The Divinity of Jesus

[mebythesea]

If God and Jesus are indeed one and the same, what about God before Jesus?
BTW, thank you all for indulging me so much. ...

Thank *you* for indulging us and being so open to listen as we try to put difficult stuff into words!

Again, I hope I'm stating the standard mainstream Christian position here:

One God, in three persons (Father Son and Holy Spirit) always has been (which means, by the way, that relationship is like a basic category of reality, which I think is really cool.)

At a certain point in history, God the Son became incarnate in a man (Jesus of Nazareth, who was born in a specific place at a specific time and as a man, of course did not exist before he was born.)

Again, it isn't quite accurate to say Jesus and God are just "one and the same." It's not like God=Jesus, Jesus=God, period.

I wish I could draw this little symbol you see in stained glass a lot - hang on let me see if I can find it on the web....

(hope that works)

it's in Latin but I've always thought it's cool.
the circle in the middle says GOD.
the three on the outside say Pater (father) Filius (Son) Spiritus Sanctus (Holy Spirit)
the bars in between those three say "is not"
the bars extending from each one into GOD say "is."

So: The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father. But the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God.

I dunno, it works for me

 

[kigakazi]

Hmmm, thats an interesting way of putting it. I think I should start reading the stuff you do, mebythesea! But it is the mainstream understanding as far as I am aware, none of the three 'forms' of God can be interchanged, but they are all God. It kinda makes my water theory work doesnt it...lets see if I can do the logic well.

Here goes: Ice is not the same as flowing water or steam, but its all water, just in different states, right? Cos if you weighed them, for example, the weights would be different etc, so in that sense they are not the same, BUT they are all water in different forms, right? Sorry, Im rambling...just checking to see if the water example fits in well with the explanation mebythesea gave. This is so cool. I love this discussion and I love you guys for being very level headed and open to this discussion. Keep it up!!

 

[mebythesea]

Kigakazi - yeah, I like the water and ice and steam thing too. I think it works.

(Nice to see someone else from the Anglican family on here, by the way.)

 

[martha]

Still here, still digesting and thinking...

 

[DebbieSG]

Good formulated question, martha! Is God before Jesus? St. Patrick will tell you they are part of the same clover-leaf.

But here's a better way to view the relationship: God is the Father, Jesus is the Son...

and The Holy Spirit COMFORTS Christians since Jesus is not with us on earth, but sitting on the Right Hand of God. so glad to have the comfort of the Holy Spirit! btwl, martha, what exactly are you trying to understand in this thread? do you want the atecdote to bad preaching? are you egging on the preachers? are you pissed off at preachers? i do not want to preach! Jesus, God, Christians who follow Jesus, they're all ONE, ok?

You will get as many different answers as there are denominations...

Hey, why don't you take the religion quiz, it's somewhere here at interference! which showed for me, a mostly "Conservative Presbyterian" rating...do you find you relate to any particular sect within the entire "Catholic" (universal) christian religion?"

 

[mebythesea]

You will get as many different answers as there are denominations...

Hmmm. I think that might be true if Martha was asking something like "how do you interpret Bible passages about women's roles?" or "in church, do you use printed prayers or make up the words as you go along?" or "how do you decide when to support your government and when to oppose it?"

But the foundational level of question Martha's posing here isn't something the main Christian denominations have substantially different answers on. At least, I'm not aware of any.

 

[martha]

what exactly are you trying to understand in this thread?....

Jesus, God, Christians who follow Jesus, they're all ONE, ok?

I took the religion quiz, but I don't remember what I measured out as. I'm not a Christian; I thought I made that clear in my opening post. I usually try to make that clear when I post here.


What I'm trying to understand is the view of how Jesus and God are one in Christianity. Where is the duality? Is there duality? I have gotten some splendid, well thought out answers. I have no ulterior motive; I'm not mad at anyone; I was just doing some thinking along these lines, and this forum is an excellent resource for opinions and scholarship.

That's all.

 

[kigakazi]

I think that would be a heated one - a debate on how different Christian denominations interprete bible passages about women's roles... Nice to meet another Anglican here too, btw. Glad to know some of us are willing to be open and share our beliefs with others, mebythesea.

Hi Debbie, I honestly believe Martha is trying to understand Jesus' divinity and how that fits into the Trinity etc. If she was ticked off by the church, it wouldnt have taken this long for the rest of us to see the anger and, trust me, she would not have got the kind of responses that she has. I doubt that its about all of us preaching to Martha (I certainly know for a fact that thats not my calling). Its about helping her begin to understand what we believe in. taa!

