KEITH E. JOHNSON
FEW THEOLOGIANS HAVE HAD a greater impact on our understanding of the Trinity than Augustine of Hippo (354–430).1 While not everyone views his impact positively,2 there is no question that Augustine’s teaching on the Trinity is by far the most influential in the history of the Western church. It is for this reason that Augustine’s teaching on eternal generation—a foundational element of his Trinitarian doctrine—merits careful attention. Although his discussion may lack the theological precision found in later formulations of eternal generation (e.g., medieval theologians like Thomas Aquinas or post-Reformation scholastics like John Owen), his writings offer a helpful window into the biblical and theological basis for eternal generation and shed light on the Trinitarian significance of this doctrine.
In this chapter, I will argue that Augustine’s teaching on eternal generation arises from substantial engagement with Scripture and plays a crucial role in explicating both the relations of the divine persons and their work in creation, providence, and redemption. To this end, we will seek to answer three questions. First, what is Augustine’s understanding of eternal generation? Second, what biblical and theological evidence leads him to affirm this doctrine? Third, what is the theological significance of the eternal begetting of the Son in Augustine’s theology?
AUGUSTINE’S EXPLANATION OF ETERNAL GENERATION
Augustine writes as a representative of Latin-speaking pro-Nicene theology.3 He was not the first to articulate a doctrine of eternal generation as a way of explicating the Father–Son relationship.4 The begetting of the Son is a central feature of pro-Nicene theology both in its Latin and Greek forms. The inclusion of this doctrine in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed bears witness to this reality.5
According to Augustine, the Son is constituted as “Son” by virtue of his eternal relation to the Father.6 The Father eternally “begets” the Son.7 While he uses the active and passive forms of the Latin verb “to beget” (gigno) to describe the eternal generation of the Son,8 Augustine also speaks about the Son being “from the Father” (de Patre).9 That the Son is “from the Father” may represent his simplest description of the mystery of the Son’s eternal nativity: “being born means for the Son his being from the Father.”10 A more formal description can be found at the end of De trinitate where Augustine explains that “generation from the Father [de patre generatio] bestows being on the Son without any beginning in time, without any changeableness of nature.”11
Augustine’s discussion of John 5:26 in his Tractates on the Gospel of John offers a helpful window into his understanding of eternal generation.12 “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26).13 What does it mean that the Father has “life in himself” (5:26a)? It means that the Father’s “life” is completely unlike human “life.”14 Whereas human life is “mutable” and dependent, the life of God is “immutable” and dependent on nothing outside God.15 In this text, we are told that the Son possesses a form of life identical to that of the Father—namely, “life in himself” (5:26b).16 However, Father and Son possess “life in himself” in differing ways. The Father possesses “life in himself” that was given by no one while the Son possesses “life in himself” that was “given” to him. How did the Son receive “life in himself”? His answer is both simple and profound: the Father “begat” the Son. In a beautiful turn of phrase, Augustine exhorts his readers to “hear the Father through the Son. Rise, receive life that in him who has life in himself you may receive life which you do not have in yourself.”17
Augustine’s constructive account of eternal generation involves six elements.18 First, the language of “begetting” is not an essential predication describing God’s essence but a relational predication describing the relation of the Father to the Son.19 Speaking from a relational perspective, we call the Father “God” while we call the Son “God from God” and “light from light.”20 Second, the begetting of the Son is not temporal but eternal. Through generation, “the Father bestows being on the Son without any beginning in time.”21 As a result, the Son is coeternal with the Father.22 Third, the Son is begotten in an equality of nature. The Father did not beget a “lesser Son” who would eventually become his equal. The Father “begot [the Son] timelessly in such a way that the life which the Father gave the Son by begetting him is co-eternal with the life of the Father who gave it.”23 Through generation, the Son receives the “life”—that is, the nature or substance—of the Father.24 Fourth, the Son is begotten not by the will of the Father but by the substance of the Father.25 Fifth, a created likeness to the eternal begetting of the Son can be found in the production of a mental “word” by the human mind.26 This insight may be inspired, at least in part, by Augustine’s reflection on the title “Word” in John 1:1. Another likeness for the generation of the Son can be found in the nature of “light.” We should not think of the begetting of the Son like “water flowing out from a hole in the ground or in the rock, but like light flowing from light.”27 The Son’s “light” is equal in its radiance to the “light” of the Father.28 Finally, the generation of the Son is beyond human comprehension.29
THE BIBLICAL BASIS FOR ETERNAL GENERATION
Critics frequently assert that eternal generation represents a speculative doctrine rooted in a handful of dubious proof texts (e.g., Prov 8:22–25; Ps 2:7; Mic 5:2; John 5:26; Col 1:15; Heb 1:5).30 In light of this criticism, one might be tempted to assume that Augustine’s argument for eternal generation arises from a series of isolated texts strung together like a popcorn string on a Christmas tree. Nothing could be further from the truth. For Augustine, eternal generation arises from integrated reflection on all that Scripture teaches about the person of Christ.31 It is rooted in a comprehensive christological (and Trinitarian) hermeneutic.32 Thus, to grasp his argument we need to examine Augustine’s christological hermeneutic.
