The Letters of Samuel Rutherford

I love The Letters of Samuel Rutherford. I think they should be far better known than they are. In fact, I'd say The Letters of Samuel Rutherford should be considered a Christian literary classic. Just like (say) The Confessions by Augustine of Hippo, Proslogion by Anselm of Canterbury, The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, Communion with God by John Owen, The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards, etc.

For one thing, The Letters of Samuel Rutherford offer a historical window into the 1600s. The age of the Puritans. Rutherford lived from 1600-1661. A time of tremendous political and religious upheaval in the British isles and continental Europe. A time when there was both philosophical theorizing over the proper relationship between church vs. state (e.g. Thomas Hobbes wrote his Leviathan during this period; Rutheford also penned Lex, Rex) as well as literal persecutions and wars with the state and its arm of the established church (episcopacy) attempting to subjugate genuin Christians. The English Civil War, Crown vs. Parliament, the beheading of Charles I which was shocking at the time since monarchs had virtually never been executed by their people, Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads, and so on. Yet it was likewise a time of tremendous reformation and revival for Protestant Christians. The Westminster Assembly was convened in this period by Parliament to reform the church, and Rutherford played a role in it. And consider that Rutherford lived contemporaneously with fellow Christians like John Owen (1616-1683), John Bunyan (1628-1688), Blaise Pascal (1623-1662); political leaders like Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), William Bradford who governed Plymouth Colony (1590-1657), King James of the KJV (1566-1625); artists like Rembrandt (1606-1669), Shakespeare (1564-1616), John Milton (1608-1674); and scientists like Galileo (1565-1642), Kepler (1571-1630), even Isaac Newton as a young man (1643-1727). I think there are some significant parallels from this period with us today.

More importantly, I think, The Letters display Rutherford as a devoted pastor who dearly loved his flock. Ironically, the bulk of The Letters (approximately 220 out of 365 letters) were written while Rutherford was in exile away from his flock. His flock lived in and around the little town of Anwoth in southwest Scotland near the English border. However, Rutherford was forced to move away from Anwoth by the ecclesiastical powers-that-be of the day. They forced Rutherford to live far north in Aberdeen where the ecclesiastical powers-that-be thought he'd be silenced. Yet thanks to God's providence, thanks to God who can bring good out of evil, Rutherford's exile did the opposite of silencing him inasmuch as his exile served as a major inspiration behind The Letters. Even today we can say of The Letters of Samuel Rutherford: "though he died, he still speaks" (Heb 11:4).

Finally, in terms of practical theology, The Letters illustrate Rutherford's deep care in guiding his flock, most of whom were average laypeople, from highborn to lowborn, how to walk with the Lord in tremendous suffering. Suffering that most of us today wouldn't have to face. Suffering that most of us today hear but faint echoes of when we hear of tragedies in developing nations or persecutions in nations like China or the Muslim world. From losing one's spouse and/or children to dealing with debilitating diseases to enemies of the faith seeking to literally kill them. Rutherford himself lost a wife at a young age (~30) as well as experienced the deaths of all but one of his half a dozen children. All the while Rutherford holds forth to his flock (and to us) "the loveliness of Christ".

To my knowledge, Banner of Truth publishes two versions of The Letters. A Puritan Paperbacks edition that contains a selection of Rutherford's letters and a full version that contains all 365 of Rutherford's letters along with other material (e.g. a biographical sketch of Rutherford's life). Personally I'd recommend the full version (ISBN-10 0851513883 | ISBN-13 978-0851513881). The full version is also available to download and read for free via Project Gutenberg which in turn is made possible thanks entirely to Andrew Bonar's work (see here). In fact, the Banner of Truth's full version is a facsimile edition of Andrew Bonar's work back in the 1800s so you'd get the same edition via Project Gutenberg as Banner of Truth publishes. (Banner of Truth has likewise published The Loveliness of Christ which is a very short book that takes a handful of quotations or excerpts from The Letters. It's much briefer than even the Puritan Paperbacks edition of The Letters. It's a good book to whet one's appetite for the full work.)

Portage Publications has a nice pdf version of The Letters. And our friends at Monergism have done various versions of The Letters as well.

Some others who have commended The Letters:

• Charles Spurgeon: "When we are dead and gone let the world know that Spurgeon held Rutherford's Letters to be the nearest thing to inspiration which can be found in all the writings of mere men."
• Richard Baxter (who was no friend to Presbyterians including Rutherford): "Hold off the Bible, such a book as Mr. Rutherford's Letters the world never saw the like."
• A contemporary of Robert Murray M'Cheyne's said that "The Letters of Samuel Rutherford were often in his hand".
• Handley Moule: "[The Letters are] a small casket stored with many jewels".

