Not a doctrine appended to the gospel but the shape of it—years of working out who God is as Father, Son, and Spirit, and what rides on getting it right.
Two threads run through most of this. The first is the positive doctrine—one God in three persons, and the grammar that keeps it straight. The second is a long-running argument against eternal functional subordination and for the Nicene account of the Son’s equality. The published work, the papers, and the reviews sit alongside both.
Statements of the Doctrine 11
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The Doctrine of the Trinity in Five Theses
Post · March 2013
The whole doctrine compressed to five load-bearing claims—the best one-page entry point.
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One God in Three Persons: Unity of Essence, Distinction of Persons
Post · August 2014
Unity of essence, distinction of persons, and why it bears on ordinary Christian life.
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Warfield, Vos, and Van Til: Is God One Person?
Post · May 2013
Three Reformed theologians on whether God is also, in some sense, one person.
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Is the Trinity One “What” and Three “Who’s”?
Post · April 2008
The grammar that keeps the doctrine straight: one what, three whos.
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How Do the Father, Son, and Spirit Differ?
Post · April 2011
If the persons share one essence, what actually distinguishes them?
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Are the Father, Son, and Spirit Equally Persons?
Post · November 2010
Whether “person” means the same thing for each of the three.
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Economic Trinitarian Relations
Post · August 2007
How the persons relate in the work of salvation—and what that does and doesn’t tell us about God in himself.
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Post · January 2008
Why much popular God-talk collapses the three persons into one—without meaning to.
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Post · October 2007
A common slip that quietly identifies the Father with the whole Godhead.
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The Triune God ≠ A Non-Triune God
Post · February 2008
The God of Scripture is triune all the way down; a would-be non-triune “God” is simply another god.
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The Eternal Promise of Eternal Life: The Covenant of Redemption in Titus 1:2
Post · April 2022
God promised eternal life “before the ages began”—but to whom, if the elect did not yet exist? Four centuries of commentators on the covenant of redemption.
The Eternal-Subordination Debate 15
A sustained argument, worked out across many posts, against eternal functional subordination (EFS/ESS) and for the Nicene account of the Son’s equality.
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An Examination of Three Recent Philosophical Arguments against Hierarchy in the Immanent Trinity
Publication · 2015
The chapter Andy Naselli and I wrote for One God in Three Persons—three philosophical arguments against eternal hierarchy, taken one at a time.
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Definitions and Proponents in the Trinity Hierarchy Debate
Publication · 2015
The companion reference to that chapter: who means what by which term, and who holds which position, laid out so the argument can be followed.
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The Failed Strategy of “Trinity & Subordinationism”
Post · October 2007
The thesis: tying complementarianism to eternal subordination is a losing strategy.
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Does Eternal Subordination Entail a Denial of Homoousion?
Post · October 2008
Whether eternal subordination can be held without giving up the Son’s full deity.
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Warfield on Eternal Subordination in the Trinity
Post · August 2011
Warfield’s carefully limited sense of “subordination”—and how it gets misused.
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John Frame on 1 Corinthians 15:28 and Eternal Subordination
Post · March 2008
Reading the Son’s “subjection” in 1 Corinthians 15:28 with John Frame.
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Moulton on 1 Corinthians 15:28
Post · April 2008
Moulton takes ὑποταγήσεται as an ingressive future: the Parousia initiates a new kind of subordination rather than perpetuating an eternal one.
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Barth on the Son’s Subordination to the Father
Post · May 2008
Barth’s startling talk of obedience in God, and what to make of it.
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Essential Equality and Functional Subordination: A Complementarian Novelty?
Post · January 2008
Is permanent functional subordination a novelty dressed up as tradition?
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Hierarchy Does Not Necessitate Opposition
Post · February 2008
Bilezikian and Giles both assume that authority among the persons implies the threat of discord. Three ways to account for that reasoning—none of them good.
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Gunton on Taxis in the Trinity
Post · May 2008
Order (taxis) in the Trinity without subordination of being.
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Intratrinitarian Reconciliation?
Post · February 2008
Can the competing accounts be reconciled—or do they finally conflict?
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Ware–Grudem vs. McCall–Yandell on the Trinity
Post · August 2008
Framing the live debate between the two camps.
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Post · October 2008
A question put to Keith Yandell at the heart of the exchange.
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Does the McCall–Yandell Argument Work? Feinberg Says No
Post · October 2008
Feinberg’s verdict on whether the anti-subordination argument works.
Papers 2
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A Rebuttal to the Watchtower Publication Should You Believe in the Trinity?
Paper · 2008
A point-by-point answer to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ case against the Trinity.
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Paper · 2004
Where LDS theology parts company with the doctrine of God—a plurality of gods, and a Father who progressed to godhood.
Book Reviews 2
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Father, Son, and Spirit by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Scott R. Swain
Review · 2008
A biblical-theological study of the Trinity in John’s Gospel.
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Post · May 2008
First notes on the NSBT volume that Köstenberger and Swain wrote.
Looking for the best of what others have written on this? See the Trinity bibliography →