

We will describe unitarian pneumatology in more detail below and discuss how unitarians might rescue monotheism from the jaws of Tuggy's argument, and at what cost in terms of interpreting the biblical witness. But first, let us pre-empt a shortcut that some unitarians may wish to take to avoid the issue. Perhaps a unitarian would deny premise 3', that the Father and the Holy Spirit have differed. But not so fast. Consider Tuggy's own justification for the original premise 3 (that the Father and Son have differed):

Premise 3 is implied by the New Testament and by any trinitarian theology. The Father sends his unique Son to save the world, but Jesus does not do that; Jesus doesn’t send his own Son into the world.

The same justification can be given for premise 3'. God (the Father) sends his Spirit,⁴ but the Holy Spirit does not send its Spirit. Therefore, the Father and the Holy Spirit have differed. By Tuggy's own logic, premise 3' stands.

4. Biblical Unitarian Pneumatologies

There does not seem to be any doctrinal consensus among biblical unitarians concerning what the Holy Spirit is. Indeed, the statement of belief that one must affirm to join the Unitarian Christian Alliance (a biblical unitarian network organisation) makes no mention of the Holy Spirit! Thus, while biblical unitarians (today, at least) seem to be united in what they deny about the Holy Spirit—that it is a Person—there seems to be no particular affirmation about the Holy Spirit that unites them.

Moreover, unitarian/Trinitarian polemic concerning the Holy Spirit tends to concentrate largely on the question of personhood (and, a functional level, on whether the Holy Spirit is active).⁵ This debate is over personhood is practically a red herring, as I have argued previously. This is partly because unitarian-Trinitarian debaters do not agree on (and often do not even mention) a definition of personhood,⁶ and partly because Trinitarian theologians do not claim that "Person" (or any other noun) completely captures what the Father, Son, and Spirit are in their distinctness.⁷ Whether or not the Holy Spirit is a "Person" is also irrelevant to Tuggy's logical argument and thus will not be discussed here.

Biblical unitarians, then, emphatically deny that the Holy Spirit is a person, but it is very difficult to pin down what biblical unitarians affirm about that the Holy Spirit. I will attempt to summarise four views that I have encountered, but I must stress that biblical unitarian writers often use vague language about the Holy Spirit and sometimes seem to vacillate between two or more of the views below in the same document.

4.1. The Holy Spirit is a divine power or energy

One of the most common definitions of the Holy Spirit that one finds in biblical unitarian literature describes it as God's power. For example, a website called Australian Christadelphians summarises Christadelphian beliefs about God thus: "There is only one eternal, immortal God. Jesus Christ is his only begotten son and the Holy Spirit is his power." Catechetical materials produced by the Christadelphian Bible Mission (CBM) state that "The Spirit of God is His power through which He makes and supports all things."⁸ The BBC's profile of Christadelphians states simply, "They believe that the Holy Spirit is the power of God." Christadelphian apologists James H. Broughton and Peter J. Southgate describe the Holy Spirit as "the Father's mind and power." They subsequently describe God's Spirit as "His agent," while qualifying that this agent is "not a separate person" and does not have "its own volition."⁹

This language is frustratingly vague. What kind of agent lacks volition (which seems to be necessary for agency)?¹⁰ And what exactly is meant by "his power"? Jesus Christ is also called the power of God (1 Cor. 1:24), but no one would accept "God's power" as an adequate definition of Jesus Christ. So what is this thing that is God's power? Is it something concrete like an energy or force, or something abstract like a property or attribute?

Some biblical unitarian writers tend more in the concrete direction. The Racovian Catechism of the Polish Brethren (originally published in 1605) offers such a view: "The Holy Spirit is a virtue or energy flowing from God to men, and communicated to them."¹¹ In our own time, Anthony Buzzard and Charles F. Hunting write, "In both Testaments 'Holy Spirit' describes the energy of God directed to creation and inspiration. It is God in action and an extension of His personality."¹² The 19th-century founders of the Christadelphian movement, John Thomas and Robert Roberts, describe the Spirit of God in concrete, quasi-physical terms as a kind of energy or matter, and Roberts seems to literally equate it with electricity.¹³ Graham Pearce characterises the Spirit of God as "power, as light from a source."¹⁴

Biblical unitarian writer Sean Finnegan, in an article entitled A Unitarian View of the Holy Spirit, sets out to "put forth a scriptural definition of the Holy Spirit." Having dismissed the idea that the Holy Spirit is "merely an impersonal power...like a battery pack," Finnegan describes "spirit of God" as a "literary device," "a way of referring to Yahweh in action" (which sounds like definition 4.3 below). Yet when he finally offers a "definition," it is more convoluted:

The holy spirit is God in action...as well as the abiding helper distributed under the auspices of the Father by the ascended Messiah... Thus one could say, 'the holy spirit is God,' as well as, 'the holy spirit is Christ,' even though it is technically neither, since they are in heaven, whereas the holy spirit is in God's people. The spirit is simply the way God and Christ are able to indwell and influence the church.

So the holy spirit is God in action, but one would technically be wrong to say "the holy spirit is God." The definition starts off plainly but ends with a non-definition, as a "way...to influence" simply raises the question, "So what is it?" Indeed, "way...to influence" sounds very much like an impersonal power, so it seems Finnegan has taken the reader by a circuitous route back to what he had rejected earlier.

If "Holy Spirit" names a concrete thing like an energy or force distinct from the Father, and this energy or force is divine (which appears to follow if it can be called "God in action" and "God's power"), then premises 2' and 3' hold firm. Therefore, this brand of unitarian pneumatology entails bitheism, if Tuggy's argument is valid.

4.2. The Holy Spirit is a property or aspect of God

Summarising his argument concerning the Holy Spirit in a debate with a Trinitarian, Christadelphian apologist Dave Burke writes,

In Week 4 we saw that the OT provides a consistent doctrine of the Spirit as the power of God manifesting His divine presence; yet not a divine person ('God the Holy Spirit') or the totality of God Himself. We saw that throughout the OT, God’s Holy Spirit is described as something that belongs to Him, like a property or a power. We saw that the NT follows this model exactly, without deviating in any way from OT teaching.

Again, we have some serious vagueness here. Is it like a property or a power, but in fact some unnamed third thing, or is it a property or a power? And if the latter, which of the two is it? (It is a recurring theme of biblical unitarian pneumatology that writers are unable to capture what the Holy Spirit is under a single term.)¹⁵ But, notably, Burke characterises the Holy Spirit as something that belongs to God but cannot be fully identified with him ("not...the totality of God Himself").

Is the Holy Spirit therefore something distinct from God? Or is the Holy Spirit a part of God (akin to his mind, or analogous to the spirit of man)?¹⁶ If the former, then premise 3' holds, and bitheism follows according to Tuggy's argument (unless the Spirit is sub-divine, on which see below). If the latter, then premise 3' may not hold (as the Spirit is then part of the Father, not different from him), but we are not out of the woods. This would be a denial of the classical doctrine of God's simplicity (which holds that God is not composed of parts). But if God (the Father) is a totality composed of parts, and his Spirit is one of the parts, there must be at least one other part that is not the Spirit. Take that part and replace "the Father" with it in premises 1, 3', 5', and 7' in the revised argument. We will still have two things (the Spirit and the Other Part) that differ and that are divine, so by Tuggy's argument we still have at least two gods.

4.3. The Holy Spirit is a circumlocution for God the Father

A third view denies that the term "Holy Spirit" names any distinct reality. "Holy Spirit" is simply a name of God or a circumlocution for God, a "way of speaking" that emphasises especially God's presence and activity in creation. This view is less commonly articulated by Christadelphians but is prevalent among other biblical unitarians such as those who maintain the 21st Century Reformation website and BiblicalUnitarian.com.

The 21st Century Reformation website states, "The spirit of God is not a separate individual from the Father. It is the Father extending himself to us by his mighty power" (emphasis added). In another article on the same site, J. Dan Gill states, under the heading "His Spirit is Him,"

The spirit of God is the Father himself at work... the spirit of God is not a separate agent or person of co-Deity. Rather, it is the Father in action. What has been done by the hand or spirit of God has literally been done by the Father himself.

An anonymous article "What about 'the Holy Spirit'?" on BiblicalUnitarian.com expresses a similar view:

Since 'the only true God' is 'the Father,' and since He is 'holy' and He is 'spirit,' He is also referred to in Scripture as 'the Holy Spirit.' ... The Giver is God, the only true God, the Father, the Holy Spirit... the Holy Spirit is not a person, existing independently of God; it is a way of speaking about God’s personally acting in history, or of the risen Christ’s personally acting in the life and witness of the Church. (emphasis added)

Another anonymous article on the same site, "What is the Holy Spirit?" adds that the term "Holy Spirit" has two distinct meanings in Scripture, which should actually be capitalised differently to distinguish them:

In the Bible, “HOLY SPIRIT” is primarily used in two very different ways: One way is to refer to God Himself, and the other way is referring to God’s nature that He gives to people. God is holy and is spirit, and “the Holy Spirit” (capital “H” and “S”) is one of the many “names,” or designations, for God (the one God, known as “Yahweh”). Also, however, God gives His holy spirit nature to people as a gift to spiritually empower them, and when HOLY SPIRIT is used that way it should be translated as “holy spirit” (lower case “h” and “s”)... “HOLY SPIRIT” is either a way of speaking about God, or the gift of God’s nature¹⁷

This view of the Holy Spirit looks a lot like Sabellianism or modalism, a heresy in the early church that reduced the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to modes of divine revelation like masks God would put on, rather than maintaining the real distinction between the three.¹⁸ However, it is not really modalism, because in this case God the Father is the reality and the Holy Spirit is neither the reality nor a mode. It is merely a "way of speaking about" the Father: a literary device; a figure of speech. In short, the Holy Spirit as such does not exist—does not name any distinct ontological reality—and for that reason this circumlocution pneumatology could be called apneumatism. It is not very far removed from the view held by some disciples in Ephesus who admitted that they were not aware "that there is a holy spirit" (Acts 19:2).

