The logic of that thought notwithstanding...

The logic of that thought notwithstanding, the Scripture states him to be clearly and unequivocally man and not God. The position does not belittle Christ by saying that he is man and not God. It may be that he is a man so far above the men we know today that to human senses he would even appear to be like God. Nevertheless we must remember that human senses are not the criteria we are dealing with, but the Christian Scriptures.

That Scripture states God to be one, and we have not the right to associate or confuse anyone, even one so great as Jesus Christ, with God Almighty. To do so is to fall into polytheism and, from an Islamic viewpoint, vastly to belittle and lower the concept of God. What does the Bible mean then, when it says that Jesus is the son of God? In most modern languages it is rare to use the words father and son in other but literal meanings of biological descent.

That is why readers of the Bible in translation may be honestly mistaken. The word `son' as applied to Christ and the word `father' as applied to God must be understood as metaphorical, that is, in a meaning other than the literally biological one. Indeed, few people actually understand them literally. No one, insofar as I know, actually believes that God had sexual intercourse with Mary to produce Jesus.

Such an idea is revolting to most minds and is certainly not held by any of the estab­lished Christian creeds. God, even according to Christian belief, is not the father of Christ or any other humans in any literal sense. The word `son' is clearly used in the Bible to express the character of people, and not always their biological descent. The word is used in both ways in 1 Samuel 2:12.

`Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the Lord.' It cannot mean that these young men had two biological fathers. The genes of only one sperm can naturally combine with the ovum to produce a genetically new individual. The margin of my Bible explains that the expression `sons of Belial' means `wicked men', that is `sons of wickedness'. A `son of God' is just the opposite. What are the non-biological usages of the word father in the Bible?

In Genesis 4:20-21 `father of such as dwell in tents' and `father of all such as handle the harp', suggest a meaning of `inventor, first, prototype'. The words father and sons are used in Genesis 10:21 in the sense of ancestor and descendants.