A poor theological fragment

Begotten-ness in the Credo refers to the eternal relation of the Father and the Son. The Incarnation is something different, but not wholly unrelated. God is relational and begotten-ness partially describes the relation between the Father and the Son. The Incarnation of the Son, in whom "dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily", describes the relation, apart from creation itself, between God (Father, Son, and Spirit) and the world (Col 2,9).

Sören Kierkegaard, in the third chapter of his posthumously published Philosophical Fragments, called the Incarnation, when, in the Second Person of the Trinity, eternity stepped into time, the Absolute Paradox. How can God enter into a world of space and time without ceasing to be eternal? The first theological move to make is to point to the real distinction of the divine persons of the Trinity. So, there is no logical error here, just as there is no logical or mathematical error in the church's dogmatic articulation of the Trinity.

Nonetheless, we are confronted with a mystery, which is not something unknown and unknowable, but known because God has revealed it. Such beliefs are, properly speaking, beliefs of faith. In other words, they cannot be empirically proven or disproven because they are metaphysical. To believe them requires faith, which does not preclude doubt. Nonetheless, they cohere with reason. Grappling with faith, wrestling with questions, applying reason to faith, is a religious act in and of itself. We must always humbly acknowledge that our words, even in dogmatic proclamations, never entirely capture the mystery of the triune God.

This stepping into time does nothing to affect God's atemporality. Of course, during his mortal sojourn the Son was in time, but he did not cease to be God. This is what the hypostatic union (i.e., the uniting of two natures, one human and one divine- not half-and-half- wholly human AND wholly divine) seeks to explain. As far as God being utterly changeless, that is, apathetic (i.e., unaffected by pathos), I am not sure that is descriptive of God. God, who is a trinity of persons, is dynamic and relational.

To wit: Is God unaffected by God's creation, or by anything that happens in it, like the fall? Keep in mind that the fall was the result of human freedom, not something imposed by God, or foreordained. God was affected, deeply. So much was God affected that the Incarnation occurred, resulting in Christ's Paschal sacrifice. Did God remain unaffected by Christ's passion and death. precisely because, like our first parents, we preferred ourselves to God? Origen, the great church father, did not buy God's apathetic stance toward the world. In fact, only a classical metaphysics of substance, rooted in Aristotle's philosophy, which Heidegger made it his philosophical project to destroy, can argue for a static God. Thankfully, Heidegger's project, which sought to create a clearing in which the question of Being could once again be examined, has borne much theological fruit, particularly in the theology of Karl Rahner, among others.

The hermeneutical principle in play here is that questions, such as this one, cannot be viewed in isolation.