Presentation used for teaching apologetics at LTCi Siliguri - March 2013

1. The Divinity
of Christ
Pop Quiz

2. • Kreeft starts by listing „claims’
of Jesus that people might find
hard to accept - there are at
least six - name four of them
• Why is the divinity of Christ
important in apologetics? (2 13
reasons)
• Kreeft gives 3 arguments for
Marks
believing this argument of
Christ‟s divinity...
• Kreeft states 8 reasons for not
believing this - name four

3. • Kreeft starts by listing „claims’ of Jesus that
people might find hard to accept - there are at
least six - name four of them
• Jesus called himself the “Son of God” - he
claimed to have the same nature as God
and called God his Father.
• Jesus claimed to be sinless:
• Jesus claimed to save us from sin and
death:
• Jesus claimed he would return at the end
of the age to judge all of us.

4. • Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter -
something that for a Jew only God could
do
• Jesus kept pointing at himself and telling
people to come to him
• Buddha, Confucius and Muhammad
fulfilled no prophecies, did no miracles,
and did not rise from the dead. Jesus did
all of these.

5. • Why is the divinity of Christ
important in apologetics? (2
reasons)
• 1. The issue of the divinity of
Christ is a distinctively
Christian one - a Christian
has to be defined as
someone who believes this.
• 2. This is the key to
unlocking many other
doctrines within the
Christian faith

6. • Kreeft gives 3 arguments for
believing this argument of
Christ‟s divinity...
• 1. Christ’s Trustworthiness
• 2. The impossibility of the
alternative
• 3. Lord, Liar or lunatic

7. • Kreeft states 8 reasons for not believing this -
name four
• 1. No rational reason
• 2. Christ is not rejected but Christians
• 3. Fear
• 4. Moral reluctance
• 5. People are sometimes afraid of the
mysterious and uncontrollable
• 6. Pride
• 7. Belief in Jesus is intellectually
unfashionable
• 8. Equality

8. The Divinity
of Christ
Pocket handbook of
Christian Apologetics
Chapter 8
Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli

9. “I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must
confess as a historian that this penniless preacher
from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history.
Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all
history.”
H.G. Wells

10. “As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in
the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the
luminous figure of the Nazarene....No one can read the
Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus.
His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled
with such life.”
Albert Einstein

11. There is a problem when looking at
the identity of Jesus Christ - we look
at the Gospels (all 4 of them) - and a
shockingly strong claim is made.
Jesus called himself the “Son of
God” - he claimed to have the same
nature as God and called God his
Father.
Jn 10:30, 14:9
“I and the Father are one.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know
me, Philip, even after I have been
among you such a long time? Anyone
who has seen me has seen the
Father.

12. Jesus claimed to be sinless:
Jn 8:46 Can any of you prove me
guilty of sin? If I am telling the
truth, why don’t you believe me?
Lk 5:21 The Pharisees and the
teachers of the law began thinking
to themselves, “Who is this fellow
who speaks blasphemy? Who can
forgive sins but God alone?”
Only the one who is offended by
sin can claim the right to forgive -
and ultimately that has to be God.

13. Jesus claimed to save us from sin
and death:
Jn 11:25
Jesus said to her, “I am the
resurrection and the life. The one
who believes in me will live, even
though they die;
Matt 25:31-46
Jesus claimed he would return at
the end of the age to judge all of
us.
Jn 6:51
I am the living bread that came
down from heaven. Whoever eats
this bread will live forever.

14. Jesus changed Simon‟s name to
Peter - something that for a Jew
only God could do - a name
revealed your true identity which
was given by God alone.
Jn 1:42 Jesus looked at him and
said, “You are Simon son of John.
You will be called Cephas” (which,
when translated, is Peter).
In the OT God alone changed
names - and with them destinies -
Abram, Sarai, Jacob - illegal name
changing resulted in
excommunication for orthodox
Jews.

15. Jesus kept pointing at
himself and telling people to
come to him - Matt 11:28.
Buddha said, “Look not to
me: look to my dharma
(doctrine),” he also said “Be
lamps unto yourselves” -
Jesus said, “I am the light of
the world” - Jn 8:12
Lao Tzu taught the way
(tao); Jesus said, “I am the
way” Jn 14:6

16. Buddha, Confucius and
Muhammad fulfilled no
prophecies, did no miracles, and
did not rise from the dead.
Jesus did all of these.
Jesus invited death (by stoning or
crucifixion) by saying Jn 8:58 NLT
Jesus answered, “I tell you the
truth, before Abraham was even
born, I AM!”
Or before Abraham was even
born, I have always been
alive;Greek reads before Abraham
was, I am.

