Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T09:40:44.740Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

God from God: the essential dependence model of eternal generation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2018

MARK MAKIN
MARK MAKIN*
Affiliation:
Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University, 13800 Biola Avenue, La Mirada, CA 90639, USA
*
e-mail: mark.makin@biola.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

According to the doctrine of eternal generation, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. Although the doctrine is enshrined in the Creed of Nicaea and has been affirmed by Christians for nearly 1,700 years, many Protestants have recently rejected the doctrine. Eternal generation, its detractors contend, is both philosophically and theologically suspect. In this article, I propose a model of eternal generation and demonstrate how it avoids standard philosophical and theological objections. Eternal generation, I argue, can be understood as a form of essential dependence. To say that the Son is begotten of the Father is just to say that the Son essentially depends on the Father. The essence of the Son involves the Father, but not vice versa.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 54 , Special Issue 3: Metaphysics of the Trinity: New Directions , September 2018 , pp. 377 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bliss, R. & Trogdon, K. (2014) ‘Metaphysical grounding’, in Zalta, E. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/grounding/>..>Google Scholar
Calvin, J. (1960) Institutes of the Christian Religion, McNeill, J. (ed.) (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press).Google Scholar
Correia, F. (2008) ‘Ontological dependence’, Philosophy Compass, 3, 1013–1032.Google Scholar
Correia, F. & Schnieder, B. (2012) ‘Grounding: an opinionated introduction’, in Correia, F. & Schnieder, B. (eds) Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1–36.Google Scholar
Craig, W. (2003) ‘A formulation and defense of the doctrine of the Trinity’ <http://www.reasonablefaith.org/a-formulation-and-defense-of-the-doctrine-of-the-trinity>..>Google Scholar
Craig, W. (2016) God over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Daly, C. (2012) ‘Scepticism about grounding’, in Correia, F. & Schnieder, B. (eds) Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 81–100.Google Scholar
Driscoll, M. & Breshears, G. (2010) Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe (Wheaton: Crossway).Google Scholar
Erickson, M. (2009) Who's Tampering with the Trinity? An Assessment of the Subordination Debate (Grand Rapids MI: Kregal Publications).Google Scholar
Fine, K. (1994) ‘Essence and modality’, Philosophical Perspectives, 8, 1–16.Google Scholar
Fine, K. (1995) ‘Ontological dependence’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 95, 269–290.Google Scholar
Fine, K. (2012) ‘Guide to ground’, in Correia, F. & Schnieder, B. (eds) Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 37–80.Google Scholar
Giles, K. (2012) The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press).Google Scholar
Grudem, W. (2000) Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan Publishing House).Google Scholar
Hasker, W. (2013) Metaphysics and the Tri-Personal God (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001) (Wheaton: Good News Publishers).Google Scholar
Johnson, K. (2012) ‘What would Augustine say to evangelicals who reject the eternal generation of the Son?’, Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, 16, 26–43.Google Scholar
Koslicki, K. (2012) ‘Varieties of ontological dependence’, in Correia, F. & Schnieder, B. (eds) Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 186–213.Google Scholar
Koslicki, K. (2013) ‘Ontological dependence: an opinionated survey’, in Hoeltje, M., Schnieder, B., & Steinberg, A. (eds) Varieties of Dependence: Ontological Dependence, Grounding, Supervenience, Response-Dependence (Munich: Philosophia), 31–64.Google Scholar
Koslicki, K. (2015). ‘The coarse-grainedness of grounding’, in Bennett, K. & Zimmerman, D. (eds) Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, IX (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 306–344.Google Scholar
Locke, J. (1975) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Nidditch, P. H. (ed.) (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J. (2008) ‘Two notions of being: entity and essence’, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 62, 23–48.Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J. (2010) ‘Ontological dependence’, in Zalta, E. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2010 Edition), <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/dependence-ontological/>..>Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J. (2011) ‘The rationality of metaphysics’, Synthese, 178, 99–109.Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J. (2012) ‘What is the source of our knowledge of modal truths?’, Mind, 121, 919–950.Google Scholar
Makin, M. (2017) ‘Philosophical models of eternal generation’, in Sanders, F. & Swain, S. (eds) Retrieving Eternal Generation (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan Academic), 243–259.Google Scholar
McCall, T. (2010) Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? Philosophical and Systematic Theologians on the Metaphysics of Trinitarian Theology (Grand Rapids MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company).Google Scholar
McCall, T. & Rea, M. (eds) (2009) Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Moreland, J. P. & Craig, W. L. (2003) Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press).Google Scholar
Oderberg, D. (2007) Real Essentialism (New York: Routledge).Google Scholar
Oderberg, D. (2011) ‘Essence and properties’, Erkenntnis, 75, 85–111.Google Scholar
Rosen, G. (2010) ‘Metaphysical dependence: grounding and reduction’, in Hale, B. & Hoffmann, A. (eds) Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 109–136.Google Scholar
Sanders, F. (2010) The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (Wheaton: Crossway).Google Scholar
Sanders, F. and Swain, S. (eds) (2017) Retrieving Eternal Generation (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan Academic).Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. (2009) ‘On what grounds what’, in Chalmers, D., Manley, D., & Wasserman, R. (eds) Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 347–383.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. (2012) ‘Grounding, transitivity, and contrastivity’, in Correia, F. & Schnieder, B. (eds) Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 122–138.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. (2016) ‘Grounding in the image of causation’, Philosophical Studies, 173, 49–100.Google Scholar
Simons, P. (1987) Parts: A Study in Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Skiles, A. (2014) ‘Against grounding necessitarianism’, Erkenntnis, 80, 717–751.Google Scholar
Ware, B. (2005) Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance (Wheaton: Crossway).Google Scholar
Wilson, A. (2017) ‘Metaphysical causation’, Noûs, doi:10.1111/nous.12190.Google Scholar
Wilson, J. (2014) ‘No work for a theory of ground’, Inquiry, 57, 535–579.Google Scholar
Yandell, K. (2009) ‘How many times does three go into one?’, in McCall, T. & Rea, M. (eds) Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 151–168.Google Scholar
Yandell, K. (2014) ‘Review of metaphysics and the tri-personal God’, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, <https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/48755-metaphysics-and-the-tri-personal-god/>..>Google Scholar