Letter on Jesus' own claims to divinity

C----,

Thank you for clarifying your point. It is true that Jesus did not say "I am God" but he did nevertheless claim divinity. His claims were sometimes indirect, but they are there. I can think of at least three places where Jesus claims to be divine. The first is in John's Gospel where Jesus tells the Jews The Father and I are one (10:24-38). Like Matthew 28:18, this passage draws attention to the distinction between the divine persons within the Trinity as well as points to their unity. For Jesus says The Father and I, implying that Jesus himself is not the Father (for the Son is not the Father), but then he adds are one, implying that Jesus is equal to the Father. In order for Jesus to be equal to the Father, he must be divine; in order for Jesus not to be the Father, he must be a different person. Even the Jews to whom he was speaking understood that he was claiming to be God and they were therefore ready to stone him for blasphemy. When asked why they were going to stone him, the Jews replied because you, a mere man, claim to be God (10:33). Earlier in the same Gospel, in fact, the Jews had wanted to kill him for he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God (5:17-18). Apparently, this was something he did a lot. And if the cry of the crowd before the crucifixion is any indication - the cry that he called himself the "son of God" - Jesus must have frequently implied he was divine.

Another passage in which Jesus indirectly claims to be God is Mark 2: 5-11 (also, Luke 5:20-24). In this story of healing, when the paralytic is brought before Jesus, he says your sins are forgiven. Notice again that the Jews realize what he is doing, for they say to themselves Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone? The Jews realize that since only God can forgive sins, Jesus is acting as if he were God. Jesus knows the thoughts of their heart and says Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." His question of which is easier is important because, judging from externals (as the teachers of the law were doing), it is more difficult to say "Get up and walk" since that can be verified by the senses. The claim "Your sins are forgiven," however, is easier to say (though not easier to do) since it can not be verified by the senses. Therefore, according to the pragmatic view, if Jesus can restore the paralytic, he must also be able to forgive sins. And since he acted as God, he must have thought he was God. Since he thought he was God, he was either right or wrong. If he was wrong, he was a lunatic. If he was right, he really was and is God.

Jesus' clearest declaration of his own divinity, however, is in John 8:58. In this passage, after the Jews ask who Jesus is (v. 50), he first implies he is greater than Abraham and then says it directly: before Abraham was, I am. In saying this, he uses the same expression that Yahweh used at Mt. Sinai in answer to Moses' question about who God is: "I am" (Ex. 3:14). The Jews, who were thoroughly familiar with the book of Exodus, knew exactly what Jesus was saying - that he existed before Abraham because he was eternal and, therefore, God - and they tried to stone him because of it (v. 59).

There are other passages that confirm this reading (Jn 13:13; Jn 6:46), but the passages mentioned seem to be the clearest presentation of who, according to the records we have, Jesus himself said he was, for he not only claimed to be eternal and one with the Father but he also acted as if he was God by forgiving sins.

Peace, etc.

impeccability and infallibility

Often discussions of the papacy confuse impeccability with infallibility. But when the Church teaches that according to Christ’s promise she has been preserved from error in matters of faith and morals, she does not also claim that either her children or her pastors are free from sin. In fact, she expressly and explicitly denies it. Cardinal Newman writes in his Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics:

I allow there are true charges which can be brought against us; certainly, not only do I not deny it, but I hardly could deny it without heresy. I say distinctly, did I take upon me to deny everything which could be said against us, I should be proving too much, I should startle the Catholic theologian as well as Protestants; for what would it be but implying that the Church contains none within her pale but the just and holy? This was the heresy of the Novatians and Donatists of old time; it was the heresy of our Lollards, and others, such as Luther, who maintained that bad men are not members of the Church, that none but the predestinate are her members. But this no Catholic asserts, every Catholic denies. Every Catholic has ever denied it, back to the very time of the Apostles and their Divine Master; and He and they deny it. Christ denies it, St. Paul denies it, the Catholic Church denies it; our Lord expressly said that the Church was to be like a net, which gathered of every kind, not only of the good, but of the bad too. Such was His Church; it does not prove then that we are not His Church, because we are like His Church; rather our being like the Primitive Christian body, is a reason for concluding that we are one with it. We cannot make His Church better than He made her; we must be content with her as He made her, or not pretend to follow Him. He said, "Many are called, few are chosen;" men come into the Church, and then they fall. They are not indeed sinning at the very time when they are brought into His family, at the time they are new born; but as children grow up, and converts live on, the time too frequently comes, when they fall under the power of one kind of temptation or other, and fall from grace, either for a while or for good. Thus, not indeed by the divine wish and intention, but by the divine permission, and man's perverseness, there is a vast load of moral evil existing in the Church; an enemy has sown weeds there, and those weeds remain among the wheat till the harvest. And this evil in the Church is not found only in the laity, but among the clergy too; there have been bad priests, bad bishops, bad monks, bad nuns, and bad Popes. If this, then, is the charge made against us, that we do not all live up to our calling, but that there are Catholics, lay and clerical, who may be proved to be worldly, revengeful, licentious, slothful, cruel, nay, may be unbelievers, we grant it at once. We not only grant it but we zealously maintain it. "In a great house," says St. Paul, "there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some indeed unto honour, but some unto dishonour." There are, alas, plenty of children of the Church, who by their bad lives insult and disgrace their Mother.

commentary upon his post

The subject of the post is introduced by a quotation and a link to the source from which the quotation was drawn.

