On Eternal Generation of the Son
God is self-existent, enclosing all things, and enclosed by none; within all according to His own goodness and power, yet without all in His proper nature. As then men create not as God creates, as their being is not such as God’s being, so men’s generation is in one way, and the Son is from the Father in another. For the offspring of men are portions of their fathers, since the very nature of bodies is not uncompounded, but in a state of flux, and composed of parts; and men lose their substance in begetting, and again they gain substance from the accession of food. And on this account men in their time become fathers of many children; but God, being without parts, is Father of the Son without partition or passion; for there is neither effluence of the Immaterial, nor influx from without, as among men; and being uncompounded in nature, He is Father of One Only Son.
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Therefore the sacred writers to whom the Son has revealed Him, have given us a certain image from things visible, saying, ‘Who is the brightness of His glory, and the Expression of His Person’ and again, ‘For with Thee is the well of life, and in Thy light shall we see light’ and when the Word chides Israel, He says, ‘Thou hast forsaken the Fountain of wisdom’ and this Fountain it is which says, ‘They have forsaken Me the Fountain of living waters.’ And mean indeed and very dim is the illustration compared with what we desiderate; but yet it is possible from it to understand something above man’s nature, instead of thinking the Son’s generation to be on a level with ours. For who can even imagine that the radiance of light ever was not, so that he should dare to say that the Son was not always, or that the Son was not before His generation? or who is capable of separating the radiance from the sun, or to conceive of the fountain as ever void of life, that he should madly say, ‘The Son is from nothing,’ who says, ‘I am the life,’ or ‘alien to the Father’s essence,’ who, says, ‘He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father?”
References:
- Athanasius. Defence of the Nicene Definition. NPNF 2/4:157-158. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Accessed April 7, 2023. https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204/npnf204.xiv.ii.iii.html