One last thing. I've long loved the poem and hymn "The Sands of Time Are Sinking", written by Anne R. Cousin, based on The Letters of Samuel Rutherford. The full edition of The Letters has a section that tells us which letters lie behind the poem. And I enjoy this version of the hymn:

Come behold the wondrous mystery

Christ is mine forevermore

Singing atheists

A grandson of the first Bishop of Liverpool [J. C. Ryle], [Gilbert] Ryle was himself an atheist–but he was what he called "a singing atheist". He used to distinguish between those atheists who would join in the hymns in church, and those who, if forced to attend a service, would keep their mouths tightly shut throughout. A. Kenny, Brief Encounters (SPCK 2018), 82.

The perfect wisdom of our God

The perfect wisdom of our God,
Revealed in all the universe:
All things created by his hand,
And held together at his command.
He knows the mysteries of the seas,
The secrets of the stars are his;
He guides the planets on their way,
And turns the earth through another day.

The matchless wisdom of his ways,
That mark the path of righteousness;
His word a lamp unto my feet,
His Spirit teaching and guiding me.
And oh, the mystery of the cross,
That God should suffer for the lost
So that the fool might shame the wise,
And all the glory might go to Christ!

Oh grant me wisdom from above,
To pray for peace and cling to love,
And teach me humbly to receive
The sun and rain of your sovereignty.
Each strand of sorrow has a place
Within this tapestry of grace;
So through the trials I choose to say:
"Your perfect will in your perfect way."

I vow to thee, my country

Last Sunday, to commemorate Veterans Day, the church choir sang "I vow to thee, my country". It has inspirational lyrics set to a classy tune. Here's the text:

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And there's another country, I've heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

And here's a fine performance:

1. Patriotism is a controversial issue in Christianity. On the one hand there's the knee-jerk cliche about how patriotic displays have no place within the four walls of the church. Likewise, that nationalism is idolatry. Our only allegiance should be to Jesus. On the other hand you have churches that bilk patriotic holidays. It's easy to get more emotional charge out of patriotism than the average sermon, and some pastors piggyback on that sentiment to give their preaching a boost.

Then there's the more balanced view that a Christian is a citizen of two worlds. Although Christian identity takes precedence, that doesn't cut earthly ties. Indeed, Christian identity is naturally expressed through earthly ties–though not exclusively.

2. Then there's the question of the message. Pretty music and inspirational rhetoric can seduce us into singing things that aren't true.

i) The two stanzas present a point contrast between heaven and earth, this life and the afterlife. That's nice.

ii) I don't know what Rice means by "all earthly things above". Typically, heaven is above and earth is below. So the imagery seems confused.

iii) Especially in the context of war, "the love that asks no question" seems like blindly following orders.

iv) Then there's the question of what your "country" stands for. Does that represent your family? A way of life? Liberty? A common history and culture? A people? Freedom to practice the true religion?

What's the altar? Is that a metaphor for willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice (i.e. dying in combat)? And how does that relate to the "dearest and best"? If the "dearest and best" stand for things like family, does that mean you should be prepared to sacrifice your family for your country? In one sense, Rice may mean patriotism requires parents to risk their sons in battle. On the other hand, doesn't paternal or filial duty require you to protect your family at the risk of your own life? You're not putting them at risk, but endangering yourself for their sake. So the message seems confused. But perhaps it depends on which family member is in view. Men protecting women and children. Some family members are required to make the final sacrifice on behalf of other family members. Or for the common good.

3. The theology of the second stanza is vague. Is a faithful heart the ticket to heaven? Faithful in what sense?

4. The message of the hymn is fuzzy. I'm not sure if Rice had a clear idea of what he meant. It may be impressionistic. More intuitive than exact.

5. When parsing hymns, we should make some allowance for the fact that the dual constraints of a metrical scheme and rhyming scheme limit the choice of words, so that precision of thought and expression may suffer. And poetic imagery is open-textured.

6. In light of (2) & (5), it's better to bring our theology to hymns rather than taking our theology from hymns. In one respect, what's important isn't so much what the hymn means to the hymnodist but what it means to the singer.

My soul thirsts for God

I thirst, but not as once I did,
The vain delights of earth to share;
Thy wounds, Emmanuel, all forbid
That I should seek my pleasures there.

It was the sight of thy dear cross
First wean'd my soul from earthly things;
And taught me to esteem as dross
The mirth of fools and pomp of kings.

I want that grace that springs from thee,
That quickens all things where it flows,
And makes a wretched thorn like me
Bloom as the myrtle, or the rose.

Dear fountain of delight unknown!
No longer sink below the brim;
But overflow, and pour me down
A living and life-giving stream!

For sure of all the plants that share
The notice of thy Father's eye,
None proves less grateful to his care,
Or yields him meaner fruit than I.

(William Cowper)

He will hold me fast

Phonetic spelling is theologically hazardous

https://stream.org/misheard-hymns-seriously-silly-catalog/

https://stream.org/misheard-hymns-part-two/

"I need some drug"

I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. Do these notes merely aggravate that side of it? Merely confirm the monotonous, tread-mill march of the mind round one subject? But what am I to do? I must have some drug, and reading isn’t a strong enough drug now. By writing it all down (all?—no: one thought in a hundred) I believe I get a little outside it. That’s how I’d defend it to H. C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed. 

Grief is hard for anyone to bear, but I wonder if it wasn't harder for him due to his aversion to church music. Most folks of all stripes love music. Some love pop music, some love classical music, some love both. But his aversion to music left him more emotionally isolated than most grieving people, who turn to music for solace. Music is a kind of mood-altering drug. When a good text is set to good music (hymns, anthems, carols), the combination of word and melody reinforce each other. But he absented himself from musical church services. He had a very textual orientation. And unlike his brother, he didn't travel much, either.

Personent hodie

Classical music was ubiquitous in my childhood. I first heard this hymn as a young boy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrh4aVREeKE

At the time I found it too modern and dissonant to my youthful ear, but nowadays I like the vigorous, angular melody. A modern musical setting of a Latin Christmas carol. For some background:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personent_hodie

I find it edifying on occasion to listen to Latin hymns because it demonstrates the continuity of the Christian faith down through the generations. Christians who came before me. Who had their own challenges to face, at their own time and place. 

Another, much older example, is the Christmas hymn by St. Ambrose: 

http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Hymni/VeniRedemptorG.html

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

Dealing with grief

During those times in a Christian's life when he's passing through a desert, times of grief, frustration, the dry seasons of faith, theological propositions, while indispensable, only take us so far. They feel flat. External. At times like this I think Christians benefit from listening to music. To favorite hymns and carols. Depends on your taste in music. Christian song can water a parched soul in a way that theological propositions cannot. We need both. The Bible says a lot about sacred song. There's a reason for that. 

I Look From Afar

I often comment on the light motif in Gen 1, but additional to that, there's a sound motif. Not only does Gen 1 narrate light out of darkness, but sound out of silence. The opening scene begins in a state of silence as well as darkness. God breaks the silence by his creative commands and benedictions. 

Sound has a synesthetic quality inasmuch as sound can mimic spacial orientations. Take processional hymns. King's College Chapel recorded "I look from afar". That's an advent hymn. The English lyrics are:

I look from afar: and lo, I see the power of God coming, and a cloud covering the whole earth.

Go ye out to meet him and say: Art thou he that should come to rule thy people Israel?

High and low, rich and poor, one with another: go ye out to meet him and say:

Hear, O thou Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep: art thou he that should come?

Stir up thy strength and come to rule thy people Israel.

All glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Alleluia.

In the recording, the choir begins at the back of the sanctuary. A soloist sings the first line, then the choir responds. Due to the placement of the choir in the huge reverberant sanctuary, it has the effect of hearing the music at a distance. Then, as the choir moves into the sanctuary, approaching the microphone, it creates a musical analogy for the text. At first the observer sees the power of God coming "from afar", like a cloud on the horizon. The heraldic cloud evokes the Shekinah. The implicit imagery is reminiscent of the theophany in Ezekiel 1. From a distance it appears to be a desert storm, but as it draws nearer, it becomes apparent to the prophet that this is no ordinary cloud. 

Another example is the same choir singing "Come, Thou Redeemer of the Earth." That's another processional advent hymn. Once again, the choir begins at the back of the sanctuary. The boys sing the first line, with their "angelic" voices wafting upwards and outwards. And once again, the effect mimics the lyrics. Hearing the choir at a distance, then hearing the choir draw near, is like the Redeemer leaving his world to enter ours:

Come, Thou Redeemer of the earth,

And manifest Thy virgin birth,

Forth from His chamber goeth He,

That royal home of purity,

A giant in twofold substance one,

Rejoicing now His course to run.

