The last few weeks have been filled with exams, interviews and leaving stuff. I'm moving out of Oak Hill tomorrow and will be based at my parents but travelling and visiting people a lot over the next couple of months so internet access is likely to be spasmodic at best.

In mid-August I'll be flying out to Philadelphia to start my PhD at Westminster Seminary. I'll be there for four years (hope lots of you will come and visit!), during which time I anticipate this may become something of a travel journal ('Notes from a large continent' or something) as well as the hotbed of theological debate and silliness that it's evolved into in the last few months.

All of which is to say - don't expect much input from me for a while. Can I recommend that you use your time better over the summer? Perhaps go outside and enjoy the sun? Or read an improving book? Or talk to some real people? That's what I'll be doing.

On the radio 4 news, they've just reported a dramatic upturn in the sales of croquet equipment following the news that John Prescott enjoyed the game at his freebie home in the country.

Whatever next?

Tony Blair playing Real Tennis?
Gordon Brown advocating Padder for the 2012 Olympics?
Patricia Hewitt announcing that this has been the best year ever for Foursquare?

I can't wait.

We're used to saying (though perhaps not comprehending) that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father.

But here's a thought which was new to me a few weeks ago: the Son's begetting is not just qualified by the divine eternality but by all the other attributes of classical theism.

Hilary of Poitiers noticed this a long time ago:
'...in the generation of the Son, the incorporeal and unchangeable God begets, in accordance with His own nature, God incorporeal and unchangeable.'

Which is one in the eye for those who think the eternal Son was eternally embodied.

But also helps with our trinitarian theology. Since the eternal Father's nature is indivisible, then he must beget the Son indivisibly. So we can retain the distinctions (between begetter and begotten) whilst affirming the essential inseparability of the persons in their eternal relations, as in their temporal acts.

So perhaps we need a new creed:
'... the Son, eternally, incorporeally, indivisibly, immutably, impassibly, simply, lovingly, righteously begotten of the Father'

And that's another happy thought too. Divine simplicity resides not just in the substance of the divine persons but also in their unlosable relations. Because the Father is simple, he begets simply and the Son he begets is simple and simply begotten.

Frame suggests that we should include 'triunity' as one of the classical attributes of God. Which is a really helpful reminder when we think about how the attributes relate. So that 'God is love' gets modified to read 'God is eternal, incorporeal, indivisible, immutable, impassible (etc., etc.) and triune love'.

Right. I'm waffling now. So I'll stop and save that for the Doctrine of God exam tomorrow.