A bit of a warning: your comment looks like it has AI content. Maybe you just write weirdly the way AI does. But be aware, AI content is banned on my site.

But in reply:

John 17 never mentions idols or idolatry. It’s in a Jewish context so obviously only references the stormgod Yahweh and his religious system, which excludes gods represented with idols.

The phrase “one true God” is vague because the adjective has variable meanings, including, of persons, “truthful, trusty,” and of things, “true, genuine,” as opposed to fake or fraudulent. It can be used in the same way as in English, “he’s genuine,” as in, he’s an honest, authentic person, and not a poser or grifter or two-faced. So it’s not possible to extract monotheism from this line. That isn’t what the author is emphasizing here (or at least, we can’t tell that he is; there were much clearer words he could have chosen if so).

In actual reality (and we see this explicitly and repeatedly in Paul) monotheism did not exist then. Judaism was henotheistic and monolatrist, not monotheist. It routinely admits other gods exist, it just labels them either as subservient to the top god (angels; and Jesus is an incarnated angel in all Christian thought found in the NT, including GJn) or as evil and liars (demons and fallen angels) such that their offers of salvation were not genuine and thus not “true.”

In result, not always but often, the name “God” was allowed only for the “genuine” God, as a form of honorific. Thus angels would not be called gods, even though they functionally, metaphysically, were gods. They just served the one “true” God (unless they rebelled and didn’t, then they were not true), and thus doing what they say was doing what he says, because they only say what he wants. And one could worship an angel as long as it was only as a proxy or representative of the Lord God they serve, and not as independent of him (that is traditionally what Satan wanted and thus made him an exiled rebel from God’s pantheon).

So Jesus is not being excluded by John 17, because he is not “named” God here; he is, rather, an incarnated angel sent by God, and thus God’s representative.

By contrast, when Paul calls Satan “the god of this world” he is using what we signal with a lowercase g, hence “a” god, the one of “this” world, and thus a “false” god, not because he doesn’t exist or isn’t a god, but because the salvation he offers isn’t “true” and thus he isn’t “true” (in the sense of being truthful, or right or good or the one we should be looking to and worshiping). He does not rule the whole world, only this one, the one he corrupted. But later in that same sentence, when Paul says “Christ is the image of God” he is using it in the sense we signal with an uppercase G, as an actual name, not an abstract category (in ancient Greek proper names often came with definite articles).

In Paul and John Jesus is not God. He is a god, but one who serves the one true “God,” capital G. As a god he is a servant of God, a subordinate created angel, and thus not identical to God, nor claims the title of God. So John 17:3 is distinguishing God (uppercase G) from his agents (like Jesus), and thus God’s genuineness transfers to his loyal agents; John is not excluding them from it.

That passage does not go into the metaphysics of who is a god (lowercase g), so it isn’t saying anything about who counts as “a” god. It is only talking about Yahweh, hence “God.” Just like Allah: that is treated as a name but is actually just the word God in Arabic; so saying Allah is the one true God does not tell us whether there are other gods, even true ones, because the exclusion is double: it refers only to God not gods and only to the supreme God’s will as served by obedient gods and not gods rebelling against it.

I haven’t studied logic, but I have a question about John 17:3

I have seen apologists twist this verse into a pretzel .

They will say that “the only true god” EXCLUDES the idols and it should be read in a comparative sense not an absolute sense.

if we were follow the apologists method, using logic, could we make an argument that “the only true god” excludes false god, but not true gods?

if false gods exist , then true gods exist.

there could be multiple true gods, but the father is the only one worth knowing?

john seems to me that it is in an absolute sense. the only true god is the father.

>John 17:3: “…that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

is jesus EXCLUDED by the grammar ?

i asked gpt and the reply was :

Logical consequences of a non-absolute “only”

• Scope restriction:
• If “only” applies to a subset (idols), then the statement becomes: “Of the set of claimed gods (idols), none is true; the Father alone is true.”
• Consequence: It no longer denies that other beings outside that subset could be “true God.” Exclusivity is limited and cannot exclude non-idol candidates.
• Category leak (true vs. false):
• By making “only true God” comparative, you introduce two categories: false gods (excluded) and potentially true gods (not addressed).
• Consequence: The verse stops functioning as a monotheistic absolute and becomes a polemic against idols, leaving open the possibility of other true gods.
• Ambiguity of reference class:
• Without an explicit limiter (“among idols,” “among the nations”), the scope of “only” becomes unclear.
• Consequence: The claim loses determinate force. You cannot conclude universal exclusivity from a relative “only.”
• Failure to exclude all others:
• Relative “only” fails to infer “For all y ≠ Father, not true God.”
• Consequence: You cannot use John 17:3 to argue that no other being can be “true God.” The verse no longer supports absolute monotheism syntactically.

