What does this even mean?

by Blotty 21 Replies latest watchtower bible

Blotty

"The Son is born of the Father by generation, but generation should not be understood in the everyday sense. The Son is derived from the Father through pure spiritual generation, through the unlimited sharing of His essence. So, the birth of the Son is an intellectual activity of God."
What does this even mean?
sounds like pure garbage to me
Where is this defined in the bible?
if the bible writers thought this was a thing they could have defined it (come up with as many excuses as you like)
Can this be put in simpler terms (by someone who is not the original writer)?
harder question: How early can this language be traced back too? 2nd century?
(scholarly contributions appreciated, rather than theologically motivated garbage)
Blotty

Question for trinitarians: in what sense could the Father be considered "begotten"? If the Logos was begotten, and if this does not make him "less eternal" than the Father, then what is the difference? What event took place that constituted the Logos "begotten," and not the Father?
TonusOH

It is almost as if the writer is saying that Jesus is an imaginary creation of God's. Or perhaps that God "thought" Jesus into being, though that doesn't square with the description of God giving up some of "His essence." It seems a bit contradictory, if we try to make sense of it.
Is it a defense of the belief in the trinity, with the idea being that Jesus is 'generated' as another facet of God, as opposed to being created as an individual being?
enoughisenough

"sounds like pure garbage to me"...agreed!
aqwsed12345

The names "Father" and "Son" presuppose one another; neither can exist without the other.The Son's origin can be described using the concept of birth in an analogical manner, and also how this concept stemming from the material world can be applied to the inner life of the Trinity. In this entry, we will deal with another name used for the second divine person in the prologue of John's Gospel (Jn 1:1-18). John the Evangelist calls Jesus "Logos" in Greek, which could simply be translated as "Word." The persons of the Trinity do not differ from the divine nature, only contrasting with one another: the difference between them is a difference marked by opposing references, relations. The names "Father" and "Son" clearly refer to this difference. However, in the case of the name "Word" ("Speech"), the interdependence and difference are not so striking. In everyday use, a word serves to communicate some intellectual, spiritual content with others; it has a sound form or is a series of written signs. In God's case, a word tied to the material world in this way can only be used in an analogous sense. However, the word used in this sense also has an essential aspect: someone utters (writes) the word. Therefore, the concept of the word inherently contains a reference: the word is uttered by someone, the word is referred to its speaker, the origin of the word refers to the speaker's activity.
If we purify the word from its material characteristics, sound form (written signs), and consider what the word refers to, we reach the intellectual content, concept, "inner word," signaled by the external word. Regarding the Trinitarian origins, we talked about how, starting with Augustine, Western theology considers the Son's birth, the Word, to be of intellectual origin. As a result of human understanding, the concept of the object is formed in the mind from the known object. The external, spoken or written word refers to this. The concept designates two aspects: on the one hand, it refers to the object about which the concept is, and on the other hand, it refers to the knowing subject, that is, to the one whose knowledge of the object embodies in the concept. These relations clearly indicate both the interconnection and the differences. The knowing subject is not identical to the concept, as there might have been a time when he did not yet know the object and thus had no concept of it. Similarly, the concept is not identical to the object of the concept; it differs from it. Often it concerns the objects of the external world, from which the knowable, the intelligible, is transmitted to the intellect by sensory organs, and the concept is formed through the processing activity of the intellect. The relationship between the knowing subject and the concept formed by his knowledge can be described with the substance-attribute concept pair: the knowing subject is the substance that carries the result of the knowledge, the concept.
