Who Killed Jesus?

Who Killed Jesus?

Thomas Allen

Did the Romans kill Jesus, or did the Jews kill Jesus? Christian Zionists and Jews claim that the Romans killed Jesus.

In “Who killed Jesus: The Romans or the Jews?,” The Jerusalem Post (December 29, 2021; Updated: November 19, 2022) at https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-690095, Lewis Regenstein presents an argument in favor of the Romans being guilty of Jesus’s death and the Jews being innocent. With his argument, most Christian Zionists would agree.

In Judea, the Romans controlled capital punishment; the Jews had no authority to crucify anyone. Only the Romans could execute someone by crucifixion. If the Jews had executed Jesus, they would have stoned him as they did Stephen. Therefore, the Romans are responsible for Jesus’s death.

Moreover, Pilate sentenced Jesus to death and authorized his execution. Further, Roman soldiers carried out the crucifixion of Jesus. The New Testament shows that the Romans, and not the Jews, killed Jesus.

Jesus and his family, disciples, followers, and supporters were Jews, and like other Jews, they were victims of Roman oppression. Since Jesus was an observant Jew and popular with the Jewish people, why would the Jews kill him?

Jesus’s popularity with the Jewish people was the primary reason that the Romans executed him. To carry out their scheme to kill Jesus, the Romans used Jewish agents and collaborators. 

Nevertheless, because of what Jesus said to and about the Jewish leaders, they wanted the Romans to kill Jesus since they had no power to execute him themselves. Further, they feared that the Romans would deal harshly with the Jews unless Jesus, whom they and the Romans saw as a troublemaker, was eliminated. Consequently, these leaders, who held office at the pleasure of the Romans, collaborated with the Romans to kill Jesus. 

In short, the Gospels describe Jesus as a popular Jewish reformer with a large Jewish following. They clearly describe the Romans as cruelly executing Jesus because the Romans perceived Jesus as a threat to the Romans and their Jewish collaborators in the priesthood.

As for the mob of Jews that cursed Jesus and demanded his execution, if such a mob existed, it consisted of Roman collaborators.

For fear of Roman persecution, early Christians could not blame the Romans for the death of Jesus. Therefore, to avoid persecution, writers of the New Testament shifted the blame for the crucifixion of Jesus from the Romans to the Jews. (When one considers the persecution that Paul, Peter, and other followers of Christ suffered from the Romans and Jews, shifting the blame from the Romans to the Jews for fear of Roman persecution seems absurd. Besides, if Paul, Peter, and the other writers of the New Testament blamed the Jews for killing Jesus when the Romans were responsible for his death, then they are guilty of bearing false witness.)

What does the Bible say? According to the Gospels, Pilate did order Jesus’s execution, and Roman soldiers carried out that order. However, Paul and Peter place the blame and responsibility for Jesus’s crucifixion on the Jews.

In 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15, Paul writes:

(14) For you, brothers, became imitators of the assemblies of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus; for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews (15) who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and don’t please God, and are contrary to all men.

In this passage, Paul clearly blames the Jews for killing Jesus: “the Jews who both killed the Lord Jesus.”

Speaking to a group of Jews, Peter said, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know certainly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you [Jews] crucified.” (Acts 2:36). Clearly, Peter identifies the Jews as killing Jesus. Later, Peter spoke to the religious rulers and elders of the Jews and said, “[M]ay it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you [Jews] crucified, whom God raised from the dead, this man stands here before you whole in him.” (Acts 4:10) Again, Peter identifies the Jews as the killers of Jesus. At another time, when speaking to the religious leaders of the Jews, Peter said, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you [Jews] killed, hanging him on a tree.” (Acts 5:30) Once more, Peter declares that the Jews kill Jesus. Afterward, Peter said, “We are witnesses of everything he did both in the country of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they [Jews] also killed, hanging him on a tree.” Several times and to various Jewish audiences, Peter accuses the Jews of killing Jesus. (Biblical citations are from the World English Bible.)

Both Paul and Peter identify the Jews as responsible for the death of Jesus. So, the question is, “Whom do you believe?” Do you believe Jews and Christian Zionists, who claim that the Romans killed Jesus? Or do you believe Paul and Peter, who claim that the Jews killed Jesus?