From God the Father He proceeds,

To God the Father back He speeds;

His course He runs to death and hell,

Returning on God’s throne to dwell.

By the same token, the creation account is like a processional hymn that gradually builds to a climax. And in the Prologue to John's Gospel, the Creator of the world enters the world he made to redeem it. 

Road trip songs

I've been hearing or singing some hymns and carols for over 50 years. Charles Hodge once said you “can ascertain the real faith of people more clearly and uniformly from their hymns and expressions of devotion than from their creeds and theologies.”

As a young boy I doubt I paid much attention to the lyrics. I don't remember what I was thinking in that regard at that age. I just liked the music. After becoming a teenage convert to Christianity, I became attentive to the theology of the lyrics. Still, at that charmed time of life, it was rather abstract. 

At this point in life there's been a shift in my perspective when I sing or hear the hymns and carols which have been a part of my life for over 50 years. I haven't changed my theology, and I still like the music. I used to think of the musically superior hymns and carols as having a timeless aesthetic value. Musical artwork. Like paintings and architecture. 

Yet you get to a point of life where you realize that most of your life is behind you. I'm in-between older generations who've passed away and younger generations on the way in. You begin thinking of yourself as on the way out. Looking back on this life. Looking ahead to what lies beyond this life. 

Nowadays I view the hymns and carols as road trip songs. Their value has become more temporary. They edify and sustain each Christian generation on the journey of faith as we head through life and head out of life towards our everlasting destination. Songs of faith we sing to ourselves and our fellow travelers. Road trip songs that pilgrims before us handed down to us. Road trip songs that we hand down to the next generation. Songs we learn on the journey as well as sing on the journey. 

In a sense we leave these road trip songs behind us when we die. They served their purpose. Here's an interview with a 98-year-old former choirboy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nck6c7DN1j4&t=367s

On a related note is an archive of historical recordings by the same choir. This one is from 1967.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ2NwVfgKtw

Listening to it, I was thinking to myself, where was I in 1967? What was I doing back then? I was in second grade.

And here's a 1954 broadcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofGxXwA8i7c

That was before my time. And the same choir has annual photographs dating back to 1884:

http://www.kccaonline.org/choir_archive_images/1884_annual_photo.jpg

Those kids, so young at the time, grew old and died. It may be that in heaven, we will continue to sing some of our favorite hymns and carols as a grateful commemoration for what God brought us through in this life. 

Christ is risen, he is risen indeed!

How can it be, the one who died,
Has borne our sin through sacrifice
To conquer every sting of death?
Sing, sing hallelujah.

For joy awakes as dawning light
When Christ's disciples lift their eyes.
Alive he stands, their friend and king;
Christ, Christ he is risen.

CHORUS
Christ is risen, he is risen indeed!
Oh, sing hallelujah.
Join the chorus, sing with the redeemed;
Christ is risen, he is risen indeed.

Where doubt and darkness once had been,
They saw him and their hearts believed.
But blessed are those who have not seen,
Yet, sing hallelujah.

Once bound by fear now bold in faith,
They preached the truth and power of grace.
And pouring out their lives they gained
Life, life everlasting.

CHORUS
The power that raised him from the grave
Now works in us to powerfully save.
He frees our hearts to live his grace;
Go tell of his goodness.

CHORUS
He's alive, he's alive!
Heaven's gates are opened wide.
He's alive, he's alive!
Now in heaven glorified.

See what a morning

See, what a morning, gloriously bright,
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes, tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce, "Christ is risen!"
See God's salvation plan,
Wrought in love, borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man,
For he lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

See Mary weeping, "Where is he laid?"
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name;
It's the master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope, bringing peace to us,
Will sound till he appears,
For he lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit who clothes faith with certainty.
Honor and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned with pow'r and authority!
And we are raised with him,
Death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with him,
For he lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

Jesus Christ is risen today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hky_xhD9ufQ

This Joyful Eastertide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tipsbcfuB4

The Immortal dies!

