Eternal sonship

1. I recently ran across the question of whether it's consistent to affirm the eternal sonship of Christ but disaffirm the eternal generation of Christ. To which I'd answer: yes!

2. Both sonship and generation are related metaphors, and so it might seem illogical to affirm one but disaffirm the other. But they're not identical metaphors. In addition, theological metaphors are analogies, and so the question is always how much to include in the analogy and what to exclude. What is the metaphor designed to illustrate? How far does the metaphor extend?

3. As I've discussed before, I think the significance of the sonship metaphor in reference to Christ is representational, in two related ways:

i) It's a way to indicate resemblance. Two things that could not be more alike but still be distinct. No one is more like a father than is son, or vice versa.

(Twin brothers might be a similar metaphor, but the father/son relation is far more dominant in the ancient world.) 

Which carries the implication that they are two of a kind. And, indeed, the NT often uses the sonship of Christ as a divine title.  The unique sonship of Christ implies the deity of Christ.

ii) If (i) is a metaphysical claim, that in turn has a practical aspect. Because they're so alike, there's a sense in which one can substitute for the other. A son can naturally act as his father's agent. Acting in on his behalf, in his place, with his authority. So (i) grounds (ii). Because the Son represents the Father ontologically, he's uniquely qualified to represent the Father in action. 

3. Turning to eternal generation, one asymmetry between eternal sonship and eternal generation is that the concept or metaphor of generation doesn't entail a son. Fathers beget daughters, too.  

Although generation is a male sexual metaphor in reference to the begetter, it is not a male sexual metaphor in reference to the begotten. Men father daughters as well as sons. And it would be inapt to say no one is more like a father than his daughter, pace the father/son relation. So that's one limitation of the metaphor or analogy. 

4. Unlike eternal sonship, eternal generation takes the metaphor a step further, as a theory of derivation. Eternal generation is a more radical and ambitious claim. In a sense, an attempt to explain the origin of the Trinity. On this view, the Father causes the Son and the Spirit to exist.

This is distinguished from creation in the usual sense inasmuch as they are eternally and necessarily caused to exist. Moreover, they share the Father's essence. 

Whether that's adequate to distinguish God from a creature is disputable. By that logic, the Father could be eternally and necessarily caused to exist by a super-deity who stands behind the Trinity, transmiting his essence to the Father. Indeed, the logic of the principle seems to extend backward with no stopping-point. 

Of course, some folk's ecclesiology commits them to creedal statements regarding eternal generation. I appreciate the fact that the Nicene paradigm squeezed out Arianism, but I regard eternal generation as a theological compromise or halfway house that degrades the deity of the Son and Spirit. In that respect I side with theologians like Alexander Röell, B. B. Warfield, Paul Helm, and John Frame who reject a hierarchical model of the Trinity. 

The modern Nicea myth

https://www.wesleyhuff.com/blog/2020/1/13/the-council-of-nicaea-and-the-books-of-the-bible

Symmetrical or monarchical Trinitarianism?

According to Orthodox analytic theologian Dr. Beau Branson the right way to understand the Trinity is that the one true God is none other than the Father, although there are three divine persons. There is no triune God, no tripersonal God. In his view, this is the Eastern Orthodox understanding of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Dr. Branson also explains what he calls the doctrine of the monarchy of the Father, which in his view, is a key to correctly understanding the Trinity. He also explains what he calls “egalitarian” or “symmetrical” views on the Trinity, which he contrasts with “monarchical” views.

https://trinities.org/blog/podcast-239-dr-beau-branson-on-the-monarchy-of-the-father-part-1/

I'm not qualified to say if this is the Greek Orthodox paradigm in every particular, although elements of it certainly reflect the Nicene paradigm, as I understand it. Unwittingly, this confirms my preference for a symmetrical model of the Trinity rather than a monarchical model of the Trinity. The Nicene paradigm leaves a foothold for unitarianism. Although "not made" and "consubstantial" rule out Arianism, the Nicene paradigm is an incomplete response to the unitarian alternative. By saying there is no triune or tripersonal God, by saying that only the Father is the one true God, that paradigm still has a unitarian center of gravity. It tries to finesse monotheism by making the Father the source. The Son and Spirit are reduced to projections of the Father.

