I don’t get what everyone thinks is so great about this interview. Colbert’s behavior is highly sophomoric, and he doesn’t really address the things the guy is saying. Just because it’s “on our side,” doesn’t make it any better than when people like Colbert and Al Franken use those tactics to ridicule conservatives.
The Elephant analogy isn’t particularly “brilliant”: while valid, it’s rather cliche.
It reminded me of the hokey Developmental Apologetics skits they do on EWTN’s
Knights of St. Michael.
For example, I would have granted the guy’s position that doctrines like the Trinity are “later developments.” I would have said, “Of course they were. That’s why the Church is more important than the Bible. The Bible itself is a ‘later development.’”
On the claim to be God, I recently read a point in Fulton Sheen’s
Life of Christ that I haven’t seen anywhere else: the main place Jesus claims to be God is in the healing of the paralytic in Capernaum. It’s when He claims to be able to forgive sins.
THAT is the claim that is found in the Synoptics, which Jesus makes, which you cannot find in any Old Testament figure or any major pagan philosopher or sage. Jesus is the only Person in history who came along–without being considered a crank–and said, “I can forgive sins.”
Secondly, I would have granted him what he said on the term “son of God.” Even Luke says that Adam was “son of God.” The Old Testament is very clear that “Son of God” is a term referring to someone who is holy. And to meet these people where they are, we cannot simply appeal to John.
That said, when this guy says we today don’t understand the idioms then, the real idiom in question is “Son of Man.”
THAT is where Jesus directly claims to be God. He always calls Himself the “Son of Man.” Why?
Usually, what we’re told in homilies in Bible footnoes is something like, “Jesus was trying to disguise His divinity.”
Jesus calls Himself the “Son of Man” for two reasons:
- He presumes He’s God, and “Son of Man” emphasizes the other part of His Nature.
- The Old Testament prophets constantly refer to “one like a Son of Man.”
It is when Jesus refers to Himself as the “Son of Man” at his trial that the high priests rends His garments.
The Old Testament reference to “Son of Man” is a direct reference to the Messiah, at least, if not to the revelatoin of God Himself, who appears “as a Son of Man.”
So, I don’t see what’s great about the interview. The author comes off as far more respectable and intelligent, while Colbert comes off as a disrespectful idiot.
