Comments on: Does Eternal Subordination Entail a Denial of Homoousion?

By: James Gordon

James Gordon — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:35:42 +0000

Phil,

You can see my complete response to your question here. I basically argue that, per your request, that the Yandell/McCall position sufficiently meets the objections of your counter-example.

God bless,

James Gordon

By: Conquering Thirst

Conquering Thirst — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:32:57 +0000

[...] however, not everyone was so excepting of MYP. Phil Gons, for example, vicariously through Andy Naselli in a perichoretic sort of way, asked a question [...]

By: Jeremy Pierce

Jeremy Pierce — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:58:54 +0000

Ah, good. Then the argument isn’t as bad as I thought. I do think the Groothuis argument makes that error, and it’s a devastating error in that case, because it either assumes eternal subordination of women in all possible worlds, which many complementarians would deny, or it moves from eternal subordination in this world to essentiality of subordination, which is a clear non sequitur given what it means to be an essential property. Groothuis herself seems to prefer the latter, from my online discussions with her, so she’s at least not being uncharitable to complementarians, but that means she’s relying on a fallacious inference.

I think you’re right that in the corrected argument the only way to maintain orthodoxy is to distinguish between two different senses in which something can be an essential property, and only one of them is tied to the credal sense of essence.

By: Phil Gons

Phil Gons — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:57:55 +0000

Jeremy, thanks for the comment. I inadvertently left off an essential piece in the first premise: “in all possible worlds.” That was clear in their argument, and I mistakenly omitted it. I’ve updated the post. The addition of this phrase addresses your objection that eternal doesn’t equal necessary.

Thanks for the link to your article. I’ll definitely have to give it a read.

By: Jeremy Pierce

Jeremy Pierce — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:21:47 +0000

The first premise of the argument is blatantly false. A property is essential to me if I couldn’t be me without it, in other words if there’s no possible world in which I exist without that property. A property is eternal if there’s no time in the actual world in which I don’t have the property. It’s pretty easy to see that I could happen to have a property in this world that I didn’t have to have. For example, I’ve always had the property of never having an identical twin, and I always will. But I could’ve have one. I just didn’t. So that’s a property that I have eternally but not essentially. There is never any time in the history of the world and never will be any when I have an identical twin. But it doesn’t follow that the property is essential to me.

I addressed this same argument (Rebecca Merrill Groothuis’ version of it anyway) a couple years ago here.

By: Gospel Prism

Gospel Prism — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:40:45 +0000

[...] important because its impact is eternal. I would strongly recommend reading the liveblog and some commentary on it. But just like the days of the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, we are seeing the same [...]

By: AndyNaselli.com

AndyNaselli.com — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:31:43 +0000

[...] During the Q&A, I asked a question from Phil Gons, who was watching the debate via live streaming and emailed me the question. I was disappointed in Dr. Yandell’s answer. Basically, he made fun of the question, apparently because it did not compute with his metaphysical system. Frustrating. Phil shares and explains his penetrating question more here and here. [...]

By: Phil Gons

Phil Gons — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:02:34 +0000

Yeah. That was, IMO, actually the weaker of the two arguments. I hope to address it tomorrow.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:29:42 +0000

It seemed that they were trying to go with denying the uniqueness of the son and maintain orthodoxy by the whole discussion of the potentiality of any member of the trinity becoming incarnate, but that line didn’t work either for reasons that Ware outlined nicely.