Chapter 9 Discussion Part 3

Well, Chapter 9 has been quite a journey. I never dreamed it would take me this long to address all the issues. Here are some more responses to the questions I posted several days ago. Please go to my previous posts and think about these before looking at my responses. Let me know what you think.


6. How would you respond to the idea that Jesus was just a normal man and that the idea of him being God was made up by later followers, possibly as late as 325 AD by Constantine as Dan Brown proposes in the DaVinci Code? It is easy to prove that Dan Brown is way off base here. In previous posts I have demonstrated how Jesus' apostles worshipped Him as god and all those writings are dated to the first century. I'm also reading through the Antenicene Fathers which are Christian writings all dated before the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. It is a ten volume encyclopedia of writings that all call Jesus God. Even non-Christian writings such as Tacitus refer to how Christians were being persecuted for worshipping Jesus as God. All of this happened before Constantine was even born.


7. If Jesus did not claim to be God but merely the Son of God then what would he be like? Would any form of deity have rubbed off on him? Would he be half-man/half-God like Hercules? Would he have any supernatural powers? It is hard for me to imagine how Jesus can be the Son of God but only an exalted human being. At the very least Jesus should be half god or a lesser god. Reformed Christians believe in the virgin birth but not the Trinity so where did the other half of Jesus' human DNA come from that makes him only human. If he is the Son of God then some of God's deity should have rubbed off on him which should be evident from his power over the laws of nature. If you can believe in a virgin birth then why is the Trinity such a hard concept to grasp. We need to remember that God is far more complex than we can imagine but Reformed Christians try to put God in a box that explains him by our limited means. Physicists have shown that there are dimensions that we as humans cannot detect so it is conceivable that God could be triune but that it is hard to picture that in our limited four dimensions.


Chapter 9 also addresses the following questions:


8. If God is loving then why does he sentence people to Hell? God is loving but he is also just. He cannot allow unforgiven sin to enter Heaven. Besides, is it really God sending people to Hell or do they choose to go there? Why does someone who wants nothing to do with God on earth want to spend eternity with Him? It seems to me they would be happier in Hell where God wont bother them anymore.

9. If Jesus is so loving then why did he not speak out against slavery, which was so prevalent in the first century Roman world? We tend to picture slavery in light of the American Civil War. That form of slavery could be very cruel and harsh. But that is not what was going on in the Roman world. Slavery then had limits and was not necessarily based on race. A slave had to be released after seven years and some people voluntarily sold themselves into slavery to work off debts they could not pay monetarily. Remember, Jesus came to save us spiritually not to overthrow political powers or settle civil disputes. Also, Jesus came primarily to Jews so it should not be surprising that he did not address a Roman social issue. You have to be careful of saying Jesus supported something just because he didn't address it. It is not right to make a case out of silent evidence. I don't know anyone that would say that Jesus believed it was OK to keep young boys as sex objects but pederasty was a common Roman practice that Jesus didn't address either. Since he came to Jews who would not practice this you would expect Him to not talk about it.


Wow, that was a lot of material. Digest on this a few days and I'll get chapter 10 up next. Have a great week.