First of all, this is telling:
To this I will quote the Proverb: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.".
Your own reason/intellect can only get you so far. It is why this forum is neither closed nor this topic. (It is why Christians, Muslims, Hindus etc. in general hold firmly to their beliefs/convictions same goes for the atheist/atheistic agnostic)
Reason leads me to belief in a monotheistic Omnipotent God, and it also leads me to a rejection of these central Christian doctrines. Saying that we should just stop using reason is incoherent, there are things are beyond understanding, but blatant contradiction is definitely within our view. If you tell me to stop using my reason once we get to God, then the atheist can tell you to stop using your reason once you get the Universe, but this is clearly silly, reason is reason and we must follow where our reason leads us.
If your God is an all-loving God, why did he create us with a reason that leads us AWAY from Him?
Now, to address what you have said:
"Jesus and God differ"
Actually a fair majority of Christians (most Protestants, Catholics & Eastern Orthodox) hold that statement 1 to be false. Christians would hold that the first statement should be
"the Son is not the Father" >> And that amendment would be true for Christians.
Is Jesus triune in nature? Is God triune in nature?
According to you, Jesus is not triune, yet God is triune, this is clearly a difference
Point being of course, is that Jesus clearly does differ from God, Jesus (according to you) died, but God cannot die, Jesus changed, God in principle could not change, and so on.
Now, if you say that Jesus is identical with God, then since the Father is identical with God, and since the Son is not the Father, we have an inconsistency here and we are back to the old problem.
I agree with all of the following statements as you posted earlier, just not all your second lot of statements which are not the same.
1. The Father is God (fully)
2. Jesus (the Son) is God (fully)
3. The Father is not the Son.
definition as mentioned: The Father and Son (and Spirit) are 3 persons*, of the same essence and are one God. Yet each is not one-third God, each is fully God.
*Greek: hypostasis, Latin: subsistences
If we have 2 beings that are fully God, and these 2 beings are non-identical, then don't we have 2 gods?
But of course there cannot be 2 gods, and hence we should reject the trinity
"So how should we approach this conundrum? We obviously have to relinquish the premise that is least founded by the evidence. 1 is obvious with Biblical evidence, 2 is only due to tenuous interpretations of some of the statements of Jesus, 3 is indispensable as a principle of reason. "
1 is actually not from Biblical evidence refer to my longer post above from a Christian perspective. I have already stated a lot on why the 3 points in your original post which were:
> the Father is God
> the Son (Jesus) is God
> the Father is not the Son
THAT SAID: I understand that although Islamic interpretation of the Bible through the lenses of the Quran could possibly end up with the statement. I would disagree that Biblical evidence says that Jesus is not God, the weight of the evidence particularly the New Testament (that said I posted a couple of replies back, some from the Old Testament) is actually in favour of the second statement you put forward.
As stated, for Christians, statement 2 not 1 is based on Biblical evidence, particularly in the Gospel of John in particularly here
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8:12-70&version=NASB
and here
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1:1-14&version=NASB
and here
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+1:13-23&version=NKJV
and here
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+9:5&version=NKJV
and here
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+20:30-31&version=NKJV
and in the Apostle Paul's writings, but also in the long list above, particularly in the Prophets, particularly if anyone hold Jesus to be the Messiah, as Christians do.
Conclusion: Thus statement 3 is not accepted on the premise that statement 1 is hold to be false by Christians. Therefore I do not come to the same conclusion as you, and reject statement 3.
Statement 1 "Jesus and God differ" is incoherent at best, and false at worst.
Sidenote: Yes it is a hard concept, and like most things approaching it purely from reason/intellect won't necessary mean to end up the same outcome.
End section
You've misunderstood the statements themselves, Statement 3 is not a conclusion from a syllogism, it's a premise such that when you take all 3 statements together, we get inconsistency, meaning one statement has to be rejected
Yes you're quite right, one major difference is the status of Jesus. However there are some other differences, e.g. the characteristics of God/Allah (contrast Romans 5:8 "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" with Surah 2:277 "God loves not the impious and sinners")
There's one thing that I'd just like to raise to your attention: you said that in the Bible, Jesus never claimed to be God. Here's a few verses from the gospels that contradict this:
Before going on to explain what these verses mean, a common theme with all of them is that Jesus doesn't explicitly claim to be God.
Surely if this is a central doctrine of Christianity, upon which salvation is dependent, and that Christianity is supposed to be a religion for all peoples, then surely Jesus, being God would be more explicit on this
After all a central doctrine of God in Islam is that He is One, and yet this is a fact that is entirely clear and repeated over and over again
Moreover, although some of these require re-interpretation, it is justified because the overwhelming message shows that Jesus was a man, it is also justified since Jesus being God is rationally absurd.
John 14:9 "Anyone who has seen me has seen the father"
This can be clearly interpreted in so far as following and being with the God is 'seeing' God (the Father), so if you follow Jesus, you are following a path to the Father, which is not controversial in the slightest
John 8:58 "Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was born, I am!" ('I AM' is the name God gives himself in Exodus 3:14)
First of all, even if one were to take it literally, this is not controversial at all, Jesus having existence prior to Abraham is simply a matter of God creating Jesus (but not having him roam the earth) before creating Abraham.
Throughout the gospels Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man (for example, Mark 2:10, Matthew 17:22, Luke 22:48, etc), which references Daniel 7: 13-14
Luke 5:20 "Friend, your sins are forgiven" - this is equivalent to Jesus claiming to be God, because in the Jewish religious milieu that Jesus was in, only God could forgive sins (Isaiah 43:25)
Jesus informing us that our sins are forgiven doesn't mean Jesus forgave our sins, it could be the case that Jesus was simply reporting on a decision God has made, which is exactly what a Prophet does.
As far as Jesus praying, he prays to his Father, which according to Jesus, he is equal with (in John 5:17, Jesus is breaking the Sabbath, and the Jewish leaders begin to persecute him. Jesus says "My Father is always at work to this very day, and I too am working". John 5:18 then explicitly says that Jesus makes "himself equal with God"). While Jesus does claim to be equal with the Father, there can still be communication and different roles for both Jesus and the Father. This really comes down to doctrine about the trinity.
Jesus isn't equal to the father though, even in your belief. You can either mean Jesus is equal to the Father numerically, or qualitatively. Jesus would be numerically equal to the Father means Jesus is identical to the Father, but you don't believe that. Jesus is also not qualitatively equal to the Father, even in your belief. Since you believe that Jesus eternally proceeds from the Father, which clearly means Jesus is a lesser being.
Going to the verses you quote, Jesus breaking the Sabbath doesn't imply that he is God, neither does Jesus saying John 5:18. That would be like saying, "God is merciful, and so am I", and then you interpreting this as me claiming that I am God!
You say that Jesus can communicate and have different roles to the Father, you say that both these figures are fully God, and yet you say that there is only one God? You are simply moving from one absurdity to the next, there is no escape for the trinitarian.
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