Retrieving Eternal Generation. Edited by Fred Sanders and Scott R. Swain

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C Fennell
Keyword(s):  
Eternal Generation

Divine Generation and Human Potentiality

2019 ◽  
pp. 13-54
Author(s):  
Jarred A. Mercer
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
John 1 ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Eternal Generation ◽  
Human Potentiality

Chapter 1 demonstrates that divine generation is the beginning of Hilary of Poitiers’s trinitarian anthropology. This chapter frames the discussion of divine generation within the boundaries of early Christian interpretation of John 1:1–4, Hilary’s favored text for the discussion. This illuminates the importance of divine generation in fourth-century Christianity and also Hilary’s unique contributions and the significant anthropological implications therein. In his reading of the passage (in polemical engagements with Homoian theology) the nature of God as eternally generative is seen to directly implicate humanity in that productivity. Hilary argues that in the eternal generation of the Son all things are potentially created, so that the nature of humanity is directly dependent upon the eternal generation of the Son, as this is where it finds its origin. This chapter also provides a trenchant reading of third-century ideas of divine generation (in Origen, Tertullian, and Novatian), which provide the foundation on which Hilary builds.

scholarly journals Tertullian on the Trinity

Perichoresis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-98
Author(s):  
Bryan M. Litfin
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
New Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Generation Theory ◽  
Justin Martyr ◽  
Eternal Generation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

Abstract Tertullian is often portrayed as a prescient figure who accurately anticipated the Nicene consensus about the Trinity. But when he is examined against the background of his immediate predecessors, he falls into place as a typical second-century Logos theologian. He drew especially from Theophilus of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus of Lyons. At the same time, Tertullian did introduce some important innovations. His trinitarian language of ‘substance’ and ‘person’, rooted in Stoic metaphysics, offered the church a new way to be monotheistic while retaining the full deity and consubstantiality of the Word. Tertullian also significantly developed the concept of a divine oikonomia, God’s plan to create and redeem the world. The Son and Spirit are emissaries of the Father’s will—not ontologically inferior to him, yet ranked lower in the way that the sent are always subordinate to the sender. For this reason, Tertullian denied that a Father/Son relationship was eternal within the Trinity, seeing it rather as a new development emerging from God’s plan to make the world. Such temporal paternity and filiation distances Tertullian from the eventual Nicene consensus, which accepted instead the eternal generation theory of Origen. While Tertullian did propose some important terms that would gain traction among the Nicene fathers, he was also marked by a subordinationist tendency that had affinities with Arianism. Tertullian’s most accurate anticipation of Nicaea was his insistence on three co-eternal and consubstantial Persons. Historical theologians need to start admitting that Tertullian was a far cry from being fully Nicene. Rather, he offered a clever but still imperfect half-step toward what would become official orthodoxy..

John Calvin’s Reception at the Westminster Assembly (1643–1649)

2011 ◽  
Vol 91 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 215-227
Author(s):  
Mark Jones
Keyword(s):  
John Calvin ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Nicene Creed ◽  
Eternal Generation ◽  
Westminster Assembly

Of all the Reformation theologians, John Calvin exerted arguably the most influence on the English Puritans. That did not mean, however, that his theology was uncritically accepted. This chapter considers the reception of Calvin’s theology at the Westminster Assembly on two doctrines that were debated among the Westminster divines, namely, the eternal generation of the Son of God and the so-called descent of Christ into Hell. Calvin’s somewhat unique position on the Son’s aseity and his interpretation of Christ’s descent were considered by the Assembly, but ultimately rejected by the majority, though not all, of the Westminster divines. Nevertheless, the Westminster documents are not quite detailed enough to contradict Calvin’s position on the Son’s aseity, but the Larger Catechism definitely departs from Calvin’s teaching on Christ’s descent into Hell. Moreover, the relation of the Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed to Reformed theology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries also comes under consideration in this chapter.

God from God: the essential dependence model of eternal generation

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK MAKIN
Keyword(s):  
Eternal Generation

AbstractAccording to the doctrine of eternal generation, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. Although the doctrine is enshrined in the Creed of Nicaea and has been affirmed by Christians for nearly 1,700 years, many Protestants have recently rejected the doctrine. Eternal generation, its detractors contend, is both philosophically and theologically suspect. In this article, I propose a model of eternal generation and demonstrate how it avoids standard philosophical and theological objections. Eternal generation, I argue, can be understood as a form of essential dependence. To say that the Son is begotten of the Father is just to say that the Son essentially depends on the Father. The essence of the Son involves the Father, but not vice versa.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
pp. 205-210
Author(s):  
Anthony Briggman
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Mixture Theory ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Eternal Generation

The Conclusion summarizes previous findings and locates Irenaeus in the Christian tradition. Irenaeus was the first Christian to attribute infinitude to God and possibly the first to attribute simplicity to God. Irenaeus, and not Origen, is also the first to affirm the eternal generation of the Word-Son. This being the case his conception of divine generation is more advanced than Theophilus of Antioch and Tertullian. Irenaeus is the first theologian after the New Testament writings to affirm both the eternal unity and diversity of the divine being. He is also the first to attempt to explain, by utilizing Stoic mixture theory, how the two realities of the incarnate Word-Son function as one reality. The bishop of Lyons, therefore, emerges as a subtle and eclectic thinker able to use philosophical and rhetorical ideas in order to substantiate his understanding of the apostolic tradition and the hypothesis of Scripture.

ETERNAL GENERATION

1961 ◽  
Vol XII (2) ◽  
pp. 284-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
MAURICE WILES
Keyword(s):  
Eternal Generation
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