The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Only begotten God?

Theology Christology
#1

Here is one of the pages of papyrus 66, dating from about 150 A.D. The King James Translators didn’t have access to early manuscripts such as this. This page is John 1:14-21. Such early manuscripts are more likely to represent the original autographs of the New Testament that those the King James Translators used.Everything was in capital letters, and there were no spaces between words.

If you examine line 14 (part of John 1:18) and then examine the 8th and 9th Greek letters in this line, you will see something like “ΘC” with a line over it. The first letter is a theta (pronounced “th” as in “thin”) and the second letter is a sigma. It resembles a “C” and is pronounced the same as the “c” in “race”. Because papyrus was in demand, many words were represented by a first and last letter with a line over it. The overlining indicated that the word was abbreviated in this way. The abbreviated word (in English letters) is “theos” (God). Another manuscript from about the same time, papyrus 75, also has “theos” instead of “huios”.

So John 1:18 in these manuscripts refers to Christ as “the only-begotten God” rather than “the only-begotten Son” as in the King James version. The AV has “Son” because the translators correctly rendered the Greek word “huios” as “Son”. Their Greek manuscript which the King James Translators use read “huios” but that much later manuscript was probably in error.

i1098.photobucket.com/albums/g374/Paidion9/p66joh114-21_zpsb183efda.jpg

#2

That’s great Paidon :mrgreen:

#3

So does this make you doubt your anti trinitarian views, Paidion?

#4

Depends on if he is a Modelist or an Arian ?

A Modalist believes that God is One in Person. They will say that Jesus is God.

An Arian believes that the Father alone is God and that Jesus is the first creation through whom the remainder was created.

#5

Some of the early Christians said that Jesus was God, but that the Father was “the unbegotten God”. This seems to imply that Jesus was the begotten God.

I am neither a Modalist nor an Arian. You might call me a “Historic Christian Theist”, since I hold the same views on the matter as I understand the first century apostles taught, as well as Justin Martyr, and other second century Christians.

Even the original Nicene Creed of 325 A.D. stated that Jesus was “begotten before all ages”. This begetting was understood to be a single act of God. But as Trinitarianism developed, it was realized that this creedal statement was not consistent with Trinitarianism, and so they changed the creed to refer to the Son being “eternally begotten”. This odd phrase has been explained to mean that the Son was being begotten, is being begotten, and always will be in a state of being begotten.

Jesus is the “Only-begotten God”. He is another EXACTLY like the Father. As Heb 1:3 declares, “He is the exact imprint of God’s essence.” Yes, the author of 2 Peter 1:4 speaks of his readers “partaking of the divine nature”. But the Son of God was not merely “partaking” of the divine nature. He had the same essence as His Father in virtue of the fact that He was begotten (not created) by the Father. Cats beget cats, and the offspring are feline. Dogs beget dogs, and the offspring are canine. People beget people, and the offspring are human. We do not create our children; we beget them.

God begets God and the offspring is divine. There are no divine beings other than the Father and the Son.
Even Arius referred to Jesus as being “fully God”:

*Letter of Arius to Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia ---- A.D. 321

To his dearest lord, the man of God, the faithful and orthodox Eusebius, Arius, unjustly persecuted by Pope Alexander on account of that all-conquering truth which you also champion, sends greetings in the Lord.

Since my father Ammonius is going into Nicomedia, I thought it my duty to salute you by him, and at the same time advise that naturally charitable disposition of yours, which you display towards the brethren for the sake of God and his Christ, how grievously the bishop attacks and persecutes us, and comes full tilt against us, so that he drives us from the city as atheists because we do not concur with him when he publicly preaches, “God always, the Son always; at the same time the Father, at the same time the Son; the Son co-exists with God, unbegotten; he is ever-begotten; he is not born-by-begetting; neither by thought nor by any moment of time does God precede the Son; God always, Son always; the Son exists from God himself.”

Eusebius, you brother, Bishop of Caesarea, Theodatus, Paulinus, Athanasius, Gregory, Aetius, and all the other bishops of the east, have been condemned for saying that God existed, without beginning, before the Son; except Philogonius, Hellanicus, and Macarius, men who are heretics and unlearned in the faith; some of whom say that the Son is an effluence, others a projection, others that he is co-unbegotten.

