Christ, the Son of God
By scientist and priest Emmanuel M. Carreira, S.J.

Emmanuel M. Carreira, S.J.

This profession of Faith in the Creed is the accurate expression of the meaning of being a Christian. Because the divinity of Christ is a necessary consequence of his sonship, since every living being communicates its nature and the Father can only give to the Son the divine nature that is his very essence.

The concept of a true generation, when we speak of a spiritual and unchangeable Being, has to be applied in an analogous way with respect to the biological level where life is shared as something clearly distinct and independent of the generating organism, in a process that includes a material division of parts. Even so, it will be worthwhile to follow the way the new living entity depends upon its "parents" as we go from the simplest cell to more complex animals, up to the human level.

Cellular reproduction can occur by simple division of the original cell, and thus we cannot distinguish which one of the resulting pair is mother or daughter. From the moment of division, both have an equal structure and function independently. Macroscopic life is typically transmitted -both in plants and animals- by means of some kind of seed or egg, from which the new life develops to perfection, frequently outside the fully developed body of the parents who have a minimal relationship (or none at all) with their descendants.

As we reach more complex structures, the interaction between parents and their issue becomes more important and lasting, getting to the point (in birds and mammals especially) where the survival of the new generation would be impossible without the constant help of the parents who provide food and patterns of behavior, to be learned by processes of imitation or training. Sonship implies dependence, not only to begin life, but also to continue living and to act adequately.

When we reach human life, we see that the dependence goes on for a period of time that comprises a sizeable part of the mean lifetime. This need is not limited to merely material levels (food, protection) but rather proves absolutely necessary for the full intellectual and emotional development of the person in every human activity: one cannot reach the richness of possibilities proper of Man without the input received in a family environment during many years.

With a qualitative change whose depth is inaccessible to us, divine filiation reaches the highest possible level of life, and then the concept of sonship appears as inseparably united with essential dependence of the Son with respect to the Father: there can never be a moment of adult emancipation and of considering that the father's role is finished. Father and Son are always ONE, with a single vital activity of knowing and loving, and this is precisely the generating activity.

The Son is the perfect expression, the WORD, the living Image of the Father. This is the surprising meaning of the title that St. John uses when referring to the eternal God who became Man among us. In this Word, the Father manifests everything that He is, and "nobody knows the Father except the Son". "Nobody has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, always in the Father's bosom, has manifested Him" (Jn 1,18). And since the Word is a Living Image, he is Son.

Trinitarian Theology suggests also the loving relationship of Father and Son as the necessary and essential reality that constitutes the third divine Person, the Holy Spirit. As the bond of love between two persons, the Spirit originates from both: "proceeds from the Father and the Son", as we profess in the Creed. But because this concept does not include the idea of Image, the Spirit is not Son, even if in his nature he is totally ONE with the other two persons and cannot be distinguished from them in the level of infinite perfection or the one activity of intellect and will that constitutes the intimate life of the only God.

True love has always been described as the union of minds and wills: to want the same things and to reject the same things. Nothing created can provide us with a satisfactory analogy for a mystery that we can only know by faith in a revelation that we cannot comprehend. What we believe is not absurd as something contradictory, but it introduces concepts beyond the limits of our philosophical reasoning.

Christ and Creation

Because the Son is the perfect expression of the infinite Being of the Father, in Him we find the model of every possible created reality. In this profound sense, the Person of the Word is the ultimate reason for all the partial perfection found at all levels of creation, from angels -spirits whose existence and activity must be expressed with terms similar to those we use for God (except obviously for their contingency and finite nature) - all the way to atoms or photons of non-living matter, that reflect in a minimal measure the richness of the eternal and immutable Creator.

At intermediate levels we find plant and animal life, reaching a limited possibility of knowing by automatic reactions to external stimuli and to "want" something by an instinctive program that leads towards a good of a material order. Finally, at the frontier between matter and pure spirit, we find Man. And at all those living levels there is also the communication of life as the reflection of divine fatherhood, the source of being in Heaven and on Earth.

