is never considered to be generated from him; so how could one say this of an eternal attribute that belongs to the Eternal Himself?

If such language were admissible, then anything inseparable from another thing could, by the same token, be called that thing’s child, born of it. One would end up claiming that the qualitative states and quantitative dimensions of objects are generated from them, and the same for whatever resembles them.

People would then say that a body’s length, width, and depth are begotten of it; that the very life of a living being is begotten of it; and that the forces and natural properties God has placed in created things are begotten of those things themselves.

As for the revealed Law: even if something generated were, in certain tongues, called a “child,” it would still be impermissible to construe the discourse of the prophets in that sense—unless their own languages actually used the word “child” in that way.

Indeed, anyone who studies the prophetic scriptures—Christian scholars and others alike—finds that not one prophet ever referred to God’s knowledge, His Word, or His life as His child or His son, nor did any of them say that such attributes are generated from Him.

Therefore, their claim concerning the Messiah—that he said, “Baptize the people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” intending by “the Son” the eternal pre-existent Word of God, supposedly begotten of Him, and intending by “the Holy Spirit” God’s eternal pre-existent Life—is sheer fabrication against the Messiah, peace be upon him. Nowhere in his words, or in the words of any other prophet, do we find them calling God’s knowledge and wisdom—or any of His inherent attributes—His son, nor do we find them designating His life as “the Holy Spirit.”

As for linguistic usage: this expression they cite—namely, calling the attributes—