112. I would, therefore, further examine our
opponents, who esteem themselves so cunning, and have them make good
the application of their theory to human existence, seeing that they
use it to disparage the glory of God’s Existence, and keep far
away from any confession of an inscrutable mystery in the Divine
Generation. I would have them find ground for their objection in
the facts of human generation. Of God’s Son they assert
that before He was begotten He was not,—that is to say, they say
this of the Wisdom, the Power, the Word of God, Whose Generation knows
nothing prior to itself. But if, as they would have us believe,
there was a time when the Son existed not (the which it is blasphemy to
affirm), then there was a time when God lacked the fulness of Divine
Perfection, if afterwards He passed through a process of begetting a
Son.