 It might be something of a tired refrain in these videos that I'm making, but I want to remind my audience that I'm talking about Christianity today, but as with the other religions that I've talked about, trying to encompass all of Christianity inside of 20 or 25 minute videos, probably impossible. To make matters more difficult, there may not be a single claim to which all who identify as Christians would agree, at least some of what have been called doctrinal claims throughout the centuries. Now I'm going to speak as if what I'm about to talk about is something that all Christians agree to, but that may not be true. Please keep in mind, I'm just trying to provide an educational video and an introductory educational video at that, so I'm not intending to offend, I'm not intending to offend. All I'm trying to do is give some of the major topics, some of the major concepts within Christianity. The first thing I'm going to talk about might be perhaps the most mysterious thing about Christianity, and that's the Trinity. So the Trinity, according to Christians, is a revelation about the nature of God. You might recall when we looked at Judaism that the Adonai, God, was utterly mysterious since Adonai is creator of everything else, but is not like everything else. And this much is still true with the Trinity, because even though for Christianity the divine has revealed something about its nature, what we understand about it is at best a mystery. So what is the Trinity? The Trinity is the claim that there is one God, and only one God. Christians still assert monotheism. However, this one God has three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit. So the one God has three Persons. Now each person is distinct from every other person of the Trinity, and yet each person is God. So a mistaken way to understand this is to say that there are three Gods. Christianity says, no, there's not three Gods. That's not what we're saying. Another mistaken way of saying this is that God appears as one of the three Persons at different times. Christianity says, no, that's not it either. Each person is distinct from the other, and it's not merely an appearance by God. Each person exists. Each person is God. So what I've just described there, and there's two misunderstandings, those are two broad ways. According to the Christians, those are two broad ways that one can make an error in a belief about the Trinity. The first is to deny monotheism, that there is only one God, and also to deny that each person is the one God. The other broad category of error is to deny the distinction between Persons. So the traditional formulation of the Trinity is that something like, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God, the Father is not the Son, the Father is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Son, the Son is not, you know, so forth. That the Persons are distinct, but they're each identical, but each are God. Other ways to, according to Christianity, other ways to make this error is to say that somehow the three Persons together compose God? I'd say, no, that's not it, because that would mean that each is not God, only a part of God. Other classical ways of making an error about this is to say that each person is a mode of God, or appears in different ways as God. So a lot of times when people try to explain the Trinity, they'll say something like, well, just as steam and ice and, you know, liquid are all water, so is the Father, the Spirit and the Son all God. Well, you know, that's an old error called a modalism, and the idea, the error there is to say that, you know, steam and ice and water are actually distinct from each other, they're just different appearances of water. And your Christians say, well, no, that's not it either, right? All three are distinct Persons, they're not just appearances of God, they're distinct Persons. Now it's, you know, Christianity comes under criticism for this description of the Divine, for this conception of the Divine, the Trinity, by saying, look, it's kind of nonsensical, how can three Persons be each identical to God, but not identical to each other, and, you know, either not be polytheism, or, you know, not be three different Persons, right? This doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And Christianity says, well, yeah, I mean, this is a mystery, and we're talking about the nature of the Divine here, you'd expect it to be easy to understand. And, you know, Christianity can, you know, or Christians, Christians and Christianity, can further say, look, let's not pretend we have a clear understanding of what it means to be a person anyway. There's a whole branch of philosophy trying to understand what it means to be a person, and there's no answer there that's easy to accept or doesn't have its own problems. We don't have a ready and viable answer that just cleanly understands personal identity over time. You know, even saying that each person of the Trinity is of the same being, let's not pretend we have a uniform account of what it means to exist. These are all still difficult to understand, even when we're not dealing with the Divine. When we try to understand this as a divinity as well, of course it's going to be mysterious. So that's something that Christians can offer, kind of in reply. So, you know, the first main concept about Christianity