And Jesus announced uncompromisingly that anyone who had seen him, had seen the Father! And again, that he said nothing of himself, but as he was instructed by the Spirit, so he spoke. You could not have it much plainer than that: complete identification! But if Jesus really was God incarnate, then maybe he was subject to different Rules from the rest of us?
This idea is summed up in the Latin tag, “Quod licet Jove, non licet bove”. And all through alchemy apparently incest is permitted if you are a king, but not if you are a subject. So maybe Jesus was within his prerogative in identifying himself with an archetype. After all, if the Creator considers himself bound by His own rules, it is by consent, not by compulsion. Yet if Jesus was identified with the archetype of the creator in his psyche, then one would expect him to manifest all the Creator’s attributes, and not some of them only. You would expect Jesus to reveal Humanity, Nature, and the clash of Empires. How about Nature? It is said Jesus was the “Word” through whom all things were created. Or in the language of the medieval schoolmen, Jesus was the ontological reason for all creation. Although I regard any suggestion that he had a detailed knowledge of modern cosmology as absurd, it is still possible to say with Canon Professor Raven that Jesus fulfilled Evolution, which I do. How about the clash of Empires, which many religious people would say was the Creator’s way of educating human nature to live in a civilized society? Sadly Jesus was not interested in the running of secular society, and never for one moment told his disciples to be good citizens. On the contrary, the apocalyptic end of the world was going to come shortly, possibly within the lifetime of some of those present. If evidence is wanted for this beyond Jesus’ sayings, it lies in the refusal of his disciples for centuries to support the Roman Empire, despite the pressure of the barbarians on the frontier, and the obvious risk of the Empire’s collapse. Well, the end of the world did not happen. And Mohammed saw correctly this limitation, or inadequacy, in the Gospel of Jesus; and in contrast insisted that his religion went hand in hand with the running of the state. Put bluntly, you cannot run a society on the basis of forgiveness seventy times seven times; the best you can do, if you want to maintain a humane society, is to try always to give a man one chance. Although forgiveness seventy times seven times may be what the soul craves for in its relationship with God, if you try to run society like this, it ends in chaos. The Chinese reached the same conclusion; the Legalists rejected Confucius’ refusal to enforce the “Way”, because some people, they said, only understood the language of fear. So whatever Jesus may have achieved, he did not provide a way of life for those wishing to preserve a decent just society, pending the apocalyptic end of the world. So was he the Creator incarnate; or is it better to say that Jesus fulfilled Evolution?