To these impieties we cannot even listen, even though the heretics threaten us with a thousand deaths. But what we say and think we both have taught and continue to teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor part of the unbegotten in any way, nor is he derived from any substance; but that by his own will and counsel he existed before times and ages, fully God, only-begotten, unchangeable.

And before he was begotten, or created, or appointed, or established, he did not exist; for he was not unbegotten. We are persecuted because we say that the Son has a beginning, but God is without beginning. For that reason we are persecuted, and because we say that he is from what is not. And this we say because he is neither part of God nor derived from any essence. For this we are persecuted; the rest you know.

I trust, Eusebius, that you are strong in the Lord, mindful of our afflictions, a true fellow-disciple of Lucian.*

I think Arius’ beliefs arose from the early Christian belief, but he carried it too far. He was incorrect in saying that there was a time when the Son did not exist. My understanding is that the very act of begetting the Son marked the beginning of time. So there never was a time when the Son did not exist.

His letter also seems to imply that the Father begat the Son out of nothing". As I see it, this too, is incorrect. For He “emerged out of the Father”(John 16:28. I can explain why I think the first Greek word should be translated as “I emerged”).
None of us begat our children “out of nothing.” Each one of them emerged from his/her mother.

#6

Here is how Justin Martyr, a second-century Christian, explained the begetting of the Son to a group of Jewish men:

#7

Paidion,

Three questions for clarification:

How many Gods (capital “G”) are there?

Would you affirm or deny that the Son is co-eternal with the Father?

What is the Holy Spirit?

#8

The ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, for example papyri 46, 66, and 75 from the second century write in capitals only, so one cannot determine it from those manuscripts.

Jesus addressed His Father as “The only true God” (John 17:3).

Then John 1:1 reads:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Virtually all translations (with the exception of the NWT) have a capital “G” in both instances of “God”. The first instance clearly refers to the Father, and the second to the Son.

John 1:1 does not teach that the Logos was God Himself.
How could the Logos be with God and also be God? That’s not what the text says.

The first “God” is prefixed with the article; thus “the God” (meaning the Father, whom Jesus addressed as “the only true God”.). The second “God” has no article. So it does not refer to the Father.

Because of the lack of an article, some think the sentence should read “and the Logos was a god”. This is also an incorrect translation.

That would be the case if the subjective completion had been placed AFTER the copula verb.
If John had meant “The Word was a god”, then the Greek words would have been:

ὁ…λογος…ἠν…θεος
the…word…was a…god

But this is not what John wrote.

If John had meant that the Word was God the Father Himself (as Modalists affirm), then the Greek words would have been:

ὁ…λογος…ἠν …ὁ…θεος
the…Word…was…the…God

Prefixing the word “θεος” with the article “ὁ” (with no other modifiers) would indicate that God the Father is meant. But that is not what John wrote.

Here is what John actually wrote:

θεος…ἠν… ὁ…λογος
God…was…the…Word

John placed the subjective completion BEFORE the copula verb! What did John mean? Did he mean that God the Father was the Word? No! If he had meant that, he would have prefixed the word “θεος” with the article “ὁ”. What then was his meaning? As a person who has studied Hellenistic Greek for several years and has even taught a self-devised beginner’s course to adults, I am going to propose a suggested translation, and then justify it by reference to other similar constructions in the New Testament.

A very crude translation could be “The Word was God-stuff”. However, this doesn’t sound very reverent. So I suggest “The Word was Divinity” or perhaps “The Word was divine”. He was divine because God begat Him before all ages as Another just like Himself! “God” or “Divinity” was the essence of the Word.

Let’s look at two more instances in the New Testament in which a subjective completion without a modifier is placed BEFORE a copula verb. In I John 4:8 and also in I John 4:16, we find the phrase:

ὁ…θεος… ἀγαπη…ἐστιν
the God…love…is

Here the subject is clearly the Father since the word “θεος” is prefixed with the article. But notice the subjective completion “ἀγαπη” occurs BEFORE the copula verb “ἐστιν”. The correct translation is: “God is love”. Love is the essence of God. This is analagous to saying in John 1:1 that Divinity is the essence of the Word.

One more example:

ὁ…λογος…ὁ…σος…ἀληθια…ἐστιν
the…word the [one]…of you reality…is

Translation: “Your word is reality”. God’s word is reality. There is never falsehood or unreality in what God says. Once again, the subjective completion “ἀληθια” comes BEFORE the copula verb “ἐστιν”. Reality is the essence of what God says.

Martin Luther, whatever else he may have been, had an excellent understanding of Greek. Concerning the phrase in John 1:1:

θεος…ἠν… ὁ…λογος
God…was…the…Word

Luther expressed quite succinctly what I have attempted to relate about the word order. He said:

“The lack of an article is against Sabellianism; the word order is against Arianism.”

Sabellianism was a form of Modalism, that God is a single divine Individual who expresses Himself in three modes: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Today, Modalism is represented by the United Pentecostal Church as well as the various sects of the “Apostolic Church”.

Arianism was and is thought by many to have been a position whereby the Son was a lesser god, and thus the translation “The word was a god”. This position is represented today by Jehovah’s Witnesses. The New World Translation actually renders the Greek phrase as "The word was a god.”

So I suggest the following translations as a good approximation of what the writer had in mind:

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was divine.

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was Deity.

So to answer your question as to how many Gods there are, there are exactly two Divine Individuals, God the Father and the Son of God. But in the sense of “True God”, there is but one.

As Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1Corinthians 8:6)

In order to answer this question, I have to know what you mean by “co-eternal”. If by “eternal” you refer to time extending infinitely into the past (as well as the future), then I affirm that neither the Father or the Son are eternal. For I find an infinite regression of time into the past presents is incomprehensible as well as inherently contradictory. If you mean that they both exist/existed outside of time, then I affirm that the concept “outside of time”, has no meaning for me. If by “co-eternal” you mean that both the Father and the Son existed from the beginning of time and will continue to exist forever, then my answer is “Yes.”

My view is that the Father’s begetting of His Son marked the beginning of time, and that there was no “before”. For if B representes the beginning of time, and event E occurred before B, then B must not have been the beginning of time.

Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (John 14:23)

Jesus is at the right hand of his Father in heaven. So how do they make their home with the person who loves Jesus? They are able to extend their personalities anywhere in the universe, and especially in the hearts of the faithful. And that is the Holy Spirit—the very, living presence of the Father and the Son. They are so blended in every way, that they share the same Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a third divine Individual, the rather the Persons of the Father and of the Son.

In talking to Trypho, a Jew, both Justin Martyr and he spoke of the Holy Spirit. Certainly Trypho wasn’t thinking of another divine Individual, since the Jews believe there is only one divine Individual. And it become apparent that Justin wasn’t thinking of the Spirit as another divine Indivudual either.

For in The Dialogue With Trypho, Justin asked Trypho, “Do you think that any other one is said to be worthy of worship and called Lord and God in the Scriptures, except the Maker of all, and Christ, who by so many Scriptures was proved to you to have become man?”

Trypho replied, “How can we admit this, when we have instituted so great an inquiry as to whether there is any other than the Father alone?”

Then Justin said, “I must ask you this also, that I may know whether or not you are of a different opinion from that which you admitted some time ago.”

Now if Justin had been a Trinitarian, this would have been the perfect moment to explain it. Instead of the answer he gave Trypho (stated immediately above), he would have said, "Well, I have introduced you to Christ as another one who can truly be called “God”. Now I want to tell you that the Holy Spirit is yet a third Person who is also called “God”. But he didn’t do that. If Justin had been a Trinitrian, he missed his opportunity.

#9

Paidion,

Thanks for the well organized and meaty reply. You have certainly spent quite a bit of time pondering this issue.

On the above I’m not clear yet what you mean. By "in the sense of ‘True God’ ":

…do you mean God the Father (unbegotten God) only? Then the Son (begotten God) is a “lesser” Divine Being? …That would mean that the One Begotten isn’t the same as the One Begetting. When a cat begets a cat, the begotten cat is as much cat as the begetting cat. When God begets God, then the begotten God should be just as much God as the begetting God, correct?

…Or, do you mean, One God in two Persons?

So, “In the beginning…” God begets God. Thus the begotten God is restricted by time while the begetting God is the creator of time. I don’t see how this wouldn’t make the begotten God a creature and thus no longer God. Hence, Arianism.

