THE GOD-MAN THING The objective questions that at least I would suggest are maybe not the ones that people might expect. I think that most often a Christian feels he has a duty to convince the Muslim that Jesus is divine and the Muslim feels he has a duty to prove that he isn’t. And that could be an endless discussion but I feel that’s not a very worthwhile point to get into. I suggest that some of the problems become more apparent if the Muslim asks the Christian to prove the humanity of Jesus. To say, whatever you say he was, I’ll grant you that except for this one thing, prove to me that he was a man. How do you know he wasn’t God and disguised like a man? Prove he was a man. What did he do that God can’t do, that only a man can do? Prove he was a man. There’s only one thing: What did he do that God can’t, you have to be a man to do it. The Christian will tell you, He died. See God can’t do that. Only a man can do that. The problem then is that, that same death is supposed to be the saving act that man can’t do only God can do. That is to say, if we crucify a man it won’t save anybody from his or her sins, on the other hand you can’t kill God, only a man can die. As one Muslim put it, about 850 years ago, he said they have an idea about God, man, and a God-man. They’ll tell you what we crucified is the God-man. A God-man -- What it really comes down to is that God lived and the man died. That’s not really crucifying a God-man. Anymore than if I tell you I had a sandwich for lunch I had a piece of cheese. A sandwich is bread and cheese. To kill a God-man, but to say only the man died, not the God, then that is what happened, not the God-man thing. And these are not novel ideas; these are things appreciated by the mainstream of Christianity. There has always been a doctrine of Incarnation that’s well defined, there’s never been a defined doctrine of atonement, how exactly it’s suppose to work – YOU DON’T FIND THAT EXPLAINED IN ANY ANCIENT OR MODERN DOCUMENT. You find a lot of talk about it but there is no creedal statement on that idea because it has never really been figured out – how it is supposed to work. I’m not claiming that proves it doesn’t work, I’m just saying that it is still an open issue. HUMAN ACTION & SALVATION I know that there is a great concern, and the Muslim who is pestered or annoyed by people who are anxious to have him come along to their church. He may feel annoyed but at the same time he has to appreciate that people may have a proper intention in all of this and that they are genuinely concerned. Their concern, though, is related to, often anyway getting someone to take an action, which brings about salvation. And there is an interesting point about salvation here, and human action. That is, suppose there is an act that is connected with salvation, a human act, and it has to do with a man being saved. Well, according to the fundamentalist view, if there is such an act, and IT IS NECESSARY for salvation, then that same act cannot be sufficient for salvation. That is, if it is something that we must do, then it is, in itself, not enough for salvation. I’ll explain why in a moment. Conversely, if there is an act which if you do it, IT IS ENOUGH to be saved, it is sufficient, then that same act is not necessary. That is, if it is enough then it is not required. It will do the job but so will something else: Don’t NEED to do that thing. The reason being that if there is a human act which is both necessary and sufficient for salvation, then you have a human act which is equivalent to salvation. That goes against at least one branch of Christianity in a basic tenet: There is nothing a man does that is equivalent to his salvation. But that is what you get when you have these two directions of the Aerial implication: It is necessary and sufficient. That means if and only if a man is saved, IF AND ONLY IF this or that means A is equivalent to B. It is a difficult position but it is a position that some have created for themselves. APPRECIATING LIMITATIONS AND DUTIES Salvation, as it happens, is not precisely the concern of the Muslim in the first place. That is, the Quran does not say anything about it: Salvation. It talks about men being lost but it draws as a contrast not that they are lost or they are saved. The contrast is that a man may well be lost or it maybe that he has gained something: He is successful to some extent, to varying degrees. He loses out completely or he gains something and maybe more than somebody else does. YOU LOSE OR YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL. It is not a question of black and white. IT IS NONE OR SOME, not all or none. So the Muslims’ real concern is concerning his actions. He wants to appreciate his limitations and his duties. That’s basically all. It is interesting enough that it is the nature of proof that if something is impossible, it is theoretically, or in principle at least, subject to being proved. You can’t always prove when something is possible. But if something is impossible that is always open to proof and it is always open to proof if