Copyright © 2024 by Thomas Coley Allen

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The Spirit of Man

The Spirit of Man

Thomas Allen

In “The Soul,” I showed that the Hebrews believed that the soul was mortal and ceased conscious existence when the body died. On the other hand, pagans believed that the soul was immortal. When the body died, the soul was liberated from the body to continue conscious existence elsewhere. In that article, I mention the spirit of man in passing and that like the soul, it ceased to exist when the body died.

In Babylonian Connection Between Ancient and Modern Religions (Phoenix, Arizona:  America's Promise, 1978), Stephen E. Jones gives an excellent explanation of the spirit of man (pages 20-23). A summary of his explanation follows.

Some theologians argue that the spirit of man is that part of human nature that allies with God. Also, some identify the spirit of man as what makes man a rational being. Nearly all believe that the spirit like the soul is immortal and continues to exist beyond the death of the body.

However, the Hebrew understanding of the spirit of man is the breath of God that animates the soul, which gives the body life. Thus, the soul of man contains the life-giving spirit of God. That is, the breath of life is the spirit of life. The Hebrew word for “breath” and “spirit” is the same word.

And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Gen. 2:7)

According to Genesis 2:7, God gave man whom he formed from dust life when He breathed the breath or spirit of life into his nostrils.

(For my life is yet whole in me, And the spirit of God is in my nostrils); (Job 27:3)

As stated by Job, a person lives if he continues to breathe. Once he ceases to breathe, his body, soul, and spirit die and cease to have any conscience existence.

According to the Hebrews, man is not a spirit. Man is composed of a body (flesh) and soul (blood). His spirit is merely the air in his lungs. When one breathes, the lungs give life (spirit) to the blood (soul). Then, the blood transfers life-giving air to the body. Thus, the spirit gives life to a person, but it is not the actual person. Like the air that a person breathes, the spirit is something that the person uses, but it is not the person.

At death, the body, soul, and spirit return to the original state where they wait until the resurrection. Upon death, the body returns to dust; the soul returns to Sheol (Hades), i.e., nonexistence; the spirit returns to God from where it came. Consequently, death is a reversal of creation.

At death, the spirit (breath) separates from the soul (blood). “When the breathing stops, the blood loses its life supply, and both flesh and blood begin to corrupt in death. The air (spirit) neither lives nor dies; it simply gives life for a season and then returns from whence it came” (pp. 21-22). 

The Bible describes death as follows:

and the dust returneth to the earth as it was, and the spirit returneth unto God who gave it. (Eccl. 12:7)

Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; Thou takest away their breath [spirit], they [the people themselves] die, And return to their dust. (Ps. 104:29)

According to Acts, David is not in heaven. (For David ascended not into the heavens: . . . [Acts 2:34]) Therefore, “that the spirit returning to God does not imply that the person goes to heaven” (p. 22).

Likewise, when Jesus said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said this, he gave up the ghost” (Luke 23:46), his spirit went to God, but he did not spend three days in heaven with his Father. John 20:17 proves that he did not go to heaven when he died. Jesus said to Mary, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father.” Furthermore, Peter states that Jesus’ soul went to Hades, oblivion, where it had no conscience existence (Acts 2:31). 

Thus, neither man’s soul nor spirit is immortal. They cease existence when the body dies. Only when God resurrects the body do they return as they returned to Jesus when God raised Jesus from the dead.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Issues with Trinitarianism and its Christology — Part 2