In De trinitate Augustine identifies several “canonical rules” to help his community rightly read Scripture in its witness to Christ. His first rule concerns two ways that Scripture speaks about Christ. Drawing on musical imagery, he explains that we must distinguish “two resonances” in Scripture, “one tuned to the form of God in which he is, and is equal to the Father, the other tuned to the form of a servant which he took and is less than the Father.”33 Once we recognize that Scripture speaks about Christ in two ways, “we will not be upset by statements in the holy books that appear to be in flat contradiction with each other.”34 Augustine demonstrates the explanatory power of this distinction through a number of examples.35 In the form of God, Christ created all things (John 1:3), while in the form of a servant he was made of a woman (Gal 4:4). In the form of God, he is equal to the Father (John 10:30), while in the form of a servant he obeys the Father (John 6:38). In the form of God, he is “true God” (1 John 5:20), while in the form of a servant he is obedient to the point of death (Phil 2:8). These two “forms” exist in one “person.”36
In book 2 of De trinitate, Augustine points out that his distinction between the Son in the “form of a servant” and the Son in the “form of God” is inadequate to explain a number of passages that speak of the Son neither as “less” than the Father nor “equal” to the Father but rather intimate that the Son is “from the Father” (de Patre). Another “rule” must be applied to these passages: “This then is the rule which governs many scriptural texts, intended to show not that one person is less than the other, but only that one is from the other.”37 We might call this Augustine’s “from-another” rule. He explicitly cites John 5:19 and 5:26 as clear examples of this rule: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise” (John 5:19). “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26). Applying the form-of-a-servant rule to these passages leads to confusion and absurdity.38 The from-another rule, however, provides the hermeneutical key to rightly reading these texts: “So the reason for these statements can only be that the life of the Son is unchanging like the Father’s, and yet is from the Father [5:26]; and that the work of Father and Son is indivisible, and yet the Son’s working is from the Father just as he himself is from the Father [5:19].”39
It is important to follow Augustine’s reasoning. He assumes (rightly) that significant continuity exists between God’s immanent life and God’s actions in creation, providence, and redemption. As a result, relational patterns in the economy of salvation reflect and reveal patterns in God’s inner life. Thus, the reason the Son can do nothing of himself (John 5:19) is because the Son is not “from himself” (John 5:26). This is why the Son’s “working” (which is indivisible with the Father) comes from the Father.
Combining Augustine’s interpretive rules, New Testament references to Christ can be grouped in three categories. First, some texts refer to Son in the “form of God” in which he is equal to the Father (e.g., John 1:3; 10:30; 16:15; 17:10; Phil 2:6; Col 1:15; 1 John 5:20). Others refer to the Son in the “form of a servant” in which he is “less” than the Father (e.g., Matt 12:32; 26:38; Mark 13:32; Luke 4:18; John 6:38; 7:16; 14:28; Gal 4:4; Phil 2:7; Col 1:18). Finally, some texts speak of the Son as “from” the Father (e.g., John 5:19, 26, 36). The from-another rule does not imply any lack of equality between Father and Son; rather, it intimates the Son’s “birth in eternity.”40
Because John 5:26 represents one of Augustine’s most important scriptural witnesses to eternal generation, it will be helpful to examine his reading of this text more closely. As we noted earlier, this text contains two important affirmations: (1) that both Father and Son possess “life in himself” (i.e., self-existent life) and (2) that Father and Son possess “life in himself” in differing ways.41 The Father possesses “life in himself” from no one while the Son possesses “life in himself” given by the Father.42 According to Augustine, the phrase “has been given” (v. 26b) is roughly equivalent in meaning to “has been begotten.”43
Augustine’s interpretation of the phrase “has been given” as “has been begotten” may strike some readers as a big leap. It is important to remember that Christian theologians frequently employ terms not found in the biblical text (e.g., Trinity, person, essence, nature) in order to explain what the biblical text teaches.44 In this case, Augustine appeals to “eternal generation” in order to explain the theological judgment this text renders regarding the Father–Son relation. It is crucial to distinguish the “judgment” this text renders regarding the relationship of the Son to the Father from the “conceptuality” used to express this judgment (i.e., the language of “grant” in the biblical text versus the language of “generation” in the case of Augustine).45
There is much to commend Augustine’s reading of John 5:26. D. A. Carson offers a compelling case in support of Augustine’s reading of this text. It is helpful to quote Carson at length:
A full discussion of John 5:26 could demonstrate that it most plausibly reads as an eternal grant from the Father to the Son, a grant that inherently transcends time and stretches Jesus’ Sonship into eternity past. When Jesus says that the Father has “life in himself,” the most natural meaning is that this refers to God’s self-existence. He is not dependent on anyone or anything. Then Jesus states that God, who has “life in himself,” “has granted the Son to have life in himself.” This is conceptually far more difficult. If Jesus had said that the Father, who has “life in himself,” had granted to the Son to have life, there would be no conceptual difficulty, but of course the Son would then be an entirely secondary and derivative being. What was later called the doctrine of the Trinity would be ruled out. Alternatively, if Jesus had said that the Father has “life in himself” and the Son has “life in himself,” there would be no conceptual difficulty, but it would be much more difficult to rule out ditheism. In fact what Jesus says is that the Father has “life in himself” and He has granted to the Son to have “life in himself.” The expression “life in himself” must mean the same thing in both parts of the verse. But how can such “life in himself,” the life of self-existence, be granted by another? The ancient explanation is still the best one: This is an eternal grant. There was therefore never a time when the Son did not have “life in himself.” This eternal grant establishes the nature of the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son.46
