Jesus, Jews, and the Father

“What Nostra Aetate failed to do was to tell the truth about the essence of God’s Grace and Mercy, the truth about our Salvation,” writes a reader of the weblog. ( Nostra Aetate is the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions and a continuing source of controversy to some.)

The writer quoted Jesus’ statement that “No one can come to The Father except through me” as an argument for the declaration that “the Jews and Muslims do not worship the same God as Christians do.” As stated, it seems an air tight argument — only those who know Jesus see the Father, therefore people who don’t know Jesus, don’t — but in fact it’s a nice example of the point many people have made (Chesterton put it rather well) that logic can easily lead one astray, and in this case can bring someone to a position at least close to anti-semitism. Reality is ultimately reasonable but its reasonableness is something we don’t necessarily see because we don’t have all the facts, or perhaps ignore the ones that don’t fit our logic.

As here. For if the reader is right in that reading of the New Testament, what was Jesus doing worshipping in the synagogue?