Hi, could someone please show me in the Scriptures where it is taught that there was a time before God begot His Son, and/or that God produced His Son not from out of His very own Being (as the Orthodox and Catholic Churches teach) but rather from out of that which did not exist?
Eternal Generation
by Cyril Athanasius 4 Replies latest jw friends
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slimboyfat
Okay but you got to tell us what the game is first. Are you one of those Christians who come on here mistaking it for a pro-JW forum perchance?
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Cyril Athanasius
I am aware of the nature of the forum. Just couldn't help but be curious as to what kinds of responses and questions a question like the one I asked might generate in this context. Just looking for theological discussion. No game.
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Tired of the Hypocrisy
Excellent question. I am not sure there is a scripture that says it. What I have read about Jesus is that he is the only begotten Son of God, and that He was brought forth as with birth pains. Sort of makes it sound like He came from The Father to me.
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Narkissos
Welcome. When I saw the thread topic I wondered whether it would be about theology or 1914...
Now... it takes a Greek mind to conceptualise such an aporetic notion as eternal (= timeless) action.
Practically, you cannot describe, hence think, any "happening" without resorting to (narrative) time (before/after),and the corollary (and arbitrary) distinction of "things" (or characters) and "events".
For anything to "happen" to "you" you must consider "yourself" as distinct from it. In a 4-dimensional time-space nothing ever "happens". Intelligible forms ("ideas") just are, for theoria -- sight-like understanding. But to tell anything you must get down from there into the world of arbitrary distinctions between form and movement, before and after...
So the issue is not what the texts say imho. Whatever they say they must say in temporal manner, because there is no other way to ever say anything -- "today I have begotten you," for instance. But how you construe it is another matter. You can choose the "right" but sterile angle of silent eternity, or the "wrong" but more creative angle of mythological temporality... but I think you actually need both. Even Plato needs a myth of creation for his eternal world.