Definitions and Proponents in the Trinity Hierarchy Debate

By Andrew David Naselli and Philip R. Gons

Supplementary material (definitions and proponents) for our chapter “An Examination of Three Recent Philosophical Arguments against Hierarchy in the Immanent Trinity,” pages 197–215 in One God in Three Persons (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015).

	Father	Son	Spirit
Father	ingenerateness1	filiation/sonness	spiration/spirithood
Son	paternity/fatherhood	generateness/begottenness	spiration/spirithood
Spirit	spirator	spirator	procession

Defining the Terms

Fruitful dialog depends on, among other things, consistent usage of well-defined terminology. This chapter’s argument makes use of the following vocabulary.

Views on the Trinity Hierarchy Debate

Equivalentism: the view that the three persons of the Trinity are equal in being and have no necessary roles different from one another.² This is also referred to as egalitarian trinitarianism³ or non-hierarchical trinitarianism.

Hierarchicalism: the view that the three persons of the Trinity equally possess the one shared divine essence, but that there exists among the persons an order, rank, and priority—the Father being first, the Son being second, and the Spirit being third.⁴ Erickson labels this view as gradationism.⁵ This is also referred to as complementarian trinitarianism, hierarchical trinitarianism. Proponents will often speak of the monarchy or priority of the Father in the taxis of the Trinity.⁶

View on the Gender Debate

Complementarianism: the view that men and women are equal in their dignity and value but different in their necessary roles of authority and submission in the context of the home and the church—men having authority and women being in submission. Other terms used for this view include hierarchical complementarianism, hierarchicalism, biblical patriarchy, and patriarchalism.⁷

Egalitarianism: the view that men and women are equal in their dignity, value, and authority and should exercise mutual submission. Other terms used for this view include egalitarian complementarianism, evangelical feminism, and biblical feminism.⁸

Perspectives on the Trinity

Economic Trinity: the Triune God as he relates to his creation in time (ad extra). Both sides of the debate agree that the Son is subordinate to the Father in the economic Trinity. Less common terms for this doctrine include revelational Trinity, mediatorial Trinity, historical Trinity, and functional Trinity.

Immanent Trinity: the Triune God as he exists in himself (ad intra). Synonymous terms include ontological Trinity, essential Trinity, absolute Trinity, and eternal Trinity.

Other Terms

Person: a distinct being possessing a center of self-consciousness. Nicene trinitarianism maintains that God is three persons. In the West, the Latin word persona was used. In the East, the Greek word ὑπόστασις (hypostasis) was used. Theologians often use subsistence (lat. subsistentia)⁹ synonymously.¹⁰

Nature: nature is the sum total of all that makes one who he is.¹¹ Nicene trinitarianism maintains that all three persons of the Trinity share the same divine nature. In the West, the Latin word substantia was used. In the East, the Greek word οὐσία (ousia) was used. Theologians often use substance and essence synonymously. The word ontological is based on οὐσία, so that ontological equality is another way of talking about having the same nature or essence.

Personal properties: the incommunicable attribute or attributes that distinguish each of the three persons of the Trinity. Though Father, Son, and Spirit possess equally the one divine nature, each person possesses one or more personal properties that differentiate them from each other. Most commonly these personal properties are thought to be ingenerateness, generateness, and procession.

Ingenerateness: the Nicene term for referring to the Father as not begotten by or proceeding from the Son or the Spirit. As such, ingenerateness is the personal property of the Father that distinguishes him from the Son and the Spirit. Synonymous terms include unorginateness,¹² unbegottenness, and innascibility. The Father’s paternity or fatherhood is another way of describing his eternal and necessary incommunicable personal property. Neither the Son nor the Spirit eternally and necessarily possesses the property of relating to the other persons of the Trinity as Faither.

Generateness: the Nicene term for referring to the Son as eternally begotten by the Father. As such, generateness is the personal property of the Son that distinguishes him from the Father and the Spirit. The term begottenness is used interchangeably. The Son’s filiation or sonship is another way of describing the his eternal and necessary incommunicable personal property. Neither the Father nor the Spirit eternally and necessarily possesses the property of relating to the other persons of the Trinity as Son.

Procession: the Nicene term for referring to the Spirit as eternally proceeding from the Father.¹³ As such, procession is the personal property of the Spirit that distinguishes him from the Father and the Spirit. The Spirit’s eternal spiration or spiritness is another way of describing the his eternal and necessary incommunicable personal property. Neither the Father nor the Son eternally and necessarily possesses the property of relating to the other persons of the Trinity as Spirit.

Role: what one does as distinct from who he is. The term function is used interchangeably.

Order: used synonymously with rank. The Greek word is τάξις (taxis).

Monarchy of the Father: the view that in the eternal Trinity the Father is first, the Son is second, and the Spirit is third. This entails an order, ranking, . The West used the Latin term monarchia. Affirming the monarchy of the Father was the prevailing orthodox view and is to be distinguished from the heresies of modalistic¹⁴ and dynamic monarchianism.¹⁵

Hierarchy: a system of ordering one entity above another on the basis of its higher status, rank, or authority.

Subordination: the state of being under another in rank, status, or authority. Both sides of the debate agree that the Son was subordinate to the Father during the incarnation and may even continue to be since he will forever retain his human nature. They differ on whether that subordination inheres in the eternal Trinity and is thus necessary. The term subordinationism is often used interchangeably, but this has been resisted by hierarchical trinitarians because subordinationism most often refers to the Arian heresy that situates the Son under the Father in terms of his nature.¹⁶

Eternal generation: the view that the Son was eternally begotten by the Father and derived his essence and person from the Father. Since this begetting happened outside of time, it cannot be said that Son has not always existed. The doctrine was formulated to defend the Son’s homoousios with the Father.

Eternal procession: the view that the Spirit eternally proceeded from the Father¹⁷ and derived his essence and person from the Father. Since this begetting happened outside of time, it cannot be said that Son has not always existed. The doctrine was formulated to defend the Son’s homoousios with the Father.

Perichoresis: the mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity. The term is used to preserve the full equality of the persons, who all share equally the one divine nature, without blurring their individual identities or personal distinctions. Both oneness and threeness are fully affirmed. The Greek word is περιχώρησις. Synonymous terms include circumincession (lat. circumincessio), interpenetration, and coinherence.

Homoousios: the Nicene doctrine that Son is of the exact same essence as the Father. The Greek word is ὁμοούσιος. The Latin version of the term, consubstantiality (lat. consubstantialitas), carries the same meaning.

Rahner’s Rule:

Eternal Functional Subordination

That there exists an eternal and thus necessary ordering or hierarchy within the immanent Trinity has been the prevailing view of the church for two millennia. This view has taken many forms of expression. Some prefer to speak only of order and fastidiously avoid talk of subordination or hierarchy. Others are comfortable using terms like hierarchy and subordination, but are quick to clarify that there is complete equality with regard to the one divine essence. Recently authority, submission, and obedience have become characteristic ways some have chosen to articulate the differences between the persons.

Present Proponents

The first view, which may be called eternal functional subordination, finds its most representative expression in the writings of Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware.

Wayne Grudem

In Wayne Grudem’s view, articulated in his Systematic Theology (2004), the Father, Son, and Spirit exist in an eternal relationship that can be described in terms of “ontological equality but economic subordination” and “equal in being but subordinate in role.”¹⁸ In their relationship to creation (i.e., in the economic Trinity), “[t]he Son and Holy Spirit are equal in deity to God the Father, but they are subordinate in their roles.”¹⁹ This order and hierarchy within the economic Trinity reflects the immanent Trinity: “the different functions that we see the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit performing are simply outworkings of an eternal relationship between the three persons, one that has always existed and will exist for eternity.”²⁰ Because of this, it is not possible that the economic Trinity could have been different than it is.²¹ But this “eternal subordination in role among the members of the Trinity” in no way compromises the full equality of all three persons in “deity, attributes, or essential nature.”²² Elsewhere, Grudem articulates the Father son relationship in terms of authority and submission.²³

“authority and submission between the Father and the Son, and between Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, is a fundamental difference (or probably the fundamental difference) between the persons of the Trinity.”

Bruce Ware

In Bruce Ware’s view, an “authority-submission structure . . . exists eternally in the three Persons in the Godhead, each of whom is equally and fully God.” By setting this authority-submission structure in eternity, Ware sees it as describing “the very nature of the eternal Being of the one who is three.”²⁴ He continues,

1. The Father possesses the place of supreme authority, and the Son is the eternal Son of the eternal Father. As such, the Son submits to the Father just as the Father, as eternal Father of the eternal Son, exercises authority over the Son. And the Spirit submits to both the Father and the Son. This hierarchical structure of authority exists in the eternal Godhead even though it is also eternally true that each Person is fully equal to each other in their commonly possessed essence.²⁵

Ware fully affirms that the Father, Son, and Spirit are “equal in essence as each possesses fully the identically same, eternal divine nature.”²⁶ But they are not the same; “each is also an eternal and distinct personal expression of the one undivided divine nature.” The three do not differ by their nature; rather, “what distinguishes the Son is his particular role as Son in relation to the Father and to the Spirit and the relationships that he has with each of them.”²⁷ Ware articulates the difference in terms of the Son’s submission to the Father’s authority: since “the Son . . . is the eternal Son of the eternal Father, . . . [he] stands in a relationship of eternal submission under the authority of his Father.”²⁸

Past Proponents

Though not identical to the expositions of Grudem and Ware, theologians from the past centuries have articulated a similar view that acknowledges eternal subordination in the Trinity. Two representatives are Charles Hodge (1797–1878) and A. H. Strong (1836–1921).

