WM vs. DV: Christianity and Jesus - Part 2

Continuing from yesterday, below is the next part in the debate between Watford Man (WM) and Dissident Voice (DV)...


DV: You still do not explain why the Koran is likely to be a more reliable source than the Holy Bible or the Gospels. Meanwhile, you are obsessed with Paul, but Paul came before the Gospels at a time of only an oral tradition – the Gospels were written when a written tradition of recording events emerged.

Talking of the Gospels, I would point out, on your claim that Paul was the founder of Christianity, that many eminent theologians point to a Centurion as the first “Christian”. For although his disciples and many others recognized Him for what he really was, as he walked the Earth, this was a man saw the truth at the last minute:

"And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook; and the rocks were split. Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:51, 54)

"This was after The Thief On The Cross, who was forgiven after repenting at the 11th hour, with Jesus telling the thief: ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43).

But the examples I have given you so far are very limited. I would also appreciate it if you read – and absorbed – these plentiful Biblical quotations showing how Jesus Himself saw Himself:

• "The Jews therefore said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple." (John 8:57, 59)
• "I and the Father are one." The Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, "I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?" The Jews answered Him, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God." (John 10:30-33)
• "And Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in Me does not believe in Me, but in Him who sent Me. And he who beholds Me beholds the One who sent Me. I have come as light into the world, that everyone who believes in Me may not remain in darkness." (John 12:44-46;)
• "And so when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments, and reclined at the table again, He said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet." (John 13:12-14;)
• "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him." Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (John 14:6-9;)
• "Jesus therefore said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world." They said therefore to Him, "Lord, evermore give us this bread." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." (John 6:32-35;)

WM: I never said the Quran “a more reliable source” than the Bible/Gospels (although of course I believe it IS!) – my point is that it is more consistent and logical to believe in a Son of God if that Son of God left behind his own literature, penned by himself. Instead, you take as your Scripture, and as the basis for your beliefs, a narrow set of “Gospels” which you yourself accept were written by men (MEN! Ordinary fallible men – who we know very little about, whose sources we know even LESS about!). This, for me, doesn’t make sense and I don’t understand how you can have such faith-by-indirect-proxy.

As for “theologians” pointing to a “Centurion” as the “first Christian” – again, you miss the point and simultaneously make my point for me. Did Jesus say to the centurion from the Cross: “You are my Christian?” No. Did Jesus say to his followers – “Here, I leave you the Gospels as my teachings and Christianity as your religion?” No. Did Jesus institute and propagate, or elaborate and explain the controversial doctrines of original sin and resurrection and the Trinity which divides Christians from Muslims and even Christians from Christians till this very day? No.

Your “plentiful” quotes from the Bible pose a problem for you, not me. The fact is that there are quotes from the Gospels in which Jesus implies (never says in black and white terms, incidentally, only implies) that he is God and/or the Son of God BUT there are also quotes (which I have sent) in which Jesus seems to say (to the naked impartial eye) only what all his predecessor prophets said: that God is the Lord, Father, Master, greater than him, a third-person entity that he himself as a man looks up to and worships, etc.

So, what do you do?

1. You can accept the latter AND accept the former which is illogical
2. Or you can accept the latter and ignore the former (the former being either deliberate changes added later to the flawed human Gospels OR misinterpretations of Jesus’s words, e.g. the fact that he came before Abraham does not make him God – we believe Muhammad was created before Abraham but he isn’t God either!) as I do.
3. Or, worst of all for you, you have to accept that the New Testament is contradicting itself in various and numerous places and abandon the whole thing – as many former-Christians-now-agnostics-or-atheists have done (e.g. the writer and scholar Karen Armstrong).

DV: What is your motive?. I will do no such thing as to "abandon the whole thing", whether someone called Karen Armstrong has done or not. I prefer to be inspired by lifelong Christians down the centuries who didn't "abandon the whole thing", like Francis of Assisi, or Aquinus, or even your friend Paul, and present day types like Rowan Williams. You present a deal or no-deal scenario about the "former" and "latter" quotes, claiming I ignored your latter ones - but I didn't. The difference is that I do not accept that they contradict the numerous quotes I have provided portraying Jesus - in the words of He Himself who you say you revere - as the Son of man and the Son of God.