Because of God's simplicity, the knower and the known, the divine intellect, and the divine nature are identical. Therefore, the duality of the concept and the object of the concept is not found in the divine nature in the sense that we encounter it in our created world. In God, there cannot be such a duality of the concept and the object of the concept that would, in some sense, divide the utterly simple divine essence. The divine intellect, which is identical to the divine nature, does not differ from the divine persons. However, at the same time, the operation of the unified divine intellect can be referred to the individual persons according to the peculiarities of the persons: the Father as a father, the Son as a son, the Holy Spirit as a holy spirit, without this dividing the unity of operation. This is not the case because the intellectual recognition of the individual persons does not create differences in the recognition itself; the differences are only in the relationships between the persons, but these are real, person-constituting differences.
In Thomas Aquinas' conception of the Trinity, the key concept is the self-standing, carrier-less reference (relatio subsistens). Fatherhood, sonship, and spiration are the self-existing references of the persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These references are not carried by the divine essence. In our created world, the references do not stand on their own; they are always carried by some subject. The references differ from their carrier subjects, the reference is one thing, and its carrier subject is another. In the Trinity, however, the references designating the persons have no carrier subjects; they exist without a carrier subject. The divine nature cannot be considered their carrier subject, because if it were, then the persons would differ in something from the divine nature, and then it could no longer be said that every Trinitarian person is fully God. The Trinitarian persons are identical with the divine nature, and no difference can be established between the divine nature and them; the differences are only between the persons themselves: these differences signify that they are non-interchangeable persons.
Based on the above, it is clear that the word "Word" cannot signify some content of the common divine knowledge, but at the same time cannot be considered an external metaphor either. The use of the word "Word" gives insight into the mystery of the Trinity, but the ultimate incomprehensibility of the mystery does not cease even then. The Son's birth from the Father is analogous to the process in which a concept is born as a result of the intellect's cognitive activity. The word concept, by the way, is related to the word conception, as the Latin word conceptus also refers to conceptio. In human knowledge, the process of knowing can be a long process, and its result, the concept, is only an appendage to the knowing subject. The source of the eternal birth of the Word is not the operation of the divine intellect, since this is common to every person. The source of the Word's birth in the divine intellect's knowledge is the recognition of the Father as Father. According to the above, it is only in relation to the Son and the Holy Spirit, in contrast to them, that one can speak of this, the recognition as father, because this does not bring any division into the operation of the divine intellect. The "recognition as father" does not mean some specific part of divine knowledge that would be only the Father's. The recognition as father results from considering the personal characteristics of the Father, the reference of fatherhood, in connection with the divine intellect. In the recognition of the Father as father, he expresses himself by eternally, in eternal love, pronouncing the Word, who is as much God as he is, and who differs from him only in being pronounced. The pronouncement of the Word signifies the same thing as the birth of the Son from the Father; the Word and the Son are the same, the birth and the pronunciation by the Father are the same. It is therefore an approach to the father-son reference from the side of the divine intellect.
In the above sense, therefore, the Word is the fruit of the Father's self-knowledge, which is not some incidental content of the divine intellect but a divine person. Starting from this, let us deal with the further characteristics of the person of the Word, with the Trinitarian attributions related to the Word.
After examining the name "Word" given to the second divine person, this name points to the intellectual nature of the Son's origin from the Father. Starting from this, we can approach several names and attributions mentioned in the Scriptures. In the Trinitarian attributions (appropriationes), we attribute a name or property relating to the divine essence to a divine person because the name or property particularly reflects the person's distinctiveness. Thus, divine wisdom can be attributed to the Word, as the Word is the expression of the Father's knowledge and wisdom. That is why Thomas Aquinas refers to the Word as conceived or born Wisdom (sapientia concepta vel nata, Summa Contra Gentiles IV. 12).
