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fortheDeclaration:

Are you a “Oneness” Protestant? as you seem to implicitly rejecting the distinction of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which in fact, was a late 2nd/early 3rd century heresy called “Modalism”, also referred to as “Sabellianism.”

Christ is eternally of the Father in his Divine Nature, thus from the same “substance” as the Father [In Greek, homousious, is the term used in the Original Greek, which in Latin was translated consubstantial with the Father]

So Christ, in his Divine Nature was always and there was never a time when he was not, which is what Arius was stating “There was a time when the Father was not a Father, He [The Father] was once alone”, was his argument. THis meant that Christ came into being at a point of time, according to Arianism.

By stating that Christ eternally was begotten of the Father, God from God, begotten, not made, the Nicene Creed refuted Arius. At the Incarnation, human nature was assumed by Christ, his nature was not made. The Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Father [Western version of the Creed stated and the Son], who in relationship is the source of the Trinity, yet because of the union of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God is One Divine Substance.

“Do you understand that these Creed writers were saying that one member of the Trinity CAME from another (begotten)?”

I’ll refer you to this:

The Eternal Sonship of Christ

Some Evangelicals, such as John MacArthur, J. Oliver Buswell, and the late Walter Martin, have been abandoning the Trinitarian faith as defined by the First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325). Their abandonment of orthodox Trinitarianism consists in denying the eternal Sonship of Christ, the doctrine that the second person of the Trinity was the Son of God from all eternity. Instead, they claim that the second person of the Trinity only became the Son of God at his incarnation. Apart from the incarnation he was still God, but not the Son, just the second Person.

This teaching destroys the internal relationships within the Trinity, because if the Son was not eternally begotten by the Father then neither did the Spirit eternally proceed from the Father through the Son. It also destroys the Fatherhood of the first person, since without a Son there is no Father. Thus the fundamental familial relations among the persons of the Godhead are destroyed and replaced by mere social relationships, a bare existence of three persons in the Godhead. Prior to the incarnation, there is no longer the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but simply Number One, Number Two, and Number Three—the numbers themselves being an arbitrary designation.

The Church Fathers who wrote the creeds had a different view. They recognized that the Bible depicts the Son as having his identity as the Son before his incarnation. In 1 John 4:9 we read, that “the love of God was made manifest among us [in] that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” Thus, the second person of the Trinity was already the Son when he was sent into the world.

The same truth is taught under a different analogy in John 1:1,14 where we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Here the Word (i.e., the second person of the Trinity) is pictured as having his identity as the Word from all eternity. Thus, from all eternity the Word of God proceeded from God, just as speech proceeds from a speaker; similarly,
a Son proceeds from his Father. Under both analogies, whether as the Son of God or the Word of God, the second person of the Trinity is depicted as eternally proceeding from the first person of the Trinity.

Of special interest among the following passages are those in which the early Christians wrote of God as Father prior to the incarnation. Such passages imply the role of the second person as Son before the incarnation, since as we have noted, without a Son there is no Father.

http://www.catholic.com/library/Eternal_Sonship_of_Christ.asp

http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/john/john1.htm

1 1 2 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 He was in the beginning with God.

3 3 All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.

What came to be 4 through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; 5 4 the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 5 A man named John was sent from God.

7 He came for testimony, 6 to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.

8 He was not the light, but came to testify to the light.

9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him.

11 He came to what was his own, but his own people 7 did not accept him.

12 But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, 13 8 who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man's decision but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh 9 and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth. 15