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Wednesday, January 22, 2020

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. 

14 comments:

  1. // 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. //

    Another objection could be one that extends forwards. If the Son and Spirit are derived from the Father [with or without the filioque concept], why stop at two? Why not an infinite number of divine persons? That's one reason I'm open to the Son and Spirit being autotheos. Though, I lean towards generation and procession.

    Maybe they're too simplistic or unsophisticated, but I find George Holden's easy to understand arguments for eternal generation and procession as making a lot of sense. Though, they aren't original to him. Basically, he argues that those doctrines give an explanation and defense of the unity of God that protects against Sabellianism, on the one hand. And on the other hand, an explanation and defense of the threeness of God, that protects against Tritheism. Part of me wants to affirm that the Son and Spirit are autotheos. Another part thinks that if that were the case, then wouldn't the figure of God being like triplets have been a better inspired analogy than Father, Son and Spirit?

    Holden makes his case in chapter 9 of his book below (page 436).

    https://books.google.com/books?id=kGNjAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

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    1. Even the Biblical figures of Word (for the Son) and the Spirit being the Breath of God can connote a sort of emanation. Both come out of the mouth. As I understand it, the same word in Hebrew is used for breath, wind, spirit (etc.). However, there are OT passages where, because of context, it's clear that the Spirit is specifically likened to God's breath that comes out of God's figurative mouth or nostrils.

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    2. That confuses the economic Trinity with the ontological Trinity, referring to their work in creation and the inspiration of Scripture.

      If you're going to press these metaphors, you can also press the paternity metaphor. Fathers have fathers. Fathers come of age. Fathers age and die. There needs to be some controls on theological metaphors.

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    3. Eternal generation/procession fail to protect against Tritheism. At best, that yields generic unity rather than numerical unity. Human beings share the same nature, but they are separate human beings. Unicity requires more than common essence.

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    4. Generation and procession are mechanical metaphors unsuited to divine transcendence.

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    5. //Eternal generation/procession fail to protect against Tritheism. At best, that yields generic unity rather than numerical unity. Human beings share the same nature, but they are separate human beings. Unicity requires more than common essence. //

      I returned and see you posted another objection to the traditional doctrines that I was going to also mention. That's why my leanings toward generation and procession are more in line with some Reformed folk who believe the derivation of the Son and Spirit are with respect to their persons alone, rather than both their persons and (and with/because of?) their substance.

      //That confuses the economic Trinity with the ontological Trinity, referring to their work in creation and the inspiration of Scripture. //

      I admit that the case that folks like Lee Irons makes that the Economic Trinity reflects the personal relations of the Trinity ad intra and sans creation as not being as Scripturally supported as one would expect given their dogmatism on the topic.

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    6. Of course, the position that the persons of the Son and Spirit [and not their substances] are what are emanated once again opens up the possibility of the earlier charge of Sabellianism/Semi-Sabellianism. Which the doctrines of generation and procession were supposed to protect against. Nevertheless, it often seems to me that that position of the derivation of only the persons, does best to affirm the true oneness and true threeness of God; while at the same time explaining the threeness [esp. if one accepts the filioque concept]. With Christ and the Spirit autotheos, there's no explanation why God is a Trinity rather than a Binity, or Quadernity etc. It's just a brute mysterious fact.

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    7. "Nevertheless, it often seems to me that that position of the derivation of only the persons, does best to affirm the true oneness and true threeness of God; while at the same time explaining the threeness [esp. if one accepts the filioque concept]."

      If the Father can generate a divine person, why is there any upper limit on how many he can generate? How does that select for a total of 3 rather than 2 or 4 or 40?

      "With Christ and the Spirit autotheos, there's no explanation why God is a Trinity rather than a Binity, or Quadernity etc. It's just a brute mysterious fact."

      Autotheos doesn't mean the persons exist independent of each other. Just that one doesn't cause the other two.

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    8. I'm tempted to answer in your most recent blogpost on the Trinity, but I'll confine my comments here. Not wanting to to get into a big discussion.

      //If the Father can generate a divine person, why is there any upper limit on how many he can generate?//

      I mentioned that objection above too in my first comment.

      // How does that select for a total of 3 rather than 2 or 4 or 40?//

      That would depend on which metaphysical account one offers to explain generation and procession. As you know, through the centuries many have been offered, and some have also attempted to argue, using their account, why only two divine persons are produced by the Father. I'm partial to the one Jonathan Edwards offers in his An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity. Which may have been influenced by Aquinas' Part 1, Question 27 in his Summa. I summarized my understanding of Edwards in one of my blogposts [Argument Two]. But it's obviously best to go directly to Edwards.

      //Autotheos doesn't mean the persons exist independent of each other. Just that one doesn't cause the other two. //

      I understand, but at least on the models that accept and attempt to describe generation and procession, there is often the additional attempted explanation why there are multiple persons, and why only three. Whereas, in those Trinitarian models that rejection generation & procession, the number of divine persons to three often appears to be an arbitrary brute fact, with no metaphysical explanation.

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    9. Oh, there have been attempts–like the relationship a lover (the Father), the beloved (the Son), and their mutual love, but that's very equivocal.

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    10. Warfield summarizes the argument of Edwards, then concludes: The inconclusiveness of the reasoning lies on the surface. The mind does not consist in its states, and the repetition of its states would not, therefore, duplicate or triplicate it. If it did, we should have a plurality of Beings, not of Persons in one Being. Neither God's perfect idea of Himself nor His perfect love of Himself reproduces Himself. He differs from His idea and His love of Himself precisely by that which distinguishes His Being from His acts. When it is said, then, that there 15 nothing in the Deity which renders it the Deity but what has something answering to it in its image of itself, it is enough to respond - except the Deity itself. What is wanting to the image to make it a second Deity is just objective reality.

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    11. For more detailed analysis of the Edwardean argument:

      http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2008/09/edwards-on-trinity.html

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  2. It's ironic that several of the same people who strenuously object to the eternal submission or the Son (ESS), claiming creedal theology as their benchmark, will at the same time, with creedal theology, also defend eternal generation. As Steve points out, eternal generation as a concept implies some sort of hierarchy within the Trinity. So which is it?

    I'm not making any judgments one way or other, just noting the irony.

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