Was Jesus Christ a demi-god?

reply to post by adjensen

. . .but that there was never a time when the Father existed, but the Son did not.

I think you have fallen for the propaganda from those with a vested interest in demonising Arius. Arius was smart enough to realize time does not inter into the equation, being a created thing, while God by definition is not. Arius believed in the spirit of God that exists without any supporting universe. His detractors did not follow and why bother anyway since they had power and he did not. They lied and said Arius claimed there was a time that Jesus did not exist, while skipping any fine distinctions, feeling ordinary people do not need to be burdened by thinking. They just wanted a fixed dogma that people can recite and swear allegiance to. Jesus, by the proclamation of those with the power to kill the body declare that Jesus was not begotten, according to the edict of the Council, that though never existed before Nicea was to be, from now forward, considered the highest authority over all matters religious, overriding the Bible and anything else, including the God-given freedom of conscience.

reply to post by jmdewey60


Well, the difficulty in knowing what people's real positions was is the lack of surviving writings of Arius, though I'm fine with the accepted explanation.

I agree -- God exists outside of time, so bringing time into a discussion of the nature of the relationship between Father and Son is kind of pointless. But does either side of that argument invalidate the Trinity? Not that I can see (not necessarily, anyway.)

However, Arius' additional beliefs about the difference in essence of the Father and Son, and that the Son was created, not begotten, do invalidate the Trinity, so I can't buy into that. Theologically, I can see how the Trinity is necessary, but I cannot see how the other view is correct, not without turning Christianity on its head, something I see no value in doing.

reply to post by adjensen

However, Arius' additional beliefs about the difference in essence of the Father and Son, and that the Son was created, not begotten, do invalidate the Trinity, so I can't buy into that.

You are being a little inconsistent by first saying we can't know one thing that Arius may or may not have taught, and then saying we can know that Arius did say about something else.
I wonder where you are getting your information, from Wikipedia? That is a notorious source for disinformation. When there is something which I really do know quite a lot about from years of reading a lot of books on the subject, and then looking at what it says about it in Wikipedia, I see things that can not be right at all. Some time it takes a lot of work to sort things out and some contributors do not bother and write whatever seems to support their partisan view. Remember what I said about vested interest. If your side wins and your leader becomes Pope, then he can reward you for your faithful work at destroying the enemies of said leader, by naming you as a Saint. I believe some of the Saints were the most ruthless thugs imaginable. Think about it as the Nobel Peace Prise going to war mongers like our current occupant of the White House.
This is how we have what is known as the Catholic Church today. There were huge partisan bickering and partisanship and even wars over the Arian controversy, to the point where Idolatrous pagans were recruited to positions as Bishops just to get rid of Arians. So do you think that now that the anti-arians have gained the ascendancy, that they are going to acquiesce to the fact that Arius was right all along? No, they are going to obfuscate and create a smoke screen to hide what really came out of the conflict and are never going to point out their mistake by fixing the wrong they did so long ago.

reply to post by jmdewey60


No, I'm mostly going from memory of a course in early church theology that I once took, so I'm not keen on the particulars, though it was made clear that the majority of what is known about Arius comes from documents denouncing him. However, on the points I cited, I can't see any way to agree with his position and maintain the concept of the Trinity, and I am an Orthodox Trinitarian.

One of the key points that I always go back to on complaints of early Church apostasy is a disbelief that God would set his plan in motion and then let it get so far derailed, so quickly, in the hopes that it would eventually right itself. That seems contrary and pointless. Far more logical is that things drift off over time, and various acts of the spirit (such as the Reformation or Vatican II) serve as self-correcting mechanisms. And even when corrections need to be made, I have a hard time thinking that they are over issues upon which salvation rests.

Can one go down a road of faith that has nothing to do with Christianity and jeopardize one's salvation? Sure, no reason you can't. But can the Church, the very Body of Christ, taking itself and all believers with it? That I have a harder time making any sense of.

reply to post by adjensen

But can the Church, the very Body of Christ, taking itself and all believers with it? That I have a harder time making any sense of.

