The Divinity of Christ

The great theologian was asked in his old age what was the most profound idea he ever had , in his many years of theologizing . He instantly replied ,

” Jesus loves me “

The belief of Christ’s divinity is the most distinctive Christian doctrine of all . Hence , the origin of the word Christian from Christ . Yet , they are many who question this issue . The following is an exploration and argumentation into this issue :

What a trustworthy teacher teaches can be trusted . If he is trustworthy , then we should trust him , especially about his own identity . If we do not trust him , then we cannot say that he is trustworthy , that is , wise and good .

 

In fact , if we do not trust him even to know who he is , then he is certainly not trustworthy . If there is any one thing that disqualifies a person from being trustworthy , it is not knowing him or herself . The size of the gap between what you are and what you think you are is a pretty good index of your (in)sanity . If i believe that i have the most prominent mind in the world , i am an egoistic fool , but not insane . If i believe that i am Napoleon , i am probably over the edge . If i believe that i am the Archangel Gabriel , i am probably well over it . And if i believe that i am God ? Would you send your children to sunday school to be taught by a man who thought he was God ?

 

Why then did anyone believe Jesus’ claim to be God ?

 

I am not denying the fact that there were and are unbelievers , but that doesn’t water down the fact that there were believers .

 

Perhaps He did not exist ? It was all a myth . Then where was the motivation for such a myth ? What did He and those who upheld the ‘lie’ gain from such a conspiracy ? Martyrdom ? Why did (have) thousands suffer torture and death for this myth ? Above all , this myth has continued to attract the brightest minds in history . Aquinas argues that if the Incarnation did not really happen , then an even more unbelievable miracle happened : the conversion of the world , detachment from wordly pleasures and radically new heights of holiness (you only need to read Augustine’s ‘confessions‘ to delve into the enormity of this) by a mere myth .

 

Let’s assume that it was a myth . If Jesus was (is) not God , then what was (is) He ?

 

(1) The Dilemma : Lord or Liar ?

 

Let us apply some common sense here . A good man is not a liar . A liar is not a good man . Perhaps that is not always necessarily true . However , add into the equation the enormity of the lie and you have to agree that someone who lied about being God is either a liar or not .

1. Jesus was either God (if he didn’t lie about who he was) or a bad man (if he did) .
2. Jesus was not a bad man (few would challenge this premise) .
3. Therefore , Jesus was (is) God .

(2) The Trilemma : Lord , Lunatic , or Liar ?

 

Perhaps Jesus was neither God nor liar . If he sincerely believed that he was God , then he was neither . He would , instead , be a lunatic . Why couldn’t he be a lunatic or a liar ?

 

Because of his character . There are two things everyone admits about Jesus’ character . He was wise and good . These are the opposites of lunacy and a liar .

 

There are many individuals in asylums that claim to be God . This divinity complex is a recognized form of psychopathology . The symptoms are well known : egoism , narcissism , inflexibility , predictability and the inability to love others as they really are . These are , undeniably , the polar opposites of Jesus’ personality . If that were lunacy , lunacy would be more desirable than sanity . Just as a plus , he was morally impeccable in every way .

 

Thus , just to add on to why he couldn’t be a liar ; He has the wrong psychological profile and there is no conceivable motive . Why couldn’t his disciples have lied ? For the exact same reasons .

 

(3) The Quadrilemma : Lord , Liar , Lunatic or Myth ?

 

There is a possible fourth hypothesis . All the other three previous hypotheses – Lord , liar and lunatic – assumed that Jesus claimed divinity . Suppose he didn’t . Suppose this claim is a myth but it wasn’t him that lied . Rather , it was the New Testament texts . The data makes the myth hypotheses impossible . Here’s why :

1. If the same neutral , objective , scientific approach is used on the New Testament texts as is used on all the other ancient documents , then the texts prove remarkably reliable . Complex , clever hypothesis after hypothesis follows another with bewildering rapidity and complexity in the desperate attempt to debunk , ‘demythologize’ or demean the data . No book in history has been so attacked , cut up , reconstituted and stood on its head as the New Testament . Yet , it still lives .
2. The state of the manuscripts is very good . Compared with any and all other ancient documents , the New Testament stands up as ten times more sure . For instance , we have 500 different copies earlier than A.D. 500 . The next most reliable ancient text we have is the Iliad , which we only have 50 copies that date from 500 years or less after its origin . If the books in the New Testament did not contain accounts of miracles or make radical , uncomfortable claims on our lives , they would be accepted by every scholar in the world . In other words , it is not objective , neutral science but subjective prejudice or ideology that fuels skeptical Scripture scholarship . Furthermore , the manuscripts we have are mutually reinforcing and consistent . There are very few discrepancies and no really important ones . Even later discoveries , such as the Dead Sea Scrolls have confirmed rather than refuted previously existing manuscripts in every important case .
3. If Jesus’ divinity is a myth invented by later generations ; the early Christian community , then there must have been at least two or three generations between the original eyewitness of the historical Jesus and the universal belief in the new , mythic , divined Jesus . Otherwise , the myth could have never been believed as a fact because it would have been refuted by eyewitnesses of the real Jesus . Both disciples and enemies would have reasons to oppose this new myth . However , we find no such evidence at all of anyone opposing the so-called myth of the divine Jesus in the name of an earlier merely human Jesus .
4. If a mythic ‘layer’ had been added later onto an originally merely human Jesus , we should find some evidence , at least indirectly or second hand , of this earlier layer . We find instead , an absolute and total absence of any such evidence anywhere .
5. The style of the Gospels is no the style of of myth but that of real , though unscientific eyewitness description . Anyone sensitive to literary styles can compare the Gospels to any of the mythic religious literature of the time and the differences will appear remarkable and unmistakable . The Gospels are full of little details , both of external observation and internal feelings that are found only in eyewitness descriptions or modern realistic fiction . However , they also included dozens of little details of life in the first century Israel that could not have been known by someone not living in that time and place (John 12:3 for instance) . And there are no second century anachronisms , either in language or content .
6. The claim of Jesus to be God makes sense of his trial and crucifixion . Roman laws did not recognize blasphemy as grounds for execution and Jews had no legal authority to enforce their own religious laws as capital punishment under Roman rule . Furthermore , there is no evidence of Jesus having any political ambitions which rules out the possibility of his execution as the result of being Caesar’s rival .
7. There are four Gospels , not just one . Different writers , different times , probably for different audiences and for somewhat different purposes and emphases yet a lot of cross-checking is possible . By a textual trigonometry or triangulation , we can fix the facts with greater assurance here than with any ancient personage or series of events .
8. The question of motive . If it was a myth , who invented it ? No one invents an elaborate practical joke in order to be crucified , stoned or beheaded . And if they didn’t know they were going to be persecuted for their ‘myth’ , they would certainly have given it up as soon as they were . Some refused martyrdom , rejecting Christ and worshiping the emperor to save their lives ; but not one , none of them ever said Christ was a myth they had fabricated .
9. First century Jews and Christians were not prone to believe myths . Contrary to belief , they were already more ‘demythologized’ than any other people . The orthodox were adamantly , even cantankerously and intolerantly opposed to the polytheistic myths of paganism and to any ecumenical syncretism . Nor would anyone be less likely to confuse myth and fact than a Jew .
10. Finally , if you read the Gospels with an open mind and heart , you may well conclude , along with Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard , that no mere man could possibly have invented this story .

