31/03/2026
We don't use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still stil knows what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this.
When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue. If he is a clever enough carver he may make a statue which is very like a man indeed. But, of course, it is not a real man; it only looks like one. It cannot breathe or think. It is not alive.
Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man. That is why men are not Sons of God in the sense that Christ is. They may be like God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God.
Mere Christianity
–C. S. Lewis
