Talk:God the Son

Edit history from previous incarnation of this article

This page should not be deleted- I did not want to put so much information there, but it was necessary to understand exactly why Jesus was called "God the Son" instead of just "Jesus Christ". Though it may repeat some information, it neither goes into a long explanation of it nor does it attempt to "muddy the waters"... henceforth, I do not believe it should be deleted. Thank you.

The information was not encyclopedic and came across as biased. In any case, the information could have been added to the Jesus and/or Christianity article(s). -- Jwinters | Talk 18:41, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This information would be more properly added to the Jesus article. There is no need for it to have an article of its own. (RookZERO 17:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC))

Current version - redundant?

This article appears to be redundant. It should be reformatted to link to the article Jesus which covers the same topic. (RookZERO 18:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC))

I disagree. God the Son is a technical term in Christian theology with a complex meaning of it's own. While, according to Christian Theology, it refers to the same person as Jesus of Nazareth, it has different connotations - e.g. the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is a human title about His nature as a human being, while God the Son is a divine one, about His nature as part of the Trinity. TJ 10:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

This could still be explained within the Jesus article (and, in fact, it is). (RookZERO 17:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC))

At no point in the Jesus article does the string "God the Son" arise. Furthermore, an indepth look at the phrase as used in trinitarian theology etc would certainly not fit within the Jesus article.

Quite what the phrase "Son of God" is doing in this article I don't know. That has it's own article over at Son of God. The two terms should not be confused. TJ 18:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

If this article really need to be kept seperate from Jesus due to undue weight issues, it could still probably be merged with Son of God. (RookZERO 19:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC))

Not really, Son of God is actually a title with fairly significantly different connotations (although it seems likely that God the Son did grow out of it.) God the Son should be more about the eternal Son, His role in the Trinity, doctrines of Christology, etc - much of that might potentially fit into Christian views of Jesus (although I think this topic deserves its own article, because it is a distinctive topic that isn't easily fit into that - indeed, it isn't even mentioned in there at present, and couldn't really be in depth as the term, without removing a lot of other stuff), but not either Jesus or Son of God

That said, the article at present could probably be merged - it's just that it's worth having an article here, so it's worth keeping this one as a stub. TJ 19:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The term Son of God exists in this article for a few reasons:

• to distinguish it from the term God the Son;
• to establish that son of God exists in the Bible as a generic phrase, applicable more widely than Jesus; and
• hence to clarify the uniqueness of the term God the Son, which applies only to Jesus.

The two terms are inextricably connected, although distinct, which would not be so were the standard phrase *God the Second rather than God the Son. In adopting the latter form, the church fathers avoided the subordinationist heresy and subsumed Jesus own reference to himself as eternal Son of the Father.

Effectively, Son of God has two senses when applied to Jesus. The one word son is used to describe two different kinds of relationship. Firstly, it means he is Messiah, heir to David's throne and the true Israel (established from OT references to Son of God). Secondly, it means he is the pre-incarnate second person of the Trinity, as per John 1 and Jesus frequent allusions throughout that gospel, where the terms like the Son and my Father, rather than Son of God are used. It is this second sense that theology has come to express by the formula God the Son, to mark it as belonging to Jesus alone.

The same double sense of father is true of the first person of the Trinity also. He is Father of all creation, but He is Father of Jesus before creation. He has never been called *Father of God, only God the Father. So confusion doesn't arise with the Father in the same way as it does with the Son.

Now I've got to gather the references to the history of theology on this matter. Alastair Haines 04:29, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

To merge or not to merge

Continuing my point from 2 years ago, and considering what people have said about why this article shouldn't just redirect to Jesus, the article should be merged and redirected to Trinity. -- Jwinters | Talk 15:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge means copy then delete.

I think copying information in whole or in part from this article into Jesus, Christian views of Jesus, Son of God and Trinity are all excellent ideas. If they do not already make any reference to God the Son those articles are lacking an essential element of discussing their topics. So I would support that part of your proposal.

I can't see why an argument to merge, if appropriate, couldn't be made vice versa, though. For example, why not copy Christian views about Jesus under this topic, since God the Son is a much more accurate description of the Christian view of Jesus than is Son of God? Then delete Christian views about Jesus. I don't seriously suggest it though.

I'm trying to work out what constitutes an argument for a merger, that is, for the delete part of it. Normally, I would think it refers to cases where at least two, maybe more, smallish articles would be better subsumed under a common title for ease of presentation. The most common case would seem to be where there are only two articles and one is somewhat larger and logically prior.

The main thing is that some articles reach a kind of a maximum size, at which point subarticles need to be created. The other thing is that some articles deal with topics of such limited scope that it's hard to even fill a screen with info about them.

In so far as merger means copying info from this article into others conceptually related to it, be bold! Just do it. If they're already crowded, just link here. Question answered, we need this namespace.

In so far as merger means deleting this article I will oppose this until it can be demonstrated that it is impossible to fill a screen with sourced information about the meaning and history of debate regarding both the phrase God the Son (de dicto) and its referent (de re).

Given enough time, either I or someone else will eventually demonstrate how much is covered by this topic by actually writing it up.

It's a massive topic. The earliest Christians were Jews. They were expecting a Son of God to come. After working out Jesus was this Son of God, they worked out this Son was God himself, and became Christians, believing Jesus is God, the Son. It took a couple of hundred years for them to sort it all out. Alastair Haines (talk) 12:38, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

To whom it may concern

A rather large block, largely of biblical quotation, has recently been added under the Jewish view section. While this is clearly disproportionate to the total text of the article at its current revision, and has some internal commentary that is not completely adequately sourced, I urge others not to delete it. Ultimately, what it says is a fair representation of Jewish consensus from rabbinic times and across modern Jewish denominations.

Ultimately, we need considerably more text covering the Christian POV, since the term "God the Son" is used only by Christians. However, criticism of the view does arguably start with Jewish criticism, rather than any non-Jewish criticisms. I can see an argument that since God the Son depends on interpretation of the New Testament, rather than the Hebrew Bible, critics who accept the NT as canonical, but reject the Nicean understanding of it may be considered to have first "right of reply".

Ulitmately, though, we will need to decide how much this article needs to rehash the opinions of groups that reject the claim of Jesus' divinity. I can see an argument that this article is the natural place to do that. But Wiki is big and there are many articles, there may well also be another place to list all notable groups that object to this point.

So the bottom line is, please do not delete the Jewish objections until sufficient time has elapsed to allow: (a) a quorum to gather and (b) this noble body of editors to try to reconcile one another to a common mind on the way forward. Without any such documented "audit" trail, one who would simply delete is consigning the article to instability regarding serious questions. Alastair Haines (talk) 10:13, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Some general comments

Nice article. I think the Judaism section is too long, and I'd like to see something about GtS and the early heresies. (Could tie in with the Judaism part - Christianity as a Jewish heresy?) But, nice article. PiCo (talk) 09:22, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Good suggestions PiCo. I've worked out that I need to focus my attention at Wiki to things where I know the sources best, especially where I've had the privelege of spending more time with them than most. It is an enjoyable and educational experience to attempt to document matters of personal faith in reliable, neutral ways. Especially when others offer feedback in the same spirit. :) Alastair Haines (talk) 06:30, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I've put this article on my watchlist. I'm tired of articles which are subject to controversy - I want to be involved with pleasant comrades who know their subject and are ready to be civil. (Personally, I do not know this subject, but I'd like to contribute editing skills.) PiCo (talk) 08:22, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

If Jesus did not become the Son of God until after his incarnation, who was He before when He was there at creation in Genesis?