Restitutio – Details, episodes & analysis

Does the New Testament refer to Jesus as God? Though this is an important question, it’s only a starting point for wrestling with who Jesus is. In what follows we’ll consider the evidence from five scholars on what texts they say attribute deity to Christ. Then we’ll examine the biblical evidence that pulls in the opposite direction, suggesting that Jesus was not God. Lastly, we’ll examine five major possibilities for interpreting this data, including trinitarianism, modalism, Arianism, Greco-Roman polytheism, and biblical unitarianism.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

—— Links ——

• Get the transcript of this episode
• Also see Five Major Problems with the Trinity
• Support Restitutio by donating here
• Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF
• Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air
• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.
• Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here
• Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this precious pearl of great price.

Have you heard of Hippolytus’s Refutation of All Heresies? Written not long after 222 A.D. this book works through dozens of heresies–beliefs that the author disagreed with. Some scholars have argued against Hippolytus as the author, preferring to call him pseudo-Hippolytus. But regardless of who wrote the tome, the fact is that this huge book was the mature result of nearly seventy years of Christians cataloging heresies. In each case the next generation typically included much of what had come before and this book is no exception. It’s a massive tome, totaling more than 400 pages long in the most recent translation by David Litwa.

In this talk, delivered at the 2024 UCA conference held in Little Rock, Arkansas, Dr. Dale Tuggy draws on the Refutation of All Heresies to catalog the major christological options that were known to the author in the third century. Excluding all the gnostic groups, Tuggy identifies three broad groups of Christians who held very different ideas about Christ: the Dynamic Monarchians, the Modalistic Monarchians, and the Logos Incarnationists. Or to use the parlance of today, biblical unitarians, oneness believers, and Arians.

But, what about the Trinity? Where was it? Why didn’t pseudo-Hippolytus mention three persons in one being? Surely hundreds of millions of Christians who say the Church has always believed in the Trinity from the beginning can’t be wrong, can they? Listen in to this talk to find out.

Dale Tuggy is an analytic philosopher specializing in Trinity theories. He’s the author of the Trinity article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as well as the book What Is the Trinity, which gives a brief introduction to the various Trinity models and their problems. A month ago, a new book came out that he contributed to called One God, Three Persons, Four Views, in which he debated various Trinitarian scholars, putting forward his own non-trinitarian view as an alternative. Find out more about Tuggy and his work at his blog: Trinities.org.

In what follows he lays out the various christologies in the period before Nicea as well as explains quotations by Athenagoras and Mileto that modern trinitarian defenders use to prove that the Trinity was there in the second century. Lastly, he provides evidence for which view he thinks was the majority in the second and third centuries.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

—— Links ——

• Get the transcript of this episode
• Check out these other episodes with Dale Tuggy
• Support Restitutio by donating here
• Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF
• Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air
• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.
• Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here
• Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this precious pearl of great price.

People need the touch of God in their lives. People are broken, wounded, and sick. Jesus Christ has already come and made available deliverance from sin and its consequences. He did this throughout his ministry and continues to bring healing through his church today. Bob Carden shares about his own journey of faith from Catholicism to the Way Ministry to pastoring a non-denominational church in Naperville, IL. Now retired, he relates his decades-long pursuit of the miraculous, especially deliverance and healing. Now I realize this can be a controversial subject, which is why I'm so thankful for how Carden's kind and compassionate tone comes through in this conversation.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

—— Links ——

• Learn more about Bob Carden at Align Ministries
• Get Carden's book, One God: The Unfinished Reformation
• Get the transcript of this episode
• Support Restitutio by donating here
• Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF
• Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air
• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.
• Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read Sean's bio here

What do we do when the science in the bible seems wrong by today's standards, but typical for their world? For example, those who believe in a flat earth often point to scripture as evidence for their belief. Indeed the bible arguably does contain some texts that imply a flat earth. But, if the Hebrew people believed in a flat earth, does that mean we should today? Should we posit an elaborate conspiracy that Google, SpaceX, and NASA are trying to hide the truth of a flat earth? In addition to tackling scientific inaccuracies, Will Barlow will also cover many scientific accuracies that point to divine inspiration in scripture.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBPmdNyROgQ&list=PLN9jFDsS3QV1Etu1jXO3jbUQ6CFI-2k6W&index=16

See below for notes.