Charles Hodge

In his Systematic Theology (1871–73), Charles Hodge makes clear and consistent use of subordination terminology, speaking of “a subordination of the Persons as to the mode of subsistence and operation.”²⁹ This excludes subordination of essence, for “same divine essence with all its infinite perfections is common to the Father, Son, and Spirit,” which ensures that “there can be no inferiority of one person to the other in the Trinity.”³⁰ Mode of operation deals with the economic Trinity, but mode of subsistence has in view the eternal and necessary distinctions of the three persons of the immanent Trinity. As such, Hodge loosely belongs in the eternal subordination camp. However, Hodge’s discussion of the Trinity lacks the obedience and authority–submission language that pervade the writings of Grudem and Ware.

A. H. Strong

Strong’s view and expression contained in his Systematic Theology (1886) mirror Hodge’s: “The subordination of the person of the Son to the person of the Father, or in other words an order of personality, office, and operation which permits the Father to be officially first, the Son second, and the Spirit third, is perfectly consistent with equality. Priority is not necessarily superiority.”³¹ He continues, “We frankly recognize an eternal subordination of Christ to the Father, but we maintain at the same time that this subordination is a subordination of order, office, and operation, not a subordination of essence.”³² Two points differentiate Strong’s expression from Hodge’s: (1) Strong uses person and personality or order instead of subsistence,³³ and (2) he adds office alongside operation. But his view is fundamentally the same. This subordination in the economic Trinity expresses the subordination in the immanent Trinity. The eternal and necessary subordination of the Son to the Father inheres in the Son’s distinct personal property of sonship. Absent from Strong’s discussion, like Hodge’s, is language of obedience and authority–submission.³⁴

Eternal Functional Equality

Recently several theologians and philosophers have challenged the eternal functional subordination view, arguing that it does not comport with the Bible, its theology, the mainstream historical view, or the laws of logic. Kevin Giles, Millard Erickson, Thomas McCall, and Keith Yandell represent the eternal functional equality view, also known as equivalentism or egalitarian trinitarianism. In order to achieve maximum equivalency, most but not all proponents of this view reject the doctrines of eternal generation and eternal process.

Kevin Giles

Kevin Giles is one of the first to challenge the eternal functional subordination view. Two publications capture his views: The Trinity and Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God and the Contemporary Gender Debate (2002) and Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity (2006).³⁵ He states it this way: “the subordination of the Son seen in the incarnation is voluntary and temporal. Rather than indicating the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father, it speaks of their unity. The Father and the Son are one in being and act.”³⁶ That equality extends to their authority as well, so that in no sense does the Father have authority over the Son or the Spirit in the immanent Trinity.³⁷

Millard Erickson

In Who’s Tampering with the Trinity? An Assessment of the Subordination Debate (2009), Millard Erickson evaluates both sides of the debate and lands on the side of the equivalentists. Since the book is an evaluation and critique of both sides of the debate, he never fully articulates his view.

[T]he texts that speak of the Father commanding and the Son obeying are to be understood as referring to the time of the Son’s earthly ministry. The Father’s will, which the Son obeys, is actually the will of all three members of the Trinity, administered on their behalf by the Father. . . . [I]t is our judgment hat overall, the equivalence view does a better job of explaining more of the biblical evidence with less distortion of the texts.

Thomas McCall

Keith Yandell

2.1. Equality of essence and necessary inequality of function are incompatible.

Statement of the First Argument

McCall, Groothius, Sumner, Bilezikian, Erickson

One of the most basic arguments gender and trinitarian egalitarians level against their hierarchical opponents is that equality of essence and necessary inequality of role are mutually exclusive. The argument goes something like this:

In “Equal in Being, Unequal in Role: Exploring the Logic of Woman’s Subordination,” Rebecca Groothuis attempts to prove that “woman’s unequal ‘role’ entails woman’s unequal being.”³⁸ Groothius allows for a temporary, contingent, functional subordination that preserves man and woman’s equality. The problems arise when that subordination is permanent and necessary. If it is necessary, one must ask what necessitates it? Philosophy places such necessity in ontology. In other words, if women are necessarily subordinate to men in the contexts of the home and the church, then women are also subordinate ontologically (or in being). If they are subordinate in being, then they are inferior beings. Inferior beings are not equal to superior beings. So Groothuis concludes that “women are created equal with men and so cannot be permanently, comprehensively and necessarily subordinate to men.”³⁹

Groothuis charges complementarians with making a novel claim by asserting that beings can be equal and have necessarily unequal roles.⁴⁰

the argument this way:

It may sound quite plausible to insist that woman’s subordination and man’s authority are merely roles assigned by God and so do not entail woman’s personal inferiority. Roles, by definition, do not necessarily bespeak qualities of personal being. But patriarchal gender roles are not roles in accordance with the usual definition. These “roles” have a one-to-one correspondence with being. Where the “being” is, there the “role” is also. “Female being” corresponds precisely to “a role of subordination to male authority.” The word role is used in a way that renders its meaning basically synonymous, or redundant, with being.

Female subordination and male authority may be semantically reduced to “roles” or “functions,” but in reality they serve as modes of being—permanent personal identities, built into each one’s personal makeup by the Creator himself. Thus when the man rules and the woman obeys, each is only doing what each is inherently designed to do. ⁴¹

To state it another way, Sumner avers,

It makes good sense to say inferior beings ought to assume subordinate roles; that’s why the church fathers said it. But it doesn’t make sense to say equal beings should always be subordinate . . . . It’s more logical to say that equal beings share in equal status.⁴²

Omelianchuk: It is not logically possible for woman to be spiritually and ontologically equal to man and at the same time to be universally subordinate to man solely on the basis of the intrinsic quality of her gender.⁴³

Explaining the fourth point, the author . . .

Woman is subordinated to man solely by virtue of her femaleness; this is the decisive factor that assigns her to a place of subordination. Although woman is said to be equal in her essential being, she is considered subordinate (unequal) because of her essential being. Such a contradictory conclusion is incoherent and denies that the Bible is logical.⁴⁴

This same logic is applied to the relationships among the persons of the Godhead.

[S]ubordination that extends into eternity cannot be merely functional, but must also be ontological. . . . And since eternity is an intrinsic quality of God’s existence, it logically follows that what the Son is eternally, he is in being. If the Son is eternally subordinate in function, then he is eternally subordinate in being. ⁴⁵

Bilezikian:

It should be either equality and no hierarchy, or hierarchy and no equality.⁴⁶

In other words, equality of essence necessitates equality of role and inequality of essence necessitates inequality of role.

Erickson showed that the eternal subordinationist view of the Son shares the same logical and philosophical flaws as the permanent subordinationist view of women. Both views undermine their affirmation of equality in essence by simultaneously affirming an inherent and unchanging hierarchy of authority. Both views also confuse difference of role with difference of rank. In the historic view of the Trinity, the different roles served by members of the Trinity do not entail the eternal and immutable differences in rank that subordinationists wish to impose.

Response to the First Argument

Thomas Schreiner:

Evangelical feminists … conclude that a difference in function necessarily involves a difference in essence; i.e., if men are in authority over women, then women must be inferior. The relationship between Christ and the Father shows us that this reasoning is flawed. One can possess a different function and still be equal in essence and worth. Women are equal to men in essence and being; there is no ontological distinction, and yet they have a different function or role in church and home. Such differences do not logically imply inequality or inferiority, just as Christ’s subjection to the Father does not imply His inferiority.⁴⁷

Steven Cowan has offered a critique to Groothuis’s argument in “The Metaphysics of Subordination: A Response to Rebecca Merrill Groothuis.”⁴⁸

P. T. Forsyth asserts that “subordination is not inferiority, and it is Godlike. The principle is imbedded in the very cohesion of the eternal Trinity and it is inseparable from the unity, fraternity and true equality of men. It is not a mark of inferiority to be subordinate, to have an authority, to obey. It is divine.”⁴⁹⁵⁰

C. Hodge: “subordination does not imply inferiority”

For simplicity, the argument can be summarized this way:

If the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father in all possible worlds, then the Son is necessarily subordinate to the Father in all possible worlds.

If the Son is necessarily subordinate to the Father in all possible worlds, then the Son is essentially subordinate to the Father in all possible worlds.

Therefore, the Son, as essentially subordinate to the Father, is of a different essence or nature than the Father, which entails a denial of homoousion.