Wisdom is a word with many meanings. Perhaps human wisdom can be described as the fullness of knowledge. However, this knowledge is not merely the sum of partial insights but a coherent knowledge illuminated by causes and relationships, where details do not obscure the whole but find their place within it. Aristotle relates wisdom to the knowledge of the "highest things." Since God is the highest, the ultimate cause and creator of everything, wisdom emanates from God and refers everything to Him. Wisdom, therefore, views the world primarily as God's creation, and interprets personal life and world events in terms of the work of redemption. From God's perspective, wisdom is the wisdom of the creating, providential, and redeeming God. The term "born Wisdom" is a good expression as it alludes both to the common, essential wisdom of the three persons (since the persons are identical with the divine essence, and this is identical with divine wisdom) and to the way in which it eternally comes into being in the Word. The Word is thus the knowledge, self-knowledge, and wisdom of God emanating from the Father, expressed by the Father. The divine self-knowledge, knowledge, and wisdom are the self-knowledge, knowledge, and wisdom of all three persons through the common divine nature, but in the Word, this is the knowledge and wisdom originating from and expressed by the Father.
The Letter to the Hebrews (1:3) refers to the Son as the brightness of the Father's glory and the image of the Father. The concept of an image or imago is taken from the created world, primarily from human creations. This concept inherently contains reference to the original. The more perfect the image, the more it resembles what it depicts. At first glance, it may seem that if the original is available, there is no need for the image. The necessity of the image arises only from the imperfection that the original is not at hand. One might similarly opine about the duality experienced in intellectual recognition, where knowledge is some kind of image of the known object. In our created world, the aspects of original and image, known object, and knowledge of it carry imperfection: the image is never entirely identical with the original, knowledge never fully knows the known object. The image and the original, knowledge, and known object essentially differ in existence. Metaphysics seeks to explain the unity and plurality, agreement, and discrepancy found in our empirical world. The explanation points to the complexity and limited existence of things. In one entry, we already mentioned that the "supernatural continuation" of metaphysics is found in the mystery of the Trinity, which illuminates that diversity is not merely due to the limitations of created existence. The difference determined by subsistent relations (relationes subsistentes) is as much a fundamental structure of complete existence as existence's unity. As complete existence coincides with complete goodness, so complete existence coincides with the three persons and their mutual relations. While natural reason can perceive the identity of complete existence with complete goodness, we cannot even approach the latter identity without God's revelation. In the fullness of intellectual life identical to complete existence, there is, in some sense, the duality of original and image, known, and knowledge, familiar from the created world. However, this duality is applied to God analogically. In God, the difference manifesting in the origins is not a difference based on varying substances. The original and the image, the known, and knowledge are essentially the same, with the only distinction arising from the eternal relationship of origin between them.
The Word's origin from the Father without origin and the created beings' origin from the uncreated God are in "structural" kinship with each other. There is a similarity between the Word and created beings because each of them is some endpoint of origin, a terminus. The endpoint of the Word's origin from the Father is the Word, consubstantial with the Father. This origin is an internal origin within God; its endpoint is also within God, and it cannot be considered a causal relationship in the strict sense. The origin of created beings is a causal relationship in the strict sense, resulting not in consubstantiality with God but in limited existence, distinct from God. However, there is a connection between created beings and the Word, resulting in the Word being considered the archetype of creation, and the origin of created beings being understood as a (limited) participation in the Word's origin as a model. Thus, the study of the Trinity seeking to approach God's inner life also illuminates the roles of the divine persons in creation and the history of salvation. For a more detailed description of this, we rely again on Gilles Emery OP's book: The Trinitarian Theology of St Thomas Aquinas, Oxford, 2010.
