Do you remember in school when you began to move past basic mathematics? It was no longer sufficient to simply solve the math problem; you had to show your work. Your teacher wanted to see that you understood the process by which you arrived at point J to point A or whatever.

Your teacher wasn’t just teaching you mathematic facts at this point. She was teaching you logic. That way, if you got a wrong answer, she could show you exactly where you went wrong.

What does this have to do with the Athanasian Creed? Well, the ecumenical Creeds—one of which is the Athanasian Creed—are rather like the solutions to complex theological problems. In our case, it’s fine-tuning the doctrine of the Trinity against the wrong answers of the heretics. The statements of the Creed are rather like being given the conclusions—the logical deductions the ancient theologians arrived at—without the definitions, postulates and theorems that prove them.

And that’s honestly okay for knowing what you need to know.

But of course, there are those curious souls who desire to know how we have arrived at these answers. And that’s also okay. It’s better than okay! Because it indicates a desire to better know God within the limits He has revealed.

These posts, going line-by-line through the Creed with Scripture, are the theological equivalent to showing your work. It’s systematically working through the definitions postulates provided by Scripture, and the necessary logical theorems that obtain from them.

Sound systematic theology tends to unfold less like a Father Brown mystery, and more like a good geometric proof.

This portion of the Creed is dedicated to what theologians call eternal relations of origin. In other words, how do the three uncreated, eternal Persons of the Godhead relate to one another within the Trinity?

This is actually a pertinent question because, here you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each is God, with the same divine essence and attributes, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal. And yet, they are three distinct Persons. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, etc. Obviously then, each has a distinct personal property that distinguishes one Person in the Trinity from another. So what personal property does the Father have that the Son does not, etc.?

Now, this is where you might be tempted to bow out and say: Look, we can’t pierce into eternity and know this. It’s a mystery, we can’t understand it. We can stop now.

Actually though, the solution will turn out to be rather elegant in its simplicity. There are really two—let’s call them postulates—in play here.

First, assuming God’s self-revelation in Scripture expresses meaningful truth, then Father, Son, and Spirit do communicate something knowable about the eternal relations within the Godhead. In other words, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit define the personal properties of each in a way that, say, Mother, Sister, and Friend would not. And those distinguishing personal properties bear implications for the three Persons relate to one another in eternity.

Second, the ad extra works of the Trinity—that is, how God relates to creation, especially human creatures—likewise reveal true implications for ad intra relationships within the Trinity—that is, how the three divine Persons relate to one another in eternity.

In other words, what God has revealed in the Scriptures does give us enough information to speak truthfully, meaningfully, and confidently about how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit relate to one another in eternity.

So without another further ado, let’s see what the Creed confesses about the eternal relations of origin; and then turn to Scripture and “show our work,” is it were.

Lesson from the Creed

The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone.
The Son was neither made nor created;
he was begotten from the Father alone.
The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten;
he proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Athanasian Creed, lines 20-22

Explanation from Scripture

First, let’s pick up the axioms I postulated above. First, God’s revelation in Scripture as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit reveals meaningful truth about the personal properties of each; and second, that the outward workings of the Trinity sheds light on their eternal relationships.

What personal property would befit God the Father, considering that He is eternal and therefore uncreated? The Creed answers this question negatively: The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone; and positively, that the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Thus, the personal property unique to the Father is that of generation—that is, the Son is begotten of Him.

The theologians call this the eternal generation of the Son. Because obviously God the Son was not begotten at a point in time, since He is coeternal with the Father. Now, let me put it this way, and this is the point where we can truly go no further. We can confess it to be true, but we cannot know or comprehend it the way that God knows and comprehends it. Stated briefly, from all eternity the Father communicates the undivided divine essence to the Son.

The name for the relationship in which the Son stands to the Father is filiation. That’s just an old-timey word for being designated someone’s child. It’s a little bit of a mouthful, but it’s still shorter than saying He is the divine Person who is eternally begotten of the Father. Filiation is the personal property that distinguishes the Son from the Father and the Spirit, just as generation is the personal property that distinguishes the Father from the Son and the Spirit.