That depends on how you define Church. If it is the body of believers, that's one thing, but if you think it is a publishing house, somewhere off in another country distributing guidelines for what people should believe, then that's something else.
I find no use for a doctrine of trinity and study it for understanding the politics of it. That's all it is when it comes down to it and has no value in uplifting anyone spiritually. That might be one reason why so many people are not that well versed on the subject other than to be taught, "We are right and they are wrong" with they being whoever disagrees with whoever won their way to a position of power through intrigue and violence and lust and greed. If you want to accept that as the definition of Church, then God help you but there is a reason why people turn away from that concept, and it is because it does not feed the flock like it should, but fleeces the flock to get what the can to increase their own position of power.
I was brought up in a church that taught an Arian point of view and it had no part of the doctrine that would ever allow for Jesus as being created. In fact a lot of time was spent on reinforcing the position of Jesus in the Cosmic scheme by not being created and in fact played a key role in making creation come about. God the Father had His own personality and the Son of God had his own personality and thoughts and existed as a distinct being. I feel that is the difference between God the Father and the Son of God, which is the Father is pure spirit while the Son is a spiritual being but having a image that would make him able to interact with other spiritual beings who came about during the time of the existence of the material universe.
To become interactive with people who are not spiritual, Jesus took a step down what all was involved in his person-hood. From purely spiritual, to material with a spiritual essence to him that is slightly incomprehensible to the ordinary human mind. That god essence has to be understood spiritually after we reach out to God and accept His hand to lift us up.
People who have not been lifted up can not understand God and when such people go about dictating what other people should believe about God, then do not expect good things to happen. Better to not be dogmatic if dogma means a contrivance that was designed to consolidate power and create a bureaucracy having a hegemony over the masses as far as all their loyalty is directed, and so convenient to a State/Church power complex.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by adjensen

 

But can the Church, the very Body of Christ, taking itself and all believers with it? That I have a harder time making any sense of.

That depends on how you define Church. If it is the body of believers, that's one thing, but if you think it is a publishing house, somewhere off in another country distributing guidelines for what people should believe, then that's something else.

No, as I wrote in another thread today, as a mainline Protestant, I have Sola scriptura embedded deep in my being, one of the few reasons that I have not converted to Catholicism, as I am about as Catholic minded a Methodist as you will find :-) So I don't view the church as you describe.

But the "body of believers" has to believe in something, and it needs to be something valid, right? You don't need to understand the Doctrine of the Trinity to be saved, of course, but not viewing Christ as divine fundamentally alters Christianity, and viewing him as divine, but of a separate essence from the Father, becomes problematic towards a monotheistic perspective. Reconciling those issues are what led to Augustine to begin the Trinitarian formulation.

I was brought up in a church that taught an Arian point of view and it had no part of the doctrine that would ever allow for Jesus as being created.

We're probably getting a bit off topic, sorry, but I'm curious amount this -- what was the basis that they taught from? Like I said, my memory is of only a couple of actual works of Arius having survived, the remainder being the accusatory documents, which should be taken with a grain of salt, of course. I know that there are non Trinitarian sects (like the Unitarians and Mormons) but yours is the first time I've heard of an Arian church.

reply to post by adjensen
It's called the Seventh Day Adventist church. Here's the thing that I figured out about this religion, and I don't mean to be critical and I am a fourth generation Adventist and have no intention of ever switching religions. OK to get on with it, you say you are Methodist and I am guessing that you mean an American Methodist, as opposed to I guess someone in Scotland or something. Well the original Adventists would have been probably Methodists. The reason I bring it up is that what you understand as being a Methodist today is probably a lot different from what it meant to be a Methodist in 1844 when Advent ism took off. The reason that Adventists seem odd to a lot of Christians is that they are like a time capsule from back when they started. Maybe a comparison could be made to Mormons that if let's say Joseph Smith wrote a bunch of books and said these books are all inspired by the Holy Spirit and I am God's prophet. The Mormons would have their religion fixed, so to speak on whatever his religious opinions were at the time he wrote those books. I'm not sure if that is how it worked out for them, but that sort of thing did work out for the Adventists, as a result of the books and other works by E.G. White who claimed to have visions from God and led about in the Spirit world by angels and shown different things including the life of Jesus and the future events of the world. That sort of enshrined whatever she said and had this fix. But what I have found is that if you go back and look at what American Methodism was, and things like the Scottish Reformed church, they believed essentially the same things about almost everything that the Adventists hold to this day.
It became popular in the 60's to find any religion that started up in America, as opposed to Europe I guess, as being cults. They had to show that White was a heretic and one way to discredit the church was to call its christology as being Arian. Well, you know what? So, who cares and all it is is transferring the stigma from the lies about him, onto the Adventists but it was just the way people believed, back in the day of, like you say, sola scriptura. Since the early 1800's the Jesuits have been hard at work changing the way Americans think, and turning it to be more catholic like. So it is more of an indictment of the watered down and weakened theology of American churches, than an indictment against mine, which is just based on the Bible and common sense and people who were heart felt Christians and not professional Christians.

demi god is a man made term. If you are attempting to understand things of the heavens you have to understand it might not make sense to a human. there is but one God, Jesus is God in the flesh. Not a demi-God. They are one and the same

reply to post by adjensen

. . .becomes problematic towards a monotheistic perspective.

