The Distinction Between Making and Begetting

When thinking about the relationship between Christ and creation, something that needs to be discussed is the difference between making and begetting. The Nicene Creed states that Christ is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made.” But to today’s ears these statements are hard to understand because we don’t use the word ‘beget’ very often in common language anymore. Thus, what exactly is meant by God from God and light from light is not very lucid to us. In essence, to beget is to give rise to, or bring about, something. The way that the tradition has talked about this is to say that to beget is to become father (or parent). When something is begotten, it means that something of the same kind is brought forth. A human person begets a human person, a bird begets a bird. One thing begets something of the same kind. To ‘make,’ however, is when one kind of thing creates something of a different kind. The human makes a statue, the bird makes a nest, the beaver makes a dam. God does not ‘create’ God the Son as this would communicates that the Father creates something other than true God. We say God begets the Son further communicates the full divinity of the Son. Whereas, when God creates the universe, something other than divinity is made.

Also, there is often the misunderstanding that the Father did this begetting at some stage in the past. But this is not how the tradition describes this. Rather, Christians believe that this begetting is eternal. God’s eternal knowing and loving of Godself is in part an eternal begetting of the Word and the eternal breathing forth of the Holy Spirit. This infinite communication of the divine self is an eternal event that then bears fruit in the bringing forth creation.

How can we then say that there is something of the Word, the Son, in creation for us to encounter? C.S. Lewis notes that “Everything God has made has some likeness to Himself.” God makes something alive, just as God is life itself; God makes everything good, just as God is goodness itself; everything that exists is real because Godself is reality and being itself. Michelangelo’s creating of the David is closer to the image of a human person than if he were to create a car battery. God creates out of God’s own divine wisdom, through the Son.

This is important because we continue to state that Jesus Christ is truly and fully God, and the Creed (in this case the Nicene Creed) does its best to try and describe this to us. Jesus was not created at some point in the past making Jesus not fully God, but rather is eternally begotten. And it is this God that took on flesh and redeemed us in the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension.