SCOTT R. SWAIN
INTRODUCTION
The doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son from the Father is a particularly beautiful element of Christian teaching. The doctrine concerns one who is in person the radiance of the Father’s glory (Heb 1:3): light of light, true God of true God. This one proceeds as light from “the Father of lights” (Jas 1:17), but he does not proceed from God as creatures proceed from God.1 He proceeds as one “begotten, not made,” as one “consubstantial with the Father.” In terms of dogmatic location, the doctrine of eternal generation belongs to the constellation of Trinitarian doctrine. Specifically, it is one of the eternal processions that constitutes the eternal persons. The rays of this doctrine extend themselves far beyond the realm of Trinitarian theology proper, however, shedding light upon the entire economy of God’s works ad extra, from creation to incarnation, from sanctification to the beatific vision. In contemplating the eternally begotten Son of God, we behold “the king in his beauty” (Isa 33:17).
The doctrine of the Son’s eternal generation from the Father is not among the truths revealed to created reason through “the things that have been made” (Rom 1:20). Although “the true light” of the Word shines in all creatures and is the condition of created reason’s enlightenment (John 1:4, 9), created reason does not perceive this light through creation but only as the Word manifests himself in his incarnate mission and by means of those witnesses who beheld his glory—the glory of the μονογενής from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Our fellowship with the Word of life is a fellowship obtained only through the testimony of his authorized emissaries in Holy Scripture (1 John 1:1–3). Because of this, the doctrine of eternal generation emerges as an article of Christian confession solely as a consequence of biblical reasoning within “the glorious company of the apostles” and “the goodly fellowship of the prophets.”
Between the time of the fourth and eighteenth centuries, it would be difficult to find a Christian theologian—Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant—who would not affirm the preceding assertions. There is a small witness of theologians who believed that the doctrine of eternal generation could be perceived apart from scriptural revelation by reflecting upon the nature of divine perfection. Moreover, a “minority report” of Reformed theologians going back to John Calvin expressed reservations about certain formulations of the doctrine, particularly among the church fathers. These reservations notwithstanding, Calvin and this Reformed minority report continued to affirm the broad ecumenical consensus that the doctrine of eternal generation is true, theologically meaningful, and biblical.2
Much has changed. Leaving aside the many revisionist programs in Trinitarian theology that have occupied the Christian theological imagination since the nineteenth century, a scan of recent evangelical systematic theologies and biblical commentaries reveals that evangelicals have not warmly embraced the aforementioned ecumenical consensus on eternal generation. Many are not convinced that the doctrine of eternal generation is true. Even among those who continue to affirm the doctrine, some wonder whether it is theologically meaningful. Still others question the doctrine’s basic intelligibility as a concept. For all their variety, evangelical critics of eternal generation agree on one thing: the doctrine of eternal generation is unbiblical.
Along with the other contributors to the present volume, I believe the doctrine of eternal generation is worth retrieving: for the good of the church and theology and for the glory of the triune God. As I and others understand the enterprise, retrieval involves drawing upon resources from the past for the sake of theological renewal in the present.3 Retrieval is not repristination, nor is it disinterested reception history. Retrieval is a spiritual and theological attempt to reconnect to a vital root, to recover lost vision, to relearn a forgotten grammar. As such, retrieval calls for careful attention to texts and their reception, patient historical description, and, perhaps above all, discriminating judgments about how past resources might open up “new points of departure”4 for contemporary theological reflection. As the preceding discussion suggests, one of the most important challenges to address in retrieving the doctrine of eternal generation concerns the doctrine’s status as biblical teaching. Is the doctrine of eternal generation biblical? And, if so, what does it mean to say that it is biblical? These are the types of questions that the present volume addresses.
For my own part, I wish to address the issue through recourse to the theology of the divine names.5 I believe this theology—part hermeneutics, part metaphysics, part ascetics—opens an illuminating window on what it means to say that the doctrine of eternal generation is a biblical doctrine. As we will see, the doctrine of eternal generation is a biblical doctrine in that it reflects a faithful interpretation of the divine names revealed in Holy Scripture, specifically, the names that signify the relation between the First and Second Persons of the Trinity. The argument will unfold in three steps. First, we will consider three levels of analysis that belong to responsible biblical interpretation in order to orient ourselves to the interpretation of the divine names. Second, we will introduce in broad strokes the theology of the divine names. Third, and finally, we will consider the divine names that signify the Father–Son relation and that establish the biblical basis for the doctrine of eternal generation.
