[This is the start of Section Three, Creation and the Second Person. An index with links to all parts of the work as they are posted can be found [url=https://forum.evangelicaluniversalist.com/t/jrps-bite-sized-metaphysics-series-302/1218/1]here.]
[This series concludes Chapter 23, “The Unity”.]
[Entry 1]
Is it necessary that God must be Self-Begetting and Self-Begotten?
Well, it is necessary that God (as the intentionally active, Self-existent Independent Fact) must be self-generative; and it is necessary that what He self-generates must be fully and completely Himself. This might only mean, that as part of an increasing knowledge of God’s aspects, we could treat this aspect of God (a Unity of Persons) as being something of a “useful legal fiction”; as we might consider a self-consistent equation to be two ‘different’ formulas, because the formulas (although they are ultimately the same) ‘look’ different. For certain purposes we might use the formula on the left side of the equal sign; while for other purposes, we might be better served by using the formula on the right. The statement of principle would in either case be ultimately the same, but we might find different valid uses for different expressions of the statement.
To this extent, enriching my perception of God by recognizing a ‘unity in multiplicity’ might be quite useful; but by itself that doesn’t make it necessarily more than a convenient description. Theologians may recognize this to be a doctrine of modalism–so far!
Yet there is a philosophical problem (more than one, actually) that requires a fully robust characteristic, beyond this mere ‘modalism’, in order to be solved.