Deity of Christ

Unfortunately, I underestimated the level of space I would need to respond to Pro's questions adequately; as a result, my responses may not have covered every issue he addressed, and for that I apologize. Perhaps at a later date, we can break this issue down into bite-sized pieces and delve a little deeper. Nonetheless, I did want to make an attempt to address the points that Pro brought up in his last round, and bring some closure to this debate. To Pro's credit, he did point out a problem with my citation (the first passage should have read "that which was from the beginning . . . concerning the word of life."). However, Pro accuses me of "stripping all context", but he is guilty of that very thing by claiming that "all the context you need is in John 1". By what authority does he dismiss 1 John 1 as valid context for interpreting John 1:1ff? If Pro wants to argue that these two passages are NOT parallel, he must show why John would use such strikingly similar language otherwise. Pro claims that being a "Son of God" is consistent with being God; however, for Pro's argument to be valid it has to work for any terms plugged into it: to say that being the son of God is consistent with being God, is exactly the same as saying "to be the son of President Bush is consistent with being President Bush"; the fact that this argument doesn't work proves Pro's claim of logical compatibility to be completely false. Pro claims that he has allowed the Bible to "speak for itself", but where does the Bible say that you can be the son of someone, and be that same someone at the same time, and in the same relation? Pro has provided no evidence that we should depart from the Bible's normal usage of language when it comes to Jesus, and since Jesus is called the "Son of God", we should interpret that to mean that God and his Son are two distinct persons who share the same relationship as a Father and a Son. To argue that my position requires the presupposition that one cannot be both the "Son of God" and "God himself" is to shift the burden of proof; since I am defining terms as per their Biblical usage, then the burden of proof is on Pro to show that in this case we must depart from the explicit, clear biblical usage of the term "Son of God", without begging the question, and assuming that Jesus is called God in John, so they must be compatible. For John 20:28, I argued that since Jesus denied claiming to be theos in 10:33, then it is unlikely that he would accept that title in 20:28, and therefore it is unlikely that Thomas is addressing Jesus as theos. I never claimed that my argument was deductively valid, merely inductively valid. Also, Jesus clearly denies claiming to be theos, by saying that he claimed to be huios theos; so here are the options: he denied it in one instance and accepted it in the other, he accepted it in both instances, or he did not accept it in both instances. Since he denied it in 10:33, neither the 1st choice nor the 2nd can be true, so it must be the 3rd. Pro says that it is equally valid to argue the other way, but in order to do that, he would have to show two things: that Jesus' statement in 10:33 was not a denial of claiming to be theos and that Thomas was referring to Jesus as theos in 20:28. Since the phrase ego eimi itself does not connote deity, and since the context of 8:28 makes it clear that Jesus did not claim to be God in 8:58, Pro is forced to use eisegesis and circular reasoning to prove his argument. Firstly, since the Jews gave no clear statement of why they were stoning Jesus, Pro must read into the text that it was because he claimed to be God. Secondly to argue that the Jews wanted to stone Jesus because he claimed to be God is circular reasoning (e.g., Con: "Why are they stoning him?" Pro: "Because he claimed to be God". Con: "How do you know he claimed to be God?" Pro: "Because they're stoning him"). Pro asked "How does a sinning human get lifted to the right hand of God?" That is clearly a loaded question because Jesus was NOT a sinner. Furthermore, the Jewish concept of Agency gives the agent the authority of the person himself; therefore, Jesus could be acting as God's agent, with God-given authority to do his works. If Pro tries to argue that a man cannot be invested with God's full authority, then he must concede, based on his own line of reasoning that even though he does not understand how God can give a man the power that Jesus had, it can still be true, because God is beyond our understanding, and we cannot inject our own limiting views of him into the scripture. Pro claims Romans 9:5 calls Jesus "God blessed forever"; however, this text is grammatically ambiguous, and Pro's translation is inconsistent with Paul's use of language. In the first place, different versions dispute the translation of this text, and unlike the ESV, the RSV and the Moffat translation have this as a reference to God the Father, not Jesus, evincing the ambiguity of the Greek in this text. Also, Paul refers to God the Father as "God over all" and "God blessed forever" in several other places (Romans 1:25; 2 Corinthians 11:31; Ephesians 1:3; 4:6; 1 Timothy 6:15); however, he never refers to Jesus with that title. Not only does this make Pro's interpretation less likely, it shows that Pro's claim that this is an explicit proof does not take into account the ambiguous Greek and the wider context of Paul, while the interpretation I propose is consistent with both. Therefore, it is much more likely that this is a reference to God the Father, and not Jesus. In regards to Philippians 2, Pro implies that "being in the form of God" means that you are "God". Again, he provides no evidence linking the two, and yet claims this is explicit proof of Jesus' deity. There is no passage that says that the Father is in the "form" of God, so to argue that Jesus is God because he is in the "form" of God lacks any Biblical precedent. For Pro's argument to stand, he must show that Biblically, to be in the form of God means that you are God, without begging the question and assuming that Jesus is God, so it is possible to be both "in the form of God" and "God" at the same time. Also, the word "form" is "morphe" in Greek, and it means "external appearance"; therefore, being in the morphe of God is like being the image of God. To say that to be in the image of God makes one God would be to say that Adam was God, being made in his image. Not only does this make sense lexically, but it also makes sense of the fact that Jesus is called the "image" of God elsewhere in Paul's writings, as well as the rest of scripture, and thus is consistent with the Biblical portrayal of Jesus. In Titus 2:13, Pro argues that Paul is calling Jesus "God and savior". Firstly, the term theos was applied to men who were not deity; so even if this passage was referring to Jesus as theos, it would not make him God; the burden of proof is on Pro to show why theos must mean God. Also, it is not a unique thing for Paul to refer to God as Savior (e.g., 1 Timothy 1:1, 1 Timothy 2:3, 1 Timothy 4:10, Titus 1:3, Titus 2:10, and Titus 3:4), which shows that there is a precedent for what occurs at Titus 2:13, and to call God Savior in that verse and separate from Jesus would not only fit perfectly with the theme of the Titus (in which Paul calls God "savior" 3 other times), but also with the grammar of the passage which allows for there to be 2 different persons in view. Furthermore, this passage could also be referring to Jesus as "the glory of our great God and Savior", because Jesus said that he would appear in the glory of his Father (Luke 9:26; Mark 16:27), thus it would be perfectly consistent with Jesus' words to refer to his appearing as the appearing of the glory of God. In either case it would be out of context for Paul to refer to Jesus as God and savior, when the vast majority that he uses the term "God", it is a clear reference to the Father.