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Arius and Athanasius, part 8 – Athanasius on begetting the Son (JT)

This diagram from the 1970s says it all.
This diagram from the 1970s says it all.

Last time, I explained that Athanasius thinks human fathers procreate sons by giving a part of their substance to the mother, and that bit of substance then becomes an ingredient in the zygote, and the zygote inherits its human nature from that ingredient.

Athanasius thinks this basic model applies to God too, though he is careful to make an important qualification: human fathers beget sons by giving up a part of their substance, but God the Father gives his whole self to his Son, not a part.

The reason for this is that like Arius, Athanasius believes that the Father is simple. There are no ingredients in the Father, so anything that’s in the Father is, strictly speaking, identical to the Father. (Thus, like Arius, Athanasius agrees that the Godhood is not an ingredient in the Father; rather, it just is the Father.)

As we saw before, Arius infers from this that the Father cannot break off a part of himself, and so he concludes that the Father must create the Son out of nothing. Athanasius agrees that the Father cannot break off a part of his substance, but he thinks Arius hasn’t seen all the available options. The Father’s simplicity entails only this: if the Father is going to give any of his substance to the Son, he’s got to give the whole thing, or none at all. It’s not a question of a part; it’s a question of all or none.

Of course, Athanasius denies that the Son is created without any ingredients, so he can’t say the Father gives none of his substance to the Son. Rather, he goes with the former option: the Father gives the Son his whole self.

Like human fathers then, God the Father begets God the Son by giving his substance to the Son. But unlike human fathers, God the Father gives his whole self to the Son, and not just a part of himself. Thus, for Athanasius, the Father himself is an ingredient in the Son.

This allows Athanasius to draw some important conclusions. First of all, by saying that the Son is ‘produced from’ the Father’s substance, Athanasius can say that the Son is not created. Like human sons, God’s Son is produced with at least one pre-existing ingredient, namely the Father himself, and that’s enough to show that the Son is not created from nothing.

Second, Athanasius can say that God’s Son is divine just like his Father. God’s Son inherits his divine properties from the substance he gets from his Father, just as human sons inherit their human properties from the substance they get from their fathers.

But since the Father’s substance is not divided up, the Son is homoousios (same in substance) with his Father in a quite literal sense. God’s Son doesn’t just have the same kind of substance as his Father; he has the numerically same substance.

There’s an important point to notice here. Even though the whole Father is an ingredient in the Son, the Father is not identical to the Son. As I explained above, an ingredient cannot be identical to the product in question, and that applies in God’s case too. Further, if the Father were identical to the Son, that would be modalism, and Athanasius explicitly rejects that (as does Arius).

In the next couple of posts, I want to talk about some problems that I see in Athanasius’ account of the Son’s production.

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2 thoughts on “Arius and Athanasius, part 8 – Athanasius on begetting the Son (JT)”

  1. Hi Brandon,

    Sorry for the delay answering this. I’ve been without an internet connection for a few days. Send me an email at jt dot paasch at gmail, and I’ll send you the paper itself. It’s got lots of quotes.

    But here are some of the more relevant quotations. (The translation is Cardinal Newman’s translation, from the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series 2 (NPNF 2). Newman usually translates the word ‘ousia’ (substance) as ‘essence’, which is unfortunate.)

    1. Here are some texts for the idea that human fathers give a part of their substance to their sons, but God cannot be divided, so he has to give his whole substance to the Son.

    De Decretis, 11 (NPNF 2, 4: 157), ‘For the offspring of men are portions of their fathers, since the very nature of bodies is not uncompounded, but in a state of flux, and composed of parts; and men lose their substance in begetting, and again they gain substance from the accession of food. And on this account men in their time become fathers of many children. But God, being without parts, is Father of the Son without partition or passion; for there is neither effluence of the Immaterial, nor influx from without, as among men; and being uncompounded in nature, He is Father of One Only Son. This is why He is Only-begotten, and alone in the Father’s bosom, and alone is acknowledged by the Father to be from Him’.