Calvin on differences in the persons of the Trinity:

Calvin: “there is a subsistence (hypostasis) of the Son which distinguishes him from the Father. The same holds in the case of the Holy Spirit; for we will immediately prove both that he is God, and that he has a separate subsistence from the Father. This, moreover, is not a distinction of essence, which it were impious to multiply.”⁵¹

Sabellianism is the rejection of order or distinction in the Godhead. Institutes I, xiii, 4

person, then, I mean a subsistence in the Divine essence,—a subsistence which, while related to the other two, is distinguished from them by incommunicable properties⁵²

But because he could not be with God without dwelling in the Father, hence arises that subsistence, which, though connected with the essence by an indissoluble tie, being incapable of separation, yet has a special mark by which it is distinguished from it.⁵³ Now, I say that each of the three subsistences while related to the others is distinguished by its own properties.⁵⁴

the peculiar property of each distinguishes the one from the other. Again, whatever is proper to each I affirm to be incommunicable, because nothing can apply or be transferred to the Son which is attributed to the Father as a mark of distinction.⁵⁵

there is in God a certain arrangement or economy, which makes no change on the unity of essence⁵⁶

the Father differs in some special property from the Son, and the Son from the Spirit⁵⁷

If [the Son] differs [from the Father], there must be some mark of distinction between them.⁵⁸

Regardless of one’s view of the doctrines of eternal generation and eternal process, the point is that the church’s best theologians over the last 1,700 years had a category for things that are necessarily true of the individual persons of the Trinity without being true of the shared divine essence. The result is that homoousios was preserved. If the argument set forth by McCall and Yandell works, then we need to be clear on its ramifications. Far from upholding creedal orthodoxy, anti-EFS actually assigns it all to antitrinitarianism.⁵⁹

Aquinas on the Trinity

Was it possible for any person to become incarnate?

Objection 1. It seems that no other Divine Person could have assumed human nature except the Person of the Son. For by this assumption it has been brought about that God is the Son of Man. But it was not becoming that to be a Son should be said of either the Father or the Holy Ghost; for this would tend to the confusion of the Divine Persons. Therefore the Father and Holy Ghost could not have assumed flesh.⁶⁰

Obj. 2. Further, by the Divine Incarnation men have come into possession of the adoption of sons, according to Rom. 8:15: For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but the spirit of adoption of sons. But sonship by adoption is a participated likeness of natural sonship which does not belong to the Father nor the Holy Ghost; hence it is said (Rom. 8:29): For whom He foreknew He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son. Therefore it seems that no other Person except the Person of the Son could have become incarnate.

Obj. 3. Further, the Son is said to be sent and to be begotten by the temporal nativity, inasmuch as He became incarnate. But it does not belong to the Father to be sent, for He is innascible, as was said above (I., Q. XXXII., A. 3; Q. XLIII., A. 4). Therefore at least the Person of the Father cannot become incarnate.

On the contrary, Whatever the Son can do, so can the Father and the Holy Ghost, otherwise the power of the three Persons would not be one. But the Son was able to become incarnate. Therefore the Father and the Holy Ghost were able to become incarnate.

I answer that, As was said above (AA. 1, 2, 4), assumption implies two things—viz., the act of the one assuming and the term of the assumption. Now the principle of the act is the Divine power, and the term is a Person. But the Divine power is indifferently and commonly in all the Persons. Moreover, the nature of Personality is common to all the Persons, although the personal properties are different. Now whenever a power regards several things indifferently, it can terminate its action in any of them indifferently, as is plain in rational powers, which regard opposites, and can do either of them. Therefore the Divine power could have united human nature to the Person of the Father or of the Holy Ghost, as It united it to the Person of the Son. And hence we must say that the Father or the Holy Ghost could have assumed flesh even as the Son.

Reply Obj. 1. The temporal sonship, whereby Christ is said to be the Son of Man, does not constitute His Person, as does the eternal Sonship; but is something following upon the temporal nativity. Hence, if the name of son were transferred to the Father or the Holy Ghost in this manner, there would be no confusion of the Divine Persons.

Reply Obj. 2. Adoptive sonship is a certain participation of natural sonship; but it takes place in us, by appropriation, by the Father, Who is the principle of natural sonship, and by the gift of the Holy Ghost, Who is the love of the Father and Son, according to Gal. 4:6: God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying, Abba, Father. And therefore, even as by the Incarnation of the Son we receive adoptive sonship in the likeness of His natural sonship, so likewise, had the Father become incarnate, we should have received adoptive sonship from Him, as from the principle of the natural sonship, and from the Holy Ghost as from the common bond of Father and Son.

Reply Obj. 3. It belongs to the Father to be innascible as to eternal birth, and the temporal birth would not destroy this. But the Son of God is said to be sent in regard to the Incarnation, inasmuch as He is from another, without which the Incarnation would not suffice for the nature of mission.⁶¹

Was it fitting that any person become incarnate?

1. Objection 1. It seems that it was not more fitting that the Son of God should become incarnate than the Father or the Holy Ghost. For by the mystery of the Incarnation men are led to the true knowledge of God, according to John 18:37: For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, to give testimony to the truth. But by the Person of the Son of God becoming incarnate many have been kept back from the true knowledge of God, since they referred to the very Person of the Son what was said of the Son in His human nature, as Arius, who held an inequality of Persons, according to what is said (John 14:28): The Father is greater than I. Now this error would not have arisen if the Person of the Father had become incarnate, for no one would have taken the Father to be less than the Son. Hence it seems fitting that the Person of the Father, rather than the Person of the Son, should have become incarnate.

Obj. 2. Further, the effect of the Incarnation would seem to be, as it were, a second creation of human nature, according to Gal. 6:15: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. But the power of creation is appropriated to the Father. Therefore it would have been more becoming to the Father than to the Son to become incarnate.

Obj. 3. Further, the Incarnation is ordained to the remission of sins, according to Matt. 1:21: Thou shalt call His name Jesus. For He shall save His people from their sins. Now the remission of sins is attributed to the Holy Ghost, according to John 20:22, 23: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them. Therefore it became the Person of the Holy Ghost rather than the Person of the Son to become incarnate.

On the contrary, Damascene says (De Fide Orthod. iii.): In the mystery of the Incarnation the wisdom and power of God are made known: the wisdom, for He found a most suitable discharge for a most heavy debt; the power, for He made the conquered conquer. But power and wisdom are appropriated to the Son, according to 1 Cor. 1:24: Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Therefore it was fitting that the Person of the Son should become incarnate.

I answer that, It was most fitting that the Person of the Son should become incarnate. First, on the part of the union; for such as are similar are fittingly united. Now the Person of the Son, Who is the Word of God, has a certain common agreement with all creatures, because the word of the craftsman—i.e., his concept—is an exemplar likeness of whatever is made by him. Hence the Word of God, Who is His eternal concept is the examplar likeness of all creatures. And therefore as creatures are established in their proper species, though movably, by the participation of this likeness, so by the non-participated and personal union of the Word to a creature, it was fitting that the creature should be restored in order to its eternal and unchangeable perfection; for the craftsman by the intelligible form of his art, whereby he fashioned his handiwork, restores it when it has fallen into ruin. Moreover, He has a particular agreement with human nature, since the Word is a concept of the eternal Wisdom, from Whom all man’s wisdom is derived. And hence man is perfected in wisdom (which is his proper perfection, as he is rational) by participating in the Word of God, as the disciple is instructed by receiving the word of his master. Hence it is said (Ecclus. 1:5): The Word of God on high is the fountain of wisdom. And hence for the consummate perfection of man it was fitting that the very Word of God should be personally united to human nature.

Secondly, the reason of this fitness may be taken from the end of the union, which is the fulfilling of predestination—i.e., of such as are preordained to the heavenly inheritance, which is bestowed only on sons, according to Rom. 8:17: If sons, heirs also. Hence it was fitting that by Him Who is the natural Son, men should share this likeness of sonship by adoption, as the Apostle says in the same chapter (8:29): For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son.

Thirdly, the reason for this fitness may be taken from the sin of our first parent, for which the Incarnation supplied the remedy. For the first man sinned by seeking knowledge, as is plain from the words of the serpent, promising to man the knowledge of good and evil. Hence it was fitting that by the Word of true knowledge man might be led back to God, having wandered from God through an inordinate thirst for knowledge.

Reply Obj. 1. There is nothing which human malice cannot abuse, since it even abuses God’s goodness, according to Rom. 2:4: Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness? Hence, even if the Person of the Father had become incarnate, men would have been capable of finding an occasion of error, as though the Son were not able to restore human nature.

Reply Obj. 2. The first creation of things was made by the power of God the Father through the Word; hence the second creation ought to have been brought about through the Word, by the power of God the Father, in order that restoration should correspond to creation according to 2 Cor. 5:19: For God indeed was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.

Reply Obj. 3. To be the gift of the Father and the Son is proper to the Holy Ghost. But the remission of sins is caused by the Holy Ghost, as by the gift of God. And hence it was more fitting to man’s justification that the Son should become incarnate, Whose gift the Holy Ghost is.⁶²

makes another error of equivocation—this time as it relates to what is possible.