WM: My motive? My motive is to demonstrate to you that the Gospels contain inconsistencies, inaccuracies and contradictions and do not remain true to Jesus’s own words let alone the predecessor books of the Old Testament. My motive is to demonstrate to you that the Islamic view of Jesus – which, prior to your increasingly rabid emails in this exchange – draws on much of what Jesus himself said in your own human-authored Gospels. My motive is to engage with you on your own religious beliefs which, occasionally, in the past, you have seemed to have some rational and understandable doubts about but now, with your back against the (intellectual) wall you have come out fighting for (and seemingly blindly for).

I accept your quote from Jesus about his death and resurrection – do you accept my quote about him coming only for the House of Israel? Do you accept my quote that “My Father is greater than I?” Quotes which, basically, undermine the entire Christian enterprise.

DV: I am glad you have accepted my quote from Mark (though it's odd given your disdain for the Gospels). But I do not accept the claim that "My Father is greater than I" contradicts a) the fact that his Father is the One God to whom he refers - as do you, or b) the fact that this somehow means He is not the Son of God (it seems to rather explicitly state it here as in so many other places.

The point you don't seem to get - which has nothing to do with the Trinity, is that Jesus refers to his Father as God, but He himself is regarded as Godly and very close to God by followers and believers - because He is God's Son.[

[Moving on], I also wanted to mention the Nicene Creed, a centuries-old statement of belief, that I sing on Sundays. It talks of Jesus as "being of one substance with the Father". The point is that Jesus is Lord with the Father, of the Father, and this does not undermine the concept of One God - it is not like lots of Greek gods doing different curses and having two heads and so on.

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

WM: I’m glad you’ve finally brought up the Nicene creed as I was hoping to discuss it. By bringing up the creed you ONCE AGAIN make my argument for me and reinforce my original and over-arching point: i.e. many of the fundamental and controversial bedrock doctrines of Christianity have little to do with Jesus himself or his conventional monotheistic/prophetic teachings and, instead, a great deal to do with those innovators who came later (Paul, Constantine, various popes, etc).

The Nicene Creed are not the words of Jesus. Nor are they some infallible, undisputed words of the earliest Christian scholars – they were the result of a meeting of church leaders in 325AD in an attempt to unify the split church and were decided upon by the Roman Emperor Constantine (a late and convenient convert to Christianity). They were the result of a discussion between ordinary, flawed, fallible, self-interested, politicized human beings – in essence, no different to, say, a bunch of Iraqis coming together now to decide the constitution for that country. There were others at that meeting who disagreed with the creed but their views – for example, the Arians who (like the Muslims) refused to accept the Trinity and did not accept the divinity of Jesus – were rejected AFTER the creed was politically agreed upon (just as how, incidentally, there were other Gospels which were conveniently abandoned when they didn’t fit the new post-Jesus, post-Nicene “orthodoxy”). And now you sing this creed in church and pretend that it is the Word of God?

This is the problem with Christianity – it isn’t based on Christ himself. I cannot fathom how lovers of Jesus have segmented themselves into various churches which have, over the centuries, quietly openly adapted their beliefs/theology/creeds on the basis of what political rulers (be it Constantine, be it Henry VIII, etc) think or believe (!!) And I find it amusing that there is even such a thing called “the Church of England” – as if nationality has anything to do with God’s faith, and as if we are supposed to pretend not to know that the CofE was created, basically, to allow Henry VIII to divorce his wife and marry a woman he lusted after, Ann Boleyn.

DV: You keep saying things aren't the Word of God, when I have never claimed they are. The Creed is a declaration - a statement - about God, not by Him. And whilst I do have doubts about the concept of Church of England, I do not accept that Anglicanism is all down to a divorce, indeed I was chastised in detail by fellow worshippers the other week for saying something similar.

WM: You neatly avoid the points I am making: statements about God are irrelevant when are we are talking about faith. We all – don’t we? – depend upon revelation for our faith. Your faith, however, takes right-turns and left-turns wherever someone (an anonymous Gospel author? Paul? Constantine? Athanasius? King Henry?) in Christian history says something or declares something. Why on earth do you take the politically-motivated, politically-sanctioned declaration of theology from a riven and divided bunch of scholars who lived three whole centuries AFTER Christ as the basis for your faith and as the basis for something to sing while worshipping God in church?? Answer this question please.

Also, you have yet to answer my fundamental “Sonship” question: if, as you and your brethren claim, Jesus was the son of God because he had no father and because the Bible refers to him as the “son of God”, then why do you not hold the same belief vis a vis Adam, who some might argue holds a stronger claim to the title of “Son of God”? Or David, who the Psalms say, was actually “begotten” by God??

... and that's where the discussion ends at present, with many questions left to ponder! Please feel free to leave some comments on the discussion and hopefully the debate can continue.

Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?