Eternal procession

Dan Chapa:

“You appealed to Calvin. Here's what he had to say on the subject…So while Calvin may have done some groundwork for your views, he didn't go that far. He didn't leave the orthodox fold. Your views seem closer to Adam Clarke than John Calvin.”

i) Since, in my response to Perry Robinson, I twice went out of my way to distinguish Calvin’s seminal corrective from subsequent refinements which take it a step further, your quotation is badly behind the curve. How do you think quoting Calvin’s position contradicts my appeal when I explicitly qualified my appeal to Calvin from the outset? Are you paying attention?

ii) And, no, my position isn’t closer to Adam Clarke. Rather, it’s closer to Warfield, Frame, and Helm.

If it also happens to be closer to Clarke, then that’s purely coincidental. Maybe we also use the same brand of deodorant.

You might as well say that Clarke’s position is closer to Warfield’s.

iii) BTW, it isn’t essential for me to ground my position in Reformed precedent. As I’ve often said, exegetical theology is the first and foremost consideration. I frequently help myself to the exegetical arguments of non-Calvinist commentators if they have a sound argument for their interpretation.

“There is a difference between what consubstantial means with how it can be. No one has any idea as to how the Trinitarian persons can be consubstantial, but that doesn't mean we don't know if consubstantial means numeric or generic identity.”

And how do you know that? On the basis of exegetical theology? Historical theology? Philosophical theology? What’s your frame of reference?

“Through generation essence is passed from one to anther.”

i) When you define “generation” as “passing” an essence from one person to another, all you’ve done is to replace one metaphor (to generate) with another (to pass along). It’s the metaphor of handing one thing off to another (or handing down), as in, “Please pass the Grey Poupon.”

So your definition of “generation” only pushes the same question back a step. Now you have to define “to pass” in literal terms.

ii) ”Passing” also denotes a temporal process. So you’re now introducing a temporal process into the constitution of the Godhead.

And if you strip away the temporal connotations of “passing” something along, then what’s the residual meaning?

“Through generation essence is passed from one to anther. In the Trinity, generation provides for the mode of continuation of existence.”

“Continuation” is a temporal concept, involving duration through time.

“Not origination, for the Son is unoriginated.”

You can’t logically say the Son is unoriginated and also say he receives his essence from a second party (the Father). If he receives his essence from a second party, then the second party is the source of his essence–in which case he has his source of origin in the second party.

“Not caused, for cause implies temporalityand this generation is eternal.”

If the Son has a divine essence because that essence is conveyed to him by the Father, then his possession of a divine essence is something caused by the conveyance of the essence from the Father to the Son. You’re not being logically consistent with the preconditions that you yourself have posited in this transaction.

“But in a logical and ontological order, the Son proceeds from the Father.”

i) If the Father transmits a (the) divine essence to the Son, then that transaction involves causal priority as well as logical and/or ontological priority.

ii) You’re jumping categories by applying “procession” to the Son. To my knowledge, that category is traditionally reserved for the Spirit.

iii) Different metaphors have different connotations. You can’t switch one metaphor (“procession”) for another (“generation”) and retain the same connotations without further ado.

At the very least, you’d have to reduce both metaphors to a lowest common denominator if you’re going to treat them as synonymous.

But if you’re going to treat them as synonymous, then you can no longer appeal to generation and procession as individuating principles which distinguish the unique modality of the Son from the unique modality of the Spirit.

“This does not follow from eternal generation.”

How does making the generation eternal avoid making the Son a creature of the Father? Why wouldn’t that simply make him an eternal creature?

If he receives his essence from the Father, then he’s the effect of the Father’s nature and will. An eternal effect is still an effect.

“The generation may be seen as natural and necessary rather than volitional.”

And where’s your argument for that claim? If the Son and Spirit receive their essence from the Father, then what necessitates the Father to transmit his divine essence to another party?

Did you get that from exegetical theology? Philosophical theology? What?

“You undersell natural generation and oversell eternal generation to make space for this problem. In natural generation, while the whole nature isn't transferred, a part is. And that part is numerically one with the generator. So the metaphor of passing nature or essence does preserve the unity of the Trinity.”

i) Parceling the Trinity into three different parts doesn’t strike me as a terribly promising way to preserve the unity of the Godhead. On your explanation, the Father possesses the whole nature while the Son and Spirit only possess a part of the essence.

ii) In natural generation, both the begetter and the begotten partially exemplify an abstract essence. So if we applied your natural paradigm to the Trinity, none of the divine persons would possess the entire indivisible essence. Rather, there would be an abstract essence over and above the Trinitarian persons in which they participate.