As we have seen, the knowledge of the Word comes from the Father, knowledge expressed by the Father. This knowledge extends to the possibilities of creating things similar to the divine nature, i.e., the possibilities of creation itself. Of these, the divine will freely chose our world, the created beings of our world. God knows the created beings not through some experience, but through His own knowledge, as the ideas of creation are in the divine nature. Therefore, divine knowledge includes the full depth of created existence, as it is the knowledge of the Creator. The Word, the knowledge expressed by the Father, thus includes the precise "blueprint" of creation, just as the plan of the house is present in the mind of the house's designer. God's word, however, is a creating word, a creating Word. In the Scriptures, we often read that God says something, and it becomes reality simply by God pronouncing it. The six-day creation narrative repeats like a refrain that God's word "let there be" is a "calling into being" word: "And God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light" (Gen 1:3). The work of creation and the preservation of the world originate from the Father, and are realized through the utterance of the Father's Word, the Word. Therefore, the Letter to the Hebrews says (1:1-3):
"In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom also He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word."
Thomas Aquinas deals with why it was especially fitting (convenient) for the Word among the three persons to become incarnate (Summa Theologiae III q.3.a.8). The main point Thomas Aquinas sees is the similarity between the Word and the creatures mentioned above. The person of the Word was especially suitable to become the firstborn of all creation after the incarnation and to restore the world corrupted by sin according to the original pattern. The apostle Paul writes (Col 1:15-17):
"He is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."
Thomas Aquinas mentions three degrees regarding the similarity of creatures to the Word. The first degree applies to every creature: here the basis of similarity is that both the Word and the creatures originate from some source. The second degree includes rational creatures, where the similarity is greater due to their rationality. The third degree refers to the supernatural order. This similarity is related to the Son's origin from the Father and is manifested in supernatural divine sonship. The justified person, in the state of sanctifying grace and then in the beatific vision of God (visio beatifica) of salvation, partakes in the life of the Trinity based on similarity to the Son as the Son of the Father.
aqwsed12345
The Origin of the Persons: the Trinitarian Origins
In the introduction to the Letter to the Hebrews (1:5), when Christ's divinity is proclaimed, it refers to these words from the second psalm: “You are My Son, today I have begotten You”. Concerning the Holy Spirit, Christ says He proceeds from the Father (Jn 15:26). Based on such biblical declarations, theology began to speak of Trinitarian origins or processes (processiones trinitariae) and two forms of origin. The origin of the Son is referred to by theologians as generation or birth (generatio), and that of the Holy Spirit as simple procession or origin (processio simpliciter).
The Magisterium of the Catholic Church, through the Athanasian Creed, teaches as a dogma: "The Father is from no one, neither created nor begotten. The Son is solely from the Father, not by creation but by birth. The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made, not created, not begotten, but proceeds" (DS 75). The Council of Florence (1439) declared as a doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from a common principle (principium) by a common spiration (spiratio) (DS 1331).
First, we must clarify the concepts expressed here, then present their biblical foundation, and finally discuss the conclusions that can be drawn from them.
The Trinitarian origins fundamentally differ from the origins, births, and processes observed in the world of creatures.
1. Since each of the Trinitarian persons is God, and God exists eternally, it's utterly impossible for any divine person to precede another in time or be a cause to the other. And since the persons possess a single nature, there can be no rank difference among them. Therefore, Trinitarian origins signify only a logical succession, meaning one person's logical rationale (ratio) and principle (principium) is different from another's. The Father is such by eternally and continuously imparting his essence to the Son, and the Son is such by eternally accepting this essence. The Holy Spirit, similarly, accepts it eternally from both the Father and the Son.
