[jayceeii]

In Wake of the Red Witch, the primitive villagers refer to John Wayne as one of the “sons of God.”

What is the conflict with interpreting these as angels? Job 2:1 seems reasonable if Satan is one of the angels.

The point of God having one Son and multiple sons is that the angels, as divine ones, are fit companions for the Son.

But there are also implications, I’d think, that they should be venerated by humanity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvXsg0H0Ebo

[Greg]

Its really not relevant whether it means angels or not, as God is still referring to angels as sons of God, while also John 3:16 says Jesus is the ONLY Son of God.

“The point of God having one Son and multiple sons is that the angels, as divine ones, are fit companions for the Son”

Not sure if the above was intentional but it does not seem to address the argument at all. The perceived issue is that the bible says Jesus is the only Son of God, while also referencing multiple Sons of God. Which one is it?

[jayceeii]

The idea is that “son of God” with a small “s” would be something of an honorific. The usage implies that angels are close enough to God that they deserve human veneration.

Swedenborg also insisted that YHWH Himself took the embodiment as Jesus, and this means the term “Son of God” is misleading. So maybe both these terms are misleading.

But I don’t think you’ll find this literal story in the Bible. If you believe in the angels and believe they are glorious it might make sense. It means all in the heavenly host are divine.

[Greg]

I see your point but I think it will come off as charitable and unconvincing to a skeptic. You’re trying to argue that son doesn’t really mean son, conveniently so the bible doesn’t appear contradictory. God could have used a hundred other honorific terms and avoided the confusion altogether.

You could also argue that every human being is a son and daughter of God, as God is our creator. That makes John 3:16 even more confusing, as how can Jesus be the only Son, when literally everyone is a child of God?

[jayceeii]

The Bible isn’t exactly what one would call the most elegant prose. I mean, the argument a more sophisticated term could’ve been used seems unlikely when it is not sophisticated.

Something can be true and still be unconvincing to a skeptic. I’ve been interested in truth. The phrase “Son of God” seems to have been used, including by Jesus, because there is some difficulty from the human perspective in understanding that YHWH takes on bodies. Identifying with their own bodies, it surpasses their ideation that God could do both, everything the Invisible God does, and support the Incarnation with a fragment of His Being. Yet this is the doctrine of the Trinity, and why they confess “Jesus is Lord.”

If the term “Son” is misleading then so is the term “Father.” You’re right, going by the Bible it appears that if Jesus is a child of God, calling God “Father,” then there is ambiguity if humans are also called God’s children, as has been common practice. Perhaps when the civilization is more mature they will learn to call God their Creator, dispensing with the “Father” analogy which is obviously drawn from the family situation.

On the other hand this may be much more difficult than I’m surmising, and humans may not be able to give up thinking of the Divine Father or the Divine Mother as in Hinduism. There are some useful parallels, as a father and mother care for their children, the father a bit more harshly, the mother more forgivingly. Yet God has made All, and does not really stand in a family relation to His creatures. The angels or “sons of God,” know this well.

[Greg]

I’m not saying sophisticated, I’m saying borderline intentionally confusing. Rationally if God has only one Son, you wouldn’t describe angels as sons just to be honorific, especially since angels easily qualify as actual Sons of God.

As I mentioned to another user, you could argue humans are only sons of God in the general sense and Jesus is the Son in the literal sense, but Adam is also directly the Son of God, as are the angels.

[jayceeii]

My point about “sophisticated” is that since the Bible is not a sophisticated work, it shouldn’t be expected to find sophisticated terms to refer to the angels within it. The Bible isn’t Shakespeare, in other words, so searching for Othello in it won’t be fruitful.

The term “son” appears to be misplaced to refer either to Jesus (who was literally God) or to the angels (who are creatures of God, though of a higher order than humans as the Bible relates). The idea of sonship appears to percolate only through the human families.

Do you really believe in an Adam? Are you sure that is a sophisticated approach? You probably believe in the story of Noah too, although all people hailing from a single family a few thousand years ago would show up immediately in genealogy databases.

[Greg]

No one has suggested the bible is Shakespearean nor do you actually believe it is required, to characterize angels as anything but “sons.”

If you believe “son” was misplaced than you are conceding to the skeptic, who will use this verse to discredit the bible (aka if this verse is wrong then how do you know Jesus divinity wasn’t mistranslated, etc.). I’m looking for good counterarguments but you appear to mostly agree with my original premise, which is fine but it’s not what I’m looking for here. That said, I still found the conversation worthwhile.

