Daughter of Sweetness and Light (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} lucretia_borgia) wrote in aunt_becca, |
Actually, I've had plenty of discussions of religion where G-d didn't come up at all. Sadly.
My understanding of the matter is that the halacha treats xians as not ovdei avodah zara because the xians have successfully convinced the relevant Jewish authorities that their "God the Father" is the same as our G-d, and our understanding of Jesus is that he is worshipped alongside God the Father. This creates the situation of 'shituf' -- worshipping a secondary god or even a full partner-god along with God -- which is forbidden to Jews but not to Noachides.
That said, I think your xian friends are wrong. Well, they're heretics, see what Seth said. What I was taught in Catholic school was that Jesus (and the Holy Spirit) is identical with, one in substance and being with, God the Father. This is the Mystery of the Trinity: three Persons, one God. To say otherwise creates for xians a theological issue: if Jesus is a created being, subsidiary to God the Father, then his sacrifice on the cross is less than absolutely perfect and cannot be reliably salvational under the Pauline theory of salvation. If Jesus is also a god nonidentical with God the Father, then they run afoul of the "one god" thing in the Old Testament, which is a problem because their whole claim of Jesus' necessity and existence etc. is based on (mis)readings of O.T. prophecy. So they're stuck: he has to be coequal, cosubstantial, coeternal with God the Father.
With all due respect to actual halachic authorities, and acknowledging that I'm not even good enough to play one on TV, I think that the buy-one-god-get-two-free system is sufficient to make the Xian trinitarian God-the-Father necessarily nonidentical with our G-d. Other characteristics of the Xian god are also, I think, evidence that we're talking about a different construct. I say this without going so far as to say, like the Wahabi Muslims (this is the predominant sect in Saudi Arabia, iirc), that any positive statement about God will fall short of the mark and therefore idolatrous.
So yeah, I think the "oh, we're all worshipping the same God" line is just wrong.
My understanding of the matter is that the halacha treats xians as not ovdei avodah zara because the xians have successfully convinced the relevant Jewish authorities that their "God the Father" is the same as our G-d, and our understanding of Jesus is that he is worshipped alongside God the Father. This creates the situation of 'shituf' -- worshipping a secondary god or even a full partner-god along with God -- which is forbidden to Jews but not to Noachides.
That said, I think your xian friends are wrong. Well, they're heretics, see what Seth said. What I was taught in Catholic school was that Jesus (and the Holy Spirit) is identical with, one in substance and being with, God the Father. This is the Mystery of the Trinity: three Persons, one God. To say otherwise creates for xians a theological issue: if Jesus is a created being, subsidiary to God the Father, then his sacrifice on the cross is less than absolutely perfect and cannot be reliably salvational under the Pauline theory of salvation. If Jesus is also a god nonidentical with God the Father, then they run afoul of the "one god" thing in the Old Testament, which is a problem because their whole claim of Jesus' necessity and existence etc. is based on (mis)readings of O.T. prophecy. So they're stuck: he has to be coequal, cosubstantial, coeternal with God the Father.
With all due respect to actual halachic authorities, and acknowledging that I'm not even good enough to play one on TV, I think that the buy-one-god-get-two-free system is sufficient to make the Xian trinitarian God-the-Father necessarily nonidentical with our G-d. Other characteristics of the Xian god are also, I think, evidence that we're talking about a different construct. I say this without going so far as to say, like the Wahabi Muslims (this is the predominant sect in Saudi Arabia, iirc), that any positive statement about God will fall short of the mark and therefore idolatrous.
So yeah, I think the "oh, we're all worshipping the same God" line is just wrong.