Novatian responding to a modalist asserts his belief that the Son could not have sent the Father:

1. Besides, He says that He is sent: so that by that obedience wherewith the Lord Christ came, being sent, He might be proved to be not the Father, but the Son, who assuredly would have sent had He been the Father; but being sent, He was not the Father, lest the Father should be proved, in being sent, to be subjected to another God.⁶³

3. Does the economic Trinity reveal the immanent Trinity.

Statement of the Fourth Argument

Egalitarian trinitarians tend to emphasize the difference between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity. What God is like in his relationship to his creation is very different from what he is like in relationship to himself.

Response to Fourth Argument

The objection of . . . is that what the Bible reveals about the Trinity is true of the economic Trinity and not necessarily true of the immanent Trinity. You cannot begin with the God-man’s incarnational submission to the Father and assume that such a reality represents the immanent Trinity in any kind of analogous fashion. But such an approach is a slippery slope. Does the Bible reveal anything about the immanent Trinity? What if all of inspired Scripture’s teaching about God’s three-in-oneness deals with His revelation of Himself as He relates to His creation and not necessarily to His inner divine life when God was and everything else was not? It seems that this school of thought wants to read the fact of the Trinity back into the Godhead ad intra. But on what grounds? How is it that we can read the fact of the Trinity from the economic back into the immanent but nothing more? Can we be sure that God in the immanent Trinity is not really more than three? Does not modalism become a legitimate option if what God is in the economic Trinity is merely God’s way of bending to our weakness and doesn’t represent who he really is ad intra?

In other words, if the economic Trinity is not a faithful lens for looking at the inner life of the eternal Godhead, then by what standard to we know we can know anything about who God really is?

Calvin: God, in so speaking, lisps with us as nurses are wont to do with little children? Such modes of expression, therefore, do not so much express what kind of a being God is, as accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness. In doing so, he must, of course, stoop far below his proper height.⁶⁴

Possible responses:

1. Some passages of Scripture clearly deal with the immanent Trinity and not the economic Trinity. Really? Is that so clear?

2. The fact of the Trinity and the details about the Trinity are fundamentally different making it legitimate and reasonable to infer the one without given warrant for inferring the other.

3.

Letham: “we would have to say then that we had not received a true revelation of God, that Jesus Christ had not made known to us the true nature of God.”

Gunton: “Here, however, the priority of the Father is not ontological but economic. Such talk of the divine economy has indeed implications for what we may say about the being of God eternally, and would seem to suggest a subordination of taxis—of ordering within the divine life—but not one of deity or regard. It is as truly divine to be the obedient self-giving Son as it is to be the Father who sends and the Spirit who renews and perfects. Only by virtue of the particularity and relatedness of all three is God God. . . . Therefore, while it is right to affirm both Western and Eastern emphases on the Father as the ‘fount’ of the Trinity—though noting and disapproving its possibly impersonal connotations—this should not be at the expense of being able to speak of a kind of equality. Here I am indebted to Professor T. F. Torrance for some words of Gregory of Nazianzus which achieve the right kind of balance: ‘I should like to call…”

Mention Warfield’s reservation to do so.

It’s important to make a distinction between the various positions:

1. No eternal distinctions. There are no eternal distinctions because God is only one person who reveals himself to us as three persons. The God is fundamentally different from how He reveals himself.
2. No eternal distinctions except for self-identity. The three persons are completely identical in every respect except for self-identity. Person 1 is not Person 2, who is not Person 3. In terms of attributes, they are identical. They don’t have what theologians have typically identified as personal properties. This means that the notions of eternal generation and eternal procession are rejected. In addition, eternal generation would, according to the argument of Yandell and McCall, constitute a denial of homoousios. The immanent Trinity is fundamentally different from the economic Trinity.
3. Indefinable eternal distinctions within the realm of personal properties. The immanent Trinity may be similar to the economic Trinity.
4. Eternal distinctions of personal properties only in terms of origin (i.e., eternal generation and procession). The church fathers were struggling give labels to what the three persons of the Trinity shared in common and what they did not. I’m not persuaded by Scripture that these concepts accurate encapsulate the eternal distinctions. The immanent Trinity is similar to the economic Trinity.
5. Eternal distinctions of personal properties only in terms of roles (i.e., authority and submission). I don’t doubt that this could be there, but I have concerns with identifying the distinctions primarily in these terms. The immanent Trinity is very similar to the economic Trinity.
6. Eternal distinctions of personal properties in terms of origin and roles (i.e., eternal generation and procession and authority and submission). Mark Bird takes this position and argues for it in “Is Only Begottenness the Proper Basis for the Eternal Submission of the Son to the Father?” The immanent Trinity is identical to the economic Trinity.
7. Non-eternal distinctions of essence and personal properties. In Arianism, the Son and Spirit are not eternal; consequently, the distinctions originated when they were created. God is fundamentally different now from how He was eternally.

	Time	Sender	Sent	Sent One	Place
Matt. 10:40	[before the incarnation]	[the Father]	ἀποστείλαντά	the Son	[into the world]
Mark 9:37	[before the incarnation]	[the Father]	ἀποστείλαντά	the Son	[into the world]
Luke 4:18	[before the incarnation]	[the Father]	ἀπέσταλκέν	[the Son]	[into the world]
Luke 4:43	[before the incarnation]	[the Father]	ἀπεστάλην	the Son	[into the world]
Luke 9:48	[before the incarnation]	[the Father]	ἀποστείλαντά	the Son	[into the world]
Luke 10:16	[before the incarnation]	the Father	ἀποστείλαντά	the Son	[into the world]
John 3:17	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλεν	the Son	[into the world]
John 3:34	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλεν	the Son	[into the world]
John 4:34	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψαντός	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 5:23	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψαντα	the Son	[into the world]
John 5:24	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψαντί	the Son	[into the world]
John 5:30	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψαντός	the Son	[into the world]
John 5:36	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέσταλκεν	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 5:37	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψας	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 5:38	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλεν	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 6:29	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλεν	the Son	[into the world]
John 6:38	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψαντός	the Son	[into the world]
John 6:39	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψαντός	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 6:44	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψας	the Son	[into the world]
John 6:57	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλέν	the Son	[into the world]
John 7:16	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψαντός	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 7:18	before the incarnation	[the Father]	πέμψαντος	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 7:28	before the incarnation	[the Father]	πέμψας	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 7:29	before the incarnation	[the Father]	ἀπέστειλεν	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 7:33	before the incarnation	[the Father]	πέμψαντά	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 8:16	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψας	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 8:18	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψας	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 8:26	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψας	the Son	[into the world]
John 8:29	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψας	the Son	[into the world]
John 8:42	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλεν	the Son	[into the world]
John 9:4	before the incarnation	[the Father]	πέμψαντός	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 10:36	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλεν	the Son	into the world
John 11:42	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλας	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 12:44	before the incarnation	[the Father]	πέμψαντά	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 12:45	before the incarnation	[the Father]	πέμψαντά	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 12:49	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψας	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 13:20	before the incarnation	[the Father]	πέμψαντά	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 14:24	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψαντός	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 15:21	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψαντά	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 16:5	before the incarnation	the Father	πέμψαντά	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 17:8	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλας	the Son	[into the world]
John 17:18	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλας	the Son	into the world
John 17:21	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλας	the Son	[into the world]
John 17:23	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλας	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 17:25	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέστειλας	[the Son]	[into the world]
John 20:21	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέσταλκέν	[the Son]	[into the world]
Gal. 4:4	before the incarnation	the Father	ἐξαπέστειλεν	the Son	[into the world]
1 John 4:9	before the incarnation	[the Father]	ἀπέσταλκεν	the Son	into the world
1 John 4:10	before the incarnation	[the Father]	ἀπέστειλεν	the Son	[into the world]
1 John 4:1465	before the incarnation	the Father	ἀπέσταλκεν	the Son	[into the world]
Matt. 4:1	during the incarnation	the Spirit	ἀνήχθη	Jesus	into the wilderness
Mark 1:12	during the incarnation	the Spirit	ἐκβάλλει	Jesus	into the wilderness
Luke 4:1	during the incarnation	the Spirit	ἤγετο	Jesus	into the wilderness

The diagram would look something like this:

3.2. Eternal Subordination? Maybe.

Recently some have spoken of the eternal differences that exist among Father, Son, and Spirit in terms of authority and submission. While such authority and submission may be a part of how each person relates to the other, we believe there are better ways to talk about these eternal differences.

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Muller, Richard A. The Triunity of God. Vol. 4 of Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003.

Mullin II, Miles S. “A Critical Assessment of the Filioque.” Faith and Mission 17, no. 3 (2000): 30–37.

Myatt, Alan. “On the Compatibility of Ontological Equality, Hierarchy, and Functional Distinctions.” Presented at the 61st annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society New Orleans, November 20, 2009.

