“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
Good Post!
How does anyone know how each member of the Trinity related to the other?
And why would there have to be a 'familial relationship' between the three members of the Trinity?
That 'relationship' exists because of the Plan that created for mankind, not for because God needed it.
The concept a 'begotten Son' in eternity makes the Son inferior to the 'unbegotten' God, since the Son is receiving His essence from Him.
We know the name of the 2nd member of the Trinity who became the Son, and the Bible states it was the Word, not the Son.
The Word is never said to have been begotten, the Son was begotten.
And it is said that the Son was begotten in a DAY (Ps.2) not eternity.
The three members of the Trinity each partake of the same essence, and have always done so, none were begotten by the other in eternity in order to have that essence.
That is not an 'analogy' of the 'Word' revealing the Father.
That is using language that would have the second member of the Trinity being 'born' or 'produced' by the Father.
Which would make that one 'begotten' inferior to the one who begot Him as God.
The begetting refers to the incarnation and resurrection of Christ, not His existance in eternity as God.