ON BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION
In order to appreciate the argument that follows, it will be helpful to clarify how the interpretation of the divine names fits within the larger program of biblical interpretation. As I understand it, responsible interpretation of any biblical text involves three levels of analysis.6 The first level of analysis involves the exegesis of discrete texts qua texts. Here we consider texts in their semantic and grammatical particularities as well as in their distinctive historical and literary forms. The second level of analysis involves the interpretation of texts in light of their intertextual relations to other texts. How does this biblical text and its teaching relate to that biblical or extrabiblical text and its teaching? This level of analysis includes but is not exhausted by the important work of “biblical theology,” which traces patterns and themes across authorial and canonical corpora and along the line of redemptive historical development. There are historical and literary dimensions to this level of analysis as well. The third level of analysis concerns the agents and activities of interpretation, theologically and philosophically considered. At this level of analysis we reflect upon the ways in which our assumptions about authors, texts, and readers shape and are shaped by the interpretive process. Who is the author(s) of these texts? And how do our answers to this question shape the way we read these texts? What is the nature of these texts? Are they “inspired”—and what does that mean? Is the relationship we perceive to exist between this text and that text (i.e., intertextuality) merely a matter of cultural process or convention, or is there some deeper basis for this perception? Do we as readers require aids in interpretation? If so, are these aids academic, spiritual, liturgical, ecclesiastical? “Theological interpretation of Scripture,” at least as I understand it, is largely though not exclusively concerned with the third level of interpretive analysis.
Note well: These three levels do not represent three rival interpretive options. The conflict of the faculties we commonly witness at this point is a spiritual problem, not a metaphysical one. Much less do these three levels represent three “steps” in the interpretive process. All three levels are in constant play in any healthy approach to biblical interpretation. For reasons of disciplinary focus or scholarly prudence, it is legitimate for individual interpreters to direct their energies to one or two of these levels. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that interpretive malfunction inevitably follows when any of the levels are ignored, for example, when it is assumed that the biblical basis of eternal generation can be determined solely at the first level of analysis—that is, based merely upon the lexical semantics of μονογενής.
What is the upshot for our present discussion? The interpretation of the divine names may strike us as an esoteric topic, reminiscent of mystical theology and medieval speculation—and thus useless for establishing the biblical basis of anything. I want to suggest that this is not the case. One way of helping us appreciate the point is by noting analogies between an exercise we more commonly engage in at level two of biblical interpretation (i.e., biblical theology) and an exercise we less commonly engage in at level two of biblical interpretation (i.e., interpretation of the divine names). Two analogies between these two interpretive exercises are worth noting.
The first analogy lies in the fact that both interpretive exercises presuppose the unity of Scripture. In the case of biblical theology, the major operative presupposition is the unity of the biblical story line. The assumption is that because the Bible is a unified story, we may expect the various themes and trajectories of Scripture to be heading in the same direction, and indeed to find a common and coherent resolution in the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the case of the divine names, the major operative presupposition is the unity of the Bible’s main character, the triune YHWH. The assumption is that because YHWH is one God, we may expect that the various names and descriptions ascribed to him in Scripture refer to the same agent and paint a coherent (albeit finally unfathomable) portrait of his identity and character.
The second analogy lies in the fact that both interpretive exercises are occupied primarily with tracing analogous patterns. In the case of biblical theology, we are concerned with tracing analogous patterns along a redemptive-historical axis: How does the theme of temple or seed or messiah unfold and develop throughout the course of redemptive history? How do these themes progress? How are they enriched? What mysterious surprises do they hold? In the case of the divine names, we are not concerned primarily with tracing analogous patterns that unfold along a historical axis. Rather, we are concerned primarily with tracing analogous patterns—“family resemblances”—across three ontologically distinct relational registers: the relation of creature to creature, the relation of Creator to creature, and the relation of divine Father to divine Son. When it comes to interpreting both kinds of analogies—the historical and the ontological—context is king. Just as failure to appreciate historical context leads to failure in interpreting the analogies operative in biblical theology, so too failure to appreciate ontological context leads to failure in interpreting the analogies operative in the divine names.
With this clarification in view, we turn to the interpretation of the divine names.
