Brutally dissecting Alex O’Connor’s worst debate performance yet…
Off the bat, the topic “Did Jesus claim to be God” is a very weird one for an atheist to debate. It is a losing argument to begin with and I have seen multiple reaction videos giving Alex some credit for his performance based on the difficulty of the topic but here’s why I have no sympathy for Alex, he chose the topic! In so doing, he set himself up to argue against thousands of years of established Christian tradition as well as the history enshrined in the gospel. He must have fancied himself a big shot mega-intellectual to take on such a topic in the first place and if you are coming for that “theological king of topics”, you better not miss…and boy did Alex miss!
So first off, in a debate, for the uninitiated, the interlocutors each make an opening statement and then have rebuttals and cross examinations to respond to and challenge each other’s opening statement. The whole point of clashes and cross examinations is to robustly test and rigorously defend assertions made in the opening statement. Alex barely engaged the substance of David Wood’s argument which was the two powers in heaven motif. Looking at the gospels, particularly Mark 14:62 where Jesus says He will come on the clouds and the high priest’s dramatic reaction of tearing his clothes and screaming “blasphemy!”, the message communicated by Jesus and how it was received by the high priest literally could not be clearer! Alex instead went on a completely different tangent about interpretations of Jesus’ claims in the gospel of John. Wood never mentioned John in his opening statement, hence Alex lost the debate from a purely technical perspective. Wood’s opening statement by and large went unchallenged. As an aside, it is interesting Alex says John is the least historically reliable of the gospels but he is willing to grant it as history. Convenient isn’t it? Why not engage the other “more historical” gospels if you reject John and Wood did not bring it up? What exactly is the point of the whole line of questioning and argumentation about John if you do not deem it historic and your opponent did not so much a mention John?
Secondly, Alex does his trademark dishonest framing of a Biblical narrative. I will flat out call it dishonesty because the degree of consistency with which Alex does this with zero regard for what the texts are actually saying is very uncanny. Again, Alex is not an idiot, he is a very brilliant guy so I just refuse to believe he does not know the way he frames things does not align with the text and the corpus of Christian scripture. Here are a couple examples.
Alex asks why Jesus prays before raising Lazarus from the dead. He says one thing Christians often use to defend the fact Jesus claims to be God is that He raises people on His own authority unlike Old Testament prophets who pray. He further says Jesus suggests in His prayer that He prays often privately. Why is Jesus asking for God’s authority to raise Lazarus?
A quick reading of the text rebuts Alex,
“And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.” Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!”
(John 11:41–43)
Jesus tells us why He prays before raising Lazarus, to give evidence of the fact He is indeed sent by God to the onlookers. Remember Alex in a previous debate stated Jesus rebuked Thomas for asking for evidence? Well, here Jesus is giving evidence of His authenticity! His prayer is to the effect that He did not even need to pray in that instance! He was doing that just for the sake of the onlookers! Where exactly does Jesus seek God’s permission to raise Lazarus here? He declares, “Lazarus, come forth!”.
Jesus always raised the dead on His own authority.
Of Jairus daughter,
“Then He took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Talitha, cumi,” which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”
(Mark 5:41)
And of the widow of Nain’s son,
“Then He came and touched the open coffin, and those who carried him stood still. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”
(Luke 7:14)
Jesus says to the dead man and the dead girl, “I SAY TO YOU”. It is with the same authority He says to Lazarus, “Come forth!”, it was not a negotiation with anybody else, it was just pure authority! Hence He calls Himself in the very same chapter, the resurrection and the life. These are claims you simply do not make without proof. He proved it by raising the dead, at will and on His own authority and you simply cannot have that level of authority over life and death if you are not God!
Alex also lied through his teeth (and I am not pulling any punches at this point or giving him the benefit of the doubt) when he says there is only one place in scripture people accuse Jesus of claiming to be God and that is John 10. Well, no! People did accuse Jesus of claiming to be God in John 5…but more on this in a minute.
Alex goes on to argue that Jesus’ response to them is Psalm 82 which shows that beings which are not God are called god so according to that logic, Jesus was claiming to be one of those gods but not quite God. To his mind, this claim Jesus is making would be a claim any of those other gods could make so Jesus would not be claiming to be different from those gods. Again, this is ridiculous, we refer to what Jesus says,
“ Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods” ’? If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?”
(John 10:34–36)
The context? They are about to stone Jesus for saying He and the Father are one, which they rightly twig, unlike Alex, is a claim to be God or at least to have some sort of unique relationship with God which they deemed blasphemy. Jesus employs a Kal vchomer (From the lesser to the greater) argument in His defence, the logic is this,
“Your scriptures in Psalm 82 address people hearing the message as gods, if this is the case, how are you saying that I, who have been sent and sanctified into the world am blaspheming if I claim to be the Son of God?”