I recommend anyone having thoughts about so-called monotheism to take a hard look at that word. It looks like it could be Latin but the part of the word, "thei" comes from the Greek word that we think of as theos, that is something we run across in the New Testament. So you have a pseudo-latin word that is supposed to be explaining an old Jewish concept. Is there something a little funny about that? Even in the time of the writing of the N. T. theos was a little vague in its meaning but the definition became sharpened somewhat by its use in the Christian writings.
A practical example of word trickery is something I have been hearing about on internet radio the last few days, which is this term Judeochristian. Nice concept, righ? No because it did not even exist until 1945 when it was invented as a propaganda tool to make Christians believe that American culture was founded on principles that we share with the Jews. Well that is just not true and it was done deliberately by the supporters of Zionism and the Jewish state in Palestine.
So, back in some time before we were born and beyond the memory of our fathers, someone coined the word monotheism to try to promote this same sort of concept, of a mythical judeochristian unity in the belief of only one god, probably for the same sort of reason for what was happening in 1945.
It's just not real but I suppose there was a belief in one god because its right here in the N. T. that there is one god and one lord, Jesus. Well who knows what that means and does it mean what we may think, after being indoctrinated by people who would suffer politically if a large segment of the population were happy enough equating Jesus with God.
Look, the Jews knew what he was implying when he brought up the subject of his identity in conversation. Why did they pick up stones? The expected Messiah was a god. That's what they believed and that the Messiah was the virtual face of God. Why did Peter when talking about how they killed their Messiah, call him the "source of all life in creation"? It's in their own writings from that era and now, once people follow Peter's message at such a scale, the Jews are threatened by it so they give this great pretense of only believing there is one god, when nothing could be further from the truth. There are lots of gods in the old testament but the overriding message is their god was better than the other guy's god.
If anyone doubts that Jesus is God then they need to wake up because he is the only god we will ever know and that's just the way it is and how it has always been and how it will always be into eternity.

Originally posted by stephenofacts
demi god is a man made term. If you are attempting to understand things of the heavens you have to understand it might not make sense to a human. there is but one God, Jesus is God in the flesh. Not a demi-God. They are one and the same

I believe that you arrived at that conclusion based on a spiritual experience and not because someone told you that was what you are supposed to think.
I may come to the same conclusion but rationalise it one way or another and then attempt to define it, and that construction may be something completely different to a construct you would make, if you were so inclined to even create something like that.
No amount of argument by me about this or that is going to make someone who does not want to believe, to change their mind. If what I just said was true, what business would be of mine to try to make you accept my construct when the futility of such an attempt is so self evident? Well it's none and it is none of anyone else to do it, even if they have robes and a high hat and a magic staff and a gold throne.

reply to post by jganer



neither, jesus is God. they are one and the same. God is all powerful and has many different forms. jesus is the man form

Originally posted by stephenofacts
reply to post by jganer

 

neither, jesus is God. they are one and the same. God is all powerful and has many different forms. jesus is the man form

Is their any scriputer in which Jesus said this because I think I missed it?

Originally posted by jmdewey60
.. being a Methodist today is probably a lot different from what it meant to be a Methodist in 1844 when Advent ism took off. The reason that Adventists seem odd to a lot of Christians is that they are like a time capsule from back when they started. Maybe a comparison could be made to Mormons that if let's say Joseph Smith wrote a bunch of books and said these books are all inspired by the Holy Spirit and I am God's prophet. The Mormons would have their religion fixed, so to speak on whatever his religious opinions were at the time he wrote those books. I'm not sure if that is how it worked out for them, but that sort of thing did work out for the Adventists, as a result of the books and other works by E.G. White who claimed to have visions from God and led about in the Spirit world by angels and shown different things including the life of Jesus and the future events of the world.

I'm not familiar with the Adventists, apart from the whole "Sabbath is on Saturday" bit, but if you think that the overview of Adventist theology on Wikipedia is reasonably accurate, I don't see a whole lot of meaningful difference there (apart from the Sabbath bit, and the Anabaptist view of baptism.)

