Let us remember here the general principle that applies to every branch of knowledge that meaning of words derives from their use in sentences and in language as a whole. Given this premise, this Post and the next one shall treat the Church Usage and The Present Use of the title'Son of God'.
From its very beginning it was no smooth sailing for the Church to uphold the true doctrines on Jesus Christ, especially about his divinity and humanity. Already in the apostolic times we have instances of differing opinions as reflected in the Epistles of John , besides occasional hints in the Acts of the Apostles and the Letters of Paul. The references in 1 John 2: 22-23; 4: 2-3; 2 John 7 etc. point to the denial of Christ's divinity by some even during the life time of Apostle John. Later on the Ebonites, the Theodotians, the Artemonites and the Photinians etc. regarded Jesus Christ as a mere man. The Gnostic theory considered Christ as an emanation from the Divine Being . The Sabellians and the Patripassians believed that Christ was a mere manifestation of God. Just as some denied the divinity of Jesus Christ , there were others who denied his humanity. The Docetist Marcion and the Priscillianists believed only in an apparent body of Jesus. The Valentinians believed that the body of Jesus was brought down from heaven. The followers of Apollinaris denied that Jesus had a human soul, the Word supplying the functions of the soul. All the above opinions have taken a different form in the modern tendency to separate the Jesus of history from the Christ faith.
All these versions of ideas about the identity of Jesus Christ were overshadowed by the bold assertion of Arius, an Alexandrian Presbyter, originally from Libya and educated at Antioch along with Eusebius of Caesarea, against whom his own bishop Alexander, the Patriarch of Alexandria, took up cudgels. Arius and his followers admitted that Christ was the Word incarnate, but was the first creature of God mediating between God and the world. This meant that the Word was not essentially identical with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This theory was taken up in the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325 A. D. where the exact relationship between the three persons in the Trinity was defined and is known as the Nicaean Confession of Faith recited in its essentials during the Holy Mass in the Church today. The Council took care to insist on the identity of substance between God and the Word whereby the begetting of the Son by the Father should be seen in the proper perspective. This was achieved by the Council's authoritative teaching that anyone who taught , like Arius, that the Son was not existent before his begetting by the Father was to stand condemned. Although the Greek word used (homoousios) for asserting the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son was not in the Scriptures, the Fathers of the Council determined that it was in accordance with the faith of the Church from the very beginning. Athanasius, who later became Patriarch of Alexandria, was a deacon at the time of the Council assisting Alexander the Patriarch of Alexandria and was strongly opposed to the ideas of Arius. The faith of the Church could not be deciphered by a mechanical reading of the Bible and had to be understood from the way it was presented by the Fathers and the Ecclesiastical writers of the Church (called 'Tradition'). For it was they who were the living witnesses of the faith deriving from the Apostles expressed in writing in the New Testament responding to the actual situations of life. Meaning emerges from such uses actually engaged in by the community of believers. The Fathers of the Council made sure that there was nothing against the Bible in the new formulations of the faith and that they were in fact congruent to the teachings of the Bible. Further elaborations of the theme were achieved by the subsequent Ecumenical Councils, especially in the Councils of Chalcedon and the Fourth Lateran. Incidentally, nowadays the Jehovah's witnesses have fallen into the same error of Arius, may be out of their inadequate understanding of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity!
Before ending this section on the Church usage of the title 'Son of God'. it may be worthwhile to note what Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor of the Church has to say on the subject. Thomas felt that people have understood in various ways what Jesus said in John 8: 42 about his proceeding from God. Some like Arius took it to mean as an effect proceeding from a cause. Thus the Son, according to him, proceeds from the Father as His primary creature and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as the creature of both. Sabellius understood procession to mean that the cause proceeded to the effect to impress its own likeness on it. Thus God the Father is called the Son in assuming flesh from the Virgin and is also called the Holy Spirit in sanctifying the rational creatures. Thomas refutes this kind of identification of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity by invoking John 5: 19 that says: "The Son cannot of himself do anything" and commenting that therefore Father is not the Son.
The fundamental refutation advanced by Thomas Aquinas of the above two opinions consists in his observation why they have gone wrong in their perception of this deep mystery. The reason for their mistaken views, according to Thomas,was because they took procession as an outward act instead of existing in God Himself. A comparison may be made with our conception of an object when we understand it where a procession of the intellect takes place signified by the spoken word. In the case of God, procession does not result in diversity. Rather what proceeds, the divine Word, is perfectly one with its Source like our intellect becoming one with the object understood. God, Who is the First Principle of all things, may be compared to things created as the architect is to things designed. If we call the builder the principle of the house, in the idea of such a principle is included that of his art. Finally, we cannot know what God is, but only what He is not. Here we see that Thomas Aquinas is in complete agreement with the Indian Thought where the Absolute is not directly and positively known, but only through the method of negation ("Neti, Neti") of whatever is proposed as standing for God.
