A basic problem with the traditional dogma of eternal generation/procession is that it makes the Father alone unoriginate. Everything else–the Son, the Spirit, and creatures–is originate. But that implicitly puts the Father on the God side while everything else is an effect of God. It blurs the distinction between the Son, the Spirit, and creatures, by placing the Son, the Spirit, and creatures on the same side of that dichotomy. In contrast to the Father, the Son, Spirit, and (other) creatures have a source of origin.
The traditional dogma contains the seeds of unitarianism. While the Nicene paradigm was a great improvement over Arianism, it's a flawed paradigm.
I agree that the Nicene paradigm is bad and auto-theos is the way to go on the issue. But what property do you think distinguishes each person to make them their own person? The Nicene has an easy way of distinguishing the Father from the Son/Spirit, but that is done by undermining their divinity.
ReplyDeleteThat's somewhat mysterious. However, as I've often noted, Scripture compares and contrasts Father and Son using metaphors based on resemblance.
DeleteThat can be illustrated more formally in terms of symmetries like mirror symmetries. These exhibit systematic one-to-one correspondence, yet they remain distinct due to chirality.
So the difference between members of the Trinity might be analogous to handedness between otherwise identical objects.
Do any arguments in favor of eternal generation try to base their arguments on exegesis?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/is-the-eternal-generation-of-the-son-a-biblical-idea/
DeleteI guess this would be the case.
The traditional prooftexts based on monogenes. More recently, Jn 5:26.
DeleteSteve, your basic point here is correct - that generation and procession claims ensure that only the Father is a se, ultimate, unoriginated. But historically, this is not a seed of unitarian theology, but a fruit of it. All the pioneers of the traditional generation and procession claims were subordinationist unitarians, who thought that the one true God is the Father, whereas the Logos is a lesser but in some sense divine being. What for you is an undesirable entailment was for them not a bug, but a feature - it only highlighted the uniqueness of the Father. Origen - the first to clearly and strongly push for eternal generation as opposed to just before creation generation is pretty clear on all of this.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we agree that there is not biblical basis for these claims of "generation" and "procession." This is why Bible-oriented Protestants should not excuse the main point of your post as a "tension" or a minor difficulty.
I thought, though, that you were Reformed. You're not committed to any of the main early modern Reformed creeds?
As I've said on multiple occasions, I side with Warfield and Helm on this issue. I'm not a blind traditionalist.
DeleteAlthough Steve didn't comment on it, the most common Reformed view, following Calvin, is to affirm that Jesus is eternally begotten/generated but also affirm that He is nonetheless auto-theos. Eternal generation was re-located, from referring to a derivation of essence to referring to a derivation of person. While a few still hold to the view of the Nicene fathers, most hold to Calvin's modification.
ReplyDeleteHey David - thanks for that comment. That's a head-scratcher, what it could mean to say that the Father "generates" the Son if that does *not* entail that the Son exists because of the Father. That strikes me as just trying to have it both ways - the Son is originated/caused and he isn't - by making a dubious distinction - caused qua person not qua essence/being. I think it's more consistent to do what other Protestants do, and IF the Son really is *fully divine*, just preserve the aseity of the Son honestly, by denying eternal generation. The 19th c. theologian and Bible commenter Moses Stuart wrote a whole book on that.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which:
Deletehttp://archive.churchsociety.org/churchman/documents/cman_115_4_helm.pdf