Alan Torrance's Interpretation

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Alan Torrance, in his article titled ‘Being of One Substance with the Father,’ discuses a very important topic concerning Jesus and God the Father. Through his article he hits on many theological points that have very heavy meanings. There are three points that seem to come through throughout the paper; Jesus being one with the father, the Athanasius and Arius debate, and Jesus fully human yet fully divine. The very first sentence of this article describes the first point Alan is trying to make in his article, “At the very heart of the Nicene Creed stand the affirmation that Jesus Christ is ‘God from God, Light from Light, true God form true God, … God came not merely in a human being but as a human.’ This is a resounding topic that Alan keeps driving home throughout this paper; Jesus is fully human and fully divine. We see examples of Jesus being fully human and fully divine all over the New Testament, but we find out that some people only regard the New Testament as “functional” rather than “ontological.” Alan then goes on to tell us that this claim has been shaped differently in the last thirty years so as to say that homoousion exemplifies forms of Christianity that are…show more content…
This lead to Jesus being interpreted as an object of prayer instead of someone that prays with and for his people. Along with this came the suggestion that Jesus’ body was God but his mind was not. This point suggests that Jesus’ life was a sort of charade and also that we as Christians do not have a fully human and fully divine savior. The debates go on to tell us that Jesus unites us with God through the holy spirit and this could not be done without a fully human and fully divine person to take the place of humanity as our redeemer. By this we see that Jesus truly is fully human and fully divine and also that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are Trinitarian or three in
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