Did Jesus Become God When He Was Born?

Out of the mouth of babes come some of the toughest issues that ever confront theologians, to say nothing of Sunday school teachers or parents. For example, the question that my son, then five years of age, once put to me in rush-hour traffic: "Daddy, how did Jesus get to be God?" What struck me about the question was that we hadn't even been talking about the subject. Surprising as it may seem to you, that very issue was one of the first controversies in the early church. Did Jesus become God when He was born? Or rather was He always God and only appeared to be a man?