—— Links ——

• We are doing follow-up discussions to these episodes on YouTube. Check them out!
• See other episodes in this Scripture and Science Class
• Check out Barlow’s previous podcast episodes
• Learn more about and support the church Barlow and his team are starting in Louisville, KY, called Compass Christian Church
• Find more articles and audios by Barlow on his website: Study Driven Faith
• Support Restitutio by donating here
• Designate Restitutio as your charity of choice for Amazon purchases
• Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF
• Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air
• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.
• Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here

—— Notes ——

Science in the Bible

• Cases when the science is “wrong”• Cases when the science is “right”• Overview and concluding thoughts

Cases when the science is “wrong”

• Flat Earth• Dome over the Earth• Unmovable Earth• Foundations of the Earth• Thinking with your intestines

Flat Earth

Isaiah 40:22   It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

Daniel 4:10-11   The visions of my head as I lay in bed were these: I saw, and behold, a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height was great. The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth.

Matthew 4:8   Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

Dome over the Earth

Job 37:18   Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror?

This question by Elihu assumes a hard dome ove

When COVID first broke out many endeavored to put their extra time to good use. Tom Huszti began listening to podcasts. He was intensely curious about theology. Huszti came to question several key beliefs he had imbibed as a lifelong Anabaptist, living in rural Ohio. Eventually he saw that the church's God and the bible's God were at odds with each other. Huszti embraced unitarianism and faced significant troubles because of this change. He is now launching a new ministry on YouTube called "The Unitarian Anabaptist" in which he intends to share his insights about Christ's identity with others.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vKDRJOklzU

—— Links ——

• Check out Tom Huszti's website unitariananabaptist.com as well as his YouTube channel
• Listen to Mark Cain's interview with Huszti on the UCA Podcast
• Support Restitutio by donating here
• Designate Restitutio as your charity of choice for Amazon purchases
• Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF
• Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air
• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.
• Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here

Dr. Steven Nemes is an analytic philosopher and theologian who uses a phenomenological approach to reading scripture and constructing theology. In this interview I ask him about his unique approach to evaluating doctrine, especially the Trinity, from a phenomenological perspective. We also discuss restorationism as a common ground and delve into Church history extensively. In the end Nemes argues for freedom rather than dogma when evaluating various doctrines related to the Trinity.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

—— Links ——

• Check out Nemes’ personal website, blog on substack, and YouTube channel
• Here is his interview with Dale Tuggy from three months ago
• Follow Nemes on Twitter @snemes2
• Support Restitutio by donating here
• Designate Restitutio as your charity of choice for Amazon purchases
• Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF
• Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air
• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.
• Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here

—— Questions for Interview ——

1. Most people know what systematic theology is–simply the categorizing of doctrines or beliefs–but most don’t know what phenomenology is. Can you offer a brief explanation? 2. A lot of your work focuses on reading scripture. Why did you decide to focus on the phenomenology of reading the bible? 3. Let’s talk about the Trinity. When I listened to your interview with Dale Tuggy in September you listed off a whole series of problems with the Trinity. Then he asked you, “Well, why do you still believe in it?” You replied because it’s hard to disprove one ousia in 3 subsistences. Now, however, you no longer identify as a trinitarian. What changed? 4. You mentioned Mark Edwards’ book, Catholicity and Heresy that what the Gnostics did–hypostatizing attributes of God like wisdom, spirit, mind, etc.–influenced Nicene reasoning. Could you talk more about that? 5. You’ve recently been making a public case for unitarian theology and christology, what has prompted that? 6. It seems like you’re a fan of the Polish Brethren and specifically, their book The Racovian Catechism. What drew you to this work? Would you identify as a Socinian? 7. Tell me about your book, Orthodoxy and Heresy. What’s the main idea. 8. As you probably know unitarians have been excluded, deplatformed, persecuted, and even martyred for centuries. Have you faced any opposition? 9. What advice would you give to unitarian Christians to help us grow as a movement?

