I was a guest on last Sunday’s episode of Vincent Browne’s series ‘Challenging God’ on TV3, along with fellow guests Jesuit priest Peter McVerry and former professor of theology at TCD Sean Freyne, who has sadly died since the episode was recorded. The episode was dedicated in Sean Freyne’s memory.
This topic for this episode was what was so special about Jesus? You can view it (for a while) online on TV3 Player.
Here are three extracts from the episode:
Was Jesus God?
Jesus and morality
The resurrection of Jesus
What was so special about Jesus? My appearance on Vincent Browne’s Challenging God on TV3
Good work Michael. I enjoyed the program, which was more interesting than the 1st one.
Frankly you are right, the two guests were practically atheistic as far as orthodox christianity was concerned and I found it amusing that even saying jesus was god was optional in their mind. Out goes silly concepts like heaven or hell, souls, afterlife, the bible stories (yet somehow it remains a guide to a utopian society), etc.
I wonder what your regular Irish church goer made of it, if they even bothered to watch it.
Vincent behaved himself and was a fine host.
Jesus said ‘I and my Father are one’… ‘ and… ‘the Father is in me, and I in him’. John 10 vs 30 and 38.
Unlike us mortals whose minds are identified with our physical form and its material designations, Jesus’ being was united with the Consciousness of God. Although a man, he possessed God’s omnipresent consciousness imminent in creation and in this sense can be said to be God. But he was not the entirety of God because as he said, ‘the Father is greater than I’ John 14 v28. The infinite may choose to become the finite but still remains the infinite. But being a full incarnation of God, Jesus possessed all God’s qualities. ‘All things that the Father hath are mine’. In this way he was indeed special, being one with the Universal Mind, upon which the physical universe rests, he could manipulate the fabric and physical laws of nature. Perceiving all phenomena as essentially the ‘frozen’ thoughts of God, he could rearrange those thoughts to produce the changes in their manifestations that we call miracles.