Islam & Christianty

The Divine Sonship

 

The third Christian dogma is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in a special and exclusive sense. This dogma also is not in conformity with the sayings and teachings of Jesus. In the Bible this expression has been used for many earlier prophets. For instance, Israeli was called the "Son of God" in one of the books of Moses:

 

"And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My Son, even My first born. "

(Exodus 4:22)

 

In the Psalms the same title was given to David.

 

"I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee."

(Psalms 2:7)

 

A little later in the Bible Solomon also was called the Son of God:

 

 

"He shall build an house for My Name: and he shall. Be My Son, and I will be his Father and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever."

(I Chronicles, 22: I0)

 

This phrase meant nothing more than nearness to God in love. The founder of Christianity himself said that every man who did the Will of the Father in Heaven was a Son of God. It

was devout life and kind and merciful behavior that made a man worthy of being called the Son of God. Is this not what Jesus says in the following sayings:

 

"Love your enemies. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven. "

(Matthew 5: 44,45)

 

"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the Sons of God."

(Matthew 5:9)

 

These sayings leave no doubt in our minds as to what this phrase meant for Jesus. In view of this, there is no justification for regarding Jesus as the Son of God, in an exclusive or unique sense. Jesus mostly called himself a "son of man", but when he referred to himself as a "Son of God", it was no doubt in the same sense in which Adam, Israel, David and Solomon before him had been called the Sons of God and in which he himself had spoken of those who had love in their hearts and lived in peace with their fellow-men as "Sons of God." The following remarks of Jesus will further show that it was only in a metaphorical sense that he called himself a Son of God:

 

"Jesus answered them, is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods? If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest; because I said I am the son of

God."

(John 10:34-36)

 

Jesus was obviously referring to Psalms 82: verses 6 and 7:

 

"I have said, ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most high. But ye shall die like men and fall like one of the princess."

 

As the Judges and prophets of old were called "god" only in a metaphorical sense, so Jesus called himself a "Son of God" in the same sense. It is clear that for Jesus the term "Son of God" carried no particular import other than the idiom of the Bible permitted. There is no case for singling Jesus out as the Son of God in a special or literal sense, as the Christians have done.

 

The Glorious Qur'an in a very forceful language rejects the dogma that Jesus was the Son of God in a literal or unique sense.

It says:

 

{And they say: God hath taken unto Himself a son. Be He Glorified.' Nay, but whatsoever is in the heaven and the earth is His. All are subservient unto Him.)

(2:1 16)

 

(lt beftteth not (the Majesty) of God that He should take unto Himself a son. Glory be to Him! When He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only, Be! and it is.)

(19:35)

 

 

Reason and common sense are again on the side of Islam. Philosophy tells us that no being from whom another being can come out and exist as a separate individual and become his equal and partner can be regarded as perfect. To attribute a son to God would be to deny the Perfection of God.[1]

 

[1] Cf. Bergson, The Creative Evolution, Modern Library, p.l6.