Dear Mr ,

 

Hi i'm Mark Bennett, a Christian Apologist. Nice to meet you and I appreciate your section on answering-christianity.com

 

I'm commenting on your rebuttal 35 to Sam Shamoun. If you make a retraction or make some corrections or atleast a logical response to me, I will give you more of my comments on other articles of yours if you would like.

 

I will be examing your last point to Sam, on this response of yours to his article: https://www.answering-christianity.com/christology_rebuttal.htm

 

Brief Introduction:

 

(skipped)

 

 

Hello Mark, glad to see your e-mail, I always enjoy these dialogs with Christians.

 

I shall respond to each points of yours hopefully, so lets go.

 

Response

So if the fullness of God dwelt in Jesus, then why would satan try and tempt Jesus? Satan already would know God is in Jesus so why would he try and tempt him? That’s one problem you must solve for us. It makes no sense for satan to try and tempt Jesus while satan knew the fullness of God was in Jesus, and Jesus himself must have known this, so why did satan try and tempt Jesus like he did?

 

My Response to

 

There are several points in order here:

 

1) This is a question from ignorance on what the bible says. To begin with you are assuming Satan is afraid of tempting God, however the Holy Bible teaches Satan has indeed tempted God and he is NOT afraid of tempting God. At this point your argument fails because you made some priori assumptions that God cannot be tempted by Satan, Yet we find these assumptions to be unbiblical and pressupositional from another source of your own rather than the bible.

 

2) Secondly, Christ has 2 natures. One is Deity, One is Humanity. As you are aware Satan is able to tempt humans. Jesus is Fully Human and as a Man he does exhibit all weaknesses of humans and all human attributes and qualities except sin and his very nature is human, not half god half human, Jesus is not some kind of superhuman or superman or spiderman or batman, he is fully man not superman. So even if Satan was to afraid to tempt God(which we find he is not in the bible), again Satan has nothing to be scared of because he is tempting Jesus humanity which is not all powerful.

 

 

My Response

Now as for your first point, I think it is you who has mis-understood what I am going for, I am not saying satan never tries to tempt God, I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that satan in no way would tempt God the way he did Jesus, satan would never make such a silly request such as asking God to worship him, nor would satan tempt God by telling him he will give him all the kingdoms of the earth when they already belong to God! Please read rebuttal 6 which is just on this very topic of satan tempting Jesus. The way in which satan tempted God showed he did not view Jesus as God because satan would never ask God to worship him, nor would he make such silly offers to God. So my point is not that satan would never tempt God, my point is satan would never tempt God which such silly ideas such as these. These acts carried out by satan did show he clearly viewed Jesus as a man ONLY, what he offered to Jesus were things MEN would love, such as power etc. That is what satan offered Jesus, satan would not make such silly actions on the true God. So that is my point, my point is satan would never tempt God in the way he did Jesus. Please visit rebuttal 6.

 

As for your second response, this in my opinion is a very weak response. I addressed this slightly in rebuttal 6 but I will bring it up again. The fact that Jesus is man and has those weaknesses is true and valid, but here is why this argument fails. Did not Jesus know he was God? Yes, offcourse he did, Jesus always knew he was God. So deep down he knows he is God, he already knows that all the kingdoms of the heaven and the earth are his. This argument is strong ONLY if Jesus did not know he was God, the fact he knows he is God helps him a lot to over come such human weaknesses such as in this case.

 

Wrote

The fact is satan did this is because Jesus is not God, nor did satan take Jesus as God.

 

My Response to

 

1) This is a strawman fallacy. Whether satan believes Jesus is God is not relevant to the aim of sams article. The aim is to prove the historical orthodox christian position on whether christology agrees with these particular 3 biblical passages, what satan thinks is not relevant to this article.

 

 

My Response

 

It is indeed very relevant and not a straw man at all. If you read what I said earlier which is related to what Sam brought up which is:

 

Colossians 2:9:

"For in Him dwells (katoikei) all the fullness (pleroma) of the Deity (theotetos) bodily (somatikos)."

I simply responded to this by bringing up a relevant issue which is if the fullness of God dwelt in Jesus, then why would satan ever try to tempt Jesus in the way he did! He knew it would be useless and he would gain nothing, the fact he did tempt Jesus the way he did is because he did not view Jesus as God but a mere man which is why he tempted him with such things.

 

So I am sticking to the topic, I brought up a point which conflicts with this verse, so not a straw man at all. You have to take it all together, if you bring a verse saying Jesus is God, and I bring something from your Bible which shows the opposite then that is not a straw man at all as long as it still dealing with the topic at hand which is ‘is Jesus God’? If I had mis-interpreted the verse Sam provided and then from that mis-interpretation attacked him that would be a straw man, but I have not mis-interpreted the verse at all and I am going by it, if the fullness of God was in Jesus, why would satan tempt him in such a way in which he knew he would fail before he even tried it?

