This work explores what the formative writers of the fourth century said about divine fatherhood in order to address a key subject in Trinitarian debate in modern theology. D. Blair Smith examines the Father within classical Trinitarian thought. The question of the fatherhood of God occupied several 20th – 21st century theologians who sought to retrieve fourth-century Trinitarian developments in order to inform their systematic concerns. Smith explores the foundational period and engages with a number of the formative ‘pro-Nicene’ voices of Athanasius of Alexandria, Hilary of Poitiers, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Basil of Caesarea. This book then examines the crucial theological space given to eternal generation of the Son, divine simplicity, the coinherence of the persons, inseparability of operations, and even the Holy Spirit in order to understand the distinctiveness of the Father within the Trinity. Smith argues Basil represents the most integrative pro-Nicene account of divine fatherhood, providing sharpness to the mature pro-Nicene Trinitarian categories emerging within this era and critically applies insights gleaned from the pro-Nicene development to questions raised by modern readings of the ‘first’ person of the Trinity as well as identify trailhead for further inquiry on the fatherhood of God within contemporary Trinitarian thought. “The theology of divine fatherhood is currently of great interest across a broad swathe of Catholic and Protestant theology. Smith's book takes us back to some of our most important resources for thinking about this theme today – the “Fathers" of the fourth century. He shows how any theology of divine fatherhood is inseparable from an account of what we can say and know about the divine Trinity, and inseparable from how we understand the relationship between Father and Son. Smith's analysis is closely textual, carefully analytical and offers much for modern theologians to ponder.” ― Lewis Ayres, Angelicum, Italy & Durham University, UK “We still need a theology of the first article that proves its Christian title and demonstrates that the fatherhood of God can be affirmed without drifting into bland theism. In that regardBlair Smith's study of pro-Nicene theologies of the fatherhood of God proves of enormous value. He draws on the best of recent revisionary work on pro-Nicene Trinitarianism and early Christian exegesis, and he applies those methods of study to an as of yet unexamined topic: the divine Father.” ― Michael Allen, Reformed Theological Seminary, USA D. Blair Smith is President and Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at the Reformed Theological Seminary, USA. Ivor J. Davidson is Honorary Professor at the University of Aberdeen, UK. He was previously Professor of Theology at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Philip G. Ziegler is Chair in Christian Dogmatics at the University of Aberdeen, UK. John Webster (1955-2016) was one of the world's leading systematic theologians. His distinguished career saw him publish over 20 books and 100 major articles, solidifying himself as an expert on systematic theology as well as the works of Karl Barth and Eberhard Jüngel. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2005 and, along with Colin Gunton, he co-founded the International Journal of Theology. Ultimately, he rose through the ranks of academia to become the Chair of Divinity at University of St Andrews, UK.