[jayceeii]

Well, why wasn’t a Shakespearean presentation expected? Is it because humans expect to see their God and prophets below them? Why do they insist it is God’s Word, when it is ham-handed at best? Perhaps occasionally it stumbles through a few things more or less accurately like the divinity of Jesus, but even here it is not handled well or unequivocally.

Shakespeare has more sophistication than the Bible, law books have more sophistication, medical journals have more sophistication, and science textbooks have more sophistication. It’s as though God might’ve broken the world had He used iambic pentameter where it wasn’t wanted. Yet poetry too will often sacrifice meaning for meter.

My Bible program lists all references of “sons of God,” and it is most confusing. There isn’t an easy resolution since like you say, it might refer to angels but perhaps to humans.

Genesis 6
 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.
 
 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were
 the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
 
 Deuteronomy 32
 8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.
 
 Job 1
 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.
 
 Job 2
 1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.
 
 Job 38
 7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
 
 Matthew 5
 9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
 
 Luke 20
 36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
 
 Romans 8
 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
 
 Galatians 3
 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

[Greg]

We’re kinda getting off topic here but it’s not Shakespearean for the same reasons we don’t regularly communicate via operatic singing. The medical book is not sophisticated to those it was intended for. It only appears sophisticated to us. The bible translations of today are attempting to convey the message to doctor and plumber alike. Sophistication at the expense of retention is a poor tradeoff.

[jayceeii]

Your argument appears to be that God is not allowed to bring technical accuracy because some in the audience are slow-witted. Also it is unfair to say I sought to make an opera from scripture, when I cited Shakespeare as a plea for greater eloquence and vocabulary.

[Charles]

Why assume the word “son” is being used univocally in both passages?

• This reply was modified 11 months, 4 weeks ago by  Charles.

[Greg]

The problem with this response is you could apply it equally to John 3:16. Judaism would be very happy with your argument.

[Charles]

I’m not sure if this is a response to my question above, but if it is, I wasn’t giving an argument. If one is alleging a contradiction, it seems one is assuming that the word “son” is being used univocally in the relevant passages. I was asking for a justification of this assumption.

• This reply was modified 11 months, 4 weeks ago by  Charles.

[Algernon]

Take a step back and think about some things that Jesus said that are quoted below. Everyone who has a been “born from above” has been born of God AND therefore has God as their “heavenly Father” AND therefore are “sons of God”. It’s a really simple metaphor.

Yet the author of John (about the discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus) says “only son of God”. Perhaps overzealous in an attempt to make Jesus more unique than even Jesus viewed Himself?

Matthew 5:9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Luke 6:35“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.
John 12:36 While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.
Matthew 6:26“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

• This reply was modified 11 months, 4 weeks ago by  Algernon.

[Greg]

“Yet the author of John (about the discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus) says “only son of God”. Perhaps overzealous in an attempt to make Jesus more unique than even Jesus viewed Himself?”

By this logic you could discredit the entire bible.

Moses was overzealous to make Genesis more awe-inspiring than it was.

Matthew was overzealous to make Jesus appear more selfless than he was.

Moses was overzealous in an attempt to make Job appear to suffer more than he did.

and so on.

[Algernon]

Nothing you’ve written logically follows what I wrote.

At most what I wrote discredits what the author wrote in John 3:16. That’s it. It doesn’t help your case to exaggerate it.

Many Christians seem to have an unreasonable attachment to the belief that the entirety of the Bible is the “inerrant word of God” when there’s just too much that tells against it. Is that the case for you?

Pay attention to what Jesus said that I quoted in my previous post and elsewhere. Jesus not only never claimed to be the “only son of God”, He calls his followers to make themselves sons of God as He was a son of God. Making Jesus to be the “only son of God” conceals HIS message. It effectively renders would be followers “blind” to understanding His words. Jesus was born to speak the truth to light the way to the truth.

John 18
37 ...For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.
John 12
36 While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.

Matthew 6
23“But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

John 8

34Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin."

31 ...If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

35The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.

Jesus says that his true disciples “abide in [His] word”. Not in the word of those other than Jesus. Listen to “His voice”.

[kravarnik]

Saint John qualifies the statement: “His only begotten Son”. Meaning that the Son is of God’s nature, thus why He is called “the only begotten of the Father” and “an exact imprint of His(the Father’s) nature” and “in Whom(Christ/the Son) the fullness of the Deity dwells”.

That’s because the Son is truly Divine by nature and the only-begotten of the Father’s essence. Men and angels are sons by Grace, but not by nature.