If there were ever a “time” that the Son was begotten, that would imply mutability. God is immutable, therefore He cannot have been begotten at a specific time. Hence we say eternally begotten. The Father begets eternally. The Son is begotten eternally, and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son (Western Church).

Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (John 14:23)

Jesus is at the right hand of his Father in heaven. So how do they make their home with the person who loves Jesus? They are able to extend their personalities anywhere in the universe, and especially in the hearts of the faithful. And that is the Holy Spirit—the very, living presence of the Father and the Son. They are so blended in every way, that they share the same Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a third divine Individual, the rather the Persons of the Father and of the Son.

Why then is the Holy Spirit referred to as “He” (rather than “They” or just “it”) ?

#10

Paidon, I agree with a good bit of what you’re saying, its pretty much how I see things.

Now I’m no linguist, but I believe the begetting of the son is what is spoken of in Gen 1:1. (at least one of the translations, I’ve heard that the rabbi’s believed there were 70 meanings to Gen 1:1)

The first word is bereshiyth, which is usually translated as “the beginning”, but it is more frequently “first fruits”, it is also “head”. Well we know those are both titles given to the Son in the NT.

The second word is usually “created”, but it is also “birthed” or “carved out”

The third word is elohim, could be God as in Father, or any elohim

The fourth word is untranslated, it is Aleph-Tau. This is the Hebrew version of Alpha-Omega, again a title of the Son.

So a literal translation:

Firstfruits birthed elohim alpha-omega

I believe that all of Gen 1 up till Gen 2:3 is the roadmap of the New Man.

#11

Thank you for your kind words. I’m now 75 years old, and I have been trying to understand the Bible since I was a teenager, and then in my early 20s I discovered the second-century Christian writings. It was my thought that they were in a better position to understand the meaning of the New Testament writers that we, 2000 years later.

I also thank you for your response. It seems to me that you are truly courteous and really want to understand the conclusions to which I have come (gradually throughout the years). I can see that we are both seekers truth and reality. I certainly lay no claim that what I am claiming is settled fact. I am still open to learning, and am grateful for your questions in response to my understanding of God. Perhaps together we can expiscate the truth concerning God and His beloved Son.

At this point, I will address your first question, and trust I will get to the other two in a later post:

I don’t mean One God in two Persons. At one time I think I had gone from being a Trinitarian to a Binitarian. But later I realized that the word “God” in the New Testament NEVER refers to a Trinity or a Binity. In the New Testament, when the Greek expression “ὁ θεος” (The God) is used without any other modifier of “God”, it ALWAYS refers to the Father alone. I have just looked up the expression in my “Online Bible” and found that it occurs 244 times. It also refers to the Father alone in the vast majority of cases where there IS another modifier. Here are possible exceptions to the latter. I say “possible” because even some of them may refer to the Father:

Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)

Was Thomas calling Jesus “My Lord and my God”? Or was he exclaiming to God because he knew God had raised Jesus from the dead?

In their case [those who are perishing] the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Cor 4:4)

Today “the god of this world” (actually “the god of this age”) is usually understood to be Satan. But Irenæus said that the God of this age is the Father. He pointed out there were other cases of God stopping people from understanding, such as Christ speaking in parables:

He said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ (Luke 8:10)

But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. (Hebrews 1:8)

Another possible translation is “God is your throne forever and ever”. This is the way the original Revised Standard Version rendered it.

Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. (Philippians 3:19)

This one clearly does NOT refer to the Father. It may be the only one.

There are many other cases in the New Testament where “the God” exists in other forms. For example:

τον θεον (“the God”, when used as the object of a verb) 111 times
του θεου (“of the God”) 472 times
ῳ θεῳ (“to the God” 115 times

I didn’t take the time to look up each of these individually. But I did look at a dozen or so of each. Each instance which I examined denoted God the Father.

I do mean God the Father, the unbegotten God to be “the only true God.” Jesus called Him “the only true God”, and I can’t gainsay Him! Perhaps it is correct to call the Father “the only true God” because He is the originator of all things, including His beloved Son.

In one sense, “Yes”. Jesus Himself said, “The Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28)
I think the Father is “greater” than the Son in two senses:

  1. The Father is the originator of all things including the Son.
  2. The Father knows some things which the Son does not know:
    The day and the hour of Christ’s return. But just in case we think Christ didn’t know this only while He was on earth consider the first two verse of Revelation:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. (Rev 1:1,2)

This tells us that Jesus received a revelation from God, and then Jesus send his angel to reveal it to John. (Jesus would already have been raised from the dead when this occurred). If God revealed this revelation to Christ, then Christ must not have known it previously.