2. The earliest Church Fathers used analogies to illustrate the Son's generation. Just as rays constantly emanate from the Sun ever since the Sun existed, and as water perpetually flows from an inexhaustible source ever since the source existed; similarly, the Son is eternally begotten from the Father, since the Father exists eternally. The word “today” in Psalm 2 refers to God's "eternal present" because, in Him, there's no past or future, yesterday or tomorrow – as taught in the dogma on God's eternity. The Trinitarian origins are eternal origins. However, these analogies are only partially accurate. The Sun physically causes the rays, and the source causes the stream, but physical causality must be excluded from God: He isn't a cause of Himself (causa sui) but has a spiritual rationale (ratio sui). The given analogies also fall short because, unlike the water source that would have more water if none flowed out, the divine essence doesn't lose anything in the Trinitarian processes, neither with the birth of the Son nor with the procession of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, the Son gains nothing from being begotten, nor does the Holy Spirit from proceeding. These processes might at most bring about a different mode of existence for the same divine essence but not a change. Therefore, classic Trinitarian theology refers to these processes as substantial processes (processiones substantiales), meaning both the one proceeding and the one from whom the procession originates are God, as the processes are different modes of the same divine essence (substantia).
3. Augustine believed that since God is a spirit, we must seek a comparison not in the world of material things but in the world of spiritual processes when we want to study God's inner life. One of the most important manifestations of our spiritual life is the formation of concepts, the birth of our concepts. Just as the unspoken concept (verbum mentis) is conceived and born in our consciousness, the Son is born from the Father in the same way. The Son is actually nothing but the concept that the Father forms of himself, his self-knowledge, which on the one hand has existed eternally, and on the other hand possesses such power and intensity that it becomes a separate person. - However, since God is the infinite embodiment of all values (true, good, beautiful, holy), and values evoke spiritual love from the soul, the Father also loves himself infinitely as completeness of value, and this infinite love must be reflected in the Son. The love of the Father reflected in the Son and its reflection in the Father, its "rebound," is essentially a single and eternal love, and it is also of such intensity that it becomes a separate person, the person of the Holy Spirit.
Augustine's analogy has three advantages:
1. It makes it clear that we can rightly speak of spiritual birth and origin, such as we encounter with the persons of the Trinity.
2. What is born in the human soul as self-knowledge and arises as love can be "immanent" too: the originator does not "step out" of the generator, as the spoken word "steps out" of the speaker, or as the born child essentially separates from its mother. This immanence characterizes the Trinitarian origins: the life, indeed the very essence of the Son, is identical with that of the Father; he does not step out of him or separate from him in any reality; likewise, the life and essence of the Holy Spirit remain in the other two persons.
3. Divine and human self-knowledge also resemble each other in that the birth of both can equally be called conception and birth. For our thoughts' conception and birth coincide in time, unlike animals' and humans' birth or conception. Therefore, these two expressions are completely synonymous: "the Father eternally begets the Son," and "the Father eternally gives birth to the Son."
Naturally, there are also essential differences between divine and human self-knowledge and self-love. Augustine already noticed these. Divine and human self-knowledge and self-love primarily differ in that our conscious self-knowledge and self-love do not exist from the first moment of our existence. Another difference is that human self-knowledge unfolds gradually and never becomes quite perfect; the same goes for our self-love. Our inner image of ourselves never fully reflects what we are. The Father, however, without any residue, perfectly "speaks" his entire essence into the Son and loves him in the Holy Spirit. The third and most significant difference is this: the intensity and power of God's self-knowledge and the mutual love of the first two persons of the Trinity are such that this knowledge and love move from the existence of thought (ens rationis) into the order of reality (becomes 'ens reale'): it becomes a real existing separate divine person, although at the same time its immanent nature is retained.
Different medieval theologians tried to develop further Augustine's explanation in various ways. Among these, classical Trinitarian theology accepted the version represented by Thomas Aquinas, and its technical expressions were used in various official statements by the Magisterium.