The Vatican issued a document Tuesday ratified and confirmed by Pope Benedict reasserting that the Roman Catholic Church is the only "true" church and that other denominations do not hold "the means to salvation." [article]

Next is his immediate reaction to Benedict’s statement—or rather, since he gives no sign of having read the document itself, to the article about Benedict’s statement.

Well isn't that precious.

Notice the ironic use of the word “precious.” The word does not mean “of high value” but the opposite. Yet as amusing and effective as irony can be, it is not a substitute for thinking or reasoning. For example, rather than critiquing this post I could have said, “Gee, your profound insights, thoughtful reactions, and well-informed opinions in this post are precious.” But I would rather use reason than irony since the calm, passionate defense of a belief more easily opens the way for response or even refutation. In the next sentence, he clarifies his personal reaction.

And by precious I mean sad—divorced from both the message of Jesus [Matthew 25:31-46] and from world history since then.

Here are two implied arguments. The first is that Matthew 25:31-46 somehow refutes or speaks against Catholicism in general and the papacy in particular. The second is that the history of the papacy somehow refutes or speaks against Catholicism in general and the papacy in particular. Neither argument, however, can be refuted because neither argument is clearly presented.

I can fairly quickly skip past the fury and right on to the bewilderment and pity.

Here the author lets us know which emotional states he passed through in the moments immediately after reading the news article.

It's just quite the mind-blow to see otherwise reasonably intelligent people—people talking into cell phones, for instance; these aren't jungle people—casually mention their assent to the exclusivist and [quite literally] self-righteous nature of the Roman bishop.

This is the second most interesting part of the whole post because he manages to use two logical fallacies in the same sentence. The first is the Appeal to Incredulity (e.g., “I don’t understand how anyone could argue from an appeal to incredulity”) and the second is the Appeal to Vanity (e.g., “You are far too intelligent to accept an argument based on an appeal to vanity”) [SOURCE]. Interestingly, the author manages to blend both of them into a single appeal that we can, for the sake of accuracy, call the Incredulity-Vanity Appeal. However, no honest thinker can accept the argument that because this writer does not understand how intelligent Catholics assent to their faith, that faith must therefore be wrong.

Also, according to this author, the “nature of the Roman bishop” is “[quite literally] self-righteous.” Due to an ambiguity, this charge may be taken in two ways. The first way is if Roman bishop, which properly denotes the pope’s person, is a metonym for Roman bishopric, which denotes his office. Or, if the words are taken as they stand, that the any pope is, presumably in the exercise of his office, self-righteous. What then is meant by “quite literally” self-righteous? The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language defines “self-righteous” as “piously sure of one's own righteousness” [SOURCE]. The word “piously” here is pejorative, meaning not “marked by earnest devoutness” but “marked by false devoutness” [2b]. The question at hand then is whether the papal office as such is sure of its own righteousness in a manner marked by false devoutness, or whether every pope as a pope has been sure of his own righteousness in a manner marked by false devoutness. And the second sense must be universal to every bishop of Rome, for a flaw in the nature of a thing must be universal to all instances of that thing.

The first sense, while supported by a later correspondence in which the author said “the papacy in and of itself is a self-righteous post,” is quite literally impossible since an office, having no consciousness, cannot be sure of anything. And the second sense—that in the exercise of his office the pope acts in a manner marked by false devoutness—begs the question, assuming that the bishop of Rome has not been granted his office by Christ.

Now we come to the most interesting part of post, the imaginary conversation between a Protestant and the pope.

Protestant: "And, why are you infallible again?"
Pope: "Because I said I was!"

In this passage the author has the pope claim that the ground of papal infallibility is the pope’s own assertion rather than, as Catholic’s believe, Christ’s promise to his Church. This is distortion number one.

Protestant: "Well, I happen to disagree. So there."
Pope: "Take it back!"

Here the author implies that every pope is merely a petty, power-hungry person incensed by disagreement. A more intimate acquaintance with the history of the popes, however, easily refutes this notion (vid. J. N. D. Kelly’s Dictionary of Popes). Distortion number two.

Protestant: "Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason—for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves—I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one's conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me."
Pope: "Sorry, God's going to light you on fire forever."

Finally, in his third distortion, the author suggests that in his condemnation of error every pope secretly wishes that those in error burn forever in hell. There is no evidence, however, to support such a wild claim.