here is the Trinity. So the next thing we're going to talk about is what's called the incarnation for Christianity. And the incarnation refers to Jesus of Nazareth, or Jesus Christ. And the claim here is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity. So remember the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the three persons of the Trinity. Well, Jesus Christ is the Son, the Son of God. That in and of itself, okay, this actually still hasn't quite got to the incarnation. What this means, or the incarnation means, is that Jesus Christ is both God and human. Both God and human. This is to say that, again, you know, the second person of the Trinity, the second person is God. Well, Jesus Christ is God. But this is not to claim that Jesus Christ is somehow not human. Now this, you know, might be a little, you know, it's kind of easy to say, you know, kind of off the cuff, but trying to comprehend what this means can be a little, you know, strange. After all, you know, it's also part of Christianity that Jesus Christ died and is resurrected. So he was crucified on a cross, suffered a horrible, horrible death, died as a result of that crucifixion, and rose from the dead. So this means God is dead and came back to life? It can be rather difficult to understand. Even to say, you know, it's like, well, how did this, you know, how did this Jesus come to be? After all, all human beings have a beginning. And, you know, we don't want to say that Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ had a beginning, does this mean that God had a beginning? And Christianity, or at least most Christian theologians would say, no, no, it's not to say that God had a beginning. And, you know, they kind of make the distinction that, you know, the humanity of Jesus had a beginning, the humanity of Jesus, they try to go on from there. It gets a little messy. I'm not going to try to, I mean, you could spend a whole other video trying to understand or explain the trinity, or excuse me, the incarnation. And you would still have a great deal of difficulty. So I'm not trying to do that. I'm just trying to explain that there is a difficulty to begin with. Nevertheless, despite this difficulty Christianity asserts, at least most Christianity asserts, that Jesus Christ is both God and man. There isn't an incompatibility between the two. And that his divinity is not diminished by his humanity. And even that he, you know, he's somehow, you know, wasn't subject to the sufferings of humanity because of his divinity. He had both, even while he was suffering in life and was suffering in his death on the cross, he was still divine. That wasn't somehow mitigated by his divinity. So just as there are errors, classical errors about the trinity for Christianity, there are classical errors about the incarnation. And again, they fall into, you know, two broad camps, either denying the divinity of Jesus or denying the humanity of Jesus. So, you know, ways of denying the humanity is to say, well, Jesus didn't really suffer. Jesus was God, just kind of looked like Jesus was suffering. Or, you know, saying something like, you know, when pointing to the fact that Jesus was human, had a human nature, it's like, well, yeah, and you can't really be God when you have a human nature. He didn't really get his divine nature till after his death and resurrection. Christianity is saying, no, that's not it. Even while he was walking around on earth and preaching from the moment of his conception to the moment, all through his early childhood, yeah, that little child was God. So, you know, just as the trinity is mysterious, so is the incarnation. So is the incarnation. But again, you know, we can criticize Christianity for this, and that's fine. I don't want to say don't criticize Christianity. But, you know, Christianity is going to say again, it's like, look, let's not pretend we understand fully either the divine nature or human nature. So until we really understand that, we need not say, or we need not, actually, we need not, but we really can't conclude that there's some kind of contradiction in claiming that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. Fully divine and fully human. Until you can lay out exactly what divinity is and lay out exactly what humanity is, which we really haven't been able to do, and point to the contradiction. So with both, it's quite, it's quite getting a little tired at this point, right? With both the trinity and divinity, we ask Christianity to explain this, not like we can. That's a criticism of Christianity, but it's also their refuge, right? Because we say, well hey, you should be able to explain this. And Christianity says, why? This is dealing with divinity, and it's not like we do a much better job just dealing with ourselves when we use just our own powers of reason. It's probably an unsatisfactory answer. And, you know, don't blame you. Nevertheless, it's kind of a way to go as far as this is concerned. So, you know, here we've got two main parts of Christianity, and that's the claims about the trinity and claims about the incarnation. Okay, so we have these two claims about the trinity and about the incarnation. Now, Christianity is, at the very least, I don't want to say reaction to Judaism, but they definitely see their roots coming from Judaism. And they might add on a few