The creation of anything at all, always infinitely below God by the very fact that it is created, can only be due to the selfless Goodness of the Creator: nothing obliges Him to create, but it is consonant with his generosity to do it. Nothing created can add any perfection or satisfying development to the infinite and immutable Being: it is absurd to talk of any kind of -ultimately pantheistic- emanation or evolution.

But when the angels exist, God is known by persons able to enjoy His Beauty and Goodness, who can establish with Him a relationship of gratitude, adoration and love, and thus share in the life and happiness of the Creator.

Something analogous must be the sufficient reason that justifies the creation of the material world. But since pure matter cannot have any activity outside that attributed to the four forces found in Physics, matter must exist in order to make possible a new reality that, including matter and depending upon it, surpasses its limits and reaches the level of the spirit. Thus it is Man that explains material creation and avoids the absurd of a cosmic evolution reduced to just useless fireworks if there were nobody who -as a spokesman for matter- could render to the Creator the grateful return of love and adoration.

Modern Cosmology points to this central role of Man stating the "Anthropic Principle" as a metaphysical answer to the "why" and "what for" of the Universe, with its properties and multi-secular evolution. Already in the book of Genesis the concept of sonship is suggested when describing Man, from the first moment, as "Image and Likeness" of the Creator. This is the same reason why the second Person of the Trinity is "Son" and possibly as well for the term "sons of God" used in an analogous way in the Bible for spiritual beings, superior to Man and endowed with knowledge and free will and totally independent from matter.

When our Faith teaches that "the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us" and that the Son of God is a "Son of Man" we reach a marvelous synthesis of two statements that reinforce each other. The Word-Image becomes Man-Image; the Creator becomes a creature and now He is the perfect spokesman for all creation, giving to the eternal Father the answer of love, adoration and thanks that He deserves and that no mere creature could adequately offer.

Even angelic spirits find the perfect word of thanks in the Person who is the eternal Word. God's plan is realized in its fullness and the Father sees his own reflection in his Son and in all things created "in Him, by Him and for Him". He is the first in everything, in the order of finality, perfection, royal dignity, all things subsist in him, are ordained to Him, find their fulfillment in Him. "Nothing was made apart from Him".

Cosmic centrality of Christ

Summing up this whole development, we can look at the Person of Christ as related to the Father, the world, and to human beings, his family. With respect to the Father we must underline, unequivocally, his eternal origin, by which He receives from the Father the divine nature, perfect and indivisible, the only source of vital activity. By generation He is the substantial and perfect expression of what the Father is, thus deserving the names of Son, Word, subsistent and uncreated.

He is the living Image of the living God, indissolubly united to the Father and the one principle with the Father of the third Person, the Spirit. The communication of knowledge and love among the divine Persons constitutes the life and happiness of God, who necessarily exists as a family by those mutual relations.

With respect to the created world, at all levels, Christ as God is the model (exemplary Cause) of every perfection that can be found in creatures, existing or even possible. All order, harmony and beauty, spiritual and material, the unknown and mysterious world of angels and the surprising marvels that Science constantly uncovers, proceed from Him.

Everything is a pale reflection of the one who is "Light from Light". And everything exists and acts because He gives it consistency and power: things would return to nothing otherwise, just as the image of a movie would disappear from the screen if that Light didn't give it its reality.

For Humankind, Christ, true God and Man, is the Man foreseen when God created the first human being. He is the perfect realization of what it means to be "Image and Likeness" of the creating Father. He represents Humanity before God's throne, above angels and all other creatures, even possible ones at any time. Only because the Father has all his happiness in Him is mankind created, in order for Christ to be our pride and joy at the same time that He is our Redeemer and Savior, leading us to the Father's home.

How empty and how sad would the world be without Christ! "He is the true Light that by coming into the world enlightens all men" "To those who received Him He gave the power to become children of God" "We saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth" "From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace".

It seems that John's Gospel exhausts human language in that marvelous Prologue, because the happiness of having seen God living among us surpasses anything we can say.