In what sense is Jesus (as) God's "Son"?
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Grace Seeker
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Just to be clear, unity without the abosrobtion of one into the other.
Keltoi
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Grace Seeker
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Sorry, like Marie Antoinette we want to have our cake and eat it to. No doubt much of Christianity strikes you as illogical, perhaps all of it. That is what I continually hear from Muslims. But at least you are an atheist, so it makes sense. I have trouble understanding how Muslims who agree with the statement "with God nothing is impossible" take exception to him doing things that they can't understand.
But to be a "son of God" is not "unique" in the Bible as shown in Matthew 5
43You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
44But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
It is interesting that Jesus again used "Father in Heaven" like in the Lord's Prayer to refer to God.
But that is a definition applied to "Son" that does not fit in any fashion to our understanding of the word.
Grace Seeker
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And also Romans 8 where all those who are led by the Spirit are enjoined to see themselves as sons of God.
But to speak of a son of God is not the same as to speak of the Son of God anymore than to speak of a white house is to speak of the White House. The only place in scripture that uses the definite artilce when speaking of the Son of God that is not obviously a reference to Jesus Christ is Daniel 3:25 ("He answered and said, 'Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God'.") which many commentators would argue is also a reference to the pre-incarnate Son. So, I think we are back to what Keltoi has said, the term "THE Son of God" is a unique title that the early Christian community reserved for Jesus alone.
So, we have shown that Jesus wasn't really the "Son fo God" in any sense of the definition of SON.
You have just quoted a few verses to indicate that Jesus was one and the same as God the Creator, yet we know that there are verses that show that Jesus was less than the Father in that 1) he could do nothing of his own will and outside that of the Father, 2) the Father was greater than him, 3) he had imperfect knowledge particularly of the future, ) he prayed to the Father that His will be done even though he rather have the cup pass from him, 4) he asked, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, and 5) in teacheing the disciples to pray, he had them pray to "Our Father who art in Heaven".
I have a related new question: In what sense is Jesus (as) God?
Keltoi
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In what sense is Jesus God?
We'll start with this passage: Hebrews 1-3
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds;
3 Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:
4 Being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
Here is another: Luke 5:24
But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins
Only God can forgive sin, which is a fairly blatant example of what Christ is claiming about Himself.
I'm slightly unsure of what you are asking, other than verses which point to and express Christ's divine origin. Perhaps if you re-ask the question in more specific terms I can be more specific with a reply.
We'll start with this passage: Hebrews 1-3
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds;
3 Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:
4 Being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
Here is another: Luke 5:24
But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins
Only God can forgive sin, which is a fairly blatant example of what Christ is claiming about Himself.
I'm slightly unsure of what you are asking, other than verses which point to and express Christ's divine origin. Perhaps if you re-ask the question in more specific terms I can be more specific with a reply.
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Not in any biological sense of the word Son. But I have also shown that Jesus was the one and only one who is referred to in scripture by the title "THE Son of God."
Beyond this, the term Son does refer to the nature of an eternal relationship that exists within the very nature of the one God of his being bnoth an eteranl Father and an eternal Son, for you cannot have an eternal Father without the presence of an eternal child. And this is what the term that gets translated "begetting" refers to, and over which Arius wanted to argue. Arius saw this term and conceived in his own mind that this meant that the Son had some sort of beginning.
Now, for all the Muslims who want to jump on Arius bandwagon, I don't think you really would if you fully understood what Arius was saying. Arius was not objecting to Jesus' divinity. Rather, what he was holding was that Jesus was some sort of second, lesser god, who had been created by the Father. --Talk about associating partners with God; that's exactly why the Christian church said that Arius was wrong.-- Arius said that then God had the Son do all of the rest of the work of the creation of the world, but that there was a time when the Son was not.
The problem with that is that it makes the Son into a lesser God and thereby Christianity would be a faith not with just one God, but with multiple gods. It implied that there were aspects of the Father unknowable to the Son and hence Jesus could no longer be a true mediator between humanity and God as God was still in some ways inaccessible, even to the Son.
And worst of all Arius' views actually denied the Fatherhood of God, even if Arius did not readily see that for himself. For if God was both Father and everlasting (read that impassible, unchanging), then he has always been Father. But if there was a time when the Son was not, then there was also a time when the Fatherhood of God was not. Hence God either has changed or the assumption that there was a time when the Fatherhood was not is itself false. If it is false, then it is also false that there was a time when the Son was not. And if that idea is false, then Arius is wrong. And thus we can believe that the Father and the Son are both eternal, co-eternal in fact, one subsisting in the presence of the other from before the beginning. They could do this because the Son was not of a different essence than the Father, but being of one essence they were then therefore really just one God even as they are known in more than one person. The Son is part of the Father, eternally generated out of his very essence. And the word used for that in the gospel of John is monogenes, (translated by the KJV as "only begotten, but) meaning uniquely generated. So there does exist within the nature and character of God himself this unique divine community that the ancient writers saw reflected in the Father/Son relationship, hence the evolution of those terms to refer to it.
Jesus is God's Son in the same sense that we think of God as our Father.
And in the same sense that we can think of God as our Father, we must remember that the Biblical (or at least New Testament) understanding of God includes both Father and Son. The Father is no more God than the Son is God. So if we can think of God as the Father, we should also think of God as the Son. And if we stumble over that, then we are not yet thinking Biblically, but with some other content in our head.
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Grace Seeker
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HUH?
Regarding Arius, all I did was give you a little bit of history that most people seem to miss. My critique of Arius' view is unabashedly trinitarian and unitarians may take exception to it, but Arius' view is Arius' view.
Just for correction, Muslims believe "With Allah SWT nothing is impossible" but at the same time we also believe that Allah SWT doesn't create things that are illogical because he is way above that. Its humans that create illogical theories and hence why the trinity will always be regarded as illogical because it was thought by from man.
Woodrow
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I think I can understand why you would have trouble understanding. It is a very logical assumption. We do agree that "with God(swt) nothing is impossible" yet we do not believe he could become man. Paradoxical, isn't it?
Well not really, look at these examples and perhaps you may see some of what we comprehend as God(as) becoming man.
Can God(as) make a 4 sided triangle? The answer is no. The statement is a faulty statement and self limiting because by defenition a triangle has 3 sides. If it has any other number it is not a triangle.
Now define what a man is:
Is a man immortal?
Is a man created?
Is a man equal to God(swt)
Now define God(swt) with those same three questions. Can God(swt) have those same attributes man has and still be God(swt) or are we now back to the 4 sided triangle?
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Woodrow, I guess I also disagree with your definition of man. Plus, I happen to think that it doesn't deny the infinite to have it contained within the finite. /o\ Some would say that it is illogical to conceive of a line without end as being contained within the closed system of a box, but I dispute that theory as well. [<-->]
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Woodrow
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I believe that this is one of the things that seperates Muslims and Christians. We each see the same things, but what may be logical to one of us is paradoxical/illogical to the other.
Perhaps if we all could understand that we each have reasons for our views, there is hope that there can be tolerance if not agreement.
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