The Father

God the Father is the first Person of the Holy Trinity — the unoriginate source of the Son and the Spirit, the Almighty Maker of all things, made known to us through the Son and calling us to become His children by grace.

For Inquirers

When Jesus taught people how to pray, the very first word He handed them was "Father." That is a startling place to begin. It says that whatever or whoever is behind all of existence is not a cold force or a distant lawmaker, but something far more personal — a Father: a source from whom everything lovingly comes.

In the Christian confession of God, "the Father" is the first of the three who are the one God — and He is the wellspring, the one from whom the Son and the Spirit eternally come. But here is the part that keeps this from being mere theory: you do not come to know the Father by staring up at the sky and guessing. You come to know Him by looking at Jesus, who said that anyone who has seen Him has seen the Father. The Son is, so to speak, the Father made visible. And the whole point of the Christian story is that this Father is not content to stay far off — He sends His Son and His Spirit precisely so that ordinary people can be brought in and given the right to call Him, too, "Father." If the word "father" carries some ache for you, it may help to know that the Church means it the other way round: every good thing a father was ever meant to be is a faint echo of this one, not the reverse.

Overview

God the Father is the first Person of the Holy Trinity — confessed in the Creed as "one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible."
Within the Godhead He is the unoriginate source and cause: the Son is eternally begotten of Him, the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from Him (the Monarchy of the Father). This origin makes Him no greater in essence, dignity, or power; the Three share one essence and are co-equally God.
The Father is known chiefly through the Son — "he who has seen me has seen the Father" — not through speculation about the Godhead in the abstract.
Through the Son and in the Spirit, believers are made children of God by grace, and so may pray to God as "Father."

Summary

The Church's confession of God opens with Him: "We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible."[^creed] He is named first as their source — the one unoriginate fountainhead from whom the whole Godhead flows. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father and the Spirit eternally proceeds from Him, so that the very oneness of God is grounded in this first Person: the Monarchy of the Father. St. Gregory the Theologian presses the point that the Father's fatherhood has no beginning and no cause behind it: "Who then is that Father Who had no beginning? One Whose very Existence had no beginning… And He is Father in the absolute sense, for He is not also Son."[^greg] The Fathers never tire of guarding what follows from this: being the source sets Him no higher in nature or glory, and the three Persons remain one in essence and equal in majesty.

Receiving the One He sends is how the hidden source becomes known at all. "No one knows the Son, except the Father," says the Lord, "neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him" (Matthew 11.27)[^mt]. The Father is disclosed in the Son and nowhere else so fully; when Philip asks to be shown the Father, Jesus answers, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14.9)[^jn]. Christian talk of the Father is never abstract theism for exactly this reason — the Father has a face turned toward us, and that face is Christ.

To know Jesus is therefore to know the Father's heart, since the Son does only what He sees the Father doing: "the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing" (John 5.19)[^jn519]. And the knowing is meant to become a belonging. The astonishing claim at the center of the Gospel is that the Father's own Son came to make many sons — that those who are joined to Christ receive, as a gift they could never have by nature, the standing of children of God. St. Paul puts it in the language of adoption: "you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'" (Romans 8.15)[^rom]. He says the same thing again to the Galatians, in case anyone missed it the first time: "God sent out the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father!'" (Galatians 4.6)[^gal].

The single word Jesus placed at the head of His prayer is thus handed down to the whole Church: we call God "Father" not by presumption but because the Son has made us His brothers and sisters, and the Spirit prays that name within us. He is the living origin of all things, sending His Son and His Spirit into the world for one purpose — to bring His children home.

Sources

[^creed]: The Creed of the First Council of Nicaea (325) — "We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible." (The 381 Symbol of Faith recites the same opening, expanded to "Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible."). [^jn519]: John 5.19 (WEB) — "the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing.". [^greg]: St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 29 (Third Theological Oration), §5 — "Who then is that Father Who had no beginning? One Whose very Existence had no beginning… And He is Father in the absolute sense, for He is not also Son.". [^mt]: Matthew 11.27 (WEB) — "No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him.". [^jn]: John 14.9 (WEB) — "He who has seen me has seen the Father.". [^rom]: Romans 8.15 (WEB) — "you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'". [^gal]: Galatians 4.6 (WEB) — "God sent out the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father!'".