The Problem of Calling Jesus “God”

● Many theologians recognize the problem of calling Jesus “God,” for as Theologian H. W. Montefiore wrote in the book Soundings​—Essays Concerning Christian Understanding: “Jesus knew himself to be the Son of his heavenly Father: he described himself as Lord and as Son of Man. Negatively, he did not describe himself as God.” And The Christian Century, May 19, 1971, observed regarding the Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner that he “is willing to define Jesus as ‘Lord and Savior’ but stops short of calling him God.”

In a lecture delivered in 1968, Theology Professor G. H. Boobyer focused on this problem, and asked: “Can you hold together, as many New Testament scholars seem still to do, the two positions that on the one hand critical study of the Gospels discloses a Jesus with no consciousness of being God and making no claim to be God and on the other hand the belief that Nicene christology, declaring him ‘True God of true God’ is a right credalization of the New Testament evidence? I would at least suggest that this problem is becoming sufficiently acute today to be in itself a reason for that ‘re-appraisal of the Church’s belief in Christ right up to the present day’ which . . . A. Grillmeier speaks of as urgent.”

In other words, they are admitting that belief in the trinity is on a shaky foundation.