Atheism And The Divinity of Christ
- Quod Christus Sit Deus -
By Dr. JAMES LIKOUDIS
In his famous 1983 Templeton Address at Harvard University, Alexander Solzhenitsyn noted that in the West:
“The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short lived value… The West is ineluctably slipping toward the abyss. Western societies are losing more and more of their religious essence as they thoughtlessly yield up their younger generation to atheism. If a blasphemous film about Jesus is shown throughout the United States, reputedly one of the most religious nations in the world, or a major newspaper publishes a shameless caricature of the Virgin Mary, what further evidence of godlessness does one need?”
In that address, the great Russian writer who has exposed at great length the Gulag consequences of 20th c. Marxist atheism, further observed:
“All attempts to find a way out of the plight of today’s world are fruitless unless we direct our consciousness in repentance to the Creator of all.”
One can add that the prevalence of our age’s materialist humanisms that caused Solzhenitsyn to cry out “Men have forgotten God” has stemmed from a renewed virulence of atheistic philosophy, Marxist or liberal trying to reduce the Lord to irrelevance, myth and legend. It has influenced the West’s cultural elites to embrace a theoretical atheism and millions in the largely de-Christianized nations of the West to adopt a practical atheism that ignores the basis of genuine religion – the Ten Commandments.
In addition, the loss or weakening of faith in the divinity of Christ has resulted from the diminishment and defamation of the figure of Christ in the religious thought of secularized Churches, the ravages of higher biblical criticism, and the relentless immersion of populations in the consumerism and materialism fostered by global mass-media. The Christ [who] becomes popular with all too many “is not” the Savior who has redeemed mankind from sin, hell, and the devil by his bloody Passion, Death and Resurrection. Rather, for these, the man of Nazareth was but an ordinary man just like us, whose identity evolved, and who was not sinless. Perhaps he was an admirable mystic with a consuming desire for social justice and the liberation of oppressed peoples, but surely he was not the supernatural, transcendent, and awesome figure consubstantial with the Father proclaimed by historic Christianity.
How could he be when even the entertainment world portrays him as Jesus Christ Superstar and prancing about in Godspell, and our art museums honoring him by displaying the Crucifix in a bucket of urine? Other contemporary blasphemies hurled against Our Blessed Lord and His All-Holy Mother Virgin need not be listed here.
A reviewer commenting on Brad Petre’s excellent new book “The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ”, has written:
“The greatest case for Jesus as Lord is this: 2000 plus years and 2.4 -billion people alive today (and billions more before them) believe in the divinity of Christ”.
He could have added that it is the Catholic Church that is historically responsible for adherence across the centuries to orthodox belief in Christ as the Incarnate Word made flesh. That doctrine is the core-belief identifying Christians. Often forgotten is that the many liberal Protestants who have lost faith in Christ as the God-man have no legitimate right to be called “Christians”.
Firm belief in the Divinity of Christ is, in fact, the best antidote to the negations of both atheists and agnostics.
Christ, the Healer of souls and bodies, would console his disciples across the centuries:
“Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in Me.“
(John 14: 1-2)
Important passages of Vatican I’s “Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith” have stressed how the “evident credibility of the Christian Faith” which is rooted in the divinity of Jesus Christ is intrinsically linked to the teaching of the Catholic Church:
“Nay more, the Church itself, by reason of its marvelous extension, its eminent holiness and its inexhaustible fruitfulness in every good thing, its Catholic unity and its invincible stability, is a great and perpetual motive of credibility, and an irrefutable witness of its divine mission… Those who have received the faith under the teaching of the Church can never have any just cause for changing or doubting that faith.”
In the 4th century a great Greek Father of the Church, St. John Chrysostom, gave his testimony to the mission of the Church to express without equivocation or ambiguity the divinity of its Lord, Jesus Christ. His 4th c. apologetic to “the plain man” remains as valid today for seekers of truth:
“Inasmuch as the great mass of men, either through the slothfulness of their disposition, or on account of their undue anxiety for worldly affairs, or by reason of their dense ignorance, will not willingly bear up under a long discourse, I have judged it necessary to cut away the drudgery of listening to longwindedness and to remove men’s sluggishness by a short argument…
Moreover, I will so speak as to be easily understood by slaves and by maidservants, by widowwomen and by pedlars, by sailors and by farmworkers… If then, an unbeliever should say to me, ‘How can I know that Christ is God?’- since this is the first thing to be established, the rest will all follow from it- I will not draw my proof from heaven or from other such things. For if I say to him that ‘He made the heavens, He made the earth, He made the sea’, this he will not receive. If I say that He raised the dead, He healed the blind, He cast out devils’, this too, he will not accept. If I say, He promised a Kingdom and blessings unspeakable; if I talk to him of the Resurrection, not only will he not receive it, he will laugh at it.
How then, can we approach him, especially if he be but an ordinary man? How but by those things which both of us admit without contradiction, of which there is no doubt? What then, does he admit Christ to have done which he will not dispute? This – that He founded the race of Christians… Twelve disciples followed Him. Of the Church no one had then conceived so much as the name, for the synagogue was still flourishing. At a time when nearly the whole world was under the domain of impiety, what was His prophecy? “Upon this Rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it”. Weigh as you please this word, and you will see the splendor of its truth. For the wonder is, not merely that He has built His Church throughout all the world, but that He has made it impregnable, and this, though it has been assaulted by such conflicts. For by ‘the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it’ are meant dangers which drag down to Hell. Now, hast thou not seen the distinctness of this prediction? Hast thou not seen the strength of the result? Compare one with the other; Behold words which have their justification in facts, and an irresistible power producing its effects with ease. They are but few words: ‘I will build My Church.’ Do not on that account simply run them over, but draw them out in your thoughts, with due attention.'”
(St. John Chrysostom “Contra Judaeos et Gentiles quod Christus sit Deus“, xii.)
About Dr. James Likoudis
James Likoudis was an expert in Catholic apologetics. He is the author of several books dealing with Catholic-Eastern Orthodox relations, including “The Divine Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and Modern Eastern Orthodoxy: Letters to a Greek Orthodox on the Unity of the Church.” He has written many articles published by various religious papers and magazines.
Posted in the Spring of 2017 from the writings of Dr. James Likoudis
Dissent from the Magisterium…. is not compatible with being a “good Catholic”.
– Pope John Paul II –
