Begotten by Nature, Not by Will

But it seems that a heretic is a truly wicked thing, and his heart is depraved and impious in every way. Look: though they have been refuted on every point and shown to be utterly without understanding, they feel no shame. The hydra of pagan legend, when its old serpent heads were destroyed, grew fresh ones, and fought its slayer by producing new heads in place of the old. So too these men, fighters against God and hateful to God, are like hydras. They lose their life in the objections they raise, and then they invent for themselves other questions, Jewish and foolish, and new tricks, as if the Truth were their enemy. In this way they only show the more plainly that they are Christ’s opponents in everything. [a]

After so many proofs against them, at which even the devil, who is their father, has been put to shame and has drawn back, they once more mutter out other tricks from their perverse heart, sometimes in whispers, sometimes with the drone of gnats. “Very well,” they say. “Interpret these passages that way, and win the victory in reasonings and proofs. Still you must say that the Son received his being from the Father by his will and pleasure.” This is how they deceive many, by putting forward the will and the pleasure of God. Now if any of those who believe rightly said this in simplicity, there would be no reason to be suspicious of the expression, since the right intention would outweigh a somewhat simple use of words. But the phrase comes from the heretics, and the words of heretics are suspect. As it is written, “The wicked are deceitful,” and, “The words of the wicked are deceit,” even when they only make signs, for their heart is depraved. So come, let us examine this phrase too. Otherwise, though refuted on every side, they may, like hydras, invent a fresh word, and by such clever language and plausible evasion sow their impiety again in another way. For whoever says, “The Son came to be by the divine will,” means the same as another who says, “Once he was not,” and, “The Son came to be out of nothing,” and, “He is a creature.” But since they are now ashamed of those phrases, these crafty men have tried to convey their meaning another way. They put forward the word “will,” as cuttlefish put out their ink, to blind the simple and to keep their own peculiar heresy in mind. Where do they get “by will and pleasure”? From what Scripture? Let them say, these men who are so suspect in their words and so inventive in impiety. For the Father, who revealed his own Word from heaven, declared, “This is my beloved Son.” Through David he said, “My heart uttered a good Word.” He told John to say, “In the beginning was the Word.” David says in the Psalm, “With you is the fountain of life, and in your light we shall see light.” And the apostle writes, “Who, being the radiance of glory,” and again, “Who, being in the form of God,” and, “Who is the image of the invisible God.” [c]

All of them everywhere speak of the Word’s being, but none of his being “by will,” nor at all of his being made. But these men: where, I ask, did they find a will or pleasure “going before” the Word of God? Unless, of course, they have left the Scriptures and are imitating the perversity of Valentinus. For Ptolemy, the follower of Valentinus, said that the Unoriginate had a pair of attributes, Thought and Will. First he thought, and then he willed; and what he thought, he could not put forth until the power of Will was added. That is where the Arians took their lesson, wanting will and pleasure to come before the Word. Well then, let them rival the teaching of Valentinus. But when we read the divine words, we found “he was” said of the Son, and of him alone did we hear that he is in the Father and is the Father’s Image. Only in the case of originated things, since by nature these once were not and afterward came to be, did we recognize a will and pleasure going before. David says in the hundred and thirteenth Psalm, “Our God is in heaven; he has done whatever pleased him”; and in the hundred and tenth, “The works of the Lord are great, sought out according to all his good pleasure”; and again in the hundred and thirty-fourth, “Whatever the Lord pleased, that he did in heaven, and on earth, and in the sea, and in all the deep places.” If, then, he is a work and a thing made, and one among others, let it be said that he, like the others, came to be “by will”; and Scripture shows that these things are brought into being in that way. And Asterius, the advocate of the heresy, agrees, when he writes: “For if it is unworthy of the Framer of all to make by his pleasure, let his being pleased be removed equally in the case of all, so that his majesty may be kept unimpaired. Or if it is fitting for God to will, then let this better way hold in the case of the first Offspring. For it is not possible that it should be fitting for one and the same God to make things by his pleasure, and not by his will as well.” The sophist has packed plenty of impiety into these words: that the Offspring and the thing made are the same, and that the Son is one offspring among all the offsprings there are. Yet he ends with the conclusion that it is fitting to say that the works are by will and pleasure. [f]

