# When, in Christian theology, did Jesus become God? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 30, 2006, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747 "2006-09-30T16:10:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/41 "2006-10-02T03:52:56Z")
[QUOTE=Kalhoun] Have you ever considered the possibility that while some words in the bible may or may not have been spoken by jesus, that none of them were divinely inspired? Cherry-picking aside, is it possible that he was simply a guy with a few good ideas? I always get hung up with that part. Why would a good idea have to come from god? I just don’t understand why you would have to begin examination from the standpoint of\* any \* of it coming from a higher power when it could just as easily (in fact, more easily…and more believably) have been generated during moments of deep contemplation. [/QUOTE] That’s a legitimate question. Was he just a really good philosopher who was then turned into a deity by men? Men do tend to do that. That’s possible. I think a lot of people believe because of tradition. I had what I’d call a spiritual experience and just happened to be around certain people so I accepted what they taught. I had other experiences which reinforced my beliefs. Eventually though as I began to think things over and ask myself some serious questions I’ve rejected a lot of the traditional beliefs. Even then and now years later I feel a certain truth in my spiritual experiences that isn’t connected to any doctrine or dogma. I feel that all people are connected in some way to each other and some spiritual source. God and the Holy Spirit work for me as terms but that’s all they are. Terms for reference. So, because of the nature of Jesus’ words in the Bible about the inner voice, the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of heaven within, and a few others, and the remarkable similarities between the teachings of Buddha, Jesus, and Gandhi to name three, I think Jesus was closely connected to the spiritual source of all. A higher power seems like an appropriate term. I happen to think we are all connected in that same way. We just have to learn to commune on a different level and live accordingly. Until other experiences change my belief I’ll have to go with that. ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/42 "2006-10-02T04:44:01Z")
**tomndeb** , I take your point (from [Post #15](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7827639&postcount=15)), that Christ was early on regarded as divine, in “the form of God” as rendered by the [NASB](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=57&chapter=2&version=49) (my preferred translation) and two of the translations you quoted. In an important sense, then, you’re right that the answer to the OP is, in effect, from the beginning. (I candidly admit, btw, that this implication of the passage did not strike me on first reading, and had hitherto escaped my notice. In my defense, you had focused on verse seven, not verse six.) I had in mind, though, something a bit bigger (see caveat b of my [original post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7827350&postcount=14)). As you acknowledge, in the first several centuries of Christian thought, there was a tug-of-war over the nature and extent of Christ’s divinity. Ultimately, this was resolved in favor of the Trinity and the Nicene creed. By this, Christ became co-equal with and/or part of God, a broader, higher status than that articulated in _Philippians_. It was in this context, then, that I suggest _John_ was the “thin edge of the wedge” and that it wasn’t till the turn of the third century that Christ-as-God (as opposed to, say, divine simply because He was God’s son) became the dominant view. ---
**Author:** ![badchad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b77776/32.png) [@badchad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badchad)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/43 "2006-10-02T05:40:38Z")
[QUOTE=cosmosdan] Was he just a really good philosopher who was then turned into a deity by men? [/QUOTE] Having read my fair share of philosophers, I think you should first ask if Jesus was **even** a good philosopher. ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/44 "2006-10-02T16:31:47Z")
One other point, **tomndeb**. Bear in mind that we don’t know how widely dispersed these texts were in the first few centuries. Not everyone was reading _Phillipians_, or _John_ for that matter. Thus, to me, the question of when the conception first arose isn’t as important as when it became widely accepted. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2006, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/45 "2006-10-04T15:49:09Z")
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink] You’re not getting your church history from _The Da Vinci Code_, are you? [/QUOTE] No, I get it from reality. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2006, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/46 "2006-10-04T16:08:18Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] No. Nicaea resolved the issue of the _manner_ in which the divine Jesus was viewed in relation to the divine Father. To get to that point, large numbers of people in early Christianity had to have already come to the conclusion that Jesus was divine. [/QUOTE] And large numbers didn’t believe that, either. It was a running controversy, one of the major ones of the time. The Council managed to get the point of view that is adhered to today instated over that of Arius. Arius’ views were that of Lucian of Antioch, and can be traced back to the early days of Christianity. They were most strongly avowed by Paul of Samasota, who was the Bishop of Antioch in the early 200s. The Council of Nicea was politics, pure and simple. Arius was shut down in a power play instituted by Constantine. There’s a reasonably good discussion of this [here.](http://essenes.net/CouncilOfNicea.html) ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2006, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/47 "2006-10-05T23:38:57Z")