 

 Wrote

and Jesus knew he wasn’t God.

 

My Response to

 

This is a false assertion.

 

 

My Response

 

Not at all, Jesus did  know he is not God. Consult rebuttal 24 please.

 

 

Wrote

 Secondly if the fullness of God is in Jesus, then this means God went to the bathroom, went to sleep, went to eat, and went to cry and pray!

 

My Response to

 

1) This is correct. This seems to be an appeal to emotion that it is beneth the dignity of God to become a human and exhibit human qualities. I don't need to comment on this because again this is not relevant to the purpose of sams article. The article is simply seeing what these verses say about christological issues.

 

2) Also by affirming "If the fullness of God is in Jesus, oh by the way then your God would be going to the bathroom etc...(your argument: Christian God goes to the bathroom, sleeps, prays??)", you have confirmed Jesus is God according to Paul, because Paul explictly said the "fullness of God is in him bodily". So we are infact in agreement that Paul thinks Jesus is God bodily. Now you are contradicting your own position in your very own article.

 

 

My Response

 

As to your first response, this is very relevant to the topic. If the fullness of God in Jesus which is what Sam brought up, then this means God slept and ate etc. This is not something God does nor will ever do, he is above that. That is why he is God.

 

As to your second response, you have mis-understood me, I am showing the fallacy in believing in such a statement. I am showing that if I did believe like you did, then this means God went to the bathroom, went to bed, ate food and so on, and God does not do that. So I am showing the error in this.

 

Wrote

Thirdly this also means your God is not all-knowing, since Jesus stated he doesn’t know the last hour, since the fullness of God was in him, then this means God to didn’t know therefore he cant be God.

 

My Response to

 

This is a false dilemma that needs to be corrected. The fullness of God is in Jesus bodily, yet the divine nature of God is not in Jesus bodily.  

 

 

My Response

 

The divine nature is not in Jesus? How can the fullness of God be in Jesus yes the divine nature is not there? This does not make sense. Anyway once again, the fact that Jesus did not know the last hour means he is not God, note he said ONLY the father meaning even the divine nature of Jesus did not know but ONLY the father.

Wrote

Or was that the man part only? Question, when do you know the man Jesus is talking and not the divine Jesus? The fact is you don’t but you have to guess.

 

My Response to

The question is irrelevent to sams article. Another red herring. This is a christological verse written by Paul and we are trying to see what Paul is saying about Jesus

 

 

My Response

 

This is not a red herring and is very relevant, it seems you are not following my argument. Shamoun brought a verse which said the fullness of God is in Jesus, if so. Then How come Jesus did not know the last hour? Infact you gave the answer which I said Christians would which is if this was the man part only which is what you implied in your last statement. So then my question again is, when do you know when the man Jesus is speaking, and when do you know the divine nature of Jesus is speaking? These are all important questions that arise from the verse that was brought up.

 

Wrote

Secondly, what happens to the divine spirit of Jesus when the man part of Jesus takes over? Is it hiding? Is it conscious? Where is it?

 

My Response to

This is a follow up question to the former question above. Non-related to the topic again, but I will answer. Let me first correct your false assumption. The divine Jesus does not possess the human Jesus when he needs to speak. Jesus is fully man and when he speaks he is speaking as a man and when making divine claims he is referring to his very own deity. As for the divine spirit of Jesus he is omnipresent.

 

 

My Response

 

This is all related to the topic at hand, it all falls under the verse which was brought up. If the fullness of God is in Jesus, then how come he did not know the last hour? You would say that is the man part of Jesus, so hence I am asking where is the divine nature of Jesus when the man nature of Jesus takes over? So you see this all related to the topic at hand.

 

Now I must you have not corrected me, I still state when Jesus is talking as a man with his man nature, then where is the divine nature of Jesus? Where is that divine nature of Jesus which knows everything, which is all power full and so on? Where is it? Everyone knows that according to Christians that Jesus has dual natures, the man and the divine, so when the man is talking where is the divine and what happened?

 

Wrote

Thirdly, how can the human nature overcome the divine nature of God? That is illogical and IMPOSSIBLE.

 

My Response to

Here we agree, it cannot. And theres no reason to believe these verses teach anything like that unless we be illogical and bring our false pressupositions to the table.

 

 

My Response

 

Here we do not agree, we do not agree at all. You do in fact believe the man nature of Jesus does overcome the divine nature. When Jesus does not know the last hour you say that was the man and the weaknesses of the man, so hence the man nature overcomed the divine, same when Jesus eats and so on. This is still all connected to the verse which Shamoun brought up.

