Recently in the world of Reformed theology, there has been a resurgence of interest in the subject of Theology Proper. This has largely been driven by criticisms leveled by Particular Baptists like James Dolezal, who have identified a trajectory of departure within certain quarters of Reformed theology. As of late, well known Westminster Professor, Scott Oliphint, has been charged with teaching doctrine contrary to Christian faith with his so-called covenantal properties thesis.
As a result, I have noticed a confusion over the doctrine of Eternal Generation of the Son and its correlated doctrine Eternal Procession of the Holy Spirit among bystanders who are observing the debate.
This is confusion is often reinforced by the fact that several of the theologians which the young, restless, and —hopefully becoming more confessionally— Reformed crowd cut their teeth on flat out deny the doctrine of Eternal Generation. The doctrine, so they say, is not found in the Bible and thus —at best— it is a matter of indifference for the Christian.
However, this is rooted in a misunderstanding of the nature of the doctrine itself.
In order to understand the doctrine, we need to get some foundations of Trinitarian theology laid.
WLC Q. 9. How many persons are there in the Godhead?
A. There be three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one true, eternal God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory; although distinguished by their personal properties.
Christian theology affirms that there is one, single, simple, and indivisible divine nature. What exactly a nature is can be difficult to explain. For our purposes, we don’t need to get into specifics. What we need to remember is that whatever we mean by it… there is only one of them, and it cannot be divided.
This single, simple, and indivisible nature is shared among the three persons of the Trinity in such a fashion that each person simply is the totality of that divine nature. Whatever it means to be that divine nature, the Father is the totality of that. So also the Son. So also the Spirit.
These three persons are the same in substance, equal in power and glory. There is nothing which is fundamental to their existence by which they may be distinguished from each other. If we were to somehow consider the Father apart from the Son or Spirit, and then consider the Son apart from the Father or the Spirit, and then consider the Spirit apart from the Father or the Son… there would be no way to distinguish them from one another. They are like each other in every conceivable way. This is because all that is in God, is God. So, whatever perfections of being the Father possesses, the Son and Spirit also possess. They do not have a difference in their existence (as the Arians and Pneumatomachians argued). Nor do they have a similarity in their existence (as the Homoians argued). They have an utter identical and numerically singular existence (as the Nicenes argued).
But, they can be distinguished from each other.
Q. 10. What are the personal properties of the three persons in the Godhead?
A. It is proper to the Father to beget the Son, and to the Son to be begotten of the Father, and to the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son from all eternity.
In order to understand this, I want you to imagine a scenario with me. Keep in mind that all analogies for divinity break down, but I think this is helpful.
Imagine that you have two trees in your back yard. They are, somehow, identical in every possible way. Right down to the number of leaves, their positions, and even the pattern formed by the ridges in their bark.
However, it is necessarily the case that one of them, from the perspective of your back door, is to the left of the other. Conversely, the other is to the right of the other.
Your wife tells you to go outside and stand next to the tree in order to take a photograph. You chuckle and ask which one since they are identical. She says “the one on the left.” You immediately can distinguish which one she is talking about because of their positional relationship to each other. She couldn’t have said “the one with more leaves” or “the darker of the two” or “the oak tree.” Even though they are indistinguishable when considered individually, when considering the two in relation to each other it is clear which one is which.
This analogy helps us to understand what we mean when we talk about distinguishing the persons of the Trinity from each other. Although the Westminster Standards, and many other reliable creedal and confessional documents, utilize the language of personal properties, I don’t think that is helpful in our current milieu. Instead, we should speak in reference to their hypostatic or personal relations.
After all, that is how the Scripture speaks. What else is the word Father if not a statement of personal relation to another? What does the word Son mean if it is not a way to describe how one person is related to another?
Just like the left tree in our analogy may be described as left only to another tree, or a man may only be described as father in relation to his son… so also the Father, Son, and Spirit may only be described thusly in relation to the other two persons who subsist in the unity of the Trinity.
That brings us to today’s topic.
The personal properties, or better hypostatic relations, described in the Westminster Standards do not refer to some accidental or supplemental feature of the divine persons. They are simply alternate, biblical, ways to describe the persons of the Trinity by referencing the way they are related to each other.
To be a son means that you are begotten of a father. So, when we say that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, we are simply saying that the relation between the Father and the Son is not arbitrary. It is not the case that somehow in eternity past the three indistinguishable persons said: “Well, they are going to have to be able to tell us apart somehow… so you go by the name Father, I’ll go by the name Son, and we’ll call that guy the Spirit.”
So, while it is true that the doctrine of the divine processions (Eternal Generation, Eternal Procession) is not explicitly laid out in Scripture… the terms Son (IE one who is begotten of a Father) and Spirit (IE one who proceeds from another person) are. To deny that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father is to argue that the Son is called the Son arbitrarily. To deny that the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son is to argue that the moniker Spirit is meaningless.
Instead, we ought to confess with the historic Nicene Church, that the person of the Trinity who is revealed to us under the name Son is, in fact, the Son, and was eternally so. The Scriptures are not assigning empty nomenclature, but instead are giving us accurate, albeit accommodated, descriptions of how it is that the Father, Son, and Spirit relate to each other.
I fail to seehow “eternal generation” (which is a self-contradictory statement) is different from “eternal creation”; is not the “generation” of the Son, as well as the “eternal procession” of the Spirit, events (here again, an anthropomophism) of creation, thus setting up a pantheon?
Well, for one… the Scripture specifically uses the language of generation in reference to the Son’s relation to the Father, so we have to grapple with it. Likewise, the very word “Spirit” is the language of procession.
The term “generation” is a synonym for “begotten” not for “created.” So just like we wouldn’t say that a human father creates his son, but we would say that he begets his son.
What you are missing, I think, is that we are speaking in terms that are analogical of creation, not univocal. So the relation the Son has with the Father (or the Spirit has with the Father and Son) are analogous to a human father begetting or generating his son, or of the breath of a man proceeding (spirating) from him. This is analogous, not univocal, language. So, in a sense, yes… the language of generation or procession is “events of creation” (I prefer origin in this context), but it is analogous language. It says something true, but not exactly the same as when we say it in reference to creatures. Similar to how I might say that my chair is “hard as a rock.” Objectively, this statement is false. However, it still communicates something true about the chair. In technical terms, this is called improper predication.
A quick thought about the self-contradictory statement “eternal generation.” If eternal was a temporal statement in this context, then I would agree with you. However, we are not talking about the duration or time stamp of the generation, but the quality of it. Again, if we are conceving this in a univocal way, where we are predicating the exact same thing of God as we do of creatures by the phrase… this doesn’t work… but neither does any of our language about God.
Thanks for the interaction.