Nicene Creed: God the Son
To understand this part of the creed, it is important to remember the significant source of the Arian heresy. Namely, how can there be three persons in one God? Or, put another way, is Jesus really fully God, or some lesser God created by the Father?
The answer has probably become so familiar to us that we don't think much about it these days. Of course. We understand the Trinity. We know that God is one, and three persons. We know that Jesus is fully God and fully human.
But such was not the case during the time the Creed was written. We have already discussed the fundamental problems. So this section of the Creed is really about spelling out exactly what we believe. And because the Incarnation is such a critical foundation for our faith, the Creed spends a lot of time emphasizing that Jesus really is the divine Son of God.
This section begins with what was not viewed as a controversial statement. Saint Paul says in the Letter to the Philippians that Jesus Christ is Lord. Moreover, to say the Jesus Christ is Lord is only possible for us because of the Holy Spirit.
Moreover, the identification of Jesus as Lord is sprinkled all throughout the New Testament. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "By attributing to Jesus the divine title "Lord", the first confessions of the Church's faith affirm from the beginning that the power, honor and glory due to God the Father are due also to Jesus, because "he was in the form of God" and the Father manifested the sovereignty of Jesus by raising him from the dead and exalting him into his glory." (CCC 449)
And again, the Catechism says that the title "Lord" indicates sovereignty and is a profession of divinity. And so the Creed uses very specific language to reinforce the divinity of the Son while preserving the one God. How?
The word "begotten" does not get much use today, but it has a very specific meaning that is necessary for us to understand what we are saying in the Creed. Better than I could do, here is what C.S. Lewis has to say about this word in Mere Christianity.
“We don't use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still knows what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set – or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue. If he is clever enough carver he may make a statue which is very like man indeed. But, of course, it is not a real man; it only looks like one. It cannot breathe or think. It is not alive.
Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man. That is why men are not Son's of God in the sense that Christ is. They may be like God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God.” -- C.S. Lewis
This is not merely a minor distinction between create and begot. It is important, for if Jesus is to be the divine Son of God, then he cannot have been created by God the Father, because he would be a creature and not a divine being. So, by saying Jesus, the Son, is begotten by God, it means that Jesus shares in the divinity of God.
So it is not that God the Father created the Son. The Son is co-equal with the Father. The Son is fully divine. So Jesus is not just a worthy human being to imitate, but is the Son of God. He is fully divine, not almost as divine as the Father. He is truly God. . .
