Long ago Arius said that there could be only one God because the distinctive attribute of God is to be ungenerated. In turn, Arius devised a neat syllogism. (i) God is ungenerated. (ii) The Son is generated. (iii) Therefore the Son is not God.
The way that the catholic Athanasius addressed this syllogism was to ask what might we mean by saying ‘ungenerated’. Perhaps we mean ‘does not come into existence’. If that is what we mean by ‘ungenerated’, then (says Athanasius) we can say that the Son is ‘ungenerated’ in just this sense. Hence, the syllogism doesn’t go through.
Now, Dale has (for awhile) raised the question, ‘is God a self?’ And, if we answer in the affirmative, then it looks like there is just one God-self, and that’s the Father. It seems to me that this question that Dale has been asking (again and again) is analogous, for the catholic Christian at least, to Arius’s apparently straightforward syllogism (i)-(iii). Athanasius’s response is to deny (ii) if by (ii) we mean “the Son comes into existence.”
Athanasius had to work out some possible definitions or meanings of the term ‘ungenerated’ in order to figure out which premise of Arius’s syllogism to reject. Along these lines I’ve wondered, ‘what does Dale, or anyone, mean by the term “self’?”‘ I hope in the future to write something about this. It seems to me that in addition to exegetical concerns of the NT, Dale is transfixed by this question, at least from my catholic point of view, much like Arius was transfixed by his syllogism.
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Oops, typo, the first verse is John 15:26, not 15:25: “The idea of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father comes from John 15:26.” At least I got it right the next two times. 🙂
Hi Dave,
The idea of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father comes from John 15:25. The NASB, which is a near literal translation, makes this clear: “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.” (John 15:26 NASB) This says “the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father.” But various other translations use a synonymous word for proceeds such as the NRSV that uses the word comes: “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.” (John 15:26 NRSV)
This verse clearly teaches that the Helper/Advocate/Spirit of truth proceeds/comes from the Father and is sent by the Son. All Trinitarian scholars agree that this verse teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. However, many Trinitarians reject the ancient creedal doctrine that this verse means that the Holy Spirit has always/eternally proceeded from the Father. This raises an interesting question about the many Trinitarians that reject the doctines of the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit. Are these Trinitarians quasi-orthodox instead of orthodox?
I do not know of any one passage that hints that “the existence of the persons designated as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is an eternal existence.” This is a complex doctrine that involves more than one passage. Most people find it easier to first establish Paterology and Christology before incorporating Pnematology. I hope that you are okay with first focusing on small steps with Paterology and Christology or I cannot currently continue this dialog with my limited time?
Here is a first small step to analyze: Did Jesus Christ personally preexist the the creation of the universe?
Apart from some allegorical interpretation, John 17:5 clearly teaches that both Jesus Christ and the Father personally preexisted the creation of the universe.
Also, weak relative identity (http://philpapers.org/rec/GOEWRI) reconciles the possibility of the Father being the one true God according to John 17:3 and Jesus Christ being “equal with God” according to John 5:18.
Additionally, the doctrine of the Incarnation (http://theoperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/03/simple-divine-partnership-and.html), the preexistent person of Christ becoming human flesh, reconciles Christ’s preexistence and his earthly birth.
How do you interpret John 17:5?
James:
The basic rule of exegesis is that we start with clear statements and use them to shed light on statements which are less clear.
We must also take Scripture literally unless we have a reason to take it figuratively; apparent “contradictions” in Scripture can often be seemingly resolved in this way.
Scriptural consistency is a signpost of true doctrine; likely interpretations uphold this consistency. Where alternative interpretations present themselves, we should follow the conclusion which is most consistent with the greater body of evidence.
Verses like Hebrews 1:2 tell me nothing about the way Jesus came into being. John 1:1-14 does tell me how Jesus came into being, but not until verse 14.
We have unequivocal statements in Scripture which identify the commencement of Jesus’ existence with his miraculous conception and affirm that he was “made like his brethren in every way.” (How many of his brethren consisted of a hypostatic union? Not too many, I suspect).
You asked for “‘clear and unequivocal language’ used to describe the way Jesus Christ the Son of God came into being?” That’s exactly what I gave you. You can claim that other passages also shed light on the way he came into being, but you still have to reconcile them with those unequivocal passages.