Those who reject eternal generation typically counter that John 5:26b describes the authority the Son received from the Father for his incarnate mission.47 Two points need to be made in response. First, there is an inconsistency in this explanation. Many theologians who deny that the language of “grant” makes a metaphysical claim about the eternal relation of the Son to the Father nevertheless read “life in himself” as making a metaphysical claim about the Father and the Son. John Feinberg represents a case in point. On the one hand, he claims that John 5:26 teaches the self-existence not only of the Father but also of the Son.48 That is to say, he reads both instances of “life in himself” metaphysically. On the other hand, in rejecting eternal generation,49 he implicitly denies that the language of “grant” makes any metaphysical claims. “Life in himself” is read metaphysically while “grant” is read only economically. This inconsistency begs for some kind of explanation. Second, and more substantially, “messianic investiture”50 does not capture the meaning of “life in himself.” As Marianne Thompson explains, “The life-giving prerogative does not remain external to the Son. He does not receive it merely as a mission to be undertaken. It is not simply some power he has been given. Rather, the Son partakes of the very life of the Father.”51 This is why the incarnate Son is able to raise the dead (v. 25).52 As Augustine explains, “For the Father has life everlasting in himself, and unless he begot such a Son as had life in himself, then the Son would not also give life to whom he would wish, as the Father raises the dead and gives them life.”53
Although he offers traditional readings of texts cited by other patristic writers in support of eternal generation (e.g., Ps 2:7; Prov 8:25; Col 1:15),54 it is Augustine’s from-another rule that constitutes the hermeneutical key to his argument.55 Five lines of biblical evidence support this rule. The first line of evidence includes the numerous “sending” texts scattered throughout the New Testament (e.g., Matt 10:40; Luke 4:43; 10:16; Gal 4:4–6). A high concentration of these passages is found in the Gospel of John (e.g., John 4:34; 5:23–24, 30–47; 6:29, 38–44, 57; 7:16, 28–29, 33; 8:16–18, 26–29, 42; 9:4; 12:44–50; 13:16; 14:24; 15:21; 16:5, 28; 17:3, 18, 21; 20:21). In these texts, Jesus repeatedly speaks of the Father as “the one who sent me”:
• “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:23).
• “For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me” (John 5:36).
• “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38).
• “I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me” (John 7:29).
• “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me” (John 7:33).
• “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me” (John 8:42).
• “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me” (John 13:20).
• “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
• “For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me” (John 17:8).
Augustine discusses the sending of the Son at length in books 2–4 of De trinitate. He argues that the temporal sending of the Son reflects and reveals the Son’s relation of being eternally “from” the Father: “So the Word of God is sent by him whose Word he is; sent by him he is born of. The begetter sends, and what is begotten is sent.”56
One might wonder how “sending” texts can count as evidence for eternal generation. John the Baptist was “sent” by God (John 1:6), yet we do not infer the divinity of John from the fact he was “sent.” This criticism misunderstands the theological significance of the “sending” passages. The passages cited above do not constitute evidence for the “divinity” of Christ (an essential predication). Rather, they shed light on the Son’s relationship to the Father (a personal predication). Returning to John 1, although John the Baptist and Jesus are both presented as “agents,” they are not agents in the same way. The agencies of John and Jesus are explicitly contrasted on the basis “of the status or rank of the two.”57 John the Baptist (who is “not the light”) functions merely as a human agent (cf. John 1:4–5, 8, 15, 30), whereas Jesus is a divine (and human) agent whose working is identified with the Father (John 1:1–3, 14).58 Once we recognize that Jesus is a divine agent who is equal to the Father, then we must ask what his unique sending reveals regarding his relationship to the Father. It is precisely in this context that the sending passages point to the Son’s eternal relation to the Father.
A second line of evidence represents passages that speak of the Father “giving” and the Son “receiving” (e.g., John 5:19, 22, 26, 27, 36; 10:18; 17:2, 8, 11, 22; 18:11). Although some giving/receiving texts can be explained on the basis of the form-of-a-servant rule (e.g., John 5:22, 27; Phil 2:9), others point to the eternal relation of the Son to the Father.59 John 5:19 and 5:26 represent passages that should be read in terms of the from-another rule. John 7:16 (“My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me”) represents a borderline case.60 It could be understood either according to the form-of-a-servant rule or the from-another rule (Trin. 2.4, 99). If understood in terms of the from-another rule, “ ‘My teaching is not mine but his who sent me’ (John 7:16) may be reduced to ‘I am not from myself but from him who sent me.’ ”61
A third witness to the from-another rule includes passages that reflect an ordered equality that marks the agency of the Father and Son (e.g., John 1:1–3, 10; 5:19, 21; 14:6, 10; Rom 5:1, 11; 1 Cor 8:6; Eph 1:3–14; 2:18; 4:6; Col 1:16; 3:17; Heb 1:1–2; Jude 25). One place this ordered equality can be seen is creation. Reading 1 Corinthians 8:6 alongside John 1:3, Augustine explains that the Father created all things through the Son.62 This reflects a broader scriptural pattern—namely, that the Father works all things through the Son (and by the Spirit).63 This pattern is reflected in the prepositions associated with the agency of the Father and Son. For example, 1 Corinthians 8:6 presents the Father as the one “from whom” all things exist while the Son is named as the one “through whom” all things exist.64 Augustine offers a Trinitarian reading of Romans 11:36a (“For from him and through him and to him are all things”) associating the individual propositions with each of the divine persons. Even if one questions the appropriateness of a Trinitarian reading of Romans 11:36, one cannot deny the broader pattern.
