The Middle Man
by Donald T. Williams
"Begotten, not made."
There is a sharp demarcation that runs through the universe. Imagine a line drawn down the center of a whiteboard. On one side is the Creator; on the other, the creature (all the creatures). On that side is everything that was "made." The Creator is eternal, the creature temporal; the Creator can create ex nihilo, and the creature can only create out of pre-existing material; the Creator is transcendent, the creature dependent. Everything is on one side or the other of that line.
According to the Nicene fathers, the Son belongs on the side with the Creator. And in this they agree with John: "Through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made that was made." And that is why Paul can say that there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
Donald T. Williams is Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College. He stays permanently camped out on the borders between serious scholarship and pastoral ministry, between theology and literature, and between Narnia and Middle-Earth. He is the author of fourteen books, including Answers from Aslan: The Enduring Apologetics of C. S. Lewis (DeWard, 2023). He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
27.4—July/August 2014
The Bible, Sacred Theology & the Mind of Christ by Patrick Henry Reardon
32.2—March/April 2019
on Preserving Physical & Spiritual Nourishment by Nathanael Devlin
26.5—Sept/Oct 2013
The Perils of Pragmatism in Christian Attitudes Toward the Liberal Arts by Robin Phillips
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
