The answer
Firstly: This matter is fundamentally different from what it could mean with respect to human beings and animals.
Secondly: We know that every born (infant) is a “son.” So, the One who is born of the Virgin Mary is a son. The son has a father. Who, then, is His father? There is no father except God. So, we must attribute the sonship of Jesus Christ to God Himself, and that is why we call Him “Son of God.”
Thirdly: The sonship of Christ is characterised by the following:
- 1. It is a spiritual, rational sonship: As the generation of light from light, and thoughts from the mind.
- 2. It is a real sonship: Not by Kin. Christ is of the same nature as God the Father, and of His essence.
- 3. It is an eternal sonship: Christ exists with the Father without separation from eternity.
- 4. It is a continuous sonship without separation: The divinity of Christ is itself the divinity of the Father.
- 5. It is a sonship by nature, and not by position: Christ is of the nature of God, and there is none like Him.
- 6. It is a unique, unparalleled sonship: None like it in the world of man or matter.
His Holiness Pope Tawadros II
Pope Tawadros II, My Faith: A Series of Dialogues on the Creed (Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, 2014), 43.
The page in the book (43)