It might be most accurate to say that Jesus made God’s will his will, and thus exemplified God’s love, but did not have God’s perfect knowledge. Perfect wisdom makes me think of Mentor of Arisia–a super-philosopher who plans out each word so as to say exactly what he means. That wasn’t Jesus. He wasn’t a philosopher, but someone impassioned with love of God and his fellow man. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/48 "2006-10-06T03:43:43Z")
> [@](#): > > And large numbers didn’t believe that, either. It was a running controversy, one of the major ones of the time. And, as such, he was not “elected to the position” (implying he had not held it before for some unidentified but large number of persons) at Nicaea. ---
**Author:** ![lfa1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@lfa1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lfa1)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/49 "2012-08-14T10:37:31Z")
this question has been ringing in my ears for weeks now, after i gave up trying to answer it with the bible, i swiched to google lol. then this page pops up, so i read all the post and considered it for a bit, and here we are 🙂 now the bible says something thats buzzes to the tip of my tounge first off. “For god so loved the world, he gave **His Only Begotten Son** ” at least thats the way it was always told to me by all the many Priest ive discussed these things with. so taking that statement as true, if you beleve in what the bible says. it pretty much just said, that God loved the world soo much that he gave us his son… well that throws a wrench into the whole idea that Jesus is somehow God doesnt it. it says right there in the very book Christians baise all there knolage of Jesus and god on, that Jesus was the Son of god. One of the many flaws in the whole idea that Jesus is god, is the Misunderstanding of the titles he was given in the book. jesus was refered to as the “messiah” in the oringal text. people take that to somehow mean “god” but they couldnt be more wrong. the word Messiah actually means " the anoited one" and not “god”. so in short my response to the op is Never. if someone acually beleves Jesus is god, they are making a big mistake. if they beleve in all the things the bible says, which i am willing to bet they dont, then by doing so they are dooming there spirit to … well you know where. now onto a quick sub topic i saw in this thread, the very text the bible was taken from. not one of them came from the time Jesus was supost to have lived, i could be wrong on this but the closes we can manage to prove is about 200 or so years after Jesus was said to have been crucifyed the earlyest text we have of his exploits was written. so that means that by putting your Faith in that book, you honestly beleve that these storys was passed down for over 200 or so years, and not one part of these storys changed from what they started. that is way more trust than i have in me honestly. have you ever had a friend tell a fish story that he claimed the fish was 10 inches, but you were there and the fish was only 4 inches. evey time he tells that story i bet that fish gets bigger lol. theres more to the problem here than meets the eye. 1. The king james bible its self, is full of misstranslations. making it hard to comprehend what its acually saying. 2. the bible says in one place that Jesus was the morningstar, and in another that the morning star was the devil. 3. it says Jesus was the son of man. as the son of man, he isnt god… unless man can make god. now as far as hatefull things Jesus said acording to the bible. well some you can brush off like when he said “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.” -Luke 19:27 because people clame “oh thats a Parable” but does that change the words from being hatefull tord his enemys? or how about this one. " 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." -Luke 14:26 if i read that right, Jesus said in order to follow him, you would have to hate your father and mother, and wife, and children, and so on and so forth… in order to be his disciple. you can clame that a disiple of Christ would have to hate only one of those things. but i was always to to Love thy father and so forth. so maybe were forgetting a commandment or two, just to justify it all. also Jesus said that he held that the old testiment was good and perfect just the way it was. so he supported it as the word of god, so if thats correct then god rewarded men with many wifes and concubines “david” “solomon” just to name a few. and he ordered people to kill, and in fact in one story god killed a whole slew of first born kids in egypt. ouch he was such a loving god that he murdured defensless kids who had nothing to do with why he was angry, and jesus though it was okay and all good… but what about those commandments… oddly though, as a quick note on commandments, God got angry and acually breaks his own commandments by destroying sodom, by wiping the earth with a flood, and a few more times. the commandments im talking about is of corse “thou shal not kill”. I once told a precher this and he response was. “if god does it, its not breaking a commandment or law, it must be good if god does it.” I almost exploded with rage at how bad that got to me. i asked him "if cancer was bad, if kids starving is bad, if killing babys was bad. he said yes all those things are evil. before he notice what i was doing, i got him with. “well if god allows all these things, and in fact orders these things to happen, then how is he not evil.” of couse i got the same tired broken logic of a answer. “god cant be evil because he is good” im not saying your god is evil, but i question your understanding of everything. heres what i took from that conversation, the christian god isnt truely understood by christians just like the acual cause of the big bang isnt fully understood yet. i dont think the early text the bible was baised on had anything to do with half the junk in the bible we read today. and i dont think anyone will understand the fact that god is Nether good or evil, if there is a god he/she would have to be both good and evil at the same time. but thats asuming that god is real and not a figment of peoples imagination way back when the whole idea started… but i am way way off topic, but this stuff is too jucy to just delete lol. but i digress. anyhow, good luck folks. and im sorry if i misspelled a lot of words here, as my spelling and grammer isnt all that great. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/50 "2012-08-14T11:05:11Z")
