For Chanbengchin:
The conflict between religions is not concerned with whether or not there is a God. Each monotheistic and polytheistic religion will agree that there is a deity, if not a number of them that preside over life. The hierarchy of these deities, when considering polytheism, is apparent as well, indicating that one of these Gods is the “best†of each. An example of this is the Mahadevas of the Hindu faith. So, I establish that there is no difference in the fundamental concept of a deity—God, there are merely variations of the same thing. A crude analogy would be the fact that a chair is a chair, no matter how many legs there are, or how padded it is, or how long it is, the purpose of the chair is still there. It is the same with God. God serves a purpose that all religions base their faiths on. The fact that God serves a purpose is the connection between each religion.
I did not use the word powers because, if we follow the doctrine that God has manifested itself to a people, why could it not manifest itself to other peoples in different ways? In worshipping separate Gods, we end up worshipping the one God.
The use of “by all common logicâ€, referred to that particular sentence only. Something as finite as human beings, and as finite I mean limited and flawed, cannot understand something as infinite and indescribable as God. Voltaire once said, “You know him through translations: but poets are not translatable. Can one translate music?†(Voltaire, 1754). I believe in that general principle. And what I have previously written isn’t, in actuality, unsupported. Both my parents agree with me, and my father has a PhD in Philosophy in religion, teaches at the Christian Theological School (CTS) in Indianapolis, before that, taught at the United Theological College in the West Indies (UTC). He received his bachelor’s in divinity from Columbia University, got a full scholarship to the Claremont Graduate Schools, and finished his Doctoral works at the latter. My mother has her PhD in Biblical Interpretation. She graduated from Emory University, where she got her bachelors in Religious-Psychology, and received a scholarship to the Claremont Graduate Schools as well. She finished her PhD there. Finally, they are both on the World Council of Churches. So I am not speaking out of my ass here.
Lastly, I am not arguing against the divinity of Jesus, nor the fact that we need Jesus to find God. I am arguing that if Jesus is indeed God, then using Jesus as a mediator is the same thing as using God as a mediator. Using that quote helps my argument when I say that if Jesus is God, then it was basically God speaking through Jesus and nothing more. And if God was speaking through Jesus, then we can rewrite it with:
“… and God answered, “I am the way and the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except through me. â€â€ Which makes perfect sense, although redundant, when you think about it. You seem to be mistaking this argument as if it is my argument. I am merely saying that IF Jesus is et cetera, we can bypass the symbolic recognition.
For Gavtmcc:
Jesus is only separate insofar as God is the Father, and that is as far as it goes. In separation creates the primary component of unity-in-difference. That is basically what it means. Separate, but equal, unequal in quality, but balanced as a whole. I cannot argue against the line of questioning concerning Jesus as logos or other. It is important to note that nowhere in Scripture does it say that the words within Scripture are inspired, though. We can’t even say definitively that inspired has anything to do with God-breathed. In fact, the possibility that these inspirations could be more similar to a woman to a love poem than someone “Standing†over the author’s shoulders and telling them what to write, is very high.
Jesus also kills a young boy while playing with him, but quickly brings him back to life before the boy’s parents find out (The Book of Thomas, n.d.). There are many instances where Jesus abuses his powers to benefit himself. Why I use these as examples: We cannot really say whether or not Jesus, in fact, was educated by synagogue-clergy. It is plausible that he was taught by a tutor—his father was, after all, the third wealthiest man in the world while Jesus was still living with him.
I can’t argue against the fact that Jesus surrounded himself with Jews. Question: Should he have surrounded himself with Christians (Sarcasm intended)?
The only way one can know what God thinks or intends is if that person is God. To proclaim oneself as God is blasphemous. In final argument; I am not meshing omniscience with omnipotence. BUT, if we attribute these qualities to God, then we must assume that God is either infinite, or indefinite. And although indefinite is a better suited word to phrase God—since we really know nothing about the entity in reality—the very fact that we call God, “Godâ€, indicates that we are attributing infinite qualities onto that entity.