The circumlocution view does avoid the charge of bitheism under Tuggy's argument, since it denies premise 3' (that the Father and the Holy Spirit differ). The question is, at what cost in terms of fidelity to the biblical witness?

4.4. The Holy Spirit is a sub-divine, created thing

The notion that the Holy Spirit, like the Son, is a sub-divine creature or created thing would allow unitarians to escape Tuggy's argument by denying premise 2'. However, this does not seem to be a popular position among contemporary unitarians. It has had its proponents historically; it seems to have been popular among non-Trinitarians of the patristic age.¹⁹ A famous post-Reformation defender was the 17th-century English unitarian John Biddle. In his Confession of Faith, Biddle argues that Ephesians 4:4-6 implies that the Holy Spirit is created:

For when he saith, that there is one Spirit, he must mean either one created, or one uncreated Spirit, since (whatsoever some talk to the contrary) no other kind of Spirit is conceivable: Not one uncreated Spirit, for so there will be another uncreated Spirit besides God, (which is absurd) since this Spirit here is plainly and purposely distinguished from God; wherefore he meaneth one created Spirit²⁰

He proceeds to infer "that the holy Spirit is in the number of Angels... I intimate the Holy Spirit to be an Angel"²¹ To identify the Holy Spirit as an angel one must first accept his personhood, which Biddle did but most unitarians do not.²² However, it is in principle possible to view the Holy Spirit as a sub-divine energy or power (as in 4.1) that God creates or produces. Some contemporary unitarians seem to hint that the Holy Spirit is sub-divine without explicitly stating that it is created. Dave Burke, for instance, writes concerning the Farewell Discourse of John 14-16 that Jesus' language

does not ascribe any divine names or titles to the Holy Spirit, and it does not ascribe any uniquely divine properties, privileges or attributes to the Holy Spirit. Why doesn’t Jesus refer to the Holy Spirit as “God”, or even “Lord”?

Despite such language, one generally does not find unitarians who hold view 4.1 or 4.2 above explicitly calling the Holy Spirit sub-divine or denying that the Holy Spirit is divine. There are obvious logical reasons for this: how can "the Spirit of God" not be divine? How can God make himself present through a sub-divine force or energy? Or how can God have a sub-divine property or be composed of sub-divine parts?

4.5. Summary

Those who hold one of the first two views—that the Holy Spirit is a divine thing (such as a power or energy or property or aspect)—seem to affirm premises 2' and 3', and are therefore, by the logic of Tuggy's argument, bitheists. Those who hold one of the last two views—that the Holy Spirit is a circumlocution for God the Father, or a sub-divine created thing—escape the charge of bitheism, by denying premise 3' or 2', respectively. The third and fourth views are thus stronger theological positions (again, assuming the validity of Tuggy's argument). The question that we need to ask, however, is whether these two positions are tenable in light of the biblical witness. In the next section, we will argue briefly that they are not.

5. A Biblical Critique of the Circumlocution and Creature Pneumatologies

Before discussing the merits of views 4.3 and 4.4 in light of Scripture, let us observe that these two pneumatologies are in direct contradiction, as strongly as (say) Arianism and Sabellianism in Christology. Any argument that the Holy Spirit is simply a "way of speaking about" the Father will necessarily refute the idea that the Holy Spirit is sub-divine or created, and vice versa. In fact, however, the Scriptures overwhelmingly testify that the Holy Spirit is both distinct from the Father and divine.

5.1. The Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father

In the Hebrew Bible there is definite tension between the identification between God and his Spirit and the distinction between God and his Spirit. Mehrdad Fatehi summarises well:

The ruach Yahweh in the OT is a relational concept referring to Yahweh in his active relation to his creation and his people. This has three important corollaries: 1) The Spirit does not refer primarily to Yahweh as he is in himself or to his inner being or personality, but to Yahweh as he communicates himself, i.e. his power, his life, his wisdom, his will, or his presence, to the world. 2) Nevertheless, the Spirit of Yahweh is never regarded as an entity distinct or separable from Yahweh. It rather represents Yahweh himself in his action towards the world. 3) Yahweh though is not reduced to his ruach. The identification between Yahweh and his Spirit is always dynamic. Yahweh is always greater than his revelatory or redemptive act through his Spirit.²³

There is an obvious tension here: the Spirit is Yahweh himself but in a dynamic relation that cannot be reduced to simple identity as in Yahweh = ruach Yahweh. The tension means that the Spirit cannot be reduced to a sub-divine entity separate from God (pace view 4.4 above) but also that it cannot be reduced to a circumlocution for God (pace view 4.3). Preserving this tension and avoiding reductionism is one of the advantages of Trinitarian theology. But I digress.

One of the most intriguing references to the Spirit in the Hebrew Bible occurs in Isaiah 48:16. Here, between two oracles spoken by God in the first person ("Thus says Yahweh...") is sandwiched a little speech by a mysterious third party:

Draw near to me, hear this!

From the beginning I have not spoken in secret,

from the time it came to be I have been there.

And now the Lord God has sent me and his spirit. (NRSV)

This verse has so vexed scholars that some regard part or all of the verse as a late gloss, or propose various emendations of the text.²⁴ If we interpret as it stands (as the Church Fathers did, unsurprisingly in Trinitarian fashion),²⁵ we have a quasi-divine figure who uses language just like Yahweh has been using throughout deutero-Isaiah about having existed and spoken from the beginning,²⁶ and yet who distinguishes himself from God as having been sent by him. Most intriguing for our purposes is that the quasi-divine speaker groups himself together with the Spirit as having been sent by God. If the Spirit is merely a circumlocution for God, we apparently have in this passage two circumlocutions for God—one of them unnamed—who are distinguished from God as having been sent by him!

Pursuant to the idea expressed in Isaiah 48:16, in the New Testament the Holy Spirit is re-revealed as a figure (whether you choose to call it a person or a thing) analogous to the Son of God. Just as the Father sent the Son, so he will sent "another Advocate" (allos paraklētos, John 14:16) who, like Jesus, will not speak on his own, but what he hears from the Father (John 16:13; cp. 5:30; 7:17). Since biblical unitarians emphatically affirm that the Son is distinct from the Father—indeed, Tuggy used precisely such "sending" language as proof of this—they should have no difficulty acknowledging that the Spirit is likewise distinct from the Father. And if this were not enough, we have numerous passages where the Holy Spirit is listed alongside the Father and the Son.²⁷ How can we read "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19) and conclude that the Son is really distinguished from the Father but the Holy Spirit is not? Or how can the Spirit be described as the Spirit of God's Son (Gal. 4:6) if God's Son is a distinct,²⁸ sub-divine figure but the Spirit is a circumlocution for God himself?

5.2. The Holy Spirit is divine

Although, as mentioned, few unitarians since John Biddle have denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, it is worth briefly commenting on this issue. We have already stated that it is difficult to conceive of how the Holy Spirit could be a power, energy, property, or part of God without being divine itself. As for being a creature, the Scriptures speak of the Spirit's involvement in creation (e.g., Genesis 1:1-2, Job 33:4, Psalm 104:30, Judith 16:14), but never—as far as I can tell—of the Spirit having been created. In Acts 5:3-4, Peter equates lying to the Holy Spirit with lying to God. And Jesus teaches that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the one kind of blasphemy that will not be forgiven (Matt. 12:31-32 par.) This, together with the broad evidence for dynamic identity between God and his Spirit (as acknowledged by the "circumlocution camp") ought to suffice to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit is divine.

