Begotten/Created - What is the Difference?

God, Christ, & The Holy Spirit
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Homer
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Begotten/Created - What is the Difference?

Post by Homer » Mon Aug 03, 2015 9:31 am

Much has been said about Jesus being "begotten before all ages" and Jesus being created. My own belief is that He is neither. As long as God thought or spoke, God has had The Word, I. e. God and The Word are coetaneous. But for those who believe Jesus (The Word, The Son) was either begotten or created, what difference does it make to who He is or what He accomplished, and still does?

What I do not understand is what you think occurred when He was begotten? Being begotten would appear to mean God fertilized an egg that came from somewhere (in our common understanding it does not mean birth). So how did this being "begotten before all ages" happen and how is it different than being created? And what difference does either origin make? How would one give Jesus more glory than the other? If He has always been The Son it would seem He was always inferior to God.

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Paidion
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Re: Begotten/Created - What is the Difference?

Post by Paidion » Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:46 am

First, to address the title. What's the difference in being begotten and being created? Well, you beget children and you create a painting. The children you beget is human like you. The picture you create could be an image of yourself, but it is not human like you. God begat His Son, so that Son is divine like God. God also created Adam in His image, but Adam was not divine like God.
Homer wrote:What I do not understand is what you think occurred when He was begotten? Being begotten would appear to mean God fertilized an egg that came from somewhere.
The Greek word "γενναω" (gennaō) is translated as "to beget" in the language of the middle ages. It can also mean "to generate." Dictionaries say that the English word "generate" is derived from the Latin "generatus" but it also seems to be related etymologically to the Greek "gennaō."
(in our common understanding it does not mean birth)
In that case, why do we translate Jesus' words to Nicodemus as "You must be born again"? Why not "You must be begotten again?" The Greek word is "γενναω."
Actually, I think it SHOULD be translated as "You must be begotten again." I think when were regenerated, we were begotten again. We will not be born again until we are raised from the dead. Jesus has already been raised from the dead. In this way, Jesus will be "the firstborn of many brethren." (Rom 8:29).

There are many texts in which "γενναω" CANNOT mean "to give birth to. For example:
Abraham begot (γενναω) Isaac... (Matt 1:2)
Clearly Abraham did not give birth to Isaac.

But in some texts, "γενναω" HAS to mean "to give birth to." Consider the following passage:
A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth (γενναω) to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born (γενναω) into the world. (John 16:21)
So Christ's having been begotten before all ages may be considered as His having been born before all ages. At the first Christmas (Christ's Mass), the Catholic Church actually held THREE masses in honour of the three births of Christ:
1. His birth before all ages.
2. His human birth from Mary.
3. His birth in the hearts of the faithful. (Galatians 4:19)

When translated as "to generate" or "to produce", the word "γενναω" can refer to either "to conceive (or cause to conceive)" or "to give birth to."
Last edited by Paidion on Mon Aug 03, 2015 12:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Paidion

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Re: Begotten/Created - What is the Difference?

Post by dizerner » Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:59 am

It can be frustrating—trying to parse Scripture and be precise. But I think it's worth it, to press on to know the Lord and boast in knowing him. Of course God is not like flesh and blood nor lives in houses built by hands. But God has certain attributes that just come with being God, or... you just aren't God. These are infinite attributes, personal attributes, and uncreated attributes. It's difficult to use words when God is not of this world, nor can his essential nature be thought. But God gives us thoughts of him in the framework that we can understand. Jesus tells us of a new birth we can experience, but he doesn't expect us to think in terms of cells splitting, DNA, and zygotes forming. It's a metaphor, a picture in creation that somehow represents a reality in the spiritual realm. And as Christ said, this truth can only come revelationally, and through the Scriptures—that Christ is from above and his Father can reveal to us, as he did to Peter, who he is.

So God is, firstly, what he has always been, outside of time eternally. Secondly, God has revealed himself to be personal, not impersonal, and in his personality God has revealed himself to be relational, persons acting with other persons, identities with some cohesive and consistent factor. If a being is God, that being is uncreated and that being is personal. God is not an abstract power or thought. If a being is God, that being is all that God is—all of his attributes or essence. So if God is three Persons, whoever they are, they must be the same, yesterday, today and forever, and they must be all that it means to be God—his attributes and his identity, or personhood. But if God is Three, how can one be first or one be hierarchically ranking.

The way I see it is that the Spirit and Son emerged from the essence of the Father, not in an act of creation ex nihilio, but an act of generation from substance. The ancients didn't know about human DNA, and the fact that when a zygote is formed, there is actually nothing new created ex nihilio, but instead preexisting matter derived from the parents are delicately reformed and rearranged. This idea of generation, where all of the generated already preexisted in the generator, and thus is of a familial status nothing else is, gives a picture for how the Scriptures depict the Son and Spirit being generated from the Father, not from scratch as if at one point they did not exist, but being what the Scripture would metaphorically call "in his loins," or in his substance, and producing an identity equal and in the same strata as the generator. Being an imperfect picture as all metaphors are, God was also outside of time or space.

I think the title of Christ "The Word of God" is not meant to be thought of as the logic or cognition of God, as perhaps the Greeks used logos, but rather God expressing what is in his heart, God speaking, not in sound waves or brain activity, but speaking through the incarnation of his Son. God, through his Son, speaks light, that is spiritual truth, the truth that he loves the world, the truth that the world is fallen, and the truth that He, God, is holy and judges sin. As Romans describes our words as what we believe in our heart, the spoken being somehow formed out of the heart and then expressed through a medium, so God spoke through a Person rather than abstract information. This Person became a flesh and blood human being and lived in a house just like most human beings do. But this human being testified of being something unlike any other human being—of dwelling face to face with the Father in his glory before the foundation of this created world or cosmos or created order, a person who came from the highest "above" and didn't hold on to the quality of being God but emptied himself into the form of a Servant.