A 1st-century Jew could not have exclaimed “oh my God” or something similar, because such an expression simply did not exist at that time. The exclamation of Thomas was specifically addressed to Jesus

First, John might not even be a first century Jew. John is more likely a second century Gentile author studied in Jewish texts. But even if he was a “first century Jewish author” he is writing in Greek for Gentile Greek-speaking audiences. He is not translating some imagined Hebrew transcript from a Greek-speaking witness. So no Hebrew analysis is relevant here. He is inventing a tale using Greek grammar and literary tropes, at most sometimes attending to Septuagintal style, not the Hebrew.

Second, none of their ensuing analysis is correct. For a correct analysis see Sadananda, The Johannine Exegesis of God, pp. 17–18 (with conclusion on pp. 43-44). Nominative never takes vocative sense without a noun, verb, or pronoun signaling it (like “you,” su, which is all over the Septuagint by way of example). Indeed John has conspicuously avoided any of the ways you would signal this (he does not say the name Jesus, e.g. “Jesus my God” in the nominative, he does not use the pronoun, “you, my God,” he does not use an address of acclamation like “behold,” or any other known contextual marker) so we can know he did not mean to signal this.

Third, Jesus had already said in verse 17 “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God,” making clear these were separate things and setting up Thomas’s recognition of that a few lines later. So not only does Thomas refer to “my God,” Jesus also refers to “my God.” They are referring to (and saying) the same thing.

It is nonsensical to say this “is not just an assertion or exclamation in Jesus’s presence, but an addressed acclamation directed to him” because it isn’t directed to him but at him (he does not identify Jesus as who he is referring to, he is merely speaking to Jesus, and he uses none of the markers of acclamation, indeed there isn’t even a verb or predicate, which signifies exclamation not acclamation).

The fact that the Son (as well as the Holy Spirit) is equal to the Father is indicated in the verse Matthew 28:19, where the Name of the Father is the Name of the Son and the Holy Spirit — the Tetragrammaton.

Matthew is not John. So we cannot interpret John by reference to Matthew.

But Matthew also does not there say these are the same people. So we cannot derive that sense from those words. It’s three beings all working under the same name. Your friend has quoted Gieschen out of context: Gieschen’s entire study argues that the name does not entail identical persons but sharing a role. Lit. “possession of the divine name was an important characteristic in the first century CE among Jews for communicating the identification of a figure close to, or even within, the mystery of the God of Israel” and there is “evidence of the divine name being shared or placed upon humans, such as the High Priest or the baptized, as evidence not of divine identity but of union with God.”

Hello Dr.Carrier, my friend (he’s a Christian) made a comment about this:

First of all:This interpretation of John 20:28 is ridiculous. A 1st-century Jew could not have exclaimed “oh my God” or something similar, because such an expression simply did not exist at that time. The exclamation of Thomas was specifically addressed to Jesus:

Several observations support the interpretation that Thomas’s words are in the vocative case and addressed to Jesus. This view predominates among grammarians¹, lexicographers², commentators³, and English translations⁴.

a. Ἀπεκρίθη καὶ εἶπεν implies Thomas’s answer addressed to Jesus. Although this phrase, representing the Aramaic biblical ענה ואמר or Hebrew ויען ויאמר, does not necessarily mean more than “he spoke” (BAGD 93c), in this context, and with the presence of αὐτῷ, ἀπεκρίθη indicates that the direct speech ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου is Thomas’s response to Jesus’s invitation (verse 27). Here Thomas is not answering a formal question (“Thomas answered,” JB), but reacting to a challenge of faith (“Thomas said in response,” NAB¹) in the form of a mild imperative from Jesus (verse 27).

b. Εἶπεν αὐτῷ (verse 28) clearly parallels λέγει τῷ Θωμᾷ (verse 27) and λέγει αὐτῷ (verse 29), on one hand, and ἔλεγον … αὐτῷ (verse 25) on the other. In each case, there is a speaker, a statement immediately following, and an addressee. The entire phrase ἀπεκρίθη Θωμᾶς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ can be translated as “Thomas answered him and said to him.” What follows, therefore, is not just an assertion or exclamation in Jesus’s presence, but an addressed acclamation directed to him.

