Something from John Behr:
'The affirmation, made by the Council of Nicaea and developed by Athanasius, that God is eternally the Father of his Son, means that in God there is a complete identity between nature and will; God does not first exist by himself, only subsequently to beget the Son. This identity of divine nature and activiety, and the claim that the Son is as fully divine as the Father, means, moreover, that the fivinity of God is fully revealed in Christ, so that "he who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn. 14.9). That "in him the whole fullness of divinity dwells bodily"(Col. 2.9) means that there is no surplus of divinity beyond this revelation, awaiting discovery through other means. The divine nature is not a passive object for human thought attempting to comprehend what God "really is" in himself, for God has revealed himself as he is. This also has significant implications for understanding how theological language functions. Later in the fourth century, the Cappadocians, arguing against Eunomius, point out that God is not an object against which the adequacy of our words about him are somehow to be measured, bur rather that God is known in and through his revelation, which expresses what God indeed is, and within which alone it is possible to think and speak about God: "In thy light we see light" (Ps. 35.10 LXX),' The Nicene Faith, Part 1, pg. 17.
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