ON THE DIVINE NAMES
The Christian doctrine of God is that species of biblical reasoning devoted to the prayerful contemplation and commendation of the divine names revealed in Holy Scripture. Due to the divine largesse, Holy Scripture furnishes us with a “surplus of description”7 that we may draw upon in articulating the doctrine of God. The biblical writers praise God by “many names.”8 God is identified as “Lord,” “Almighty,” “one,” and “good.” He is also identified as “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit.” God is the one who created heaven and earth, who cut a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who rescued Israel from Egypt and caused them to possess the land of Canaan as an inheritance. He is the one who delivered over Jesus because of our transgressions and raised him up because of our justification, who poured out his Spirit on all flesh, and who promises to make all things new. Because the biblical naming of God is so very “great,” the Christian doctrine of God is afforded with resources that are truly “unsearchable” (Ps 145:3).
As it seeks to fathom the wealth of resources available to it, the Christian doctrine of God must be aware of several challenges intrinsic to the task of interpreting the divine names.9 Not only is there the issue of scope (to what extent has Christian teaching about God faithfully borne witness to the fullness of biblical revelation?), there is also the issue of fidelity in conceptual paraphrase—that is, which words count as faithful repetitions of the biblical witness, and which words count as betrayals of that witness? For example, does predicating divine immutability and divine impassibility of God faithfully render the biblical claim that with God “there is no variation or shadow due to change” (Jas 1:17)? Or do these predications distort the biblical presentation of divine constancy? Finally, there is the more complex issue of interpreting the logical status of the various biblical descriptions of God: Does naming God “creator of heaven and earth” or “the one who brought Israel out of Egypt” carry the same significance for God’s identity as naming him “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”? If not, what is the difference between these kinds of naming and these kinds of relations? As these questions suggest, the doctrine of God is a proposal not only regarding which descriptions are “necessary and appropriate” to faithful speech about God but also regarding how various descriptions of God “work.”10
For the sake of space, let me summarize five points regarding the way various biblical descriptions of God work in order to prepare us for interpreting the divine names relevant to eternal generation. Here I follow Thomas Aquinas’s discussion of the divine names in question 13 of the prima pars of the Summa theologiae.11 (1) Because God is the “Father of all” (Eph 4:6), “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph 3:15), there are “family resemblances” between God and his creatures. These family resemblances are the ontological basis of the divine names. (2) In terms of the order of being, these family resemblances flow from God the Father of all to his creaturely offspring, and not vice-versa. Creatures are like God because God created them; however, God is not like creatures.12 (3) In terms of the order of naming, the order is reversed. God names himself in our language using names originally applied to creatures. This is true whether it is said that God is good or whether it is said that God is a rock: in both instances the creature provides our primary context for understanding that which is good and that which is a rock.13 (4) These two different orders (the order of being and the order of naming) explain the difference between proper and metaphorical names of God. (a) Some names apply properly and primarily to creatures and only metaphorically and secondarily to God. God is a rock, to be sure, but God is not literally a rock. When we say that God is not literally a rock, however, we are not denying his steadfast nature or strength in relationship to his helpless people. We understand that even rocks reflect something of God’s greatness and therefore that their characteristics are susceptible to secondary, metaphorical application to God, the one who birthed the mountains (Ps 90:2). (b) Other names apply properly and primarily to God and only secondarily to creatures: God alone is wise; God alone is good—not in the sense that creatures cannot be wise or good but in the sense that they cannot be supreme and simple wisdom and goodness. God alone is wise and good in that sense, and all gifts of creaturely wisdom and goodness proceed from him (Jas 1:5, 17). (5) These two different orders (the order of being and the order of naming) also explain the epistemological and linguistic “grammar” whereby we interpret the family resemblances that exist between God and his creatures, the Dionysian threefold way (triplex via). Because God is the Father of all creatures and their perfections (via causalitatis), we understand and assert that he prepossesses all perfections that appear in the creature in their primary and supreme form (via excellentiae) without any creaturely limitation (via negativa).14
This understanding of the family resemblances that exist between God and his creatures will help us better appreciate how the divine names that signify the Father–Son relation and that constitute the biblical basis of the doctrine of eternal generation.
