Yahweh said "I am that I am"
Jesus said "before Abraham was born I AM"
Clearly the two are not the same because Jesus didn't say "before Abraham was born I am Yahweh".
Plus how can any Christian claim this makes him diety if so many statements openly contradict it?
So in that context I would say "look Jesus worshipped God, The Father, and said The Son can do nothing of his own etc"
And the Christians will say "it's because in the flesh he came to serve" yet under the same breath they're saying "he was FULLY God in the flesh"
You will never get a logical answer from these Christians. Theologically they are lost and make it up as they go along.
The truth is that God is Transcendent and Immanent.
God expresses HIS Immanence through His Word, which the Jewish philosopher Philo symbolically called "the only begotten son of God". The Word/LOGOS was the Greek interpretation of the eastern/Hindu concept of Vishnu, the universal conciousness (ie you have incarnations of Vishnu like Rama and Krishna and ganesha etc) which Philo linked to the term "image of God".
So Jesus being an incarnation of the Word, was speaking AS the Image. Eg before Abraham was born I AM, refers to that metaphysical level that is The Word meeting the Immanence of God.
We are all made in HIS Image....as in the Image is the macrocosm and we are the microcosms
If you think of The Image as the primordial ocean of conciousness, we are drops.
The concept of the incarnation is a historical philosophical idea of the Ocean itself manifesting in the drop. Or think of it as a seed and a tree, where the tree is in a seed and the seed is in the tree. The idea of a tree in a seed refers to the archetype of the perfect tree...and in this context that is the archetype of the perfect Image incarnated I to a man.
These concepts were eastern Hindu, Persian and incorporated into Greek philosophy and then reinterpreted into a Judaic context.
In that time this was a new age philosophy in the Hellenised world.
It is heavily steeped in a pantheistic world view. Since the Image is the expression of God...God is Immanent in it and the Image is in all things.
So God is in all things.
The Jews were lost in the monothiestic view of God transcendence eg they believed in God but their hearts became distant from God. What Jesus was preaching was for people to become absorbed in the perception of God's Immanence in all thing.
So Jesus said "let your eye be single"
Eg to see ONE in ALL.
To love God with all our heart and to love thy neighbour.
Paul said "to the pure of mind, all things are pure"
So one of the disciples asked Jesus "show me God" and Jesus angrily responded "haven't you learnt anything by now? If you have seen me you have seen God".
Now a limited Christian would take that statement literally as if Jesus himself is the Absolute God essence (the invisible Father) but he obv isn't. Yet Jesus contradicted it many times saying "the son can do nothing only the Father".
Because the Son/logos/image is only the medium of God's Expression and isn't God on its own.
"Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. "
There is a Christian saying that's also a Sufi saying, I think st Augustine said it and rumi repeated it.
"God is the lover, the beloved and the love itself"
This is only something someone can perceive through experiencing God's Immanence.
Why LOVE? Love unites conciousness.
If the primary teaching of Jesus was LOVE then obviously it's because we are all ONE eg drops from the primordial ocean.
Becoming aware of God's Immanence in all things is due to the awareness of our own selves eg what we are deep down, pure Spirit.
Jesus didn't only say "I am in the Father and the Father is in me" he also said "I am in you and you are in me".
Christians pick and choose which statements to take literally...and usually they will focus on one statement whilst ignoring another 10 and later do the same thing with another statement. As it suits them.
This is what happens when people are attached to their own identity more than truth. They only see what their ego allows them to see.
Many Muslims do this too...but nowhere close to the way Christians do.
The trinity, is centered on the perception of God's Immanence.
Eg the Father(the Transcendent Essence)
Immanent in
The Son (the Macrocosm)
The holy spirit (the microcosm).
The SON is the image not just of man but the whole of creation. The SON/Word of God is ALL things..eg God is Immanent in ALL things.
It was incarnated in Jesus, but that doesn't mean it is limited only to Jesus.
Jesus was teaching Jews to open their hearts and minds to God's presence in all things/people/situations.
And Christians went and butchered this teaching so that people don't even know the difference between Immanence and transcendence and think of God only as Jesus the son of man.
It is disgusting really...and I know this isn't authentic Christianity either.
The trinity is called the Immanent Trinity.
It relates to God's immanence
In islam, love is replaced with MERCY/Rahma as the primary Quality of God's Immanence. So all over the Qur'an, in all but one chapter, they begin with the words
Bismillah IrRahman IrRaheem
This statement is another reference to the same ultimate Truth of God's Immanence eg God expresses/bestows His Mercy on ALL things.
So if a person has some perception of God's Immanence, they can see God even in the worst circumstances eg look beyond the material to sense God's presence (Love/Mercy) behind all of it.
Look at the example of Plotinus, he was a Greek philosopher during the period of Christianity ago was not Influenced by christianity. He travelled to Persia and it was there he gained insight and began to believe in The ONE(God) and the trinity.
Despite never being christian, his ideas directly Influenced st Augustine..who wrote THE primary text on the trinity that resulted in the trinity becoming a mainstream christian idea.
How many Christians on this forum even knew who Plotinus was? He is really the founding father of the trinity but he was only the one who Introduced it to Europeans. Hindus and Persians already had these beliefs and even the messianic figures.
Think about it, Jesus is called The Lord of Lords in the book of Revelation, yet that is really just the title Shahen Shah from Persian tradition.
The archetypes present in the later Christian idea of the second coming of Jesus reflect Persian messianicism and Hindu eg the decendant of Zoroaster..riding a white horse (the kalki avatar).
These ideas are shared archetypes that manifested in Jesus.
Due to the way Jews rejected Jesus and tried to later manifest their own Messiah in the 7th century by making Persians and byzantines to fight and then take Jerusalem....it led to Mohammed reflecting those Jewish messianic archetypes so he also resembled many of these archetypes eg the suffering servant in Mecca and the davidic conqeror in Madina and Islam took Jerusalem.
When ideas/archetypes exist in the collective consciousness and people wish to see them they do...but usually not how they intended. The Greek and Persian philosopher's (the wise) were the primary movers behind the messianic manifestation (that's why Jesus was visited by the 3 Magians/Zoroastrians)
Christians have lost touch with the original ideas. Muslims absorbed them better through Sufism. Muslims have had to live in the centre of Hindu, Persian and greek/Christian cultures.
All that means is generally Muslims are more connected/open to God's Immanence aswell as accepting how other religions contained these ideas. For example when Muslims arrived in India they originally said the Hindus were pagan. Later many Muslims said that the Hindus were following the original religion of Adam!! (But had tainted it with falsehood). So Muslims were capable of seeing good beneath the surface.
The highest stage of faith in Islam is called Ihsan...and it is about being aware of God's immanence in All things.
Christians don't officially have such ideas given to them. All they are told is "Jesus is LoRd"
And on that, I have highlighted many times that Lord, when applied to Jesus via Psalm 110 is the word Adoni which proves Jesus isn't God since God is AdonAI.
It is no different to saying "Lord Alan sugar" eg it doesn't make Alan sugar God because Lord is his title.
If Christians don't even get this point how can they ever teach Christianity to anyone?
Btw I am generalising, there are some pretty deep christians who understand every point I've made here and have even more insight than I. Sometimes I get lucky and meet one but usually it is a chance random meeting that stays with me for years. Those guys however, they are the more.open minded types who can look beyond the labels and dogma.