Apostate Dale Tuggy did a presentation at what is euphemistically called the 21 Century Reformation conference (code language of unitarianism):

https://bloggingtheology.net/2017/03/31/the-immortal-dies/

1. Since so much of his analysis turns on the definition of terms, I'm going to define how I use my terms:

i) To be a normal human being is to be a composite entity. A complete human being unites a physical body with an immortal, immaterial soul. 

ii) Put another way, I subscribe to substance dualism. I regard the human mind or consciousness as ontologically independent of the body. 

iii) I'm not using "immaterial" in a merely negative sense. Rather, I view "immaterial" as a synonym for mental. 

iv) Human nature isn't something a human being is, but has. A human being is a concrete exemplification or property instance of a human nature. If we view human nature as an abstract universal, then to be human is to be a concrete particular. By "concrete," I mean existing in space and/or time. Angels exist in time, but not in space. Humans naturally exist in both, although humans can exist in time but not in space (the intermediate state).

v) Jesus is a composite individual. Jesus unites a divine nature to a human nature. To be more precise, Jesus unites the divine Son to a human body and rational soul. 

vi) Something can be mysterious without being contradictory or unintelligible. For instance, I have no firsthand experience of what it's like to be a wolf. As a human, I can't assume a lupine viewpoint. I can't think like a wolf. I don't understand lupine psychology from the inside out.

By the same token, sight is the dominant sense in humans, whereas scent is the dominant sense in wolves. I don't know what it's like to perceive world through a wolf's enhanced sense of scent. That experience is alien to me.

As such, there are aspects of lupine nature that are mysterious to humans. But it's hardly special pleading to say that. 

vii) Apropos (vi), we have no direct experience of what it's like to be God. We have no direct experience of what it's like to be a theanthropic person. The hypostatic union is mysterious to us.

That doesn't mean it's contradictory or unintelligible. We know God by description rather than acquaintance. By that I mean, we can grasp the idea of God. We have some understanding of what the divine attributes mean. 

viii) Because God is inhuman, because God is sui generis, we use analogies to understand what God is like. By the same token, we use analogies to understand the hypostatic union. The use of analogies is not unique to explicating the hypostatic union, for we also use analogies to explicate our concept of God. Therefore, it's not special pleading to use analogies to unpack or model the hypostatic union. 

ix) Likewise, we can grasp the individual components that comprise the hypostatic union even if we can't fully grasp the relation. This is analogous to the mind/body problem. Even if we can't grasp how body and soul interact, that doesn't mean we can't define "body" and "soul". 

x) Humans can die because humans have bodies. Humans are normally embodied agents. God can't die because God isn't biologically alive in the first place. By the same token, angels can't die because angels aren't biological organisms. As I define it, only a biological organism is capable of death.

xi) Christ's human nature didn't expire on the cross. Rather, the body of Jesus expired. Human nature is more than a body. Human nature, as I define it, is a composite entity. Although Jesus died, he continued to exist in a discarnate state, between Good Friday and Easter, because he had/has an immortal human soul united to the Son. The death of Jesus did not dissolve the hypostatic union. At both divine and human levels, Jesus continued to exist during the interim between his death and resurrection. 

2. Jesus died in the same sense that ordinary humans die. When a human dies, the body expires, but the soul continues to exist. Consciousness survives. The mind survives. Personality survives. 

3. Tuggy picked on a line from Charles Wesley's hymn "And Can It Be, That I Should Gain," in which Wesley says "'Tis mystery All! Th'Immortal dies". 

A comparable example, which he didn't mention, is the Isaac Watts hymn "Alas And Did My Savior Bleed,"  which says "when God, the mighty maker, died for his own creature's sin."

These are examples of literary paradox. A literary paradox is not a logical paradox, but a literary device. Writers sometimes express an idea in contradictory terms for emphasis or shock value. Watts and Wesley are using paradoxical formulations to express the wonder of the crucifixion, given the Incarnation. 

For Tuggy to pounce on their paradoxical formulations is pedantic and evinces a tin ear for poetic license. A hymn is not an exercise in philosophical theology. The function of a hymn is perlocutionary (to influence the listener) as well as illocutionary (to assert facts). Not just propositional, but performative. 

Tuggy is tone-deaf to the pragmatics of language and the rhetorical strategy of poets and hymnodists. There's more to hymnody than conveying information. In addition, hymns are designed to be persuasive or affective. 

The formulations are paradoxical because they are deliberately simplistic. Watts and Wesley omit to mention the two-natures to make the contrast more arresting. But there's nothing intrinsically contradictory about what they said. There's a missing piece of information that harmonizes the literary paradox.

Finally, Watts and Wesley are operating in the tradition of the communicatio idiomatum (communication of attributes), where what is true of either nature is true of their common property bearer. It's not ascribing the properties of one nature to another nature, but predicating both sets of properties to the individual who shares them. Tuggy knows that, but he dissimulates when addressing his unitarian audience. 

