I’m interested in this topic because, for the last few weeks I’ve been getting beat up by an atheist who argues that we Christians cannot present a coherent accounting of God’s “personhood”.

We’ve not spoken enough for me to get the full gist of his argument, so I’m sure I’m not stating it as best I could, but he argues something like: When we finally give an account of God’s personhood, it turns out to be trivial such that, the Christian’s view of personhood could describe mechanistic processes of some impersonal environment. We can’t account for God’s intentionality or His qualitative mental states.

I was excited when I heard Dr. Tipton discuss these very issues during the podcast! I’m a committed Van Tillian and I’m especially inclined to reject Clark’s view after seeing how such a view (an impersonal, “pure-logic” God) leaves me open to all sorts of criticism from the atheists. But I’ve got to figure out how to defend the “ultimate personhood” of God. I hope you guys don’t mind me asking a few questions:

1. If God is “ultimately personal” — then how can we distinguish between this sort of personhood and a mechanistic environment?

2. Are you familiar with this argument, or something like it? I know some atheist in a chatroom didn’t come up with it, so there has to be more sophisticated versions floating around out there.

3. I’d also like to study up on why Clark held the view he did. I’m marginally familiar with Clark’s apologetic enterprise and I’d be interested in reading how he develops his view of the Trinity.

Anyway — thanks for what you guys do here at Reformed Forum.

Did Dr. Tipton ever get around to getting a book published about the Trinity?

Go with God.