The Beginnings of Unitarianism (Intro to Trinitarian Theology)

In this video, I continue our discussion of Trinitarian heresies with the first of two videos on the history and theology of Unitarianism.

[vngelicath]

Gorgeous intro. You should bring "a saint and a sinner is what i am" back for a retro callback, lol. Only the real fans remember.

[sierragrey]

Your teachings not only cover important topics but have helped me better understand those times and stand amazed at how vigorously the adversary has sought to destroy the gospel. He never stops. There is great value in understanding how blessed we are for the Protestants scholars that stood up to defend the gospel that saves sinners.

[BBarn]

I lived in a neighborhood where the entrance to turn in had a Unitarian church on one side and a Mormon church on the other. Every time i sat at the stoplight I would say i was a heretic Oreo.

[gerardcosloy]

Yannow, I'm not a Lutheran but I really like your channel. Your delivery and your insight is really quite a nice break from the usual polemics. You make a good case as a via media of sorts without the usual antagonistic attitude. Very well done.

[FreeBird-]

Thank you. One of the best expositions I have seen on this topic. You were very easy to follow, and provided lots of interesting information. Thanks again

[danoctavian]

14:10 i think they did call themselves unitarians long before the english term. Because the Hungarian Unitarian Church’s confession from 1782 is called Summa Universae Theologiae Christianae secundum Unitarios and also i don’t know of any other name that they identefied with (i am from Transylvania)

[Jassaj]

Episode on late medieval and reformation heresies is not on Spotify

[jasonmalstrom]

Thanks for creating this, having grown up in the UU church and left, I've been trying to get a better context of what it was about. One nitpick, the logo you showed was a UU one, not a classic Unitarian one, the double circles represent the two denominations joining together.

[JamalBaruch]

Was Jesus a Trinitarian? Did he tell you that God is three in the most important commandment (the shema). Did he mention anyone else but the father in the Lord’s Prayer? This debate is nonsensical. There is no trinity. Only monotheism.

[A-gor]

I hope you get to talk about modalism one of these days

[travisrennie]

There is one God almighty. He who formed the world, he who fashioned man, he who is God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, above whom there is no other God. He is the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For almost all the different sects of heretics admit that there is one God; but then, by there pernicious doctrines, they change this truth into error.

[William_Farmer]

If Unitarians don't believe in the immortality of the soul, how can they believe in the resurrection? How can a non-existent soul be resurrected? Do they think that the soul and body are re-created at the time of the resurrection? Wouldn't that conflict with their non-belief in the supernatural?

[josephaggs]

Im debating with some oneness pentacostal folks, a new believer I know started going there. Watching.

Where in New England are you from? Do you have any plans to do some speaking here?

[hofii]

"I love Paradise Lost, don't get me wrong, but the guy's Trinitary theology is terrible." Separate the questions. Absolute gold tossed off in an off hand way.

[stephenbailey]

Calvinism's explanation that God chooses those who are saved and those who are condemned was the impetus for some to insist, following the scriptural passages that describe God's desire for all to come to repentance, that all will eventually be saved: universalism.
If God chooses for all to be saved, then doctrinal differences no longer matter as much: unitarianism.

[danoctavian]

12:38 you did ok :)), just that his first name isn’t actually John but the hungarian alternative which is Janos (which is pronounced somthing like Yanosh)

[MrViktorolon]

Im here to have a deep dive on curtis yarvin's take on progressivism march.

[jasonmalstrom]

The way that modern UU church claims a link with the Unitarians, was that by the claim that the early Christians had many different ideas of Jesus and God, and that was a good thing, and then Nicaea forced everyone into one view. They then claim that Unitarian's was a restoration of that early church dialog, and see themselves today as an inheritor of the dialog, but now expanded.

[marilynmelzian]

In regard to the Hellenization hypothesis, I would argue that Greeks like Plato and Aristotle only put explicit terminology to a view of the world that was also held in ancient Israel, but was not expressed philosophically. There is a reason why platonic thought is partially accepted by Christians, and it is because of its realist view of the world. The early Christians adamantly rejected Greek philosophies such as atomism and Epicureanism, and were not terribly receptive to stoicism. Also, the early Christians clearly saw the limitations of philosophy, and Thomas Aquinas, even though he used some of Aristotle’s teachings corrected him on many other issues when they were not compatible with Christianity. It is really silly to say that one should reject anything that is Greek simply because it is Greek.

[oliviaroberts]

I'm not totally sure the evaluation of Clarke's views at the end was totally accurate. Clarke uses language which suggests subordination, but he's careful to qualify that this is just a matter of where the activities and persons of the Trinity come from (the Son is subordinate to the Father for Clarke only *insofar as* the Son is begotten of the Father and performs the divine actions because they are communicated to him by the Father). That doesn't seem to match up with EFS (indeed, on my reading the EFS people are even more subordinationist than Clarke). Clarke also doesn't reject "homoousios, " he just prefers to be quiet about it because neither it nor its negation is explicit in scripture.

To be clear, he's still unorthodox, but in a more mild way than I think is suggested here. Probably the area where his orthodoxy is most questionable (it seems to me) is when he says that all divine worship given to the Spirit and the Son must terminate in the Father (he makes an analogy to how the inseperable operations come from the Father through the Son and rest in the Spirit), and where he says that he prefers to say that begetting and proceeding are voluntary free acts of God and not something he does naturally or essentially.