He was the Word, because God has spoken to us in His Son. Jesus didn't ever stop being the Word when he became flesh—he was still the Word, and then more than ever. And he will not ever stop being the Word—when he comes back with the armies of heaven, "He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood; and His name is called The Word of God." (Rev 19:13 NAS) Just as Jesus is always the Word, so he is always the Son, a person in fellowship with his Father. And even though Christ voluntarily submits to the Father of his own will, as does the Spirit, the Scripture does not tell us this submission makes a being inferior in substance or essence, any more than your wife or son is "inferior" to you. Rather your wife and your son are your equal in value and substance, and something more dear to your heart than any other thing. So these Divine attributes and Divine identities give us a picture of emotions in God, not chemical activity in a neural network, but rather feeling on a grand scale what we feel on a small scale: love and respect.

And I think it can make a big difference in how we see that God saved us and what it cost and meant to him, to forsake and separate from that which he loved personally and relationally and equally. I completely respect those with a different view from my own, who still believe on Christ as Savior, but God has affirmed the doctrine of the Trinity both personally to my heart and through his Word.

Bless.

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Homer
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Re: Begotten/Created - What is the Difference?

Post by Homer » Mon Aug 03, 2015 3:31 pm

Dizerner,

I pretty much agree with all you wrote except the following:
Just as Jesus is always the Word, so he is always the Son, a person in fellowship with his Father.
I do not find much in scripture to support "eternal sonship". Seems to me scripture tell us He became the Son when conceived in the virgin Mary. Otherwise he was always subordinate or inferior to The Father. Philippians 2:6 indicates He was in the form of God and equal with God.

And as far as the OP the question meant was what practical difference does it make?

dizerner

Re: Begotten/Created - What is the Difference?

Post by dizerner » Mon Aug 03, 2015 5:23 pm

Homer wrote:I do not find much in scripture to support "eternal sonship". Seems to me scripture tell us He became the Son when conceived in the virgin Mary. Otherwise he was always subordinate or inferior to The Father. Philippians 2:6 indicates He was in the form of God and equal with God.
I don't think you should equate subordinate with inferior in nature. I think we have some indications of rank before the incarnation in verses like this:

For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me

This would mean to me, that even before incarnation, it was the Father's will that decided Christ be incarnated, which means he submitted to the Father's will. Also I'd make the argument that the nature of a father-son relationship is not one that ever changes in a familial sense, since it is a relationship by generation. My brother never becomes my son, in that sense. I do feel the force of your argument in some ways, that being coequal (and you hear that a lot) they might even, as one early church father speculated, discuss over which one would be incarnated. Being of the same essence, most people say the Son and Spirit are not in any way inferior in essence but only in voluntary rank (partly as an example).
And as far as the OP the question meant was what practical difference does it make?
I don't think all spiritual truth is always about making a practical difference, sometimes it's just knowing those details about someone you love.

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Paidion
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Re: Begotten/Created - What is the Difference?

Post by Paidion » Mon Aug 03, 2015 9:25 pm

Homer wrote:Philippians 2:6 indicates He was in the form of God and equal with God.
Homer, I can scarcely believe you wrote this sentence.

In the form of God, yes. But as far as equalitly with God is concerned, Philippians 2:6 indicates exactly the opposite:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:5-7 RSV)
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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Re: Begotten/Created - What is the Difference?

Post by dizerner » Mon Aug 03, 2015 10:01 pm

I think Homer's point is, Jesus can only let go of what he has, or it would be a pointless statement, because the context is what Jesus gave up and how he humbled himself of things he rightfully deserved. In other words Jesus didn't "grasp on" to what he had, but let it go for our sakes and his Father's will. For example in the context some translations render it ike this:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

In God's own form existed he, and shared with God equality, deemed nothing needed grasping.

Although he was in the form of God and equal with God, he did not take advantage of this equality.

The Aramiac says something like this:

He who, while he was in the form of God, did not esteem this as a prize, that he was the equal of God,

Either way this verse still is the strongest support for the Kenotic Theology, since it says he emptied himself.

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Re: Begotten/Created - What is the Difference?

Post by TheEditor » Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:26 pm

Important indeed. If memory serves me correctly, Servatus was burned at the stake for not believing in "eternal sonship". It is reported when he was dying he cried out "Jesus, have mercy on me Son of the Eternal God." It is also reported that one listener quipped, "Too bad he didn't say 'Eternal Son of God'". :roll:

Regards, Brenden.
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Re: Begotten/Created - What is the Difference?

Post by dizerner » Tue Aug 04, 2015 12:23 am

I admire Servatus for feeling so passionately about how he thought about God that he was willing to die for it, although I don't know how Calvinists slough off so much violence from Calvin and other early reformers.

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Re: Begotten/Created - What is the Difference?

Post by TheEditor » Tue Aug 04, 2015 1:48 am

I don't know how Calvinists slough off so much violence from Calvin and other early reformers.

I guess when one belongs to a "team" they have to find a way to justify their side's actions, somehow. One more reason that "sects" are a work of the flesh.

Regards, Brenden.
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