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IgnatianPhilo
Guest
See you need to actually address the CHristian faith for what it says. Christ is a distinct person from the father, but not a distinct person from God because God is comrpised of three person father son and spirit. But considering we have had two thousand years to define our position I would suggest the most compelling answers lie within the councils who gathered to answer serious questions on the nature of God. Chalcedon in this case would answer you, the hypostatic union. As a man he suffered, as the person Christ he suffered, though his divinity felt no pain, only the incarnate body of Christ felt pain. God became man so that we might become God, not on an ontological manner, that we could ever become exactly like God is silly, no but we partake in his essence because he has shown that huamnity is good enough that he himself took on our nature.The Gospel idea that Jesus was “god” (the trinity), he was betrayed (by Judas) and then killed raises interesting theological questions: What does it ultimately mean that “god” was killed? If Jesus was “god,” didn’t he have the power to prevent anyone from betraying and “killing” him? Did Jesus intentionally “die for our sins” or did Jesus die unintentionally, because he was “betrayed?” If his death was unintentional because he was “betrayed,” could he really have “died for our sins?”
God is omnipotent. If Jesus really was “god,” he could easily have prevented his “death.” Therefore Jesus died intentionally. But if Jesus died intentionally didn’t this constitute the sin of suicide? Further, from a Jewish perspective, “since God is “One,” Jesus was not really a distinct person, but God in another form. “As Christ’s human body was phantasm, his suffering and death were mere appearance. If he suffered he was not God. If he was God, he did not suffer.” (A History of Christianity, Paul Johnson, page 90). Do Christians really have compelling answers to these questions? (Asher Norman the inter-faith dialogs)