So if he is other than all things, as has been shown above, and it is rather the works that came to be through him, let “by will” not be said of him; or else he has come to be in the same way as the things that came to be through him. Paul, who was not an apostle before, became one afterward “by the will of God.” Our own calling, which once did not exist but has now come about afterward, is preceded by will, and, as Paul himself says again, has been made “according to the good pleasure of his will.” And what Moses records, “Let there be light,” and, “Let the earth appear,” and, “Let us make man,” points, I think, as was said earlier, to the will of the one who acts. For things that once were not, but came about afterward from causes outside themselves, the Framer deliberates about making. But about his own Word, begotten from him by nature, he did not deliberate beforehand. For in him the Father makes and frames whatever other things he deliberates about, as the apostle James also teaches when he says, “Of his own will he begot us by the Word of truth.” Therefore God’s will concerning all things, whether they are begotten again or brought into being at first, is in his Word, in whom he both makes and begets again whatever seems right to him. The apostle signifies this again, writing to Thessalonica: “For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” But if the will is in the one in whom he makes, and the Father’s pleasure is in Christ, how can Christ come into being by will and pleasure like the others? For if he too came to be by will, as you maintain, it follows that the will concerning him lies in some other Word, through whom he in turn comes to be. For it has been shown that God’s will is not in the things he brings into being, but in him through whom and in whom all things made are brought to be. Next, since it is all one to say “by will” and “Once he was not,” let them make up their minds to say, “Once he was not.” Then, seeing with shame that the latter signifies times, they may understand that to say “by will” is to place times before the Son. For deliberation goes before things that once were not, as with all creatures. But if the Word is the Framer of the creatures, and coexists with the Father, how can deliberating come before the Everlasting, as if he were not? For if deliberation comes first, how are all things through him? Rather, he too, as one among the rest, would be begotten a Son by will, just as we too were made sons by the Word of truth; and it remains, as was said, to look for another Word through whom he too has come to be, and was begotten along with all the things that were according to God’s pleasure. [i]

If, then, there is another Word of God, then let the Son be originated by a word. But if there is not, as is the case, and all things that the Father has willed have come to be through him, does this not expose the many-headed craftiness of these men? They are ashamed to say “work,” and “creature,” and “God’s Word was not before he was begotten,” yet in another way they assert that he is a creature, by putting forward “will” and saying, “Unless he came to be by will, then God had a Son by necessity and against his good pleasure.” And who is it, then, that imposes necessity on him, you most wicked men, who drag everything to serve your heresy? They see what is contrary to will, but what is greater and goes beyond will has escaped their notice. For as what is against one’s purpose is contrary to will, so what is according to nature goes beyond and comes before deliberation. A man builds a house by deliberation, but he begets a son by nature. What is built began to come into being at will, and is outside its maker. But the son is the father’s own offspring from his substance, and is not outside him; so he does not deliberate about him, or he would seem to be deliberating about himself. As far, then, as the Son goes beyond the creature, so far does what is by nature go beyond will. When they hear of him, they ought not to measure by will what is by nature. But they forget that they are hearing about God’s Son, and dare to apply human opposites to God, “necessity” and “against his purpose,” so as to be able by them to deny that there is a true Son of God. Let them tell us themselves: that God is good and merciful, does this belong to him by will or not? If by will, we must consider that he began to be good, and that it is possible for him not to be good. For to deliberate and choose means leaning two ways, and belongs to a rational nature. But if it is too unseemly that he should be called good and merciful as the result of will, then what they have said must be turned back on them: “So he is good by necessity and not by his pleasure,” and, “Who is it that imposes this necessity on him?” But if it is unseemly to speak of necessity in God’s case, and so it is by nature that he is good, much more, and more truly, is he Father of the Son by nature and not by will. [k]

Moreover, let them answer us this. Against their shamelessness I want to press a further question, a bold one, but asked with a reverent intent. Lord, be gracious! The Father himself: does he exist after first deliberating and then being pleased, or before deliberating? Since they are so bold in the case of the Word, they must receive the same answer, so that they may know that this presumption of theirs reaches even to the Father himself. If they deliberate about will and say that even he is from will, what then was he before he deliberated, or what did he gain, as you consider, after deliberating? But if such a question is unseemly and destroys itself, and is shocking even to ask (for it is enough for us only to hear God’s name to know and understand that he is He Who Is), will it not also be against reason to have parallel thoughts about the Word of God, and to make pretexts of will and pleasure? For in the same way it is enough only to hear the name of the Word to know and understand that God, who is not God by will, has his own Word not by will but by nature. And does it not go beyond all imaginable madness even to entertain the thought that God himself deliberates and considers and chooses and goes on to be pleased, so that he may not be without Word and without Wisdom, but have both? For he would seem to be deliberating about himself, if he deliberates about what belongs to his own substance. Since there is so much blasphemy in such a thought, it is reverent to say that originated things have come to be “by favor and will,” but that the Son is not a work of will, nor has he come later, as the creation has, but is by nature the very own Offspring of God’s substance. Being the Father’s own Word, he does not let us reckon any will as coming before him, since he is himself the Father’s Living Counsel, and Power, and the Framer of the things that seemed good to the Father. And this is what he says of himself in the Proverbs: “Counsel is mine, and security; understanding is mine, and strength is mine.” He is himself the “Understanding” by which he prepared the heavens, and himself “Strength and Power” (for Christ is “God’s Power and God’s Wisdom”); yet here he has altered the terms and said, “Understanding is mine,” and, “Strength is mine.” So too, when he says, “Counsel is mine,” he must himself be the Father’s Living Counsel. We have learned this from the prophet as well, that he becomes “the Angel of great Counsel,” and he was called the good pleasure of the Father. For this is how we must refute them, using human illustrations about God. [l]