Issues with Trinitarianism and its Christology — Part 2

Thomas Allen

    15. Except for the heretical subordinationists and modal trinitarians, one question that Trinitarians have never been able to answer satisfactorily, except perhaps to themselves, is how three distinct persons, each of whom is fully God, are not three Gods. That is, how can God consist of three distinct Gods without being three Gods? Most Trinitarians just assert that three Gods are one God with no real Scriptural proof. Others claim that it is all a mystery beyond human comprehension, although they offer no Scripture that explicitly states such mystery. How can the Godhead consist of three persons, each of whom is fully God, while not having three Gods? Furthermore, where do the Scriptures explicitly claim that God is three persons, three beings, three Gods, three modes, three attributes, or three somewhats, etc.?
    16. The more honest Trinitarians admit the doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere expounded in the New Testament. It cannot be found in either the Old Testament or the New Testament. Neither Paul nor any of the other apostles taught it — and would not understand today’s orthodox Trinity Doctrine. The Trinity Doctrine rests upon the authority of the Church, i.e., the Pope: The Church declares that the Trinity Doctrine is true; therefore, it is true.
    17. The Trinity Doctrine seems to have been developed — albeit, most likely, subconsciously — primarily to justify error. Christ instructed people to pray to and worship God the Father, whom Christ claimed was the only true God (John 17:3). He never instructed them to pray to or worship the Messiah; neither did Paul, Peter, nor other apostles. After the apostles died, people began praying to and worshiping Christ. Instead of correcting this error, the leaders and intellects of the Church began applying Greek philosophy to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles to justify worshiping Christ. The same can be said for other errors that became doctrines of the Catholic Church. Examples are praying to saints and Mary and declaring Mary to be the mother of God (she eventually supplanted Christ, who had become God, as the mediator between man and God). Instead of correcting errors, Church leaders and intellects sought to justify them.
    18. Platonic philosophy and Gnosticism have defined and defended the Trinity Doctrine. They provide the terms, e.g., one substance, person, and trinity, used to define the Trinity.
    19. Unlike various subordination doctrines, the orthodox Trinity Doctrine did not grow organically from the Scriptures. Moreover, many Scriptures that Trinitarians use to support their doctrine testify against it.
    20. If the Trinitarians are correct, then the God of the Old Testament cannot be the God of the New Testament. In the Old Testament, God is described as a unipersonal God. Most Trinitarians now admit that the Old Testament describes a unipersonal God and not a triune God. However, according to the Trinitarians, the New Testament describes God as a triune God. That is, three Gods, persons, or whatevers are one God. Moreover, a triune God of three Gods, three persons, or three whatevers differs significantly from a unipersonal God of one God, one person, or one whatever. Now more Trinitarians, especially Catholics, are admitting that the Scriptures do not support the Trinity Doctrine as expressed in the Athanasian Creed or other similar creeds. It relies on revelation and Church tradition.
    If the Trinitarians and Jewish rabbis are correct, then Marcion was correct when he said that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are two different Gods. However, his explanation of the two different Gods was incorrect.
    21. Honest Trinitarians acknowledge that they worship a triune God. Thus, they are not monotheists in the sense of the Old Testament worship of a unipersonal God, whom good Jews worship. If Christians claim that the God of the Old Testament is a triune God and the Jews claim that he is a unipersonal God, then either one is wrong or God suffers from dissociative identity disorder. (If Christians assert that the Jews are wrong, then they need to explain their antisemitism.)
    22. Trinitarians claim that God became flesh so that he could experience suffering, ignorance, death, etc. like humans. Such a claim impinges on God’s omniscience. If God is omniscient, he knows how it is to suffer and die like humans. He knows how it is to be a dog or a flea without becoming one.
    Furthermore, if most theologians, both orthodox and heterodox, are correct about God being impassible, how could he experience pain, etc. like a human? Yet, many Trinitarians claim that God had to become man so that he could suffer like man.
    Moreover, how could God really die and still be eternal? If he were to die, he would cease being eternal. Or, is the pagan Greek idea of death, which most Christians believe, correct: Death is not a cessation of consciousness; it is a metamorphosis from one state of conscious being to another state of conscious being. And, the Hebrew idea of death is wrong: Death is the cessation of consciousness; this is the concept taught in the Old Testament. If death is a metamorphosis, then the Son changed state or condition. An attribute of God is that he is unchangeable. In any event, God the Son either ceased being eternal or changed state. Therefore, he ceases being equal to God the Father, who is eternal and unchangeable. Thus, the Trinity Doctrine collapses.
    According to the Hebrews, the body and soul are one. When the body dies, the soul also dies. All consciousness ceases at death.
    According to the pagan Greeks, the body and soul are two. When the body dies, the soul continues to exist in a conscious state.
    23. The triune God is not a personal God, a real being with a personality, will, and desire. He, or perhaps more correctly, it, is an essence, substance, and entity — an abstraction.