details, a few more details than the heavers necessarily would. So, if you recall the story in the Old Testament, excuse me, in Torah, about the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve betraying Adonai in the garden, Christians say, well as a result of that betrayal in the garden, humanity, all of humanity, with all of humanity, has what's called original sin. Okay. Now, original sin is basically the way of humanity saying, look, this is how we're damaged. We're damaged beings. We are somehow prone or susceptible to sinning, to further betraying against the divine. Adam and Eve, they didn't have original sin. Nevertheless, they still betrayed Adonai. But that same betrayal, as a result of that betrayal, that ability or that inclination to further betray the divine continues on with all of us. And there's various explanations how this is actually transmitted. And various theologians have tried to give an account of how this works. That much isn't necessary to Christianity. Again, this is one of the times where Christians say, well, I don't know how it happens. It doesn't know how that happens. But the claim is nevertheless there that what happens is, from generation to generation, we are susceptible to betraying against Adonai. Or the Trinity, excuse me. Now, if you remember with Judaism, Torah was given to the chosen people by Adonai as a way to reestablish that relationship with Adonai. Now, it doesn't take long looking at Torah before you realize exactly how difficult that it is to fulfill it. It's really hard. And Christianity is going to say, yeah, it's really hard. In fact, you can't do it. And quite a lot of Hebrews, at the very least, will say, yeah, it's pretty difficult to do this. Maybe we can't. And sometimes there's passages in Torah where the Hebrews are saying, yeah, we can't do this. We're going to be forever separated from Adonai. We are just cooked. This is it. So your original sin is the problem to be solved. The problem to be solved. And Torah was supposed to be our way to solve this problem. Fulfilling the law. Now Christianity is going to say, yeah, that's supposed to be the way to solve the problem. And we have to, at least some kind of human being has to be able to do this. Judaism says, yeah, we need a Messiah. Some kind of Savior is going to fulfill the law, bring all the nations under righteous living, and then we'll have our relationship established, re-established with Adonai. Judaism says, this Messiah has yet to come. Christianity says, no, no, the Messiah came. Christianity says, Jesus of Nazareth is this Messiah. Christ is not the last name of Jesus of Nazareth. Christ is, I think it's Christos from Greek, which is the Greek word for Savior, and Messiah is the Hebrew word for Savior. So when Christians say Jesus Christ, they're saying Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the Savior, Jesus the One who fulfills the law of Torah. Now this is at least one major point of departure between Christians and Jews. Is the claim that the Messiah has in fact come? So for Christianity, the Torah has been fulfilled, has been fulfilled, and is fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus, the Messiah, Jesus the Christ. And through that fulfillment, we have re-established that relationship with the divine. Now you might listen to this discussion about original sin and how Jesus is the Redeemer, the Messiah, and you might think, hey, okay, so Torah has been fulfilled. Jesus fulfilled Torah through the sacrifice, and there's really nothing more left for me to do. That job's been done. I could just sit back and wait for my salvation to come. Why would I even need to go to church or even say that I'm a Christian? Christianity says, well, it's not quite as simple as that. Yes, Jesus fulfilled Torah, but even according to a lot of Hebrew ideas about the Messiah, the Messiah fulfills Torah, but then we follow along with the Messiah. We follow what the Messiah says. So if you just want to take that approach, there's still a lot of work to be done. And there's a little bit more to it than that. So to really have this salvation, according to Christianity, the phrase kind of quickly falls off the tongue, except Jesus as your savior. What does that mean? Well, one way to deny that Jesus is your savior is to deny that you needed saving to begin with. And this is a very fast reply to Christianity. I don't need any salvation. I'm just fine with whatever is going on, be it a divine creator or be it an empty universe. I don't need saving. I'm not telling you you have to accept Christianity. All I'm saying is this is from the Christian perspective. So here's one way to deny Jesus is your savior. The first is to deny that you need saving to begin with. The second is to deny that you need Jesus to do this. There's various ways of doing it. You say, well, look, I'm a good person. I live a great life. I'm moral. I don't kill anybody. I have a job. I contribute to society. I don't need. Even if I need a redemption, I've earned it. I've done it myself. Through my own efforts, through my own abilities, through my own work, through my own character, I'm a good person. I don't need Jesus to save me. So these are two ways to deny that Jesus is your savior and to accept that Jesus is your savior, you have to kind of go the other direction. The first is to acknowledge that you