 

[martha]

Martha is trying to understand Jesus' divinity .... Its about helping her begin to understand what we believe in.

That's it exactly.

 

[nbcrusader]

Martha, I don't know how much this will help, but I've heard that the person who can completely understand the Trinity would be the fourth member.

As for the unity within the Trinity - all the attributes that one can ascribe to God the Father are equally attributes of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Keep the questions coming, it is always good for us to reexamine what we believe.

 

[mebythesea]

Martha, I don't know how much this will help, but I've heard that the person who can completely understand the Trinity would be the fourth member.

LOL! You can say that again!
Funny though, it hits me now it's the same with everyone personal -- I mean, can we really **completely** even understand a best friend, a spouse? No....

 

[verte76]

This stuff is *hard*. I was a philosophy minor in school and wrote a term paper on this. Ouch! Yes, the church councils decided that Christ had two "natures", divine and human. So I guess you could say he was 100% human nature and 100% divine nature. The orthodox teaching is that Jesus was indeed God; he was "God made flesh". The Gnostics believed that God was strictly spirit and couldn't be flesh, which is why they rejected the doctrine of the Resurrection. It was flesh and they thought this was inconsistent. There were a gazillion little sects all over the place; of course the politicians couldn't allow this, so the all got suppressed by the government.
Oh, well, I won't re-write the damn thing here.

 

[bonosloveslave]

Martha, I don't know how much this will help, but I've heard that the person who can completely understand the Trinity would be the fourth member.

Wow- I almost posted the same thing - you said it better than how I was trying to spit it out

 

[martha]

I was a philosophy minor in school and wrote a term paper on this....


Oh, well, I won't re-write the damn thing here.

It would be okay if you did. I wouldn't mind, although you might mind!

 

[martha]

Again, thanks, all!


I'm not thinking so much about the Holy Spirit. My questions are more concerning Jesus, and I have to say that I think I've had them all adequately answered for the scope of thinking and discussion that can occur here.

Thank you. Please continue this if you'd like, because I'll be checking back in.

 

[foray]

I thought Roger Young's "Jesus Christ" film (cast inc. Debra Messing, Gary Oldman) was an interesting interpretation of Jesus' spirituality. He had to come to grips with the quasi-revelation that he was in fact the Messiah, that he must in fact sacrifice himself and endure pain. The struggle culminates in the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus makes the final decision and hits the final nail on his own coffin. He asks God for one last chance to 'let this (burden) pass' from him, yet eventually faces it, saying to God, "not my will but Yours be done". It is recorded that Jesus had blood streaming down his temples (some folks say this is impossible, other folks like scientists say that this is in fact a sign of extreme stress). I've always found it interesting... how Jesus was all flesh, like mebythesea said, and all God at the same time. Sort of like our own duality, if these two properties are mutually exclusive, who knows... I've often summed it up in my head with this phrase, "we are bags of flesh that love each other".

foray

 

[verte76]

It would be okay if you did. I wouldn't mind, although you might mind!

Geez, it seems like I've had a disk crash and gotten a new computer since I wrote the thing. Don't put me through those blasted medieval philosophers again. To be precise the paper was about the "filioque" controversy between the Eastern Church leaders and the Western Church leaders that led to the split in 1054. The dispute was over wording in the Nicene Creed on the Trinity. I can find the precise stuff about the dispute if you're interested. I think I handed the paper in and forgot the philosophy.

 

[verte76]

More on the "filioque" dispute that I wrote my paper about. I just found some of my source material. Originally the Nicene Creed, the official profession of faith in the Catholic Church, read "the Holy Spirit, Who proceeds from the Father". A church council in France in the ninth century changed this to "proceeds from the Father and the Son". The Latin for this is "ex patre filioque procedit", thus the name of the dispute. The Greeks were furious. They believed that the Holy Spirit proceded not from but through the Son. The "filioque" was officially added to the Creed in the eleventh century. The paper was about the theology of this.
Quite honestly the paper was a nightmare.

 

[martha]

May be, but it sure sounds interesting from here. I like that kind of geek stuff.

 

[verte76]

May be, but it sure sounds interesting from here. I like that kind of geek stuff.

Hm.................
*digs for more geek stuff on the filioque controversy*
*currently investigating the Greek theologians*
*currently investigating medieval French political shenanigans*

 

[verte76]

Any complicated Christian philosophy or theology should also be fully explained.

