I had another exchange with ContraModalism. Here is the conversation:

ContraModalism:

that the Son was uniquely caused by the Father, from the Father (not from nothing), prior to the creation of the material universe, and with it, time. The Son pre-exists time, so there can be no difference in time between the Father and Son. eternally begotten or created in my understanding simply refers to that atemporal origin before time existed.
and I think the fact that the first father we have on record as using the term trinity, freely spoke of the Son as a creature, is a point in my favor. My claim is that the ante-nicenes used the language of ‘creature’ in reference to the Son, in a different way than the Arians. You asked me to substantiate. I did.

TheSire:

Do you affirm this:

that the Son was uniquely caused by the Father, from the Father (not from nothing), prior to the creation of the material universe, and with it, time. The Son pre-exists time, so there can be no difference in time between the Father and Son.

If so, then your thesis that the Father and Son are two different beings doesn’t seem cogent. Further, I think your idea contradicts certain statements made by various Early Church individuals:

there is not a plurality of uncreated beings: for if there were some difference between them, you would not discover the cause of the difference, though you searched for it; but after letting the mind ever wander to infinity, you would at length, wearied out, stop at one uncreated being, and say that this is the Cause of all things. (Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew 5)

it is impossible for two uncreated beings to exist together (Methodius, On Free Will 5)

in all things God has the pre-eminence, who alone is uncreated, the first of all things, and the primary cause of the existence of all, while all other things remain under God’s subjection (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.38.3)

For before all things God was alone, himself his own world and location and everything—alone, however, because there was nothing external beside him (Tertullian, Against Praxeas 5.13–15).

We have never heard that there are two unbegotten beings, nor that one has been divided into two … ; but we affirm that the unbegotten is one. (Letter of Eusebius of Nicomedia to Paulinus of Tyre, in Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History 1.5)

God, subsisting alone, and having nothing contemporaneous with Himself, determined to create the world. And conceiving the world in mind, and willing and uttering the Word, He made it; and straightaway it appeared formed as it had pleased Him. For us, then, it is sufficient simply to know that there was nothing contemporaneous with God. Beside Him there was nothing. (Hippolytus, Against Noetus 10.1; cf. Refutation of All Heresies 10.28)

the Father is the one uncreated being (Epiphanius, Panarion 33.7.6)

ContraModalism:

Why do you see this as not being cogent? The Father alone is unbegotten and uncreated, the Son atemporally begotten and created from Him. I should think this can only make sense with Them being two distinct individual beings, as I have argued for before. For the same individual being cannot be both unbegotten and begotten, uncreated and created.

TheSire:

Well, the issue seems to be that the Son is tenselessly caused by the Father to exists. But that leaves you rejecting the Nicene Creed because the distinction was made between being begotten and being created(that which you think are synomous). So, it seems like your argument with me in a chat about Church history lacking my view really is problematic when it plainly denies yours.
I can let Theophilus try to square up the issue of begotteness. I deny eternal generation. So, those aren’t my categories.
I’m taking you to mean the Son is created from nothing. But then your view isn’t historical because the Son in traditonal Christian thought isn’t caused to have being from nothing and it is polytheism. Both positions have been rejected throughout the history of the Church.

ContraModalism:

I expressly denied and do deny that the Son is created from nothing; rather I define Him as genuinely and uniquely generated from the Father. But yes, I’m disagreeing with Nicea. That still doesn’t undermine my argument though, because there were people before and after Nicea in the early church I agree with; so the point stands that my view has historical precedent from the early church while yours does not. (As does our agreement that ultimately that doesn’t determine who is correct).

TheSire:

That leaves you in a difficult spot. You could maintain recieves his being from the Father, but you don’t wish to maintain he eternally caused the Son to be from nothing. That leaves you with Nicene thought that the Father and Son share the same nature. The other option for you only is to maintain the Son is created from nothing. The only things existing in Christian theology for the Son to recieve any substance at all then is the substance of the Father himself or anything the Father causes to be from nothing. You wish to maintain that the Son is not made from nothing and he isn’t made from the substance of the Father. It seems then like the Son has no being at all. So, the Son is either derivative of the Father in two ways. Either the Father eternally creates the Son(creaated from nothing) or he is made of the Divine nature. That leaves you only with the option to reject your unitarian model.