A fourth line of evidence includes the names “Father” and “Son” (e.g., Matt 11:27; 24:36–39; 28:18; Gal 4:4–6). Like the “sending” texts cited above, a high concentration of these passages can be found in the Gospel of John (e.g., John 1:14; 3:35; 5:17–47; 6:40; 14:13; 17:1). Critics of eternal generation assert that the title “Son” only implies the “equality” of the Son to the Father in the New Testament and does not reveal anything regarding the mode by which he eternally exists.65 This argument, however, commits the fallacy of the excluded middle by claiming that “Son” must refer either to “equality” or “origin,” but not both. For Augustine, “Son” implies both equality and origin. In the process of responding to his “Arian” opponents,66 Augustine argues that “begotten” simply means the same thing as “son”: “Being son is a consequence of being begotten, and being begotten is implied by being son.”67 If “Son” only means “equality,” then we find ourselves in the odd place where the biblical name “Son” appears to tell us nothing about the relation of the Son to the Father.
A final group of texts supporting Augustine’s rule comes from an unlikely source—passages concerning the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Son (and Father). It might be argued that much of the biblical material cited above could be explained away by appealing to the incarnation. This argument, however, cannot be made in the case of the Holy Spirit. One cannot say that Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit being “sent” because he became incarnate. Similarly, one cannot say that the Holy Spirit “receives” from the Father or Son because he took on flesh. After reminding his readers that the Holy Spirit did not take on the “form of a servant,” Augustine cites John 16:13–14. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:13–14). Reading this text alongside John 15:26,68 Augustine explains that the reason the Holy Spirit does not “speak on his own” is because, like the Son, he is not “from himself.”69 The Holy Spirit speaks as one “proceeding from the Father.”70 Similarly, the reason the Holy Spirit “glorifies” the Son (John 16:14) is because he “receives” from the Son—just as the Son glorifies the Father because he “receives” from the Father.71 My point is not to attempt to prove the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father and Son. I simply want to draw attention to the fact that these Holy Spirit passages constitute additional evidence for Augustine’s from-another rule. Thus, one cannot dismiss the biblical material cited above merely by appealing to the incarnation.
ETERNAL GENERATION IN AUGUSTINE’S TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY
The eternal generation of the Son plays an integral role in Augustine’s Trinitarian theology. First, it provides the basis for affirming the equality of the Son to the Father. One of Augustine’s central concerns in De trinitate is affirming the unity and equality of the Son to the Father—particularly in response to Latin Homian denials of the Son’s equality. The begetting of the Son constitutes a key element of his argument. Because “the Father has begotten the Son as his equal,” Father and Son share one nature.72 His argument proceeds on the assumption that like begets like: “Thus it is clear that the Son has another from whom he is and whose Son he is, while the Father does not have a Son from whom he is, but only whose Father he is. Every son gets being what he is from his father, and is his father’s son; while no father gets being what he is from his son, though he is his son’s father.”73
Second, the generation of the Son constitutes the basis for distinguishing the Son from the Father and Holy Spirit. At the beginning of De trinitate, Augustine offers a compact summary of Latin (pro-Nicene) teaching on the Trinity. After affirming that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three gods but one God because they exist “in the inseparable equality of one substance,” Augustine turns to the distinction of persons: “although indeed the Father has begotten the Son, and therefore he who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, and therefore he who is the Son is not the Father.”74 “Begetting” constitutes the basis for affirming the hypostatic distinction between the Father and the Son. Apart from eternal generation, there is no basis for distinguishing the Son from the Father in God’s inner life.75
Third, building on the previous point, the perichoretic communion that exists among the divine persons is rooted in the Father’s act of generating the Son. Lewis Ayres explains that in the decade between 410 and 420, Augustine moves “towards a sophisticated account of the divine communion” in which “the Trinitarian life is founded in the Father’s activity as the one from whom the Son is eternally born and the Spirit proceeds.”76 Thus, in his mature theology, Augustine presents Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as “an ordered communion of equals established by the Father.”77 On the one hand, each of the divine persons is “irreducible” and possesses the “fullness of God.”78 On the other hand, Augustine “consistently founds the unity of God in the Father’s eternal act of giving rise to a communion in which the mutual love of the three constitutes their unity of substance.”79 We might say that eternal generation names the mode of communion that exists between the Father and Son.80
Fourth, the generation of the Son constitutes the ontological basis for his temporal mission. Augustine’s opponents argued that the sending of the Son reveals his “inferiority” to the Father on the grounds that the one who sends must be “greater” than the one who is sent.81 In books 2–4 of De trinitate, Augustine labors to show that “being sent” implies no inferiority on the part of the Son. It simply reveals that the Son is eternally from the Father. Notice the important role that eternal generation plays in Augustine’s explanation:
If however the reason why the Son is said to have been sent by the Father is simply that the one is the Father and the other the Son, then there is nothing at all to stop us believing that the Son is equal to the Father and consubstantial and co-eternal, and yet that the Son is sent by the Father. Not because one is greater and the other less, but because one is the Father and the other the Son; one is the begetter, the other begotten; the first is the one from whom the sent one is; the other is the one who is from the sender.82
We might say that the sending of the Son represents a temporal expression of his generation by the Father in eternity.