The theology of the Trinitarian origins teaches the following dogmas in the sense above:
WE CLAIM ABOUT THE FATHER THAT HE IS ORIGINATING AND WITHOUT BIRTH
The Scriptures attribute an origin to the other two persons but never to the Father. Early patristics used such descriptors for the Father: without beginning (anarchos), uncreated (agenétos), unborn (agennétos). This statement, however, is only linguistically negative; in substance, it proclaims the positive fact that the Father possesses the common divine essence in such a way that He does not receive it from anyone else but only gives it to the Son and, with the Son, to the Holy Spirit. The Father is "principium sine principio." He is the ultimate solution to the origin of the other two persons.
Saint Paul considers God's fatherhood so important that, as we have seen, he often refers to the Father as God. He is primarily the "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 1:3), to whom Jesus turns with feelings of submission and mutual love, not only as a human but as the second divine person; as God-man, he empties himself (Phil 2:7) and comes into the world as the Father's envoy (Jn 3:17) to reconcile the world with the Father and make men the children of God. His entire human life is childlike submission before the heavenly Father, from whom he received his divine essence, and whom he can call greater than himself in this sense (Jn 14:28). His perfect self-surrender as a man is both the model and the means by which man, although not identically, but analogously, can also become a child of the heavenly Father. For God wants to be primarily a Father to us: "For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers" (Rom 8:29; cf. Gal 3:26). The New Testament has a characteristic warmth because God spoke the final word to humanity as a Father. He sent His Son and declared through Him that He would accept humanity into His merciful love.
THE SON ORIGINATES FROM THE FATHER THROUGH GENERATION, BIRTH
This follows from the fact that the second person is not only morally but also metaphysically the son of the Father. Natural, metaphysical sonship necessarily presupposes generation or procreation. Therefore, He is the "proper" son (Rom 8:3), the "only-begotten" Son (Jn 1:14; 1Jn 4:9) of the Father. Holy Tradition, following the Letter to the Hebrews (1:5), often refers to the two expressions of the Psalms: to give birth (110:3), to give life (2:7).
The Son's generation or birth must be taken after the pattern of earthly children's procreation, but not identically, but analogously. For God is spirit, so only spiritual birth can be considered with Him. However, the analogy remains, so we must speak of a real birth. For everything is realized here that is included in the definition of earthly birth: the living comes from the living, there is a connection between the two, and the descent brings about essential identity.
When we say "verbum mentis" with Augustine, we emphasize the Son's immanence. But when we see birth in the origin of the Son, we do not emphasize immanence, but the communication, the "passing on" of identical nature.
The sonship of the second person is also very significant in the history of salvation. According to the apostle Paul, the Father created everything in Him that is in heaven and on earth, and everything stands in Him (Col 1:16-17). The Father even chose the called ones in Him before the creation of the world (Eph 1:4). For the Father constantly speaks His eternal thoughts into the Son, so the Son could be the Father's measure in the creation of the world. But for this reason, He is the founder of the Kingdom of God, He is the norm of all moral perfection, and He will also be the measure and executor of the Last Judgment. The final state will be formed in such a way that the Father will gather all created values under His dominion (Eph 1:10). The Son is also the "causa formalis" of our individual supernatural life, as the grace whose granting is the common work of the three divine persons carries over the image of sonship to the soul of the justified man. We will become children of the Father in the form in which Christ is in a filial relationship with the heavenly Father. Thus, we will share in Christ's divine sonship and become His co-heirs. And just as the Spirit connects Christ with the Father, so too the Holy Spirit will be the spirit of our filial relationship as well.
The birth of the Son is intellectual, and the origination of the Holy Spirit is a voluntary activity.
