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[Newbie]

To be son is to be less than divine, and to be divine is to be no one's son. So how can he be God? According to most Christians, Jesus was God-incarnate, full man and full God. Can the finite and the infinite be one? "To be full" God means freedom from finite forms and from helplessness, and to be "full man" means the absence of divinity. So, how could Jesus have the attributes of sonship and divinity altogether?

[jimwalton]

I think part of the confusion comes from your definitions. We should probably start there. You assert that " 'to be full' God means freedom from finite forms and from helplessness." Where did this definition come from, and what makes it authoritative? Then you say full man means the absence of divinity. Again, authority for this? To be son is less than divine? Where does this come from? And to be divine is no one's son? Where are these definitions from? They don't make sense to me.

I think Philippians 2.5-11 speaks to your question. Jesus was God in his very nature. He is God in every sense of the word, sharing his nature, attributes, and character, eternally. He didn't become it, he always was it.

Then it says, "he made himself nothing." He voluntarily divested himself of his forms and privileges of deity—that particular mode of existence peculiar to Him as one with God. He laid aside the form of God, though not the divine nature. Without giving up his divinity, he took on humanity. The infinite and the finite were truly united, paradoxically, but literally. He took up the form of humanity in its physical weaknesses and mortality. Being born of a woman, his humanity was as real as his deity. The Bible (and the Qur'an) claims he was born of a virgin, and that she conceived by the Holy Spirit, so his deity was as real as his humanity. Thus Jesus was separate from God as a distinct being ("face to face" with him as an equality), and yet was God: a unity of essence and nature (John 1.1).

John 1.1 addresses the issue head on: Before the beginning of all things, from eternity past, at the root of the universe, continuously existed THE WORD: the controlling being of the universe and the generative principle in nature. This WORD was a distinct "person" (a living, intelligent, active personality) from God, and yet this WORD was one and the same being as God himself. This same WORD is who became flesh on earth (Jn. 1.14).

His sonship (son-ness??) was literal (Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary), spiritual (an identity-defining relationship), and literary (hinting at his coming sacrifice and his filling the Messianic position of King David). God himself acknowledges the unique status of Jesus as Son and equal at Jesus' baptism (Mt. 3.17).