{"id":44673,"date":"2024-07-07T09:58:06","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T14:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=44673"},"modified":"2024-07-07T09:58:10","modified_gmt":"2024-07-07T14:58:10","slug":"corrections-needed-craigs-misinformation-on-god-in-the-new-testament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/corrections-needed-craigs-misinformation-on-god-in-the-new-testament\/","title":{"rendered":"Corrections needed: Craig&#8217;s misinformation on &#8220;God&#8221; in the New Testament"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this short video Dr. William Lane Craig unfortunately promotes a <em>demonstrable <\/em>falsehood about Jesus in the New Testament and makes some very misleading and contentious statements too. Can you hear them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"nv-iframe-embed\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Does The Bible Present Jesus as God? #Shorts\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j8geE7fjulk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>First, the question is unclear and will be misleading to the ordinary person: &#8220;Is Jesus presented as God in the Bible?&#8221; The ordinary person will hear this as asking if in the Bible Jesus and God <em>are one and the same<\/em><\/strong>. But in Craig&#8217;s view, they are <em>not<\/em>; if Jesus were identical with God, then in Craig&#8217;s view Jesus would be the Trinity . . . which he would deny. BTW, <a href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/podcast-124-a-challenge-to-jesus-is-god-apologists\/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR07ZX7jXQ6LoHMaKfSa6i2MQ6gn464F9RcwLcPi8zDd1Yv67RXrrXZTMb8_aem_ji5yU73XegOU71McGrf4Rw\">I think Craig is correct that the Bible doesn&#8217;t <em>identify <\/em>Jesus and God<\/a>. Craig doesn&#8217;t clarify that when he says &#8220;Jesus is God&#8221; he means only that Jesus is divine &#8211; and <em>not <\/em>in the way which implies being a god, but rather only in the way that implies being &#8220;a divine Person.&#8221; Saying &#8220;the Bible presents Jesus as God&#8221; is <em>not <\/em>a good shorthand for this claim!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Second, Craig gives a misleading answer, that in the New Testament Jesus is given &#8220;unique divine titles, properties, and honors.&#8221; Unique . . . as in, <em>only God <\/em>can have<\/strong> that title, property, or honor. (That&#8217;s what the ordinary person will hear.) In other words, for any x whatever, if x has that title, property, or honor, then x = God . D&#8217;oh! To be consistent with his work on this topic thus far, Craig must mean instead that <em>only a divine Person<\/em>, only a member of the Trinity, can have those titles, properties, or honor. But good luck finding a claim like that stated, implied, or presupposed in Scripture!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lastly, he urges that in <strong>at least seven places the word &#8220;God&#8221; (Greek: <em>ho theos<\/em>) is applied to Jesus. But this is <em>demonstrably <\/em>false. <\/strong> In our forthcoming debate book Craig urges that the word <em>theos <\/em>is meant in reference to Jesus in the following eight passages: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=+John+1.1%2C+John+20.28%3B+Romans+9.5%2C+Titus+2.13%2C+Hebrews+1.8%2C+and+2+Peter+1.1%2C+John+1.18%2C+1+John+5%3A20&amp;version=NRSVUE;SBLGNT\">John 1.1, John 20.28; Romans 9.5, Titus 2.13, Hebrews 1.8, and 2 Peter 1.1, John 1.18, and 1 John 5:20<\/a>, so I take it he&#8217;s referring to those here. If you know a little Greek, you can check that link yourself and see that in John 1:1 and John 1:18 we have the word <em>theos<\/em> but without the definite article <em>ho <\/em>(&#8220;the&#8221;). The is a &#8220;the&#8221; in Romans 9:5 in the articular participle <em>ho on<\/em> (&#8220;who is&#8221;), and the grammar allows that it could refer either to the Christ or to God, although deity-of-Christ proponents usually take the <em>ho<\/em> there to refer to the preceding word <em>christos<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What <em>can <\/em>be argued is that in those seven or eight places <em>theos <\/em>(<em>with or without<\/em> the definite article <em>ho<\/em>\/&#8221;the&#8221;) is supposed to refer to Jesus. (Of course, one can argue <em>against <\/em>each alleged example too on various grounds!) But <strong>Craig conveniently leaves out<\/strong> that according to the lexicons, beings other that God can be referred to as <em>theos<\/em>, and so <strong>a <em>theos <\/em>in the New Testament needn&#8217;t be either God or a divine &#8220;Person&#8221; in God<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lastly, Craig asserts that &#8220;it is <strong>indisputable that Jesus is presented as God<\/strong> in the Bible.&#8221; But this<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Jesus-Human-Not-Divine-Debate\/dp\/B0CNJDBMYV\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=N5E5IOS3ZCLL&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.4oOag9IoeUYjrC2yKNpWnJdAwN4vN_KHT1k8mShdmcqcqQpKNFEnguqagq0lnGL7pZepnYGK3wgeo9322FtgeYt17FD3UBDovPcLC7RUixb-Zj1llyGM2HI9QrCy5MdcuvhD4kP7PcBIl5QFBFkoMNTbeAaKTb7oTWwiSexqUSeheujaH3E8Agaz8wei32mIa_4mqQk5zp4-sYfz1_Zdy_-Z64-xC7GOUjq76RjyOEM.empEnlXD8qRjFtzYCv622SXs1KhEB7xLFO9-D6jSYJY&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=is+jesus+human+and+not+divine&amp;qid=1720360335&amp;sprefix=is+jesus+human+and+not+divine%2Caps%2C115&amp;sr=8-1\"> clearly <em>is <\/em>disputable<\/a>, whatever one means by &#8220;presented as God&#8221; here. Just the cases of ancient <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Dynamic-Monarchianism-Thomas-Edmund-Gaston\/dp\/173757831X\/\">Dynamic Monarchians<\/a>, the so-called &#8220;Arians,&#8221; and modern-era <a href=\"https:\/\/unitarianchristianalliance.org\">unitarian Christians<\/a> show us that such claims <em>can <\/em>be disputed by informed people for whom the Bible is inspired and authoritative. The God of the New Testament is essentially immortal, necessarily top-level (not under a god), untemptable, and essentially omniscient, where the New Testament Jesus is (pre-resurrection) mortal, under God, temptable, and ignorant of at least one truth known to God. Is such a Jesus <em>clearly <\/em>&#8220;God&#8221; &#8211; that is, clearly <em>fully divine<\/em>, or at least divine <em>in a way a divine Person is divine<\/em>? No. Craig&#8217;s claim here is<strong> irresponsible and patently false<\/strong>, and it is a disservice to the Christian public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And his claim that<em> ho theos<\/em> seven times in the New Testament refers to the Jesus is <strong>demonstrable misinformation, and he should take this video down, then correct it in another video ASAP<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"nv-iframe-embed\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The biblical Jesus is not fully divine\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GJCZervdJEk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William Lane Craig makes some false and misleading claims about the New Testament Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,21,109,15,6,9,95,43,210],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-bible","category-challenge","category-christology","category-complaints","category-philosophy","category-uca","category-unitarianism","category-william-lane-craig"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44673"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44679,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44673\/revisions\/44679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}