Eternal begetting
The Son is begotten of the Father eternally. The Nicene creed uses this relation to confess the Son's divine origin while excluding the claim that He is a creature.
Key points
- Eternal begetting is not biological generation or a dated event.
- Nicaea confesses the Son as begotten, not made.
Scripture
- John 1:1-3 — The Word is with God and is God before the created order; Nicene language explains this relation without calling the Son a creature.
- John 17:5 — Jesus speaks of glory with the Father before the world existed.
Primary sources
The Nicene creed confesses the Son as:
Nicaea's consubstantial language places the begotten Son within the Father's one divine reality rather than among creatures.
being of one substance (ὁμοούσιον, consubstantialem) with the Father
Passage context and translation
The council uses the term homoousios to confess the Son's full divinity against Arian claims that the Son is a creature.
Before the excerpt
very God of very God, begotten (γεννηθέντα), not made,
After the excerpt
By whom all things were made, both which be in heaven and in earth.
John of Damascus explains:
John of Damascus says that the Father's unbegottenness and the Son's begetting do not introduce a difference of essence or dignity.
all the qualities the Father has are the Son's, save that the Father is unbegotten, and this exception involves no difference in essence nor dignity, but only a different mode of coming into existence.
Passage context and translation
John says that the Father's being unbegotten distinguishes the mode of personal existence without introducing a difference of divine essence or dignity between Father and Son.
Before the excerpt
the term 'Only-begotten' because He alone was begotten alone of the Father alone
After the excerpt
These do not differ from each other in nature ... but they differ in the mode of coming into existence.