It only took a month but my final project for Patriology, Christology, and Pneumatology is finished! Praise the Lord.
We were asked to evaluate the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son by the Father. Up until this class I had not heard of this teaching, but apparently it has been the majority view for centuries. It came out of the word "monogenes" used of Christ, as well as "Son of God" and "Born of God." From there it grew more and more complicated. Major theologians have argued about the doctrine for a very long time. H. Orton Wiley says the Son relies on the Father for His divine essence. Shedd says the Persons of the Trinity cannot be distinguished from each other without the doctrine, and that without it God would not be a Trinity. Notice these two are about as far apart as one can get in the Calvin/Arminius debate.
After careful research, I have come to the conclusion that eternal generation would violate the attributes of God. Calvin came to the same conclusion, by the way. Both Wiley and Shedd say that God's attributes are His essence, and that the essence is shared equally by all three Persons of the Trinity. Hence, God's attributes must also be shared equally. But in order to make eternal generation make sense, they have to say that the Father's "unique" attribute is generation, and the Son's "unique" attribute is being generated. Another problem is that they say the "generation" is the Father giving the essence to the Son. If they all share the essence equally, how does this happen? Or does it imply that there was a time when the Son did not have the essence of the Father?
I don't know how exactly the Persons of the Trinity interact, and how They are differentiated, but I think eternal generation is not the answer.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
The New National Anthem
O say, can you see(if you cannot say or see we'll force everyone else around you to accommodate you by changing everything from entryways to job requirements in an effort to make you feel just good as everyone else),
by the dawn’s early light,(Unless of course those lousy Big Corporations continue to destroy the environment with their toxic fumes that have not really caused all that much damage but makes us environmentalists feel important to predict the end of humanity)
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming(But not too proud, in fact, we should feel very guilty for all the poverty us rich Americans have caused all over the world by being one of the most free and prosperous societies in history, and we should give more to the poor through oppressive taxation)?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight (Well, we don't believe in fighting anymore and also those stripes and stars are offensive to certain groups, so in light of these please take that flag down, ok?),
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming (Listen, there is nothing gallant about war or the military either, so no more glorifying murdering innocent children and spending money on defence that should be feeding all our single mothers' kids out there)?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air (Well, we now consider all war wrong, no matter what, so see above for what we should do with all the money being spent on rockets and bombs that are killing innocent babies all over the oppressed world),
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there (Unless we ourselves burn it in an act of free speech, that is),
O say does that star spangled banner yet wave (Please don't ask us to speak, there are those out there with speech impediments who may well be emarassed, or even offended),
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave (Can we really say "free" when most states don't allow gay marriage, there is rampant institutionalized racism?, and some people are not allowed to use marijuana for medicinal proses? Not to mention there are some Neanderthals out there who actually want to take away a woman's freedom to kill her unborn baby. And bravery isn't a virtue we really want to be encouraging. That breeds distinction, and we would like there to be no distinguishing characteristics in our society thank you, especially not those backward, evil, homophobic, anti-abortion, traditionalist, gun-totin' kind of characteristics. Well, you can be as radical as you want, just make sure it's as far left as you can go. Then we will call you "brave.")
by the dawn’s early light,(Unless of course those lousy Big Corporations continue to destroy the environment with their toxic fumes that have not really caused all that much damage but makes us environmentalists feel important to predict the end of humanity)
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming(But not too proud, in fact, we should feel very guilty for all the poverty us rich Americans have caused all over the world by being one of the most free and prosperous societies in history, and we should give more to the poor through oppressive taxation)?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight (Well, we don't believe in fighting anymore and also those stripes and stars are offensive to certain groups, so in light of these please take that flag down, ok?),
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming (Listen, there is nothing gallant about war or the military either, so no more glorifying murdering innocent children and spending money on defence that should be feeding all our single mothers' kids out there)?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air (Well, we now consider all war wrong, no matter what, so see above for what we should do with all the money being spent on rockets and bombs that are killing innocent babies all over the oppressed world),
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there (Unless we ourselves burn it in an act of free speech, that is),
O say does that star spangled banner yet wave (Please don't ask us to speak, there are those out there with speech impediments who may well be emarassed, or even offended),
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave (Can we really say "free" when most states don't allow gay marriage, there is rampant institutionalized racism?, and some people are not allowed to use marijuana for medicinal proses? Not to mention there are some Neanderthals out there who actually want to take away a woman's freedom to kill her unborn baby. And bravery isn't a virtue we really want to be encouraging. That breeds distinction, and we would like there to be no distinguishing characteristics in our society thank you, especially not those backward, evil, homophobic, anti-abortion, traditionalist, gun-totin' kind of characteristics. Well, you can be as radical as you want, just make sure it's as far left as you can go. Then we will call you "brave.")
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