Finally, eternal generation shapes the divine agency of the Son. Trinitarian agency includes two elements for Augustine.83 On the one hand, because they are one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit “work inseparably.”84 Each divine person is involved in every act in creation, providence, and redemption.85 Moreover, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share one will and one power.86 On the other hand, in this undivided act, the divine persons work in a way that reflects their eternal relations. The Father works with the Son and Spirit according to his mode of being “from no one” (unbegotten). The Son works with the Father and Spirit according to his mode of being “from the Father” (generation). The Spirit works with the Father and Son according to his mode of being “from the Father and the Son” (procession).87
The interplay between the Son’s eternal begetting and his temporal working can be seen in Augustine’s explanation of John 5:19 in his Tractates on the Gospel of John. In John 5:19, Jesus explains that he does nothing on his own but only what he sees the Father doing. After noting that Jesus spoke these words in response to criticisms of his Sabbath-healing, Augustine cites John 5:17 (“My Father is working until now, and I am working”). In this verse, Jesus equates his healing work with the divine work of the Father. Augustine reminds his readers that the Father never works apart from the Son nor the Son apart from the Father.88 The Jewish leaders rightly understood Jesus to be asserting his equality with the Father (v. 18). When Jesus claims that he does nothing by himself but only what he sees the Father doing (v. 19), it was as if he was telling them, “Why were you scandalized because I said, God is my Father, and because I make myself equal to God? I am equal in such a way that he begot me; I am equal in such a way that he is not from me, but I am from him.”89 One might wonder how Augustine infers the eternal generation of the Son from the words of Jesus in v. 19. He rightly recognizes that this verse describes the temporal working of the Son—not his eternal relation to the Father. However, Augustine is attempting to answer the following question: Why does the Son’s power to heal come from the Father? His answer is that Son’s power to heal comes from the Father because the Son himself is (eternally) from the Father.90 To employ language that will emerge much later in the Western tradition, the Son’s temporal mode of operation reflects his eternal mode of subsistence.91 To illustrate this principle, Augustine turns to a different miracle—Jesus walking on water. If the Son only does what he “sees” the Father doing, does this mean that the Father walked on water as well? The Catholic faith has a clear answer to this question: the Son walked on the water with the “flesh” walking and the “divinity” guiding its steps.92 Nevertheless, the Father was not absent. John 14:10 teaches that the Father abiding in the Son does his works.93 Thus, the Son’s water-walking is the joint work of the Father and Son, with the Father working through the Son.94 Hence, we see that eternal generation provides the key to rightly understanding the agency of the Son. We might say that “generation” names the Son’s personal mode of divine action (alongside the Father and Holy Spirit).95
CONCLUSION
Like all pro-Nicene theologians, the eternal generation of the Son represents a foundational element of Augustine’s teaching on the Trinity. According to Augustine, the Father timelessly “begot” the Son in such a way that the Son is both consubstantial with and hypostatically distinct from the Father. John 5:26 represents an important scriptural witness for Augustine to the eternal begetting of the Son. This text teaches that while Father and Son both possess self-existent life, they possess it in differing ways. The Father possesses “life in himself” from no one while the Son possesses “life in himself” eternally from the Father. Through his Christological hermeneutic, Augustine helps us see that the eternal generation of the Son is rooted not in a handful of questionable proof texts but in a comprehensive reading of Scripture.
1. This chapter draws upon an earlier essay. Keith E. Johnson, “Augustine, Eternal Generation, and Evangelical Trinitarianism,” TrinJ 32 (2011): 141–63.
2. According to critics like Colin Gunton, Cornelius Plantinga, and Catherina LaCugna, Augustine’s Trinitarian theology “begins” with a unity of divine substance (which he allegedly “prioritizes” over the divine persons), his Trinitarian reflection is overdetermined by Neoplatonic philosophy, his psychological “analogy” tends toward modalism, and he severs the life of the triune God from the economy of salvation by focusing on the immanent Trinity. Lewis Ayres and Michel Rene Barnes, however, have convincingly demonstrated that these criticisms are based on fundamental misreadings of Augustine. See Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Ayres, “The Fundamental Grammar of Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology,” in Augustine and His Critics: Essays in Honour of Gerald Bonner, ed. Robert Dodaro and George Lawless (New York: Routledge, 2000) 51–76; and Michel R. Barnes, “Rereading Augustine’s Theology of the Trinity,” in The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, Gerald O’Collins (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 145–76.
3. Pro-Nicene theology represents an interpretation of Nicaea that emerged in the second half of the fourth century. In the context of a clear distinction between “person” and “nature,” pro-Nicenes affirmed that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share the same power, perform the same works, and possess the same nature. See Michel R. Barnes, “One Nature, One Power: Consensus Doctrine in Pro-Nicene Polemic,” in Studia Patristica, vol. 29, Historica, Theologica et Philosophica, Critica et Philologica, ed. Elizabeth A. Livingstone (Louvain: Peeters, 1997), 205–23; and Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 236–40. For a brief introduction to Augustine’s Trinitarian theology, see Keith E. Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity and Religious Pluralism: An Augustinian Assessment (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 51–63.
4. The Alexandrian theologian Origen (c. 185–254) is frequently identified as the first to affirm that the generation of the Son is eternal.
5. The relevant phrases from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed include the following: “And in one LORD, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.”