> [@BarnOwl](#): > > I didn’t know where else to slot this question, so I put it here in GD. If Mods want to move it, so be it. > > According to Catholic Theology, Jesus is God, just as the Father and the Holy Spirit are God. And like the other Two, Jesus always was and always will be. So when He speaks in the Bible, I think he is speaking as an infallible, omniscient Being. > > But when I asked a priest,“If I went back in time and met Jesus while he was on earth and asked him for all the math of the Big Bang would he be able to rattle it off like it was child’s play?” > > The priest thought for a bit and then replied mystifiedly, “I don’t know!” But Jesus as God knows everything. So, when he came to earth, was His Godhood temporarly suspended? > > It was as if the priest believed that Jesus becomes God (again) later in His life. But the Nicene Creed, which we recite at Mass on Sundays, says in part: > > “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ > the only Son of God, > eternally begotten of the Father…” > > In other words, Jesus is God. Always was, always will be. > > What’s nagging at me is that Jesus makes some very troubling statements in his temporal life, such as people who don’t follow him will die, i.e., not get to heaven (which was the subject of another recently started thread which also bothered me). > > For such statements, the theologians all jump into Jesus’s psyche to tell us what he meant. For example, “…that if you live a good life according to your creed - other than Christianity, then in effect, you will know Christ, and thus you will go to heaven,” which is the way I was taught as a child. Which can cause an explosive argument here, especially in view of the turmoil in today’s world, so maybe we should stay away from it. Or perhaps we shouldn’t. Your call. > > So I guess the question comes down to this: When Jesus speaks in the Bible, is he talking as God - not just as some prophet, who could be right about this, but not about that? > > I implore all of you to be respectful. If you want to do a Hate Jesus post, please start your own thread. I’m looking for considered opinion, not vitriol. In John 10, Jesus was said to have been accused of Blasphemy because he called God his father, Jesus reminded them of the psalmist who is quoted as saying,“I said you are gods and sons of the most high.” So since they were called gods and son’s of god it seems to me that Jesus wasn’t thinking of himself as the way peopel think of god today. In early history I belive the word god didn’t mean the same as was believed later on.The writers seem to make him part of the creator god. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/51 "2012-08-14T13:31:16Z")
> [@lfa1](#): > > now onto a quick sub topic i saw in this thread, the very text the bible was taken from. not one of them came from the time Jesus was supost to have lived, i could be wrong on this but the closes we can manage to prove is about 200 or so years after Jesus was said to have been crucifyed the earlyest text we have of his exploits was written. There is no evidence that anyone who wrote any book of the New Testament actually knew Jesus. The general consensus among mainstream scholars is that the letters of Peter, Jude, and James are pseudonymous works. That said, the earliest works were written within a few decades, not centuries, of the time when Jesus is described as living. Paul’s letters date to the 50s–within twenty years of Jesus–and the Gospel of Mark to the very late 60s or early 70s. Even the last works accepted as Scripture had been written within within 90 years of his death, although there may have been some later additions or editing. None of this proves or disproves the life of Jesus or his divinity, but claims that there was a 200 year gap between his life and the New Testament are in error. ---
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/52 "2012-08-16T16:54:41Z")
> [@BarnOwl](#): > > But when I asked a priest,“If I went back in time and met Jesus while he was on earth and asked him for all the math of the Big Bang would he be able to rattle it off like it was child’s play?” > > The priest thought for a bit and then replied mystifiedly, “I don’t know!” But Jesus as God knows everything. So, when he came to earth, was His Godhood temporarly suspended? As a belated response to the OP, Charles Dickens was quoted in _Nature_ this February as having said in a speech given at the Birmingham and Midland Institute in 1869 that "Jesus might have taught scientific truths about the ‘wonders on every hand’, but chose not to because ‘the people of that time could not bear them.’ " (Only the internal quotes are, presumably, Dickens’ own words.) Not that Dickens was a theologian. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/53 "2012-08-16T17:06:38Z")
Please note that the first 48 posts in this thread were made in September-October 2006 before the thread was bumped. **BarnOwl** , the poster who started this thread, died in April 2009. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747/54 "2012-08-17T11:55:07Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Please note that the first 48 posts in this thread were made in September-October 2006 before the thread was bumped. **BarnOwl** , the poster who started this thread, died in April 2009. I am so sorry to hear that. My heart goes out to his (or her) family. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-christian-theology-did-jesus-become-god/374747.md?page=2)