something is necessary. You can’t always prove that something is unnecessary. You can always demonstrate that something is necessary. So it is that it can always be established what it is a man cannot do and what it is he must do -- His limitations and his duties. That is what the Muslim is trying to find out about. Not so much about how to get saved, he’s trying to find out which things are a waste of time because they cannot be done and which are things that I cannot overlook, that I must do. SUMMARY Now to go back, in a kind of summary, I suppose there are two thoughts that came up here. I spent a lot of time, and maybe more then I should have, on the treatment of Scripture and how it is viewed. For the most part that is for the benefit of the Muslim. I tried to get across to the Muslim that not everybody who calls himself Christian has the same ideas about what the Bible does, what it is suppose to do. They are varying views on that. It is one stream of Christianity that says the Bible is inerrant, These are the words that God spoke. Even in the places where he said he didn’t, I guess, because there are places like that. Paul said in one place: What you are about to read didn’t come from God. There are those who say these are God’s words precisely. The mainstream of Christianity doesn’t go along with that. When the apparent errors are cited the usual retreat is to say, These are errors of transmission, that is, these mistakes were not there in the original manuscripts. Which might be true but we’ll never know, will we? Since no one has the original manuscripts. It makes it a pretty empty claim to say I have a perfect book I just can’t get my hands on a perfect copy. What good is this book if you don’t know what used to be in it? It has not been so well preserved historically. At this point, the two streams of Christianity tend to meet because they will both say, Yes but all these apparent errors do not touch on major doctrine in the first place. Personally, I disagree with that {Atonement being one issue}. The mainstream of Christianity will try to tell the other branch the reason for that is the Bible, itself, doesn’t talk very much about major doctrines. That’s the reason why these verses that may have been miscopied don’t touch on major doctrine because most of the Bible doesn’t in the first place. That’s what Martin Luther said about the Bible, that most of it is irrelevant. His basic philosophy was that unless a verse talks about a certain subject, his particular pet subject, he says that it is doubtful that is scripture. In his edition of the Bible, he took the books of James, Hebrews, and Revelations and put them in the back, like an appendix, because he said that they don’t belong up here with the rest of the scripture. A hundred years later, they were moved back. The point is that the attitude that all of it is of equal value is an old and even fundamentalist position – well, they won’t go along with that – to say not all of it speaks in the same way. It doesn’t very often really touch on major doctrine. So the next step in this explanation is to say, But we know that the doctrine has been transmitted historically correct because that is what the Bible is about, it is a record of a continuity of the Christian community. That is largely true but remember the original objection was that this document of historical continuity has suffered some problems in the continuity. It hasn’t been that well translated. Regarding thought, I was trying to encourage the idea of thinking about these things. There is just one final suggestion I would make there: Beware of a lot of things that pass for proof. Very often what people consider proof of something is a proof of something which is unreasonable by nature. That is, a person will tell you about a certain doctrine. You say that makes no sense. They’ll tell you, yes, it is beyond reason and look, I have proof that it is true! That is self-contradictory. If you produce a proof of something that is unreasonable, then something is wrong with your proof. The scientist who does a thought experiment in his mind, If A is true then B is true, that would mean C and therefore D – and that’s crazy! Wow, let me call the newspapers. I’ve proved a crazy thing. He doesn’t do that. When he arrives at something that makes no sense, he goes back and thinks well I must have started with a wrong assumption or something is faulty with my argument. We don’t rejoice at an unreasonable conclusion by process of reasoning. Something is wrong with the proof is the usual signal. So those are some thoughts, and I’d actually be more interested in what you’re thinking than what I’m thinking. If you have some questions or comments, don’t be shy to speak up. Thank you for your time and attention, in any case. Don’t do that. {Miller politely objects to APPLAUSE by a Christian audience of 40 or so people} Questions &Answers QUESTIONER1: Can we ask you questions not exactly on the Gospel but on…
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 09:46:57 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015