“Indeed without it, I doubt monotheism can be defended. Three distinct divine essences that are of them divine, is tri-theism.”

i) I don’t think that a modalistic paradigm of the Trinity is preferable to tritheistic paradigm.

ii) Your part/whole framework is also tritheistic. But on your framework, there’s a merely quantitative difference between the entire divine essence of the Father and the partial divine essence of the Son and Spirit. The Son and Spirit have less divine “stuff.”

iii) And, I as just pointed out, your own framework logically entails the partial possession of the divine essence by all three persons. Whether that’s better or worse that (ii) is debatable.

iv) As I’ve already said to you, as well as having said on other occasions, if we want a model of how the Godhead can be three-in-one, I think enantiomorphic symmetries afford a more satisfactory illustration. But you blew right past that.

“Now it's true that the metaphor is restricted. Natural generation is in time, not eternal and only part of the nature is transferred, not the whole. And this is because we know God is one and eternal. Are these restrictions add hoc?”

i) Eternality doesn’t distinguish between generic and numeric unity.

ii) Procession doesn’t distinguish between generic and numeric unity.

iii) You also need to justify your use of these metaphors in the first place. Why should we frame our formulation of the immanent Trinity in terms of generation and procession? For my part, I’ve already discussed the traditional prooftexts.

“But I like the rays of the sun or a river flowing from a lake.”

i) River water from lake water is a case of generic unity, not numeric unity.

ii) And it also involves you in a cause-and-effect relation. The lake causes the river.

Same problems with your solar metaphor.

You can use these as picturesque illustrations if you like, but they hardly have the analogical rigor to “defend monotheism.”

Likewise, generation and procession hardly have the analogical rigor to “defend monotheism.”

“What's your preference, three dancers in unison?”

I’ve already stated my preferred model.

“So if you have two identical glasses of water in each hand, what happens if you drink one? Did you really drink them both?”

If they were truly identical, they wouldn’t be two different glasses of water.

“On the other hand, if Leibniz is really saying that logically two things can't be identical, and you accept his principle, that rules out your own understanding of consubtantiallity.”

i) Of course you’re equivocating. The persons of the Godhead aren’t identical in every respect: otherwise, they wouldn’t be distinct persons.

If x and y are distinct then there is at least one property that x has and y does not, or vice versa.

Conversely, if, for every property F, object x has F if and only if object y has F, then x is identical to y.

ii) It’s not my job to make sense of your terminology. You were the one who defined numerical unity/simplicity in contrast to “ just two things with identical properties.”

I’m merely pointing out the logical implications of your own terms and comparisons.

iii) As enantiomorphic symmetries demonstrate, there can be a one-to-one correspondence between x and y even though x and y are irreducibly distinct.

“But you deny they have their essence from another (either eternally or via origination), no? So in one sense they are of themselves or auto-theos, no?”

“Of themselves” connotes sourcehood. By contrast, there is nothing above, beyond, or behind the persons. They aren’t “from” themselves anymore than they are “from” another. We’ve already arrived at a bedrock fact. The end of the explanatory trail.

“How can the Father be Christ's God, if He does not receive His essence from the Father. How can He be His Son, without eternal generation?”

i) The metaphor of fatherhood/sonship connotes a metaphorical cause/effect relation implicating a common nature. Like father/like son.

ii) Eph 1:3 isn’t an explanation of how the Son can be the Son. It merely states that figurative, archetypal relationship. And it does so using the metaphors of paternity and filiality.

iii) The next question is what does these figurative depictions stand for? Fatherhood and sonship are polyvalent metaphors which create a rich range of possibly literal analogues. One analogy is a divine nature which they share in common.

The sexual process is part of the metaphor. But that scarcely makes a procreative mode of origin the point of the metaphor. We’re dealing with picture language, remember?

It’s no different than when the metaphor of primogeniture (“firstborn”) is applied to Christ in Col 1:15. Indeed, when that metaphor is figuratively applied to Israel in the OT–which supplies the linguistic precedent for this NT usage.