Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

1. Negative argument: Sayings by which Jesus reveals His human self-consciousness.

The adversaries will not even hear of¹ the positive testimonies by which Jesus discloses His divinity. It suffices for them to have proved merely negatively that Jesus so developed His human self-consciousness as to exclude the divine! But Jesus neither by His general manner of acting nor by any particular deed so exalts His humanity as to deny His divinity.

a) By His general manner of acting our Savior certainly manifests His humanity always and everywhere. In body and soul, in word and work, whether He deals with Himself alone, with God, or with His neighbor, He shows Himself a man. This, however, in no way detracts from His divinity. For because He was not God only, but also man, it behooved Him "to be made like unto his brethren in all things ... tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin.²" Nay, because Jesus Christ, the God-man, had become God made man, He had to show His humanity more than His divinity. For God made man acts, speaks, and suffers only through human organs; even His divinity itself, I say, He can reveal only through His humanity. The humanity is the veil with which the divinity of Jesus Christ is covered and through which it shines through. By His human manner of acting, then, the Savior does not exclude the divine nature. But neither does He [exclude it] by a particular deed:

b) By a particular deed. The adversaries object the sayings by which they think Jesus simply repudiated His divinity: To the young man asking: "Good Master, what good shall I do, that I may have life everlasting?" He answers: "Why askest thou me concerning good? One is good, God.³ With these words Jesus rejects the vain title of good master, with which the Pharisees were honored,⁴ giving all glory to God most good. That He Himself is God, He neither affirms nor denies before the young man. Before His disciples, however, who are capable of grasping the mystery of His divinity, He professes Himself master and Lord,⁵ and that in the best and most perfect sense, comparing Himself with the heavenly Father: "For one is your master, Christ ..., and one is your Father, who is in heaven.⁶"

Of His parousia, that is, of His coming to the last judgment, He says: "But of that day or hour no one knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father.⁷" The force of the saying is this: the day of judgment is communicated to no creature, and hence even the Son does not know that day with communicable knowledge. For thus the Savior explains on another occasion: "It is not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father hath put in his own power.⁸"

Dying on the cross Jesus cries out: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?⁹" With these words Jesus does not deny His divinity, but affirms His suffering humanity. His divinity is by no means excluded by the fact that His humanity, undergoing the punishment of death, entreats and invokes God with the most fervent prayers.

By no reasoning, therefore, can it be shown that Jesus, by the sayings in which He reveals His humanity, denies His divinity. The question therefore arises whether He positively professed His divinity or not.

2. Positive argument: Sayings by which Jesus reveals His divine self-consciousness.

The adversaries grant that Jesus revealed a supra-human self-consciousness, but deny that He revealed a divine one.¹⁰ In fact Jesus never simply calls Himself God, since His hearers would have understood either the incarnation of the heavenly Father or a dualistic divinity. This notwithstanding, Jesus manifests the consciousness of His divinity: by comparing Himself with God, by demanding divine homage, and by exercising divine omnipotence.

a) By comparing Himself with God. Although Jesus is the most humble of all, He nevertheless sets Himself above not only all men¹¹ but also the angels in heaven.¹² The angels serve and obey Him as their king and lord.¹³ By this He already implicitly places Himself on a divine level. But He also explicitly appropriates to Himself all those things which in the Old Testament are declared of Jahve alone. As Jahve was the spouse of Israel, so Jesus is the spouse of the souls entrusted to Him.¹⁴ As Jahve wished to gather the children of Jerusalem as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings,¹⁵ so also Christ.¹⁶ With the same absolute power with which Jahve sent the prophets of the Old Testament, Jesus sends His own: "Behold, I send to you prophets.¹⁷" As Jahve promised Moses and his brother: "I will be in thy mouth and in his mouth, and will show you what you are to do,¹⁸" so also Christ [promises] His apostles: "For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist.¹⁹" Christ does not begin His discourse in the manner of the prophets by saying: "Thus saith Jahve," but teaches in His own name "as one having power"²⁰ As Jahve is the Lord of the Old Testament, so also is Christ.²¹ Christ therefore wholly equates Himself with Jahve, the true God, who had made a covenant with the Israelites.

b) By demanding divine homage, namely, absolute faith, supreme love, and religious adoration to be rendered to His person.

Christ not only requires that men believe His word, but He demands absolute faith in His person. Faith in the person of Christ is the condition without which there is no salvation: "That whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.²²" As the disciples believe in God, so they are bound to believe also in Christ: "You believe in God, believe also in me.²³" Faith in God and faith in Christ are convertible: "He that believeth in me, doth not believe in me, but in him that sent me.²⁴" The unbelieving will be condemned first because they did not believe in His person, and only secondarily because they did not believe His doctrine: "For he that shall be ashamed of me and of my words ... of him the Son of man also shall be ashamed, when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.²⁵" Christ therefore makes Himself the material object of faith. Hence, if He were not God, He would be an idol.

Together with faith He also seeks supreme love for His person.²⁶ Jesus demands that, setting aside the love of our kindred, nay even setting aside self-love, we devote our love to Him: "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter above me, is not worthy of me.²⁷" "If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.²⁸"

He requires accordingly that toward Him we fulfill no longer the precept of love of neighbor, but the precept of love of God, loving Him with our whole heart, with our whole soul, and with all our strength. Whoever does not have this love of Jesus does not have the love of God: "He that hateth me, hateth my Father also.²⁹"

These two reciprocate: love and hatred of God, love and hatred of Jesus.

Finally, He accepts religious adoration of His person. Frequently in the Gospel we read that certain men, falling on their knees, adored Jesus. Now if this adoration (προσκύνησις) had proceeded from a purely profane motive, it would have been a sign of simple reverence, by which a servant greets his master, a subject his king, according to the custom of the Orientals. But in fact the adoration, or proskynesis, rendered to Jesus Christ for the most part proceeds from a religious motive. Men adore Him when they hope that a divine work will be wrought by Him,³⁰ or when they give thanks for a divine work wrought by Him,³¹ or when, astounded at the miracles wrought, they cry out: "Indeed thou art the Son of God!³²" or when they venerate Him risen and ascending into heaven.³³

But according to the usage of the New Testament, religious proskynesis is rendered to God alone. For with this proskynesis God is adored in the temple of Jerusalem³⁴ and in heaven,³⁵ and of this proskynesis Jesus says: "Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.³⁶ This proskynesis no man or angel dares to accept. Cornelius falling down at the feet of Peter³⁷ and adoring, the prince of the apostles raises, saying: "Arise, I myself also am a man." John adoring at the feet of the angel, the angel forbids: "See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Adore God.³⁸" So too Jesus, zealous for the honor of His Father, would have had to restrain the religious proskynesis offered to Himself, let alone promote it, had He not possessed a wholly divine self-consciousness.

c) By exercising divine omnipotence. Omnipotence is the most eminent and most evident attribute of God. That Jesus was endowed with omnipotence, the Gospels easily prove. For they bear witness that our Savior performed works surpassing all created power at His own pleasure.

And first of all He wrought³⁹ the most stupendous miracles by a power innate and inborn in Him. Although in several places He calls His miracles the works of His Father,⁴⁰ wrought in the power of the Spirit of God,⁴¹ He nevertheless attributes to Himself this power of working miracles. For He can work whatsoever miracles He pleases, when, how, and as often as it pleases Him, without being bound first to beseech God. Miracles spring from the nature of Jesus as from their natural source. Nay, Jesus even transfuses the power of working miracles into others.⁴² He sends His disciples into the world saying: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils.⁴³" And in fact the apostles "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" perform nothing but divine works.⁴⁴

The power of working physical miracles is even surpassed by the power of forgiving sins. Both the Old and the New Testament reserve this power to God alone. With Jesus acquiescing, the Pharisees accuse Him of blasphemy as a man who would assume to himself the power of forgiving sins.⁴⁵ Nevertheless Jesus ascribes this power to Himself and confirms it by a miracle.⁴⁶ Nay, He even hands it over to His disciples, that in His name and by His authority they may forgive sins: "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.⁴⁷" "Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.⁴⁸"

Jesus, however, not only forgives sins, but He accomplishes the work of redeeming from sins, that is, of destroying sins, as we have already proved elsewhere.⁴⁹ To His life and death Jesus ascribes the value and power of fully and adequately satisfying for the sins committed by the human race. But no creature can ascribe to itself so great a value. The Savior, who by His person accomplishes the work of redemption promised by God, must Himself be God.

The redemptive work is accompanied by the right to judge the world. The judgment of the world belongs to Jesus alone,⁵⁰ so that not even the heavenly Father intervenes: "For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son, that all men may honor the Son, as they honor the Father.⁵¹"

Since the judge of the world deserves the same honor as God the Father, He must also be marked with the same divinity as the Father. The very manner, too, in which Jesus judges the living and the dead presupposes His divinity. For He will search the reins and hearts⁵² and will award to each man according to his merit or demerit eternal life or eternal punishment, as is fitting.⁵³ Surely only God, all-knowing and all-powerful, can judge the world in this way.

Indeed the whole Old Testament reserves the judgment of the world to Jahve Himself: "The Lord Jahve shall come [to judgment], and all his saints with him;⁵⁴" "The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth;⁵⁵" "Jahve shall judge the just and the wicked.⁵⁶" Hence the day of judgment is called "the great and dreadful day of the Lord.⁵⁷" Therefore Jesus, proclaiming Himself the judge of the world, undoubtedly professes Himself God.