Ngien, Dennis. Gifted Response: The Triune God as the Causative Agency of Our Responsive Worship. Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2008.

Olson, Roger E. and Christopher A. Hall. The Trinity. Guides to Theology, ed. Sally Bruyneel, et al. Grand Rapids and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, 2002.

Omelianchuk, Adam. “The Trinity and Eternal Subordination.” In “The Logic of Equality.” Priscilla Papers 22, no. 4 (Autumn 2008): 26–27.

Omelianchuk, Adam. “Ontologically Grounded Subordination: A Reply to Steven B. Cowan.” Philosophia Christi 13, no. 1 (2011), 169–80.

Owen, John. The Works of John Owen. Edited by William H. Goold. Vol. 2. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1851.

Phillips, Benjamin B. “Method Mistake: An Analysis of the Charge of Arianism in Complementarian Discussions of the Trinity.” Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 13, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 42–47.

Pierce, Ronald W., and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis. Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004.

Plantinga, Cornelius. “Gregory of Nyssa and the Social Analogy of the Trinity.” Thomist 50, no. 3 (July 1986): 325–52.

Plantinga, Cornelius. “Social Trinity and Tritheism.” In Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement: Philosophical and Theological Essays, edited by Ronald J. Feenstra and Cornelius Plantinga, 21–47. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989.

Plantinga, Cornelius. “The Threeness/Oneness Problem of the Trinity.” Calvin Theological Journal 23 (1988): 37–53.

Poythress, Vern Sheridan. “Reforming Ontology and Logic in the Light of the Trinity: An Application of Van Til’s Idea of Analogy.” Westminster Theological Journal 57, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 187–219.

Pugliese, Marc A. “How Important Is the Filioque for Reformed Orthodoxy?” Westminster Theological Journal 66, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 159–77.

Rea, Michael C. “Polytheism and Christian Belief.” Journal of Theological Studies 57, no. 1 (April 200):133–48.

Rea, Michael C. “Relative Identity and the Doctrine of the Trinity.” Philosophia Christi 5, no. 2 (2003): 431–45.

Rea, Michael C. “The Trinity.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, edited by Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, 689–734. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Reymond, Robert L. “The Trinitarianism of the Westminster Confession of Faith: Nicene or Reformed?” In Contending for the Faith: Lines in the Sand That Strengthen the Church, 125–28. Fearn, Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus, 2005.

Riley, Michael. “Trinitarian Ontological Equal Ultimacy and Economic Subordination.” Paper presented at the Bible Faculty Leadership Summit, Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary, Ankeny, IA, July 30–August 1, 2009.

Rondon, Jose. “Trinitarian Solidarity with Mankind in the Book of Hebrews.” Faith and Mission 21, no. 3 (Summer 2004): 46–58.

Sanders, Fred, and Klaus Issler. Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective: An Introductory Christology. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2007.

Sanders, Fred. The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010.

Schaff, Philip, ed. St. Augustin: On the Holy Trinity; Doctrinal Treatises; Moral Treatises. Vol. 3 of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.

Schemm, Peter R., Jr. “Taxis or Praxis? Why Trinitarians Do Not Make Good Feminists.” Faith and Mission 22, no. 1 (Fall 2004): 23–35.

Schemm, Peter R., Jr. “Kevin Giles’s The Trinity and Subordinationism: A Review Article.” Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 7, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 67–77.

Schemm, Peter R., Jr. “Trinitarian Perspectives on Gender Roles.” Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 6, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 13–19.

Sexton, Jason S. “The State of the Evangelical Trinitarian Resurgence.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 54, no. 4 (December 2011): 787–805.

Smith, James D., III. “Ancient Christian Trinitarian Metaphors and a Contemporary Analogy from Music.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 33, no. 3 (September 1990): 353–57.

Smith, Thomas. “The Distinctions in the Godhead Personal, and Not Nominal.” The Southern Presbyterian Review 12, no. 2 (1860): 289–310.

Stinson, Randy. “Does the Father Submit to the Son? A Critique of Royce Gruenler.” Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 6, no. 2 (Fall 2001): 12–16.

Storms, Sam, and Justin Taylor, eds. For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010.

Story, Dan. Defending Your Faith: Reliable Answers for a New Generation of Seekers and Skeptics. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1997.

Strachan, Owen, and Doug Sweeney. Jonathan Edwards on Beauty. The Essential Edwards Collection. Chicago: Moody, 2010.

Strauch, Alexander. “The Trinity and the Doctrine of Love.” Emmaus Journal 12, no. 2 (Winter 2003): 265–75.

Sumner, Sarah. Men and Women in the Church: Building Consensus on Christian Leadership. Downers Grove: IVP, 2003.

Thornton, Larry R. “A Biblical Approach to Establishing Marital Intimacy: Part I; Intimacy and the Trinity.” Calvary Baptist Theological Journal 4, no. 2 (Fall 1988): 43–72.

Thornton, Larry R. “A Biblical Approach to Establishing Marital Intimacy.” DMin thesis, Westminster Theological Seminary, 1988.

Tinder, Donald. “The Doctrine of the Trinity: Its Historical Development and Departures.” Emmaus Journal 13, no. 1 (Summer 2004): 121–49.

Tipton, Lane G. “The Function of Perichoresis and the Divine Incomprehensibility.” Westminster Theological Journal 64, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 289–306.

Toon, Peter. “Ways of Describing the Holy Trinity.” Reformation and Revival 10, no. 3 (2001): 95–118.

Toon, Peter. Our Triune God: A Biblical Portrayal of the Trinity. Wheaton: BridgePoint, 1996.

Tuggy, Dale. “The Unfinished Business of Trinitarian Theorizing.” Religious Studies 39, no. 2 (2003): 165–83.

Tuggy, Dale. “Tradition and Believability: Edward Wierenga’s Social Trinitarianism.” Philosphia Christi 5, no. 2 (2003): 447–56.

Tuggy, Dale. “Trinity.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trinity/

Van Til, Cornelius. The Theology of James Daane. Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1959.

Ware, Bruce A. “Equal in Essence, Distinct in Roles: Eternal Functional Authority and Submission among the Essentially Equal Divine Persons of the Godhead.” Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 13, no. 2 (2008): 43–58.

Ware, Bruce A. “Equal in Essence, Distinct in Roles: Eternal Functional Authority and Submission among the Essentially Equal Divine Persons of the Godhead.” In The New Evangelical Subordinationism? Perspectives on the Equality of God the Father and God the Son, edited by H. Wayne House and Dennis Jowers. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, forthcoming.

Ware, Bruce A. “How Shall We Think about the Trinity?” In God under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents God, edited by Douglas S. Huffman and Eric L. Johnson, 253–77. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.

Ware, Bruce A. “Tampering with the Trinity: Does the Son Submit to His Father?” Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 6, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 4–11.

Ware, Bruce A. “Tampering with the Trinity: Does the Son Submit to the Father?” In Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood, edited by Wayne A. Grudem, 232–53. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002.

Ware, Bruce A. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance. Wheaton: Crossway, 2005.

Ware, Bruce A., Wayne A. Grudem, Thomas McCall, and Keith Yandell. “Do Relations of Authority and Submission Exist Eternally among the Persons of the Godhead?” MP3. Trinity Debates. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Chapel, Deerfield, Illinois, October 9, 2008. http://www.henrycenter.org/media/?id=154&type=lect.

Warfield, Benjamin B. “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity.” In Biblical Doctrines. Vol. 2 of The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, 133–72. New York: Oxford University Press, 1932.

Warfield, Benjamin B. “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Trinity.” In Calvin and Augustine. In The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, 10 vols., 5:189–284. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991.

Warfield, Benjamin B. “God Our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” In The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, 10 vols., 2:213–31. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991.

Warfield, Benjamin B. “The Question of Subordination.” In “Trinity.” The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, edited by James Orr, 5:3,020–21. Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company, 1915.

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Yandell, Keith E. “How Many Times Does Three Go into One?” In Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Trinity, ed. Thomas McCall and Michael C. Rea, 151–70. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Zaspel, Fred G. “B. B. Warfield on the Trinity.” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 10, no. 1 (2005): 58–71.

§ 6. Miscellaneous

These two positions on hierarchy in the immanent Trinity basically parallel the two positions on gender roles, and often—but not always—one’s position on the former corresponds to his position on the latter. Some deny that the two issues are related and maintain that they must be determined independently of one another.⁶⁸

“starting from Augustine … it has been among theologians a more or less foregone conclusion that each of the divine persons (if God freely so decided) could have become man.”77 K. Rahner, The Trinity (New York: Seabury, 1974) 11; cf. M. Wiles, “Some Reflections on the Origins of the Doctrine of the Trinity,” JTS 8 (April 1957) 102–103; C. W. Lowry, The Trinity and Christian Devotion (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1946) 87.

Regardless, if the property being eternal generated can perhaps escape the argument, why can other properties like being in authority over or being in submission under not also?

