[Arthur McGowan]

I personally find these statements illogical. I don't see how Christ could be begotten AND be eternal, I believe the terms eternal and begotten are mutually exclusive.

The Word, or Son, is eternally begotten. The terms are not mutually exclusive.

You are not entitled to believe that the terms "eternal" and "begotten" are mutually exclusive, because you are not the arbiter of what the words mean.

[JAKraig]

You are not entitled to believe that the terms “eternal” and “begotten” are mutually exclusive, because you are not the arbiter of what the words mean.

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The definition of eternal:

“without beginning or end; lasting forever; always existing”

The definition of begotten:

“Something is begotten when it’s been generated by procreation — in other words, it’s been fathered”

Christ referred to God many times as His Father. You can’t have “no beginning” if you have a Father. Christ says He is the Alpha and the Omega, or from the Alpha to the Omega, the beginning and the end. With God The Father there is no beginning, certainly at least in time, yet for Christ there is and He says so in His own words.

So, while I can believe anything I want that does not make it so, but the dictionary makes the terms mutually exclusive.

[metmom]

You are not entitled to believe that the terms "eternal" and "begotten" are mutually exclusive, because you are not the arbiter of what the words mean.

Hold that thought.....

[daniel1212]

You are not entitled to believe that the terms "eternal" and "begotten" are mutually exclusive, because you are not the arbiter of what the words mean.

Which is absurd, even if one is in error regarding what he believes. Besides the Scripturally untenable position that the historical magisterial stewards of Scripture and recipient of Divine promises of God's presence and preservation requires or infers ensured infallibility, there is the entitlement to follow one's own conscience, even though it is not an independent and infallible faculty:

Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.them Conscience confronts with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official church." (Pope Benedict XVI [then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger], Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Vorgrimler, 1968, on Gaudium et spes, part 1,chapter 1).