Thanks.

It just hit me that this is a bit of an oxymoron. This stuff is about as clear as mud. At least the filioque controversy is. What the heck, it's a heck of alot more interesting than Iraq.

 

[verte76]

OK, more on the filioque controversy. Theologians from western Christendom claimed that there was a "double procession" of the Holy Spirit through both the Father and the Son. They put this in the Nicene Creed in the eleventh century. Theologians from Eastern Christendom claimed that the HS proceded from the Father alone and *through* the Son. The Trinitarian theology gets tricky here; are the Father and Son equal, have the same attributes, or do they have different roles? These questions are what the theologians couldn't agree on. Political disputes and cultural differences contributed to the break between East and West. Unfortunately, my favorite research site got nuked about a month ago. I really hate it when great sites get nuked.

 

[DebbieSG]

What I'm trying to understand is the view of how Jesus and God are one in Christianity. Where is the duality? Is there duality? I have gotten some splendid, well thought out answers. I have no ulterior motive; I'm not mad at anyone; I was just doing some thinking along these lines, and this forum is an excellent resource for opinions and scholarship.

That's all.

The "Truth" is, there is no "duality." Christ came in order to "get rid of" the duality we have here on earth, flesh and light, matter and spirit.

I know you aren't a Christian, but it would be helpful for me to know where you are coming from...hindi ideas, taoist ideas, new age understandings, traditional denominational christianity?

When you receive Jesus, you retain your body "clay pot" as described in Corinthians (i think?) but are led intellectually by the Spirit, and your actions increasingly negate desire for anything in this earthly world...conscience becomes the will to obey G-d. A christian, from the time he/she is baptized, is letting go of cares for the material (including sex) and looking only to union with G-d.

God forgive me if any of this is heretical, i am sincerely trying to give a useful answer...

 

[sulawesigirl4]

I don't agree that being a Christian means "letting go" of material desires necessarily, but in not serving them or allowing them to have control. God created us to be humans and that includes all the wonderful parts of what that humanity entails. Instead of negating our humanity, Christ makes us fully human and redeems our humanity. Which makes it possible for us to affirm our God-given abilities, needs, talents, etc. and use them to their fullest. There shouldn't be a divorce between the intellect and the body, the mind and the heart but rather a union, imho. The Greek notions of the natural impurity of the body and the natural holiness of that which was "spirit" was part of what led into Gnostic heresy in the beginning...declaring Jesus to not be human because to be flesh was a bad thing. I might just be restating what has already been said, but I did want to clarify.

 

[joyfulgirl]

When you receive Jesus, you retain your body "clay pot" as described in Corinthians (i think?) but are led intellectually by the Spirit, and your actions increasingly negate desire for anything in this earthly world...conscience becomes the will to obey G-d. A christian, from the time he/she is baptized, is letting go of cares for the material (including sex) and looking only to union with G-d.

"looking only to union with God" is a goal of mystics, not Christians. Christians seek to be "good" humans, as I understand it, reserving union with God for the afterlife. Mystics seek complete merging with God consciousness while in the physical body.

 

[foray]

Hm, I think both of you are right, in a way. It's a tricky phrase, 'union with God'. What Debbie means is that our spirits cleave close to God: such that we are repelled by what repels God, we are pleased by what pleases God, etc. Furthermore, to make Jesus Christ the king of our hearts, is filling up that God-shaped hole; and I suppose that is also being 'one' with God. You have probably heard the phrase 'Jesus gave his life that we may make atonement with God' -- atonement here having its roots with 'at one -ment' thereby implying unity.

Isn't the difference between this and mystics the fact that mystics believe they each become God?

my $0.02
foray

 

[joyfulgirl]

Isn't the difference between this and mystics the fact that mystics believe they each become God?

my $0.02
foray

Mystics in general believe that Soul is the spark of God within each of us, that we are all "Gods unrealized," that the Soul is not yet awakened until one is initiated by a living God-Realized Soul or Master and the process of awakening Soul within is then begun. Until then, the mind is leading the way, not the soul. This "union with God" then is something like a drop of water merging back into the ocean. Mystics also believe that Jesus was a great mystic.

 

[foray]

So if you're stranded on an island for life, you can never grow spiritually? Or can animals/abstracts be a "God-Realized Soul Or Master" too?


foray

 

[joyfulgirl]

Sorry, I don't understand the question; or rather, why what I said evoked your question.

 

[foray]

Nevermind I think I figured it out.

foray