Father and Son

Meaning

Father and Son occur in the main treatise’s argument about where the heavenly good is known. At the transfiguration the Father points to his beloved Son and commands that he be heard. The paragraph then identifies Christ as God’s essential and eternal Word and as the sole way to the Father.

These relations concern divine testimony and Christ, not the natural generation of a metallic son. The English ‘beloved Son’ renders Lieber Sohn within the quoted scriptural declaration. The surrounding passage directs readers to the Old and New Testaments, so hearing the Son and searching Scripture support one another rather than presenting rival routes to knowledge.