The Son is eternal and God Himself, true God from true God, Light from Light, co-eternal and co-natural with the Father(and the Spirit). Men and angels are created, thus creatures; being from nothing; not co-eternal, nor co-natural with the Father. But the Father, through His Grace, has the Saints brought into the family of the Holy Trinity, thus become sons of His by Grace through adoption.

To speak more bluntly: we may be sons of God relatively, while the Son – Christ Jesus, – is the Son of God absolutely. We are sons of God by relation to His Grace, in that whether we cooperate with and obey Him; the Son is the Son of God by essence in an absolute relationship of begetting, whereby the Thinker begot His Word from eternity and for eternity, thus the Thinker’s Word is truly His Son, the Mind truly births His Word and is of His essence.

[Greg]

While I don’t disagree, you are reading in a Trinitarian perspective that will not be granted by the skeptic. Begotten simply means natural offspring or blood relation, but even if they concede that begotten Son means those directly created by God, Adam and the angels would still qualify as begotten Sons, which does not logically dispel the Job 2:1 contradiction.

[Greg]

To anyone that is curious about this topic, I found an interesting secular rebuttal to my OP:

· The Bible frequently employs figurative language and draws from
ancient cosmological beliefs. In the cultural context of the ancient
Near East, including the Hebrews, the idea of a divine council or
assembly was common. These assemblies often depicted divine beings or
angels as “sons of God” or members of the heavenly court. It is
important to consider the symbolic and metaphorical nature of these
texts rather than interpreting them in a literal sense.

· In the context of John 3:16, the phrase “Son of God” is used to refer to Jesus in a unique and divine sense. It emphasizes his special relationship with God as the Messiah. On the other hand, in Job 2:1, the phrase “sons of God” could be understood as a metaphorical or symbolic expression, referring to celestial beings or angels who are in the service of God. While the term “sons of God” may appear similar, the connotation and meaning can be distinct in different biblical contexts.

· The phrase “sons of man” is often used metaphorically in the Bible to refer to human beings in general or to specific individuals. It is not meant to be taken literally as biological offspring. This metaphorical usage highlights the common humanity and shared nature of human beings, rather than implying a direct relationship to a divine figure.

[kravarnik]

“….it is important to consider the symbolic and metaphorical nature of these
texts rather than interpreting them in a literal sense…..”

No, that’s false. When God speaks of us as sons, by willful relation(covenant), that’s literally the case: we are LITERALLY sons of God by Grace through adoption.

I think what was said already is sufficient to demonstrate that there’s distinction between adoption and generation > thus why, we can safely conclude that God calls His Son and created beings His sons, on the basis of that distinction.

There’s no contradiction once we understand the proper meaning of the terms involved. We can LITERALLY cite examples from human life, how a father can call one of his sons “my only son(because he truly is from said father’s seed)” and to the rest of his sons “sons”, but they are only “sons”, because said father adopted them.

If someone has difficulty understanding such basic distinctions that we can even see played out in ordinary human life, then I’d advice you to drop from the conversation, because the person(s) with which you are discussing these things do not do so in good will and faith, but are probably using the entire thing as an occasion to mock you, or God.

There’s general difference between adoption and generation > a person can be someone’s only son, because of being the only one generated by his father > yet also his father have many other sons, which he ADOPTED, but are not of his seed.

It’s rather simple to understand, because we have many examples of this happening in human families and human society. This is why I’d repeat once again: if the people you’re conversing refuse to recognize such distinctions of terms, which make sense of how God can say “this is My only Son” and then say to men, or angels, “you are my sons/I raised sons/so on”, then you’re having pointless qualms and you’re losing time and energy for people, who are not appreciating it and do them no good.

[kravarnik]

“While I don’t disagree, you are reading in a Trinitarian perspective
that will not be granted by the skeptic. Begotten simply means natural
offspring or blood relation, but even if they concede that begotten Son
means those directly created by God, Adam and the angels would still
qualify as begotten Sons, which does not logically dispel the Job 2:1
contradiction”

They wouldn’t, because angelic nature and human nature are not Divine nature. The technical definition of begetting is the process of generation; the technical definition of generation is to “bring forth from one’s own being”.

We are not brought out of God’s Being, but out of nothing, through God’s Power. The same way you can bring a chair out of timber, but the chair is not ‘your offspring’ – you didn’t generate, but “made” the chair; thus it has an essence with a different nature, than yours(it’s not a human being, but a chair).

Thus why, there’s no “Trinitarian perspective”, but drawing the proper distinctions between the terms and their particular meaning and how we wisely apply those.

The process of generation in man produces another man. Thus why the offspring of man, the proper “begotten product”, is a man. The same way that the seed of trees begets trees of the type the seed is. This is why animals birth animals after their own nature.