HICK AND THE GOD-MAN JESUS

The Christian Church claims it is rational to believe that Jesus Christ though a true man was also truly God. The worship that is due to God is due to Jesus. Most scholars and researchers in the world disagree with Christianity in this thing. Who is right?
 
In Hick's The Metaphor of God Incarnate the Christian view that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, two separate natures in one person, is recognised for the absurdity it is. The suggestion that Jesus as man limited his perception as God by distracting himself from it in order to behave as a man fails for the only way it could be done is if Jesus ceases to be God for God cannot distract himself (page 68). The suggestion smacks of pretending.

Another idea was that the mind of God the Son is like a computer program and the mind of Jesus is like another program distinct from and contained in the other (page 50). But this is only concerned with the cognitive and thinking elements and we need more than that. What about the will and emotions and so on? It still does not leave Jesus on his own to make decisions which is necessary for him to be fully man. Jesus as man might have come close to sinning and Jesus as God would have stopped this sin so Jesus as man was not wilfully sinless and so was not fully man for free will is supposed to be a component of human nature (page 56, The Metaphor of God Incarnate). But some say in response that we are free human beings even when we only think we are free. But that is absurd and makes God responsible for our sins for he never programmed us to be good. Anybody could be God incarnate if the idea is acceptable.

Another suggestion is that Jesus had two selves, the God self and the man self and the God self was not present in Jesus’ brain (page 60). This too still insists despite itself that Jesus was not a real human because he could not sin. And obviously it is unintelligible to say that the God self stayed out of Jesus’ brain which splits him into two persons. Where God was situated bears no relevance. The problem is what makes God and Jesus, in his humanity, one person.

God is consciousness so if Jesus was God he had to have all God’s consciousness. The reason I am me and not you is because we have separate powers to be aware of what is happening around us. It is agreed by Hick that the idea of Jesus being God and not being aware of it is incoherent (page 68).

Hick rejects the absurd view that God had to forgo his omnipotence and omniscience in order to become the man Jesus. That would be God ceasing to be God (page 73). Then Jesus would be fully man but he would not be fully God for Jesus if he were God could not give up these gifts and would still have them even if he stopped using them.

Hick rejects the idea that Jesus was as much man as he was God as incoherent.

Conclusion
 
To believe in Jesus being God isn’t a rational belief and it is full of contradictions.
 
BOOKS CONSULTED

A CALL TO HERESY, Robert Van de Weyer, Lamp Press, London, 1989
ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE, John W Haley, Whitaker House, Pennsylvania, undated
ASKING THEM QUESTIONS, Various, Oxford University Press, London, 1936
CHRIST IS GOD, Rev JP Arendzen DD, Augustine Publishing Company, Devon, 1987
CHRIST OUR LIGHT, J Buys SJ Geoffrey Chapman and Gill & Son, London-Melbourne, Dublin 1966
CHRISTIANITY FOR THE TOUGH-MINDED Ed John Warwick Montgomery, Bethany Fellowship Inc, Minneapolis, 1973
DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY COME DOWN FROM HEAVEN? Alan Hayward, Christadelphian ALS, Birmingham
DO CHRISTIANS BELIEVE IN THREE GODS? Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1992
EVIDENCE THAT DEMANDS A VERDICT, Vol 1, Josh McDowell, Alpha, Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1995
FOUR GREAT HERESIES, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1975
GOD AND THE HUMAN CONDITION, F J Sheed, Sheed & Ward, London 1967
HANDBOOK OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS, Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli, Monarch, East Sussex, 1994
HERESIES AND HOW TO AVOID THEM, Editors Ben Quash and Michael Ward, SPCK, London, 2007
HONEST TO GOD, John AT Robinson, SCM Press, London, 1963
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES John Wijngaards, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1998
JESUS GOD THE SON OR SON OF GOD? Fred Pearce Christadelphian Publishing Office, Birmingham
MERE CHRISTIANITY, CS Lewis, Fontana, Glasgow, 1975
MIRACLES, CS Lewis, Fontana, London, 1960
PRIESTLAND’S PROGRESS, Gerald Priestland, BBC, London, 1981
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE, Henry Morris, Moody Press, Bucks, 1988
SET MY EXILES FREE, John Power, Logos Books, MH Gill & Son Ltd, Dublin, 1967
SOME MODERN FAITHS, Maurice C Burrell and J Stafford Wright, Intervarsity Press, Leicestershire, 1988
THE CASE FOR CHRIST, Lee Strobel, HarperCollins and Zondervan, Michigan, 1998
THE EARLY CHURCH, Henry Chadwick, Pelican, Middlesex, 1987
THE GODHEAD EXPLAINED, Christadelphian Press, Beverley, South Australia
THE METAPHOR OF GOD INCARNATE, John Hick, SCM Press, London, 1993
THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE, John Hick ed., SCM Press, London, 1977
THE NEW CULTS, Walter Martin, Vision House, Santa Ana, California, 1980
THE SPIRIT OF GOD, John Bedson, Lightstand Burbank CA 1984
THE UNAUTHORISED VERSION, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1992
UNDERSTANDING THE CULTS, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Campus Crusade for Christ, San Bernardino, 1983
UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER ESSAYS, William Ellery Channing, The Bobs-Merrill Company Inc, Kansas, 1957
YOU CAN LIVE FOREVER IN PARADISE ON EARTH, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, New York, 1982
 
 
THE WWW
 
http://www.kevinquick.com/kkministries/books/reasoning/nwt.html,
Kevin Quick discusses the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that the Bible never says that Jesus is God

www.easyspace.com
Gives the Jehovah’s Witness response to this site

www.gospelassemblyfree.com/facts/fathersonwayne.htm
Father and/or Son by H Wayne Hamburger