6. English citations of Trin. will be taken from Edmund Hill’s translation: Saint Augustine, The Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill (Hyde Park, NY: New City, 1991).
7. Trin. 1.29 (88): “The Father has begotten the Son as his equal.”
8. Augustine also uses the Latin noun generatio (“generation”)—although this term is used far less frequently. He only uses generatio three times in Trin. to refer to the generation of the Son (cf. Trin. 15.47–48).
9. Augustine also speaks of the Son’s “birth [nativitas] in eternity” in Trin. 2.3 (99).
10. Trin. 4.29 (174).
11. Trin. 15.47 (432).
12. English citations from Augustine’s Tract. will be taken from Saint Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 11–27, trans. John W. Rettig, Fathers of the Church 79 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988).
13. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations in this chapter come from the ESV.
14. It is important to recognize that the Creator–creature distinction provides the context for Augustine’s reading of John 5:26. “Life in himself” must be understood on the Creator side of this distinction.
15. See Tract. 19.8 (149). Additionally, many contemporary theologians rightly cite John 5:26 as a proof text for self-existence of God. See John S. Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 242.
16. The phrase “in himself” is crucial. The text does not say that the Father and Son possess “life” but rather that they possess “life in himself” (Tract. 22.9 [205]). The fact that the Son possesses “life in himself” rules out the possibility that the Son possesses a mutable form of life: “What does it mean, he might be life in himself? He would not need life from another source, but he would be the fullness of life by which others, believing, might live while they live” (Tract. 22.9 [207]).
17. Tract. 19.13 (153).
18. It is outside the scope of this chapter to explore how Augustine’s understanding of eternal generation matures over time.
19. In books 5–7 of Trin., Augustine reflects critically on the language we use to speak about God. In the context of the Aristotelian distinction between “substance” and “accident,” Augustine’s opponents argued that terms like “unbegotten” and “begotten” name the substance of God. Since “unbegotten” and “begotten” clearly differ, the substance of the Son must differ from the substance of the Father. Augustine responded by pointing out that while no “accidents” can be predicated of God, not all predications must refer to God’s “substance.” Some predications (e.g., “begotten” and “unbegotten”) are “relational.” “With God, though, nothing is said modification-wise [in terms of “accident”], because there is nothing changeable with him. And yet not everything that is said of him is said substance-wise. Some things are said with reference to something else, like Father with reference to Son and Son with reference to Father; and this is not said modification-wise, because the one is always Father and the other always Son—not ‘always’ in the sense that he is Son from the moment he is born or that the Father does not cease to be Father from the moment the Son does not cease to be Son, but in the sense that the Son is always born and never began to be Son” (Trin. 5.6 [192]).
20. Trin. 2.2 (98).
21. Trin. 15.47 (432).
22. Tract. 19.13 (153): “Before all times he was coeternal with the Father. For the Father never was without the Son; but the Father is eternal, therefore the Son [is] likewise coeternal.”
23. Trin. 15.47 (432).
24. It should be noted that the essence of the Son is not “generated” but communicated to him by the Father.
25. Trin. 15.38 (425). To say that the Son is generated by the “will” of the Father is to make the Son a “creature.”
26. Notice how Augustine speaks of the Son as “Word” linking this title to the generation of the Son: “So the Word of God is sent by him whose Word he is; sent by him he is born of” (Trin. 4.27 [172]). In the second half of Trin. (books 8–15), Augustine searches for a likeness of the begetting of the Son in the highest capacities of the human mind—specifically the generation of mental word through an act of understanding.
27. Trin. 4.27 (172). Patristic writers frequently employ “light radiating from light” as an analogy for the eternal generation of the Son. The ubiquity of this metaphor is reflected by its inclusion in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.
28. The Son’s light is also equal in “duration” to the Father’s: “How does an eternal, someone says, beget an eternal? As temporal flame generates temporal light. For the generating flame is of the same duration as the light which it generates, nor does the generating flame precede in time the generated light; but the light begins the instant the flame begins” (Tract. 20.8 [171]).
29. Commenting on the generation of the Son with the context of divine simplicity, Ayres explains, “Augustine does not imagine that we can grasp the dynamics of such a divine generation at other than a very formal level—we have no created parallel that offers anything other than a distant likeness.” Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, 226.
30. For an overview of evangelical criticisms of eternal generation, see Keith E. Johnson, “Augustine, Eternal Generation, and Evangelical Trinitarianism,” 143–46.
31. For an extended discussion of the importance of this principle for rightly reading the scriptural witness to the Trinity, see Fred Sanders, The Triune God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), chs. 2–5.
32. This is a characteristically modern way of phrasing it. Augustine (along with all early theologians) did not have a category of “Trinitarian theology” as distinct from “Christology.” See John Behr, The Formation of Christian Theology, vol. 2, The Nicene Faith (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004), 1–17, 475–81.
33. Trin. 1.22 (82). Biblical warrant for this hermeneutical principle is found in Philippians 2:6. “And this rule for solving this question in all the sacred scriptures is laid down for us in this one passage of the apostle Paul’s letter, where the distinction is clearly set out. He says: Who being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equal to God, yet he emptied himself taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, in condition found as a man (Phil 2:6)” (Trin. 1.14 [74]).