Can you show me the passage in John which refers to the “preceding of Holy Spirit? I am also struggling to think of any passage in Scripture which hints that “the existence of the persons designated as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is an eternal existence.”
To be fair, it was no worse than any other period, and arguably better than some of the later disputes. Look what happened to the Polish Brethren, for example.
Hi Dave, I appreciate these Scripture references, but they do not unequivocally teach about the origin of the Son of God. For example, you refer to Hebrews 2:11, 17 while Hebrews 1:2 talks about the role of the Son in the creation of the world. And the Gospel of John also has what appears to me to be unequivocal statements about the preexistence of the Son. I am sure that you have a counter for each verses in the Bible, but I would strongly disagree if you claim to have an unequivocal argument that the Son in every way originated in the womb of Mary. Concerning Nicea, they saw John teaching about the only begottenness of the Son and the preceding of Holy Spirit while mistaking that the begottenness and proceeding was an eternal relationship. But they were not wrong to see that the existence of the persons designated as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is an eternal existence. However, the related imperial church politics, on both the sides of orthodoxy and the Arians was sickening.
James:
Just off the top of my head: Luke 1:35; Galatians 4:4; Hebrews 2:11, 17.
It’s very difficult to make this language mean something other than what it so obviously means. That’s why the bishops had to go beyond Scripture at Nicaea.
As Fortman (1972) says:
Being Catholic, Fortman saw nothing wrong with this himself; but Christians who claim to uphold Sola Scriptura should pause and consider the implications.
Perhaps Augustine clarified this view while it might not be traceable to the Nicene and Constantinople Councils.
Since it came up, here’s a question I’ve never found the answer to, which would be worth knowing: Who was the first to use monogenes in a way that it is unambiguously used to indicate more than just ‘only’? In most cases in which it is found, it is just quoted without clarification; but certainly every case I’ve found in the Greek Fathers is at best ambiguous. Several clearly use the term as if it indicated merely that the Logos is a different kind of Son than (say) the kind we can become; others, like Gregory Thaumaturgos, gloss it in a way that makes it synonymous with ‘only’. Discussions I’ve come across about generation are all about what it is to be a son (children are generated from their parents), not about some purported meaning of monogenes.
On the other hand, I have seen plausible attributions of this sort of discussion (in the sense of actually quoting Greek) to the Arians, particularly Eunomius, but without specific citations. So perhaps there is discussion somewhere in Athanasius or the Cappadocians?
Dave Burke said,
Hi Dave, I am curious, what do you think is the supposed “clear and unequivocal language” used to describe the way Jesus Christ the Son of God came into being?
Per Post # 21:
Scott, I will take a stab at this. I will preface by saying that the imperial church concept of the eternal generation of the Son contained in the Nicene-Constantinople Creed and the Chalcedonian Creed is a mistaken concept with no biblical basis, while I agree with the rest of imperial church doctrine of Trinity.
At first glance, the mistaken concept of the eternal generation of the Son could look like the subordinationism of Arian or Origen. But historical study of imperial church Trinitarian doctrine includes the following:
1. The Father and Son are the same substance.
2. The Father and Son are ontologically equal.
3. The Father and Son always existed.
4. The eternal generation of the Son had no beginning and will never end.
The best that I can figure out is that the eternal generation of the Son was mostly a statement about the eternal relationship of the Father and Son. For example, the Son is eternally the proper Son of the Father’s essence (Athanasius, Orations Against the Arians, Book 1, Chapter 5).
Here is a better definiton by Jung S. Rhee in “A History of the Doctrine of Eternal Generation of the Son and Its Significance in the Trinitarianism.” http://www.jsrhee.com/QA/thesis1.htm
All in all, I do not spend too much time trying to understand the imperial church concept of the eternal generation of the Son because it is an obscure and possibly impossible concept that has nothing to do with the biblical basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. 🙂
Well, that’s the problem. Nobody seems to know.
The whole “generation” thing is a blatant sidestep to avoid the logical and theological implications of Jesus’ existence being finite rather than infinite.
Since the Bible uses clear and unequivocal language to describe the way Jesus came into being, it becomes necessary to obscure this fact with illogical, unScriptural doublespeak.
Nobody can tell you what “generation” means, nobody can agree on a definition, and nobody can explain how it’s different to a causal relationship without tying themselves into rhetorical knots.