We can very briefly respond to six of biblical unitarian Sean Finnegan's objections about the Holy Spirit, though he is not explicitly objecting to the Holy Spirit's divinity, but to the idea that the Holy Spirit is a distinct "person." (1) Finnegan objects that the Holy Spirit does not have a name, whereas the Father and the Son do. But Matthew 28:19 explicitly says "in the name of the Father and [the name] of the Son and [the name] of the Holy Spirit." The words to onoma ("the name") are not repeated thrice as this would be verbose and redundant, since it is obvious to the reader that the parallel occurrences of kai tou ("and of the") refer back to onoma. (2) The Holy Spirit never sends greetings in the salutations in Paul's letters. But if we regard Paul's letters as Scripture, and the Holy Spirit speaks through scriptural authors (Acts 28:25), then the Holy Spirit is speaking these greetings from the Father and the Son. Furthermore, Finnegan seems to have overlooked that in Revelation 1:4-5, the seven churches of Asia do explicitly receive greetings from God, "and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ". As Bogdan G. Bucur writes,

The blessing with ‘grace and peace’ is suggestive of a divine origin. The three must, then, in some way stand for the divinity…It seems most likely, therefore, that the mentioning of the ‘seven spirits’ corresponds to the expected reference to the Holy Spirit. In other words, the author’s expression ‘seven spirits’ would designate what the early Church usually referred to as ‘Holy Spirit.’²⁹

(3) The Holy Spirit is owned by God, because it is called "the Spirit of God" the way Grace's dog might be called "the dog of Grace." This is an oversimplification of the function of the genitive, which has many functions besides ownership. Moreover, if Finnegan's argument holds then the phrase "the Spirit of Christ" implies that the Holy Spirit is also owned by Christ—a real oddity for unitarian theology. In fact, the genitive can refer to source. And as the Creed itself states, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. (4) The Holy Spirit is never prayed to. This objection misapprehends the function of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. The Spirit is not primarily regarded as dwelling in heaven but in the church and in the hearts of the faithful. Therefore, rather than praying to the Holy Spirit, believers pray in the Holy Spirit (Eph. 6:18; Phil. 3:3; Jude 20), and the Spirit intercedes for them (Rom. 8:26-27). (5) The Holy Spirit is missing from statements like that of Matthew 11:27 ("No one knows the Father but the Son, and no one knows the Son but the Father"). This is an argument from silence; if the theological implication is that the Holy Spirit does not know the Father or the Son, it is odd that Paul should elsewhere write, "So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God." (1 Cor. 2:11 NRSV) (6) The Holy Spirit is left out of heavenly throne visions such as those in Isaiah 6, Daniel 7, and Revelation 4. Firstly, some early Christian interpreters understood the two "seraphim" in Isaiah's vision to be the Son and the Spirit.³⁰ Secondly, the absence of the Spirit of God from the vision of Daniel 7 is hardly surprising given that the Book of Daniel never mentions the Spirit of God at all.³¹ Thirdly, the throne vision of Revelation 4 does mention "and in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God" (Rev. 4:5 NRSV). The unusual phraseology does not mean that the seven spirits of God are other than the Holy Spirit; the expression alludes to the seven operations of the Spirit of God mentioned in Isaiah 11:2-3 LXX.³² In Revelation 5:6, the seven spirits of God are depicted again, now as seven horns and eyes of the Lamb in the midst of the throne. So the Holy Spirit is certainly not absent from the throne in this vision.

6. Conclusion

  

Biblical unitarians who teach a pneumatology like that described in 4.1 or 4.2 above—that the Holy Spirit is a power, energy, property, or aspect of God—have departed from monotheism, at least according to the logical argument of unitarian philosopher Prof. Dale Tuggy. Biblical unitarians who wish to avoid bitheism basically have two options, which are the circumlocution pneumatology that I have pejoratively called apneumatism (4.3) and a sub-divine creature pneumatology like that of John Biddle (4.4). However, both of these positions are biblically untenable.

An alternative is to reject the logic of Tuggy's argument. But in that case, biblical unitarians must either construct a new argument or admit that the doctrine of the Trinity is monotheistic. And so perhaps the best option of all for biblical unitarians is to return to their catholic roots and accept the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, the touchstone of Christian unity for over 1600 years. While Trinitarian theology is often accused of overcomplication, the Trinitarian view of the Holy Spirit can be stated very straightforwardly: the Holy Spirit is another of what the Father and the Son are. Call it a divine "Person" if you prefer.

• 1 Dale Tuggy, "Metaphysics and Logic of the Trinity," Oxford Handbooks Online (2016): 1-8. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935314.013.27.
• 2 "Multitheistic" might be a more accurate term, since the prefix "poly-" means "many" and not merely "multiple." However, the word English multitheism is usually used to refer to the existence of multiple kinds of theism, rather than the belief in multiple gods.
• 3 This is not to say that the Son and the Holy Spirit are identical for Trinitarians, since for example the Son has become incarnate and the Spirit has not.
• 4 See, e.g., Psalm 104:30, Wisdom 9:17, John 14:26, Galatians 4:6, 1 Peter 1:12, Revelation 5:6.
• 5 The debate over whether the Spirit is active is sharpest among Christadelphians, who have historically held a hypercessationist position. I have not looked extensively into what other biblical unitarian groups believe about the Spirit's present activity, but they do seem to allow for it.
• 6 See further discussion on pp. 3-4 of my Review of and Response to The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity’s Self-Inflicted Wound, By Anthony F. Buzzard and Charles F. Hunting.
• 7 St. Augustine discusses this at length in his work de Trinitate. He usually refers to the Father, Son, and Spirit as three personae ("persons"), but acknowledges that this term is insufficient: "When, then, it is asked what the three are, or who the three are, we betake ourselves to the finding out of some special or general name under which we may embrace these three; and no such name occurs to the mind, because the super-eminence of the Godhead surpasses the power of customary speech" (de Trinitate, VII.4.7). At one point he famously remarks that it cannot be denied that there are tria quaedem ("three somethings," de Trinitate VII.4.9), just as St. Anselm would later write, "And so it is evidently expedient for every man to believe in a certain ineffable trinal unity, and in one Trinity; one and a unity because of its one essence, but trinal and a trinity because of its three—what (tres nescio quid, literally "three I know not what")? For, although I can speak of a Trinity because of Father and Son and the Spirit of both, who are three; yet I cannot, in one word, show why they are three" (Monologion 79).
• 8 Some biblical unitarian writers suggest that the Spirit of God and the Holy Spirit are different (e.g., Graham Pearce, The Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit Gifts [Adelaide: Logos, 1975], 13). Such a distinction is unwarranted. That these terms are interchangeable is evident from passages such as 1 Corinthians 12:3, Ephesians 4:30, and Romans 15:16-18. Often in the New Testament the shorter term "the Spirit" is used.
• 9 The Trinity: True or False? (2nd edn; Nottingham: The Dawn Book Supply, 2002), 82, 93, 97.
• 10 One definition of agency given by Cambridge Dictionary is "the ability to take action or to choose what action to take". Notably, 1 Corinthians 12:11 certainly appears to ascribe volition to the Spirit, stating that it allots gifts to each person as it wishes.
• 11 Thomas Rees (trans.), The Racovian Catechism (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1818), 285).
• 12 The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound (Lanham: International Scholars Publications, 1998), 226.
• 13 See footnotes in the tenth paragraph of this article for relevant quotations from their writings.
• 14 The Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit Gifts, 13.
• 15 It is the Father's mind and his power; it is like a property or a power; it is one of the names of God and it is the gift of God. Christadelphian writer Aleck Crawford, in his book The Spirit: A General Exposition on New Testament Usage (1974) does not give any definition of the Spirit, and seems to think it inadvisable to do so. But he conflates the multivalence of the Greek word pneuma with the particularity of the reality designated "the Holy Spirit" or "the Spirit of God": "The very large number of attempts that have been made at establishing a blanket rule is itself an indication of the difficulty, not to say the impossibility, of arriving at a universally satisfactory solution to the problem."
• 16 We have seen above that Broughton and Southgate equate the Holy Spirit with the Father's mind. About the closest that Christadelphian writer Peter Schwartzkopff comes to defining the Spirit of God in his book of that title is, "Clearly in one sense the Spirit of God has to do with his mind –his way of thinking and feeling" (The Spirit of God [n.d.], 5). To his credit, Schwartzkopff realises that he is trying to "Defin[e] the Undefinable" (ibid., 3), seemingly acknowledging that there is an element of mystery in any attempt to describe God. Biblical unitarian Kermit Zarley writes that "the Spirit of God is to God what the spirit of man is to man." This matter-of-fact anthropomorphism seems to miss that any analogy we may make from the human sphere to describe God is going to be woefully inadequate for describing his infinite majesty.
• 17 Ironically, another biblical unitarian, Kermit Zarley, criticises Trinitarian translators for capitalising "Holy Spirit" whereas the original biblical manuscripts did not distinguish between lower and upper case and thus only reflect interpretative bias.
• 18 Notably, Sean Finnegan actually describes Old Testament language about the spirit of God as "ways of referring to the almighty, transcendent God in His mode of acting within creation".
• 19 Fourth-century Church Fathers such as St. Basil of Caesarea warned about those who attack the Holy Spirit (called Pneumatomachi) by asserting that he "is a creature" (Basil of Caesarea, Letters, 8.10).
• 20 John Biddle, A Confession of Faith Touching the Holy Trinity according to the Scripture (London: 1648), 3.
• 21 Confession of Faith, 50, 57.
• 22 Biddle rebuts the arguments of other non-Trinitarians who held the Holy Spirit to be a personified power.
• 23 The Spirit’s Relation to the Risen Lord in Paul: An Examination of Its Christological Implications (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 63.
• 24 For an overview of the text and interpretative options, see Wonsuk Ma, Until the Spirit Comes: The Spirit of God in the Book of Isaiah (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 117-21.
• 25 Origen, the earliest extant writer to cite this passage, writes: "Since, however, it is a Jew who raises difficulties in the story of the Holy Spirit's descent in the form of a dove to Jesus, I would say to him: My good man, who is the speaker in Isaiah who says 'And now the Lord sent me and his spirit'? In this text although it is doubtful whether it means that the Father and the Holy Spirit sent Jesus or that the Father sent Christ and the Holy Spirit, it is the second interpretation which is right. After the Saviour had been sent, then the Holy Spirit was sent, in order that the prophet's saying might be fulfilled" (Contra Celsum 1.46, trans. Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum: Translated with an Introduction and Notes [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953], 42).
• 26 Cf. Isaiah 40:21; 41:4; 41:26; 45:21; 46:10. Ma notes that if v. 16b ("And now the Lord God has sent me and his spirit") is removed, "the entire passage from v. 12 to v. 22 flows undisturbed" (Until the Spirit Comes, 117). In other words, there is nothing about the first part of v. 16 to suggest that it is spoken by a figure other than God himself.
• 27 E.g., Matthew 3:16-17, 2 Corinthians 13:13, Ephesians 4:4-6, 1 Peter 1:2, Revelation 1:4-5.
• 28 See also Acts 16:7, Romans 8:9, Philippians 1:19, 1 Peter 1:11.
• 29 Angelomorphic Pneumatology: Clement of Alexandria and Other Early Christian Witnesses (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 92.
• 30 Origen, for instance, writes concerning his Jewish Christian teacher, "My Hebrew master also used to say that those two seraphim in Isaiah, which are described as having each six wings, and calling to one another, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts, were to be understood of the only-begotten Son of God and of the Holy Spirit." (De Principiis 1.3.4). This interpretation likely also underlies the throne vision in the late-first-century Jewish Christian apocalypse The Ascension of Isaiah (on which see more here), in which Christ and the Spirit are seated at the right and left of the great throne, and both receive worship and worship the Great Glory. 
• 31 There are several mentions of "a spirit of the holy gods," but always on the lips of Babylonians.
• 32 "And the spirit of God shall rest on him, the spirit of (1) wisdom and (2) understanding, the spirit of (3) counsel and (4) might, the spirit of (5) knowledge and (6) godliness. The spirit of (7) the fear of God will fill him." (NETS; numbering added). St. Augustine, quoting this text, asks, "Are they not there called the seven Spirits of God, while there is only one and the same Spirit dividing to every one severally as He will? But the septenary operation of the one Spirit was so called by the Spirit Himself" (Tractates on the Gospel of John 122.8). St. Hippolytus of Rome actually paraphrases Isaiah 11:2 as stating, "And the seven spirits of God shall rest upon Him" (Fragment on Proverbs 9:1).

