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In 1 Corinthians 8:6, Paul says,

...yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Is this statement by Paul a gift to unitarians (who hold that the one God is the Father, but not Jesus), or does he here imply that Jesus and the one God, the creator, are one and the same?

In this episode we look more deeply at this latter interpretation, and investigate two arguments offered by Dr. Richard Bauckham and others. They are:

* If Paul meant the one Lord to be someone other than (not numerically identical to) the one God, then he would be asserting two gods, and so denying monotheism.

* Paul is not here denying monotheism.

* Therefore, Paul doesn't mean the one Lord here to be someone other than (not numerically identical to) the one God - which is to say that he means the one Lord and the one God to be numerically identical. In other words, the one Lord is the one God himself.

And,

* Jesus created the cosmos.

* Only God created the cosmos.

* Therefore, Jesus is God.

He we begin to evaluate these arguments, and consider this interpretation in light of other things Paul says about God and Jesus.

Sources quoted in this episode:

* Bowman and Komoszewski, Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ.

* Chapter 6 of Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel.

* "The Apostle Paul a Unitarian" in Sixteen American Unitarian Tracts.

* The Racovian Catechism.