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| Against Eunomius, Saying that the Son of God is the Son, Not of His Nature, But of His Will. Epilogue to What Has Been Said Already.
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Chapter
20.—Against Eunomius, Saying that the Son of God is the Son, Not
of His Nature, But of His Will. Epilogue to What Has Been Said
Already.
38. Wherefore the logic of
Eunomius, from whom the Eunomian heretics sprang, is ridiculous.
For when he could not understand, and would not believe, that the
only-begotten Word of God, by which all things were made is the Son
of God by nature,—i.e. born of the substance of the
Father,—he alleged that He was not the Son of His own nature or
substance or essence, but the Son of the will of God; so as to mean
to assert that the will by which he begot the Son was something
accidental [and optional] to God,—to wit, in that way that we
ourselves sometimes will something which before we did not will, as
though it was not for these very things that our nature is
perceived to be changeable,—a thing which far be it from us to
believe of God. For it is written, “Many are the thoughts in the
heart of man, but the counsel of the Lord abideth for ever,”1036
for no
other reason except that we may understand or believe that as God
is eternal, so is His counsel for eternity, and therefore
unchangeable, as He himself is. And what is said of thoughts can
most truly be said also of the will: there are many wills in the
heart of man, but the will of the Lord abideth for ever. Some,
again, to escape saying that the only-begotten Word is the Son of
the counsel or will of God, have affirmed the same Word to be the
counsel or will itself of the Father. But it is better in my
judgment to say counsel of counsel, and will of will, as substance
of substance, wisdom of wisdom, that we may not be led into that
absurdity, which we have refuted already, and say that the Son
makes the Father wise or willing, if the Father has not in His own
substance either counsel or will. It was certainly a sharp answer
that somebody gave to the heretic, who most subtly asked him
whether God begat the Son willingly or unwillingly, in order that
if he said unwillingly, it would follow most absurdly that God was
miserable; but if willingly, he would forthwith infer, as though by
an invincible reason, that at which he was aiming, viz. that
He was the Son, not of His nature, but of His will. But that other,
with great wakefulness, demanded of him in turn, whether God the
Father was God willingly or unwillingly; in order that if he
answered unwillingly, that misery would follow, which to believe of
God is sheer madness; and if he said willingly, it would be replied
to him, Then He is God too by His own will, not by His nature. What
remained, then, except that he should hold his peace, and discern
that he was himself bound by his own question in an insoluble bond?
But if any person in the Trinity is also to be specially called the
will of God, this name, like love, is better suited to the Holy
Spirit; for what else is love, except will?
39. I see that my argument in this
book respecting the Holy Spirit, according to the Holy Scripture,
is quite enough for faithful men who know already that the Holy
Spirit is God, and not of another substance, nor less than the
Father and the Son,—as we have shown to be true in the former
books, according to the same Scriptures. We have reasoned also from
the creature which God made, and, as far as we could, have warned
those who demand a reason on such subjects to behold and understand
His invisible things, so far as they could, by those things which
are made1037
and
especially by the rational or intellectual creature which is made
after the image of God; through which glass, so to say, they might
discern as far as they could, if they could, the Trinity which is
God, in our own memory, understanding, will. Which three things, if
any one intelligently regards as by nature divinely appointed in
his own mind, and remembers by memory, contemplates by understanding, embraces by love, how great a thing that
is in the mind, whereby even the eternal and unchangeable nature
can be recollected, beheld, desired, doubtless that man finds an
image of that highest Trinity. And he ought to refer the whole of
his life to the remembering, seeing, loving that highest Trinity,
in order that he may recollect, contemplate, be delighted by it.
But I have warned him, so far as seemed sufficient, that he must
not so compare this image thus wrought by that Trinity, and by his
own fault changed for the worse, to that same Trinity as to think
it in all points like to it, but rather that he should discern in
that likeness, of whatever sort it be, a great unlikeness
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