De Serveti Evangelici Erroribus

Dear Servetus the Evangelical,

I must confess that I didn’t even know that there was a quasi-namesake of mine, until, yesterday, November 17, 2009, on TaborBlog, I read about you, your book, your secret identity (to be revealed tomorrow ... - Modern Servetus To Take the Veil Off).

I see from your website (page “The Contest”) that, having suddenly changed, on October 18, 2009, your decision to “reveal your identity only on September 29, 2011, the 500th anniversary of the birth of Michael Servetus”, you are going to “reveal [your] identity as the author of The Restitution of Jesus Christ on November 19, 2009, [tomorrow] almost two years earlier than planned”, because of “something totally unexpected and that [you] could not have foreseen”, and for which you are, apparently, “very excited”.

I have looked at your “clues” (18, like the holes of a golf court ...), but I am not familiar enough with the world of American Evangelical scholarship to make my guess. Probably the key clue about your name and identity is #14 of 10/18/09 (“The meaning of Servetus the Evangelical's given name is embedded cryptically in the preface of his book”), and I am sure I that, as I am a very good enigmist, I would probably be able to “crack the enigma”, but, as I don’t have your book, that “given name ... embedded cryptically in the preface” is precluded to me.

I have looked at your two-page Tract (The Real Jesus) and I agree with most of the things you say there, except for few (important, nay, essential) points that I will briefly indicate herebelow, quoting your passages and giving my relative comments.

Critical comments by Miguel de Servet on the tract The Real Jesus, by Servetus the Evangelical

1. The New Testament presents Jesus as a seer-prophet, a teaching rabbi, an itinerant preacher, a wisdom sage, a charismatic healer, a miracle worker, and an exorcist. It applies to Him the titles Messiah/Christ, Son of Man, Son of God, Savior, and Lord.

Right from the start, you omit to mention (quite spectacularly, I must say) one of the most important titles, that of Word, or (Greek) Logos (or, in Hebrew, Dabar, or, in Aramaic, Memra). Here are the relevant passages.

· [From The Prologue to the Gospel of John] 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God. (...) 1:14 Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory – the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father. (John 1:1,14 NET)

· [The Prologue to the First Letter of John] 1:1 This is what we proclaim to you: what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and our hands have touched (concerning the word of life – 1:2 and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and announce to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us). 1:3 What we have seen and heard we announce to you too, so that you may have fellowship with us (and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ). 1:4 Thus we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. (1 John 1:1-4 NET)

I referred to Word, or Logos as “one of the most important titles” not only (in a positive perspective) because it is the title that, more than any other, posits (and answers) the question of the “divinity of Jesus”, but also (in a negative perspective) because it is the misunderstanding, and the abusive and improper handling of this title, Logos (as we see quite clearly in Justin Martyr, in particular his Dialogue with Trypho) that the Christian Church will try to manage, clumsily “patching it up”, with the doctrine of the “trinity”.

2. During the next three centuries, the Church adhered faithfully to these scriptural teachings about Jesus.

This is quite inaccurate. While it is certainly true that the full-fledged doctrine of the “trinity” was only achieved at the end of the 4^th century, with the abominable formula "three substances subsistences (hypostases) in one essence (ousia)," invented by the "Cappadocian rascals", getting there was a gradual process. Two names will suffice:

• Tertullian (ca. 160 – ca. 220 A.D.), who was the first, in the Latin speaking world, to introduce the notion of “trinity”, and the relative use the word trinitas (and the formula una substantia - tres personae), and said explicitly that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

• Origen (ca. 185–254 AD), who invented the formula of the “eternal generation” of the “Son” by the Father, which became an essential “ingredient” of the doctrine of the “trinity”.

True, Tertullian and Origen were both considered heretics (the former in his late life, the latter after his death), but only for some aspects of their doctrines, certainly not the above mentioned ones.