Can we show our work from Scripture? Certainly. Several times, a key phrase is used of the Son in the writings of John:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth … No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him (John‬ ‭1‬:‭14‬, ‭18‬ ‭NKJV, emphasis added‬‬).

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son … He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God (John‬ ‭3‬:‭16, 18‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him (1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭9‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

Only begotten, then, is not simply a reference to the Incarnation. For He is the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. The reference also applies to His eternal generation by the Father.

In other words, what is true of the Son in His Incarnation—that He is both the Son of the Highest (Luke 1:32 NKJV) and God with us (Matthew 1:23 NKJV)—is also true of Him by analogy eternally. That is, He is God from God, as the Nicene Creed says, begotten of the Father before all worlds. Another way of putting it is this: The Son cannot be the origin of the Godhead. The Son does not beget the Father. Otherwise, the language of Father and Son is meaningless. Moreover, it is proper that the Son should be Incarnate—that is, born of a woman, begotten of God—in the work of redemption. It would not be proper to the Father or the Spirit to be begotten. Thus, filiation is proper only to the Son, and is therefore, His personal property.

In other words, the Son is not the Son because the Father sent Him into the world; rather, the Father sent Him into the world because He is eternally the Son; and it is proper for the Son to be sent by the Father.

So, by repeatedly referring to the Son as only begotten; and indeed, by speaking at all of Father and Son, the Scriptures are indicating to us the eternal relationships between those two Persons of the Godhead: The Father eternally begets the Son (eternal generation), and the Son is eternally begotten of the Father (filiation).

Therefore, when the Creed confesses: The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone. The Son was neither made nor created; he was begotten from the Father alone—that’s not just wild speculation. It is the good and necessary consequence of the language of Father and Son to name the first two Persons of the Trinity, in light of the divinity of both, so that Father and Son are eternal and uncreated.

This leaves us with the third Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. According to the Creed: The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten; he proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Theologians call this eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son spiration. Spiration is an old fashioned word for breathing, and this is proper for the Holy Spirit, because the biblical words for Spirit (Hebrew: ruach; Greek: pneuma) mean breath or wind. So the image is, the Holy Spirit is eternally breathed out by the Father and the Son.

Now, what we must not understand this to mean is that the Spirit is in any way less than or subordinate to the Father and the Son. Not at all. The order of the Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—is logical, not a rank of power and authority. Logically, the Father eternally generates the Son, because that is proper to the Father; the Son is eternally begotten, because that is proper to the Son; and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son, because that is proper to the Spirit.

Again, this is confirmed in Scripture, both because the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit; and because we see this eternal procession reflected in the Spirit’s activity in the world.

First, Scripture refers to the Holy Spirit as both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His (Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭9‬ ‭NKJV‬‬, emphasis added). Also: And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father” (Galatians‬ ‭4‬:‭6‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). The Father sends forth the Spirit of His Son, who is also the Spirit of God. This indicates that the Holy Spirit stands in the same relationship to both the Father and the Son.

Likewise, the Holy Spirit’s activity in the world reflects His eternal spiration from the Father and the Son. Again, John’s Gospel is incredibly helpful in helping us visualize this.

And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you … But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you … But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.

John‬ ‭14‬:‭16‬-‭17‬, ‭26‬; 15:26 NKJV‬‬ (emphasis added)

Notice that the Father gives the Spirit, sends the Spirit on behalf of the Son, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Yet, the Son also sends the Spirit from the Father. Again, this reflects the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son. That both the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit into the world—the Father on the Son’s behalf, and the Son on the Father’s behalf—is a picture, in time and space, of the eternal relationship between the Spirit and the Father and the Son.

And again, as the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, the Father and the Son communicate the whole, undivided divine essence to the Spirit.

Therefore, the Scriptures prove the Creed here. The Father eternally generates the Son, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son.
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