There are various objections to the divinity of Jesus, which are still held today by one of the fastest growing religions: Jehovah’s Witnesses. They even have defenders arguing for their position from Scripture, such as in Greg Stafford’s book, Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended.
Some major objections to Jesus’s deity find their support in Mark 13:32, John 14:28, and John 20:17. These passages are confusing when we compare them to passages that imply the divinity of Jesus, such as when he walked on water, forgave people their sins, etc. Thankfully, the Church Fathers can help us understand how to interpret them.
Mark 13:32: The End of the World
“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Does Jesus, the Son of God, not know about the end of the world? This would make sense if he were not truly God.
However, the earliest Christians recognized this issue and commented on it. St. Thomas Aquinas cites Augustine and Jerome (A.D. 400s) on this matter, who said the Jews used the idiom of “know” in the sense of “tell” or “make known.” So, they tell us, Jesus did know about the end of the world, but he utilized a Jewish idiom here to emphasize that he would not tell the disciples.
Augustine cites an example of this Jewish idiom in Genesis 22:12, where God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son (On the Trinity, 1.12.23). When Abraham attempts to do this, an angel stops him, and God says through the angel, “Now I know that you fear God.” If God is omniscient, then he always knew that Abraham feared him. So why would God say that he, only now, after the fact, knew about Abraham’s interior virtue? Because the Jewish idiom “know” can also mean to “tell” or “make known.” God was telling Abraham or making it known to Abraham. See also Deuteronomy 13:3.
Applying this idiom to Mark 13:32, God the Father knows about the end of the world, in the sense that he tells Jesus or makes it known to Jesus, but Jesus does not “know,” in the sense that he does not “tell” or “make it known to” the apostles. God the Son did not think it wise to share with humans the exact day the world would end. So he concealed it.
Other Church Fathers give different opinions. St. Athanasius argues from the distinction of Jesus’ natures to explain Mark 13. Since Jesus is both God and man, with both a divine nature and a human nature, Jesus did not know the end of the world from his human nature, but he did within his divine nature (Discourses Against the Arians, 3.28.43). See also St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Theological Orations, Oration 30, On the Son, Second Oration 15.
John 14:28: Who Is Greater?
“The Father is greater than I.”
How can Jesus be divine if he explicitly claims that God the Father is superior to him? In terms of the Creator-creature divide, isn’t Jesus placing himself on the creature side? This passage can be difficult to interpret.
First, Jesus was sent by God to earth to redeem humanity, and the one sent cannot be greater than the sender (John 13:16). God is the sender, so God has to be greater to Jesus in some sense—but in what sense?
Gregory of Nazianzus (A.D. 300s) says in Oration 30.7 that “greater refers to origination,” meaning that the Father is greater than the Son because the Father is the source of the Son, as a human father is of a human son. However, since this relationship of God the Father with Jesus the Son is unlike any on earth, but is outside time, there’s no beginning to the Son’s existence. Jesus is eternally begotten of the Father. There never was a time when the Father did not have the Son. Because of this, Jesus can refer to God the Father as superior to him, but in a way that keeps both of them within the Godhead. Jesus is not on the creature side of the Creator-creature divide.
To give another human analogy, somebody can be “greater” than somebody else without being a different species altogether. In a school setting, the principal is “greater” than the teacher, but both are humans with equal dignity, value, and worth. Similarly, God the Father can be “greater” than Jesus the Son, even though both are in the category of deity. They are in union of essence (John 1:1, 18; 10:30; etc.), even if one’s position is greater.
Per Raymond Brown, various Church Fathers interpreted the passage this way. This includes Fathers such as Athanasius, Hilary, Epiphanius, and John Damascene, along with the influential Church writers Origen and Tertullian.
John 20:17: A Rebuke for Mary
“Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
This passage involves the resurrection of Jesus, where Mary Magdalene finds the empty tomb and ultimately finds Jesus. Jesus here speaks of God as separate from himself. Why would Jesus do this if he were divine?
St. Augustine comments on this passage saying that Jesus uses two separate terms. He speaks of “my God” as distinct from “your God.” Jesus is God’s Son by nature within the Godhead of the Trinity, but Mary Magdalene is not. Mary is like the rest of us humans, who are God’s children not by nature, but only when we are baptized through grace (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 121.3).
On examination, Mark 13:32, John 14:28, and John 20:17 do not refute the deity of Christ. These passages have been thought through from the earliest days of Christian history and were known during the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.
When taking the evidence and joining it into a coherent theology, the Holy Spirit guided the successors of the apostles into “all truth” and proclaimed the Trinity (John 16:13). Jesus is fully God and fully man, equal in substance to the Father, but lesser in position than the Father.