 

Wrote

So this verse actually leaves you with more problems than solutions,

 

My Response to

There are no problems except when you make logical fallacies that CAUSE problems.

 

 

My Response

 

No logical fallacy has been committed so the problem remains. I just showed that you as Christians do believe the man nature overcomes the divine nature so the problem remains, and it is a very big problem.

 

Wrote

 but anyway, Paul said it, not Jesus, and Paul is a liar so I for one could care less to what he has to say.

 

My Response to

You here are confirming Paul confirmed Jesus Divinity and Jesus did not and so you pass Paul off as a liar. Why are you then refuting sam on this last verse? You agree with him that Paul says Jesus is God. This is a waste of time. This of course tells us that this rebuttal to the last verse was irrelevant. The aim of the article was to establish whether these 3 biblical passages were in agreement with the Historical Orthodox Christian view that Jesus is Eternal God. You however seem to not care what Paul thinks therefore making your article redundant to yourself and others. You admit since Paul made this explict statement that the Fullness of God is in Jesus bodily that Paul believes Jesus is God and he goes to the bathroom etc. On the one point your article is redundant because you don't care what paul thinks, yet you confirm the christian position that Paul teaches Jesus is God, but then try refuting it at the same time by saying Sam failed to prove this verse proves Jesus is God. This needs to be changed

 

 

My Response

 

I am refuting Sam on this verse to show that Paul has no idea to what he is saying which I believed I did. As you can see how many questions and problems have arisen by this single passage, this is why I called Paul a liar because this verse causes a lot of problems. Yes Paul may have viewed as Jesus is God, but as you can see he cannot back it up as it contradicts what Jesus said and did. I still say, I could care less to what Paul says, I just decided to respond because it wouldn’t be good enough for me to just say ‘ah yes Paul said it so who cares’ that would be weak from me, so I decided I would respond to it although I could care less to what Paul has to say.

 

So yes Sam did fail to prove Jesus is God with this verse, as you can see all the problems and questions that arose. So I stick with it, Paul is a liar and I am merely showing his inconsistency.

 

Wrote

 Much more could be said to show how silly this verse is, but that should be enough.

 

My Response to

No lets hear these other points. Just no more logical fallacies

 

 

My Response

 

Well there has not been one single logical fallacy yet, you can find these other points here:

 

https://www.answering-christianity.com/rebuttaltosamshamoun33.htm

https://www.answering-christianity.com/rebuttal_to_sam_shamoun_7.htm

https://www.answering-christianity.com/rebuttaltosamshamoun8.htm

https://www.answering-christianity.com/rebuttaltosamshamoun5_1.htm

 

Wrote

This brief examination of yours on three key biblical passages to show that Jesus is God completely failed.

 

My Response to

 

This of course is a false conclussion when we can clearly see a direct comment by Paul  showing otherwise. I will deal with the book of John aswell at a future date. 

 

 

My Response

 

This is not a false conclusion, they failed very badly. We ended up with more questions than answers from ONE single verse! That shows how bad this situation is and that Paul did not know what he was saying.

 

Wrote

 Jesus is not God, get over it, you will never be able to prove it, and whatever information you bring I will always be there to refute it, insha'Allah. J

 

My Conclussion

 

As everyone can see it doesn't matter what information one brings to Mr he has already decided he can refute it. These last comments show that you are unfortunately indeed close minded to evidence and truth. Your motives when evaluating evidence from the bible are already clearly bias.

Not only this but you agree Paul says Jesus is God, while at the same time you attempt to refute sam believing he failed to prove Jesus is God while maintaining that what Paul says is irrelevant anyway. My conclussion is that you are very confused and need to correct atleast this part of the article.

 

Thankyou Mr Samatri for taking the time to read my review of your work. I hope we can have a good correspondance in the future.

 

 

My Response

 

There is no need for any correction, it seems you have not understood my points, maybe they were a bit to much. The fact is let me say it once again. If we take what Paul says as the truth, this leaves us with several problems as you saw, that is what I am getting at. You are now going on straw mans my friend, you are mis interpreting my stand point and from that you are leading your argument.

 

Paul can say whatever he wants, he can bring 700 verses of him saying Jesus is God, what I do is examine them and see if they are consistent with the 4 gospels of John, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This is what I did here, and as we saw, Paul’s statements show he is wrong and Jesus cannot be God, yes this verse may claim Jesus is God but does that mean it’s the truth? As we saw no it isn’t, so yes Shamoun still failed to prove Jesus is God because this verse fails and falls and has a lot of problems. So I am not confused at all, my position is very clear and straight forward.

 

I also look forward to more dialogs with you to.