1. Not only does Augustine's analogy associate the Son's birth with the Father's intellectual activity, but Scripture also does this. The apostle Paul writes: "We preach Christ... the wisdom of God" (1 Cor 1:23-24; 2:6-9). This is further indicated by the term Word (Logos), which in the gospel of John does not mean a fleeting word or divine utterance but God Himself, who has been with the Father from eternity and became human in the fullness of time. It can also be added that according to Paul, He is "the image of the invisible God" (cf. 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3), in whom "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden" (Col 2:3). Based on such biblical statements, the patristics speak of the Son as essentially the Father's intellectual image of Himself, His self-knowledge, into whom He pours His entire essence.
2. We find fewer references in the Bible to the mode of the Holy Spirit's origination. Scripture generally calls Him the Spirit, so the Church Fathers view Him as the breathed-out love between the Father and the Son. And love is a work of the will. The constant epithet "holy" also points to the will, since holiness is essentially synonymous with the love, the willing of the good. The names "gift," "present" also refer to this, as giving a gift is usually a sign of love. A true gift is always exactly the goodwill that transfers the object. If the Father and the Son love each other, this "goodwill" is personal, not an accidental reality.
Based on these, since Augustine, it has been a generally accepted theological truth that the origination of the Holy Spirit can be associated with God's voluntary activity, the love of the Father and the Son for each other. The Father and the Son love each other in the Holy Spirit. This living love and intimacy, which binds the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father, cannot be compared to any earthly love. It is entirely spiritual in nature and is not such that the two persons expect something from each other. Both possess everything. This love, therefore, is the common joy of possessing infinite value and the happiness of perfect contentment in it. In the Holy Spirit, the Father is assured that the Son is wholly His and lives in Him with His whole love. For the Son, the Holy Spirit signifies the Father's similar love for Him. The joy and intimacy of divine life take place in the Holy Spirit as the personification of divine love and joy. The liturgy refers to this life lived in joy and intimacy when it speaks of the "blessed" Trinity. In salvation history, too, the Holy Spirit is the distributor of God's love, graces, and charisms (Rom 5:5; 1 Cor 12:4). As He connects the Son with the Father, or is the personified pledge of their connection, unity, so He connects the justified person, made God's child, to the Father through the Son: "You have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, 'Abba, Father!'" (Rom 8:15).
3. If we accept the theologians' thesis that the Son's birth is intellectual to the Father, and the origination of the Holy Spirit is the common voluntary activity of the Father and the Son, then we must distinguish two kinds of intellectual and voluntary activities in God. When discussing God's cognitive activities in theology, we think of the common intellectual activities of the three divine persons. The basis of these is the common divine essence; therefore, we call this essential activity (actus essentialis). In contrast, there is the so-called person-creating divine activity (actus notionalis), in which the Father begets the Son, which is therefore not the joint activity of three persons, but only that of the Father. Similarly, we can talk about the love-activity flowing from God's essence as an actus essentialis, identical in the three persons; and we can talk about person-creating love-activity as actus notionalis, the common activity of the first two persons.
How do these two kinds of intellectual and voluntary activities differ from each other? Fatherhood, sonship, and spiration differ from each other in reality, but our point of view only distinguishes them from the common divine essence. We must apply this principle here as well. Another question is the difference in the subject of knowledge and love. The subject of the person-producing activities is one or two persons, not three; the essential activities, on the other hand, are the common activities of the three persons. We can also think that the person-creating activity is always immanent in nature, while the essential activity can also be outwardly directed, e.g., creative activity.
4. Why the Son's origin must be considered generation, and not the Holy Spirit's as well, Augustine answered this question following the Greek Church Fathers: Generation and knowledge are related in content. The natural goal of generative activity is to create one's living image from one's essence. Our intellectual activity also creates the likeness, the image of the known object in our soul. Love, on the other hand, though directed at the likeness, presupposes it. Its deepest nature is not resemblance but union. Its goal is unity.
Blotty

