Jesus as the Son of God

[xkatz]

How could Jesus be the son of God? If he was fully human, wouldn't that mean that he would have to have a biological father (probably Joseph)? If not, then how is he both fully human and God?

 

[Almustafa]

as a buddhist you understand the ultimate reality as Shunya..
Jesus understood the ultimate reality as God, when he became enlightened he said; im God

 

[xkatz]

as a buddhist you understand the ultimate reality as Shunya..
Jesus understood the ultimate reality as God, when he became enlightened he said; im God

This could be possible but I am interested in the orthodox Christian PoV as well.

 

[Shiranui117]

Hi again, xkatz! Adam and Eve didn't have either father or mother, yet no one has a problem accepting their full humanity. Why is Jesus's full humanity a problem, then, if Jesus didn't have a biological father?

As far as Jesus being the Son of God, have you had the Trinity explained to you well yet? I'm sure you have some familiarity with the teaching, but have you heard anything in-depth? I'd be happy to provide you a few resources/explanations if you'd like that'd really help you start to understand.

 

[xkatz]

Hi again, xkatz! Adam and Eve didn't have either father or mother, yet no one has a problem accepting their full humanity. Why is Jesus's full humanity a problem, then, if Jesus didn't have a biological father?

As far as Jesus being the Son of God, have you had the Trinity explained to you well yet? I'm sure you have some familiarity with the teaching, but have you heard anything in-depth? I'd be happy to provide you a few resources/explanations if you'd like that'd really help you start to understand.

I don't see Adam and Eve as 100% literal however.

And yes I would be interested in sources

 

[fallingblood]

How could Jesus be the son of God? If he was fully human, wouldn't that mean that he would have to have a biological father (probably Joseph)? If not, then how is he both fully human and God?

There are a number of ways for this. Since this is the Christianity DIR I will only deal with those idea which various Christians accept (which I assume is what you wanted).

There are some who accept that the virgin birth stories are myths. They did not need to occur for Jesus to be the son of God. Joseph (and some would even suggest that we have no idea who the father of Jesus is) is seen as the biological father. Jesus becomes the son of God either at his baptism by John, or with his resurrection. The first option is much more accepted than that latter one. This is more of a liberal view.

Another view (which is more orthodox) is that the virgin stories are correct. While God is the father of Jesus, since Jesus was still conceived via a woman, and born to a woman, made him fully human (biology does not really factor into here). This child, Jesus, at the same time is also the incarnation of God, and thus fully God. It is a duality of sorts. Now, this incarnation is also limited (or self-limiting). As in, Jesus, while still being fully God, still operates as a human (besides the miracles). He feels everything a human would.

This idea really centers around the idea of flesh. It is human flesh that makes one fully human. Flesh allows for sin, and torment. This idea also is inline with the idea of the Trinity.


There is also the view that Jesus was not the literal son of God, but was the son of God in the sense of King David being the son of God, or Israel being the children of God. It can either just be a metaphor, or even an adoptive idea, as God is adopting a person to be God's child. This is also more of a liberal view.

 

[John Martin]

How could Jesus be the son of God? If he was fully human, wouldn't that mean that he would have to have a biological father (probably Joseph)? If not, then how is he both fully human and God?

Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine. This experience is a possibility for everyone.
We need to see four important moments in the life of Jesus. First his physical birth from his physical mother, Mary. In that sense he was one hundred percent human beings. His second moment was the day of his circumcision when he entered into the tradition of Judaism. Judaism was his religious womb. Judaism began thousands of year before physical Jesus. Jesus was one hundred percent Jew. The third moment was the his baptismal experience, in which he comes out of the womb of Judaism and entered into the universal presence. In this experience he goes beyond Judaism enters into eternity. In this experience he was at the beginning of Creation. He is called the Son of God. The fourth moment when he realized that he was one with God.
The expression son of God is metaphorical than metaphysical:
At the physical level he is 'a son of God'. There are billions of 'a son of God'.
In the second level, religious level he is 'a collective son of God'. There are hundreds of collective sons and daughters of God. Every religion is a collective son of God or daughter of God.
At the third level he is the Son of God. The Son of God is one who is united with the whole of humanity and of creation. The Son of God is one stands before God representing the whole of humanity and of creation; the Son of God is one who speak to the whole of humanity and of creation in the name of God. There is only one 'the Son of God'. Finally he is one with God.
Take the example of a tree: a tree has leaves, branches, trunk and the roots:
leaves represent ' a son of God',there are billions of leaves on the tree of life.
Branches or represent collective sons or daughters of God. There may be hundreds of branches. The trunk represents 'the Son of God'. The trunk holds all the branches and leaves.The roots represent the Divine consciousness.
Jesus Christ is the whole tree. At the physical level he is one leaf among many leaves. As a Jew he belonged to a Jewish branch. At the moment of his baptism he transcended the branch of Judaism and entered into the trunk.He became the Son of God'. Finally he realized being one with the roots, with God. He said, 'the Father and I are one'. Jesus consciousness grew from 'a son of God' to 'oneness with God'.At the level of a leaf,branch and the trunk he is fully human. At the level of the roots he is fully divine. Jesus opened this possibility to everyone. Everyone is invited to grow from 'a son of God or a daughter of God' to oneness with God and realize to be fully human and fully divine.
We receive our physical bodies from our physical parents but we have other body the spiritual body which is beyond our physical body.it is there from all eternity. Jesus said, 'before Abraham was I am'. He was not referring to his physical body but to his spiritual body. Everyone who discovers his or her spiritual body can say that.

 

[Shiranui117]

I don't see Adam and Eve as 100% literal however.

Neither do I. But according to evolution, the first humans were technically born to non-human parents, since the parents didn't have the particular set of genetic mutations and genetic coding that make us human.

And yes I would be interested in sources

Ask, and you shall receive!

Pulling together a few posts I've made in the past:

Before we continue, the following two disclaimers need to be made:
1: When we Christians speak of the Trinity, we do NOT define it as God having schizophrenia or multiple-personality disorder; the Trinity is not God switching between three different "modes" or "masks."

2: When we Christians speak of the Trinity, we do NOT mean to say that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three wholly separate entities. We do not have three Gods, but One.

Now that that's out of the way, here is the actual definition of what the Trinity is, courtesy of OrthodoxWiki:

Orthodox Christians worship the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the Holy Trinity, the one God. Following the Holy Scriptures and the Church Fathers, the Church believes that the Trinity is three divine persons (hypostases) who share one essence (ousia). It is paradoxical to believe thus, but that is how God has revealed himself. All three persons are consubstantial with each other, that is, they are of one essence (homoousios) and coeternal. There never was a time when any of the persons of the Trinity did not exist. God is beyond and before time and yet acts within time, moving and speaking within history.

God is not an impersonal essence or mere "higher power," but rather each of the divine persons relates to mankind personally. Neither is God a simple name for three gods (i.e., polytheism), but rather the Orthodox faith is monotheist and yet Trinitarian. The God of the Orthodox Christian Church is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the I AM who revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush.The source and unity of the Holy Trinity is the Father, from whom the Son is begotten and also from whom the Spirit proceeds. Thus, the Father is both the ground of unity of the Trinity and also of distinction. To try to comprehend unbegottenness (Father), begottenness (Son), or procession (Holy Spirit) leads to insanity, says the holy Gregory the Theologian, and so the Church approaches God in divine mystery, approaching God apophatically, being content to encounter God personally and yet realize the inadequacy of the human mind to comprehend Him.
​

Now, to define those Greek terms that showed up in that quote:

-Hypostasis: A person.
-Ousia: An essence; i.e. that which makes an entity that particular entity; for example, the essence of Shiranui117 is different from the essence of xkatz.
-Homoousios: Of one essence.

In this case, since Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all of the same Divine Essence, they all are one "being," each Person being fully God. It is not a case of 1/3+1/3+1/3=1, or of 1+1+1=3, but 1+1+1=1. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not just "parts" of God, but are each fully God in their own right. Three distinct Persons, yet one God. Distinct, yet not separate. United, yet not confused or mixed.

So yes, Jesus is indeed the Son of God, yet is also fully God Himself.