Baconianism and the Intellectual Origins of the Christadelphian Movement

1. Introduction

2. Bacon's Scientific Method

3. Scottish Common Sense Realism and the Baconian Theological Method

4. The Baconian Theological Method in the Stone-Campbell Movement

5. The (Anti-)Hermeneutic of John Thomas, Founder of the Christadelphians

6. A Critique of the Baconian Hermeneutic

7. Conclusion

1. Introduction

One cannot properly evaluate a religious movement without understanding its intellectual pedigree. The purpose of this article is to delve into a philosophical and hermeneutical school of thought called Baconianism that rose to prominence in early 19th-century America—especially among restorationists such as Alexander Campbell—and undoubtedly influenced John Thomas, founder of the Christadelphians. At a descriptive level this will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of Christadelphian origins (for Christadelphians and anyone else interested in the movement). At a prescriptive level, the article also offers a critique of Baconianism.

Restorationism was a religious ideal that rose to prominence in the United States in the first half of the 19th century. Although the ideal took many forms, one of the most influential was that of the Stone-Campbell Movement. I have written on this movement elsewhere, but briefly, it was founded by a Scottish Presbyterian minister, Thomas Campbell (1763-1854), and his son Alexander (1788-1866). The two other most influential leaders in the movement were Barton W. Stone (whose movement merged with the Campbells') and Walter Scott. This movement eventually gave rise to several denominations or groups that still exist today, including the Disciples of Christ, Christian churches, Church of Christ, and Christadelphians (whose founder, John Thomas, broke with Campbell and established his own sect in the late 1840s).

The key premises of the "restoration" spearheaded by Alexander Campbell were that (a) the Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations of the day were all apostate, and (b) the antidote was to restore and spread what Campbell called the "ancient gospel and order of things," by attending to the plain truths of the Bible. This would "result in the unity of Christians and the conversion of the world."¹

The focus of this article is on the method by which Campbell and his fellow restorationists sought to arrive at true doctrine. This has been called the Baconian hermeneutical² method because of its conscious indebtedness to Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), an English lawyer and philosopher who is regarded as the father of the scientific method. Before we describe the Baconian theological method, however, we need to provide background on Bacon's philosophy.

2. Bacon's Scientific Method

Bacon's main contributions on natural philosophy—what might today be called the philosophy of science—came toward the end of his life. He was a kind of scientific restorationist, in that he called for a "Great Instauration," which aimed at a "total reconstruction of the sciences, arts, and all human knowledge, raised upon the proper foundations."³ This restoration was necessitated by deficiencies in the level of knowledge available in his day, in which words often counted more than facts, and superstition and error could easily be perpetuated. If only people used the right methods, Bacon believed, nature could be understood and controlled much better.

Bacon's work Novum Organum was intended to supplant Aristotle's Organum, which represented the traditional account of reasoning in science. The main features of Bacon's method were that it was inductive and experimental.⁴ It was inductive in the sense that it entailed inferring a general conclusion from particular facts, and experimental in the sense that these facts were to be ascertained from real, practical, systematic experiments. Indeed, Bacon called for new "experimental histories" to be written on almost every area of science as he understood it, creating catalogues of observed phenomena that could then serve as a basis for inductive reasoning. These histories had to be created anew because, in Bacon's judgment, experiments had been undertaken haphazardly in the past, without a view to inducing general principles.

3. Scottish Common Sense Realism and the Baconian Theological Method

Scottish Common Sense Realism was a philosophy founded by Thomas Reid (1710-1796), a Presbyterian minister and professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow University, where both Thomas and Alexander Campbell studied.⁵ As Foster explains,

Central to this philosophy was the belief that the data collected by the human senses, when confirmed by the testimony of others, was a reliable source of knowledge. Against the skeptical philosophy of David Hume, Reid insisted that the things humans perceive are the real external objects themselves, not images created by the mind. Through a careful, slow, painstaking process of experimentation and observation, of collecting data and inducing patterns, one could arrive at the facts—theoretically about anything.⁶

Reid's philosophy revitalised both realism and the inductive method of reasoning. It entailed a radically optimistic view of the observer's objectivity and a favourable view of the inductive approach to learning and science championed by Sir Francis Bacon.⁷ Baconianism, as articulated by the Scottish Common Sense Philosophy (SCSP), entailed a scrupulous empiricism grounded in confidence in the senses, and inductive control of generalisations by constant reference to "facts".⁸ As a corollary, "Abstract concepts not immediately forged from observed data have no place in scientific explanation."⁹

It would be difficult to overstate the influence of SCSP, and Baconianism in particular, on some parts of American Protestantism during the antebellum period.¹⁰  As Noll writes,

the Common Sense philosophy has been the sole intellectual tradition for some evangelicals... for these evangelicals most of the functions normally fulfilled by a world view—habits of inquiry, assumptions about the construction and accessibility of truth, attitudes toward certainty and self-reflection—are the product almost exclusively of the Common Sense tradition.¹¹

Allen concurs:

For significant sectors of American Protestantism during this period, Baconianism was held up as the true method for study of both the natural world and the Bible.¹²

4. The Baconian Theological Method in the Stone-Campbell Movement

Noll notes that, "As a general rule, when a group professes to live by 'no creed but the Bible,' it is a good indication that it relies consistently, if not necessarily self-consciously, on the Common Sense tradition."¹³ And this was one of Alexander Campbell's most cherished slogans. "Let the Bible be substituted for all human creeds," he wrote;¹⁴ and "We choose to speak of Bible things by Bible words."¹⁵ Waers argues that Campbell's appropriation of Scottish Common Sense philosophy was one of the major factors in his rejection of certain Reformed doctrines.¹⁶ Equally, Campbell was an enthusiastic admirer of Bacon and his inductive method. He grouped Bacon with Locke and Newton as the three great thinkers of modernity,¹⁷ and his movement's first higher education institution was named Bacon College.

Bacon's natural philosophy was at the heart of Campbell's reformation movement. While Bacon had sought a scientific restoration, Campbell sought to employ Bacon's methods in a religious restoration. Having outlined "Lord Bacon's philosophy" of science, Campbell declared, "Now all that we want is to carry the same lesson and the same principle to theology."¹⁸ As recent Campbell biographer Douglas Foster puts it, "Campbell would come to rely entirely on the Baconian method to arrive at Christian doctrine".¹⁹ In Campbell's theological method, the plain testimony of Scripture provided the "facts" (the data set) from which doctrines (generalisations) could be induced.²⁰ In Allen's words,

In order to bring about 'a restoration of the ancient order of things,' systematic theology was to be rejected and religious discussion confined to the 'plain declarations recorded in the Bible'... In the same way that Bacon wanted to abolish the medieval scholastic theories of science and place science upon an inductive basis, so Campbell wanted to abolish the dogmatic creeds and systems of religion and place Christianity upon an inductive basis.²¹

Allen notes that the most explicit articulation of this Baconian hermeneutic is found in James S. Lamar's 1860 book The Organon of Scripture.²² Lamar was a graduate of Bacon College and his book received a glowing endorsement from the aged Campbell. For Lamar, the conflict of opposing creeds and doctrines in Christianity was due to "the uncertainty of biblical interpretation," which however was not due either to the ambiguity of the Bible or the depravity or incompetence of its interpreters, but to the use of flawed methods of interpretation.²³ What is required, therefore, is "the establishment of an all-comprehensive and pervading method" of biblical interpretation (or "hermeneutical science").²⁴ This is none other than the Baconian method, which he proceeds to explain in great detail. Lamar touts the success of the Baconian method as implemented within the Stone-Campbell reformation:

