Will and Generation

And, by necessity and force, along with the will being pre-conceived and before that the thought of the Father's subsistence—which possesses all and in every way—the radiance is co-subsistent.

9.21 To this, if they believe that all things came from the will of the Father through the Son, the will does not pre-exist. For it is absurd and impossible not to subsist the Creator and afterwards to receive that which is created through him. 9.22 But this too is full of irrationality. For if he says: 'I am and I am not changed' (Exodus 3:14), how can the unchangeable nature subsist changes according to the subsistences, not standing in the identity of the persons, but moving and falling? 9.23 Even this too. If it is true, as indeed it is true, 'whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does' (cf. John 5:19), the Son will also make another Son, so that he might do all things likewise to the Father. 9.24 But if he did not make and does not make, then it is not a creation nor is his paternal will considered as such. 9.25 Let me say something else; if the Savior says: 'The will of him who sent me, so that everyone seeing the Son and believing in him may have eternal life' (John 6:40), the Son is not from the will, but the one seeing him. 9.26 For the will is found with the Son even there. 9.27 One could drive away from them all of them and this logic, not only from the things previously said, but also from the things that will be brought against us; that is, if an opponent should falsely ask them: 'Whether at any time the Father exists by willing or not?', the same things they studied will answer them; regarding the 'not willing', because the subsisting happened to him by accident, nature's necessity driving him unawares to this; and regarding the second, because before the willing he was not; for his existence will be raised up into his willing, encompassing him creatively, according to their babblings, into a subsistence. 9.28 Similarly another thing, he will only say different from him before: 'God wills the immortal...'

Is it also good or unwilling? For the same things will be brought forth. It is better, if one answers them briefly, that nothing happens to the perfect God and nothing is left lacking in him.

And just as the will does not precede the paternal existence, immortality, and goodness, so also not the generation; and one can sing all such things regarding the thought concerning God. And regarding created things, David sings in Psalm 103 with a trembling psalm: 'Our God is in heaven; and on the earth, all that he willed he did' (Ps 103:19), and 'all things in wisdom you made' (Ps 33:9), that is, in the Son, and not in the will. And in Psalm 119: 'You held the hand of my right side, in your counsel you led me and with glory you received me' (Ps 119:139), and in 1 Chronicles: 'for wrath is in his mind and life is in his will' (1 Chr 28:9), and in 2 Samuel: 'Lord, in your will grant to my beauty strength' (2 Sam 14:11), and in Psalm 118: 'save me, because he willed me' (Ps 118:119).

For indeed, the manner in which, the Father existing immortal and good, wills to be these things and is willing these things, is not because—so that I may phrase it this way—having the will, he was not indeed unwilling; likewise, the will is not the cause of the being born. Regarding us, however, there is something from the energy of God and something from the will upon us to have; for indeed, we are brought to exist from soul and body and to be rational not by our own will, but by the will of God. For how could we ever, not being, have the capacity to will or not to will? But we have in our own choice to be good or bad, and being skilled by practice or unskilled by laziness.

And they have come to this main point, not being unsettled in their theory by accepting the words 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matt 3:17), since from that very thing they had a firm anchor of the right faith. But now they say that 'in whom I am well pleased' shows the Son to be a creature.