The Person of Jesus Christ

This topic asks you to debate and form an opinion on the nature of Jesus - this means whether he is divine or just a man.

We must also be able to decide whether Jesus was a teacher of wisdom or a liberator as well.

Keep in mind throughout this topic the question: "Was Jesus' relationship with God truly unique?"

Keywords:

Hypostases: Having an underlying substance
Coeternal: Existing with something else eternally
Coequal: Having the same rank or importance
Triune: Consisting of three in one
Ousia: True being, entity, substance

This is the oldest existing piece of the manuscript of the Nicene Creed. It dates to the 6th Century.

The Trinity

The Trinity is one of the core Christian doctrines that concerns the nature of God.
It asserts that one single God exists as three distinct persons: The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. (Hypostases)
Jesus is recognised as the Son of God - demonstrating the interconnected relationship.
The Trinity is one of the most debated doctrines in Christianity, it can also get really complex depending on how deep you want to get into it.

in 325 AD, Constantine convened a council of Bishops to decide a position on this matter. This lead to the Nicene Creed:
- There is one God
- Christ is the Son of God "eternally begotten" of the father
- "Begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father"
- For our salvation "he came down from heaven"
- “By the power of the Holy spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”
- “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified”

A Biblical History of the Trinity (Old Testament)

In the Old Testament, we have evidence to suggest there is reference to the Trinity:

- "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26)

- "Then the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:22).

The use of plural pronouns suggests that there is a plurality of persons.
However the Trinity is not explicitly taught in the Old Testament because Judaism is monotheistic.
In the book of Isaiah and Deuteronomy it is suggested that the plural pronouns refer to the Heavenly Court.

- "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)
- Isaiah 6 depicts the Heavenly Court, consisting of Seraphim (messengers of the divine council). Thus the plural pronouns used in the Old Testament may refer to God and the Divine Council.

Other debates relating to the trinity come from Genesis 18 in which God is said to have "appeared to Abraham" - Abraham was visited by three men in this story. Some scholars (like Jean Calvin) argue that this was God accompanied by two angels. Others (like Augustine) argue that the three visitors were the three peoples of the Trinity.

A Biblical History of the Trinity (New Testament)

The Book of John (the first epistle of John) claims that:

"There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Spirit, and these three are one" (1 John 5:7).
However, this passage is known as the Johannine Comma. It is a disputed clause that is absent from the earliest Greek manuscripts of 1 John. It appears to have originated as a marginal note or commentary in the Latin textual tradition before later being incorporated into the biblical text.
Nevertheless, the New Testament contains evidence of a Trinity:-"Baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19)
The history of the Trinity is better understood in the wider context of the History of Christianity. While the Old Testament strongly supports monotheism, the New Testament begins to distinguish Jesus as a divine presence both contained within God and a human presence separately.
It was the work of later theologians to understand how this all fit together..
This led to centuries of theological debate and eventually to the development of the doctrine of the Trinity: one God in three distinct persons. Councils such as Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) were particularly important in establishing the orthodox formulation.
The language we use to talk about the Trinity came after the Bible was written.

Problems with the Trinity

Arguably, divinity and human nature are two incompatible states. It is not clear how a being could be both of these things.
John Hick argues that Jesus is a human, and a human only: “For to say, without explanation, that the historical Jesus of Nazareth was also God is as devoid of meaning as to say that this circle drawn with a pencil on paper is also a square"
Jesus being the "Son of God" just refers to a title given to men who had a special relationship or closeness with God, not necessarily a divine presence.
Hick argues for a metaphorical interpretation of incarnation. This view, he argues, avoids the paradoxes brought about by the Trinity. He calls the idea of a Trinity a "squared circle" - it doesn't make sense.