It’s utterly farcical that someone is damned as a heretic if they say “Jesus was created by God in the womb of Mary”, but they are welcomed as orthodox if they say “The Son is eternally generated by the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Son.”
I wonder if someone could help me translate ‘generation’ talk into language that I’m more familiar with.
I understand what it is for one thing to cause another thing to exist. I think I also understand what it is for the existence of one thing to depend on the existence of another.
Does ‘the Father eternally generates the Son’ just mean that the Father constantly causes the Son to exist? Does it mean the Son’s existence depends on the Father’s? Or what?
Thank you, Scott. I found the Schaff translation online at CCEL.
@James. I got the argument from Athanasius’s _Orations Against the Arians, Book 1_, pp. 93-94 (ed./trans. Rusch). That’s what my notes say; but I’ve not got the book with me, so I can’t quote it–and google books doesn’t show those pages.
Not the first!
This is the odd subject on which many present-day unitarians and trinitarians agree.
Dale quoted Proverbs 8:22-26 and also said,
I agree that monogenes in John is primarily an idiom that means “only” or “unique” while ancient Trinitarians and subordinationists alike thought that monogenes had something to do with the “generation” of Son. I find it interesting that perhaps nothing in the Bible teaches about the generation of the Son/Logos if we accept that monogenes does not teach about the generation of the Son/Logos.
I also now recall that the Logos theologians were perhaps the first to use Proverbs 8:22-26 to help interpret John 1. Perhaps the entire doctrine of the generation of Son was incorrectly developed by the Logos theologians while they tried to refute Monarchians and so-called Monarchians.
In my case, I am a Trinitarian who sees no biblical basis for the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son, Trinitarian or subordinationist, while I believe in the eternal designation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Dave said,
Yes, this goes back to my question to Scott in Post 5: “Do you have the ancient citation where Athanasius says that in one context the Son is generated while in another context the Son is ungenerated, depending on the various meanings of the word generated?”
If anybody know this, then that would be great. 🙂
Dale,
Arius and his mates definitely used Proverbs 8;22, but this was more about proving that the Son had a beginning than the process of generation itself.
I think James is looking for something specific to show that the Arian definition of “generation” was different to the Nicenes’.
Shamoun’s treatment of Origen requires no further comment.
“Heretics and apostates often misquote Origen and define his use of terms in light of their own heretical views and then claim that Origen denied the essential Trinity and the eternal existence of the Son.”
Sam’s coverage there is highly polemical. Of course, the question itself is a bad one. Of course he didn’t deny the Trinity as defined in the late 4th c. – because he had no idea of it!
But he makes abundantly clear that he strictly identifies the Father with the one true God – which, of course, is the defining thesis of “unitarianism” – ahistorically defined. Of course, he’s not a denominational Unitarian, or a humanitarian unitarian. In his day, he was a central figure of the catholic movement, at least in North Africa and Palestine. Nor is he an “Arian”. But I think it is plenty accurate to call him a subordinationist unitarian.
Yes – Origin thinks being eternally generated is compatible with being created. In fact, I think he holds the universe to be beginningless, and yet, created (having its origin in the timeless God).
@Dale. I think you are exactly right about Prov. 8:22. I recall that Origen comments on this and says that the Son is ‘created’, that is, eternally generated–whereas Arians usually drop the qualifier ‘eternally’. Since I don’t have my own texts handy, this might help:
http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/origens_christology.htm
About “monogenes huios” – I believe the current consensus is that this is an idiom for “only Son”. There’s really no point being made about the origin of the Son here. But that is not at all how many “Fathers” took these verses.
hey gents – briefly, I think that one of the main passages in dispute was this:
That’s from the NIV, but what would matter to them would be the Septuagint version, which I don’t have handy right now.
Both sides accepted, on the basis of John 1, that (lady!) Wisdom in Pr. 8 is the pre-human Jesus. And if you accept that, it looks like it just SAYS that Jesus was created before the cosmos. Hence, the “Arian” position.
James,
I haven’t found anything yet which reveals a Biblical argument from Arius regarding the generation of the Son. But I have found something close to it from Julian, another Arian.
R. P. C. Hanson (The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 1988) says:
Dale said,
Dale, I finally caught this after a few looks at your comment. Sorry that I missed this context of your statement about the respective syllogism. I suppose that this disagreement between Athanasius and Arius was about different meanings of generation. My educated guess is that this disagree stems from interpreting the Greek word monogenes in John and 1 John, which the NASB typically translates to “begotten” in one way or another.
