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3. God does not have a God…but Jesus did have a God

Paul Derengowski, ThM


God is the ultimate judge and refuge for all, and He does not call upon nor pray to any others.  But Jesus acknowledged that there was one whom he worshipped and to whom he prayed when he said, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God."  St. John 20:17.  He is also reported to have cried out while on the cross, "My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?" Matt 27:46.  If Jesus were God, then couldn't this be read, "Myself, myself why has thou forsaken me?"  Would that not be pure nonsense?  When Jesus prayed the Lord's prayer (Luke 11:2-4), was he praying to himself?  When in the garden of Gethsemane he prayed, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt."  Matt 26:36-39.  Was Jesus praying to himself?  That Jesus, of his own admission and by his own actions, acknowledged, worshipped, and prayed to another being as God is clear proof that Jesus himself is not God.

Once again, the only thing that is truly clear in this convoluted bit of reasoning is that the Muslim critic has conveniently avoided the context to propagate a pretext.  When Jesus tells Mary that he is going to "My God and your God," he is not expressing ownership or devotion to a deity that is lesser than he.  What he is expressing is the relationship that he has with the Father, even though his relationship is predicated on a completely different basis.  Jesus was God's Son by nature, whereas Mary's was by adoption. 

Second, the Muslim is attempting to foist a Modalistic interpretation upon the Trinity, and then sets forth to reduce it to absurdity by asking ridiculous questions.  It is a straw man argument, in other words.  Of course Jesus was not talking to himself when addressing God the Father.  He was petitioning God the Father as God the Son.  And when one confuses Modalism for Trinitarianism, and substitutes the former for the latter, then one's questions or line of argumentation which try to undermine Jesus' deity completely fall flat.  Jesus is God, but Jesus is not God the Father.  The early Christian creeds—which so many often misconstrue as something heinous, when all they are are reflections of biblical doctrine—make this perfectly clear:

"3. And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; 4. Neither confounding the Persons: nor dividing the Substance [Essence].  5. For there is one Person of the Father: another of the Son: and another of the Holy Ghost.  6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal" (The Athanasian Creed).

NEXT: God is an invisible spirit…but Jesus was flesh and blood