In the New Testament, Jesus has a god (who is also ours)
Listen to this post:
Where does the New Testament say this? In these places. (The video is by unitarian Christian blogger Sandra Hooper.)
I suggest that all Christians should carefully weigh the argument below. (If you don’t know what it means to say that an argument is valid and/or sound, then you may want to look at this first or these four segments. These are standard terms in logic and analytic philosophy.)
Jesus has a god over him.
Jesus is God.
God has a god over him. (1, 2)
There are only three escapes from this argument:
Claim that it is invalid – that 1 and 2 might be true even though 3 is false.
Deny or doubt premise 1 (that Jesus has a god over him).
Deny or doubt premise 2 (that Jesus is God).
Why not embrace the conclusion? Because it’s inconsistent with monotheism. If monothesim is true, then “God,” that is, the one true God, is unique, and has no one in any sense “over” him. The one God, creator of the cosmos, doesn’t worship or pray to anyone. The argument must be objected to, not embraced.
As the video shows, several New Testament writers not only imply but explicitly say that Jesus has a god (namely, God) over him. So it looks like a Christian committed to the New Testament should not deny 1. We’re down to two options then.
Claim that it is invalid – that 1 and 2 might be true even though 3 is false.
Deny or doubt premise 1.
Deny or doubt premise 2.
I would say that “is God” in 2 is vague.
If it means that Jesus and God are numerically identical, that Jesus just is God himself and vice-versa (which is what many Christians would understand by 2), then it is clear that the argument isvalid. (3 follows from 1 and 2.) Then, we must deny 2. But not only to escape 3. Rather, we observe that in the New Testament (and even in most Christian traditions) there are many differences between God and Jesus. But, nothing can at one time differ from itself. So, we knew that 2 (so understood, as making a numerical identity claim) was false anyway.
What if 2 simply means that Jesus is divine, or that he has a divine nature? Well, if one if those entails that Jesus is the one God himself, then the argument is valid, and the only escape is to deny 2, as just explained. But if 2 read as “Jesus is divine” doesn’t entail that he’s numerically identical to God, then 3 doesn’t follow – the argument will be invalid.
What if 2 is understood to mean that Jesus is a part of God? Again, 3 won’t follow. The argument will be invalid.
What if 2 is understood to mean that Jesus may be described as a “god” or addressed as “God”? (I think that’s true, by the way.) On this option, the argument will be invalid. 1 and 2 won’t imply 3.
Any of these responses allows the Christian to say the argument is unsound.
A weaker reply would be to claim merely that it is not cogent (not known to be sound), because there is some doubt about one or both premises, or about the validity of the argument. I don’t see any room for doubting validity (however the premises are read, as we’ve seen, the resulting argument is clearly valid or not).
There’s only one other (sort of) principled reply I can imagine. (Are there others? Try your hand at it in the comments.) It is what a positive mysterian like Dr. James Anderson would say: we have tons of reason to believe 1, and also to believe 2. We admit that 3 seems to follow. But we have tons of reason to deny 3. So, while the argument has true premises and seems valid, I guess it must not really be valid, though I can’t do anything whatever to help you see that it’s invalid. We must accept this as a holy mystery: 1, 2, not-3.
Is this reasonable? I doubt it. But note that this mysterian reply only makes sense on the first interpretation of premise 2 above. On the others, the argument just fails because it is invalid, so the mysterian resistance to inferring 3 would be unneeded. Now, reading 2 in the first way above, the argument is obviously valid. It has this form:
x is F
x = y
Therefore, y is F.
If x just is y (and vice versa), and any property of one is a property of the other – ’cause this “other” is really the same thing we started with! We have at least as much, and probably more reason to believe that the argument is valid, than we have to believe both 1 and 2. So no, it doesn’t seem reasonable to accept 1 and 2, and say, I guess the argument just must, contrary to appearances, be invalid. Again, not that given our assumption of trust in the NT, there are many reasons to deny 2, as Jesus and God, in the NT, differ. This reduces any justification we have for 2. But then, we’ll have less reason to accept 2 (and so, 1 & 2) than we will to accept the validity of the argument. It just is valid. To escape affirming 3, we must deny 1 or 2.
One argument would be to accept 1, 2, and 3 but claim that God (Jesus) has a god (God) over him only in as much as God (Jesus) is a human. Any claim about Jesus can then be both true and false depending on which nature is in view. Jesus is no longer a person in any conceivable sense but the problem is seemingly solved.
The defining feature of a god in ancient conception was his authority over his servants. By the simple fact that Jesus served and made sacrifices to someone else proves he did not consider himself the one god of Israel. Jesus had a master over him. The very metaphor of Father and Son makes a godless egalitarian relationship between them impossible. The Son must serve the Father because the father has authority over the son.
nickbatchelor
Nice reasoning Dale. Jesus always has someone God to him whether on earth or in heaven. He worships his God and Father. That doesn’t make me think he is that God. Do you think if God’s name was left in bible translations there would be less confusion on the identity of God?