Their movement, in its incipiency, was a grand and determined effort to burst the bonds of ecclesiastical authority, to separate the Bible from its unholy and unnatural alliance with philosophy, to bring it to bear upon the minds and hearts of men responsible for the reception given to it, and to determine its meaning from its own words, without respect to recognized and consecrated dogmata. Their success is known and read of all... Their sturdy and manly blows battered down the walls which shut out the light of scientific truth, at the same time that they forced the corrupters of the faith to retire from the contest, and leave the Bible in the hands of responsible men in the exercise of common sense.²⁵

5. The (Anti-)Hermeneutic of John Thomas, Founder of the Christadelphians

 5.1. Hints of Indebtedness to Baconianism

John Thomas (1805-71) was a British medical doctor who emigrated to the United States in 1832. Within a few weeks he had taken up with the Campbells' restoration movement and was baptised by one of its leaders, Walter Scott. By 1834, Thomas had become a protégé of Alexander Campbell and launched his own periodical, The Apostolic Advocate. Within a few years, however, Thomas and Campbell fell out over two issues: Thomas' practice of (re-)baptising Baptists who joined the movement, and Thomas' teaching that death annihilates the human person. The two reconciled but soon fell out again, and by the early 1840s Thomas was persona non grata in many of the movement's churches (though he retained some loyal sympathisers, especially in Virginia). Thomas launched a new periodical, Herald of the Future Age, where in 1847 he published a "Confession and Abjuration," renouncing many of his previous beliefs. Now convinced that Campbell's movement was teaching heresy, he had himself re-baptised and began to enthusiastically spread the gospel as he understood it, both in North America and Great Britain. The result was what would (from 1864 onwards) be known as the Christadelphian community. Thomas continued itinerant preaching, editing the Herald (until 1860),²⁶ and writing books and pamphlets until his death in 1871.

At the beginning of his career as a religious writer, Thomas refers to Bacon when outlining his approach to interpreting the Book of Revelation:

Be it observed, however, that there is not a single speculation in the religion or doctrine of Christ. In my investigation, therefore, I have renounced speculation and substituted, according to the suggestion of lord Bacon, the simple narration of historical facts.²⁷

This is a Baconian statement worthy of Campbell, and suggests that Thomas was basically on board with the movement's SCSP-influenced Baconian hermeneutical programme. Further support for this can be found in Thomas' later writings,²⁸ and he nowhere renounces the programme's basic principles of common-sense interpretation and constructing doctrine inductively.

 5.2. De-Emphasis on Baconian (and all other) Hermeneutics

Despite Thomas' apparent acceptance of Baconianism, his writings differ sharply from Campbell's in the degree of importance assigned to the method. For Campbell, the Baconian method of biblical interpretation was the key to the whole reformation, and if implemented consistently would unlock the door of doctrinal unity among Christians. Therefore he discusses the method frequently and in detail. Thomas seems to have adopted Baconianism, but he very rarely mentions it, or the methodology of biblical interpretation in general. Why is this?

At least three reasons (which are not mutually exclusive) may be suggested. First, the beginning of the restoration movement is usually dated to 1809, when Thomas Campbell published his Declaration and Address. By the time John Thomas joined the movement in 1832, its Baconian hermeneutic was well-established and would have been assumed by most of Thomas' subsequent readers. Moreover, if this hermeneutic were self-evident "common sense," there was no need to defend it or theorise about it; one could just get on with practicing it. Hence, Thomas' relative silence on Baconianism could be attributed to his taking the method for granted.

The second reason is a rhetorical one. Consider the following tension in Campbell's writings. On the one hand, he blames the schisms and parties that have abounded since the Reformation on "philosophy" and "opinions," and calls for "human philosophy" to "be thrown overboard into the sea," substituted by "the Bible only, in word and deed, in profession and practice."²⁹ On the other hand, he is clearly operating within a Scottish Common Sense philosophical framework, and acknowledges his debt to Bacon, Locke, and other philosophers.³⁰ Waers suggests that Campbell did not, or was unable to, see Baconianism as a philosophical theory.³¹ While Campbell may have missed the irony of using Enlightenment-era philosophy to "restore" ancient Christianity, Thomas may have perceived it. To successfully argue that one is a true "Bible-only" Protestant, one must downplay one's indebtedness to any post-biblical philosophy or hermeneutic. Therefore, by straightforwardly identifying his own interpretations with the "common-sense" or "natural" meaning of the Bible, Thomas could present himself as an independent, objective witness to Christian truth.

The third reason stems from Thomas' schism with Campbell and other schisms in the restoration movement. If all were using the same (Baconian) method of interpretation, and yet were arriving at conflicting doctrines, the method itself must be insufficient. That Thomas thought in such terms is evident from his criticism of disparagement of the hermeneutical training of others, including Alexander Campbell. In assailing Bishop Robert Lowth's translation of Isaiah 18, he writes sarcastically of both Lowth and Campbell,

Yet [Lowth] was profoundly skilled in 'hermeneutics,' at least as much so as any 'bible unionists' of our time, who are making so broad their phylacteries in new translationism, and the laws of exegesis! ... [Campbell] is of course well-skilled in all the settled canons of translation and interpretation sanctioned by the Protestant educated world... [but] what obscurity has he not deepened by his hermeneutics? Pshaw! What are 'canons' worth that reduce prophetic writings to a level with 'an old Jewish almanac?' ... A man may be profoundly skilled in hermeneutics, and yet profoundly incompetent to translate and interpret the Scriptures correctly. He is like one who can name his tools, but knows not how to use them.³²

Indeed, Thomas elsewhere dismisses the very term "hermeneutics" as part of a campaign of subterfuge! Commenting on the false knowledge mentioned in 1 Timothy 6:20, he states,

The same thing is styled in our day 'theological science,' 'divinity,' 'ethics,' 'hermeneutics,' and so forth; terms invented to amaze the ignorant, and to impress them with the necessity of schools and colleges for the indoctrination of pious youth in the mysteries they learnedly conceal.³³

Elsewhere, Thomas cites biblical passages about the need to be child-like, and about God using the foolish things of the world to confound the wise,³⁴ to argue that hermeneutics and philosophy hinder rather than help the theologian. Indeed, he scolds his former mentor Walter Scott for taking too much interest in Bacon:

Though a very amiable gentleman, Mr. Scott has not yet become 'a little child;' and without this, the Great Teacher saith, we 'cannot enter into the kingdom of the heavens.' Mr. Scott must empty himself of his modern reformers, and the jargon of the schools; he must forget Bacon, Locke, and Logic... his brains are bewildered with analytic and synthetic synopsed until he can see no more; this must all be abandoned. A head under the pressure of all this learned lumber is unfit for the study of 'the word.' The heads of babes and sucklings out of whose mouths the Deity perfecteth praise, are not befuddled with such speculative twaddle. Mr. Scott must cease to ape 'the wise and prudent,' and become as a little child. So skilled in analytic, let him analyze the mentality of a child; and then let him synthesize the elements into a proposition, and conform thereto.³⁵

 5.3. A Common Sense Antihermeneutic

If "hermeneutics" and even "logic" ought to be forgotten, it is clear that for Thomas, neither the Baconian method nor any other method is the way to restore the apostolic order. This reading of Thomas' thought seems to be confirmed by the introduction to Elpis Israel—his evangelistic manifesto, first published in 1848. Thomas does provide information about his approach to the Bible, but he does not lay out his hermeneutic, or even admit to having one. Given this, together with his attacks on "hermeneutics" elsewhere, his hermeneutic would be best described as an antimethodology—defined by Wiktionary as "An approach to study or analysis that eschews the usual methodology, or methodologies in general"³⁶—or antihermeneutic. But how does Thomas propose to interpret the Bible if "hermeneutics" are off the table?

Elpis Israel makes clear that, for Thomas, the only way to arrive at religious truth is to know "the true meaning of the Bible."³⁷ However, there is an evil conspiracy at work: "the human mind has developed the organisation of a system of things impiously hostile to the institutions and wisdom of Jehovah"³⁸; its name is "MYSTERY" and it is none other than Catholic and Protestant Christendom. To arrive at biblical truth, therefore, one must 

Cast away to the owls and to the bats the traditions of men, and the prejudices indoctrinated into thy mind by their means; make a whole burnt offering of their creeds, confessions, catechisms, and articles of religion... Let us repudiate their dogmatisms; let us renounce their mysteries; and let us declare our independence of all human authority in matters of faith and practice extra the word of God.³⁹

Having jettisoned all ecclesiastical dogma and tradition and begun anew with a blank slate, the individual must "Search the scriptures with the teachableness of a little child," believing nothing but what can be "demonstrated by the grammatical sense of the scriptures."⁴⁰ The virtues that maximise the chances of correctly interpreting the Bible are "humility, teachableness, and independence of mind," and diligent seeking.⁴¹ In his other major work, Eureka, Thomas asks a rhetorical question that captures his common-sense antihermeneutic succinctly: "Suppose a man of common sense...study only the sacred books, is it not conceivable that he may acquire a competent, nay, even an eminent knowledge of the scriptures?"⁴² 

Thus, for Thomas, the ingredients for sound doctrine are nothing more than the Bible itself and common sense, exercised with independence, humility, and diligence. One should not fail to notice the Baconian flavour of this antihermeneutic: dumping creeds and dogmas and limiting oneself to what is demonstrable from the grammatical sense of Scripture as adjudicated by common sense are axiomatic in Baconianism. However, Thomas does not place any emphasis or trust in a method. The locus of common sense interpretation is not the method (as with Lamar) but the interpreter. Common sense is a high virtue, and one that ironically—as Thomas writes elsewhere—"is common only to the few."⁴³

6. A Critique of the Baconian Hermeneutic

Before concluding, we will offer a critique of the Baconian hermeneutic, as espoused by the restoration movement and as practiced (more as an antihermeneutic) by John Thomas. The critique of Baconianism consists of three main points. First, it failed to deliver on its promise of producing doctrinal uniformity among Christians. Second, it failed to recognise important differences between natural science and textual hermeneutics. Third, it is fundamentally anachronistic and foreign to the theological method of the early church.

