THERE is a philosophical principle underlying the doctrine of the Divine
Incarnation, whose logical deductions completely overthrow the claim of
Jesus of Nazareth to the Godhead, and which we regard as settling the
question as conclusively as any demonstrated problem in mathematics.
This argument is predicated upon the philosophical axiom, that two
infinite beings of any description of conception, cannot exist, either
in whole or in part, at the same time; and per consequence, it is
impossible that the Father and Son should both be God in a divine sense,
either conjointly or separately. The word infinite comprehends all; it
covers the whole ground; it fills the immensity of the universe, and
fills it to repletion! so that there is no room left for any other being
to exist. And whoever and whatever does exist must constitute a part of
this infinite whole.
Now, the Christian world concedes ( for it is the teaching of their
Scriptures), that the Father is God, always and truly, perfect,
complete, and absolute; that there is nothing wanting in him to
constitute him God in the most comprehensive and absolute sense of the
term; that he is all we can conceive of as constituting God, "the one
only true God" (John xvii. 3), and was such from all eternity, before
Jesus Christ was born into the world; and Paul puts the keystone into
the arch by proclaiming, "To us there is but one God, the Father." (
1 Cor. viii. 6.) Hence we have here a logical proposition (despite the
sophistry of Christendom) as impregnable as the rocks of Gibraltar, that
the Father alone is or can be God, which effectually shuts out every
other and all other beings in the universe from any participation in the
Godhead with the Father. And thus this parity of reasoning demonstrates
that the very moment you attempt to make Christ God, or any part of the
Godhead, you attempt a philosophical impossibility. You cannot introduce
another being as God in the infinite sense until the first-named
infinite God is dethroned and put out of existence, and this, of course,
is a self-evident impossibility. It it were not such, then we should
have two Gods, both absolute and infinite. On the other hand, if that
other being (who with the Christians is Jesus Christ, with the Hindoos
Chrishna, with the Budhists Sakia, &c. ) is introduced as only a part of
the infinite and perfect God, then it is evident to every mind with the
least philosophical perception, that some change or alteration must
take place in the latter before such a union can be effected. But such
a change, or any alteration, in a perfect infinite being would at once
reduce him to a changeable and finite being, and thus he would cease to
be God. For it is a clear philosophical and mathematical axiom, that a
perfect and infinite being cannot become more than infinite. And if
he could and should become less than infinite, he would at once become
finite, and thus lose all the attributes of the Godhead. To say or
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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