The Principle of Fatherhood

One major misunderstanding between Trinitarians and Non-Trinitarians is a not understanding of the biblical Principle of Fatherhood, i.e. what does the Bible mean when it speaks about Fatherhood. Alongside of this not understanding goes the Principle of Creation. Trinitarians usually use both principles interchangeable, but Non-Trinitarians don't. Let's find out, why and what the differences are.

So when is one a Father? And when is one a Creator?

We can find a major creation event in Genesis 1, so let's examine, what we can learn about creation here. Gen 1,1: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

What materials did he use to create the earth? None, as far as we know. He spoke and those things came into being. Did they contain anything of his own substance? No, they did not. There is no indication that God took anything from him to create the earth or this universe at all.

Gen 1,27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

Man(kind) was created in the image of God. Image? If we look at the hebrew word, it is tselem, which means, resemblance or a representative figure. So basically spoken, God looked at himself at his appearance and his character, and created man according to those characteristics. Those were similar to God's characteristics but there might have been a difference, because they were not taken from God and molded by him and put into man - those were formed in the image of God, like when we would mold a statue - it would be very similar, but there would be tiny differences.