Therefore, if the works exist “by will and favor,” and the whole creation is made “at God’s good pleasure,” and Paul was called to be an apostle “by the will of God,” and our calling has come about “by his good pleasure and will,” and all things have come into being through the Word, then he stands outside the things that have come to be by will. Rather, he is himself the Living Counsel of the Father, by which all these things have come to be. David also gives thanks for this Counsel in the seventy-second Psalm: “You have held me by my right hand; you will guide me with your Counsel.” How then can the Word, who is the Counsel and Good Pleasure of the Father, himself come into being “by good pleasure and will,” like everyone else? Unless, as I said before, in their madness they repeat that he has come into being through himself, or through some other. Who, then, is the one through whom he has come to be? Let them fashion another Word, and let them name another Christ, rivaling the teaching of Valentinus; for it is not Scripture. And even if they fashion another, he too surely comes into being through someone. And so, while we count up and trace the succession of them, the many-headed heresy of the godless turns out to end in many gods and in madness without limit. In it, wanting the Son to be a creature and from nothing, they say the same thing in other words, putting forward as a pretext the words “will” and “pleasure,” which rightly belong to originated things and creatures. Is it not impious, then, to attribute the marks of originated things to the Framer of all? And is it not blasphemous to say that will was in the Father before the Word? For if will comes first in the Father, the Son’s words are not true, “I in the Father.” Or even if he is in the Father, he will hold only second place, and it was not fitting for him to say, “I in the Father,” since will was before him, the will in which all things were brought into being and he himself came to exist, as you hold. For though he excels in glory, he is no less one of the things that come into being by will. And, as we have said before, if that is so, how is he Lord and they servants? But he is Lord of all because he is one with the Father’s lordship; and the whole creation is in bondage, since it is outside the Father’s oneness, and, having once not been, was brought to be. [o]

Moreover, if they say that the Son is by will, they should also say that he came to be by understanding, for I consider understanding and will to be the same. What a man deliberates about, he also has understanding of; and what he has in his understanding, he also deliberates about. The Savior himself has certainly set them side by side as related, when he says, “Counsel is mine, and security; understanding is mine, and strength is mine.” For as strength and security are the same (they mean one quality), so we may say that Understanding and Counsel are the same, and that is the Lord. But these impious men do not want the Son to be Word and Living Counsel. Instead they invent the fable that there are with God, as a kind of habit that comes and goes in the way of men, understanding, counsel and wisdom. They leave nothing undone, and they put forward the “Thought” and “Will” of Valentinus, if only they can separate the Son from the Father and call him a creature instead of the Father’s own Word. To them, then, must be said what was said to Simon Magus: “May the impiety of Valentinus perish with you!” Let everyone rather trust Solomon, who says that the Word is Wisdom and Understanding. For he says, “The Lord by Wisdom founded the earth; by Understanding he established the heavens.” And as here it is “by Understanding,” so in the Psalms, “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made.” And as the heavens were made by the Word, so “He has done whatever pleased him.” And as the apostle writes to the Thessalonians, “The will of God is in Christ Jesus.” The Son of God, then, is the “Word” and the “Wisdom”; he is the “Understanding” and the Living “Counsel”; in him is the “Good Pleasure of the Father”; he is the “Truth” and the “Light” and the “Power” of the Father. But if the will of God is Wisdom and Understanding, and the Son is Wisdom, then whoever says that the Son is “by will” is saying in effect that Wisdom has come into being in wisdom, that the Son is made in a son, and that the Word is created through a word. That is incompatible with God and opposed to his Scriptures. For the apostle proclaims the Son to be the very Radiance and Exact Imprint, not of the Father’s will, but of his substance itself, when he says, “Who, being the radiance of his glory and the exact imprint of his hypostasis.” But if, as we have said before, the Father’s substance and hypostasis are not from will, then plainly neither is what belongs to the Father’s hypostasis from will. For whatever that blessed hypostasis is, and however it is, such must its own Offspring be. And accordingly the Father himself did not say, “This is the Son originated by my will,” nor, “the Son whom I have by my favor,” but simply, “my Son,” and more than that, “in whom I am well pleased.” By this he means: “This is the Son by nature, and in him is lodged my will about what pleases me.” [q]