aqwsed12345
are you capable of reading? I asked for scholarly contributions not theologically motivated rubbish..
EasyPrompt

"The Son is born of the Father by generation, but generation should not be understood in the everyday sense. The Son is derived from the Father through pure spiritual generation, through the unlimited sharing of His essence. So, the birth of the Son is an intellectual activity of God."

"sounds like a bunch of garbage to me"

Yeah, it does, garbage and make-believe.

I wonder if whoever wrote that quote could imagine sitting behind a desk in a busy office with eyes closed, head down, and the manager comes over saying "where's my report?" and the desk clerk says "shh!!! I'm generating it through pure spiritual sharing of my unlimited essence!" Lol!😆 Probably get fired...

I am not "scholarly" but I like what the Bible says on the topic of the birth of the Son of God.

Genesis 1:26

"Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.""

We are God's children. We're like Him.

Ecclesiastes 2:24

"There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in his hard work. This too, I have realized, is from the hand of the true God."

God invented work for us because He works. He enjoys work, and we enjoy good work too.

Hebrews 4:4

"For in one place he has said of the seventh day as follows: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works,”"

If "all his work" was just "an intellectual activity" involving "sharing essences" then God wouldn't be said to have to need "rest". It's not like He stops thinking. Work takes effort, even for God. It costs Him something. "Rest" is more than desisting from intellectual activity because "hard work" is more than "an intellectual activity".

Luke 22:44

"But he was in such agony that he kept praying more earnestly; and his sweat became as drops of blood falling to the ground."

Jesus was a perfect man and some of his "work" worked up a bloody sweat. How much more so God's work is actively intense at times!

Colossians 1:15,16

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible."

Jesus helped Jehovah make everything in heaven and on earth, both the physical things and the spiritual things.

In order to be used by God to create all other things in heaven and on earth, Jesus had to be bigger and more powerful than anything else he helped create in heaven or on earth.

It must have taken more work for Jehovah to make Jesus than it took Him to make anything else. It certainly took more than "intellectual activity" or "unlimited sharing of essence", whatever that means. It was probably the most strenuous, involved, detailed, intense creative work Jehovah had ever done. (Until He resurrected Jesus to an even higher position after his complete death...then He had to completely recreate Jesus and with all the memories he'd had before death.)

John 5:17

"...he answered them: “My Father has kept working until now, and I keep working.”"

Jesus was the Master Worker, but he learned everything he knows from His Father.

While on earth, Jesus hung out more with fishermen and workers and "people of the earth" types more than intellectual Sadducee/Pharisee/scribe types. He enjoyed conversation and exchanging ideas, but Jesus wasn't exactly the type to just sit around "generating" by means of "sharing essence". He was a "get 'er done" kind of guy. He learned from his Dad, because that's how Jehovah is too.

(Maybe whoever wrote that quote about "intellectual sharing essence activity" stuff was just reflecting their preferred style of "work".😉 And possibly they'd never had a baby. In a perfect pregnancy, even if there wasn't any labor pain, the amount of work that goes on in the body - to build a new organ, the placenta, in order to support the life of the child while it's growing - so much work! No way could it be called "generation by intellectual activity". We are made in God's image, and the work in the physical realm is a pale reflection of the work that goes on in the heavenly realm. When we work for something, we appreciate it more. God worked for Christ's "birth" in the heavens more than He'd worked for anything. That's why His sacrifice was the best most amazing gift He could ever give us to show His Amazing Love💖.)

Romans 8:35-39

"Who will separate us from the love of the Christ? Will tribulation or distress or persecution or hunger or nakedness or danger or sword? Just as it is written: “For your sake we are being put to death all day long; we have been accounted as sheep for slaughtering.” On the contrary, in all these things we are coming off completely victorious through the one who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor governments nor things now here nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creation will be able to separate us from God’s love that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

He'll never leave us. He's worked too hard to regain the family to just give it up. We can be absolutely confident that He and His Son will always come to rescue us.

It's even as captured by the poet's measure:

"Dear Lord, my heart shall no more doubt
That thou dost compass me about
With sympathy divine.
The Love for me once crucified
Is not the love to leave my side.
But waiteth ever to divide
Each smallest care of mine."
Sea Breeze

Can this be put in simpler terms (by someone who is not the original writer)?
Sounds like someone is commenting on the "Eternal Generation of the Son"
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” - John 1
“The Word was Himself the cause of all created things; His eternal generation could be implied in the eternality of His existence and His distinct personality. I think it is difficult for us to imagine what "happened" before time. It is enough for me to state that at the beginning of everything, the Word was "already" God and with God.
An alternate view might be that Jesus was "only begotten" at his conception / birth in the incarnation- while "the Son" is an eternal description of the Word, unbegotten before the incarnation.
aqwsed12345

What does this even mean?

Share this