The Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28)
“The very center of a saving faith is the belief not merely in God, but in God as a Father; not merely in Christ, but in Christ as the Son of God; in Him not as a creature, but as God the Creator, born of God . . . because there is a Father, we know that there is a Son . . . The Father is greater because He is Father (Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity) – The Father has His being from none other than Himself (Anselm of Canterbury, Monologium): but the Son, because He is Son, is not less . . . The Father is greater, for the Son prays to Him to render glory to manhood He has assumed. The Son is not less, for He receives back His glory with the Father . . . [Thus You are] our “Father and Father of God the Only-Begotten . . . [And] those who shall be baptized [will be baptized] in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost . . . [Thus] they have the true Names, and that those Names involve the truth” (Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity).
“We can no more separate fatherhood from the Father or sonship from the Son than we can deny the existence in the Holy Ghost of that gift which we receive. Yet men of distorted mind plunge the whole matter in doubt and difficulty, fatuously reversing the clear meaning of words, and depriving the Father of His fatherhood because they wish to strip the Son of His sonship . . . We must proclaim exactly as we shall find them in the words of Scripture, the majesty and functions of Father, Son and Holy Spirit . . . This is a true statement of the mystery of that unfathomable nature which is expressed by the Name ‘Father’ . . . He has, in ‘Father’ a name to indicate His nature; He is a Father unconditioned. He does not, as men do, receive the power of paternity from an external source. He is unbegotten, everlasting, inherently eternal . . . God can never be anything but love, or anything but the Father . . . [for] He Who is Father, is wholly and entirely Father. This name admits of no compromise . . . [Therefore, restore] the Author of the Godhead to His place, while proclaiming that He has a Companion” (ibid.).