 6.1. Failure to Deliver Doctrinal Unity

While the young Alexander Campbell was optimistic that application of the Baconian method to biblical interpretation would usher in a golden age of Christian unity, his life's work was in fact beset by "constant and unrelenting conflicts with opponents and colleagues alike".⁴⁴ Instead of putting an end to denominational sectarianism in Christianity, the restoration simply added more denominations to the list: "in a movement long marked by theological and cultural rifts, the outcome finally was a bitter fundamentalist/modernist controversy and permanent division."⁴⁵ Foster's biography of Campbell devotes an eight-chapter section to "Defense and Conflict," describing bitter doctrinal disagreements between Campbell and others both inside and outside of his movement.⁴⁶

Similarly, the young James Lamar was almost triumphal in his book The Organon of Scripture about the Baconian hermeneutic's potential to put an end to doctrinal disagreement. However, 

The intellectual and spiritual odyssey of James S. Lamar from the 1850s to 1900 reflects his increasing disillusionment with the Baconian method as a tool to bring about Alexander Campbell's goal of unity through restoration of the 'ancient order.'⁴⁷

Lamar would live to see the definitive split of the Stone-Campbell Movement into two denominations, the Churches of Christ and the Disciples of Christ, in 1906. Thus, Baconianism failed to deliver the uniformity of doctrine that its proponents sought. And the reason for this probably lies in our next criticism of the method: its downplaying of subjectivity. 

 6.2. (Mis-)Application of a Scientific Method to Biblical Interpretation

Bacon developed his inductive method for the natural sciences, and in this discipline there is some plausibility in the idea of assembling a set of experimental "facts" and reasoning inductively to a conclusion.⁴⁸ However, when Campbell and others argued for using the same method to construct Christian doctrine, they were overlooking the vast differences between natural sciences and biblical hermeneutics. Notwithstanding the best efforts of Joseph Smith,⁴⁹ the biblical "data set" is static and cannot be augmented through experimentation. Moreover, "the facts" in the case of a scientific data set typically involve precise measurement of numerical quantities (e.g., temperature, volume, etc.) With good instrumentation, measurement error will be negligible. Assembling "the facts" from the Bible is a far thornier affair: it entails translating and interpreting ancient texts. Translation is not just a matter of "common sense"; it is a complex, multi-faceted task. It requires, inter alia, reconstructing the original text as closely as possible (textual criticism), choosing the degree of formal or dynamic equivalence desired, resolving syntactic and semantic ambiguities, and adding punctuation. Translation already entails a degree of interpretation, but even exegetes who agree on the translation of a text may differ radically on its meaning and theological significance. In short, Scripture is nothing like a simple set of "facts" on which induction can be performed. Hence, the Baconian hermeneutic greatly exaggerates interpreters' objectivity and tempts them to equate their own disputable opinions with "the facts." As Allen summarises:

[James Lamar] seems never to have been struck by the deep irony that marked the movement almost from its inception—the irony of claiming to overturn all human traditions and interpretive schemes while at the same time being wedded to an empirical theological method drawn from early Enlightenment thought. By virtually denying the necessity of human interpretation and the inevitable impact of extra-biblical ideas and traditions, the Disciples allowed their interpretive traditions to become all the more entrenched for being unrecognized.⁵⁰

 6.3. The Irony of "Restoring" Ancient Christianity Using Enlightenment-Era Philosophy

The third problem is even more fundamental. Baconianism is rooted in the philosophy of Bacon in the 17th century and Reid in the 18th. How could modern philosophy restore primitive Christianity? Or how could the apostolic order be recovered using a hermeneutic that post-dates the apostles by over 1500 years?⁵¹ The question answers itself. And if the Baconian approach entails "calling Bible things by Bible names," what is the Bible's name for the Baconian method? Is it not an extrabiblical imposition from human philosophy—the very sort of thing that "Bible only" Protestants seek to abolish from theology?

A defender of Baconianism might respond that the method need not be explained in Scripture because it is accessible to all by common sense. However, if that were the case, we should expect it to have been used in the early church (unless common sense is a modern invention!) Let us look at the thought of Irenaeus of Lyons (writing c. 180 A.D.) as a test case. Irenaeus is a good example because he is one of the Church's earliest "biblical theologians." Notably, he is the earliest extant writer to use the terms "Old Testament" and "New Testament" to refer to portions of the biblical canon and to defend four as the complete number of canonical gospels.

If Irenaeus were Baconian in his hermeneutic, we would expect him to construct his theology by assembling "facts"—various statements in Scripture—and combining them inductively into doctrines. To use John Thomas' language, we would expect him to be independent of any dogmatic traditions or ecclesiastical authority and to rely only on what is demonstrable directly from Scripture.

Instead, Irenaeus introduces his famous summary of Christian doctrine, the rule of faith, thus: "The church, dispersed throughout the world to the ends of the earth, received from the apostles and their disciples the faith" (Against Heresies 1.10.1).⁵² Similarly, in his other surviving work, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, he introduces the Christian faith with the words, "So, faith procures this for us, as the elders, the disciples of the apostles, have handed down to us."⁵³ Thus Irenaeus regards "the elders, disciples of the apostles" as an authoritative source of doctrine.

Opposing the Gnostic heretics, Irenaeus explains in what the true Gnosis (knowledge) consists:

This is true Gnosis: the teaching of the apostles, and the ancient institution of the church, spread throughout the entire world, and the distinctive mark of the body of Christ in accordance with the succession of bishops, to whom the apostles entrusted each local church, and the unfeigned preservation, coming down to us, of the scriptures, with a complete collection allowing for neither addition nor subtraction; a reading without falsification and, in conformity with the scriptures, an interpretation that is legitimate, careful, without danger or blasphemy. (Against Heresies, 4.33.8)

Notice that Irenaeus stresses the importance of the Scriptures and their correct interpretation, but in the same breath acknowledges the importance of apostolic succession for preserving the teaching of the apostles in the Church. Hence, once can recognise heretics precisely by their independence from ecclesiastical authority:

This is why one must hear the presbyters who are in the church, those who have the succession from the apostles, as we have shown, and with the succession in the episcopate have received the sure spiritual gift of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. As for all the others who are separate from the original succession, in whatever place they gather, they are suspect. They are heretics with false doctrine or schismatics full of pride and audacity and self-willed or, again, hypocrites looking only for gain and vainglory. (Against Heresies, 4.26.2)

These few quotations suffice to show that the Baconian hermeneutic is at odds with the theology of Irenaeus of Lyons. One might argue that Irenaeus had already apostatised from biblical truth, despite being only two degrees separated from the apostles (in his youth he heard Polycarp teach, who was taught by John).⁵⁴ But if this were the case, what evidence can be brought forth to show that other early Christian writers sought to practice a Baconian theological method?

 6.4. Other Problems with John Thomas' Antihermeneutic

The above criticisms apply to John Thomas to the extent that he, too, applied the Baconian method. Thomas, however, merits further criticism for what we have termed his antihermeneutic. Thomas scoffed at "hermeneutics" and "logic" and conflated his own philosophical and methodological presuppositions with "common sense." In his optimism for common sense, Thomas was a man of his times. It was nonetheless breathtakingly naïve for Thomas to dismiss logic and hermeneutics, as though he were not using them himself. Here is a certainty: every theologian uses logic and hermeneutics, which are simply the theory and method of reasoning and interpretation respectively. The one who denies using them merely surrenders much of his capacity for intellectual self-examination and correction. Forthrightness about one's methods and presuppositions is far better than hiding behind the nebulous rule of "common sense."

One person's common sense differs from her neighbour's; Thomas himself wrote (cited earlier) that common sense was "common only to the few." He adds other virtues that enhance the interpreter's chances of success, such as independence, humility, teachableness, and diligence. As correct interpretation is made a function of personal virtues rather than methods and rules of interpretation, objectivity recedes further. Are we sinful human beings well qualified to judge the humility, teachableness, and diligence of ourselves and others? It is no surprise that subsequent Christadelphian writers extolled John Thomas' intellectual virtues and suggested that a restoration of apostolic truth probably would not have happened but for his remarkable attributes.⁵⁵

The notion that "independence" is a virtue in theologians is, as noted above, totally at odds with the worldview of early Church Fathers like Irenaeus, being instead a characteristic Irenaeus assigns to the heretics he opposes. Indeed, independence and humility seem to be self-contradictory, since the virtue of humility entails submission to legitimate authority, including ecclesiastical (see, e.g., Heb. 13:17). As parents, if our children disregard our rules and make up their own, do we reward them for "independence" or discipline them for disobedience?

