Another Child of God like Jesus

Asked on Quora: Would God ever have another child and let him come to Earth like Jesus?

Summary Answer

No. It's a silly question to any Christian, but the reasons behind the answer are an instructive exercise.

Background

The Bible makes three claims about the nature of God.

• Exactly one God has existed, exists, and will ever exist.
• Modern physics shows that mass, energy, space, and even time are intimately intertwined. If God created the heavens and Earth, then God created time and space. Having creative power over time and space, God is able to exist in and experience time and space as three identical Persons.
• The three Persons voluntarily adopt separate and complementary roles, self-identifying as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in accordance with the roles.

Many people, instead of following a model that reconciles the three claims, reject one or more of the claims. They can argue that the following explanation is incorrect, but they cannot argue that it is a spurious or held by a minority.

God existed outside of time (which I will call “eternity”) and space as a Unity and exists within His creation as a Trinity of Persons (not a trinity of gods).

Accepted doctrine stops there. Many believe God exists only within time, but science says that time had a beginning. That leaves unanswered the question of how the three Persons could have the same essence and be one God.

I counter that the choice is not either eternal or temporal. I believe God exists both outside time as a Unity of substance and a Trinity of personhood and inside time as a Trinity. For me, accepting that God’s creative power enables Him to be both One God yet three Persons fits all the evidence in the Bible. And it is consistent with science. It also explains how God can be omnipresent and omniscient (including knowing the future).

How the Son became the Son is unclear. There are a passages that say Jesus and the Holy Spirit “proceed from” the Father. However, this could be interpreted either as a duplication of essence or as a sending forth, like a soldier who is sent on a task by an officer.

The sending meaning is far more likely. First, we know that the Father has assigned duties to Son and the Spirit. Second, sending implies sequence, and sequence must occur within time. Since the Son and the Spirit took part in creating time, the Father could not have duplicated Himself within time. “Proceed from” must mean that the Son and the Spirit were sent.

Detailed Answer

Having a child and letting him/her/it come to Earth reflects an image of God like that of humans creating children within time. Human children and parents are separate entities. In contrast, if God is a Unity outside of time, and God created time, then the Son did not come into being during time’s existence. That is, God could not “have” a child like the Son because the Son has always been.

Suppose God “had another child.” Since the new child comes into being within time, he/she/it cannot be eternal like the Son is. The child would also have limited experience, knowledge, and power. Moreover, the term “child” implies a need to mature, which the Son did not need to do. The Jesus body had to mature, but the divine Person, God the Son, did not. Since the new child would have an inferior nature, he/she/it might be similar to a great angel but could not be God. Since “another” implies of the same kind, the new child would not be “another.”

Here’s another reason why God could not “have another child.” God calls the second Person the Son primarily because that label fits the role. Consistent with that label, John 3:16 calls Jesus only-begotten. Many translations dilute the term. “One and only” is only half wrong because it conveys the metaphorical meaning of only-begotten. However, it fails to convey the literal meaning.

Here, a bit of language definition helps. Beget and conceive are counterpart words. Whereas a female conceives and births a child, a male begets a child. The accounts of the witnesses say that God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, turned one of Mary’s eggs into an embryo. While the Son already existed, He clothed himself with that body and subjected Himself to all the burdens and infirmities that we experience.

Only-begotten, then implies three things.

• God begot the Jesus body through creative power.
• The Son has the same nature that the Father has (that is, He is God).
• Jesus, Son of God, is one-of-a-kind.

If God “had” another “child,” then Jesus would not be the only-begotten. By calling Jesus “only-begotten” in the scriptures, God would be a liar. Since God is Truth, lying would make Him not God. God cannot be both Truth and liar or both God and not God.

Let’s forget God’s honesty for a moment. God could beget another body, but the same Son would have to inhabit it. However, upon His resurrection, God re-vivified and transformed Jesus’ body into a transcendent body. Jesus still has that transcendent body in heaven and would have to discard it in order to inhabit the newly begotten body. If the Son took on a new body, we couldn’t recognize Him either in heaven when we die or on earth when He returns. 

Even worse, if the Son discarded His Jesus body to inhabit the new one, the Jesus body would die again. That contradicts explicit statements that the transcendent body is immortal.

So the terms have (meaning, the verbs create, beget, or birth), child, and another all reflect ideas that conflict with what we can learn about God from the Bible. For multiple logical reasons, God could not “have another child” or “let him come to Earth.”

Since this answer was posted on Quora, a copyright would have no force. However, I can ask that if you use it, please give credit where credit is due.