Thus we have three distortions of Catholicism, two fallacious appeals, and two implied arguments. (Apparently, I miscounted the number of appeals earlier.)

reactions

I've been thinking about the reaction that a Protestant acquaintance had to the recent statement on Catholic ecclesiology. He writes,

Well isn't that precious. And by precious I mean sad—divorced from both the message of Jesus [Matthew 25:31-46] and from world history since then. I can fairly quickly skip past the fury and right on to the bewilderment and pity. It's just quite the mind-blow to see otherwise reasonably intelligent people—people talking into cell phones, for instance; these aren't jungle people—casually mention their assent to the exclusivist and [quite literally] self-righteous nature of the Roman bishop.

Protestant: "And, why are you infallible again?"

Pope: "Because I said I was!"

Protestant: "Well, I happen to disagree. So there."

Pope: "Take it back!"

Protestant: "Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason—for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves—I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one's conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me."

Pope: "Sorry, God's going to light you on fire forever."

I am not sure whether or not he has read the document itself—rather than its presentation in the media—and perhaps, even if he had, his reaction would be the same. Nevertheless, this seems to me to be a classic case in which someone outside the Catholic Church hears a statement made by the pope or one of the bishops and, without trying to understand the context in which it was made, reacts to the declaration in that sense by which he immediately understands it.

A quick read of the introduction, however, tells the reader that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has in mind those Catholic theologians whose "new contributions to the field" of Catholic theology "are not immune from erroneous interpretation" when it comes to "the authentic meaning of some ecclesiological expressions." In other words, the magisterium is telling Catholic theologians, especially those writing today, to interpret Vatican II honestly and without equivocation—and telling them this by clarifying the meaning of the Council's words.

Magisterium [to Catholic theologians]: Don't misrepresent Vatican II.

Protestant: What! You think you're infallible! You're just a bunch of pitiable, self-righteous, stupid snobs!

Two things come to mind. The first is Newman's delightful parody of this kind of reaction in The Present Position of Catholics in England, the second these lines from Robert Frost's "Woodpile":

A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather—
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.

Letter to a Coworker on the Trinity

C---,

Matthew 28:19, especially the second half of the verse baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, is interesting and, as it happens, relevant to the Trinity for two reasons. First, because the text draws attention to the three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And second, because at the same time the text draws attention to their unity. For the passage reads in the name (singular), implying the three are also one, and not in the names (plural), implying the three are only three. Therefore, since the three share a single name, Matthew seems to suggest the three share a single nature, which in this case would be the one, infinite Divine Essence.

John agrees with this when he says at the start of his Gospel In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (1:1). In the same prologue John says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and, immediately after this, begins talking about Jesus. Therefore, according to John, Jesus is the Word. Returning to the opening passage, then, we can find three statements made about this Word: (1) this Word existed in the beginning; (2) this Word was with God; and (3) this Word was God. Since Jesus is, as John says, the Word, John the apostle must have believed that Jesus existed in the beginning, was with God, and was God. Consequently, it is not true that Jesus is nowhere called God in Scripture.

In fact, after he sees the risen Christ, the apostle Thomas cries out to him My Lord and my God! (John 20:28). Notice Jesus' reaction in the next verse: Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." Now everyone who reads the gospels, Christian or not, will admit that Jesus was a good man. His goodness stands out as at least equal, humanly speaking, to the other great religious and spiritual leaders of the world. But good men do not deliberately mislead others - for if they did, they would not be good. Therefore, since Jesus does not rebuke or correct Thomas's claim for Jesus' own divinity, Jesus must have believed it himself. For if Jesus were not God but merely a good man, he would have rebuked Thomas's idolatry, since idolatry is wrong.

There is more Scriptural evidence for Jesus' divinity and if you look online, I'm sure you can find more evidence and arguments. However, turning to your next question, I notice that the passages you ask me to explain divide into two categories: (1) Old Testament references to the Nephilim who are called the "sons of God" (Gen 6:2 and 6:4), and (2) New Testament references to Christians who are called the "sons of God". As for the first, the Nephilim, I cannot help you there. I'm fascinated by the Genesis passage, but I cannot adequately explain or fully understand it. As for the second, I may be able to offer some helpful thoughts. Your last reference was to Galatians 3, which reads

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

It is clear from the context that by "sons of God" Paul is referring to Christians who believe and are baptized. Paul seems to refer to them in this way because, as the first verse you quoted explains, those who follow the will of the Father belong to the family of Christ. In other words, by following God's will we become God's children and heirs to his kingdom. For since the mission of Jesus was to restore sinful mankind to the sinless God, God the Son became man that men might as sons become filled inwardly with God. Therefore, it was the incarnation of the Son, whom John calls the only-begotten (1:18, 3:16), that allows men and women to become the adopted sons and daughters of the Most High. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul explains,

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. (1:4-7)

Does that answer your question?

Peace, etc.