THE SON OF GOD AND THE SON OF MAN

Final in a series of Translation of Allan Kardec's Postumous Works "Study on the Nature of Christ."

For Christ declares himself subordinate to God.

The title of Son of God, far from implying equality, is, on the contrary, a sign of submission. In order for Jesus to be absolutely equal to God, it would be necessary for Him to exist, as God of all eternity, that is, to be uncreated. Now, the dogma says that God has begotten Him from all eternity; but says He created Him. Whether He was or not from all eternity, He does not cease to be a creature and to be, as such, subordinated to His Creator. It is the idea implicitly contained in the term Son. Was Jesus born in time? Or, in other words: was there a time, in eternity past, when He did not exist? Or is He co-eternal with the Father? Such are the subtleties they have played for centuries. In what authority does the doctrine of co-eternity, which has passed into the state of dogma, rest? In the opinion of the men who made it. But in what authority have such men founded such an opinion? It was not that of Jesus, for He declares himself subordinate; it was not that of the prophets who proclaim Him as the messenger and the servant of God. In what unknown documents, more authentic than the Gospels, did they find such a doctrine? It seems only in the awareness and superiority of their own lights.

If the qualification of the Son of God seems to support the doctrine of the deity, the same is no longer true of the Son of man, which Jesus Himself gave in his mission, and which was the subject of many commentaries.

To understand its true meaning, we have to go back to the Bible, where we find it given by God Himself to the prophet Ezekiel.

"Such is the image of the Lord which was presented unto me. When I saw these things, I fell from face to face and heard a voice saying to me, “Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you.” As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me."(Ezekiel 2: 1-3)

"Son of man, behold, they have prepared for you fetters, and will fetter you, and will not go forth from there." (Ezekiel, 3:25)

"Then the Lord spoke to me, saying, 'And you, Son of man, hear what the Lord God says to the land of Israel: the end is coming; this end cometh in the four corners of the earth. "(Ezekiel, 7: 1, 2)

"On the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year the Lord spoke to me, saying, 'Son of man, mark well this day when the king of Babylon gathered his troops before Jerusalem.'" (Ezekiel, 24: 1 and 2)

"And the Lord said to me, 'Son of man, I will strike you with a sore, and take away what is most pleasing to you but they shall not make me mournful lamentations; they will not weep and tears will not run down their cheeks. They will groan in secret and will not mourn - as it is for the dead; his crown shall be fastened upon his head, and his sandals shall be on his feet; they shall not cover their faces, and shall not eat the food that is given to them that mourn. Then I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the afternoon my wife died. The next day I did as God had commanded me. "(Ezekiel, 24: 15-18)

"The Lord also spake unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy concerning the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to the shepherds, 'This is what the Lord Yahweh says:' Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves; the shepherds do not feed their flocks” (Ezekiel, 34: 1, 2)

“Then I heard him speaking to me in the house, and the man who was near me said,' Son of man, here is the place of my throne, my feet and where I will remain forever in the midst of the children of Israel, and the house of Israel shall not profane my holy name any more in the future, neither they nor their kings, with their idolatries, with the sepulchers of their kings, noble descendants'.”(Ezekiel, 43: 6, 7)

It is evident that the qualification of the Son of man means here: that it was born of man, in opposition to that which is outside of Humanity. The last quotation, taken from the book of Judith, does not allow doubt as to the meaning of the expression, used in very literal sense. God only so designates Ezekiel, certainly to remind him that, despite the gift of prophecy that was bestowed upon him, he did not cease to belong to Humanity and lest it be considered of an exceptional nature.

Jesus gives himself this qualification with remarkable persistence, for only in very rare circumstances does he call himself Son of God. In his mouth it can have no other meaning than to remember that it also belongs to Mankind, thus identifying itself with the prophets who preceded it and to whom it was compared, referring to his death, when he said: Jerusalem, which kills the prophets! The insistence with which he calls himself the son of man seems an early protest against the quality which, he foresaw, would be given to him later, in order to be well determined that this quality had not left his lips.

It is evident that during this interminable polemic that had longed for men for a long series of centuries and that it still continued, that it lit fires and made rivers flow with blood, what was being discussed was a daydream, the nature of Jesus, from which the cornerstone of the building, although they did not speak and have forgotten one thing, which Christ said to be the whole law and the prophets: the love of God and neighbor and charity, which he established as the express condition of salvation. They clung to the question of Jesus' affinity with God and fell silent about the virtues he recommended and exemplified.

God himself was erased before the exaltation of the personality of Christ. In the symbol of Nicaea, it is said only: We believe in one God, etc. But, what is this God like? There is no mention of His essential attributes: sovereign goodness and sovereign justice. It is that these words would have been the condemnation of the dogmas that consecrate their partiality towards certain creatures, their intransigence, their jealousy, their anger, their spirit of revenge, and with which they justified the cruelties committed in their name.

If the symbol of Nicaea - which became the foundation of the Catholic faith - was in conformity with the spirit of Christ, why the curse with which the council ends? Is not there a proof that it is the work of the passion of men? What, by the way, is its adoption? "Under the pressure of the emperor Constantine, who made him a more political than a religious affair. Without his order, the Council of Nicaea would not have taken place; without his intimidation, it is more than likely that Arianism would do better. It all depended on the sovereign authority of a man who does not belong to the Church, who later recognized the political error he had made, and who, in vain, sought to turn back, reconciling the parties. Only of that authority depended there were no Aryans in place of Catholics and today Aryanism is not orthodoxy and Catholicism is heresy.(In fact, the "Creed of Nicaea" closes with the curse (anathematization) that the church summarily casts on anyone who would disagree with their dogmas. Here is the announcement of the church: "We believe in one God, the Father almighty, the Creator of all things, visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, the only begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not created, consubstantial of the Father, by whom all things were made in heaven and on earth, who for our sake for our sake and for the sake of our salvation descended, became incarnate and became a man, suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven and will come to judge the living and the dead And in the Holy Spirit. But how many to those who say: 'existed when it was not' and 'before it was born was not' and 'was made out of nothing, 'or to those who claim that the Son of God is a different hypostasis or substance, or was created, or is subject to change and change, to these the Church anathematizes. Arianism: doctrine defended by the priest Arius (250-336) and renegade by the Catholics, who then proceeded to persecute the Aryans, among other things, for those Christians not to admit ideas proposed by the Council of Nicaea, such as the that Jesus was the same person of God.)

After eighteen centuries of vain struggles and disputes - in the course of which the most essential part of Christ's teaching, the only one that could guarantee peace for mankind - has been set aside entirely - everyone is tired of these fruitless discussions, which have only led to disturbances, generating unbelief, and whose object no longer satisfies reason.

The general opinion today manifests a marked tendency to return to the fundamental ideas of the primitive Church and to the moral part of the teachings of Christ, because it is the only one that can make men better. This is clear, positive and cannot open the door to any controversy. If, from the beginning, the Church had taken this path, it would now be omnipotent instead of declining. It would have congregated the immense majority of the men, instead of having been crushed by the factions.

When they march under this banner, men will hold hands fraternally, instead of condemning themselves and cursing, for matters they almost never understand. That tendency of opinion is a sign that the time has come to bring the question to the real ground.