do need redemption, to acknowledge your own sinfulness. Through original sin, through your own further actions after that, through your own character. There's lots of ways to try to go about doing this, but you're just saying, I need this. I need this redemption. I can't do it. And then on top of that, I say, not only do I need redemption, I can't do it. Jesus' redemption is what can save me. Jesus sacrifices what saves me, not something that I can do. I can't fulfill Torah. I can't earn a place at the side of the divine. I can't do this. So people say to acknowledge Jesus as your savior, those are the two big things. You acknowledge, first of all, that you need saving, that you're in your center. And secondly, that Jesus' sacrifice, not your own, Jesus' sacrifice is the sacrifice that saved you and it's the only thing that could save you. It's the only thing that could save you. And this is, usually in Christianity, this is achieved, or at least a big part of it, maybe not achieved, but a big part of it, or as necessary for this is baptism, is baptism, and then asking for forgiveness, asking for mercy, which is in effect saying, I'm sorry, not only to the divine, but to everybody. So now we come to an interesting question for Christianity. So we just got finished discussing how Jesus is the one to have fulfilled Torah. And even how this one's own redemption is found and accepting, exactly what that's supposed to mean, but somehow accepting that Jesus of Nazareth is your savior, or Jesus Christ is your savior. Now let's suppose there's no real puzzle about that. We can look at Christianity and say, well, okay, so suppose I get this whole idea about Jesus Christ is my savior. Why bother with the Trinity? Why bother with the Incarnation? I mean, even if they're true, even if they're true Christians, you admit these are mysterious. They are at best difficult to articulate, much less try to understand, and it's not like you can explain it to anybody. By your own admission, they are mysteries. So why bother including them? Even if they are true, why bother including them? Now a lot of Christian theologians are going to say that these revelations, well, they're important. Whenever the Divine has made a revelation about His own nature, that's been important. You start back in Torah, back in Genesis and Exodus, when the Divine has revealed something about His own nature, that's supposed to have some kind of impact on us, that's supposed to guide us and tell us something important about how to live our life and how to establish His relationship between the Divine and us. The same is true here with the Trinity, and the same is true with the Incarnation. So for instance, without the Incarnation, without the claim that Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine, if we just ignore the Divinity part, then we'll never realize that our salvation was so important to us, as are so important to the Divine that God went and got it for us. We've been unable to do it. Without the revelation that Jesus Christ is fully divine, it would have been just another person to have purchased our salvation. And then we'd be beholding to that person, not to the Divine. And we'd have to owe our apology to that person, not to the Divine. So without that, that Jesus Christ is divine, we would never know how involved the Divine has been in our own redemption and that we owe our redemption to the Divine. That would be gone. Without the claim, I suppose we just always said that Jesus was divine, but didn't really have the humanity part, we would never know that Divinity is somehow compatible with humanity. That one can be both divine and human. You don't have to give up your humanity to be divine. And Divinity is not diminished by humanity. That's kind of huge. That's an important thing. Without the Trinity, without the relationship discussed with the Trinity, we wouldn't have the notion that this is how we're supposed to treat each other. Just as there's a family relationship within the Trinity, we're supposed to treat each other like family. And this relationship, it's not one of King, Knight and Nave, it's not something like that, it's Father, Son and Spirit. They're family. And when you consider the story of creation, where Adonai creates Adam and Eve and the image of likeness of Adonai, again, this looks like some kind of family relationship. And without this revelation, maybe we wouldn't have any kind of notion of how we're supposed to treat each other. Not just our own family members, but the fact that we're all family. You know, Christian theologians will say, well, look, contrary to the idea that these are just weird mysteries that we kind of have to tack on to Christianity, they are important. Without these mysteries, we would never know that, you know, I mean, we're not divine, but our humanity can be something like this Divinity. And the other best way that we exemplify this Divinity is through our family relationships and how we treat each other with love and respect and equality. We care for one another even at the expense of our own selves, and not just blood family, but everyone, everyone's your adopted family. And without all of this, without all these kind of revelations, we never know that, you know, yeah, we're supposed to treat each other like family. But when we fail in that, we're supposed to be merciful.