this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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That's Jesus' "why do you call me good? Only the Father is good". You can never be perfect nor infallible, of course, but maybe you'll be good enough and God will approve of you and that's all we can work towards. No need to use this understanding to give yourself moral allowances though: let your mistakes be mistakes and not plans for immorality.
Woah, did Jesus actually say that (AFAWK)? Because I knew a Christian Scientist who said the whole religion's view of Jesus was that he wasn't a god, he was "a perfect man". That quote sounds like he was literally disclaiming this.
Of course! Mark 10:18. One must remember Jesus was a miraculous prophet of God (not dissimilar to Moses, but his birth was more "special", more akin that of Isaac), a monotheist that constantly referenced "the law and the prophets" (several callbacks to Solomon in particular whom I also hold in high regard, primarily because of Ecclesiastes) and how he wasn't here to break the law but to enforce it... he wasn't followed because he wasn't a "Jew" and it was a new and revolutionary religion he had established, he was followed because he WAS one and remembered/knew what it meant to be one in earnest. What Rome/Paulian tradition did afterwards with the image of Jesus, the creation of a entirely separate dogma in which 'God' is actually a pantheon and also partly FLESH AND BONE/anthropomorphic (following their pagan/polytheistic traditions, and because if not the empire might be reticent to accept such drastic changes), is something else.
There's no "perfect" man, not even the prophets can be with all their God-given information and their great character, as no man is omniscient nor fully in control of themselves. And Jesus goes even harder, saying he's not even "good", because such a strict category only belongs to God. We can only be "good enough", and that's for God to decide.
While it may sound similar it's meaningfully different. Jesus' statement asserts that good is an attritibute that can be had by some being, just not you or me. I am asserting that good is not something anyone can be. There's no deity involved here.