What does Jesus mean when he says in Mark 10, "no one is good but God alone"? Is he claiming to be God?
Question:
One of the Bible passages most often pointed to by Jews and Muslims is Mark 10:17-31. They claim in this passage that Jesus claims not to be God; however there are many passages where Jesus undeniably claims divinity for example Mark 14:62. What was Jesus trying to say then when he said: "Why do you call me good? . No one is good except God alone."
Answer:
In Mark 10:18 Jesus asks the rich man, "Why do you call me good?" I believe Jesus purposefully left this a rhetorical/enigmatic question. He was not committing either way here, at least not publicly. What Jesus is saying is something like this. You call me good. Do you realize what you are saying? If I am, indeed, good, as you say, then I am God. Are you prepared to call me God? That is how I understand the interaction between Jesus and the rich man.
John Oakes, PhD
5. My last question is one to do with the Big Bang. The creationist argument is that everything that has a beginning needs a cause and since the Universe had a beginning it need a cause- God. Since God did not have a
beginning he did not need a cause. However, quantum electrodynamics claims that subatomic particles can come into existence through a vacuum fluctuation. These particles have a beginning in time, but they have no cause because vacuum fluctuations are purely random events. Couldn’t the universe have been created in a similar way?
5. Could the universe be created out of nothing like quantum particles? To be honest, this requires a lot of speculation. We really do not know from a physical point of view "why" the universe came into existence. However, to compare the random quantum fluctuations in an already existing universe to an entire universe coming into existence from literally nothing, is to stretch the analogy to ridiculously great extent. It is true that physicists believe that elementary particles can be generated from the vacuum of space. However, these elementary particles are created in an already existent universe which has the properties which allow these infinitesimally small particles to exist. To extrapolate from the random fluctuations in an already existent universe creating a particle with a mass of ten to the minus thirty-one kilograms out to the creation of an entire universe with ten to the plus 31 kilograms of matter, and the simultaneous creation of four dimensional space from nothing is something which cannot be done by a reasonable person. This is utter speculation, with not a shred of scientific experimental support.
John Oakes, PhD
