'Let him be anathema'

'Let him be anathema' ... or, "methinks he doth protest too much".

'Vox Day' has a recent post, Mailvox: a creedal correction, wherein he insists, yet again, that that he is too a Christian. He still isn't, no matter how often he claims he is. Consider:

As it happens, my views are entirely Nicene in the proper sense, they simply do not happen to be in line with what should be technically considered Constantinoplene rather than Nicene. Consider the actual Nicene Creed of 325:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;

By whom all things were made;

Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man;

He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven;

From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

And in the Holy Ghost.

I readily affirm all of that. Now, one can certainly quibble over the "one substance with the Father" aspect, as it can be interpreted in various ways and I do not accept it means that "the Father Almighty" and "the Son of God" are exactly equal and wholly interchangeable at all times because this is an explicitly anti-Biblical position; how can God the Father have abandoned Himself?

But, of course, he *doesn't* "readily affirm all of that" -- that's the whole point his statement that "one can certainly quibble over the "one substance with the Father" aspect" and the subsequent strawmanning -- for he explicitly and repeatedly denies that the Son is "begotten of the Father, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father"

Moreover, his "reasoning" contra his own strawmanning reflects either ignorance or dishonesty -- "... because this is an explicitly anti-Biblical position; how can God the Father have abandoned Himself?" He's making reference to Christ's words just before he died -- "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" -- by which Christ was reminding disciples of Psalm 22, telling them they were seeing it being fulfulled as a prophesy.

First century Jews didn't call "Psalm 22" that; that's our name for it. They called it "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", that being its first line. Read the psalm -- read it in light of the Gospels' record of what was happening on Golgotha. Far from moping in self-pity, Christ was at that very moment proclaiming his victory!

While it's not a part of the Creed itself, the Creed of 325 has an attached anathema:

[But those who say: 'There was a time when he was not;' and 'He was not before he was made;' and 'He was made out of nothing,' or 'He is of another substance' or 'essence,' or 'The Son of God is created,' or 'changeable,' or 'alterable'-they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.]

By his own words -- by his appeal to the Creed of 325, which he likes to pretend is substantively different from the Creed of 381 -- he condemns himself.

Edit 2013/10/06: Concerning the strawman in his post --

... Now, one can certainly quibble over the "one substance with the Father" aspect, as it can be interpreted in various ways and I do not accept it means that "the Father Almighty" and "the Son of God" are exactly equal and wholly interchangeable at all times because this is an explicitly anti-Biblical position; how can God the Father have abandoned Himself?

When one affirms the proposition that "Jesus Christ is God", there are three general categories of ways to understand the divinity of Christ that one has affirmed:
1) 'Modalism' (also called 'Sabellianism') -- this is the anti-trinitarian position that God only seems to be multiple distinct Persons. 'Modalism' affirms the unity of God, and affirms the divinity of Christ, but does so by means of denying that God is a multiplicity of Persons.
2) 'Trinitarianism' -- this is the orthodox Christian position that God really is multiple distinct persons (and specifically, three). 'Trinitarianism' affirms the unity of God, affirms the divinity of Christ, and affirms that Christ taught us that he is distinct from both the Father and the Holy Spirit.
3) Various flavors of "tri-godism" (of which 'Arianism' is a paradigm example) -- these are anti-trinitarian positions that affirm the divinity of Christ, and affirm the distinctivenes of the Divine Persons, but do so by means of denying the unity of God. Or, to put it more bluntly, these positions affirm the divinity of Christ by means of using the term 'God' incoherently.

'Vox Day' explicitly and openly rejects the orthodox Christian doctrine of the 'Trinity' -- while trying to present himself as the *real* orthodox Christian vis-a-vis the Nicene Creed. But, he is not a 'Sabellian'; rather, he is a "tri-godist".

So, that background explained, 'Vox Day' is strawmanning by intentionally conflating (*) 'Modalism' with 'Trinitarianism'. He then presents a little seeming contradiction -- whether it's contradictory, or merely paradoxical, it might be so for 'Modalism', but not for 'Trinitarianism' -- the paradoxical (or contradictory) nature of which is based on cultural-and-literary ignorance, and then pretends to have knocked down 'Trinitarianism'. -- This "argument" of his is no more intellectually honest than the standard operating procedure of (most) 'atheists', whereby they knock down Zeus and then pretend to have knocked down Christ.


(*) He does this about other things he cares about. For instance, in this recent post (as he has done many other times), he intentioally conflates "open borders" with respect to immigration with "free trade".