FERGUSON The Doctrine of Baptism 231
again to baptism as he takes up briefly the faith in which one is baptized,^37
Here his anti-Eunomian polemic surfaces in an affirmation of the divine,
uncreated nature of all three persons in the Trinity. 'The one born by the
spiritual rebirth should know by whom he is begotten and what sort of
creature he becomes.' The spiritual birth is unlike natural birth in a crucial
respect. In natural birth 'all things come to exist by the impulse of those
who beget them, but the spiritual birth depends on the power of the one
being born'. In this case one has the power to choose his or her parents.^38
In another important respect, the natural and spiritual births are alike: 'Of
necessity what is born is of the same nature as that of the parents.'^39
Gregory explicitly refers to baptism in the name of the triune God: 'Since
then in the Gospel are delivered the three Persons and the names through
which the birth to believers occurs, the one who is begotten in the Trinity
is begotten equally by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.'^40 The
person being baptized chooses by his or her faith the kind of birth to be
received and so one's spiritual nature. 'The one who confesses the uncre-
ated holy Trinity enters into the unchanging and unalterable life', but the
one who sees the Son and Spirit as created is baptized into a created Trin-
ity and 'is begotten to a changeable and alterable life'.^41 The latter person
places his 'hope of salvation in himself and not in the divine' and 'has his
birth from below and not from above'.^42
The faith in which one is baptized, based on the principle that the begot-
ten is like the begetter, has consequences for how one lives. As Gregory
moves toward his conclusion, he acknowledges that his instruction is
insufficient without attention to the moral implications of the new birth in
baptism. 'Many of those coming to the grace of baptism', Gregory com-
plains, 'overlook' the moral life that should follow, 'being born only in
appearance and not in reality. For the transformation of our life that occurs
- GNO 98.8-11 (PG, xlv, col. 97C). Kees, Lehre, pp. 163-64, notes that faith for
Gregory was a free rational decision (see the passage cited at the preceding note) but
must also have the right content (a false doctrine cannot save one) and produce a new
way of living (see below). - GNO 98.16-99.5 (PG, xlv, cols. 97C-D). Cf. Vita Moysis II.3 {GNO 7.1.34-
8.14 [PG, xlv, col. 328B]). - GNO 100.7-8 (PG, xlv, col. 100B).
- GNO 99.13-16 (PG, xlv, col. 100A).
- GNO 100.2-7 (PG, xlv, col. 100B). Cf. In diem luminum (GNO 9.228.22-
229.18 [PG, xlvi, cols. 585B-D]) for the argument that the baptismal formula means
the equal deity of all three persons. - GNO 101.4-6 and 101.23-102.2 (PG, xlv, cols. 100D and 101A-B).