(4) The Quintilemma : Lord , liar , lunatic , myth or guru ?

One last possible escape-hatch opens up . Perhaps even though the Gospels  tell the truth that Jesus claimed divinity , and even though he could not be a liar or a lunatic , and therefore the claim is true , yet maybe he didn’t mean it to be understood literally , but rather in a mystical way . There are thousands of people today , as in the past , who claim to be God but are neither lunatics nor liars . They are gurus , yogis , roshis , ’spiritual masters’ or ‘enlightened’ mystics . Why couldn’t Jesus fit into this well-established and well-populated class ?

For one simple reason : because he was a Jew . No guru was ever a Jew and no Jew was ever a guru . The differences , or rather , the contradictions between the religious Judaism of Jesus and the teaching of all the gurus , Hindu , Buddhist , Taoist or New Age , are so many , so great and so obvious that you have to be a dunce or a professor to miss them . It is utterly unhistorical , uprooted , and deracinated to see Jesus as anything other than a Jew ; as a kind of generic , universal type of ‘enlightened consciousness’ . You simply cannot ignore his Jewishness .

If Jesus was in fact a guru or a mystic who transcended and contradicted his Jewishness , then he utterly failed to get any one of the gurus’ teachings across to anybody , ever , for almost two thousand years . He was the worst teacher in history if he misled all his followers on all the essential points where Judaism and mysticism conflict . The Jews were extremely proud of these distinctive beliefs and held to them tenaciously against worldwide disagreement , against the whole pagan , polytheistic , pantheistic , mythical and mystical religious world of antiquity for nearly two millennia . Here is a summary of nine flat out contradictions :

1. Judaism is an exoteric (public) religion of collective observance of a public law (Torah) and belief in a public book (the Scriptures) . But the gurus and mystics of all cultures teach an esoteric (private) , individual , inner experience and cannot be communicated in words .
2. The mystics or gurus believe in a pantheistic , immanent God . For them , ‘enlightenment’ consists in the realization that we and everything else are all , ultimately , God .
3. For Jews , God is a person . For them , ‘I’ is the name of Ultimate Reality-God . For the gurus , ‘I’ is the name of ultimate illusion .
4. For the mystics , time and history are also ultimately unreal , illusory , projections of unenlightened consciousness . Enlightenment consists of emancipation from time . Salvation is found in timelessness .  For the Jews , time and matter (which are relative to each other) are real because God created them .
5. Mystics believe that God is unknowable , except wordlessly in mystical experience . Jews believe that God made himself known publicly in deeds and words , divinely inspired writings .
6. For the Jews , God is the active initiator . Another reason for His masculine imagery . Religion is not our search for God , but God’s search for us . Our search of God fails ; Tower of Babel , false yet popular prophets , human expectations for the Messiah . God’s search for us succeeds : the call of Abraham , the true prophets , Jesus . For the mystics , God is passive . We find him , not he us .
7. The pantheistic God has no will , no law , no preferences . The Jewish God is a moralist , has a will and discriminates ; He hates evil and loves good .
8. Biblical and orthodox Judaism , like Christianity , teaches an eternal , ultimate justice and judgment . That means we believe in Heaven and Hell .
9. Ultimately , Jews believe in objective truth .

Jesus was a Jew ; this simple fact refutes the guru hypothesis . He never told anyone to convert to Judaism . He said he came to fulfill the law and the prophets , not destroy them . He did not found a new religion ; he fulfilled the old one .

 

The above argumentation has shown the inherent flaws of the possible options . Only one remains ; Jesus is Lord .

Why then are many not compelled ?

Some for irrational reasons , fear in the authority of the church that seems to make demands on our will to practice a whole way of life that seemingly conflicts our natural inclinations , moral reluctance (guilt of sin) , fear of a seemingly uncontrollable supernatural God , simple pride , the widespread concept that it is not intellectually fashionable , the notion that it offends our ‘religion’ of equality , but most often of all , as someone once said , ” the only good argument against Christianity is Christians ” . Often , the thing hated and rejected is not Christ but Christians .