17. The importance of the issue
1. The issue of the divinity of
Christ is a distinctively Christian
one - a Christian has to be defined
as someone who believes this.
2. This is the key to unlocking
many other doctrines within the
Christian faith - many are believed
on the basis of the divine authority
of Christ who taught them, so that
they are written in the Bible and
taught in the church.

18. If Christ was only human he
could have made mistakes -
therefore if you want to disagree
with Christ this is a good point to
argue against! Note that there
are teachings which probably all
of us find hard and might want to
disagree with.
Note here: we as believers are
very familiar with it so we find it
far easier to believe.

19. Kreeft states,
“Christians ought to
realise how difficult,
how scandalous, how
objectionable, how
apparently
unbelievable and
absurd this doctrine is
bound to appear to
others.”

20. Clues to the possibility of this doctrine
Kreeft offers six clues
which are designed to
talk of the possibility of
God becoming man - in
the following section we
shall see how this
happened in Jesus.

21. 1. CS Lewis calls the incarnation
“myth become fact” - in fact in many
mythologies there are similar ideas
of a god who came down from
heaven, died Egyptianto life for the
Osiris is an and rose god, usually
life of man - e.g. Odin,god of the
identified as the Osiris
[The garden of Eden and the flood
afterlife, the underworld and the
also make similar appearances]
dead. He that because of these
It is argued
is classically depicted
as a green-skinned man with a
parallels that there cannot be validity
in the Christian story,beard.
pharaoh's it is false -
Kreeft suggests the more
foreshadowings of an event the
more likely it is to have occurred /
will occur.

22. 2. An analogy from art: an
author writes himself into his
own movie etc. as a character
- the character would have a
double nature (that of the
author and also of the
character they are playing in
the movie) - they have come
down from the heaven of the
authors mind to the earth of
the movie. Alfred Hitchkock
was famous for doing it - if he
can, why can‟t God?

23. 3. How does a person who disagrees with the idea
of the incarnation, saying it is impossible, tell God
what he can or cannot do? It seems the skeptic is
more sure of them-self than they are of God.

24. 4. If a being worthy of the name
God exists then he would be
omnipotent and able to do
anything that is meaningful and
not self contradictory. Therefore
the incarnation is not a
contradiction (even though it is a
miracle) - it is possible.

25. 5. This is possible not only
from the side of the creator but
also the creature - a human
being can be transformed,
taken up into God. Kreeft
suggests this is like subhuman
food being taken up into the
human body, or physical
vibrations becoming spiritual
music, or form and colour
becoming art etc.

26. Transformation is a
principle running
throughout the world and
evolution would be an
example of it. That said
evolution happens by
nature, incarnation by
God‟s grace. Kreeft
suggests this simply proves
both are possible.

27. 6. The ability of a person to
have two differing natures
is best seen in yourself (a
human being). You can and
cannot be measured in
terms of space - our
physical being and
intellectual or spiritual being
all come out of a single
body (soul and body
together). In Christ we see
his human and divine
nature in the same body.

28. “I know men and I tell you that
Jesus Christ is no mere man.
Between Him and every other
person in the world there is no
possible term of comparison.
Alexander, Caesar,
Charlemagne, and I have
founded empires. But on what
did we rest the creation of our
genius? Upon force. Jesus
Christ founded His empire
upon love; and at this hour
millions of men would die for
Him.”
Napoleon

29. “Even those who have
renounced Christianity and
attack it, in their inmost being
still follow the Christian ideal, for
hitherto neither their subtlety nor
the ardour of their hearts has
been able to create a higher
ideal of man and of virtue than
the ideal given by Christ of old.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

30. Argument’s for Christ’s divinity
The following are stronger
arguments for the actual event of
the incarnation.
1. Christ’s Trustworthiness
Jesus is seen by (almost) all as a
great teacher, good and wise man.
He is considered to be a very
trustworthy man.
Therefore we have to ask if we can
trust him regarding his own
identity? If not, then he is not good
or wise.

31. 2. The impossibility of the
alternative
What is the alternative to saying
that Jesus is God? Jesus
claimed to be God, and he is
thought to be believable, so
where do we go from here?
Considering the fact that Jesus
claimed to be God we have to
deal with a number of
possibilities:

32. a. Do the Gospels lie - and if
they do, why? If they are
written by liars then the
result of writing and following
was martyrdom - not a great
motive - liars usually lie for
their own benefit.

33. b. Thousands of others also suffered and died for
their belief - often singing as they were put to death -
has a lie ever transformed the world like this?