What happened in Egypt during the ten plagues? Approaching the matter from a scientific perspective, our teacher, Will Barlow, brings to light some interesting connections. Probably most of us think God's miracles are akin to magical interventions where he breaks the laws of nature to perform a supernatural feat. As we saw last time, the bible doesn't require that view nor does it shy away from offering details occasionally about how God achieved the miraculous. Drawing on the work of Colin Humphreys, Barlow takes a close look at the events surrounding Israel's exit from Egypt, including the timing of the event, the number of people involved, the ten plagues, and the location of Mount Sinai.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7QRFotwkkw

See below for notes.

—— Links ——

• We are doing follow-up discussions to these episodes on YouTube. Check them out!
• See other episodes in this Scripture and Science Class
• Check out Barlow’s previous podcast episodes
• Learn more about and support the church Barlow and his team are starting in Louisville, KY, called Compass Christian Church
• Find more articles and audios by Barlow on his website: Study Driven Faith
• Support Restitutio by donating here
• Designate Restitutio as your charity of choice for Amazon purchases
• Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF
• Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air
• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.
• Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here

—— Notes ——

The Miracles of Exodus

• Background• The Ten Plagues of Egypt• A Possible Route

Background

Colin Humphreys received a Ph.D. in physics from Cambridge University. He is also an expert in chemistry, astronomy, and geology. He has spent a great deal of time and effort researching ways to reconcile Scripture and science.

Dating the Exodus

• If we take the evidence from Exodus 1:11, the Hebrews built the city of Rameses (1300 BC)• But 1 Kings 6:1 seems to indicate that the Exodus occurred 480 years before the Temple (1446 BC)

Humphreys prefers the later date because it is easier to reconcile historically.

How then can we understand the 480 years of 1 Kings 6:1?

The Septuagint says 440 years, and this is a great clue. Really, 480 years could be an approximation based on the numbers of generations since the prior events.

Humphreys actually goes much further than this. He demonstrates that there are 14 high priests starting from Aaron and ending at Azariah, the high priest at the time of the construction of the Temple of Solomon.

But Aaron is 2 generations old (age

What is a miracle? Does it mean God breaks the laws of physics or merely that he intervenes within the system? After considering several definitions of miracles from Christian thinkers, Will Barlow interacts with a number of biblical incidents to explain what a miracle is and is not. He examines the parting of the Red Sea, Moses getting water from the rock, the collapse of Jericho’s walls, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire, and Daniel in the lions’ den. For each Barlow looks at how God performed the miracle, shedding light on how science and scripture interact.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

See below for notes.

—— Links ——

• We are doing follow-up discussions to these episodes on YouTube. Check them out!
• See other episodes in this Scripture and Science Class
• Check out Barlow’s previous podcast episodes
• Learn more about and support the church Barlow and his team are starting in Louisville, KY, called Compass Christian Church
• Find more articles and audios by Barlow on his website: Study Driven Faith
• Support Restitutio by donating here
• Designate Restitutio as your charity of choice for Amazon purchases
• Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF
• Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air
• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.
• Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here

—— Notes ——

Miracles

• Defining a Miracle • Archetypal Example • Other Examples

What is the big deal with miracles? Why are miracles important?

• Thomas Jefferson famously refused to believe in miracles – his edited version of the NT had all of the miracles removed • In modern times, miracles are still controversial

Richard Swinburne on miracles:

“What the theist claims about God is that he does have a power to create, conserve, or annihilate anything, big or small. And he can also make objects move or do anything else…He can make the planets move in the way that Kepler discovered that they move, or make gunpowder explode when we set a match to it…”

“or he can make planets move in quite different ways, and chemical substances explode or not explode under quite different conditions from those which now govern their behavior. God is not limited by the laws of nature; he makes them and he can change or suspend them – if he chooses.”

Francis Collins on miracles:

A miracle is “an event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin.” —The Language of God, page 48.