34. Trin. 1.22 (82).
35. See Trin. 1.22–24 (82–83).
36. Trin. 1.28 (86). Although he does not frame the relationship between Christ’s two natures in the precise language of Chalcedon, Augustine affirms that Christ possesses two natures and that these two natures are united in one subject. See Brian E. Daley, “Christology,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 164–69.
37. Trin. 2.3 (99).
38. Trin. 2.3 (99). If we try to apply the “form of a servant” rule to John 5:19, then we have to say that the Father walked on water while the Son imitated him and that the Father opened the eyes of a blind man while the Son imitated him.
39. Trin. 2.3 (99).
40. Trin. 2.3 (99).
41. John 5:26 includes both “personal” and “essential” predications. The essential predication is “life in himself” while the personal predication includes the names “Father” and “Son” as well as the mode by which Father and Son possess “life in himself.”
42. Tract. 19.13 (153): “Therefore, the Father remains life, the Son also remains life; the Father, life in himself, not from the Son, the Son, life in himself, but from the Father. [The Son was] begotten by the Father to be life in himself, but the Father [is] life in himself, unbegotten.”
43. Tract. 19.13 (152).
44. For example, most theologians (including those who reject eternal generation) interpret “life” in v. 26 as referring to God’s essence, even though the term “essence” is not found in John 5:26.
45. For more on this important distinction, see David S. Yeago, “The New Testament and the Nicene Dogma: A Contribution to the Recovery of Theological Exegesis,” Pro Ecclesia 3 (1994): 152–64.
46. D. A. Carson, “God Is Love,” Bibliotheca Sacra 156 (1999): 139. See also Marianne Meye Thompson, The God of the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 77–80.
47. “It is entirely possible, indeed, much more likely, that [the words of John 5:26] refer to an aspect of the incarnate Son’s messianic investiture. John 5:22–23 which precedes the verse refers to his designated authority to judge, clearly an aspect of his Messianic role, and so is the similar thought of 5:27 which follows it. Accordingly, 5:26, paralleling 5:27, seems to be giving the ground upon which the Son is able to raise the dead, namely, it is one of the prerogatives of his Messianic investiture.” Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 2nd ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 325, italics original. Although he affirms eternal generation, Calvin (in contrast to many of the Reformers) claims that John 5:26 refers not to the eternal relation of the Son to the Father but rather to the Son’s role as mediator: “For there [5:26] he is properly speaking not of those gifts which he had in the Father’s presence from the beginning, but of those with which he was adorned in that very flesh wherein he appeared” (Inst. 4.17.9 [1369]).
48. See Feinberg, No One Like Him, 212, 242, 258, 462. “Evidence of Christ’s deity stems from the fact that NT writers predicated attributes of Christ that belong only to God” (p. 462). In this context, Feinberg claims that John 5:26 explicitly predicates self-existence to Christ: “and possessing life in and of himself, i.e., having the attribute of aseity (John 5:26)” (p. 462).
49. Feinberg, No One Like Him, 492: “In sum, it seems wisest to abandon the doctrines of eternal generation and eternal procession. They are shrouded in obscurity as to their meaning, and biblical support for them is nowhere near as strong as supposed.”
50. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology, 325.
51. Marianne Meye Thompson, “The Living Father,” Semeia 85 (1999): 24.
52. A causal link between v. 25 and v. 26 is established by the Greek preposition γὰρ (“for”) at the beginning of v. 26. The Son can raise the dead (v. 25) because he possesses “life in himself” from the Father (v. 26).
53. Tract. 19.13 (153).
54. For example, commenting on Psalm 2:7, Augustine explains that while it may sound like the “begetting” spoken of in this text refers to the temporal birth of Jesus Christ, “a divine interpretation is given to that expression, ‘Today have I begotten Thee,’ whereby the uncorrupt and Catholic faith proclaims the eternal generation of the power and Wisdom of God, who is the Only-begotten Son.” Augustine, “Expositions on the Book of Psalms,” in Saint Augustin: Expositions on the Book of Psalms, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. A. Cleveland Coxe, in NPNF1 8:3.
55. Although it does not originate with Augustine, his formal explication of this exegetical principle constitutes one of his key contributions to the development of Latin-speaking pro-Nicene theology.
56. Trin. 4.28 (173). For further discussion of how the temporal mission of the Son reveals his eternal begetting from the Father, see Sanders, The Triune God, 93–153.
57. Andreas J. Köstenberger and Scott R. Swain, Father, Son and Spirit: The Trinity and John’s Gospel (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008), 116.
58. Köstenberger and Swain, Father, Son and Spirit, 116: “The contrast between John the Baptist and the Word is not that one is an agent of God whereas the other is not. Both are agents of God. . . . The contrast between John the Baptist and the Word concerns, then, their status as agents. One is earthly, merely human. The other is divine (and also human: see 1:14).”
59. See Trin. 1.29 (87).
60. Trin. 2.4 (99): “So then, as I started to say, there are some things so put in the sacred books that it is uncertain which rule they are to be referred to; should it be to the Son’s being less than the Father because of the creature he took or to his being shown to be from the Father in his very equality with him?”
61. Trin 2.4 (100).
62. Trin. 1.12 (72).
63. One may wonder where the “equality” is to be found in the ordering described above. Equality is found in the fact that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit act inseparably. The inseparable operation of the divine persons will be discussed below.