4. Tuggy distinguishes death from annihilation. Depending on the nature of the creature, I think that's a valid distinction. However, if I understood him correctly, he said it's coherent to say that God could kill an angel without annihilating the angel. If that's what he meant, I disagree. 

On the one hand, if a creature is nothing more than a physical organism, then death is equivalent to oblivion. If you kill that kind of creature, it ceases to exist.

On the other hand, by Tuggy's own definition, an angel is immaterial. So the only way to "kill" an angel would be to annihilate an angel. An angel is a discarnate mind. The only thing that could even be destroyed is the angel's mind. That's all it is. An incorporeal mind. 

5. Tuggy attempted to construct an inconsistent triad

i) Jesus died

ii) Jesus was fully divine

iii) No fully divine being has ever died

Tuggy said there are three combinations. You can believe any two of them but have to deny the third.

But for reasons I've already given, his triad is vitiated by an equivocation of terms. 

6. Tuggy quoted 1 Tim 1:17 & 6:16 as saying "the Father alone has immortality". But he misquoted his prooftexts.

On the one hand, 1 Tim 1:17 doesn't say the Father alone has immortality, but God alone has immortality. It doesn't single out the Father as God. Likewise, 6:16 doesn't say the Father alone has immortality. And Paul doesn't say the titles apply to God in contrast to Jesus. 

7. Tuggy says that if you introduce the two-natures of Christ, it's unclear what points (i) & (ii) of the triad now mean. That's just a "verbal" solution. Just "adding words". 

But there's nothing unclear about that. What it means to die relative to his human nature is that his body died. His soul was decoupled from his body. Those aren't just words, but concepts. 

8. Tuggy reverts to his hobbyhorse about whether it's coherent to posit "two selves one person." He says that when you read the Gospels, Jesus didn't "flip a switch" by "talking in one voice, then talking in another voice."

But as a matter of fact, when we read the Gospels, Jesus makes statements, or the narrator makes statements about Jesus, or normative characters and foil characters make statements about Jesus, that are incompatible with Jesus either being merely human or merely divine. 

9. Tuggy says that according to the two-natures doctrine, Jesus had "two selves; one died and one lived on". But that's inaccurate. The rational soul of Jesus didn't cease to exist. Even if, for the sake of argument, we use Tuggy's "two-self" rubric, both "selves" survived the crucifixion. A human being is not reducible to his body. 

10. Tuggy says the NT never says that when Jesus died, "only the human part died, one of his two natures died but not the other".

But that's the fallacy of question-framing, where you slant the issue by how you cast the issue. To begin with, if death necessarily has reference to the body, because that's the only component which is capable of dying (i.e. biological death), then we wouldn't expect any additional qualification. 

And that isn't unique to the Christology, but includes anthropology. If humans are a union of body and soul, then to say a human dies just means the body dies. That, however, doesn't imply that the human decedent ceases to exist. But the corporeal "part" or component is the only part to which biological death is even applicable. There's nothing more to be said in that respect.

Yet there's exegetical, empirical, and philosophical evidence for substance dualism. In the nature of the case, the phenomenology of death only concerns what is observable. Ordinarily, all you see is a body–be it living or dead. (Even in that regard, there are reported ghosts and apparitions of the dead.) 

Tuggy says that according to the NT, "Jesus as human died". Naturally, since that's the only sense in which a human can die. By the same token, we have animals bodies, but that doesn't imply that we're merely animals. 

Perhaps Tuggy is a physicalist. But the immediate question at issue is whether the idea of substance dualism is incoherent. 

11. Tuggy says that according to the two-natures doctrine, Jesus is "two beings: Jesus in human nature Jesus in divine nature". But that supposedly raises the question, how many Christs there are? One Christ or two Christs? 

I often wonder if Tuggy is playing dumb, or if he really suffers from tunnel vision. To comment on the same individual in different respects doesn't imply that he's "two beings". Rather, these are ways of referring to different aspects of the same individual.

For instance, I can say that Abraham died relative to his body, but Abraham still exists relative to his soul. I'm not positing two different Abrahams, but different components of the same Abraham.

Likewise, I can say that David is the son of Jesse, the grandson of Obed, the father of Solomon, and the father of Absalom without positing four different Davids. Is Tuggy really that thick? His unitarianism commits him to using dumb arguments. Not only is he anti-Trinitarian, but anti-intellectual. The two go together. 

When I survey the wondrous cross

When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast -
Save in the death of Christ my God.
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.

See from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did ere such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small!
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul,
Demands my soul,
Love demands my soul,
My life, my all.