Monday, 6 March 2017

Jonanthan McLatchie Should Convert to Islam

Jonathan McLatchie should pronounce Shahada. Jonathan was asking for proof that calling Jesus Yahweh is heresy according the Trinitarian orthodox church. Jonathan has said he will convert to Islam if proof of this can be found.

What I can do is tell you Trinitarian Christians, according to their theology, technically cannot say Jesus is Yahweh

Jesus cannot technically be called Yahweh in a Trinitarian church tradition as Jesus is the 2nd person of the Trinity who took on human flesh (Jesus = Son + Human Flesh). That's not Yahweh in their tradition. Thus according to his church tradition, he cannot call Jesus Yahweh. It would be considered incorrect theological terminology - thus heretical.

Jonathan said "God [Yahweh] worked through Jesus". According to Trinitarian theology, it's correct for Trinitarians to distinguish between Jesus and Yahweh as Jesus is not Yahweh because Jesus is considered to be the Son + Human Flesh. Before the birth of Jesus 2000 years ago, Jesus did not exist according to their theology but Yahweh did exist as three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yahweh is not Jesus according to their theology.

Video ft. Jonathan  McLatchie, Paul Williams and Bart Erhman
This video is also uploaded here and here

A response from Mark Bennett

Yahya said: "my point is Jesus = son + human nature". I think there might be a slight misunderstanding here. Jesus is not the name of a 'person + human nature' but the name given to a person when he began to inhabit that nature or when he obtained and took upon human form. Jesus was the name given to the person/self possessing a human nature.

For example upon death when our bodies become corpses and begin to rot and decay, when we simply exist as as pure spirit, we will not cease to have our personal identity (including our names), rather even without our physical body we will still be identified as we were on earth, simply as us (e.g. Yahya and Mark). Jesus is the name given (upon birth) to a PERSON (the Son) having a human nature, not to a nature itself. As technically speaking we are not materialists, when we look at a corpse, we don't believe the corpse of a beloved one (e.g. lets call him say: "Jacob") that body (corpse) is Jacob, rather we the believe that is the body of (belonging/belonged to) Jacob, but Jacob is now absent from the body. Hence the divine person (the Son of the Father) who upon birth is given the name Jesus is eternal. Jesus is eternal, his physical body is not.

The human nature belonging to Jesus is created. Finally I'm not sure if Yahya understood Jonathan's challenge. As you said: "Jonathan was asking for proof that calling Jesus Yahweh is heresy ACCORDING (to ~ MB) THE TRINITARIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH". ("Orthodox Trinitarian Churches"). However Yahya what you provide is not proof that the statement and/or belief "Jesus is Yahweh" is heresy according to *any* Orthodox Trinitarian Church, rather you provide an ARGUMENT: "What I can do is tell you Trinitarian Christians, according to THEIR THEOLOGY, TECHNICALLY CANNOT SAY Jesus is Yahweh" and: "Jesus CANNOT TECHNICALLY be called Yahweh in a Trinitarian church tradition". After making (what you think) are logical inferences you then conclude: "That's not Yahweh in their tradition. Thus according to his church tradition, he cannot call Jesus Yahweh. It would be considered incorrect theological terminology - thus heretical."

But where has this tradition drawn the same conclusion as you have? This is your unique and personal deduction given the propositions in Christian theology. But in articles of the faith and the denunciation of heresies, such beliefs have not only never been made explicit throughout church history, but the opposite has been repeatedly and positively affirmed (from the beginning to later), even in the earliest creeds or orthodox beliefs e.g. Phil 2:6-11. Hence your personal 'inference' is not presented or established by the Church itself and contradicted by the Church itself. This is the challenge McLatchie is making in the first place, that you can't produce such a statement from that Orthodox tradition, anymore than I can present a creedal statement from the Sunni tradition testifying "Mohammed is not a prophet", despite me believing that certain contradictory notions in the Sunni tradition could lead one to infer such a conclusion.


My response to Mark

Thanks for your time Mark. It’s only right I dedicate some time to your comment.

Oh yeah, I completely agree Jon’s challenge was that of an orthodox church council stating the belief “Jesus is Yahweh” to be heretical. That’s quite vague as we can’t establish what is meant by “orthodox church”.

For instance, are we talking about post the first council at Nicaea? Or Constantinople in 381? Or the 8th century church after the 7 Ecumenical councils? But what of the Ante-Nicene Fathers and their respective churches? I don’t believe the Ante-Nicenes believed in the Trinity idea so for people like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Polycarp and Ignatius the belief of Jesus being the 2nd Person of a Trinity doctrine would have been deemed to be *heretical*. So that is one route I could have gone down in response to Jon.

I could also have gone down the route of using the councils that ruled in favour of Arius and/or what was later to be pejoratively called “Arianism” during the period between 1st Nicaea and Constantinople. Another possible route one could go down.

The third route would be to focus on those in the New Testament and/or those who wrote parts of the Scripture we now know as the NT. The statement “Jesus is Yahweh” would be heretical in their eyes. For instance Peter saying Jesus was a man attested by God. Or the belief Jesus was not pre-existent in Matthew and Luke. There’s plenty more – a discussion for a later perhaps.

In hindsight I should have used an accumulative argument in the video and post – I hope to add this and your comment to the blog post (God willing).

But hey alas, I’m defending my deductive argument. So let’s just focus on this. You made some interesting points. Mark, you wrote: “For example upon death when our bodies become corpses and begin to rot and decay, when we simply exist as as pure spirit, we will not cease to have our personal identity (including our names), rather even without our physical body we will still be identified as we were on earth, simply as us (e.g. Yahya and Mark). Jesus is the name given (upon birth) to a PERSON (the Son) having a human nature, not to a nature itself. As technically speaking we are not materialists, when we look at a corpse, we don't believe the corpse of a beloved one (e.g. lets call him say: "Jacob") that body (corpse) is Jacob, rather we the believe that is the body of (belonging/belonged to) Jacob, but Jacob is now absent from the body Hence the divine person (the Son of the Father) who upon birth is given the name Jesus is eternal. Jesus is eternal, his physical body is not.”

Two thoughts after reading your comment above:

1. Thinking about this it seems like you’re veering to something like Apollinarianism. The “orthodox” belief is that Jesus had a human spirit/mind. Whilst Apollinarianism denies that by arguing Jesus didn’t have a human mind/spirit but this was replaced by the divine. Let’s focus on the idea of an “orthodox” understanding here, you can’t argue (from that theology) that the Son was the person of Jesus as our soul/mind/spirit is the person of us – Jesus has a human soul/mind/spirit according to “orthodox” theology.

2. You seem to have drawn a dichotomy between Jesus and the Son. Is this dichotomy *only* due to naming or is there some other reason for this distinction? My question here is, in your view what is the difference between the Son and Jesus? There’s a change in name due to the idea of pre-incarnation and post incarnation but there is another change in the Trinitarian mindset due to the belief there was an addition of a human body - an earthly and resurrection body. The follow up question here is what does the Trinitarian think about this belief that “God” changed whilst also believing God transcends time? [Mark, that’s just a side question – you don’t have to deal with that question in this discussion for now if you feel it will take us away from the topic]

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Synoptic Gospels and the Idea of a Pre-Existent Jesus?






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