However, Jesus is equally divine with the Father. They are “co-divine”. Thus Christ is not “lesser” in terms of His divinity.

That would be ture if the One Begotten were lesser in terms of divinity. But I don’t believe He is lesser in that respect.

Yes, that is correct. The Son is of the same essence as the Father, and is therefore just as divine, just as a cat is just as much cat as the cat which begat it, and is of the same essence and therefore just as feline.

Another interesting point which may be relevant to this discussion is that the Son has a GOD! (Eph 1:17, Heb 1:9, 1 Pet 1:3).
But if the Father and Son are co-equal in every sense, why would this be true? And why would not the Father have a God as well?—namely the Son.

#12

Interesting. It’s all Greek to me. :sunglasses:

The limited knowledge of the Son is a mystery of the incarnation. The Divine Person took on a human nature. He did not cease to be God, nor was there mixture between the natures. His human attributes are finite. How he could have limited and unlimited knowledge at the same time is incomprehensible. He also hungered, thirsted, felt pain, died and exists locally in his human flesh. These limits are all of human nature. Yet there is no mixture of the natures else he would no longer be Divine nor human. He is a Divine Person with two distinct natures. So how he can be omni-present and locally present, omniscient and of limited knowledge at the same time, I do not know. If I ever start to think I can understand it, it is then that I need to worry.

So, there are two Gods. So now we are left with a contradiction within the law of God. Per the first commandment, we are to have no other Gods than the One true God. We are to worship Him only. The 24 elders in Rev 5:12 worship Jesus. If Jesus is not the One true God, then we cannot worship him. Yet if we do not worship Him, then we find him unworthy of worship even though the 24 elders found him worthy of worship.

The Father is the Son’s covenant God. When the Son took on human flesh he was made under the law (Galatians 4:4), thus it was requisite that He worship God.

#13

Again, Jesus addressed His Father as “the only true God.” So there is no other.

*And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3) *

He not only addresses His Father as “the only true God,” but He adds that they ALSO need to know Jesus Christ whom God has sent. So He acknowledges that He is NOT “the only true God” but yet He is Someone that people need to know in addition to knowing “the only true God” in order to have eternal life.

I have no problem whatever in seeing the Father as “the only true God”, and also seeing Jesus as divine, and calling Him “God”. This doesn’t mean “two Gods” since the word “God” as applied to the Father is different from the way it is applied to the Son, in that He is the origin of all things. But in the sense of divinity, one might say there are “two Gods”. In Genesis we read that Elohim (a plural word) said, “Let’s make man in our own image.” There was a plurality there, but that doesn’t imply a single, compound God. In my opinion it was the Father speaking to His Son.

The Son also shares the name “Yahweh” with the Father. As Justin Martyr pointed out, there are two Individuals called “Yahweh” in Genesis 19:24

Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Yahweh out of heaven.

When the three “men” came to Abraham to announce the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham addressed the One who remained behind as “Yahweh”. Then Abraham returned to his place, and Yahweh went His way. After the account of Lot and the two “men” who came to him, and what the Sodomites were trying to do to them, we come to the verse quoted above. There was a “Yahweh” in heaven, and one on earth. The one on earth (the Son of God) rained sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. The origin of this sulfur and fire was the “Yahweh” who was in heaven (The Father).

#14

The Second Question:

Yes, God begets God as a single act. No, the begetting God is not the creator of time. Time didn’t need to be created; it is not an entity. Time is a measurement of the temporal “distance” between two events. The begetting of the Son was the first event, and I have suggested that this marked the beginning of time. But there was no actual “time” until the second event occurred (and I’m not sure what that was. It may have been the creation of the universe by the Father through the Son.)

Likewise “space” is not an entity that had to be created. Space is a measurement of the distance between two objects. The very creation of matter meant that there were distances between objects. If there is no matter, then the concept of “space” is meaningless, and if there are no events, then the concept of “time” is meaningless.

I don’t know what you mean by “The begotten God is restricted by time”. Nor do I see (whatever it means) why this would imply that the begotten God is a created being.