    24. If Jesus is God, why does he always pray to the Father and never to himself, who is also Deity, or to the Holy Spirit? Why does he ask the Father for what is in his own power as God the Son?
    25. If God the Father is the God of God the Son (Jesus declares that his Father is his God in John 20:17), then who is the God of God the Father? For God the Son, who has a God, to maintain his equality with God the Father, God the Father must also have a God. Likewise, God the Holy Spirit must also have a God. Who is the God of God the Holy Spirit? Moreover, if Jesus is God, how can he have a God?
    26. According to the Trinity Doctrine, the Son is eternal and is also begotten. He who is begotten cannot be eternal because he has a beginning — when he is begotten. An eternal being has no beginning or ending. Thus, the Trinity Doctrine contradicts itself with an oxymoron: the Son being begotten and eternal.
    Moreover, God is self-existing. He who is begotten, the Son, is not and cannot be self-existing. Furthermore, how can an unbegotten being, the Father, be the same kind of being as a begotten being, the Son?
    27. Unless the separationists are correct, why did Jesus cry out while he was dying on the cross? After all, according to many Trinitarians, Jesus’ God nature did not abandon his human nature while he was dying on the cross. As God the Son indwelt him, why did he need to cry out to God? God was already a part of him.
    28. To prevent God from dying on the cross, Trinitarians must have Jesus’ divine nature abandoning Jesus’ human nature by or at the time Jesus dies. The Valentinians solve the problem of God dying by having Christ, who is the divine nature, separating from Jesus, who is the human nature, just before the crucifixion. To avoid having God die, Trinitarians must adopt a Valentinian-like doctrine. However, to avoid the heresy of Valentinianism, Trinitarians seem to have the human nature of Jesus leaving the divine nature of Jesus at death. Whereas Valentinians have the divine leaving the human, Trinitarians have the human leaving the divine.
    29. Trinitarians subvert the title of the “Son of God” into “God the Son,” a title that the Scriptures never give Jesus. The two phrases mean different things. “X the son” has an entirely different meaning than “the son of X.” Isaac the son means Isaac as the son of Abraham; he is not Abraham. The son of Isaac means Jacob; he is not Isaac; nor is he Abraham. Likewise, “God the Son” has a different meaning than “the Son of God” and refers to a different person, being, entity, or whatever.
    30. When Jesus speaks, is he speaking in his divine nature as God or is he speaking in his human nature as man? Most assume that when he says something that sounds godly to them (e.g., “I and the Father are one” – John 10:30), he speaks as God. However, if he says something that sounds humanly to them (e.g., “the Father is greater than I” – John 14:28), he speaks as man. How do they know with absolute certainty which is speaking? Moreover, being ignorant of a triune God and the incarnation of God, which thus made Jesus have two natures and two wills, his audience would have always understood him speaking as a man. (Clergy often preach “context relevance” and the “way the audience at that time who received the remarks would have understood them.” Jesus’ audience at that time would have always understood him to be speaking as a man. If he intended otherwise, he was deceiving, i.e., lying to, his audience.)
    Where does the Bible expressly state that Jesus has two natures and two wills? Where does the Bible even strongly imply such?
    31. The doctrine of Jesus possessing two natures raises several questions. Did the two natures exist before the Incarnation? If they did, how did or could the Father and Son still be of one substance? If they did not, when and how was Jesus’ human nature combined with his divine nature? What prevented the divine nature from dominating? How can Jesus’ humanity be like the rest of humanity if he lacked the ability to sin like the rest of humanity? What Scriptures support the answers to these questions?
    Jesus was tempted like all other men (Hebrews 4:15). If he were God or had a divine nature, he could not have been tempted like other men. Being tempted like other men implies the ability to sin. Under the Christology of the Trinity Doctrine, Jesus could not sin. An attribute of God is his inability to sin. If Jesus consisted of two natures, divine and human, then his divine nature would have coerced the human will not to sin.
    32. An angel strengthened Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. However, if he possessed divinity in conjunction with humanity, why would he have needed such assistance? Such assistance would have been wholly unnecessary.
    33. When Christ speaks of himself, he uses the pronoun “I.” He is speaking of his whole person and not of only part of his person. According to Trinitarian Christology, Christ is one person who consists of a divine nature and a human nature. So, when he says, “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28 ), he is speaking of himself as the whole person consisting of both divine and human natures. Therefore, by this assertion, he declares himself, both of his natures, inferior to God the Father.
    34. If Thomas calling Jesus God (John 20:28) identifies Jesus as one of the Persons of God, then God making Moses God (Exodus 7:1) should make Moses a Person of God. If not, why not? After all, God speaks much more authoritatively than Thomas.
    35. An important part of the Christology of Trinitarianism is the doctrine of the Incarnation. Not until 451 was this doctrine formerly defined when the Council of Chalcedon promulgated it. The reason that 350 years were needed to develop it was that nowhere does the Scriptures described such a doctrine — although the first chapter of John may weakly hinted at it. Moreover, the doctrine of the Incarnation resembles pagan mythology more than biblical truth. That is, the notion that God Himself descended from Heaven, took the form of a man, and dwelt among humans strongly resembles pagan mythology.

Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Milton on the Holy Spirit : Responses to Arguments That the Holy Spirit Is God

Milton on the Holy Spirit

Responses to Arguments That the Holy Spirit Is God

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: The following is the continuation of the summary of John Milton’s view of the Holy Spirit, as presented in Milton on the Son of God and the Holy Spirit from His Treatise on Christian Doctrine (London, England: British & Foreign Unitarian Association, 1908). Page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to this book. Biblical quotations are Milton’s translations. My comments are enclosed in brackets.]
    Next, Milton discusses arguments put forth proclaiming the deity of the Holy Spirit. First, the divinity of the Holy Spirit is defended “on the ground, that the name of God seems to be attributed to the Spirit” (p. 123). Acts 5:3, 4 states, “'why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? . . . thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.” Milton comments that this verse appears “too weak for the support of so great a doctrinal mystery” of the Trinity Doctrine. He adds, “For since the Spirit is expressly said to be sent by the Father, and in the name of the Son, he who lies to the Spirit must lie to God, in the same sense as he who receives an apostle, receives God who sent him” (p. 123). According to Paul, God has given men his Holy Spirit: “he therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit” – 1 Thessalonians 4:8. Moreover, the Holy Spirit in Acts 5:3, 4 may “signify God the Father; for Peter afterwards says, Acts v. 9, ‘how is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord’” (p. 123). Further, Acts 5:32 states, “whom God hath given to them that obey him” (p. 124).
    Then, Milton discusses Acts 28:25 (“well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet”). He notes “that the names Lord and Jehovah are throughout the Old Testament attributed to whatever angel God may entrust with the execution of his commands” (p. 124). He concludes, “It cannot therefore be inferred from this passage, any more than from the preceding [Acts 5: 3,4], that the Holy Ghost is God” (p. 124).
    Next Milton discusses 1 Corinthians 3:16 (“the temple of God . . . the temple of the Holy Ghost”). However, this verse does not say or even imply “that the Holy Spirit is God; for it is not because the Spirit alone, but because the Father also and the Son ‘make their abode with us,’ that we are called ‘the temple of God’” (pp. 124-125). Continuing, he states, “Therefore in I Cor. vi. 19, where we are called ‘the temple of the Holy Ghost,’ St. Paul has added, ‘which ye have of God,’ as if with the purpose of guarding against any error which might arise respecting the Holy Spirit in consequence of his expression” (p. 125). In Ephesians 2:22, Paul explains in “what sense we are called ‘the temple of the Holy Ghost’” (p. 125): “in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”
    For proof of the Holy Spirit’s omniscience, Trinitarians present 1 Corinthians 2:10, 11: “the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God: for what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” First, Milton remarks that verse 10 does not refer to “divine omniscience, but only respecting those deep things ‘which God hath revealed unto us by his Spirit’ — the words immediately preceding” (p. 125). He adds, “Besides, the phrase ‘all things’ must be restricted to mean whatever it is expedient for us to know: not to mention that it would be absurd to speak of God searching God, with whom he was one is essence” (pp. 125-126). In verse 11, “the essence of the Spirit is not the subject in question; for the consequences would be full of absurdity, if it were to be understood that the