I've made this point before, but I'm going to use a different illustration to make the same point. The Nicene paradigm is based on an asymmetrical relation between the Father, Son, and Spirit, where the Father is the source of the Son and Spirit. The exegetical basis for that is dubious (for reasons I've detailed elsewhere).
Although the Nicene paradigm was developed in opposition to Arianism, the Nicene paradigm remains implicitly unitarian. By making the Father the unoriginate source of the Son and Spirit, the Father is the real God behind the Trinity. It reduces the Son and Spirit to hand shadows or shadow puppets. The Father is the light, the positive source, while the Son and Spirit are secondary, negative effects, like shadows cast by light. If there was a momentary interruption in the transmission, the Son and Spirit, like shadows, would instantly cease to be because their existence is totally derivative. The Nicene Trinity is a cinema in silhouette. The Father is the shadowgrapher while the Son and Spirit are silhouettes.
But didn't most of the fathers (especially near to, and then since Nicaea) conceive of the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit as necessary, rather than voluntary? It was "voluntary" in the sense that the Father willingly and joyfully generates and spirates the Son & Spirit, but not "voluntary" in the sense that the Father could have refrained from doing so. Unlike with creation where God could have chosen not to create.
ReplyDeleteThere is no possible world in which the Son and Spirit don't exist. The filiation of the Son and spiration of the Spirit is not optional to Father. Since Generation and Procession is timeless, the Son and Spirit are not contingent beings and/or persons (I say "and/or" because the Trinity can be conceived of as displaying either numeric identity or generic unity). Though, some of the earliest fathers did conceive of the generation or emanation of the Son (and sometimes Spirit) as temporal, or at the beginning of time, or the very cause of the beginning of time, et cetera.
I don't take a stand either way on eternal generation and procession, but I think the concepts are within the pale of orthodoxy. The fathers often used the sun as an analogy in different ways. I think one of the better ones is where we are to conceive of an eternal sun always existing eternally past and future. The sun necessarily emits both light and heat eternally. If the sun itself were timeless, then the "emanation" of light and heat would also be timeless. So the Son and Spirit would be timeless, necessary and eternal too along with the Father. But Steve has made the good point (many times) that that would seem to imply that the Son and Spirit lack the divine attribute of aseity. Since the Father alone (being the fons deitatis) is ingenerate and unoriginate. That of course is part of the reason Calvin introduced the theological novum of the Son and Spirit being autotheos.
The necessity of eternal generation/procession doesn't change the radical ontological asymmetry.
Deletetypo correction: I wrote above:
Delete//Though, some of the earliest fathers did conceive of the generation or emanation of the Son (and sometimes Spirit) as temporal, or at the beginning of time, or the very cause of the beginning of time, et cetera.//
I meant to type something like, "or the very cause of time being simultaneously brought forth with creation". Since, I do believe that the Son and Spirit are fully divine and were involved in the creation of time (if time is created, which is likely).
Since the OT and NT does seem to predicate Jesus as being YHVH (along with the Father and Spirit), and since Jesus Himself referred to Himself as "I am" (ego eimi), the idea that the generation of the Son and Spirit as occurring within time, or at the beginning of time, or the very cause of time being simultaneously brought forth with creation seems to be precluded. And therefore, Arianism and Semi-Arianism aren't Biblically possible options.
//The necessity of eternal generation/procession doesn't change the radical ontological asymmetry.//
DeleteBelieve me when I say I feel the force and weight of that objection. On the one hand I want to affirm the full deity of the Son and Spirit, yet on the other hand there does seem to be a kind of ontological dependency of the Son and Spirit on the Father in Scripture that may go beyond the economic Trinity and reaches "back" to the immanent Trinity.
Steve, could you unpack the "radical ontological asymmetry a little more? Plus as I understand for Athanasius The Son wasn't the product of the will in any sense (necessary or contingent but IS the will.
ReplyDeleteThanks
According to the Nicene paradigm, the Son and Spirit owe their entire being (essence and existence) of the Father. Their nature and being is completely derivative. In that respect, deity is intrinsic to the Father but extrinsic to the Son and Spirit. It comes from the outside. That's a modification of a unitarian foundation.
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