7. Conclusion

In this writer's experience, John Thomas' antihermeneutic legacy lives on in that Christadelphians generally show little interest in, or even acknowledgment of, their movement's intellectual roots. Very little "critical history" of Christadelphian origins has emerged from within the movement;⁵⁶ Christadelphian historiography has been largely hagiographical. This stands in marked contrast to the wider Stone-Campbell tradition, which has produced voluminous critical research into its own intellectual origins.

 

Regardless of whether one believes that the Christadelphian belief system is true or not, it does not help anyone when the philosophical presuppositions and hermeneutical methods that gave rise to it go unrecognised and continue to be conflated, in early-19th-century fashion, with "common sense." There is a sector of Christadelphians who have, in recent years, sought to bring Christadelphian theology into conversation with contemporary biblical scholarship. Hopefully, this article may inspire similar scholarly engagement in the matter of Christadelphian history. Even if not, I hope it contributes to the reader's understanding of the Christadelphian movement.

• 1 Douglas A. Foster, Alexander Campbell (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020), 59-60.
• 2 The term "hermeneutics" refers to the theory and methods of interpretation of texts, especially the Bible.
• 3 Barry Gower, Scientific Method: A Historical and Philosophical Introduction (London: Taylor & Francis, 1997), 41. The description of Bacon's method here is largely based on Gower.
• 4 Gower, Scientific Method, 52.
• 5 Richard M. Tristano, The Origins of the Restoration Movement: An Intellectual History (Atlanta: Glenmary Research Center, 1998), 20-21.
• 6 Foster, Alexander Campbell, 36-37
• 7 Tristano, Origins of the Restoration Movement, 20-21.
• 8 Tristano, Origins of the Restoration Movement, 21
• 9 Tristano, Origins of the Restoration Movement, 21
• 10 For those unfamiliar with the term, "antebellum" means "before the war" and refers here to the decades that preceded the American Civil War (1861-65).
• 11 Mark A. Noll, "Common Sense Traditions and American Evangelical Thought," American Quarterly 37 (1985): 233.
• 12 C. Leonard Allen, "Baconianism and the Bible in the Disciples of Christ: James S. Lamar and 'The Organon of Scripture,'" Church History 55 (1986): 67.
• 13 Noll, "Common Sense Traditions," 234.
• 14 A Connected View of the Principles and Rules by which the Living Oracles May Be Intelligibly and Certainly Interpreted (Bethany, VA: M'Vay & Ewing, 1835), 106.
• 15 The Christian System in Reference to the Union of Christians and a Restoration of Primitive Christianity as Plead in the Current Reformation (Pittsburgh: Forrester & Campbell, 1840), 125.
• 16 Stephen Waers, "Common Sense Regeneration: Alexander Campbell on Regeneration, Conversion, and the Work of the Holy Spirit," Harvard Theological Review 109 (2016): 612.
• 17 "Their writings have done more for the world than all the rhetoricians of two thousand years" (The Millennial Harbinger 5 [1834]: 622); "History records no more illustrious names than those of Bacon, Locke, and Newton" (The Millennial Harbinger 7 [1836], 247).
• 18 The Christian Baptist 6 (1828): 227. Similarly, "Since the days of Bacon our scientific men have adopted the practical and truly scientific mode...We plead for the same principle in the contemplation of religious truth... By inducing matter by every process to give out its qualities, and to deduce nothing from hypothesis; so religious truth is to be deduced from the revelation which the deity has been pleased to give to man" ("Speculation in Religion," The Christian Baptist 4 [1827]: 241).
• 19 Foster, Alexander Campbell, 38. Allen concurs: "The evidence is strong that Alexander Campbell appropriated Scottish Baconianism to a considerable degree and employed it in the service of his primitivist theology" ("Baconianism and the Bible," 69).
• 20 "The Bible is a book of facts, not of opinions, theories, abstract generalities, nor of verbal definitions." (The Christian System, 18).
• 21 "Baconianism and the Bible," 68-70.
• 22 The Organon of Scripture, Or, The Inductive Method of Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co, 1860).
• 23 Lamar, The Organon of Scripture, 24; cf. Allen, "Baconianism and the Bible," 73.
• 24 Lamar, The Organon of Scripture, 25.
• 25 Lamar, The Organon of Scripture, 130-31.
• 26 The name changed to Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come from 1851. The periodical was discontinued due to the American Civil War and was not reprised thereafter.
• 27 "Observations on the Apocalypse," The Apostolic Advocate 1 (1834): 197.
• 28 For instance, in 1852, Thomas favourably quotes another British physician's views on the subject of "the investigation of the truth"; that physician was advocating that the Baconian inductive method be applied in biblical interpretation, as in natural science, so that the uniformity of belief enjoyed in science would also be enjoyed in religion ("The Bible Doctrine concerning the Tempter Considered, No. 1," Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come 2 [1852]: np. The quotation is from an unpaginated transcription available here.). In 1858, Thomas includes the following "selection" in his periodical: "Our duty in reference to knowledge in general is to observe facts, rather than to form hypotheses; to go on, as Bacon teaches, in the modest accumulation of positive data, aware that there are eternal truths, whatever may come of your opinions" (Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come 8 [1858]: 47).
• 29 The Christian System, 5-6, 127.
• 30 "When I begin to think of my debts of thought, I see an immense crowd of claimants...Euclid, and Locke, and Bacon, and Newton, and ten thousand others cast an eye upon me." ("Letter to William Jones," The Millennial Harbinger 6 [1835]: 304.)
• 31 "It should be noted here that Campbell often inveighed against the use of any theories, philosophical or otherwise, when interpreting scripture. Campbell did not seem to lump his use of SCSP into this category of theorization. For him, the SCSP understanding of the human mind was self-evident and therefore not theoretical or speculative. Perhaps we could say that he was unable to see beyond its horizons. Campbell thought that Francis Bacon corrected the fanciful speculations into which philosophy had declined prior to his time. Because Bacon’s inductive method was so important to SCSP, it is likely that Campbell saw his adoption of SCSP as combatting speculation and theorization"("Common Sense Regeneration," 613 n. 8).
• 32 Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come 3 (1853): np. The quotation is from an unpaginated transcription available here.
• 33 Eureka: An Exposition of the Apocalypse, 3 vols. (Adelaide: Logos, originally published 1861), 1:198.
• 34 For instance, at the end of his above-mentioned series on Isaiah, where he argues that it foretells contemporary political events involving Russia, he writes, "Paul gloried in his weakness; and so do we. If one so weak as our stupid self can make 'the most difficult passage of Isaiah' so intelligible and plain, how blind must they be, who with all their classical, theological, hermeneutic, erudition, and 'logic,' can give no better sense to this portion of the word than the translators so often named in this! So true is it, that 'God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.'" Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come 3 (1853): np. The quotation is from an unpaginated transcription available here.
• 35 "Scotto-Campbellism Reviewed," Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come 10 (1860): 60.
• 36 This term has been used elsewhere for the hermeneutic of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), women's rights activist and author of The Woman's Bible, where she "she calls on her readers to 'be guided by their own unassisted common sense' (2:159) and to read the 'unvarnished texts' of the Scriptures 'in plain English' (1:8) and 'in harmony with science, common sense, and the experience of mankind in natural laws' (1:20)" (Carolyn A. Haynes, Divine Destiny: Gender and Race in Nineteenth-Century Protestantism [Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998], 146). Haynes comments, "Such an exegetical methodology (or antimethodology) is in keeping with the Common Sense school and with fundamentalist hermeneutical practices."
• 37 Elpis Israel (Findon: Logos Publications, 1866/2000), 3.
• 38 Elpis Israel, 4.
• 39 Elpis Israel, 5, 8.
• 40 Elpis Israel, 5-6.
• 41 Elpis Israel, 6, 8-9.
• 42 Eureka, 1:341. The ellipsis reads, "perfectly unacquainted with all the learned lore of Ammonius." In context, Thomas is criticising Origen's reliance on the Neoplatonist philosopher Ammonius in his theological method. However, the broader question obtained by removing this ellipsis certainly characterises Thomas' approach to Scripture in general.
• 43 "A Few First Principles of Common Sense," Apostolic Advocate 2 (1835): 229.
• 44 Foster, Alexander Campbell, 254.
• 45 Allen, "Baconianism and the Bible," 80.
• 46 Foster, Alexander Campbell, 151-272. Conflicts of a doctrinal nature involving Campbell included the clash with John Thomas over "re-immersion" and the immortality of the soul, clashes with Barton W. Stone over the Trinity and Christology, and conflict with a minister named Jesse B. Ferguson over universalism and spiritualism. The conflicts with Thomas and Ferguson ended with schisms.
• 47 "Baconianism and the Bible," 79.
• 48 It should be noted, however, that Baconian inductivism has been out of favour since the later 19th century even as a scientific method.
• 49 The founder of the Latter-Day Saints movement ("Mormons").
• 50 "Baconianism and the Bible," 79.
• 51 One might argue that the New Testament writers themselves used an anachronistic hermeneutic in that they often interpreted the Old Testament Christologically and not according to the grammatical-historical sense. However, the early church read the Scriptures Christologically because its worldview had been radically realigned by the Christ-event. Did the Bacon-event really warrant another hermeneutical revolution?.
• 52 All translations from Against Heresies are taken from Robert M. Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons (London: Routledge, 1997).
• 53 John Behr, On the Apostolic Preaching: Translated and with an Introduction (Crestwood: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1997), 42.
• 54 A reader interested in exploring the early Church Fathers further may wish to consult works such Jimmy Akin's The Fathers Know Best: Your Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early Church (El Cajon: Catholic Answers Press, 2010) or (for a more academic treatment) William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers (3 vols; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1979).
• 55 "Dr Thomas was fitted by natural qualification for the great work achieved by his hand. His intellect was a fine balance between perception and reflection, adapting him for full and accurate observation and correct reasoning, while a scientific education brought out those powers to the fullest advantage... The Doctor was a remarkable man, and was the instrument of a remarkable work, which required strongly-marked characteristics for its accomplishment... firstly, a clear, well-balanced, scientific intellect, and a non-emotional, executive nature, enabling him to reason accurately, and perceive and embrace conclusions in the teeth of prejudice and sentiment; secondly, self-reliance and an independence almost to the point of eccentricity, disposing him to think and act without reference to any second person, and if need be, in opposition to friend as well as foe; thirdly, a predominating conscientiousness impelling him in the direction of right and duty; and fourthly, great boldness and fluency of speech which qualified him for the enunciation of the truth discovered in the face of the world in arms... To a man of different characteristics, the work would probably have been impossible. Dr. Thomas possessed a combination of traits that enabled him to persevere in his course whatever difficulties had to be faced... such, in brief, is the history of that application of his mental powers to Scripture study and polemics which, in the wisdom of God, has uncovered the oracles of divine truth from the mass of ignorance and misinterpretation which for centuries overlaid and obscured them'" (Robert Roberts, Dr Thomas: His Life and Work (web version); "The peculiar mental and moral organisation of Dr. Thomas admirably fitted him for the work he accomplished. His sterling honesty, great faith, resolute will, utter disregard of human opinion, and what seemed a reckless independence of leadership of men, enabled him to do a work that would have failed under other conditions" (L. B. Welch, "The Recovered Truth in the Latter Days," The Christadelphian 31 [1894]: 144-48).
• 56 A site search of the online archives of two Christadelphian magazines (The Christadelphian Tidings and Testimony) yields no content devoted to the influence of Scottish Common Sense Philosophy or Baconianism on Christadelphian origins.

