“What, is the Son supposed to be an atheist?” – Part 1

The New Testament Jesus says that someone else is his god, and constantly relates to this other as to God, e.g. praying to him, submitting to him. This seems to many of us strong evidence that according to these sources, Jesus is not God himself (the one true God), nor is he fully divine (for that would make him the one true God). I mean, what more need a guy do to clearly communicate that he’s not God?

I see two different issues here; one is biblical and the other is conceptual. Biblically, the one God of the Bible is assumed to not be under any god. He is the god over all others, and does not himself have a god over him. Some whom the sources call “God” or “gods” (e.g. angels, humans, Satan) are subject to a god – but not Yahweh.

…our God is greater than other gods.

2 Chronicles 2:5

This “God” is subject to no god at all. Rather, he is the god over everyone else.

Conceptually, it seems a necessary truth that no god is the god over himself. The relation god-over is an non-reflexive relation, like the relation boss-of. Sometimes we will say that an entrepreneur “is his own boss,” but that is just a way of saying that he doesn’t have a boss, that in his job he answers to no one else. Your boss, just conceptually, is someone else, someone to whom you are subject (in a workplace). Similarly, no one can be her own spouse, despite what a few unhinged people may claim. Likewise, no one is his own god, just conceptually. Even if both god-er (the god over) and god-ee (one with a god over) are both gods, the point holds; just conceptually, they can’t be the same god.

This all seems to be simple, unimpeachable reasoning; there’s no discernible speculation in it. It’s just simple reading comprehension (regarding the Bible) and simple conceptual analysis (regarding the concept of having a god over one).

But according to some apologists, this is pathetic question-begging, as it merely assumes the impossibility of Incarnation, or the impossibility of multiple “Persons” who are equally God. In other words, it’s only the sort of objection an uninformed person would offer, someone who doesn’t even know what trinitarians will easily say about these matters.

Next time, a retort from a veteran evangelical apologist.