The Nicene Creed: Begotten Not Made
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Begotten Not Made- by Fr. David Petras
In order to clarify our faith, the Council of Nicea reiterated again and again, in different ways, our experience that Jesus the Messiah was both God and man. Therefore, after stating with precision that he is “true God,” its profession of faith adds that he was not “created,” (in Greek, ou poi_thenta), but, instead was “begotten.” Therefore, the word “begotten” is repeated, and the fathers gathered in council must have seen in it a very important affirmation.
The purpose of this part of the Creed was certainly to oppose directly the heresy of the Alexandrian priest Arius, who believed that Christ was a creature made by the Father. In Arius’ system, he was certainly a higher creature than us, preceding us in existence, and participating with the Father in creation, but nevertheless, not equal to the Father. To support his statement, Arius would point to the Gospel of John where Jesus says, “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. (John 14:28)” The Council taught that this was not what the passage meant, that it had been completely misunderstood, and that, as God, Jesus, the Son and Word of God was one God with the Father. Let us return to this passage later.
First, we must try to understand what we are affirming in faith when we say that Jesus, the Son and Word of God, was not “made.” This poses a stumbling block for many today, because quite clearly Jesus was human, and had a place in human history. His life had a beginning and an end in a particular era of time two-thousand years ago. We are unaccustomed today, where what is real is what we can see and hear and touch, to grasp how one person can be simultaneously two different natures. It is difficult for us to think of the man Jesus as also God, one of the Holy Trinity, one God, one Lord, one Ruler and Creator of all. However, this was difficult for the ancient people also, and so through the centuries this has remained what we call a mystery, a reality that we can experience, but not completely understand or comprehend. However, it is our faith without compromise. The first Christians understood very well that if Christ was not God, then their trust in him was meaningless, and they were venerating only a human being who was, in fact, a miserable failure. Because he is God, his death on the Cross instead received infinite value.
It was in the context of his imminent arrest that Jesus taught us about himself. Here Jesus speaks at least three times of the mutual indwelling of the Father and himself, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me. (John 14:10.13;17:21)” This is so much so that when the apostle Phillip asks, “Show us the Father,” Jesus replies, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:9)” This relationship was also proclaimed by Jesus at the Feast of the Dedication, when he said, “The Father and I are one. (John 10:30)” Some of the bystanders were shocked and thought this to be blasphemy, and “picked up rocks to stone him. (John 10:11)” This was the theme of John’s Gospel, as we see from the very first verse, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. (John 1:1), and later in the same prologue the Word is identified with Jesus, “and the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:14)” Despite the fact that some people do not want to accept this testimony, Jesus also speaks likewise in other gospels, “”No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son. (Matthew 11:27)”
It is here where Arius made his mistake. He applied the words, “the Father is greater than I,” (John 14:28) to the eternal, mutual relationship of the Father and the Son. As God, the Father and the Son are one, and without change. In his mission to us, however, Jesus becomes greater when he suffers death on the Cross and rises from the dead to give us life. Before this glorification, the Father is greater, and the resurrection is for our good, for the fullness of our life, so that we rejoice because Jesus is going to the Father. (John 14:28) The risen Lord then tells his disciples, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. (Matthew 28:18-19)" While St. John was certainly not engaging in the later theology of the Trinity, he was speaking about the way Christians experienced Christ. They were aware both of his transcendent equality with God and of his mission on earth as a human being. Through this human being whom they were able to see and hear and touch they were brought into union with God, for, as our Lord said, “on that day (the day of his glorification) you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. (John 14:20)”
In our Creed, therefore, we profess that Jesus is “begotten, not made.” Likewise, in the Hymn of the Incarnation at the Second Antiphon, we sing of Christ, “O only-begotten Son and Word of God, who, being immortal ... became man without change.” We ascribe the word “begotten” to the Son, because fathers “beget” sons, though in the inner mystery of the Holy Trinity this “begetting,” this “coming forth” is beyond our powers of comprehension. We can affirm it only in faith. The Son and the Spirit must come forth from the Father, because God is one and the Father is the source of God’s being. This “coming forth” of the Son and the Spirit, however, is not creation, and hence there is one God, Father, Son and Spirit, equal in the light of the divinity. We appropriate this revelation, and only then do we reflect on it and begin to understand that if the Son is “not made,” then, like the Father, he is without beginning, infinite, beyond space and time. It is only because this is so that he can be our Savior, Redeemer and Life-Creator.