BEGOTTEN? When I was preparing to be confirmed in our Lutheran church at age 14, our class discussed and memorized the creeds. Our pastor tried to explain to us the meaning of “eternally begotten of the Father,” and “begotten, not made, of one being with the Father” in the Nicene creed. He told us that how Jesus “proceeded” from the Father was an unique process, never like any other. I don’t think any of us grasped it. I’m not sure, almost 3/4ths of a century and innumerable recitations later, that I’m much closer to grasping it. It certainly isn’t “giving birth to,” as in human reproduction, despite being of the same root as all the “begats” in the Authorized Version in the first chapter of St. Matthews’s Gospel. It can’t mean “cloning,” which implies absolute identicality. Could it mean something like “oozes from”? Or a “mirror image”? They don’t seem to fit either. And yet we continue to declare that we believe that inexplicable “begotten.” How can we even begin to understand it? Are we supposed to? Would it do us any good if we did?