3. Jesus was not God because of the following biblical evidence or lack thereof

You should have at least mentioned that there are two verses, in the New Testament, which strongly affirm the “trinity”, and that they both contain spurious additions:

· 5:7 For there are three that testify: [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. 5:8 And there are three that testify on earth] the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three are in agreement. (1 John 5:7-8 NET)

· 28:19 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, [baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit], 28:20 teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20 NET)

1. You should have added that, while the so called Comma Johanneum at 1 John 5:7-8 is expunged from the near entirety of translations and editions of the New Testament, on the other hand the near entirety of translations and editions of the NT retain the Trinitarian Baptismal Formula embedded in Matthew 28:19-20, with the motivation (formally impeccable, but only formally ...) that “all extant MSS include it”.

4. ... Jesus should be understood as the Son of God in a Jewish context, so that this title means One specially favored by God to be Israel’s Messiah.

This is quite insufficient. The notion of “Son of God in a Jewish context” is, essentially, an honorific title (just think of the question of Caiaphas to Jesus, “Are you the Messiah, the son of the Living Lord?”). Based on the TaNaKh, the Jews would have never (and never did thereafter) arrive at accepting the mystery and miracle of the Virgin Conception of Jesus.

5. There is no biblical evidence that Jesus had two natures and two wills, which is non-human.

While the doctrine of the “two wills” (Dythelitism) is late (Third Council of Constantinople, the sixth ecumenical council, in 681) and certainly with no biblical foundation, the situation is not the same for the two natures. That Jesus was, at the same time, of divine and human origin (human mother: Mary; divine Father: God himself) is not only the product of the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD), but a simple and straightforward textual fact, that even the most casual observer cannot fail to miss in the NT, and in particular in the Nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke.

6. God transcends His creation, so that being God is incompatible with being human.

I have already remarked, at the previous point, how it is simply a matter of unbiased textual observation of the New Testament, to recognize that Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels contain, most naturally, the very notion of the two natures of Jesus. The fact is that, if one accepts that the Scriptures constitutes a whole, and indivisible inspired entity, then no passage can be read in isolation. So, the Gospel of John, which does not contain any account of the nativity, provides to us the key for understanding the Nativity of Jesus, which is not only a miracle (obviously, if we truly and honestly take at face value what Matthew and Luke say, viz. that Jesus was conceived without any male concourse) but also a mystery, the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God.

7. God foreknew the yet future date of Jesus’ return to earth, but Jesus did not know it (Mark 13.32).

It is certainly true that in Mark 13:32 (and also in Matthew 24:36, according to “some important witnesses, including early Alexandrian and Western mss, e.g. א*^,2 B D Θ Ë¹³ pc it vg^mss Ir^lat Hier^mss”), we find that Jesus openly declares that, as Son of God, he does not know the time of his own future Second Coming. It is improper, though, to say that “God foreknew the yet future date of Jesus’ return to earth”. The Greek verb used both in Mark 13:32 and in Matthew 24:36 to express the “knowledge” of the Father is εἶδον (eidon - Strong's G1492), and it must be seen not so much in the (typically Greek-philosophical) sense of “intellectual perception of the future” by God, as though He only can see some sort of “film” of the future, entirely predetermined by Him, quasi a “Hyper-Galactic Film Director”, but as a “semantical loan” from the Hebrew ידע (yada` - Strong's H3045). Now, the Hebrew verb yada` contains in itself as much the idea of “intimate knowledge” as that of “dominion”, “power”, and, referred to God, expresses His Omnipotence no less than His Omniscience. God, the Father Almighty, knows the “date of Jesus’ return to earth” NOT because He set it up ab æterno, BUT because He is THE LORD, who can decide it. (#)

I am afraid the above comments may somehow spoil the show of your “outing”, but I felt that it was necessary to let you know.

Sincerely,

Your quasi-namesake,

Miguel de Servet

(#) This is not the appropriate place to tackle the issue of God’s Omnipotence and Omniscience. I will only limit myself to saying that the way these attributes of God are formulated in Classical Theism has very little to do with the Scripture, and almost entirely to do with Greek philosophical thought. Suffice here to say that I, with the theologian and physicist John Polkinghorne (see his Science and Theology) it is right to distinguish between total omniscience (actually knowing everything that can be known, the notion of Omniscience of Classical Theism) and inherent omniscience (the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known, proper of Open Theism).

More, I affirm that God’s total foreknowledge is incompatible with genuine human freedom.