There wasn’t a “time” when the Son was begotten because it was the first event. However, after the second event took place, time began. In public schools, the concept of an infinite regression of time into the past, seems to have been ingrained in us. It took me much time to realize that “time” really had a beginning. When John wrote, “In the beginning was the Logos…”, I think that “beginning” was the beginning of time. The Son of God was right there at the beginning of time. Indeed because of His begetting, as the first thing ever to have happened, time began.

This was the later view taken by Trinitarians when they realized that the begetting of the Son as an event didn’t fit their systemized Trinitarinan theory. So they ALTERED the Nicene Creed accordingly. But the Trinitarians of 325 A.D. DID believe that the Son was “begotten before all ages”, a single act of the Father. Here are the words of the original Nicene Creed of 325 A.D. I am in full agreement with this creed.

THE NICENE CREED
As set forth at Nicea, A.D. 325

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, only begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father; God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not created, being of one essence with the Father, through whom all things were made; both things in heaven and things on earth; who for us people, and for our salvation, came down, and was incarnate, and was made man; He suffered, and was raised again the third day, and ascended into heaven and he shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.

As I mentioned before, the idea of the eternal begetting of the Son was worked out by later Trinitarians after they has systemized their Trinitarian views. However, the second part of this sentence is correct, “The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son,” because the Holy Spirit is the very Personalities of the Father and the Son which they are able to extend anywhere in the universe, especially in the hearts of the faithful.

#15

One can arrive at interesting “translations” if one looks up the meanings of words in lexicons, chooses particular meanings, and puts them together.

The translation of the Old Testament into Greek in the third century B.C. renders Genesis 1:1 much the same as modern versions in which the translator translates directly from the Masoretic Hebrew text:

In the beginning, God made the heaven and the earth.

This is the literal meaning of the verse as written in the Greek Septuagint.

#16

Yep, its the literal meaning. Which does what? According to Paul it kills. Carry on.

#17

This is an interesting thread. Given that I do not read Greek, I hesitate to comment, but hopefully I still might have something constructive to offer (at least I hope so).

First, I confess all I find all attempts to exegete Scripture, particularly on the identity of God, apart from the conciliar tradition of the Church to be odd. It was the same Church that collected and canonized the Scriptures that also dogmatically defined the trinitarian nature of the biblical God. Hence I find it odd stopping theological reflection in the second century with, say, St Justin Martyr, who simply represents one of the first attempts to articulate the biblical God within a Hellenistic culture. As interesting as his attempt might be, subsequent Church theologians recognized that his theology was inadequate. The Church’s understanding of the God revealed in Scripture didn’t stop growing in the second century.

Second, speculation on the divine processions is … speculation. We really do not know what the heck we are talking about, which is why the fourth century Fathers (Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory Nyssen) all insisted that the processions are ineffable and incomprehensible. Just as we cannot comprehend the divine ousia, so we cannot comprehend how God the Father generates the divine Son and Holy Spirit. The key and critical point is that we are forced to speak of divine processions in order to clearly distinguish the Son and Spirit from creatures.

Third, in response to the statement “God is immutable, therefore He cannot have been begotten at a specific time. Hence we say eternally begotten. The Father begets eternally,” Paidion writes:

This, I believe, is inaccurate. It’s important to remember that at the same time all this theological reflection is happening, the Church is gaining increasing clarity about the doctrine of creation, specifically, the creatio ex nihilo. Once the creatio ex nihilo becomes firmly incorporated into the Church’s consciousness (third century?), then it no longer becomes possible to speak of the divine processions in any way that might suggest temporality, which was clearly understood to belong to the created order.

The 325 Creed was, as all creeds are, a compromise document that excluded Arius while at the same time allowing Eusebius, Alexander, and the Latins (as well as Marcellus!) to remain in the same Church. In other words, there was a diversity of belief about the precise meaning of the Father’s generation of the Son, which is one reason why the Eastern Church had problems with it. In any case, it’s probably inaccurate to suggest that the 381 Fathers “altered” the 325 Nicene creed. Creedal formulation was quite fluid in the fourth century. In his book on the creeds, J. N. D. Kelly concludes that the 381 Creed is not a modified version of the 325 Creed, despite similarities. Hence we must be very careful when we look at the differences and think of them as deliberate alterations.