As Gunton rightly warns, an undue “stress on the homoousion [may] run the risk of flattening out the particularities, so that divine being tends to be stressed at the expense of the divine persons.”⁶⁹ This, we fear, is the trajectory of those making this argument.

One possible response is the solution offered by Duns Scotus, who argues that the property able to become incarnate is a property of the Son’s person, not of the one shared essence. If this is true, this argument can evade the charge of heteroousion in the same way we did with the first argument. The Father and the Spirit lack this ability because it is not a property of the divine essence but of the Son’s unique subsistence of that essence. However, in our view, a better solution is available.

With reference to the first, he concludes that each of the three persons possesses the property necessary to becoming incarnate. But with reference to the second, he concludes that “[i]t was most fitting that the Person of the Son should become incarnate.”⁷⁰

As we have shown earlier, if the philosophical arguments above are successful, not only are the eternal differences of authority and submissions de facto ruled out, but any eternal differences entail a denial of homoousios. However, the majority of the church since its inception has embraced the doctrines of eternal generation and eternal procession, and by doing so they were affirming eternal and necessary differences among the persons of the Trinity. Given the speculative nature of eternal generation and eternal procession, some have moved to affirming less precise eternal differences. Father, Son, and Spirit aren’t arbitrary labels of the economic Trinity. Rather, they are eternal and necessary designations that correspond to the way the three persons of the Triune Godhead eternally and necessarily relate to one another. In that relating there is equality, order, and priority.

Such differences, according to McCall, Yandell, Erickson, and others, necessarily entail a denial of the Nicaean doctrine of homoousios.

Whether there are eternal differences among the persons of the Trinity seems a foregone conclusion. Those who deny such differences break from the church’s best theologians for the last two millennia. What exactly those differences are is open for discussion. Some have proposed that authority and submission are the best ways to think about those differences. Others have spoken in terms of ungenerateness, generateness, and spiration. . . .

Athanasian Creed

In hac Trinitate nihil prius aut posterius, nihil maius aut minus, sed-totae tres personae coaeternae et coaequales

none is greater or less than another

Keep writing

“sen? me” OR “sen? him” OR “sen? his son” OR “he sent” OR “he has sent” OR “God has sent”

The son sends the Spirit (John 15:26; John 16:7)

Acts 3:26

http://www.henrycenter.org/2011/12/19/bruce-mccormack-2011-kantzer-lectures-online/

There strongest argument is that ware and Grudem haven’t sufficiently proven their case. Instead, they are drawing non-necessecitated conclusions from the data. They should have ended their argument there.

Quotes

“an ontologically-grounded subordination within the triune divine life without any ontological subordinationism”

“Does subordination in God necessarily involve an inferiority, and therefore a deprivation, a lack? Why not rather a particular being in the glory of the one equal Godhead, in whose inner order there is also, in fact, this dimension, the direction downwards, which has its own dignity? Why should not our way of finding a lesser dignity and significance in what takes the second and subordinate place (the wife to her husband) need to be corrected in the light of thehomoousia of the modes of divine being?” (CD IV.1, 202)

“Here, however, the priority of the Father is not ontological but economic. Such talk of the divine economy has indeed implications for what we may say about the being of God eternally, and would seem to suggest a subordination of taxis—of ordering within the divine life—but not one of deity or regard. It is as truly divine to be the obedient self-giving Son as it is to be the Father who sends and the Spirit who renews and perfects. Only by virtue of the particularity and relatedness of all three is God God.

Therefore, while it is right to affirm both Western and Eastern emphases on the Father as the ‘fount’ of the Trinity—though noting and disapproving its possibly impersonal connotations—this should not be at the expense of being able to speak of a kind of equality. Here I am indebted to Professor T. F. Torrance for some words of Gregory of Nazianzus which achieve the right kind of balance: ‘I should like to call…”
http://biblia.com/books/promisetrinit/offset/496916 via @Logos

“The point could be strengthened and illustrated by saying that a subordinate activity does not imply something less than God, but the reverse. We must not forget that, as Barth repeatedly reminds us on trinitarian grounds, it is as Godlike to be humble as to be exalted.

In the words of the British Council of Churches’ report:

It does not follow that a ‘subordination’, an ‘ordering below’ entails an inferiority of personhood, dignity or being. It often appears so to us because—for example—obedience is often a merely external relation rather than a hearing stemming from love. As Christians, however, we would want to argue to the contrary, that Jesus’ humiliation, whether we see that demonstrated in his birth, his washing of the disciples’
feet or his sacrificial death, is a mark of his divinity and glory, not his inferiority.30″

http://biblia.com/books/promisetrinit/offset/79410 via @Logos

“it is illegitimate to attribute Fatherly, and so apparently superordinate, functions to man; but Son-like, and so subordinate, functions to woman, as Barth continues to do.30 Rather, we should not claim such detailed knowledge of the inner constitution of the godhead that we can attempt direct and logical readings-off of that kind.”

http://biblia.com/books/promisetrinit/offset/241019 via @Logos

“It has already been noted that after Origen there was always in the Church a temptation to rank the three persons of the Trinity on a descending scale. This was done, let me repeat, for the best of reasons: to maintain the unity of God and to do justice to the fact that the Son and the Spirit are in certain respects subordinate to the Father. After all, the Son obeys and the Spirit is sent, subordinate functions in that they are ordered by the Father to certain forms of action. In our modern obsession with equality, we tend to think that subordination is a bad thing, but that is wrong. It is only as humble that Jesus is divine, as Barth never tired of pointing out, only as the Church serves her Lord that she is truly the Church.”

Gunton, Father, Son, Holy Spirit

2. This explanation may be thought by some insufficient to account fully for the subjection of the Son referred to in 1 Cor. 15:28, or for the superior greatness ascribed to the Father in John 14:28. But, if so, we are only taught an inferiority of one person in the Trinity to another, as a person. Nothing indicates that it is of one of them as God, to another as God, or of the Godhead of one to the Godhead of another. It is only of the Son to the Father, and not of God the Son to God the Father. The subsistence of each of the persons in the same divine nature may still remain true, as well as that partaking of all of it by each, which makes all equally God.¹

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¹ James Petigru Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2010), 154.

3. The personal inferiority which is thus made possible, so far as it is natural, is due doubtless to the difference in the modes of subsistence in the divine essence. The Father thus subsists independently of the will, or the action of any other person. He is thus simply God; not originated, not begotten, not proceeding from. The Son is originated, his filiation is willed, though necessarily, by the Father, and he is begotten, and is, as the Athanasian creed asserts, “very God” of “very God.” The Holy Spirit is also originated; he is not however begotten, but proceeds from the Father, or from the Father and the Son. His procession is also willed, though necessarily, and he, likewise, is “very God” of “very God.” In this mode of subsistence, therefore, inferiority of the person of the Son to the Father, and of the Spirit to the Father and Son, may be said to exist. Without any superiority as God, therefore, the Father may be said to be greater than the Son, because of the personal relations in the Trinity.¹

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¹ James Petigru Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2010), 154.

“Interestingly, some like William Lane Craig deny eternal submission of the Son but affirm marital complementarianism. Conversely, others affirm the eternal subordination of the Son yet deny its relatedness to gender order in family and church—Craig S. Keener, “Is Subordination Within the Trinity Really Heresy? A Study of John 5:18 in Context” TJ 20 (1999), 39–51. Although I think gender issues appear related (1 Cor 11:3), this study has the single intent of understanding the triune God (and the theologies attempting to do so) grounded especially in Scripture, the only sure word we have.¹

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¹ Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler, Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective: An Introductory Christology (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2007).

He appeals to the Son’s eternal subordination to the Father as the resolution to the kenotic problem, stating,

that since the Son’s nature is not to take initiatives but to follow his Father’s promptings, his reason for not doing certain things, or bringing to conscious knowledge certain facts was simply that he knew that his Father did not wish this done. In other words, Jesus’ human limitations should be explained in terms, not of the special conditions of the incarnation, but of the eternal life of the Trinity.⁶⁵¹

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⁶⁵ J.I. Packer, ‘A Modern View of Jesus’, in Shorter Writings, 1.72.
¹ Don J. Payne, The Theology of the Christian Life in J. I. Packer’s Thought: Theological Anthropology, Theological Method, and the Doctrine of Sanctification (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2006), 197.

“God has given form and order to the history of salvation because he intends not only to save us through it but also to reveal himself through it. The economy is shaped by God’s intention to communicate his identity and character” (The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything [Wheaton: Crossway, 2010], 133).

By reason of [the divine processions] there is an eternal subordination of the Son to the Father, and of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son; but there is neither any temporal sequence of origin, nor any difference or inequality of essence.³¹

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³ On divine processions at large, see St. Thomas, op. cit., I. xxvii; Wilhelm and Scannell, op. cit., §§ 101–104; Franzelin, de Deo Trino, Thh. xxv–xxxi; Schouppe, Elem. Theol. Dogm., Tr. vi. §§ 135–150; R. Owen, Dogm. Theol., ch. v. § 4; Bp. Pearson, Apos. Creed, arts. ii, viii; A. P. Forbes, Nicene Creed, pp. 116–124, 256–262.
¹ Francis J. Hall, The Trinity, Dogmatic Theology (London; New York; Bombay; Calcutta: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910), 217.