34. c. What if it wasn‟t deliberate lying but simply
an hallucination which took them all in? Jews
were not likely to believe this lie - they had
waited for God and now we are to believe
that after they had been forbidden from
worshipping false image they fall for this, their
god becoming a man and being crucified as a
criminal - not likely.

35. d. What is if was not a Jewish
but a Gentile myth - how on
earth did it get into the NT then -
after all 25 of the 27 books in
the NT are written by Jews.
e. If anyone had devised the
myth it could not have
propagated in the lifetime of
those who knew and were with
Jesus, for surely they would
have disproved it.

36. Aquinas suggests that if
the incarnation did not
happen then a bigger,
more unbelievable miracle
took place: the conversion
of the world by the biggest
lie in history and the moral
transformation of lives into
unselfishness, detachment
from worldy pleasures and
radically new heights of
holiness all by a mere
myth.

37. 3. Lord, liar or lunatic?
The earliest apologists have said
of Jesus, “Either God or a bad
man” - what is more simple?
a. Jesus was either God (if he
did not lie about who he was), or
a bad man (if he did lie about it.
b. But Jesus was not a bad man
c. Therefore Jesus was (is) God.
The bad man idea is not usually
argued with - so we have to deal
with the first idea.

38. How do we approach this?
If someone claims to be God
For non-Christians it is easier
and is not he is a bad man -
to say he was a good man -
common sense tells us that!
claim he is bad and you offend
Jesus could not be merely a
Christians, claim he was God
good man, by claiming to be
and you offend other non-
God he eliminates such
Christians. - so he is a liar who
possibilities
tells lies about who he is.

39. “Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms,
conquered more millions than Alexander the Great,
Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science
and learning, he shed more light on things human
and divine than all philosophers and scholars
combined; without the eloquence of school, he spoke
such words of life as were never spoken before or
since, and produced effects which lie beyond the
reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line,
he set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for
more sermons, orations, discussions, learned
volumes, works of art, and songs of praise than the
whole army of great men of ancient and modern
times.” Philip Schaff

40. If he wasn‟t God, but Jesus
believed his own claim to be God,
then he has to be a lunatic.
The “divinity complex” is a well
known form of psychopathology -
symptoms include, egotism,
narcissism, inflexibility, dullness,
predictability, inability to
understand and love others -
basically such people are the
opposite of Jesus. In fact Jesus
showed wisdom,love and creativity
- all opposites of this complex.

41. If Jesus was a liar then he had
to be one of the greatest ever to
have walked on planet Earth -
on a basic level to convince
people to give up their eternal
destiny through his lies is a
terrible act. He would have to
be the biggest, baddest liar
ever!

42. But what if the disciples
invented the lie?
1. The disciples do not show
symptoms of being pathological
liars
2. What was their motive - they
got suffering and death, just like
Jesus.
3. They could not have known
this would be successful as all
Jews would be horrified at the
nature of the lie and its
blasphemy.

43. What if the disciples were
lunatics?
1. The Gospels write of one
of the most compelling
people in history - not the
work of madmen. It would
be hard for a madman to
write one chapter let alone
all of them

44. 2. How could such lunacy change for the better the
lives of so many people?
3. What accounts for the origin of the lunacy? How do
we account for the original deception in all of it?

45. Motives for unbelief
In mathematics, this, why
In the light of all an
irrational number is any
do so many not believe?
real number that cannot
1. No rational reason -
be expressed as a ratio
even when the arguments
a/b, where refutedbtheir is
have been a and are
no rational explanation for
integers, with b non-zero,
why some refuse to
and is therefore not a
believe.
rational number.

46. 2. Often Christ is not rejected
but Christians - people do not
like what Christians look like.
3. Fear - of the church, its
authority and its teachings
scares people away. The
church makes demands just like
Jesus did - it is not comfortable.

47. 4. Moral reluctance - if you accept
Jesus then all areas of your life are
challenged (and should be
changed) by his teaching - sex,
drugs, morality, selfishness, wrong
morals etc. All “sin” comes under
this challenge - a surgeon will
remove all cancer, Jesus
challenges it all and demands it
removed - Christ comes to kill sin
in our life.

48. 5. People are sometimes
afraid of the mysterious and
uncontrollable - God who is
incarnate is not neat or
comfortable.
6. Pride - we refuse to
relinquish control of our lives
7. Belief in Jesus is
intellectually
unfashionable

49. 8. Equality - to believe Jesus is the only way then
says all religions are not equal - not a popular way of
thinking - and one that demands a response of choice.
These are not logical arguments which prove unbelief
- they simply explain subjective, psychological
unbelief.