Deity of Christ

Pro is incorrect in his characterization of the "raw data" that my verses provide; it is not so much that they mention Jesus as distinct from God as it is the fact that they say that he HAS a God (this is a very important distinction); if Jesus was simply "distinct" from God, then he could still be divine in the Trinitarian sense; however, if the whole person of Jesus has a God, then even in the Trinitarian sense he cannot be God. Pro has yet to provide any Biblical evidence as to how the God of the universe can have a God. Even if Pro tries to argue this on the basis of the hypostatic union, he has still failed to provide any explicit Biblical evidence for that doctrine either. Therefore, for his critique of my argument to be valid, Pro must not only furnish clear passages of scripture which teach that Jesus has two natures, he must also prove that Jesus was speaking in his human nature only (not the whole person) when he said "My God"; otherwise, Pro will have to explain how Jesus (as God) can both have a God and be God at the same time, without violating monotheism. My original contention was that if he could not provide any explicit verses that teach the hypostatic union, he could not use that concept as a category by which to interpret the clear teachings of scripture that Jesus (the whole person) has a God, and thus could not be God. In other words, to be consistent with his first rule, he would have to base any implicit doctrines on the explicit declarations of scripture; but if the doctrine of the hypostatic union is not an explicit doctrine, then it must be either implicit or nonexistent; since Pro believes that it exists, then he must believe it to be implicit; and if it is implicit, how can he use it to counter the explicit teaching that Jesus has a God, without using the implicit to prove the explicit? And if the fact that Jesus has a God is an explicit statement, then it must be used to interpret any implicit statements that seem to make him God, because God cannot have a God; so there must be an alternative interpretation that is consistent with the explicit declaration that Jesus has a God. Thus, if the doctrine of the hypostatic union is not true, then that would mean that whenever Jesus spoke, he did not speak in one nature or the other but as a whole person, so that his statements about himself must be referring to his whole person, which means that if he says he has a God, then his whole person has a God, and if there is only one true God, Jesus must either be a false God, or not God at all. Pro also did not address my main argument from the Hebrews 1 passage. My argument was not simply that the point of Hebrews 1 was to show that Jesus was superior to the angels; the main argument that I was making was that since the author of Hebrews puts Jesus being made better than the angels as a direct consequence of his sitting at the right hand of the Father, Pro cannot use ANY of the passages that the author of Hebrews quotes as evidence (even implicit evidence) for Jesus' preexistent deity. Like I said, if the author presents evidence of Jesus' preexistence as God (meaning he would have already had a name better than the angels), that would contradict his conclusion that the better name he obtained was a direct result of him having sat down at the right hand of the Father, thus invalidating his own argument. Assuming that the author of Hebrews did not contradict himself, the only reasonable way to understand this passage is that all of the verses quoted were meant to show why the resurrected Jesus had a better name than the angels, which of course would include verse 8 (in effect, removing this passage from Pro's "heap" of evidence). Pro claims that it requires "exegetical gymnastics" to overthrow the evidence of his citations' "obvious interpretation". This statement assumes two things: the first is that what is obvious to him is obvious in general; and second, that those reading the texts that he cited in the time that they were written, would interpret them the exact same way he does. The problem with Pro's interpretive framework is that it is based on a 21st century understanding of the English text. If the Bible was originally written in modern English, then I would agree that Pro's interpretations are "explicit" and "clear". However, Pro seems to mistake what is obvious from the English reading as what would be obvious from the original Greek reading, and that is a problem. The question is not "what do these passages say and mean in English?" the question is "what did these passages say and mean in Greek to those who originally read them?" The fact that the answer to the latter question is not so clear cut is evinced in the way different translators and commentators render the verses in question, and all of the verses Pro uses to prove the deity of Jesus have alternative translations and interpretations when you read them in the ORIGINAL LANGUAGES that do not "obviously" and "explicitly" prove the deity of Jesus. One of the major weaknesses in Pro's line of argument is that he fails to comment on what the original languages say; all of his arguments have been based on the English translations, which is poor scholarship. If Pro really wants to make a case for the deity if Jesus, he MUST show how not only are his interpretations the best way of understanding the text in the original languages, but also that they fit the context of both the pericope that they are contained in, as well as of the chapter, book, and author who wrote them, BETTER than the interpretations that I will propose. There are also issues with Pro's analogy using light. In the first place, to say that "Evidence shows that light has both the properties of waves and particles", is a far cry from saying that light is both a wave and a particle; Pro is committing the fallacy of the undistributed middle in claiming that having the properties of something makes you that something. Assuming particles and waves truly have contradictory characteristics, then no one thing can have ALL of the attributes of both at the same time and in the same relation; it is possible for it to have SOME of the attributes of each, but not all, because that would be like saying "I can draw a shape that is fully square and fully circle"; it is utter nonsense. Thus, if light exhibited the attributes of both, it would mean that it fits into a brand new category altogether, which is neither wave, nor particle, but a wave-particle. In the end, Pro's analogy fails to show that the same item can have two sets of contradictory attributes at the same time and in the same relation, and thus, this analogy can at most support the idea that Jesus had some of the attributes of God, and some of the attributes of man at the same time,. . . &c. Even if Pro could prove that there were verses that said that Jesus was God, as well as those that said he was man, the only logical conclusions he could draw from those two propositions would be that either the Bible contradicts itself, or that Jesus was a God-man hybrid, who was half-god and half-man. The problem with his theology is that he does not say that Jesus was half-God and half-man, but that he was fully God and fully man; however, in order to prove this, he must find a passage in the Bible that makes the same distinction that Trinitarians do between being a God-man (i.e., half and half), and being a God-man (fully both). Unless Pro can furnish a passage that teaches PRECISELY what the doctrine of the hypostatic union teaches, or strongly implies it, he cannot claim that doctrine to be an explicit Biblical one. Therefore, the burden of proof is on Pro to show that when the Bible calls Jesus "God" it is calling him God in the sense that he is not the same person as the Father, but a coequal member of the same Godhead as the Father with all of the same attributes, but as a different person. I will cover all of his verses in detail in the next round