William Lane Craig on miracles:

“You see, natural laws have implicit ceteris paribus conditions—that’s Latin meaning, ‘all other

Having looked at the basics of earth science last time, we are now ready to consider Noah's Flood. As always you'll learn the major options for interpreting this biblical event. Some Christians understand the flood to have been a local event, largely limited to the region of Mesopotamia. Others hold to the notion that this flood covered the entire planet, rising above even the highest mountains. No matter which position you take, you'll have to answer key biblical and scientific questions. 

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0xPsa6WrPE&list=PLN9jFDsS3QV1Etu1jXO3jbUQ6CFI-2k6W&index=13&t=4s

See below for notes.

—— Links ——

• We are doing follow-up discussions to these episodes on YouTube. Check them out!
• See other episodes in this Scripture and Science Class
• Check out Barlow’s previous podcast episodes
• Learn more about and support the church Barlow and his team are starting in Louisville, KY, called Compass Christian Church
• Find more articles and audios by Barlow on his website: Study Driven Faith
• Support Restitutio by donating here
• Designate Restitutio as your charity of choice for Amazon purchases
• Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF
• Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air
• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.
• Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here

—— Notes ——

Noah’s Flood

• Considerations• Global or local?• Evidence for Noah’s Flood• Implications of Noah’s Flood

Considerations

• Rain before the flood?• Plate tectonics and evolution• Scope and evolution• How big was the ark?

Rain before Noah’s flood?

Many have taught that, before Noah’s flood, there was no rain:

Genesis 2:5-6   When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up--for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground--

Scholar Mark Futato suggests that “mist” should be translated as “rain.”

• In the context, there are two “problems”

• No rain• No man to till the ground

• Thus, “mist” could equal “rain”

Reasons why “mist” could be better:

• If you hold late tectonic shift, mist would be required (“land” singular in Genesis 1:10)• The sign of the rainbow — the rainbow is only physically possible with rain• Possibly rain kicked off the modern water cycle - this answers the objection “where did the water go?”

Plate Tectonics and evolution

What we believe about plate tectonics impacts our view on

So far we've considered physics and biology in our exploration of scripture and science. Today we begin to consider how earth science and the bible fit together. This becomes particularly significant when considering interpretations for Noah's flood. We'll get to that next time. But, for today, our teacher will lay out the basics of geology and earth science to give us a good overview. He'll also cover radiometric dating, which has a bearing on how scientists determine the age of the earth.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VzgrLAFXfg&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Flhim.org%2F&feature=emb_imp_woyt

See below for notes.

—— Links ——

• We are doing follow-up discussions to these episodes on YouTube. Check them out!
• See other episodes in this Scripture and Science Class
• Check out Barlow’s previous podcast episodes
• Learn more about and support the church Barlow and his team are starting in Louisville, KY, called Compass Christian Church
• Find more articles and audios by Barlow on his website: Study Driven Faith
• Support Restitutio by donating here
• Designate Restitutio as your charity of choice for Amazon purchases
• Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF
• Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air
• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.
• Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here

—— Notes ——

Geology, Earth Science, and Atmospheric Science

• Geology• Important cycles• Plate tectonics

Geology

• Types of rocks/rock cycle• Geological principles• Dating methods• Structure of the Earth

What is Geology?

Geology is the study of the Earth and the processes related to the Earth.

• Geologists study rocks (and the rock cycle)• Subfields include atmospheric studies (meteorology), volcanology (studying volcanos), and mineralogy (study of minerals)

Types of Rocks

There are three major categories of rocks:

• Sedimentary - formed by pressure acting on sediment• Igneous - formed by lava• Metamorphic - formed by extreme pressure and heat

The Rock Cycle

Since wind and water are constantly affecting change, there is a rock cycle.

Geological Principles

There are several main principles of geology:

• Superposition• Cross-cutting relationships• Uniformitarianism

Dating Methods

There are major types of dating:

• Absolute dating• Relative dating

Absolute Dating

Absolute dating is based on radioactive decay. What is radioactive decay?

• Some forms of certain elements are (by nature) unstable• Over time, these elements change on the atomic lev