Is the Doctrine of the Eternal Begetting of the Son Biblical?

The eternal generation of the Son, also known as the eternal begetting of the Son, is the teaching that the Son is eternally begotten by God the Father. It is defined in words which, in the final analysis, deny the literal notion of begetting of children by their fathers. The teaching is that the Son is not created or caused, and that neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit is dependent upon the Father or any other member of the Godhead for existence. The eternal generation of the Son doctrine has to be taken to mean that the Father did not bring the Son into existence, which would deny the absolute Godhood of the Son. To the inventors of the Trinitarian theory, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Spirit) are coequal and coeternal – that is, none is [or existed] before or after another; none is greater or less than another.

A definition given by Archibald Alexander Hodge (1823 – 1886) in his Outlines of Theology, page 182, is as follows:

“The eternal generation of the Son is commonly defined to be an eternal personal act of the Father, wherein by necessity of nature, not by choice of will, he generates the person (not the essence) of the Son, by communicating to him the whole indivisible substance of the Godhead, without division, alienation, or change, so that the Son is the express image of His Father’s person, and eternally continues, not from the Father, but in the Father, and the Father in the Son.”

Hodge also wrote, “In order to guard their doctrine of derivation and eternal generation from all gross anthropomorphic conceptions, they carefully maintained that it was—(1) αχρονος timeless, eternal; (2) ασωματως not bodily, spiritual; (3) αορατος invisible; (4) αχωριστως not a local transference, a communication not without but within the Godhead ; (5) απαθως without passion or change; (6) παντελως ακαταληπτος, altogether incomprehensible.” (ibid, page 183).

Objections to the Eternal Generation Dogma

A number of objections can be brought against the eternal generation theory:

1. The Son is said to have been generated through the “eternal personal act of the Father, wherein by necessity of nature, not by choice of will…” In other words, God acted in a will-less manner when He generated the Son. Has the Almighty Father ever done anything will-lessly like a robot? By their teaching, they have reduced the Almighty Father to a mere puppet.
2.  The inventors of Trinitarianism often appeal to the incomprehensibility of the “three persons of the Godhead.” I believe they do this to get away with the charges that would be brought against them. Since they knew that the Trinity is incomprehensible, why did they attempt to teach the world a subject that is beyond human understanding? Ironically, this explains why they taught the world things which are unbiblical, confusing, false, and heretical. Moreover, the fact that they issued canons and creeds on an incomprehensible subject exposes their arrogance.
3. If the eternal generation of the Son is “by the necessity of nature ” and if that nature, according to them, is shared by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then it is no longer the Father alone that eternally generated the Son. It then also means that the Son was also involved in the generation or begetting of the Son. This is an absurdity.
4. The greatest objection that can be brought against these suppositions of the fourth century church fathers is that all the Bible texts they cite do not have any idea of eternal generation. The Bible texts include Prov. 8:23, Psa. 2:7, John 5:26, John 1:18, 3:16, Col. 1:15, and Heb. 1:3. None of these verses say the begetting of the Son was “a communication not without but within the Godhead,” “timeless,” “without passion or change,” and “altogether incomprehensible.” The word “today” (Psa. 2:7) cannot be interpreted as a timeless eternity. The fact that the Father produced or generated the Son is enough proof that He pre-existed the Son. Therefore, the Trinitarian theory that there was never a time when the Father was without the Son, or coeternity of the Father and the Son, is equally untenable. What the Bible has revealed is that before the “beginning” when the universe was created (Gen. 1:1), the Son had been with the Father (John 1:1). Job 38:4-7 shows that even the angels had been created before that “beginning.” Would it then be right for anyone to say that the angels are coeternal with the Father? No!
5. John 5:26 does not support the eternal generation theory. The verse says, “For just as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself” (NASB 2020). Only the Father did not receive the “life in Himself” from any other being. The “life in Himself” which the Son has was given to him by the Father. This “life in Himself’ is the fountain of life from which life is given to creation. The fact that the Father did not receive it from any other being is enough proof that the Father is the only uncaused being. The Son would not have been given “life in Himself” by the Father if he were indeed a coequal, self-existed, and Almighty God.

How the word “eternal” got into the generation of the Son

The following is an excerpt from an online article by the The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler:

“It was apparently Athanasius, who was a secretary to Bishop Alexander of Alexandria at the time, who came up with the phrase “eternally begotten,” to describe the co-eternal existence of Christ, the Son, with the Father. He was trying to defend the early Trinitarian theology of the time, that Jesus the Christ had to be completely and eternally equal to the Father. For Athanasius, Jesus could not be lesser than the Father in any way; Jesus had to be of the same substance and of the same eternity. Thus, the addition of the word, “eternally” to “begotten.” Yes, Jesus is the Son of God, but he has also always existed with (and as) God. He is as eternal as the Father. His relationship as the Son is “eternal,” which is to say the relationship is “outside time.” God has always been Father, and Jesus has always been Son.” – “What Does ‘Eternally Begotten’ Mean?” by The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler, Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

It is evident that the bigoted zeal of Trinitarians to deny the fact that the Son is neither coequal nor coeternal with the Father, and therefore inferior and subordinate to the Father, led them to add “eternal” to the word “begotten.” But there is no such thing as “eternal generation,” as defined by Trinitarians, in the Bible. What is revealed for our knowledge is that Jesus Christ had been with God before the beginning. The “beginning” was the time when God created the universe (Gen. 1:1). If we should go by biblical chronological account, the beginning was about 6000 years ago. At what time the Son was begotten, prior to the beginning, is not revealed in the Bible. And there is no way our speculation can lead us to any accurate answer. We should be satisfied with what has been revealed to us (Deut. 29:29). Any attempt to peer into what the angels of God dared not look into (Isa. 6:2) always makes God to give the people confusion. Nimrod and his generation suffered for attempting to do the unthinkable (Gen. 11:1-9). The fourth century church fathers did the same, albeit in a different way. The result is the same. They got confused and “gifted” the Christian world with the confusion.

Conclusion

If we are satisfied with what the Bible has revealed, the clear account is that the Father produced the Son from His own being, making the Son divine just as the Father. It cannot be denied that the Father pre-existed the Son whom He brought forth out of Himself. This makes the Father eternally greater than, and superior to, the Son. Our Lord Jesus Christ called the Father, “My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.” (John 20:17). He also said, “I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). If we have read these verses and believe them, we will have no problem in recognising the Trinity doctrine as a fourth century (second) “tower of Babel.”

As rightly written by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “The first mark of a believer of Christ is that he believes his Lord. We do not follow the Lord at all if we raise any questions on points about which He speaks explicitly. Even if a doctrine is surrounded by ten thousand difficulties, the ipse dixit [Latin literarily, “he himself said it,” that is, any word from the mouth]of the Lord Jesus sweeps them all away, so far as true Christians are concerned. Our Master’s declaration is all the argument we need… He cannot err; He cannot lie; if He says, …there is an end  of all debate.” – “The Power in Prayer,” Whitaker House, 1996,  p. 12. (ISBN 0-88368-692-9).

The entire Trinity dogma is not only unbiblical, it was packaged by spiritually arrogant men who tried to go beyond what has been written. That was why it was enforced by worldly powers with monstrous brutality. Although people are no longer forced to believe in the Trinity, the confusion and delusion it has brought into Christian doctrine cannot be quantified. The formulators of the Trinitarian theory not only brought Tritheism into Christian teaching, but also denigrated the Supreme God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.