ON ETERNAL GENERATION
The pro-Nicene exegetical tradition identifies two broad categories of divine names within Scripture that are especially pertinent to the development of Trinitarian theology (along with a third category, undiscussed here, that is of special importance to Christology). With respect to the first category of divine names, the Bible identifies each person of the Trinity as the one true and living God. The three persons share the single divine “name”—“the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19). The Father is the one Lord God (e.g., Matt 11:25); the Son is the one Lord God (e.g., John 20:28; 1 Cor 8:6); and the Spirit is the one Lord God (e.g., Acts 5:3–4; 2 Cor 3:17–18). Furthermore, the Bible identifies each person as an agent of God’s unique actions (Gen 1:1–2; Ps 33:6; John 1:1–3; Gal 4:4–6; etc.) and as a bearer of God’s unique attributes (John 5:26; 1 Cor 2:10–11; etc.). These “common names” reveal that the multiplication of persons in the Trinity does not amount to the multiplication of gods. For us there is “one Spirit . . . one Lord . . . one God and Father of all” (Eph 4:4–6). The doctrine of the Trinity is a species of monotheism (compare Deut 6:4 with 1 Cor 8:6). To borrow creedal terminology, the Son and the Spirit are “consubstantial” with the Father. With respect to the second category of divine names, the Bible indicates that each person is nevertheless irreducibly distinct from the other persons. How is this distinction indicated? The distinction does not involve the deity of the persons—these three are one Lord God. Nor does it involve a distinction in power, wisdom, or will—in God all these things are “one” (Deut 6:4). The distinction between the persons is indicated by their “personal names”: “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit.” And these names signify relations. The Father is Father to the Son (“paternity” is thus his unique personal property); the Son is Son to the Father (“filiation” is thus his unique personal property); the Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son (“spiration” is thus his unique personal property). These personal properties are not interchangeable. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Father. And the Spirit is not the Father or the Son. The Bible identifies God as irreducibly three in one, and so with all the saints we confess and adore the holy Trinity.15
The doctrine of eternal generation is an interpretation of the personal names that characterize the Father–Son relation. In order to appreciate how this works, I would like to trace three analogous patterns of father–son relations across three ontologically distinct relational registers: that of creature to creature, of creator to creature, and of divine Father to divine Son. I will do so through a brief analysis of three texts: Genesis 5:1–3; James 1:17; and Hebrews 1:3. Given the previous discussion, we should expect to see family resemblances across each register. Given the previous discussion, we should also expect to see these family resemblances modulated according to their diverse ontological contexts. The doctrine of eternal generation emerges as we perceive how the Bible’s “transgeneric predication”16 of father–son relations works across these three different but related ontological registers.
Genesis 5:1–3: Creature to Creature
It is not uncommon for Scripture to draw analogies from father–son relations that exist between creature and creature to the father–son relation that exists between Creator and creature. For example, in Luke 11:13 Jesus asks, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” Similarly, Hebrews 12:9 states, “We have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?” Note in each instance that the analogy is not directly drawn from earthly fathers to our heavenly Father (A:B as C:B). The analogy is between how earthly fathers relate to earthly sons and how the heavenly Father relates to his creaturely children (A:B as C:D).
The same pattern appears in Genesis 5:1–3, which states, “When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Adam when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” Notice three features regarding the Adam–Seth relation in verse three. (1) We have two relatives: Adam, the father, and Seth, the son. (2) We have the action of one relative that establishes the relationship between the two relatives: “Adam fathered Seth.” (3) We have a resulting similarity between these two relatives: Seth is in Adam’s likeness, after his image.
The remarkable thing, of course, is that this text draws an analogy between what happens between Adam and Seth in verse 3 and what happens between God and Adam in verse 1. Here too three features regarding the God-Adam relation are worth noting. (1) We have two relatives: God, the creator, and Adam, the creature. (2) We have the action of one relative that establishes the relationship between the two relatives: “God created Adam.” (3) And we have a resulting similarity between these two relatives: Adam is created “in the likeness of God.”
While there is analogy between the God-Adam relation and the Adam-Seth relation (A:B as C:D), there is disanalogy as well. Creating is not fathering. God is Adam’s creator. Adam is Seth’s father. For this reason too the creature’s likeness to the creator must be distinguished from a son’s likeness to his father. And yet this is not the whole story. As commentators point out, Luke 3:38 identifies Adam not as the creature of God but as the son of God, and Luke appears to draw this identification on the basis of Genesis 5:1–3. So we need to put the matter like this: while creating is not, properly speaking, fathering, creating, Luke seems to suggest, is a kind of or analogous to fathering.