The Parts of John's Prologue that Unitarians Neglect

Despite being a Catholic and a Trinitarian myself, I'm a regular listener of unitarian apologist Prof. Dale Tuggy's trinities podcast. As someone who has written a fair bit on the Prologue of John, I was keenly interested to listen to his latest episode, What John 1 Meant. This was an edited version of a talk Tuggy gave at the 2021 Unitarian Christian Alliance conference.

At the beginning of the talk, Tuggy read John 1:1-18 from the NRSV. This—together with the episode's title and 76-minute length—made very hopeful that he was going to do something that I seldom see/hear/read unitarians do when discussing this text: offer careful exegesis of the whole Prologue. For, as I wrote a few months ago in my in-depth review of Buzzard and Hunting's polemical work, The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound (p. 30), there are portions of this passage that unitarian exegetes tend to neglect when arguing for a particular meaning of the Word (ho logos). I refer specifically to vv. 5-13 and 14c-18. 

Alas, I was to be disappointed once again. Tuggy lavishes time upon John 1:1-4 and 1:14ab and pre-Christian parallels to the language of both. As for the other parts? Verse 5 is discussed briefly in connection with 1-4. He states that he is going to skip vv. 6-9. Verses 10-11 then receive a brief cameo, with 12-13 then passed over in silence to arrive at v. 14. Even within this verse, the first two clauses ("And the Word became flesh and lived among us") command far more attention than the third. As he begins to wrap up, Tuggy announces that there isn't time to discuss vv. 15-18, but that it does not matter, as these verses contain no difficulties for unitarians. He does provide the briefest aside on what he thinks v. 15 means (spoiler alert: "he was before me" does not indicate that he existed before me), and then gives his own paraphrase of the entire Prologue, including the verses he's skipped over. (He also, on a couple of occasions, voices his support for the minority textual view that 1:18 calls Jesus monogenēs huios rather than monogenēs theos.)

Why should it be concerning or frustrating that a 76-minute talk on "What John 1[:1-18] Meant" (in the Christological sense) dedicates almost no airtime to vv. 5-13 and 14c-18? After all, if the main difficulty of John's Prologue is to correctly interpret the term ho logos, shouldn't we focus on the verses that use this term? Well, context is king, as they say. If John 1:1-18 is a literary unit within John's Gospel, surely we cannot neglect any part thereof if we hope to understand the whole.

If all we had in the Prologue were John 1:1-4 and 14ab, our efforts to identify who or what the Word is might devolve into a Sisyphean struggle of opinioneering. Fortunately, those other, sometimes neglected parts enable us to settle the matter decisively.

I have written in some detail about these verses in my article Jesus Christ in the Prologue of John: The Word Per Se, or the Word Made Flesh Only? (see also my review of Buzzard & Hunting, pp. 28-30), so I will just give a bullet-point overview of the exegetical arguments from the "other verses" of the Prologue.

First, concerning 1:5-13,

• "The light" (to phōs) is—like ho logos—an abstract noun that can easily be used—and probably is, in vv. 4-5—in a purely abstract sense (and there was little Jewish precedent for regarding it as personal.) Nevertheless, it is unmistakable that from v. 7 onward, to phōs refers to a person. Otherwise, the author's clarification about John, "He was not the light," is superfluous, even absurd.
• This person, the True Light, is in view throughout vv. 9-12, where we learn that the True Light is identical with the Word (from the parallels between 1:3a and 1:10b and between 1:7b and 1:15a) even as it remains obvious that the True Light is a person (from the words "believe in his name," amongst others). The Word and Light imagery are both drawn ultimately from Genesis 1.
• The True Light imagery gives no idea of an ontological transition from one thing (the pre-existent Word) to another (the man Jesus). The language is seamless: he who was in the world is he through whom the world came to be. The transition is a spatial one: he comes into the world, to his own.
• If any reader were in doubt at this point as to which person the True Light (= the Word) is, they could not remain so after reading the rest of the Gospel, which is replete with parallels to 1:8-12:
• "He was not the light" (1:8a) = "I am not the Christ" (1:20; 3:28)
• "the True Light" (1:9a) = "I am...the Truth" (14:6); "I am the Light of the world" (8:12; 9:5)
• The light "was coming into the world" (1:9b) = "I came into the world as light" (12:46); "you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world" (11:27); "I...have come into the world" (16:28; 18:37)
• "He was in the world" (1:10a) = "I am in the world" (9:5); "now I will no longer be in the world" (17:11)
• "He came to his own" (1:11a) = "He loved his own in the world" (13:1)
• "His own did not receive him" (1:11b) = "You do not receive me" (5:43); "Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me" (18:35)
• "But to those who did receive him" (1:12a) = "Whoever does receive his testimony..." (3:32-33)
• "he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe" (1:12ab) = "believe in the light, so that you may become children of the light" (12:36)
• "believe in his name" (1:12b) = "many began to believe in his name" (2:23); "believed in the name of the only Son of God" (3:18)

Second, concerning 1:14c-18,

• "The Word" (ho logos) is the referent throughout vv. 14-16. This is often overlooked because the statements from 14c-16 are clearly also statements about Jesus Christ:
• 1:14c equates the Word's glory with "glory as of the Father's only Son"
• 1:15a quotes John's testimony about the Word using the same words John will proclaim about Jesus in 1:30
• 1:16a speaks of the Word's fullness and grace, which is linked via the conjunction hoti to a statement about grace coming through Jesus Christ in v. 17
• But the syntax is unambiguous: the three occurrences of the pronoun autos in vv. 14c ("we saw his glory"), 15a ("John testified about him") and 16a ("From his fullness we have all received") all have ho logos in 14a as their antecedent.
• Thus, it is not that we have one statement about the Word, "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us," followed by other statements about the man who figuratively embodies the Word. The syntax disallows such a reading. Rather, "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us" is one statement about the Word per se that is followed by several other statements about the Word per se.
• If these statements about the Word per se are also statements about Jesus Christ, it follows inexorably that Jesus Christ is the Word per se.
• Again, the statements about the Word in 1:14c-16 have parallels elsewhere in the Gospel.
• "We have seen his glory" (1:14c) = "Jesus...so revealed his glory" (2:11); "Isaiah...saw his glory" (12:41)
• "the only begotten of the Father" (1:14c) = "the only begotten God/Son" (1:18); "only begotten Son" (3:16, 18)
• "he was before me" (1:15e; cf. 1:30) = "In the beginning was the Word" (1:1); "What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?" (6:62); "Before Abraham was, I am" (8:58); "the glory that I had with you before the world was" (17:5)
• 1:18 causes some difficulties for unitarians if, as the UBS committee considered "almost certain" (B rating), the correct reading is monogenēs theos. It is not just that there would then be biblical warrant for the much-maligned phrase "God the Son." It is also that this would be an instance of the literary technique of inclusio, by which the Prologue is deliberately bookended by references to someone other than the Father as theos. The implication is that the one called theos in 1:1 is the one called theos in 1:18, thus reinforcing that the Word = the Son.

Given the abundant exegetical data concerning the identity of the Word in John 1:5-13 and 14c-18, can the reader blame me for feeling exasperated when a unitarian apologist devotes an hour-long lecture on John's Prologue to verses 1-4 and 14ab, giving only cursory attention to the rest of the material?