That is, Christians pray to the Father, not to “the Unoriginate,” for Father he is, not merely some abstractly defined “Unoriginate” being. And it is possible to know God as Father only “from the Son.” However, if we first define God by something such as being the Creator, we will define God abstractly (as something like “Unoriginate” or “ungenerate”) and so define the Son out of his deity. And when we do that, we find ourselves worshiping a God who is not a real Father and who does not really have a Son. We have become idolaters. This, Athanasius holds, is the essential Arian problem: by
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