64. The word “frequently” is crucial. These patterns are not absolute. Fourth century anti-Nicene theologians appealed to differences among prepositions in order to argue that the Son is ontologically inferior to the Father. Basil of Caesarea responded to this argument by pointing out that flexibility exists in the use of biblical prepositions. See St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, trans. David Anderson (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980), 15–42.
65. According to Lorraine Boettner, although the terms “Father” and “Son” may communicate ideas of “source of being,” “subordination,” or “dependence” to contemporary readers, these terms only express “sameness of nature” in their original Semitic context. Lorraine Boettner, Studies in Theology, 9th ed. (Philadelphia: P&R, 1970), 112.
66. Augustine’s opponents, whom he calls “Arians,” were probably Latin Homoian theologians. See Michel R. Barnes, “Exegesis and Polemic in Augustine’s De trinitate I,” Augustinian Studies 30 (1999) 43–52; Barnes, “The Arians of Book V, and the Genre of ‘de Trinitate,’ ” JTS 44 (1993) 185–95. Latin Homoian theologians like Palladius and Maximinus emphasized the Father as “true God” over and against the Son (particularly because of the Father’s unique status as ingenerate).
67. Trin. 5.8 (193).
68. “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26).
69. Unfortunately, the ESV obscures this point when it says that the Spirit does not “speak on his own authority.” The word “authority” is not found in the original text (nor are there any variant readings with “authority” included). The Greek simply reads οὐ γὰρ λαλήσει ἀφ ἑαυτοῦ (“he does not speak from himself”).
70. Trin. 2.5 (100). Augustine continues, “And just as the Son is not made less than the Father by his saying, The Son cannot do anything of himself except what he sees the Father doing (Jn 5:19) (this is not spoken in the form of a servant but in the form of God, as we have already shown, and so these words do not indicate that he is less than the Father but only that he is from him); so here it does not make the Holy Spirit less to say of him, He will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak (Jn 16;13). This is said in virtue of his proceeding from the Father” (ibid).
71. Trin. 2.6 (100).
72. Trin. 1.29 (88).
73. Trin. 1.2 (98).
74. Trin. 1.7 (69). Emphasis mine.
75. Interestingly, Augustine does not use the Latin word for “person” (persona) in this summary of pro-Nicene teaching on the Trinity. This is not because he is a closet Modalist (contra his critics) but because generation and procession constitute the basis for distinguishing the divine persons.
76. Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, 3.
77. Ibid., 197.
78. Ibid., 230.
79. Ibid., 319.
80. Although Augustine is speaking about the knowledge of the Father and Son, the following statement offers a window into this reality: “Therefore the Father and the Son know each other, the one by begetting, the other by being born” (Trin. 15.23 [415]).
81. Trin. 2.7 (101).
82. Trin. 4.27 (172).
83. For a discussion of the agency of the divine persons in Augustine’s theology, see Keith E. Johnson, “Trinitarian Agency and the Eternal Subordination of the Son: An Augustinian Perspective,” Themelios 36 (2011): 7–25.
84. Trin. 1.7 (70). Among medieval theologians, inseparable operation is expressed though the axiom opera ad extra sunt indivisa (“the external works are undivided”). Although this axiom is faithful to his theology, Augustine prefers to say that the works of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are “inseparable” (inseparabilis). For example, Augustine uses the language patris et filii opera inseparabilia sunt (“the works of the Father and Son are inseparable”). See Tract. 20.3 (166).
85. Tract. 20.3 (166): “The Catholic faith does not say that God the Father did something and the Son did something else; but what the Father did, this the Son also did, this Holy Spirit also did.”
86. Inseparable operation should not be confused with “modalism.” Modalism is a heresy that denies hypostatic distinctions among the divine persons.
87. Combining these elements, we might say that the inseparable action of the divine persons is inflected through the intra-Trinitarian taxis: every divine action proceeds from the Father, through the Son, and in (or by) the Holy Spirit. This principle is expressed concretely in Augustine’s discussion of creation in Tract. 20.9 (172): “The Father [made] the world, the Son [made] the world, the Holy Spirit [made] the world. If [there are] three gods, [there are] three worlds; if [there is] one God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one world was made by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.”
88. Tract. 20.3 (166): “The Catholic faith, made firm by the Spirit of God in its saints, holds this against every heretical depravity: The works of the Father and the Son are inseparable.”
89. Tract. 20.4 (167).
90. That the Son is eternally from the Father is taught a few verses later in John 5:26. Augustine reads 5:19 through the lens of 5:26.
91. For the Son “to be” and the Son “to act” are not two distinct realities. The Son acts as the Son exists, i.e., in his mode of generation from the Father. Notice the reciprocal relationship between the Son’s power and the Son’s nature: “Therefore, because the Son’s power is from the Father, for that reason the Son’s substance also is from the Father; and because the Son’s substance [is] from the Father, for that reason the Son’s power is from the Father” (Tract. 20.4 [168]).
92. Tract. 20.6 (169–70).
93. “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works” (John 14:10).
94. Tract. 20.6 (170): “Therefore, if the Father abiding in the Son does his works, that walking of the flesh upon the sea was by the Father [yet] was done through the Son.”
95. The word “mode” is critical. The divine persons do not perform separate actions. It would be inappropriate to speak about a “personal action” of the Son, as if the Son worked apart from the Father and Holy Spirit. For more on the Son’s personal mode of action, see Gilles Emery, Trinity, Church and the Human Person: Thomistic Essays (Naples: Sapientia, 2007), 115–53.