Spirit of God was with regard to God, as the spirit of a man is with regard to man. Allusion therefore is made only to the intimate relationship and communion of the Spirit with God, from whom he originally proceeded” (p. 126). To support his conclusion, he cites 1 Corinthians 2:14 (“we have received . . . the Spirit which is of God”). “That which is of God, cannot be actually God, who is unity” (p. 126). In Matthew 11:27 (“No man knoweth the Son, but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him”), the Son proves that the Holy Spirit is not omniscient. The Son declares that the Holy Spirit does not know the Father or the Son unless the Son gives him such knowledge. Likewise, Mark 13:32 provides an additional argument against the omniscience of the Holy Spirit (p. 126).
    Trinitarians claim that the Holy Spirit is omnipresent because “the Spirit of God dwelleth in us.” Milton replies, “But even if it filled with its presence the whole circle of the earth, with all the heavens, that is, the entire fabric of this world, it would not follow that the Spirit is omnipresent” (p. 127). [Most Trinitarians seem to underestimate the quality of omnipresence and have little or no comprehension of omnipresence. To be omnipresent requires much more than dwelling in man, even in every human who exists, who has ever existed, who will ever exist. Omnipresence requires being everywhere simultaneously. It requires filling every void, particle, and spirit in the universe and beyond. Moreover, it requires filling hell completely and every being in it including Satan.]
    On the divine works of the Holy Spirit, Trinitarians cite Acts 2:34, 13:2, and 20:28, and 2 Peter 1:20. In response, Milton remarks that all that is needed to refute this assertion is Christ’s comment “respecting the Holy Spirit, the Comforter; namely, that he was sent by the Son from the Father, that he spake not of himself, nor in his own name, and consequently that he did not act in his own name; therefore that he did not even move others to speak of his own power, but that what he gave he had himself received” (p. 127).
    Trinitarians point to the miraculous conception (Matthew 1:18, 20 and Luke 1:35) as proof of the divine works of the Holy Spirit. Milton replies that “it is not to be understood with reference to his own person alone. For it is certain that, in the Old Testament, under the name of the Spirit of God, or of the Holy Spirit, either God the Father himself, or his divine power was signified” (p. 128). Commenting on Luke 1:35, Milton states that the Holy Spirit refers to God the Father, “unless we suppose that there are two Fathers — one Father of the Son of God, another Father of the Son of man” (pp. 128-129).
    To support that the Holy Spirit has divine honors, Trinitarians cite Matthew 28:19. Milton responds that although this verse mentions three persons, “there is not a word that determines the divinity, or unity, or equality of these three” (p. 129). Then, he cites passages that show that there were baptisms unto Moses (1 Corinthians 10:2), unto the baptism of John (Acts 19:3), in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38), into Jesus Christ and into his death (Romans 6:3), and into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13). Thus, Milton notes:

To be baptized therefore in their name, is to be admitted to those benefits and gifts which we have received through the Son and the Holy Spirit. . . . when we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, this is not done to impress upon our minds the inherent or relative natures of these three persons, but the benefits conferred by them in baptism on those who believe  — namely, that our eternal salvation is owing to the Father, our redemption to the Son, and our sanctification to the Spirit (pp. 129-130).

    Continuing, Milton adds, “The power of the Father is inherent in himself, that of the Son and the Spirit is received from the Father” (p. 130). The Spirit does “everything in the name of the Father and the Son” (p. 130). To support his conclusion, Milton cites Matthew 28:18, 19, and 1 Corinthians 6:11 (“but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God”). Commenting on 1 Corinthians 6:11, Milton notes that “the same three are mentioned as in baptism, ‘the Son,’ ‘the Spirit,’ and ‘our God’; it follows therefore that the Father alone is our God, of whom are both the Son and the Spirit” (p. 130).
    Trinitarians claim that the Holy Spirit’s deity is proven by the invocation being made to him as in 2 Corinthians 13:14 (“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all”). Milton replies, “This, however, is not so much an invocation as a benediction, in which the Spirit is not addressed as a person but sought as a gift, from him who alone is there called God, namely, the Father, from whom Christ himself directs us to seek the communication of the Spirit. . . . He who is sought from the Father, and given by him, not by himself, can neither be God, nor an object of invocation” (pp. 130-131). Continuing, he adds that “it is by the Son that we come to the Father, from whom finally the Holy Spirit is sent” (p. 131).
    Next he comments on 1 Corinthians 12: 4-6, where the Spirit, Lord, and God are mentioned. He states that “it is one God which worketh all in all, even in the Son and the Spirit, as we are taught throughout the whole of Scripture” (p. 132).
    Then, Milton comments on Matthew 12: 31, 32 (the unforgivable sin). First, “no reference to the personality of the Holy Spirit” (p. 132) is made. Second, “if to sin against the Holy Spirit were worse than to sin against the Father and Son, and if that alone were an unpardonable sin, the Spirit truly would be greater than the Father and the Son” (p. 132).  He understands that the “words must therefore apply to that illumination which, as it is highest in degree, so it is last in order of time, whereby the Father enlightens us through the Spirit, and which if any one resist, no method of salvation remains open to him” (p. 132). Nevertheless, Milton believes “that it is the Father himself who is here called the Holy Spirit. . . . [The] dreaded sin against the Holy Spirit will be in reality a sin against the Father, who is the Spirit of holiness” (pp. 132-133).
    Another argument for the deity of the Holy Spirit is that he “bestows grace and blessing upon the churches in conjunction with the Father and the Son: Rev. i. 4, 5, ‘grace be unto you and peace from him which is . . . and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ’” (p. 133). Milton replies, “[Clearly,] the Holy Spirit is not here meant to be implied; the number of the spirits is inconsistent with such a supposition, as well as the place which they are said to occupy, standing like angels before the throne” (p. 133). Milton concludes “that in this kind of threefold enumerations the sacred writers have no view whatever to the doctrine of three divine persons, or to the equality or order of those persons” (pp.133-134).
    Commenting on 1 John 5:7 [which is spurious, but was once a major proof text of the Trinitarians], Milton states that nothing in this verse “implies either divinity or unity of essence” (p. 134). He identifies additional problems with using this verse to support the Trinity Doctrine (pp. 133-135).
    Turning to 1 Timothy 5:21 (“I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels”), Milton remarks that one would have expected the Holy Spirit to have been named in third place, “if such ternary forms of expression really contained the meaning which is commonly ascribed to them” (p. 134) [and if the Trinity Doctrine is correct].
    Finally, Milton gives his description of the Holy Spirit: “[T]he Holy Spirit, inasmuch as he is a minister of God, and therefore a creature, was created or produced of the substance of God, not by a natural necessity, but by the free will of the agent, probably before the foundations of the world were laid, but later than the Son, and far inferior to him (p. 136). [Milton’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit is similar to that of pre-Nicaean orthodoxy.]

Copyright © 2018 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Mencken on the Eternal Christian Mob

Mencken on the Eternal Christian Mob

Thomas Allen

    In 1926, H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) wrote Notes on Democracy in which he expressed his views on democracy and related issues. He was a journalist, satirist, and critic and a libertarian and one of the leaders of the Old Right. In his book, he describes the eternal Christian mob, pages 74-76. Below is an overview of his discussion on the eternal Christian mob; my comments are in brackets.
    Mencken notes that in the past two thousand years, the inferior man has moved “from the obscenities of the Saturnalia to the obscenities of the Methodist revival. So he lives out his life in the image of Jahveh.”
    Mencken questions the inferior man’s “simple piety, his touching fidelity to the faith.” He continues, “Is it argued by any rational man that the debased Christianity cherished by the mob in all the Christian countries of to-day has any colourable likeness to the body of ideas preached by Christ? . . . The plain fact is that this bogus Christianity has no more relation to the system of Christ than it has to the system of Aristotle. It is the invention of Paul and his attendant rabble-rousers — a body of men exactly comparable to the corps of evangelical pastors of to-day, which is to say, a body devoid of sense and lamentably indifferent to common honesty.” [Paul did not change the teachings of Christ; he merely explained and applied them.] Then he adds, “The mob, having heard Christ, turned against Him, and applauded His crucifixion.” The mob turned against Christ because “His theological ideas were too logical and too plausible for it, and his ethical ideas were enormously too austere.” [The mob did not turn against Jesus because his theological ideas were too logical and too plausible. It turned against him because the Pharisees and the Sadducees excited it to demand the execution of Jesus. These two groups and, to a lesser extent, the Herodians were the aristocrats and superior men of their society. Thus, the superior men were behind Jesus’ execution. They turned the mob against Jesus because his logical, plausible theology condemned them.]
    What the mob “yearned for was the old comfortable balderdash under a new and gaudy name, and that is precisely what Paul offered it. He borrowed from all the wandering dervishes and soul-snatchers of Asia Minor, and flavoured the stew with remnants of the Greek demonology. The result was a code of doctrines so discordant and so nonsensical that no two men since, examining it at length, have ever agreed upon its precise meaning.” [Paul’s teachings are no more confusing than Jesus’. What makes Paul’s writings seem confusing are theologians reading into his writings what is not there and reading out of his writings what is there. Moreover, if his writings are so confusing and, thus, difficult to understand, why does the ignorant, uneducable inferior man seems to grasp them, for as Mencken notes, the inferior man tries to destroy what he does not understand. Nevertheless, Paul’s writings, which are usually fairly straightforward, are easier to comprehend than most of the Prophets and Revelations with their flowery, allegorical, and metaphorical language. Furthermore, Jesus’ teaching may not be as logical and plausible and as clear and simple as Mencken asserts. If they were, theologians agree about what Jesus taught. For example, in Matthew 24:36, Christ says that he does not possess the divine trait of omniscience. Antitrinitarians use this statement to prove that the Trinity Doctrine is wrong. Trinitarians ignore it or try to explain it away. Another is Matthew 24:1-31. Some claim that this prophecy of Jesus was fulfilled in 70 A.D. Others claim that only part of it was fulfilled in 70 A.D.; the remainder is yet to come. Thus, Jesus’ teachings are at least as confusing as Paul’s.] Nonetheless, “Paul knew his mob: he had been a travelling labour leader. He knew that nonsense was its natural provender — that the unintelligible soothed it like sweet music.” Moreover, Paul was the progenitor “of all the Christian mob-masters of to-day, terrorizing and enchanting the mob with their insane damnations, eating their seven fried chickens a week, passing the diligent plate, busy among the women.” [Many ministers in Mencken’s day, and even today, were charlatans, hustlers, and scoundrels, who manipulated Christians for their own benefit. That Paul was such a person is highly doubtful, and such a notion is certainly not supported by the Scriptures. No such person would have endured what Paul endured.]
    Continuing, Mencken writes, “Once the early church emerged from the Roman catacombs and began to yield to that reorganization of society which was forced upon the ancient world by the barbarian invasions, Paul was thrown overboard, as Methodists throw Wesley overboard when they acquire the means and leisure for golf, and Peter was put in his place. Peter was a blackguard, but he was at least free from any taint of Little Bethel. The Roman Church, in the aristocratic feudal age, promoted him post mortem to the Papacy, and then raised him to the mystical dignity of Rock, a rank obviously quasi-celestial.” [The theology of the Catholic Church fits much closer the animadversions that Mencken pours on Paul than Paul’s theology.]
    Nevertheless, “Paul remained the prophet of the sewers. He was to emerge centuries later in many incarnations — Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and so on. He remains to-day the arch-theologian of the mob. His turgid and witless metaphysics make Christianity bearable to men who would be repelled by Christ’s simple and magnificent reduction of the duties of man to the duties of a gentleman.” [Mencken is not the only one who believes that Paul corrupted the teachings of Jesus. Some have accused Paul of Judaizing the teachings of Christ, which he did not.]
    [As can be seen from the above, Mencken has a low opinion of Christianity. On that point, he agrees with Marx. Moreover, Mencken seems to believe that only inferior men, scoundrels, and demagogues are religious, and the scoundrels and demagogues are fakers, who use religion to manipulate the inferior man. He seems to believe that one cannot be both religious and of the better sort simultaneously.]

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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