A while back I was walking at a cemetery. The entrance is a high brick wall with cast-iron gates. When open, the gates are perpendicular to the wall. As I was exiting the cemetery before sunset, I saw an interesting phenomenon. The direction of sunlight low on the western horizon, in relation to the gates, at right angles to the wall, made the gates cast a shadow on the wall, as if there was a second gate, flat against the wall. Of course, that was an optical illusion. The second gate was just a shadow. If you put a barrier between the sunlight and the cast-iron gate, the image would instantly vanish. Only the iron-gate has positive existence. A shadow is merely the absence of light at that spot. A patch of nothing that only exists by virtue of light (and some opaque object in-between). That's what Branson's Trinitarianism amounts to. 

What is Nicene orthodoxy?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2016/07/lewis-ayres-on-the-meaning-of-nicene-orthodoxy/

The Nicene Creed

I concluded my last blog with a number of conclusions I have drawn as I have read, studied, and taught the doctrine of the Trinity in the midst of the modern debate over “egalitatarian” views of the Trinity and the role relationships of men and women. The first of those conclusions was that significant problems have developed among evangelicals since the Enlightenment on the doctrine of the Trinity. 

I suppose that the first question someone might ask me about that assertion is, “By what standard?” My answer is by the standard of the Bible, but also by the standard of the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed or at least its identifying trinitarian formulas were adopted by all the mainstream confessions and creeds of the Reformation. Here is the language of the Nicene Creed in the form that it emerged after the Council of Constantinople in 381 and in which it is commonly used liturgies today.  

The key words of importance for the modern debate I have placed in bold italics. The Nicene Creed asserts, of course, that there are three persons who are God. It also asserts that there is only one God. Thus, the deity of the Son and Spirit is identical to the deity of the Father. The Son is “of one substance with Father” and by implication so is the Spirit. 

But when these two truths (that there is one God and that there are three persons who are God) have been stated, the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity has not yet been fully stated. The Creed is at pains to state with incredible repetition and emphasis what we call the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father. Unless we believe this doctrine, we do not believe the Nicene Creed; and we do not—by the standard of the Nicene Creed—hold to the Trinitarianism of historic Christianity. Modern evangelicals need to think about that! 

http://www.cbtseminary.org/2011/07/whos-tampering-with-the-trinity-2/

i) I, for one, am an egalitarian about the Trinity, but a complementation about men and women. 

ii) The subtitle ("Do we really believe in the Nicene Creed?") of Waldron's post is ironic. Does he believe in "one baptism for the forgiveness of sins"?

Let's evaluate the Nicene Creed:

WE BELIEVE in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,

i) The English translation has a comma after "one God," which might suggest the "one God" includes the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But to my knowledge, the Greek text doesn't have that punctuation. 

ii) These seem to be parallel clauses:

We believe in one God the Father

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ

If so, that suggests the Nicene Creed only affirms the Father as the one God–not the Father, Son, and Spirit inclusively. If so, that's a very defective formulation. 

maker of heaven and earth,

i) In Scripture, the creation of the world is not unique to the Father. In fact, the NT typically ascribes that action that to the Son. 

Indeed, the Creed goes on to say "all things were made through" the Son. 

But in that event, it fails to single out any particular act or attribute that distinguishes the Father from the Son. 

ii) The Creed is deficient in that respect because patristic theology was underdeveloped. For instance, a Calvinist would say the work of the Father includes election and justification, as well as raising Jesus from the dead. In the economy of salvation, that's distinctive to the Father.

of all that is, seen and unseen.

Strictly speaking, I wouldn't say everything invisible was created. Numbers weren't created. Possible worlds weren't created. Rather, these inhere in the mind and nature of God.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,

As I've explained before, I do not affirm the eternal generation of the Son. God is not derivative. 

of one Being with the Father.

That's the best part of the Creed. Unfortunately, it fails to extend that principe to the Spirit. It never says the Spirit is consubstantial with the Father. That's a serious omission. 