We may find help for making sense of this by looking at our next text, James 1:17.
James 1:17: Creator to Creature
James 1:17 identifies God as “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” Based upon comparisons with Jewish literature, the description “Father of lights” probably intends to identify God as the Father/Creator of the heavenly lights.17 The identification of creating as an act of “fathering” is not without precedent in the Old Testament (see, e.g., Deut 32:18; Job 15:7; Ps 90:2).
Following this reading, note three features of the father–son relation between creator and creature according to James 1:17. (1) We have two relatives: “the Father of lights” and his children, the heavenly lights. (2) We have (by implication) the action of one relative that establishes the relationship between the two relatives: God has fathered the heavenly lights (recall Luke 3:38). (3) We have a resulting similarity and dissimilarity between these two relatives: Both the creator Father and his creaturely children are lights. But the Father and creative cause of the heavenly lights is himself light without variation and without change—one cannot help but think here of 1 John 1:5: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all,” whereas the heavenly lights are characterized by variation and change—like all creatures, “they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away” (Ps 102:26). Here we have similarity between relatives, a similarity that flows from the fatherly relation between the luminous God and his created lights. But we also have dissimilarity between relatives: the heavenly lights are only a mutable reflection of God’s immutable divine light.
From the discussion thus far, we may draw several interesting observations. First, the father–son analogy is capable of doing quite a lot of work across different ontological registers. Second, the different kinds of work the analogy is capable of doing are not, for the most part, related to different terminology: Seth is the “likeness” of Adam; Adam is the “likeness” of God; but “likeness” means something different in each case. Adam “fathered” Seth; God “fathered” the heavenly lights; but “fathering” means something different in each case. Third, different senses of “likeness” and “fathering” are determined by the ontological context of the father–son relation in view. God’s “fathering” Adam and the heavenly lights is, properly speaking, an act of creation—the production of being out of nothing. God’s “fathering” Adam and the heavenly lights is only metaphorically (or analogically) speaking an act of begetting.18 Adam’s “fathering” Seth is, properly speaking, an act of fathering—a communication of nature from parent to offspring.19
This leads us to our last text and to our last ontological register: the relation between divine Father and divine Son according to Hebrews 1:3.
Hebrews 1:3: Divine Father to Divine Son
Standing at the center of a series of splendid descriptions of the Son through whom the Father has spoken to us in these latter days, Hebrews 1:3 declares, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his substance [ὃς ὢν ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης καὶ χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως].”20 In a manner similar to John 1:1–18 (where the title “Son” is amplified by the title “Word”) and Colossians 1:15–20 (where the title “beloved Son” is amplified by the title “Image”), we see the father–son relation in this text amplified through the use of language and imagery associated with Old Testament and Jewish reflection on divine wisdom: the Son is the “radiance” or “effulgence” [ἀπαύγασμα] of the Father’s glory (compare with Wis 7:26). The Son is here identified as the Father’s glory shining forth, as the divine filial brightness of the divine paternal light.21
In keeping with our tracing of family resemblances above, note three features of the Father–Son relation according to Hebrews 1:3. (1) We have two relatives: God and “his Son.” (2) We have the activity of one agent that describes the relationship between the two relatives: the Father is glorious; the Son is the effulgence of the Father’s glory shining forth. (3) We have a description regarding the nature of the similarity that obtains between these two relatives: the Son is “the exact imprint of his substance.” Although the precise sense of the latter phrase is not perhaps clear in itself, the broader context of Hebrews clarifies the nature of the Son’s similarity to the Father. The radiant Son shares his Father’s “name” (Heb 1:8, 10). He shares his Father’s eternal and immutable life (Heb 1:11–12). He shares in his Father’s unique divine actions of creation and providence (Heb 1:2–3). He shares his Father’s throne (Heb 1:8, 13). The one who is the radiance of God the Father is one God with his Father, “the exact imprint of his substance.”
What does this mean for the doctrine of eternal generation? Having traced various father–son relations across various ontological registers, we are now prepared to address this question.
First, we have noted a series of “family resemblances” across each ontological register. In each register, we have seen (1) two relatives, (2) the activity of one relative that defines the relationship between the two relatives, and (3) a similarity that obtains between the two relatives.