Strong makes the same connections between the Trinity and gender: “The possibility of an order, which yet involves no inequality, may be illustrated by the relation between man and woman. In office man is first and woman second, but woman’s soul is worth as much as man’s; see 1 Cor. 11:3—“the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man: and the head of Christ is God” On John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I”—see Westcott, Bib. Com., in loco.”¹

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¹ Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1907), 342.

it cannot be denied that the best and purest teaching on this subject has laid emphasis on the mystery of an eternal subordination, in the Scriptural sense of the term, in the interior relations of the Two Persons of the Trinity to the First.¹

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¹ William Burt Pope, vol. 1, A Compendium of Christian Theology: Being Analytical Outlines of a Course of Theological Study, Biblical, Dogmatic, Historical, Volumes 1–3 (London: Beveridge and Co., 1879), 284.

even touching His divine nature. For the Eternal Son, though equal (Jno. 16:15) to the Father, is yet (5:26, 6:57) derived from, and therefore (1 Cor. 15:28) for ever subject to, Him. Of this eternal subordination, the eternal devotion and the historic obedience of the Son to the Father are an outflow. ¹

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¹ Joseph Agar Beet, A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1882), 181.

“The subordination of the Everlasting Son to the Everlasting Father is strictly compatible with the Son’s absolute divinity; it is abundantly implied in our Lord’s language; and it is an integral element of the ancient doctrine which steadily represents the Father as Alone Unoriginate, the Fount of Deity in the Eternal Life of the Ever-blessed Trinity” (The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, p. 202).¹

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¹ Alan Cairns, Dictionary of Theological Terms (Belfast; Greenville, SC: Ambassador Emerald International, 2002), 151.

Augustine, despite himself falling at times into the subordinationist trap, makes this very point. He asserts that it was by transferring “those things which are said of Jesus Christ according to the flesh to that substance of His which was eternal before the incarnation” that men have supported their subordinationist arguments (Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, First Series, 7:14).¹

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¹ Alan Cairns, Dictionary of Theological Terms (Belfast; Greenville, SC: Ambassador Emerald International, 2002), 151.

Miscellaneous Quotes:

“Bishop Bull, Bishop Pearson, and Dr. Waterland admitted an inferiority of the Son as to order, though not as to nature. Calamy calls this opening the door for Arianism. In denying that the Father has any supremacy above the Son or the Holy Ghost, he seems sometimes to be in danger of ‘confounding the persons.'” (235)

“Scotus also consistently introduces the terminology of subordination while conceptualizing the statement that the Father works through the Son. He uses two related terms in application to the persons of the Trinity other than the Father—subauctoritas and subauthentice—which are difficult to interpret except in terms of subordinate authority. Occasionally the term minoritas is also used, after Hilary and Peter Lombard, meaning the same thing, that is, some sort of a diminished authority.29 For example, the issue of the authority of the Father and “subauthority” or subordinate authority of the Son comes up during the discussion of creation and of “sending” or spirating the Holy Spirit.30 “… It must be said,” Scotus sums up, “that although the works of the Trinity may be undivided, they do not, however, operate in the same way regarding authority and subordination (subauctoritas).” According to Scotus, it does not follow that “the Father does something that the Son does not do” but it does follow “that the Father does or creates in some way through the Son.” (Bychkov, Oleg V. What Does Beauty Have to Do with the Trinity—From Augustine to Duns Scotus, 204–05)

Questions:

Do you know of any complementarians who don’t affirm the Son’s eternal functional subordination?

B. B. Warfield a past example of someone who was skeptical of seeing subordination in the immanent Trinity.

I just received in the mail the latest “special edition journal” from CBE (cbeinternational.org). It’s entitled, “Man, Woman, and the Triune God.” Nothing new here, but you might want to browse it. If you’re not on their mailing list, you could contact them to request it.

I was looking something up in Letham and came across a couple statements that I highlighted in his appendix several years ago:

Bilezikian “attributes the term subordination to me—a term I never use and steadfastly deny. I never use subordination or hierarchy or their functional equivalents—indeed, I sedulously avoid them” (480).

Bilezikian “says (with historical inaccuracy) that the councils excluded every form of hierarchy, order, or ranking among the person of the Trinity in their eternal state. He is correct about excluding hierarchy and rank. However, the councils insisted that an order exists among the persons” (484).

Giles “has some ready targets, for there has been some misguided language by some of his opponents—the phrase ‘the eternal subordination of the Son’ is outside the boundaries of the tradition[,] and Giles is right to point this out. This is a powerfully written and often compelling argument, the best I have read from his perspective” (489).

However, he does argue that “the submission displayed by the Son while securing our redemption reflects eternal realties in God” (483).

I’m more shocked by his praise of Giles’s book than I am his rejection of eternal subordination.

Letham is often grouped with Grudem and Ware, but clearly he’s a ways off from them. He’s closer to Olson, though Olson acknowledges subordination, but not authority and submission.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the Great Church as a whole (both East and West including the magisterial Protestant Reformers) believed in a hierarchy within the immanent Trinity.”

“I will argue that it is possible (if not necessary) to believe in the “monarchy of the Father” even within the immanent Trinity without making the Son and Spirit subordinate to the Father in terms of authority (i.e., obedience).”

“So hierarchy within the immanent Trinity can be affirmed without necessarily affirming authority over and subordination under.”

There are actually far more than two positions. There are at least seven:

God is not really three:

The persons are without distinctions (modalism).

No hierarchy or subordination (shades of EFE):

The persons are without non-existence-entailing distinctions (Yandell, McCall?, Erickson?, Bikezikian).

The persons have non-existence-entailing distinctions of origin (Giles).

The persons have non-existence-entailing distinctions of origin and non-hierarchical order (Letham, Calvin, Warfield?, Buswell?).

Hierarchy and subordination (shares of EFS):

The persons have non-existence-entailing distinctions of origin, hierarchical order (Olson, Hodge, Strong).

The persons have non-existence-entailing distinctions of origin, hierarchical order, roles, and authority (Grudem, Ware).

God is not really one:

The persons have ontological distinctions of origin, hierarchical order, rank, roles, and authority (Arius).

I’m somewhere between 4 and 6. This reminds me of why I took the approach I did. I felt compelled to ever-so-slightly distance myself from Grudem’s and Ware’s expression. No doubt we will get labeled as being in agreement with their position, even though I have some reservations about it.

Phil

Roger Olson

Is there hierarchy in the Trinity

Part 1

There is no doubt in my mind that the Great Church as a whole (both East and West including the magisterial Protestant Reformers) believed in a hierarchy within the immanent Trinity.

This last point is where things get sticky and where we have to focus careful attention and critical thought—the difference between two kinds of hierarchy and subordination (“monarchy of the Father): 1) in terms of derivation of deity, and 2) authority over.

Giles cites his main opponents in this debate in a lengthy footnote on page 23 of The Trinity & Subordination.  Among them are: George Knight, Susan Foh, James Hurley, Wayne Grudem and Andreas J. Kostenberger.

Part 2

The real debate among evangelicals is over whether the Son and Spirit are subordinate to the Father in terms of authority.

“Suggestions that superiority and inferiority of authority eternally exist among the Persons of the Godhead are problematic. All God’s attributes are essential. We should not posit distinctive, unequal attributes that divide God’s substance. If divine attributes are ranked in a hierarchy, then it necessarily follows that the lower ranked are of inferior quality. Therefore, it is contradictory to say that they share the identical substance (ousia), and yet the degree of each attribute can differ according to rank. Such an eternal distinction makes the Son less in authority than the Father, thereby dividing and separating the one God. Such radical social Trinitarianism ends up as tritheism. Affirming one God in three coeternal, coequal Persons is, therefore, necessary to preserve and perpetuate the one faith once given to the saints.”

I will argue that it is possible (if not necessary) to believe in the “monarchy of the Father” even within the immanent Trinity without making the Son and Spirit subordinate to the Father in terms of authority (i.e., obedience).

If in the economic Trinity we see (e.g., in John 14–17) a subordination of the Son to the Father there must also be subordination of the Son to the Father in the immanent Trinity.

Part 3

So hierarchy within the immanent Trinity can be affirmed without necessarily affirming authority over and subordination under.

I literally cannot make any sense of the claim that there is inequality of authority among three who share equally one will.

If the three persons of the Trinity are understood to be absolutely equal in the sense of sharing one will (in traditional, orthodox theology “will” is attached to “nature”), there cannot be authority over and subordination under in spite of hierarchical ranking of ontology.