From its very beginning it was no smooth sailing for the Church to uphold the true doctrines on Jesus Christ, especially about his divinity and humanity. Already in the apostolic times we have instances of differing opinions as reflected in the Epistles of John , besides occasional hints in the Acts of the Apostles and the Letters of Paul. The references in 1 John 2: 22-23; 4: 2-3; 2 John 7 etc. point to the denial of Christ's divinity by some even during the life time of Apostle John. Later on the Ebonites, the Theodotians, the Artemonites and the Photinians etc. regarded Jesus Christ as a mere man. The Gnostic theory considered Christ as an emanation from the Divine Being . The Sabellians and the Patripassians believed that Christ was a mere manifestation of God. Just as some denied the divinity of Jesus Christ , there were others who denied his humanity. The Docetist Marcion and the Priscillianists believed only in an apparent body of Jesus. The Valentinians believed that the body of Jesus was brought down from heaven. The followers of Apollinaris denied that Jesus had a human soul, the Word supplying the functions of the soul. All the above opinions have taken a different form in the modern tendency to separate the Jesus of history from the Christ faith.
All these versions of ideas about the identity of Jesus Christ were overshadowed by the bold assertion of Arius, an Alexandrian Presbyter, originally from Libya and educated at Antioch along with Eusebius of Caesarea, against whom his own bishop Alexander, the Patriarch of Alexandria, took up cudgels. Arius and his followers admitted that Christ was the Word incarnate, but was the first creature of God mediating between God and the world. This meant that the Word was not essentially identical with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This theory was taken up in the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325 A. D. where the exact relationship between the three persons in the Trinity was defined and is known as the Nicaean Confession of Faith recited in its essentials during the Holy Mass in the Church today. The Council took care to insist on the identity of substance between God and the Word whereby the begetting of the Son by the Father should be seen in the proper perspective. This was achieved by the Council's authoritative teaching that anyone who taught , like Arius, that the Son was not existent before his begetting by the Father was to stand condemned. Although the Greek word used (homoousios) for asserting the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son was not in the Scriptures, the Fathers of the Council determined that it was in accordance with the faith of the Church from the very beginning. Athanasius, who later became Patriarch of Alexandria, was a deacon at the time of the Council assisting Alexander the Patriarch of Alexandria and was strongly opposed to the ideas of Arius. The faith of the Church could not be deciphered by a mechanical reading of the Bible and had to be understood from the way it was presented by the Fathers and the Ecclesiastical writers of the Church (called 'Tradition'). For it was they who were the living witnesses of the faith deriving from the Apostles expressed in writing in the New Testament responding to the actual situations of life. Meaning emerges from such uses actually engaged in by the community of believers. The Fathers of the Council made sure that there was nothing against the Bible in the new formulations of the faith and that they were in fact congruent to the teachings of the Bible. Further elaborations of the theme were achieved by the subsequent Ecumenical Councils, especially in the Councils of Chalcedon and the Fourth Lateran. Incidentally, nowadays the Jehovah's witnesses have fallen into the same error of Arius, may be out of their inadequate understanding of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity!
Before ending this section on the Church usage of the title 'Son of God'. it may be worthwhile to note what Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor of the Church has to say on the subject. Thomas felt that people have understood in various ways what Jesus said in John 8: 42 about his proceeding from God. Some like Arius took it to mean as an effect proceeding from a cause. Thus the Son, according to him, proceeds from the Father as His primary creature and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as the creature of both. Sabellius understood procession to mean that the cause proceeded to the effect to impress its own likeness on it. Thus God the Father is called the Son in assuming flesh from the Virgin and is also called the Holy Spirit in sanctifying the rational creatures. Thomas refutes this kind of identification of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity by invoking John 5: 19 that says: "The Son cannot of himself do anything" and commenting that therefore Father is not the Son.
The fundamental refutation advanced by Thomas Aquinas of the above two opinions consists in his observation why they have gone wrong in their perception of this deep mystery. The reason for their mistaken views, according to Thomas,was because they took procession as an outward act instead of existing in God Himself. A comparison may be made with our conception of an object when we understand it where a procession of the intellect takes place signified by the spoken word. In the case of God, procession does not result in diversity. Rather what proceeds, the divine Word, is perfectly one with its Source like our intellect becoming one with the object understood. God, Who is the First Principle of all things, may be compared to things created as the architect is to things designed. If we call the builder the principle of the house, in the idea of such a principle is included that of his art. Finally, we cannot know what God is, but only what He is not. Here we see that Thomas Aquinas is in complete agreement with the Indian Thought where the Absolute is not directly and positively known, but only through the method of negation ("Neti, Neti") of whatever is proposed as standing for God.
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