This is continuing from a prior discussion I had with a ContraModalism:
http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2018/12/03/contramodalisms-dilemma/
He has added some new responses to this dilemma but his response is unexpected:
Created, as in caused by the Father, before time existed, yes. Yeah. I see this as a change in terminology, mainly. The word ‘create’ is simply a synonym for ’cause’, and as you are familiar with, I have long held that the Son is caused by the Father. I would not say He is created from nothing. I think the Son’s generation from the Father is a mystery.
This seems to me to be an obvious distinction without a difference. To be created from nothing is just the same as to cause something to exist. Contra’s only way to try to avoid this is to accept a paradox. Which is the very complaint they levy against Trinitarians. So, they are hypocritical and have no legitimate basis for complaining about Trinitarian appeals to paradox. Jimmy Stephens also commented stating:
Dr. Chris Bolt already hit the nail into the coffin. To suppose that the Son and Father share an ontological category that is not inherently possessed by both is to make that ontological category an impersonal category to which the Persons are subject. On such theology, the Persons are inheritors of an impersonal substance to which impersonal substance both the inheritors and the provider (i.e. Father) are subject, since the substance does not include or entail Fatherness nor Fatherness the substance, and so for the other Persons. This theology therefore entails that (a) reality is at bottom impersonal and (b) the Persons (viz. the Father) are not absolute. Like every other heresy in this vain, Alex desires to impose a third category onto the Johannine Creator-creation dichotomy. On that view, there is Creator, Direct Creation (e.g., the Son), and Indirect Creation (i.e., the universe through the Son). The fact of the matter is that John expressly teaches a dichotomous view – Logos of all things that come into being vs all things that come into being – and puts the Logos on the Creator side of that dichotomy, thus identifying the Logos as the God of Genesis. John does not mention a “direct” vs “indirect” distinction. John does not distinguish a God-substance from God Himself. John defines God in terms of His uncreatedness and then identifies the Son with said uncreatedness. There is no third category. It is also incoherent to say you derive non-derivativity from another being.
The Council 