For example, here are all of the New Testament cases of monogenes according to the The NAS New Testament Greek Lexicon:
1. the only son or daughter in Luke 7:12, 8:42, and 9:38
2. Abraham’s only son Isaac in Hebrews 11:17
3. “the only begotten from the Father” in John 1:14
4. “the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father” in John 1:18
5. “His only begotten Son” in John 3:16 and 1 John 4:9
6. “the only begotten Son of God” in John 3:18
Perhaps other verses played into Arius’s Christology such as John 17:3 indicating that the Father is the only true God. But all in all I want to avoid the presumption of projecting contemporary arguments on the debate between Arius and Athanasius. I also look forward to whatever Dave Burke might dig up on this (per Post 23 in this thread).
I have read various scholars say that the catholic Trinitarian view of eternal generation implies that the Son always existed. Your above challenge focuses on the semantics of the word origin. In this case, according to the Nicene bishops, there is no difference between the origin of the Son and the origin of the Father. The both were “ungenerated” in the context that they both always existed. Likewise, regardless of the hairsplitting semantics in the eyes of the modern reader, in the context of Christology, there was a clear difference between the Arian use of the word generation and the Nicene use of the word generation.
I’ll have a scratch around in my bookshelf over the next couple of days and see what I can find. It’ll probably be from Hanson, as usual.
James, that is a highly vexed question. I am not even sure if can be answered with any degree of certainty.
I assume that Arius appealed to a biblical basis for claiming that the Son was generated in the sense that the Son did not always exist. I know that we unfortunately lost most of Arius’s writing, but does anybody on this blog know his biblical argument for his understanding of the generation of the Son?
Scott,
Do you have the ancient citation where Athanasius says that in one context the Son is generated while in another context the Son is ungenerated, depending on the various meanings of the word i>generated?
Oh, I missed that the syllogism referred to in the main post referred to the meanings of the word unregenerated. I agree with Athanasius that we need to clarify the given context of all words when properly applying syllogism, otherwise we can fall into the mistake of equivocation.
Hi Scott and Dale,
I like Dale’s definition of self: “It is a thing (substance) which is (normally) conscious, which can perform intentional actions (do things for reasons), has knowledge, and can be one party in I-thou relationships (friendships of some variety).” I also see that this definition is consistent with the Trinity existing as one self in a tripersonal context while each of the three divine persons exists as a self in a unipersonal context.
Dale:
I agree that nothing with a three-dimensional origin could have the oneness and threeness of the Trinity while the oneness is a self as defined above. But if you are convinced that a metaphysical construct of a Trinity is impossible in the case of God, then I judge that you are misapplying a simple syllogism and identity.
On the concept of a self, evidently the latest Philosophia Christi is on that – the theme being, I think, attacking naturalism. Haven’t seen the issue yet.
Hey Scott,
Good post.
So, Athanasius denies (ii). He says that to be generated (in both premises) is to come into existence, and then argue that (ii) is false because the Son always was.
I’ve never understood whether or not the various “Arians” would or should accept Ath’s definition of generation… Couldn’t they say: that’s not *our* argument. I mean, if they meant “generation” in the sense of having any sort of origin (in time or not), they might insist that both (i) & (ii) are true. And wouldn’t Athanasius have to agree?
What I think got some of them, like Eunomius in trouble was the insistence that “ungenerate” was THE foundational or most basic divine attribute. Thus, they were hammered for their seeming claim to understand the essence of God.
About me – Am I transfixed by a simple syllogism, or mislead by irrational love of a pet argument? I hope not. But others can judge.
I hold that we all have a vague concept of a self. It is a thing (substance) which is (normally) conscious, which can perform intentional actions (do things for reasons), has knowledge, and can be one party in I-thou relationships (friendships of some variety).
So, all normal humans are selves. Dogs and monkeys are maybe borderline cases. Angels and demons would be selves. And, gods, devas, etc. (in the context of polytheism) would be selves, as would be God in monotheism.
We all instinctively relate to selves by speech, negotiation. It shows that we assume God to be a self, I think, that we pray to him, think him pleased or displeased with things, or believe him to have intentionally brought about, say, the Big Bang.
Young babies and the very handicapped would perhaps be borderline cases (which any vague concept has).
I look forward to anything your write and/or post on this, Scott!
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