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

That's all good.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

i) That's rather perfunctory. It fails to mention the work of the Spirit in regeneration and sanctification. Once again, that deficiency reflects the underdeveloped state of patristic theology. 

who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

By the same token, I do not affirm the eternal procession of the Spirit. God is not derivative.

With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.

That's fine.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

i) Isn't it redundant to say the church is both "one" and "universal"? By definition, there can only be one universal church. 

ii) The other marks are somewhat arbitrary. Yes, the church is "apostolic," but why not say the church is "prophetic, apostolic, and and dominical" (Eph 2:20)?

Likewise, the church is "spiritual." A fellowship of the Holy Spirit  

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

I don't acknowledge that baptism confers the remission of sins, if that's what it means. 

We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.

Fine.

In sum, the Nicene Creed is very uneven. Gets a number of things right, gets some things wrong, and is defective in some of its formulations. 

1688 Years Ago on This Date

The Council of Nicaea opened on this day, May 20, 325 AD.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2009/05/what-happened-at-nicaea/

When History and Philosophy Collide

Paul Bassett asks, “Will the real Council of Nicaea Stand Up? At issue are Roman claims that somehow “papal ratifications of dogmatic canons issued by general councils [are] meant to bind the whole Church”. Paul challenges this notion by providing some actual historical commentary.

On Nicaea, he quotes Bryan Cross as saying that Arianism had to give up its quest precisely because “the visible Church made this decision at that Council by way of the magisterium of bishops in communion with the episcopal successor of the Apostle Peter.”

I’ve already written about the laughable claim that any “episcopal successor of the Apostle Peter” had anything at all to do with this council.

Paul takes Bryan to task not only for his bad grammar, but for this notion:

I take his meaning to be this: the Arians at Nicaea were officially repudiated as a result of the decision of the unified “magisterium of bishops in communion with the episcopal successor of the Apostle Peter.” In other words, it was Rome’s authority that saved the day. Leaving aside the discussion about how the pope never attended the council and that his legates were minority figures there and the more important point that it was the secular emperor, Constantine, who ratified the whole thing the question I have is whether Catholics at the time of the Reformation would have come to the same conclusion using the same historical information.

And, indeed, they did not.

Citing accounts of kings of France and Spain at that time, he notes that the relationship between “church and state” was “precisely the opposite” of the account that Bryan gives. It was Constantine who ratified Nicaea, and it was the kings of Europe upon whose toes the popes stepped at the time of the Reformation:

”This new pretended Council has sought to deprive the King of France of his ancient honour by subjugating him and preferring another [the Pope] to him. This other was elevated to his position long after the institution of the Crown of France, which delivered him from the pagans and the Saracens and installed the Catholic faith by means of the succours and victories of Charlemagne and the Franks.”

The Spanish Inquisition was essentially an organ of royal power, one of whose functions was to ‘protect’ the Spanish Church from influence by outside agencies, including the papacy. Hence the domination of the Church by the crown was perhaps more comprehensive in Spain during the sixteenth century than in any other Europe state, including those with a Protestant, Erastian system.

Until that time, “Nobody looked to Rome for decisions on doctrine or ecclesiology and the Roman position held sway only in those cases where it happened to coincide with that of the secular ruler.”

The payoff:

But here we come to the interesting question: How are Catholics today to resolve the obvious contradiction between what Bryan Cross thinks the Magisterium is and how Catholics in the 16th century viewed it?

If we adopt Bryan’s view, we look to the Magisterium defined as the pope of Rome and the bishops in communion with him. But that system did not exist at all during the Reformation. The bishops of each country were beholden to their sovereign leader, not the pope. So a 16th century Catholic would have nowhere to go. But if we use the 16th century system of appealing first to the King, then the modern Roman Catholic is left with no court of appeal. So the Interpretive Paradigm [IP] of Bryan and his friends would disenfranchise large portions of their own sect depending on only the time in which it is applied!

So the irony is that Bryan Cross actually proves Mark Galli’s thesis. The “Catholic” church at the time of the Reformation did not, in fact, need a magisterium as defined by Bryan. And that is obvious because the Church existed and the Magisterium did not.

We don’t need no magisterium – indeed.

Soli Deo Gloria

When history and philosophy collide, the so-called “Catholic IP” loses.