Does Jesus Have A God?

 A common question you might hear from Muslims is, "Does Jesus have a God?" The answer is Yes, of course He does. He says this repeatedly in scripture. Romans 15:6, 2 Cor 1:3, Ephesians 1:3;7. Now where this goes from here is usually with a follow up question: How is this possible? I've listened to many Christians stumble in trying to answer this question and get steamrolled by Muslims. And I've seen it happen enough to motivate me to write down an answer. 

How is possible that God have a God? There are a couple ways to answer this. The first is to analyze what "to have a God" means. Because this could be interpreted in a few different ways, I suspect that Muslim apologists get a lot of mileage out of not defining this relation. What it means to "have" a God is commonly meant as something like creator. We commonly understand the Christian God to be our Creator and Sustainer. So, to say that Jesus has a God would mean that Jesus is also a created being, which is contrary to being God, since God is eternal. So this would be problematic. 

Having a God could also mean something that we worship. Why? Because we deem that thing worthy. And God certainly is worthy. And as it so happens, to worship something means it is worthy. So, if Jesus deems the Father to be worthy, and worthy of sacrifices, then Jesus worships the Father, and so in that sense, the Father is the God of Jesus. This is perfectly consistent with Jesus being God. To recognize the worthiness of God does not take away from being God. 

Suppose God never created. God would recognize His own worthiness from eternity, but God recognizing His own worthiness does not take away from His Godhood. So God recognizes God. And we can mirror the Muslim argument: How could God worship God?

A second way to answer this, as St. Thomas Aquinas does here, is to predicate the subjugation of Jesus to the Father to the human nature of Christ. Since God the Father is greater than the human nature of Jesus, then it is appropriate to say the The Father is greater than Jesus in that respect. But it wouldn't be true in respect to the God nature of Jesus. 

In sum, we have to clearly define what to "have a God" means, and make sure we aren't changing definitions in the middle of arguments, since there are different definitions available. And we have to make sure we are predicating appropriately according to the two natures of Jesus. 

And with that, the Muslim cannot effectively use this question. 

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