If you want the Christian answer, it's far less complicated than you all are making it. He is a God in a Human body. You lot are assuming to be human you cannot be god, and vice versa.
And he is held to be the
only one who is both human and divine. That's the traditional doctrine, anyway. Which - if you have a mythic-membership/conformist worldview - is held as true because it is sanctioned by authority figures within the church. Or as Phantom said, it's:
...built on faith, not logic. You are just, well, you're just supposed to believe and not ask questions.
Yet, as a Christian, I feel the imperative to follow Jesus' example. The Biblical story shows Jesus rejecting the parts of his Jewish tradition that were outdated or inadequate, and incorporating the better parts of the tradition into a new understanding (See Matthew chapter five; "You have heard it said... but I say to you...").
The Biblical stories were composed by people coming primarily from a Red-warrior worldview and an Amber-mythic worldview. However, modern humanity is primarily Orange-rational and Green-pluralistic. Therefore, it is only appropriate to take a rational and post-rational (pluralistic) approach to Christianity.
I don't really
get upset hold a grudge when people reject the Bible on logical grounds; this represents a leap forward in human understanding. As we move forward even farther, we can begin to appreciate the Bible as a useful tool for understanding human cognitive evolution.
However, I vehemently reject the notion that religion, of all the world's institutions, is fundamentally unable to move upwards through the stages of growth. Religious and non-religious folk alike mistake the Amber
level of spirituality for the
entire spiritual line of development.
In keeping with this, I believe - based on my own spiritual inquiry and transpersonal experiences, and the confirmation of those who have taken up the same methods of introspection - that we are all spiritual beings on a human journey. I believe, as Jesus did, that we are all gods:
"(Jesus said,) I and the Father are one.
The Jews took up stones again to stone him.
Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?
The Jews answered him, For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, 'I said, ye are gods?'"
John 10:30 - 10:34
Jesus claims to be the son of god, yes. Multiple times. He does not claim to be god, for god is a separate entity.
See above passage; Jesus' answer only makes sense if he is rebutting their accusation by claiming that all men are gods.
And again, from the gospel of John:
"They are not of the world even as I am not of the world.
Sanctify them in the truth: thy Word is the truth.
As though didst send me into the world, even so I sent them into the world.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves may also be sanctified in truth.
Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe in me through their word;
that they may all be one; even as thou Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me.
And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one;
I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst me."
John 10:16 -10:23
Sorry for the long quotation, but I want to give some context to the statement "that they may be one as I and the Father are one. The Amber lens sees the above passage as an imperative to spread the message of the Bible, and an assertion that we are to "place our faith in Christ", which basically means to accept that we are guilty and Jesus took our punishment for us.
But I reject the guilt-trip. I understand the above passage to be Jesus' recognition that every human being has the capacity to be a Christ. Furthermore, it is quite clear to me that the divine Word manifests differently in the various cultures of the earth, and that all spiritual paths are valid.
A flesh and bone, biological human being cannot be a deity in the sense that a deity is well, a deity. God's don't age, get cancer, and die. In most religions and mythos, they tend to be above human failings and aren't bound by the rules of biology. (Organisms are created, mature, decline and die, hopefully after reproducing and spreading their genetic codes, etc.)
Can't be simultaneously both and neither at the same time. In reality, that is. Belief systems tend to sidestep that fact, because they're beliefs and you can believe whatever you want, regardless of its veracity.
This is true if you define a 'divine being' as some sort of superhuman hero with magical powers, which is certainly a common understanding. However, when you understand the Divine to be the Ground of Being, the Empty space from which all forms issue forth moment-to-moment, then it is quite clear that we are all "participants in the divine nature."