The great contribution of the 381 Creed is the way that it appropriated the Nicene homoousion (which many of the Easterners had construed as necessarily implying a form of modalism) and at the same time asserted the distinct hypostatic identity of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

I find this confusing. “The Holy Spirit is the very Personalities of the Father and the Son?” How is this biblical? And if the 2nd century is going to be our theological guide (which I reject), then it is anachronistic to invoke the filioque. Where does Scripture teach that the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son?

Anyway, I hope these comments will construtively push the conversation along.

#18

1824’s Third Question:

I am not sure that it is. However, it MAY be, since the Holy Spirit is personal (id est the persons of the Father and of the Son).
In the NT, we read of “the spirit of God” (that is, of the Father), and we read of “the spirit of Jesus” (that is, of the Son), and “the spirit of Christ,” but we never read of “the spirit of the Spirit”. Why not, if the “Spirit” is a third Person?

In Greek, the first person singular of a verb does not indicate the gender of the subject of the verb. For example the Greek word βλεπει may mean “he sees”, “she sees” or “it sees”, depending on the context. John 14: 16,17 is a very interesting example of this concerning the Holy Spirit in two different translations:

*And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. (ESV)

And I shall be asking the Father, and He will be giving you another consoler, that it, the spirit of truth which the world cannot get, for it is not beholding it, neither knowing it. Yet you know it, for it is remaining with you and will be in you. (CLV)*

Each of these is a grammatically correct translation of the Greek, and each translator has chosen his version for a particular reason. It it interesting to note that the underlined word in each translation is a rendering of the Greek word “αυτο” (a neuter word). However, because the gender of “αυτο” is neuter, should not sway us in favour of the second translation, because in Greek a pronoun must agree in gender with its antecedant, which in this case is “πνευμα” (spirit), also a neuter word. For that reason, the first translation is just as grammatically valid as the second.

It is possible that John meant to refer to the Sprit as “it”, and I would be inclined to accept that view if it weren’t for John 14:26, just a few verses later:

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (ESV)

The word which the ESV translates as “he” is actually “εκεινος”, a pronoun which means “that one”. The CLV translates it simply as “that”. Doesn’t seem “male” enough? In English is isn’t. But in Greek “εκεινος” is a masculine pronoun. This in itself would not prove maleness, but though in Greek a pronoun is supposed agree in gender with its antecedent, this particular word does not, not if its antecedent is “πνευμα”. In order to agree with “πνευμα”, it would have to be in the neuter form “εκεινο”.
Since John used the masculine form “εκεινος”, it may be that he was trying to point out either the “maleness” of the Spirit, or the personality of the Spirit. However, some argue that “πνευμα” is not the antecendent, rather some masculine word which occurs much earlier. That, however, I think a bit of a stretch (I wrote this first, and later realized it was punny).

So to answer your question, both “he” and “it” may be used in reference to the Spirit, “he” because of the Spirit’s personality (that of the Father and of the Son), and “it” because it is not a reference to a third divine Individual.

Why not “they”? The answer may be that the spirit of the Father and of the Son is totally unified, so as to be a single entity. Jesus said that He and the Father are one. He told Philip that whoever has seen Him has seen the Father. He wasn’t saying that He WAS the Father. I think He meant that They were identical in every way. As Heb 1:3 declares, Christ is the exact imprint of the Father’s essence.

Here is a little analogy. Suppose I pull out of my pocket two prints, or images of myself, and hold one up saying “Here is a picture of me.” Then I show the second image and say, “Here is another picture of me.” Someone watching might say, “That’s the same picture!” I might respond, “No, it isn’t. Look, here’s the first picture, and here’s the second. Count them. One, two. Two pictures of me!” Maybe this is not a precise analogy, but it seems to help me to understand that Jesus and His Father in one sense (as He said) are one. In another sense they are two. If not, who was Jesus talking to, when He prayed? Himself? Many believe they are One in the sense of being a compound God together with the Holy Spirit (Trinitarianism). I think they are One in the sense of being exactly the same.

#19

Further with regards to the Spirit, Paul affirms TWICE that the Lord Jesus IS the Spirit!

But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:14-18)

2nd century Christian writer, Justin Martyr indicated that the Spirit is none other that the Logos: