Question
I have been recently studying the philosophy of the early centuries of Christianity after Jesus’ Death. As with us devotees, the early Christians ย accepted the divinity of Jesus. But because he appeared at a particular time and place, and acted as a human being would act, the question arose as to whether he was ย God in a human body, or an amalgam of both? The crux of the matter hinged on the nature of his birth from a human mother.
The answers to this question has split Christianity into at least two separate orthodoxies.
Is this a topic that has been considered by us, or other Vaishnavas in our line?
Answer
Actually christological issues, whether Christ was fully man, fully divine, or some kind of amalgam, was the burning debate of early Christianity, for various historical reason that I will skip for now. There were many different answers. Ultimately, those with power began to declare their opponents โhereticsโ and persecute them. In the 4th century, it came down to the Super Bowl of Christian theology between the Trinitarians of the Nicene creed and the Arian faction who at various times controlled half or more of the Christian world.
For various reasons, including brute violence, the Trinitarians won. Fortunately, we donโt have that exact problem, because we donโt flirt with polytheism by saying that โGodโ is three different persons. This is an important point: we say that Lord Caitanya IS Krsna. The Christians said that Jesus was NOT the father. A key claim of the Trinity doctrine, which I consider to be incoherent, is that Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are NOT the same person, they are different persons. But they are all God. And there is โone God.โ
In that sense, there is no one โGodโ in Christianity who is supreme. God is corporate, a team of three different persons who are somehow all God.
Interestingly, Islam spread in many formerly Christian areas, such as North Africa and the Near East because they convinced many people that Christianity had abandoned monotheism, an accusation which, in my view, has some truth to it.
In contrast, we have the clear category of ลakty-ฤveลa-avatฤra, which eliminates confusion.