    De Decretis, 24 (NPNF 2, 4: 166): ‘in like manner when we hear the phrase “one in essence,” let us not fall upon human senses, and imagine partitions and divisions of the Godhead, but . . . let us preserve undivided the oneness of nature and the identity of light’.

    Contra Arianos, 2.34 (NPNF 2, 4: 366): ‘For if in the case of these originate and irrational things [e.g., the sun] offsprings [e.g., the sun’s radiance] are found which are not parts of the essences from which they are, nor subsist with passion, nor impair the essences of their originals [e.g., as the radiance of the sun does not divide the sun’s essence but rather contains and expresses all of it], are they [viz., the Arians] not mad again in seeking and conjecturing parts and passions in the instance of the immaterial and true God, and ascribing divisions to Him who is beyond passion and change, thereby to perplex the ears of the simple and to pervert them from the Truth?’

    Contra Arianos, 2.32-33 (NPNF 2, 4: 366): ‘[The Arians ask:] How can the Son be from eternity? or how can He be from the Father’s Essence, yet not a part? since what is said to be of another, is a part of him; and what is divided, is not whole. These are the evil sophistries of the heteredox . . . . we see that the radiance from the sun is proper to it, and the sun’s essence is not divided or impaired; but its essence is whole and its radiance perfect and whole, without impairing the essence of light, but as a true offspring from it. We understand in like manner that the Son is begotten not from without but from the Father, and . . . the Father remains whole’.

    Contra Arianos, 3.6 (NPNF 2, 4: 396): ‘Nor is this Form of the Godhead [which is in the Son] partial merely, but the Fulness of the Father’s Godhead is the Being of the Son, and the Son is whole God . . . . the Godhead and the Form of the Son is none other than the Father’s’.

    Contra Arianos, 3.6 (NPNF 2, 4: 396): ‘and the Father’s Form which is in Him shews in Him the Father; and thus the Father is in the Son’; ibid., 3.3 (NPNF 2, 4: 395): ‘For the Son is in the Father, . . . because the whole Being of the Son is proper to the Father’s essence, as radiance from light, and stream from fountain . . . . For the Father is in the Son, since the Son is what is from the Father and proper to Him, as in the radiance from the sun, . . . and in the stream the fountain: for whoso thus contemplates the Son, contemplates what is proper to the Father’s Essence, and knows that the Father is in the Son. For . . . the Form and Godhead of the Father is the Being of the Son’.

    2. Here are some texts for the idea that the Father and Son have the very same substance.

    Contra Arianos, 1.61 (NPNF 2, 4: 341): ‘And what does this denote but the Son’s genuineness, and that the Godhead of the Father is the same as the Son’s?’.

    Ibid., 2.41 (NPNF 2, 4: 370): ‘the Word of God is One, being the only Son proper and genuine from His Essence, and having with His Father the oneness of Godhead indivisible’.

    Ibid., 3.4 (NPNF 2, 4: 395): ‘by way of shewing the identity of Godhead and the unity of Essence. For they [viz., the Father and the Son] are one, not as one thing divided into two parts, . . . . but the nature is one; . . . and all that is the Father’s, is the Son’s’.

    3. Here are some texts for the idea that the Son inherits all the Father’s properties.

    Contra Arianos, 3.4 (NPNF 2, 4: 395): ‘And so, since they [viz., the Father and the Son] are one, and the Godhead itself one, the same things are said of the Son, which are said of the Father, except His being said to be Father: — for instance, that He [viz., the Son] is God, . . . Almighty, . . . Lord, . . . Light, . . . and so on with other attributes’.

    Ibid., 3.5 (NPNF 2, 4: 395-396): ‘And why are the attributes of the Father ascribed to the Son, except that the Son is an Offspring from Him? and why are the Son’s attributes proper to the Father, except again because the Son is the proper Offspring of His Essence? And the Son, being the proper Offspring of the Father’s Essence, reasonably says that the Father’s attributes are His own also’.

    Ibid., 3.6 (NPNF 2, 4: 396): ‘what is said of the Father is also said of the Son, not as accruing to His Essence by grace or participation, but because the very Being of the Son is the proper Offspring of the Father’s Essence . . . . For the Son is such as the Father is, because He has all that is the Father’s’.

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