Second, looking more closely at these family resemblances, we may observe a couple of common features that obtain across the various ontological registers. In each case, there is a discernible order in relation to the action or activity that defines the relationship between the two relatives: God makes Adam (not vice versa); Adam fathers Seth (not vice versa); God radiates his Son (not vice versa). The first relative is the principle of the action that constitutes the relationship between the two relatives. Furthermore, in each case the likeness between the two relatives follows a discernible order as well: Adam is like God; Seth is like Adam; the Son is the exact imprint of his Father’s substance. Here too the order is not reversible.
Third, while each ontological register bears family resemblances, each ontological register operates according to a distinct logic that determines our understanding of the father–son relation described within that register. Properly speaking, Adam fathers Seth. He communicates his nature to Seth with the result that Seth is in the likeness of Adam. Metaphorically speaking, God “fathers” Adam and the heavenly lights. Properly speaking, God creates them out of nothing with the result that there is a distinct but distant similarity between the divine “father” and his creaturely “children.” What about the relationship between divine Father and divine Son? Unlike the imagery of James 1:17, where clear lines of discontinuity are drawn between the immutable Father of lights and his mutable creaturely offspring, the imagery of Hebrews 1:3 suggests that the Father should be understood as the natural principle of the Son—as light naturally radiates its brightness, so too God naturally radiates his Son. “Light and its splendour are one.”22 The rest of Scripture, I believe, confirms this interpretation. The First Person of the Trinity is, properly speaking,23 fatherly principle to the Second Person of the Trinity with the result that the two relatives share a common name (John 17:11–12)24 and a common nature (see, e.g., John 5:26).
Fourth, the relation between the divine Father and the divine Son whereby the Father naturally radiates the Son and consequently the Son is the exact imprint of the Father’s substance is in essence all that the doctrine of eternal generation seeks to identify. The doctrine of eternal generation does not seek to explain this relationship. Indeed, Gregory of Nazianzus instructs us that the eternal generation of the Son “must be honored by silence.” He states, “It is a great thing for you to learn that he was begotten. But the manner of his generation we will not admit that even angels can conceive, much less you. Shall I tell you how it was? It was in a manner known to the Father who begot, and to the Son who was begotten. Anything more than this is hidden by a cloud, and escapes your dim sight.”25 The doctrine of eternal generation does not seek to explain this relationship; it only seeks, in the words of Bonaventure, to “believe simply” and to “contemplate with penetrating gaze . . . that from that Eternal Light which is at the same time measureless and most simple, most brilliant and most hidden, there emerges a coeternal, coequal and consubstantial splendor, who is the power and wisdom of the Father.”26
CONCLUSION
Had we more space, we could trace other titles, images, and actions whereby the Father–Son relation is named in Holy Scripture.27 In each instance, we would discover patterns similar to what we have traced above. In terms of the various titles and images used by the New Testament to amplify the Father–Son relation, we would discover, along with the divine glory that radiates a divine effulgence, a divine speaker who utters a divine word (John 1:1–18) and a divine exemplar who produces a divine image (Col 1:15–18). In terms of the various actions that amplify the nature of the Father–Son relation, we would discover a Father who has life in himself and who has granted his Son to have life in himself (John 5:26), and we would discover a Father who possesses the unique divine name and who has granted his Son to possess the unique divine name (John 17:11–12). Would this breadth of divine naming lead us away from the label “eternal generation,” perhaps inviting us to find new labels such as “the eternal radiating of the Son,” “the eternal uttering of the Son,” or “the eternal granting of the divine name to the Son”? Probably not. But it would help us appreciate more fully that Christian theology is heir to an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the divine names that signify the Father–Son relation in Holy Scripture and therefore that establish the biblical basis of the doctrine of eternal generation. Scripture affords us many opportunities to consider the eternal begetting of the Son and thus many opportunities to contemplate “the king in his beauty.”
1. Unless noted otherwise, Scripture quotations in this chapter come from the ESV.
2. Brannon Ellis, Calvin, Classical Trinitarianism, and the Aseity of the Son (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
3. See Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015).
4. Lewis Ayres, “In the Cloud of Witnesses: Catholic Trinitarian Theology Beyond and Before Its Modern ‘Revivals,’” in Rethinking Trinitarian Theology: Disputed Questions and Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology, ed. Giulio Maspero and Robert Wozniak (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 23.