The Orthodox Church in America has a free series of catechetical books; a section of the first book is dedicated to the Trinity, and is broken up into short little sections that take about a minute or less to read. I'm posting the most pertinent ones below:

One God, One Father
One God, One Divine Nature and Being
One God, One Divine Action and Will
One God, One Divine Knowledge and Love
The Holy Trinity: the Three Divine Persons

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

This is from Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s book “The Orthodox Way.” (pp. 29-31)

The central and decisive affirmation in the Creed is that Jesus Christ is “true God from true God”, “one in essence” or “consubstantial” (homoousios) with God the Father. In other words, Jesus Christ is equal to God the Father; he is God in the same sense that the Father is God, and yet they are not two Gods but one. Developing this teaching, the Greek Fathers of the later fourth century said the same about the Holy Spirit; he is likewise truly God, “one in essence with the Faher and the Son. But although Father, Son and Spirit are one single God, yet each of them is from all eternity a person, a distinct centre of conscious selfhood. God the Trinity is thus to be described as “three persons in one essence”. There is eternally in God true unity, combined with genuinely personal differentiation: the term “essence”, substance” or “being” (ousia) indicates the unity, and the term “person” (hypostasis, prosopon) indicates the differentiation. Let us try to understand what is signified by this somewhat baffling language, for the dogma of the Holy Trinity is vital to our own salvation.

Father, Son and Spirit are one in essence, not merely in the sense that all three are examples of the same group or general class, but in the sense that they form a single, unique, specific reality. There is in this respect an important difference between the sense in which the three divine persons are one, and the sense in three human persons may be termed one. Three human persons, Peter, James and John, belong to the same general class “man.” Yet, however closely they co-operate together, each retains his own will and his own energy, acting by virtue of his own separate power of initiative. In short, they are three men and not one man. But in the case of the three persons of the Trinity, such is not the case. There is distinction, but never separation. Father, Son and Spirit—so the saints affirm, following the testimony of Scripture—have only one will and not three, only one energy and not three. None of the three ever acts separately, apart from the other two. They are not three Gods, but one God.

Yet, although the three persons never act apart from each other, there is in God genuine diversity as well as specific unity. In our experience of God at work within our life, while we find that the three are always acting together, yet we know that each is acting within us in a different manner. We experience God as three-in-one, and we believe that this threefold differentiation in God’s outward action reflects a threefold differentiation in his inner life. The distinction between the three persons is to be regarded as an eternal distinction existing within the nature of God himself; it does not apply merely to his exterior activity in the world. Father, Son and Spirit are not just “modes” or “moods” of the Divinity, not just masks which God assumes for a time in his dealings with creation and then lays aside. They are on the contrary three coequal and coeternal persons. A human father is older than his child, but when speaking of God as “Father” and “Son” we are not to interpret the terms in this literal sense. We affirm of the Son “There was never a time when he was not”. And the same is said of the Spirit.

. . .Each possesses, not one third of the Godhead, but the entire Godhead in its totality; yet each lives and is this one Godhead in his own distinctive and personal way.
​

Elsewhere in the book, the Metropolitan speaks of the relationship between various members of the Trinity. I will summarize it as follows:
-The Father is the source(Greek: arche) of the Trinity, and so is in a certain sense "greater" than the Son and Spirit. Not by virtue of being more God than the other two, but by virtue of being the source of the Trinity. It is from Him that the Son is begotten and it is from Him that the Holy Spirit proceeds.
-The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and is also called the "Logos" or "Word" of the Father. The traditional interpretation of this is that the Son is the Word by which God spoke the world into being. The Son is not a created being, for as it says in John 1:2-3, "He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made."
-The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, or from the Father THROUGH the Son (The Latin filioque, "proceeds from the Father AND the Son", is not original and toes the line of heresy). Yet the Holy Spirit is not subordinate to the Father or the Son. As for how "being begotten" is different from "proceeding from," we cannot say.

When speaking of God's essence, we Trinitarians do not refer to "essence" as a general class or nature; for example, a human nature. Rather, we speak of God's Essence as signifying "the whole God as he is in himself," as Ware said. This shows an essence that is unique to God alone; for instance, I am different from you in how I am within myself, and you are different from me in how you are in yourself.

The Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese has a page about this, too.

I know I dumped a lot on you, but there you have it!

 

[Pegg]

How could Jesus be the son of God? If he was fully human, wouldn't that mean that he would have to have a biological father (probably Joseph)? If not, then how is he both fully human and God?

Jesus was a son of God in the same way the first man Adam a son of God?

He was created.

 

[ZooGirl02]

Here's a good article from Catholic Answers which explains the divinity of Jesus:

Jesus Is God | Catholic Answers