Augustine interprets John’s references to the Son “seeing” or “hearing” the Father as ways of describing what theologians call the Son’s “passive generation” (i.e., his being eternally begotten of the Father).
I used to regard that interpretation as clever, but probably wrong.
I used to regard that interpretation as clever, but probably wrong.
I am now inclined to think that this is a very attentive and probably correct interpretation.
Here are a few reasons why.
Here are a few reasons why.
1. John regularly describes the Son’s (preincarnate) *relation* to the Father with these terms, and he regularly describes the Spirit’s relation to the Son in similar terms.
2. These terms seem to be part of a larger family of terms describing the Son’s “receptive” relation to the Father, which, John insists, is nothing other than the mode whereby the Son is divine and does divine things.
(Note: Thomas points out that speaking of the Son’s “passive generation” is an unfortunate necessity of speech: true because the Son is begotten of the Father, false if we take it to imply “passivity” in God.)
3. Back to Augustine on John: the language of “seeing” and “hearing” is especially apt to describe the Son’s receptive-but-nonetheless-wholly-active relation to the Father.
4. While “seeing” and “hearing” are perhaps not as comprehensive as “begotten” for describing an ontological relation/mode of being, they do capture the *active* nature of that receptive relation in a way that begotten does not.
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