Even in the very scripture Alex quotes, the punchline is, do you say of whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world…
In that very scripture, Jesus is claiming to have pre-existed with the Father (YHWH) if the latter sends Him. He claims to be “Sanctified” i.e. specially set apart by the Father. How in the world does Alex read this and say Jesus is not making a unique claim here? Jesus, even in that scripture, is claiming He is something unique and special so if those gods in Psalm 82 are addressed as gods, how much more Him?
Now why does Alex lie about John 10 being the only place Jesus is accused of claiming to be God in scripture? Because John 5 obliterates his case, hear the accusation in John 5,
“Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.”
The interpretation of Jesus saying “My Father works therefore I work” here is Jesus making Himself equal with God. So the Jews understood His claim not as one which is accorded to others or being one of the gods in Psalm 82 but being EQUAL with God. This is the same chapter that Jesus claims to be the final judge and the one to resurrect all of humanity at the end of the age thus doubling down on those claims that are the exclusive preserve of YHWH in the Old Testament.
Alex again claimed that when Jesus was accused of breaking the sabbath, he appealed to David, a man, breaking the sabbath and then says that the sabbath was made for mankind not the other way round therefore the son of man is the Lord of the sabbath. The great theological mind that is Alex interprets this to mean that mankind is Lord of the sabbath. It literally does not get more stupid than this!
Let us look at the first mention of the word Sabbath in the Hebrew scriptures,
“…This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord…”
(Exodus 16:23)
And again, we look at the institution of sabbath as one of the ten commandments,
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God…”
(Exodus 20:8–9)
And again as if more emphasis is needed,
“Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.”
(Exodus 31:15)
Do we get the picture here? The Lord of the sabbath is YHWH! The Law of Moses expressly commanded that anyone who profaned the sabbath by working on it should be put to death. How in the world is mankind the lord of the sabbath when it was a command from YHWH which mankind would be put to death for breaching? So when Jesus claims to be the Lord of the Sabbath, who exactly is He claiming to be?
Then Alex entered some very weird territory when he quoted Hebrews 1. Hebrews is literally the last place you want to go if you are arguing against Jesus Christ being God. You just don’t do that. Now technically, Hebrews does not count because it is not Jesus claiming to be God but rather one of His followers writing this about Him. However, Alex brought Hebrews 1 up, so we have to hold him to account using Hebrews 1. As Festus told Paul, “Hath thou appealed to Hebrews 1? To Hebrews 1 we shall go”
Alex read,
“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son..”
(Hebrews 1:1)
Alex then asked that if God has only spoke to us through Jesus in these last days, where was Jesus in the time of the prophets?
We literally need to keep reading the same scripture Alex cited, see what it goes on to say about the Son,
“…whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person”
It expressly portrays Jesus as being active during creation. Not just that, it also says,
“But to the Son He says:
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;
Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”
And:
“You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed.
But You are the same, and Your years will not fail.”
(Hebrews 1:8–12)
Hebrews has the Son addressed as YHWH (Lord) and God, which ultimately buries Alex. End of debate!
Word to the wise, if you ever want to argue against the notion that Jesus is God, then, drawing inspiration from Will Smith, may I yell to you, “Keep Hebrews’ name out yo mouth!”.
Again, I have never been terribly impressed with Alex. His tactics in this debate again just confirmed my impression of him, some of which have been reflected in earlier articles. In particular, his trademark move of framing scripture in a way that bolsters his argument but has no bearing on what the scriptures he is framing are actually saying, his penchant for ignoring words (like “do you say of whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world”) and emphasizing words when convenient is just old and disgusting at this point.
In all, it was a horrible performance from Alex. He did garb his very weak arguments in ostensibly strong but ultimately fraudulent rhetorical garments and caught out Wood with his irrelevant (as far as Wood’s argument per his opening statement was concerned) questions on John’s gospel, he had what people might think were strong moments during the open dialogue section, but ultimately embarrassingly lost this debate . Jesus’ claim to deity is outright impossible to argue against. You can say He was wrong or that you do not agree but to say Jesus never claimed to be God? That is an impossible position to defend. I think Alex chose that topic to be the one contrarian hero that takes on this impossible challenge but he ultimately collapsed under the weight of Hebrews 1 and the words of the gospel of John leaving his own mouth.
I welcome any atheist on the planet to prove me wrong and defend the fact Jesus never claimed to be God.
I’ll wait…
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