Catechesis · Inquirer
God the Son
Catechesis · Inquirer
God the Son
The Son of God is the second Person of the Holy Trinity. He is eternally begotten of the Father, not made, not created, but generated from the Father's own divine being from all e…
Question
Who is the eternal Son?
The Son of God is the second Person of the Holy Trinity. He is eternally begotten of the Father, not made, not created, but generated from the Father's own divine being from all eternity. He is of one essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit. When He took human flesh in the womb of the Virgin, He became man while remaining fully God.
To beget is to communicate your own being. The Son shares the Father's nature, and in God this sharing is perfect, total, and eternal, without diminution or division.
The teaching
The Logos — eternal Word and Wisdom of God
The Gospel of John opens: "In the beginning was the Word." The Greek word is *Logos*. This is the Church's name for the Son before His Incarnation: the eternal Word of God, through whom all things were made. He was not created to make the world — He was already present, already active, already God.
The Son is also called the Wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24). All the wisdom, rationality, and order in creation — the mathematical structure of the universe, the logic of beauty, the coherence of truth — reflects the eternal Wisdom who is its source. When you encounter genuine truth or beauty anywhere, you are encountering a trace of the Son.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 is the centre of all Christian theology. The eternal Word — through whom all things were made — took human flesh. Not a human appearance, not a human disguise: flesh. He entered the human condition from the inside. He was born, grew up, ate, slept, wept, bled, died. And through all of this He remained fully God.
John 1:14
The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel
Holy Scripture
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible... all things were created through Him and for Him."
Colossians 1:15–16
"He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."
Colossians 1:17