לתשובת המינים

The Severity of the Issue

I am Hashem, that is My Name; I shall not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven idols. (Isaiah 41:8)

I think that it is important to begin by analyzing what is at stake. While theoretically the doctrine of the Trinity (if mistaken) may constitute merely an error about the nature of God, perhaps pardonable by its ultimate insistence that God is one, in practice we are confronted with a much bigger problem. The doctrine of the Trinity asserts that the Nazarene is begotten of God and is God (ר"ל). As such, if the belief is mistaken one is not merely asserting an incorrect belief about God while asserting His oneness, but one is attributing deity to someone who is not, in fact, God. By including a person into the Trinity the risk of being mistaken is much, much graver. As cited above, God will not give His "glory to another." ¹ Likewise the T’nakh says, "I will note cede My glory to another!"² While a mistaken notion about God’s nature might be pardonable, giving glory to someone as God who is not, is something God indicates He strongly objects to.

Unfortunately, I have encountered several Christians, messianic believers that don’t believe the Torah was abolished, who have been so insistent that to believe the Nazarene is legitimate that they have argued that to erroneously believe someone is God does not constitute idolatry. To these individuals, to believe that a Pharaoh, a Emperor, Mary, W.D. Fard, Sun Myung Moon, (or to follow it to its logical conclusion, the Anti-Christ), is God may be an error but it is not idolatry if one affirms belief in one God. This is, I believe, an atypical belief, a more mainstream view being: "He does not want even His angels worshiped; He does not want Mary worshiped; He wants none worshiped but Himself."³

Indeed I believe most Christians not only would concede that belief that a mere human being is God constitutes idolatry, they would concede that believing that the Nazarene is divine without sufficiently affirming the oneness of God is polytheism, i.e. idolatry. Regarding the Arianim which argued that the Nazarene could not be part of God, "[t]he orthodox counterattack on Arianism pointed out that the Arian theology reduced Christ to a demigod and in effect reintroduced polytheism into Christianity, since Christ was worshiped among Arians as among the orthodox."⁴"The Athanasian Creed was written to combat the false teachings of modalism and Arianism. Modalism has been given many other names throughout history. It was introduced around the third century in an attempt to preserve the doctrine of monotheism (belief in one God) as opposed to tri-theism, which taught the Godhead consisted of three separate Gods….It is interesting to note that the Book of Mormon hints of modalism, while Mormonism today teaches a form of Arianism and tri-theism." and further "Polytheism is the belief in, or worship of, many gods. Opposed to this dogma is monotheism, or the belief in the existence of one God. While many Mormons concede their faith teaches a view of more than one God, some detest being called polytheistic. This term, they say, brings to mind the thought of pagans worshiping at the altars of strange deities and idols. As strange as it may seem, many of these same people, while loathing the label "polytheist," will freely admit to believing in a plurality of Gods. Semantics, however, does not erase the problem." ⁵ "In addition to this, the "inspired" utterances of Jospeph Smith reveal that he began as a Unitarian, progressed to tritheism, and graduated into full-fledged polytheism, in direct contradiction to the revelations of the Old and New Testaments as we have observed….The Mormon doctrine that God the Father is a mere man is the root of their polytheism.."⁶ "This is another example of the depths to which the Watchtower will descend to make Jesus "a second god" and thus introduce polytheism into Christianity.⁷As precarious as the monotheistic status of their theology is, orthodox Christianity (to their credit) zealously guards against theological deviations with respect to heresy since doing so easily stumbles into polytheism.

Of course one can understand why a Christian would want to avoid the charge of idolatry, even if it’s contingent upon their being wrong. The Torah, which is part of their Bible, prescribes capital punishment for idolatry.⁸ It is, however, an Argumentum ad Populum to play off of peoples discomfort with this Biblical precept⁹ and an Argumentum ad Hominem to criticize those of us who point out that worshiping someone who is not God is idolatry merely because the Bible which we both profess to believe in has a strong condemnation for idolatry. It is worth pointing out that the punishments for transgressions of Torah were meant to preserve a Torah society, not to create one. Despite clear and unequivocal examples of idolatry in the Hebrew Bible the prophets generally relied on persuasion rather than force, even when the former wasn’t all that effective. In truth Jewish tradition is very reluctant to impose capital punishment, yet ironically this type of tempering of the written Torah by the oral Torah are typically criticized by Christians as elevating the traditions of men above the word of God.¹⁰

If one wished to understand the Jewish people’s reluctance, even aversion, to believing in Jesus, one has to be intellectually honest enough to concede the implications of worshiping the Nazarene if he isn’t divine. I have known Christians who have such intellectual honesty and the confidence in their belief (albeit misplaced) to make such a concession. One who is willing to go to the extent of denying that the worship of a mere human is idolatry will one day have to answer to the one who will not cede His glory to another. With a little imagination and brainstorming we could devise theologies of incarnations which, although false, are not specifically refuted by the Biblical text. Most Christians may be reluctant to entertain a discussion in which the hypothetical possibility that the Nazarene is not divine is entertained, but they will readily admit that the worship of a mere human is idolatry. Because of the gravity of the issue at hand, the standard for accepting the divinity of the Nazarene must be higher than it not being overtly denied in the Scripture.¹¹ In this vein, Michael Brown correctly noted, "If our belief in Yeshua are just like people’s belief in Sai baba, then we’re completely off base."¹²

¹Isaiah 41:8.
²Isaiah 48:11.
³Thru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee vol 2, page 883.
⁴Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, page 75.
⁵Answering Mormons’ Questions, pages 53, 57.
⁶The Kingdom of the Cults, page 222.
⁸Deuteronomy 17:2-7.
⁹The reservations are many, on the one hand the restrictions on capital punishment in both the written Torah and the oral Torah show that this is not a punishment to be administered in a cavalier manner. On the other hand many people have reservations, or stronger negative feelings, because of a belief that freedom of religion is right. It must be pointed out that while freedom of religion does have utilitarian benefit, God has by no means granted us a "right" to worship someone other than He.
¹⁰c.f. Matthew 15:3.
¹¹ Nevertheless I believe such an affirmation does overtly conflict with a number of biblical passages. ¹²Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, vol 2, page 16.