Methodism has changed over the years, obviously, as much a result of mergers, such as with the EUB in the 60s, as it has as a result of social change, but I think that Wesley would be okay with where things are at now. My roots are actually Anglican, not Methodist, but the UMC is the closest I can get around here without having to go through Customs twice every Sunday :-)

My personal belief is that Christ is key, and doctrinal differences, so long as they do not interfere with our personal relationship with God, are really not all that important. It is clear from scripture that we come to God through Christ (as opposed to through the Law, as the Jews do, or through the Quran, as Muslims do) and whether one believes that he is part of a Triune God or not doesn't change whether he is or not, and if you've faith that he is your salvation, I suppose it doesn't matter anyway.

Thanks for the response, I appreciate your explanation!

There are lots of gods in the old testament but the overriding message is their god was better than the other guy's god. If anyone doubts that Jesus is God then they need to wake up because he is the only god we will ever know and that's just the way it is and how it has always been and how it will always be into eternity.

Well, that's true -- depending on how one reads the Old Testament, Baal (and others) may be viewed as being "gods", but ineffectual ones. Fallen angels? Other divine beings? Simply hollow idols that were viewed as being divine but had nothing to them? I don't know, it doesn't seem like it matters, so I don't give it a lot of thought. To me, God is the creator God, the supreme being, and there's only one of them (technically, there can only be one of them,) and that is what I see as a monotheistic view.

reply to post by jganer


I and my Father are one.-John10.30

Originally posted by jganer

Originally posted by stephenofacts
reply to post by jganer

 

neither, jesus is God. they are one and the same. God is all powerful and has many different forms. jesus is the man form

Is their any scriputer in which Jesus said this because I think I missed it?

I'm not a big fan of quoting scripture and leaving it go at that, but that seems to be what you want:

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves."
-- John, 14:5-11

As I said, if you're looking for more concrete passages regarding the nature of Christ, read John. If you wish to explore who Christ is and come to those conclusions yourself, the other three Gospels approach the question differently (though the answer will be the same.)

Originally posted by Rustami
reply to post by jganer

 

I and my Father are one.-John10.30

We are all one with god so what makes Jesus any different then us mortal humans?

reply to post by jganer


where do you get that from and god or God? being raised from the dead is immortality-something exclusive to Jesus Christ

whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.-Acts17.30

Originally posted by jganer
We are all one with god so what makes Jesus any different then us mortal humans?

Spend a little time studying Judaism in the time of Christ, and you'll quickly come to the conclusion that Jesus couldn't possibly be saying what you think that he is. Nobody is "one" with God, save God.

If you're looking for reasons to not believe that Jesus is who the Bible clearly indicates he is, you need go no further than your own disbelief. If you doubt the word of God, then what is the point of asking for instances where the word of God declares it?

reply to post by jganer
There's a place in the N. T. where the writer is talking about Jesus and he explains it as if there was a person who was God and then found himself as a man.
Jesus said that he came out of God, and he also said he was uniquely sent to Earth from heaven to play a specific role.
My opinion on the whole thing is that there is a God and this god is the very ultimate god where there is none greater or higher. This god, let's call him the Father, is known to exist by angels, who themselves would seem rather god-like to us if we were to meet one in an un-disguised form. The level of His existence makes the Father rather inscrutable even to the highest of all the angels. There is a communication at that level but it is even to the Ark Angel, like a person, lets say a High Priest, hearing the voice of God coming from the ark in the Most Holy Place of the temple.
Now a little exercise in imagination, most people have seen the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and at the end there is a scene demonstrating this incredible energy in a box. Well, God does not need a box, but created beings need a box to not be completely overwhelmed. Now, suppose there was something like that but in the size of a small building, sitting in the middle of the holy center of the throne area of heaven, and there was a being who walked into that little building that no one else could even look at directly, and then that being came back out.
This is the same sort of idea with Moses, and he would talk to God, somewhere where others could not go, and he would come out glowing where no one could look at him. This was a witness and the N. T. writer discusses this while making a comparison of Jesus and Moses. He was saying that Moses' shine was fading away and we have a replacement for that. Anyway, this phenomenon made people realize that at least for a while, whatever Moses said could be taken as if it had come directly from God.
That's a practical illustration in the Bible and we should learn from that when it comes to understanding Jesus. Now, back to heaven; this being coming out of unspeakable glory would be taken as God Himself at this point and he would have all the authority of God. This same being came out of glory and stepped onto this earth to speak for God and as far as we are concerned should be taken as God, whether or not we could say technically it seems he couldn't be. Well don't be a fool and if there is some other God then you sure don't want to meet Him because you would end up like the Nazi's in ROTLA. Take the God we are given, just like the Hebrews took the god they were given to lead them out of Egypt.