I recently debated Pastor Samuel Green on the topic of, “An Incarnate God: Fact or Fiction”. I argued that the Incarnation of a God, in this case – Christ, was fiction using the following reasoning:

1. The Jews have no concept of the hypostatic union or of theophanies in their religious literature.
2. The earliest Christians debated the nature of Christ and each group ascribed their view to a disciple/ apostle.
3. The earliest Christians were primarily Greek gentiles who were familiar with incarnation philosophy and theology.
4. The early Church therefore read the Jewish books with a Greek philosophical and theological understanding.
5. In both the Greek and Jewish cultures, men of fame and great public interest were declared to be of divine birth/ natures.
6. The Greek concept of a Theophany is at odds with the Jewish belief of Shali’ah.
7. The Church unfairly forced a fixed vote promoting one Bishop’s arguments for a pro-hypostatic union Christ.
8. The members of the Church revolted and in 359 CE Arius’ position (ante-Nicene) was adopted.
9. Athanasius’ hypostatic union/ dual natured Christ was declared a heresy under larger Ecumenical councils throughout the Christian world.
10. My conclusion therefore is that an incarnate Christ as a God was a theology developed by Greek minded elements of the early Church, adopted by the Church, refuted and declared heretical by the Church and later re-adopted, thus showing it’s early development into a doctrine as opposed to something which was initially and always believed by the majority of Christians.

Pastor Samuel’s arguments were:

1. The incarnation theology can be found in the Torah, Prophets and Psalms.
2. Daniel 7 is an evidence of this.
3. It’s God’s promise to live amongst us.
4. To listen to God is to read what He has mentioned in the Prophets.

and Allaah knows best.