How can God have a Son?

Every active essence must generate something. Fire gives birth to light and radiates heat. A radioactive element gives off nuclear radiation. A healthy human mind generates wise thoughts. Therefore, God cannot be an inert being, for the Son is born of Him from before the ages; He is light born of light. Light that does not give birth to light is darkness!³⁶⁶

St. Dionysius of Alexandria says, “But being the brightness of light eternal [cf. Heb. 1:3; Col. 1:15], certainly He is Himself eternal; for as the light exists always, it is evident that the brightness [the Son] must exist always as well. For it is by the fact of its shining that the existence of light is perceived, and there cannot be light that does not give light … The brightness then lies before Him eternally, and is with Him without beginning and everbegotten, shining in His Presence, being that Wisdom which said, ‘I was that wherein he

366 H. E. Metropolitan Pishoy, Article on ‘Trinity.’

rejoiced, and daily I was glad in his presence at all times’ (Prov. 8:30)’ … The Father then being eternal, the Son is eternal, being Light of Light.”³⁶⁷

And Pope Athanasius of Alexandria says, “For if the Divine Essence be not fruitful itself, but barren, as they hold, as a light that lightens not, and a dry fountain, are they not ashamed to speak of His possessing framing energy? and whereas they deny what is by nature, do they not blush to place before it what is by will? … His framing Word [is] not external, but proper to Him … If He has the power of will, and His will is effective, and suffices for the consistence of the things that come to be, and His Word is effective, and a Framer, that Word must surely be the living Will of the Father, and an essential energy, and a real Word, in whom all things both consist and are excellently governed.”³⁶⁸

And the scholar Origen asks, “How else should one understand the ‘eternal light’ except as referring to God the Father? But he, inasmuch as he is the light, never existed at a time when his radiance (cf. Heb. 1:3) was not present with him—for a light without its radiance could never be conceived, which, if it is true, then there never was a time when the Son did not exist.”³⁶⁹

The eternal birth of the Son from the Father reveals the nature of the existent, loving God; who in His infinite love, gives birth to the Son, bestowing upon Him His own divine essence, since they are one. This is a unique love — that “I Am” (the One who is existence) bestows His own essence. This vast love was revealed to us, but only within the limits of what is appropriate to us .

The second Hypostasis is called the “Son” to affirm His oneness of essence with the Father. And lest it be misunderstood to imply separation from the Father — as if there were two essences and two gods — He is called His “Word” and His “Wisdom.” By this, we understand His Sonship in a non-human sense.

St. Athanasius says, “As we said above, so now we repeat, that the divine generation must not be compared to the nature of men, nor the Son considered to be part of God, nor the generation to imply any passion whatever; God is not as man; for men beget with pain, having a transitive nature, which waits for periods by reason of its weakness. But with God this cannot be; for He is not composed of parts, but being impassible and simple, He is impassibly and indivisibly Father of the Son. This again is strongly evidenced and proved by divine Scripture. For the Word of God is His Son, and the Son is the Father’s Word and Wisdom; and Word and Wisdom is neither creature nor part of Him whose Word He is, nor an offspring begotten with pain. Uniting then the two titles, Scripture speaks of ‘Son,’ in order to herald the natural and true offspring of His essence; and, on the other hand, that none may think of

367 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Defence of Dionysius 15 (NPNF II/4:182).

368 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Four Discourses Against the Arians 2.2 (NPNF II/4:349).

369 Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on Hebrews (lost); fragment quoted in St. Pamphilius, Apology for Origen 50 (FOTC 120:56).

the Offspring humanly, while signifying His essence, it also calls Him Word, Wisdom, and Radiance; to teach us that the generation was impassible, and eternal, and worthy of God.”³⁷⁰

It is wrong for us look at God through the lens of material reality. He is not a human being or a created being. When we speak of the Father and the Son, we do not mean that God married and gave birth to another God, since there is no physiological reproduction in the essence of God.

The Son is born of the Father as rays of light are born of the sun, or as the mind is born of the human soul, or as brightness is born of light. Yet even these and other examples are inadequate to express what is divine.