Father/Son Relationship
It is important, as we begin to reflect on God the Father, to remember the famous statement by Athanasius. “It would be more godly and true to signify God from the Son and call him Father, than to name him from his works and call him Unoriginate.” The relationship between the Father and the Son is of utmost importance for Christianity. This is why it is so important that the Nicene Creed states that the Son, Jesus Christ, is “of one being” with the Father. One of the most astonishing aspects of the Father/Son relationship is that, unlike the relationship of creation to God, it is a relationship that is internal to God, that is, it is not a relationship between God and something that is not God, nor a relationship between one god and another god, but a relationship that is not finally different than God, but is fully within the being of God. This is a difficult concept for which we have no analogies in our daily lives. However, it is a central conviction of Christian faith.
Knowledge of God
In the last chapter on God the Incarnate Son, it was emphasized that God has become knowable to humanity because in Christ, real knowledge of God was obtained by an actual human being, which we then participate in through the Holy Spirit. However, here we are dealing with a more fundamental issue in knowledge of God. If God is conceived as simple, undifferentiated oneness, it is not possible for God to be known, because God cannot be known in part, because we cannot break God down into smaller pieces, and because we are not infinite, which would be a bare minimum in order to understand an infinite God. However, once we see that there is relationship which is internal to the being of God, we see that God is not only knowable, but that God is intrinsically knowable.
It must be stressed that now we are dealing with God being intrinsically knowable within the being of God, that is, God knows God, not just because God knows himself like we might know ourselves, but that the Father and the Son are both God and they know each other in a real and personal way. If all we could know was that there are personal distinctions within God, we would know that God was knowable, but we would have no choice but to maintain that such knowledge is not available to us. It is only because, in Christ, knowledge of God was made real within a human mind, and because the Holy Spirit really does take that mind of Christ and manifests it in the lives of believers, that we come to participate in that knowledge.
As we step back into what we know about God, we find that the Father/Son relationship is extremely important to us. If it is not true that, when we look at Jesus the Incarnate Son of God, we are truly looking at God, we would find ourselves groping for some kind of understanding, some kind of window into the heart of God and we would have nothing of the sort available to us. If Jesus is not finally a full self-revelation of God, then even the most amazing act of God to reach us does not finally tell us anything for sure about God; there would be an unbridgeable gap between God as he is toward us (in Jesus Christ) and God as he is in himself.
However, this relationship is indeed internal to God, that is, it is a part of who God actually is. It is because of this that we are able, by looking to Jesus, to say something with confidence about who God really is in God’s own life. We will examine some specific (and sometimes rather unexpected) consequences of this insight that we gain into the nature of God the Father from this relationship between the Father and the Son in the next sub-section. However, there are two main points that need to be stressed about our knowledge of God through Christ.
First, we find that we do actually come to know God, at least in a broken way. While we are still stained with sin, while we remain on this side of eternity, sinful in ourselves and living in a society of people who are also sinful (Isaiah 6:5), we will not ever get to a point where our knowledge is so absolutely certain that we can take it for granted without continually subjecting it to testing both in light of the Biblical witness as well as by understanding their consequences (which may or may not be obvious at first glance). This goes along with one of the claims that was made in the very first chapter of this work. “All theological statements, especially in this work, are tentative and subject to revision.” As we come to theological convictions, we then subsequently test them by examining the Biblical witness in light of them. We are almost guaranteed that we will encounter some passages that do not fit neatly into our categories. When this happens, if the tension is real and not only perceived (which is sometimes the case), we find we need to revise our way of thinking in light of what God has actually revealed.
It could be said that this method of doing and testing theology is a “critical realist” approach. It is “realist” because we maintain that we really can know God, even if our concepts need to be continually reshaped (not unlike the process of shaping the Israelite culture) to be ever more accurate descriptions of God’s revelation. There is a reality that we seek to know and, through faith, some knowledge is indeed available to us. It is “critical” because we realize that, though a particular conviction is so strong, though it seems that no further insight is possible regarding a particular topic, such insights may indeed arise and must be taken into account. We always have need to double check our conclusions and defer to the reality we hope to understand, that is, God. This is why statements like the Nicene Creed (especially the ομοουσιος τω Πατρι, or “of one being with the Father”) while incredibly helpful, are not sacrosanct or irreformable and, should more accurate and helpful insights arise, be revised in light of the reality of God.
The other point that must be made when we say that we come to knowledge of God the Father through Jesus Christ is that, because God has given us this decisive self-revelation in Christ within the context of Israel, we are not free to bypass either the actual person of Christ or the larger context of the nation of Israel. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me” (John 14:6). If we were to attempt to know God without going through Jesus, we would be attempting to know God by avoiding God; something which is absolutely impossible (not to say irrational). We must allow the actual self-revelation of God to determine all of our knowledge of God. To do otherwise would be to silently declare that Jesus is finally not of one being with the Father and that the Father/Son relationship is something that is external to God.
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