HI Nick,
I assume you mean in the OT – i.e. not substituting LORD for Yahweh. Yeah, I think that is a factor. But still you would have the ambiguity of “ho kurios” (the Lord) in the NT. Sometimes it is Jesus, sometimes God, and sometimes we really can’t tell. I don’t think the authors in some cases were all that motivated to make it clear. It’s one way of exaltation by association – not, as some many think, dropping a hint that Jesus and God are one and the same, but rather, emphasizing Jesus’s post-resurrection God-like status by applying some of the name titles and descriptions to him, which in the OT are originally about Yahweh himself.
nickbatchelor
Thanks for your thoughts Dale. Where there are ambiguous scriptures the best approach is to see what other texts tell us and that usually clears it up as you know. We do have God’s name in Psalm 2:2, Psalm 110:1, Isaiah 61:1 and Micah 5:4 and that is enough for me to see that Yahweh/Jehovah is not Jesus but the God of Jesus.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”- Ephesians 1:3
Servetus
Hello Dale, I am a long time listener and very infrequent commentor on your blog. I’m not sure if this is welcome, but I wanted to point you to two recent debates I did involving the Trinity in the Old Testament (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coQLCBzidec) and the deity of Christ in the book of Revelation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9ZlyDOvzuU). I’d be very honored if you checked them out and had any feedback. Again, sorry if this isn’t the right place to get your attention.
I listened to the first part of your debate and thought it was done well. I especially like the way the debate was limited to only passages from the Hebrew scriptures. You did a particularly good job addressing the “multiple YHWHs” issues.
Sean Garrigan
Why would I want to listen to a debate between a Trinitarian I’ve never heard of, and an unnamed Unitarian?
It’s a very hard hitting argument, the problem is that to get out of it the trinitarian has to have 2 definitions of God (or even more than that actually). Once they allow that then they have a problem with their super-strict definition of monotheism, one God sure, but which definition? Then it opens to door for when Jesus is called Theos to mean God in a different sense.
The trinitarian apologe
David Waltz
Hi Dale,
My thoughts on #2: “God” is used in a different sense than most modern folk use the term.
One argument would be to accept 1, 2, and 3 but claim that God (Jesus) has a god (God) over him only in as much as God (Jesus) is a human. Any claim about Jesus can then be both true and false depending on which nature is in view. Jesus is no longer a person in any conceivable sense but the problem is seemingly solved.
The defining feature of a god in ancient conception was his authority over his servants. By the simple fact that Jesus served and made sacrifices to someone else proves he did not consider himself the one god of Israel. Jesus had a master over him. The very metaphor of Father and Son makes a godless egalitarian relationship between them impossible. The Son must serve the Father because the father has authority over the son.
Nice reasoning Dale. Jesus always has someone God to him whether on earth or in heaven. He worships his God and Father. That doesn’t make me think he is that God. Do you think if God’s name was left in bible translations there would be less confusion on the identity of God?
HI Nick,
I assume you mean in the OT – i.e. not substituting LORD for Yahweh. Yeah, I think that is a factor. But still you would have the ambiguity of “ho kurios” (the Lord) in the NT. Sometimes it is Jesus, sometimes God, and sometimes we really can’t tell. I don’t think the authors in some cases were all that motivated to make it clear. It’s one way of exaltation by association – not, as some many think, dropping a hint that Jesus and God are one and the same, but rather, emphasizing Jesus’s post-resurrection God-like status by applying some of the name titles and descriptions to him, which in the OT are originally about Yahweh himself.
Thanks for your thoughts Dale. Where there are ambiguous scriptures the best approach is to see what other texts tell us and that usually clears it up as you know. We do have God’s name in Psalm 2:2, Psalm 110:1, Isaiah 61:1 and Micah 5:4 and that is enough for me to see that Yahweh/Jehovah is not Jesus but the God of Jesus.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”- Ephesians 1:3
Hello Dale, I am a long time listener and very infrequent commentor on your blog. I’m not sure if this is welcome, but I wanted to point you to two recent debates I did involving the Trinity in the Old Testament (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coQLCBzidec) and the deity of Christ in the book of Revelation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9ZlyDOvzuU). I’d be very honored if you checked them out and had any feedback. Again, sorry if this isn’t the right place to get your attention.
Thanks for posting these. I’m looking forward to listening to them.
Hi Servetus,
I listened to the first part of your debate and thought it was done well. I especially like the way the debate was limited to only passages from the Hebrew scriptures. You did a particularly good job addressing the “multiple YHWHs” issues.
Why would I want to listen to a debate between a Trinitarian I’ve never heard of, and an unnamed Unitarian?
Excellent video.
It’s a very hard hitting argument, the problem is that to get out of it the trinitarian has to have 2 definitions of God (or even more than that actually). Once they allow that then they have a problem with their super-strict definition of monotheism, one God sure, but which definition? Then it opens to door for when Jesus is called Theos to mean God in a different sense.
The trinitarian apologe
Hi Dale,
My thoughts on #2: “God” is used in a different sense than most modern folk use the term.
Grace and peace,
David
Sure. But we me distinguish “Jesus is God” (j = g) from “Jesus is [rightly called or addressed as] “God.”” And both of those from “Jesus is divine.”
It’s the first which I discuss in the post. I agree with the second. The third I think is too vague to agree or disagree with, as it stands.
Comments are closed.