1. Middleton, 265–66; Abel, $42.(g); Robertson, Grammar, 461–62, 466; BDF $147.(3); Zerwick, Analysis, 251 (but see Zerwick and Grosvenor, 346: “If not rather an exclamation”); C. F. D. Moule, Idiom Book, 116; N. Turner, Insights, 16 (apparently).

2. Thayer, 366 s.v. κύριος; BAGD, 357b; W. Foerster, TDNT 3:1086.

3. Bengel, 2:44; Godet, John, 2:424; Loisy, 511; Alford, 1:912; H. A. W. Meyer, John, 535; Milligan and Moulton, 229; Bauer, 227; Westcott, Gospel, 297; Hoskyns, 548; Brown, Gospel 2:1026, 1047; Brown, Reflections, 28 (= “Jesus” 565); Morris, John, 853 n. 76. Among other authors: B. Weiss, “Gebrauch” 331, 508; Rahner, 1:135; Sabourin, Names, 302; Wainwright, Trinity, 62 (= “Confession” 289); Boobyer, 253; Fuller, Foundations, 88.

4. RV, ASV, Moffatt, Goodspeed, RSV, NASB, GNB, Barclay, NTV, NAB, Cassirer, NRSV.

Source: Murray Harris, Jesus as God, p. 110

Second of all:

The fact that the Son (as well as the Holy Spirit) is equal to the Father is indicated in the verse Matthew 28:19, where the Name of the Father is the Name of the Son and the Holy Spirit — the Tetragrammaton. In this verse, the Holy Spirit is mentioned as a distinct person from the Father and the Son. Here is what Charles Gieschen writes:

As a Jew writing for Jewish followers of Jesus, the author undoubtedly understood the name of the Father as the divine name (cf. Matt. 6:9), but he also asserts that this name belongs to the Son and the Holy Spirit as well. If the Son and the Holy Spirit can be identified with the very same divine name, then a Jew may worship the Son and the Holy Spirit together with the Father as Yahweh (cf. Matt. 28:17).

Charles Gieschen, The Divine Name as a Characteristic of Divine Identity in Second-Temple Judaism and Early Christianity, in Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity, pp. 78–79.

Thus, Yahweh — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And a bit more: Early Christians accepted Jesus as God like the Father; therefore, in the 50s AD, they included Him in the Shema, which Jews recited (1 Corinthians 8:6).

Jesus has life in Himself, just as God does (John 4:24), and He does everything that the Father does (John 5:19).

Based on the above, I do not find the author’s argument convincing.

just before i took my longest break from Facebook [over mostly-Trump-adjacent outrage fatigue] in 2017, Vox’s piece “The Bullshitter-in-Chief” became my most effective blood pressure medication. It finally dawned on me (or at least, it was greatly comforting to be convinced) that the truth-content of the donald’s punchbowl-turds was entirely irrelevant to his purpose du jour.

nowadays I’m far more worried about how staggeringly corrupt and wasteful the GOP, election campaign cycles, and SCOTUS are.

Certainly vis-a-vis the Jesus of theology. Which is the only one we have any writings about.

Colette, your “simple truth” is the claim that Christ is either liar, Lord or lunatic. That is far from simple and far from true. A far more elegant and simple explanation is that Christ is imaginary.

It always takes more words to prove a claim false. A false claim can just be stated in a single sentence. Whereas all the reasons it’s false require explication.

That’s a lot of words to deny a simple truth.

Its psychological appeal rests upon the charismatic sway of Lewis’s wildly popular Narnia books, especially the inspiring depiction of Aslan the lion as a Christ figure. The most vivid statement of the Christian symbolism in Narnia is this, explaining in suitably emotionally resonant and simple terms why Jesus is superior to all other religions because he incarnates the eternal supernatural God from beyond the physical universe: “though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”

To imagine this author as actually a profound theologian rests upon the appeal of this children’s story as a new Christian myth, and fully suits the motivated reasoning of those who deceptively assert the logical status of the trilemma.