After this solution of the first question, a second question must be stated, in which we inquire whether the eternal being of the Logos is due to a cause or is uncaused. To solve this second question rationally and scientifically, we must, in accordance with the principle of the philosophical method of investigation, listen first to the word and testimony of the Logos and of the Spirit, the two trustworthy witnesses of all truth.
In the first place, we hear from the mouth of Christ: “I am the Christ, the Son of the living God.” “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” From the mouth of the Evangelist John we hear: “And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” From these words and many others like them it is proved and corroborated that the eternal being of the Logos has for its cause of existence the eternal being of God, and is caused, not uncaused. Only the entity of God the Father is uncaused, and for this reason is characterized as the first principle, from which the being of the Logos follows as the first and immediate and natural consequence. But all temporal beings, too, have caused entity. How, then, can the caused being of the Logos be distinguished from the caused being of finite and temporal beings? It is distinguished by such distinctive attributes and marks as the following:
The caused being of the Logos necessarily and eternally has its generation, or birth, from the ever-existent God; and is characterized and marked as the only child begotten of God the Father. The caused entity of temporal beings, on the other hand, has not the distinction of being begotten of God, but of being created out of nothing, being liable to come into existence and to exist as the result of God’s volition and power; a creation that is temporal, finite, contingent, and not necessary and infinite and eternal. Hence, the caused entity of the Logos is characterized by the distinction of being the only begotten child, noble, necessary, eternal, homoousian (of the same substance), and equal with the uncaused entity of God His Father; whereas the caused entity of temporal beings is characterized as having been created from a state of possibility, and as being contingent, temporal, finite, heteroousian (of a different substance), and very unequal to the entity of its creative cause. The entity of the Logos has all the eternal attributes of God, except those of paternity and unbegottenness, and is a God; the entity of temporal creatures, on the other hand, has no divine and eternal attributes, but the attributes of temporal, created, and finite essence; and on this account is not a God, but a creature and product of God. This distinction of the caused entity of the Logos from the caused entity of all temporal and finite creatures, which the Ecumenical Synod in Nicea very correctly made by the terms of the Symbol of the faith, “begotten, not made, of the same essence with the Father,” thus refuting and repelling the Arian misbelief, which denies not only the eternity of the Logos, but also the Sonship, the identity of essence, and His equality with His own Father.
Once having denied the eternity of the substance of the Logos, and ascribing to it a temporal existence, the Arian heresy denied in consequence, contrary to the testimonies of the holy Scriptures, also the Sonship, the identity of essence, and the equality of the Logos with His own Father. It called the begotten being of the Logos from the essence of the Father created out of non-entity, and the Son and Logos of God a product and creature, falsely and impiously. But the chorus of holy Fathers, following the words and testimonies of the Logos and of the Spirit, ascribed to the substance of the Logos eternal, only-begotten entity as well as His identity of essence and equality with His own Father; while it excluded and denounced and anathematized the created and temporal entity and origination from non-entity, by which the insane Arius madly blasphemed against the divinity of the Logos for his own perdition and that of those who thought as he did. Therefore, most rightly and reasonably did that holy and notable Synod, illumined by the Spirit of Truth, distinguish and discriminate the caused entity of the Logos from the caused entity of all temporal and finite creatures and products, and dogmatize in truth the eternity and the divinity of the Logos, ascribing to His substance eternal only-begotten entity, and His identity of essence and equality with His beginningless and uncaused Father.
Now the philosophy of the Logos, rationally and scientifically proving this dogmatic truth, strengthens the faithful and enlightens the faithless, to believe in the truth that has been· clearly proved, and not to disbelieve a.r;iy longer to the ruin of their own existence and life, to the everlasting punishment of their own immortal souls. It is better that every man should think like the Logos and His Spirit and have everlasting and cheerful life than to think like the Devil and heretics, and to inherit with them the unquenchable fire of hell everlasting and the immortal pains and wails and miseries therein. For their worm shall not die, nor their fire be quenched, as the Bible says. For the enemy and implacable foe of the Logos is the Lucifer fallen from heaven, the Devil, who was a man-slayer from. the beginning, who always speaks falsehood of his own accord, who traduces, slanders, and perverts the truth of God, to the bewilderment, delusion, and perdition of those unable to detect the sophistry and deceit. He it was who, envying the glory of the Logos and defending Christ-slaying Judaism and idolatry, which is being abolished and done away with, attacked through Arius the eternity and divinity of the Logos’ substance, falsely ascribing to it temporal existence and creation out of non-entity, in order that, when the divinity of the Logos should be disbelieved, Christianity should fall down completely, and the status quo be preserved, of idolatry that is being abolished and done away with together with Christ-slaying Judaism and anti-Christian deism. This intention of his having been frustrated, he aroused against Christianity the theocratic, or rather to say, the Satanocratic state of the pseudo-prophet Mohammed, split the Church into an Eastern and a Western through the haughty claims of Popery, and enslaved politically the Orthodox Eastern Church to the authority of the sultans, in order that, through simony and depravity, he might annihilate it in the end.
In order to restore the abolished idolatry in another form of matter-madness and money-worship, he has aroused the sciences falsely so called against validity and the divine inspiration of the holy Scriptures, and in the name of false science has dogmatized. matter and force to be the only God, with which materialists and the mortal-souled regulate their own life, becoming quite like the unintelligent beasts of the field, explaining their origin by means of beasts.
Through such sophistical deceit and barbarous fanaticism, the Devil, the enemy of the Logos, has persecuted and harassed His Church, and held it in subjection; and until the present day has kept it in the bonds of slavery and annihilation, controlling and ruling nearly the whole earth because of the ignorance and delusion of men, and because of the division and conflict of Christian peoples and nations, who do not listen to the voice of Christ. For this reason it is that the Logos, looking out for the interests of His own Church, aroused philosophy and the philosophical sciences against the enemy, in order to expose the sciences falsely so called, and with them every heresy and error and misbelief that ravage men and men’s affairs, in order to exterminate from the East the Satanocratic state of the false prophet Mohammed, and let saints of the Highest take over the kingdom, which they shall then keep forever and ever. In view of the fact, then, that the Logos proves His eternity and divinity by philosophy and the philosophical sciences, it is better for every man to obey and submit to Him in order to enjoy life everlasting, and not to compromise with the Devil and heretics so as to incur reproach and dishonor and everlasting punishment in the lake of fire burning with brimstone. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
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Apostolos Makrakis 