podcast 189 – The unfinished business of the Reformation
Do the NT authors assume that God is the Trinity, or the Father… or are they confused?
Do the NT authors assume that God is the Trinity, or the Father… or are they confused?
Sir Anthony Buzzard is the author of a number of books, including the 2007 Jesus Was Not a Trinitarian.
Interesting title, no?
Some Christians will think it true but trivial.
Others, against the evidence, assert it to be false.
Others will urge that he is implicitly but not explicitly a trinitarian, i.e. that his beliefs entailed it, though he did not believe it.
I agree with with Buzzard, though, that it is both true and important. According to the gospels, Jesus’ beliefs included the numerical identity of the one true God with his heavenly Father, and we should assume him to be self-consistent on this subject, so he did not also think that the one true God is numerically identical to this: Father+Son+Spirit. (Things identical to the same thing must also be identical to each other.)
But isn’t Jesus worshiped in the New Testament? And doesn’t that show that he is God himself?
No – I agree with the substance of this recent video by Buzzard:Read More »Anthony Buzzard: That Jesus Should be Worshiped Does not Imply that He is God
The terms “atheism,” “monotheism,” and “polytheism” seem straightforward enough… BUT important ambiguity lurks in the root term “theism.”
An apologist tries to tag unitarian Christians with some unwelcome words.
Is Jesus addressed or described as “god” or “God” (Greek: theos) in the New Testament? Yes. But quite a bit less often than you might think. Theologian Murray Harris wrote a whole book about this, pictured here. I don’t endorse this as a particularly good book – Harris, like many a theologian, mixes linguistic sophistication and wide theological erudition with philosophical unclarity, argumentative ineptitude, and… Read More »Jesus and “god” – part 6 – Jesus as “god” in the New Testament
Thanks to Dr. James Anderson for his further reply to my reply to his initial answer to the Challenge to “Jesus is God” apologists. His new post does clarify his position for me. Perhaps later, I’ll reply more straightforwardly, but for now… story time! The story concerns premise 4 of the Challenge… The new kid at the high school seemed somehow different. “He seems… spiritual,” mused… Read More »a case of progressive revelation
From time to time, I’m going to set up some simple polls for ya’ll to vote in. I’ve decided to set them up outside of WordPress (this blog’s software), so as to avoid various complications. Here’s praying that I don’t run into technical difficulties that are over my head! I’ve shamelessly stolen the four claims – the inconsistent tetrad – from a posting by Jeff… Read More »first Poll – worship
“…earliest believers treated the risen/exalted Jesus as they did only because they felt required to do so by God.”
Should Christians worship only God? Or God and Jesus? Or is it redundant to say that we should worship both God and Jesus? If Jesus isn’t God himself, is it therefore the sin of idolatry to worship Jesus? I address these questions in light of scripture in this screencast version of a talk I gave in Atlanta at the 2012 Theological Conference sponsored by the Atlanta Bible… Read More »Who Should Christians Worship?
Should we defend what we think are biblical, yet unintelligible or seemingly incoherent claims as “mysteries”?
Theology blogger / author / golf pro Kermit Zarley asks: Is Jesus Divine Because He Was Worshipped?
He answers in the negative. As usual, he highlights some important scholarship. In part,
When the gospel Evangelists report that someone performed proskuneo toward Jesus, Bible translators invariably reveal their Christological bias by rendering it “worship,” suggesting that that person thought Jesus was “divine” or “God.” But when the Evangelists relate that a person performed proskuneo toward someone other than Jesus, they translate it “bowed down,” “bend the knee,” or “prostrate.” So, they translate it “worship” when done to Jesus, but a physical act when done to someone else.
I agree that it is important that Christians should worship Jesus too, and not only God. The New Testament, in my view, clearly teaches this; it is a consequence of his being raised to God’s right hand. I also agree that this is not at all the sin of idolatry.
Keep in mind that the passages he’s discussing above concern Jesus before his resurrection and exaltation. He is clearly worshiped in the fullest religious sense after. e.g. Philippians 2, Revelation 5, as well as prayed to.
Contrary to Mr. Zarley, I do think it is technically a violation of the command, now made out of date by the one who issued it, to worship only Yahweh (i.e. the Father). I would add that it’s simply not correct to define the sin of idolatry as worshiping anyone other than God.
I don’t think we can make much progress distinguishing kinds of (religious) worship. To say there are kinds of worship is one thing, but to display the differences is another. But we can distinguish indirect from direct worship, as the New Testament does in several places. We worship God (indirect object) by worshiping his Son (direct object).
Here’s another angle. In the NT, the justification given for worshiping Jesus is that this is our obeying the God who vindicated, raised, and exalted Jesus. Now, if we should worship Jesus because he’s fully divine, or because he’s God himself, or because he shares a divine nature with the Father… wouldn’t that be their main reason?
Below the fold, much better music than we usually feature on this blog. Read More »Zarley on “worship” of Jesus in the New Testament
If the earliest Christians’ answer (re: how one can be a monotheist and yet worship both the one God and Jesus) was a good answer then, why isn’t it a good answer now?
An interesting little exchange between Origen and the pagan critic Celsus about the god of Christians.
This argument is valid. But is it also sound?
It may depend on what is meant by the term “worship”. It seems to me that many contemporary Christian philosophers and theologians understand “worship” in a way that makes 1 true by definition. Read More »Jesus and “God” – Part 10 – What is worship? (Dale)
In this second part of my discussion with Dr. William Vallicella, I give an argument that when Muslims use the word “Allah” they are referring to the same being Christians refer to when they say “God,” namely, the god of Abraham.
In this episode I’m joined by Dr. William Vallicella, aka “The Maverick Philosopher” to discuss the recent controversy
Applying the methodology… can we answer the question?
Two philosophers give us a sort of recipe for answering this question.