5. I discuss this topic more broadly in “On Divine Naming,” in Aquinas among the Protestants, ed. Manfred Svensson and David VanDrunen (Oxford: Wiley, forthcoming).
6. For a complementary perspective on the task of biblical interpretation to what I sketch here, see Al Wolters, “Confessional Criticism and the Night Visions of Zechariah,” in Renewing Biblical Interpretation, ed. Craig Bartholomew, Colin Greene, and Karl Möller (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 90–117.
7. Denys Turner, “On Denying the Right God: Aquinas on Atheism and Idolatry,” Modern Theology 20 (2004): 148.
8. Dionysius, The Divine Names, in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist, 1984), 1.6.
9. For fuller discussion, see Stephen Holmes, “The Attributes of God,” in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, ed. John Webster, Kathryn Tanner, and Iain Torrance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 54–71.
10. Stephen Holmes, “Divine Attributes,” in Mapping Modern Theology: A Thematic and Historical Introduction, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Bruce L. McCormack (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 48. This and the previous paragraph are slightly modified from Scott R. Swain, The God of the Gospel: Robert Jenson’s Trinitarian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), 78–79.
11. For further exposition of this topic, see Rudi te Velde, Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiae (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), ch. 4.
12. Dionysius, Divine Names 9.6; Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, 2.11, ad. 11.
13. The order of naming also explains why we have many names for God.
14. For further discussion, see Swain, “On Divine Names.”
15. This paragraph is slightly modified from Scott R. Swain, “The Mystery of the Trinity,” in The Essential Trinity: New Testament Foundations and Practical Relevance, ed. Brandon D. Crowe and Carl R. Trueman (London: Apollos, 2016), 194.
16. Te Velde, Aquinas on God, 112.
17. Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 78–79.
18. On issues related to metaphorical/analogical naming in describing the Father-creature relation, see John Baptist Ku, God the Father in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Peter Lang, 2013), 339n13.
19. I am not aware of any case where the Bible applies a metaphorical sense of “creating” to the action of a creature fathering a creature: Seth too is “begotten, not made.”
20. Though descriptions such as this one (may) speak of the Son in his incarnate state, they do not speak of his incarnate state. They speak of the Son’s relation to his Father.
21. For further discussion of how the author of Hebrews transforms the title “son” vis-à-vis God, human beings, and angels, see Madison Pierce’s chapter in the present volume. For theological commentary on Heb 1:1–4, see John Webster, “One Who Is Son: Theological Reflections on the Exordium to the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology, ed. Richard Bauckham, Daniel R. Driver, Trevor A. Hart, and Nathan MacDonald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 69–94.
22. Webster, “One Who Is Son,” 85.
23. For example, see John 5:18 and Rom 8:32, which identify God as Jesus’s “proper” Father and Jesus as God’s “proper” Son.
24. On which, see R. Kendall Soulen, The Divine Name(s) and Holy Trinity, vol. 1, Distinguishing the Voices (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 201–6.
25. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. Bas. 29.8 (Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. Edward R. Hardy [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1954], 165). Similarly, Francis Turretin states, “The similitudes usually employed to explain this mystery (drawn either from the mind, which by understanding itself, excites the idea and image of itself in itself, which always remains in the mind whence it may emanate; or from the sun from which rays simultaneously emanate as was neither before nor without them) can in some measure serve to illustrate this mystery, and the more because Scripture sometimes alludes to them when it calls the Son of God, Logon, ‘Wisdom,’ ‘the image of God’ and ‘the brightness of the Father’s glory’ (apaugasma doxēs). But they cannot set forth a full and accurate determination of the mode of this generation. Hence here (if anywhere) we must be wise with sobriety so that content with the fact (tō hoti) (which is clear in the Scriptures), we should not anxiously busy our thoughts with defining or even searching into the mode (which is altogether incomprehensible), but leave it to God who alone must perfectly know himself ” (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison, trans. George Musgrave Giger [Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1992–94], 1:302).
26. Bonaventure, The Tree of Life, in Bonaventure: The Soul’s Journey into God, The Tree of Life, The Life of St. Francis, trans. Ewert Cousins (New York: Paulist, 1978), 126 (1).
27. See Scott R. Swain, “Divine Trinity,” in Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic, ed. Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 87–90.