by Brandon D. Smith
The doctrine of eternal generation and spiration—that the Son is eternally “generated by” or “begotten by” and the Spirit is “spirated by” or “proceeds from” the Father—raises many theological questions. How can the Son truly be a son if he’s not born after the Father? Likewise, how can the Holy Spirit be “spirated” (breathed) by the Father and yet not be a breath that has been created in the Father’s (immaterial) lungs?[1] How do we affirm that the Son is truly “begotten” and still avoid Arianism or other forms of subordinationism? These are legitimate questions that scholars and students alike must wrestle with. I tried to briefly answer those related to the eternal generation of the Son here.
The Christian tradition has long affirmed the theo-logic that the Father is eternally the fountain of divine life or the source of the divine nature; that is, the Son and Holy Spirit in some sense “receive” the divine nature from the Father. But one of the issues is that exact language: that the Son and Spirit are “from” the Father. “From” can indicate a hierarchy or lower status, e.g. the Son is “from” the Father and therefore has less authority or came into existence at some point.
Oftentimes, we must do Trinitarian theology apophatically (negatively), saying that God is not this and we don’t mean this when we say that. But we can also speak cataphatically (positively) about how “from” language says what the Son and Spirit are. This is more rare.
I will lay out a positive construction by noting a few concepts that qualify and define the use of “from” with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity—eternality, immateriality, and equality—followed by a positive articulation of “fromness” with respect to Trinitarian theology. Consider this a bit of thinking out loud in public.
1. Eternality
The language used in the doctrine is clear: this generation or spiration is eternal. God is eternal (Deut 33:27; Rom 1:20), and eternality implies that this “fromness” happened atemporally—outside of time and space. This means at the very least that the Son and Spirit didn’t come into being at some point in the past, because past refers to a point in time. So, whatever one might mean when they say that the Son and Spirit are “from” the Father, eternality rules out the assertion that the Son and Holy Spirit are “after” or lesser than the Father in terms of the divine nature or within a time-space boundary.
2. Immateriality
If God is eternal and outside of time and space, he is also immaterial (John 4:24; 1 Tim 1:17). This means at the very least that the Son and Spirit did not come “from” the Father materially, biologically, or by some other form of creation. The act of creation is a temporal and/or material event, and the Son and Spirit are not creatures (since they are divine) and thus they do not have either a temporal or material beginning.
3. Equality
If we really mean that God is one (Deut 6:4; John 10:30) and that there is a meaningful distinction between the Creator and creatures/creation (Gen 1; Rev 4:11), then a unity of divine nature is assumed and thus “fromness” is not hierarchical language. This means at the very least that the Father, Son, and Spirit have the same divine nature, and that the Son and Spirit are not lesser divine beings or some sort of Thor-like demigods.
A Positive Construction of “Fromness”
With these categories above in mind, we have some guardrails for how to speak and not to speak about eternal generation and spiration.
Added to this, I argue that we should stop seeing “fromness” in two different negative ways: (1) as though it either implies or requires subordination, and (2) as though it can only be deduced but not truly affirmed. Of course, we have to do some of this work by negation—”fromness” doesn’t mean that the Son and Spirit came into existence or are lesser beings—but all words have context, limitations, and scopes, so we can talk about “fromness” in more than one way.
So, viewing “fromness” in a positive sense would look like this: if the Son and Spirit are both equal to the Father in nature and also “from” the Father eternally and immaterially, then saying that they are “from” the Father emphasizes their equality and unity with the Father.
As Athanasius rightly noted in De Decretis 3, there are two ways to be a Son: by nature or by adoption. If the Son is a Son by nature, then his generation is eternal and immaterial, just like his Father’s. That the only-begotten Son is “from” the Father is an affirmation that he is a Son by nature, and if a Son by nature, then the Son has always been generated; if a Son by nature, then truly divine. For, as Athanasius has said elsewhere, when has the Father ever been without his Word, Wisdom, or Radiance? So whatever this “fromness” means, it means that the Son truly is divine and thus eternal.
Likewise, the Spirit is not spirated by angels, humans, or any other creature. The Spirit is the “breath” of the Father, and since the Father has always had life as the eternal one, then he has always been “breathing,” so the Spirit has always been spirated. So whatever this “fromness” means, it means that the Spirit is truly divine and thus eternal.
The trick with all of this is to think of the Father’s “origin” of the Son and Spirit and their “fromness” as a sign of equality, not hierarchy or creation. This requires us to shake off the baggage of our own preconceived notions and/or remember that language for God is often analogous because we can’t speak exhaustively with our finite language about the inexhaustible and infinite God.
The Son and Spirit are eternally from the Father, because our God has always been Father, Son, and Spirit.
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[1] I affirm the filioque but given that it’s a larger discussion and this is a short primer, I’m using the more general pro-Nicene language.
