i'd have to know the original greek to see whether justin's ascriptions of the title 'god' to christ read as 'a god', but notwithstanding that, many of your quotes are taken out of context. you also form loose parallels between the father and jesus in his writings that would only count as circumstantial if you were going to try to prove that justin believed christ and the father were one god (it would also help if you included references to the exact chapters you're referring to). that they were 'one god' is something justin
never states.
for one example where you have taken things out of context, you posted:
Justin describes Jesus and the Father as being distinct, but also One God, that Jesus is in His essence indivisible and inseparable from God, while still numerically distinct in Person and personality.
"And that Christ being Lord, and God the Son of God, ……. and they call Him the Word, because He carries tidings from the Father to men: but maintain that this power is indivisible and inseparable from the Father, just as they say that the light of the sun on earth is indivisible and inseparable from the sun in the heavens; …………And that this power which the prophetic word calls God, as has been also amply demonstrated, and Angel, is not numbered [as different] in name only like the light of the sun but is indeed something numerically distinct, I have discussed briefly in what has gone before; when I asserted that this power was begotten from the Father, by His power and will, but not by abscission, as if the essence of the Father were divided; as all other things partitioned and divided are not the same after as before they were divided: and, for the sake of example, I took the case of fires kindled from a fire, which we see to be distinct from it, and yet that from which many can be kindled is by no means made less, but remains the same.”
i have retained your original highlights in
bold, but note my highlight of your words in
red first (we'll get to the
purple shortly). it seems you have taken this from a second or third hand source and haven't read the
dialogue with trypho where you extracted this from for yourself...or at least not the paragraph you quoted (ch. cxxviii) to back this erroneous assertion. had you read it, or read it carefully if you did read it at all, you would have noticed that christ being 'indivisible and inseparable' from the father was
not a belief of justin. it is a belief of justin's
opponents. please read:
And do not suppose, sirs, that I am speaking superfluously when I repeat these words frequently: but it is because I know that some wish to anticipate these remarks, and to say that the power sent from the Father of all which appeared to Moses, or to Abraham, or to Jacob, is called an Angel because He came to men (for by Him the commands of the Father have been proclaimed to men); is called Glory, because He appears in a vision sometimes that cannot be borne; is called a Man, and a human being, because He appears strayed in such forms as the Father pleases; and they call Him the Word, because He carries tidings from the Father to men: but maintain that this power is indivisible and inseparable from the Father, just as they say that the light of the sun on earth is indivisible and inseparable from the sun in the heavens; as when it sinks, the light sinks along with it; so the Father, when He chooses, say they, causes His power to spring forth, and when He chooses, He makes it return to Himself. In this way, they teach, He made the angels.
it is justin's opponents who believe the one appearing in the old testament was 'indivisible and inseparable' from the father just as the light from the sun is 'indivisible and inseparable' from the sun.
just counters
their beliefs by saying:
But it is proved that there are angels who always exist, and are never reduced to that form out of which they sprang. And that this power which the prophetic word calls God, as has been also amply demonstrated, and Angel, is not numbered [as different] in name only like the light of the sun but is indeed something numerically distinct
in other words, 'numerically distinct' is placed in contrast to 'indivisible and inseparable'. you have mistakenly conflated the two
contrary beliefs and attributed them both to justin.
now note my highlights of your words in
purple. your agenda has also caused you to erroneously misinterpret this portion of the paragraph too. justin is
not trying to prove with these words that christ and the father are one and the same god. these statements are an apologetic reference in passing so that he is not misinterpreted as saying that the father was curtailed or truncated when he begat the son. this is not a statement that the father and the son share a common substance that make them 'one god', which is, again, something justin never states, nor does it have anything to do with this portion of the dialogue (or any portion of it). who comprises the one god is not a concern at this point.
if you went back to the previous day in the dialogue (ch. lxi) you would find that justin had already made the analogy between a 'fire' from another 'fire' and a 'word' from a human being:
...He [jesus] was begotten of the Father by an act of will; just as we see happening among ourselves: for when we give out some word, we beget the word; yet not by abscission, so as to lessen the word [which remains] in us, when we give it out: and just as we see also happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled[another], but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled.
in other words, he's saying that when the father begat the son
'by an act of will', as he puts it, that the father was not lessened...just as when we speak a word, we don't run out of words to say. speaking doesn't take parts of us away; and just as a fire kindled from another fire, i.e., if you ignite a fire with another fire the first fire continues to burn just as bright. there's no division of the original fire into two smaller halves of the same fire. the original fire remains the same, just as if nothing happened to it. the father is the human being and the original fire in these analogies. that is what justin is trying to say. no mention of the 'one god' comprising father and son...anywhere.
for an example of one of your loose parallels:
Justin says Jesus is The Word, The Truth, The Word of God (note also that God is Truth)
“Now the word of truth is sent from God; wherefore the freedom claimed by the truth is not arrogant. -…. And God, the Father of the universe, who is the perfect intelligence, is the truth. And the Word, being His Son, came to us, having put on flesh, revealing both Himself and the Father, giving to us in Himself resurrection from the dead, and eternal life afterwards. And this is Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord.”
the infirmity of your argument here is self-evident. you're just reading into the text (no mention whether or not they're the same god here either). and to cap my response, here is a statement justin made that proves that either he didn't believe christ and the father were one god, that he contradicted himself, or is just blabbering double-speak and doesn't know what he believes.
Then I replied, "I shall attempt to persuade you, since you have understood the Scriptures,[of the truth] of what I say, that there is, and that there is said to be, another God and Lord subject to the Maker of all things
but i don't understand whether or not justin contradicts the later creedal trinitarian formulas (which he did, since the doctrine of the trinity was a development over time) matters at all to you. whether or not justin believed christ and the father were one god (which he obviously didn't) shouldn't make a difference. your exegesis of patristic texts here is just as sloppy as your wild claims in our recent encounter in the apologetics forum. seems you take this sloppiness with you wherever you go.
~eric
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