I simply cannot conceive of any purpose for authority over or subordination under within the immanent Trinity. The words become empty; they have no references. At least not that we can conceive of.

http://www.dennyburk.com/latest-jbmw-talks-about-niv-trinity-and-more/

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/06/18/is-the-eternal-generation-of-the-son-a-biblical-idea/

http://www.upper-register.com/papers/monogenes.html

http://stackblog.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/does-the-trinity-prove-anything-about-gender-not-much/

http://topics.logos.com/Trinity

Notes

1. unorginateness/unorginiatedness/ingenerateness/unbegottenness/innascibility ↩

2. Equivalentists divide into two groups: (1) those who consistently reject any eternal distinctions among the persons of the Trinity (e.g., Keith Yandell) and (2) those who reject all eternal distinctions except for the Father’s paternity, the Son’s filiation, and the Spirit’s spiration (e.g., Kevin Giles). Equivalentists in the former group are forced to reject the doctrines of the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Spirit. Those in the latter group affirm them, but hold that they do not require hierarchy or order. ↩

3. Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective, 62. ↩

4. Hierarchicalists divide into two groups: (1) those who define the nature of the hierarchy in terms of authority and submission (e.g., Wayne Grudem, Bruce Ware) and (2) those who define the nature of the hierarchy in terms of source (e.g., Roger Olson). For the former group, the doctrines of the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Spirit are option. For the latter, they are essential. ↩

5. ↩

6. Emphasis on hierarchy in the Trinity and the monarchy of the Father is one of the key elements of Eastern trinitarianism. The Greek Father, Tertullian, Hilary, the Cappadocians, St. Cyril, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Gregory of Nyssa, Photius, Gregory II of Cyprus, Pannenberg, Roger Olson, etc. ↩

7. Some egalitarians have tried to claim the term for their position, mudding the waters a bit. Erickson argues that we should adopt two different versions of complementarianism: hierarchical complementarianism and egalitarian complementarianism. While we don’t object to those terms, we’ll be using the more established terms of complementarianism and egalitarianism. The term traditionalism is sometimes used to describe this view, but complementarians have avoided it because many traditionalists thought of women as lesser beings, which they reject. ↩

8. ↩

9. Occasionally spelled subsistantia. W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, ed. Alan W. Gomes, 3rd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2003), 234. J. S. Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God, The Foundations of Evangelical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 444. ↩

10. Sometimes Latin theologians used substantia as to refer to the persons, causing confusion. ↩

11. The divine nature may be defined as the generic essence, universal property, or attributes of Godness manifest equally in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. J. Scott Horrell, “The Eternal Son of God in the Social Trinity,” in Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective: An Introductory Christology, ed. Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2007), 49. a term having three primary meanings in scholastic theology and in Protestant orthodox usage: (1) essence; (2) a particular kind or species of essence in its actual existence; (3) the entire physical universe and its phenomena. In the first sense, natura simply means the character or quiddity (quidditas, q.v.) of a thing as defined by its primary qualities. Like essentia (q.v.), natura in this sense can be separate from the actual existence (esse, q.v.) of a thing. It indicates the genus, e.g., the humanitas, or humanity, of human beings, human nature in the most general sense. In the second sense, natura identifies the concrete substance (substantia, q.v.) of a species both in essence (essentia) and existence (esse): e.g., not merely humanitas or natura humana as the quiddity of human beings, but natura humana as the substance of a particular human being, such as that nature assumed by the person of Christ (SEE persona; persona Christi). Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1985), 199. ↩

12. Also sometimes spelled unorginiatedness. ↩

13. Or from the Father and the Son (filioque); or from the Father through the Son. ↩

14. Modalism, Sabellianism, or Patripassianism. ↩

15. Adoptionism. ↩

16. Erickson . . . ↩

17. See n16. ↩

18. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 251. ↩

19. Ibid, 249. ↩

20. Ibid, 251. ↩

21. Ibid, 250. “These roles could not have been reversed or the Father would have ceased to be the Father and the Son would have ceased to be the Son.” ↩

22. Ibid, 251. ↩

23. [J]ust as in the Trinity the Father is the leader and has authority over the Son, so in marriage the husband is the leader and has authority over his wife.” Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006). ↩

24. Bruce A. Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), 21. ↩

25. Ibid, 21. ↩

26. Ibid, ??. ↩

27. Ibid. ↩

28. Ibid. Cf. “Tampering with the Trinity: Does the Son Submit to His Father?” in Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood, ed. Wayne A. Grudem, Foundations for the Family Series (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002), 244–50. ↩

29. Charles Hodge, “The Trinity,” part 1, chapter 6 of Systematic Theology (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Co., 1873), 1:445. Hodge speaks consistently and exclusively of this subordination in terms of “mode of subsistence and operation” (1:187, 445, 461, 462, 464, 474, 529; 3:216). It seems that Hodge has in view what other theologians would rather describe in terms of order. ↩

30. Ibid, 1:460–61. ↩

31. “Doctrine of the Trinity,” part 4, chapter 2 of Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1907), 342. ↩

32. Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1907), 342. ↩

33. Person and subsistence are synonymous. Refer to the definitions in section 1. ↩

34. Talk about Barth as an example that does make heavy use of obedience terminology. ↩

35. ↩

36. TS, 31. Unlike other equivalentists, Giles affirms the historic doctrines of the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Spirit. Cf. “The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology” (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2012). ↩

37. ↩

38. 304. ↩

39. 305. ↩

40. https://philgons.com/2008/01/essential-equality-and-functional-subordination-a-complementarian-novelty/ Did complementarians invent the notion that beings can be equal in essence and yet one be subordinate to the other in terms of function or role? That’s what many egalitarians claim. Here’s an interesting selection from Ambrosiaster: The subjection of Christ to the Father means that every creature will learn that he is subject to Christ, who in turn is subject to the Father, and will thus confess that there is only one God. But Christ’s subjection to the Father is not the same thing as our subjection to the Son, because our subjection is one of dependence and not the union of equals. “Christ’s subjection to the Father is . . . one of . . . the union of equals.” The notion that a being can be equal in one sense yet subject in another sense is quite apparently not novel. ↩

41. Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, “‘Equal in Being, Unequal in Role’: Exploring the Logic of Woman’s Subordination,” in Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy, ed. Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004), 320. ↩

42. Sarah Sumner, Men and Women in the Church: Building Consensus on Christian Leadership (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 286. ↩

43. Adam Omelianchuk, “The Logic of Equality,” Priscilla Papers 22, no. 4 (Autumn 2008): 24. ↩

44. Ibid. ↩

45. Ibid, 27. ↩

46. , vol. 40, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society Volume 40, 1 (Lynchburg, VA: The Evangelical Theological Society, 1997), 64. ↩

47. Thomas Schreiner, “Head Coverings, Prophecies and the Trinity: 1 Corinthians 11:2–16” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1991), p. 128. Sarah Sumner, Men and Women in the Church: Building Consensus on Christian Leadership (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 286. ↩

48. Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 14, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 43–51. ↩

49. ⁹ P. T. Forsyth, God the Holy Father (1897; reprint, London: Independent Press, 1957), 42. ↩

50. Bruce A. Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005). ↩

51. John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, vol. 1, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 148. ↩

52. John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, vol. 1, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 153. ↩

53. John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, vol. 1, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 153. ↩

54. John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, vol. 1, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 153. ↩

55. John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, vol. 1, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 153–54. ↩

56. John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, vol. 1, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 154. ↩

57. John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, vol. 1, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 173. ↩

58. John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, vol. 1, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 177. ↩

59. To be sure, there are some theologians who rejected any notion of Father, Son, and Spirit have any personal properties that made them distinct from one another, but this view was not accepted as an orthodox option. What McCall and Yandell are ultimately doing, then, is reintroducing a doctrine of the Trinity that the church has consistently rejected as it has crept up over the last millennium and a half. ↩

60. Saint Thomas Aquinas and Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Summa Theologica, Complete English ed. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009). ↩

61. “Whether Several Divine Persons Can Assume One and the Same Individual Nature?” in Summa Theologica, complete English ed., ed. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009). ↩

62. Saint Thomas Aquinas and Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Summa Theologica, Complete English ed. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009). ↩

63. “A Treatise of Novatian concerning the Trinity,” in Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Novatian, Appendix. Vol. V of The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, ????), 638. ↩

64. John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, vol. 1, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 147. ↩

65. Cf. Mt 21:37; Mk 12:6; Jn 5:36; Jn 13:16; Jn 17:4; Acts 3:26. The Father sends the Spirit (Jn 14:26), as does the Son (Jn 15:26; 16:7; cf. Acts 2:33; 10:45). ↩

66. Bird, Michael, and Robert Shillaker. “Subordination in the Trinity and Gender Roles.” In The New Evangelical Subordinationism? Perspectives on the Equality of God the Father and God the Son, edited by H. Wayne House and Dennis Jowers. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, forthcoming. ↩

67. http://euangelizomai.blogspot.com/2010/06/trinity-without-tiers-graham-cole.html ↩

68. Mike Bird and Robert Shillaker argue that. Craig Keener is a gender egalitarian but defends and hierarchical view of the Trinity. Source. William Lane Craig conversely affirms gender complementarianism and egalitarian trinitarianism. Source. ↩

69. Colin E. Gunton, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Essays Toward a Fully Trinitarian Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 50–51. ↩

70. ↩