Since, then, the Son is by nature and not by will, is he without the Father’s pleasure, and not with the Father’s will? Certainly not. The Son is with the Father’s pleasure, and, as he says himself, “The Father loves the Son and shows him all things.” For as the Father did not begin to be good “from will,” and yet is not good without will and pleasure (for what he is, that is also his pleasure), so too, that the Son should be, though it did not come “from will,” is not without his pleasure or against his purpose. For as his own hypostasis is by his pleasure, so also the Son, who belongs to his substance as its own, is not without his pleasure. So let the Son be the object of the Father’s pleasure and love; and in this way let everyone reverently think of God’s pleasure and his being not unwilling. For by the same good pleasure with which the Son is the object of the Father’s pleasure, the Father is the object of the Son’s love, pleasure and honor; and the good pleasure from Father in Son is one, so that here too we may contemplate the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son. Let no one, then, bring in a will going before, as Valentinus did; and let no one, by this pretext of “counsel,” intrude between the one and only Father and the one and only Word. It would be madness to place will and deliberation between them. For it is one thing to say, “He came to be by will,” and another to say that the Father has love and good pleasure toward his Son, who is his own by nature. To say, “He came to be by will,” first implies that once he was not; and next it implies leaning two ways, as has been said, so that one might suppose the Father could even not will the Son. But to say of the Son, “He might not have been,” is an impious presumption that reaches even to the Father’s substance, as if what is his own might not have been. It is the same as saying, “The Father might not have been good.” And as the Father is always good by nature, so he is always by nature one who begets. To say, “The Father’s good pleasure is the Son,” and, “The Word’s good pleasure is the Father,” implies not a will going before, but a genuine nature, and that the Son is the Father’s own and like him in substance. In the case of radiance and light, one might say that no will comes before the radiance in the light, but that the radiance is the light’s natural offspring, at the pleasure of the light that begot it, not by will and deliberation but in nature and truth. So too in the case of the Father and the Son, one might rightly say that the Father has love and good pleasure toward the Son, and the Son has love and good pleasure toward the Father. [v]

So do not call the Son a work of good pleasure, and do not bring the teaching of Valentinus into the church. Let him be the Living Counsel, and Offspring in truth and nature, as the radiance from the light. For this is how the Father has spoken: “My heart uttered a good Word”; and the Son, in agreement: “I in the Father and the Father in me.” But if the Word is in the heart, where is will? And if the Son is in the Father, where is good pleasure? And if he is Will himself, how is counsel in Will? It is unseemly; or else the Word comes into being in a word, and the Son in a son, and Wisdom in a wisdom, as has been said again and again. For the Son is the Father’s All, and nothing was in the Father before the Word. But in the Word is will also, and through him the objects of will are carried out, as the Holy Scriptures have shown. I could wish that these impious men, having fallen into such unreason as to be considering will, would no longer ask mothers, as they used to, “Did you have a son before you conceived him?” but would ask the fathers, “Do you become fathers by deliberation, or by the natural law of your will?” or, “Are your children like your nature and substance?” Then they might learn shame even from fathers, from whom they took this proposition about birth, and from whom they hoped to gain knowledge on the point. For the fathers will answer them: “What we beget is like, not our good pleasure, but ourselves. We do not become parents by deliberating beforehand; to beget belongs to our nature, since we too are images of our fathers.” Either, then, let them condemn themselves and stop asking women about the Son of God, or let them learn from them that the Son is begotten not by will, but in nature and truth. A refutation from human examples is fitting and suitable for them, since these perverse-minded men dispute about the Godhead in a human way. Why, then, are Christ’s enemies still raving? For this, like their other pretexts, has been shown and proved to be mere fantasy and fable. On this account they ought, however late, to look at the cliff of folly over which they have fallen, rise again from the depth, and flee the snare of the devil, as we urge them. For the Truth loves mankind and cries continually, “If you do not believe me because of the body I am clothed in, yet believe the works, so that you may know that ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me,’ and ‘I and the Father are one,’ and ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’” The Lord, as is his way, loves mankind, and would gladly “help those who are fallen,” as David’s song of praise says. But the impious men, not wanting to hear the Lord’s voice, nor bearing to see him acknowledged by all as God and God’s Son, go about like beetles, wretched men, seeking pretexts for impiety with their father the devil. What pretexts, then, will they be able to find next, and where? Unless they borrow blasphemies from the Jews and Caiaphas, and take godlessness from the pagans. For the divine Scriptures are closed to them, and from every part of them they are refuted as senseless and enemies of Christ. [w]