Andrew Moody’s review appeared in Briefing #341 (February 2007).
Dear Andrew,
In our numerous exchanges over many years on the eternal subordination of the Son and the permanent subordination of women we both have been always perfectly frank with one another. In this reply to your ‘review’ of my book, better entitled “a personal response,” I will again be forthright. What neither of us want is to produce a fog that results in no one being able to work out what they should believe on the most fundamental of all Christian doctrines, the doctrine of God and no one else being clear on what divides us. Please note the use of the word ‘fog’ because I think one of the great weaknesses in what you have written is that time and time again you deliberately or unintentionally because you don’t see the key issue, obfuscate the question in contention.
A deliberate example in regard to the women debate is where you describe the position I oppose as the ‘equal but different’ position. The fact is this wording exactly describes my position. What I oppose is appeal to the Bible to support “the permanent subordination of women”. Can you quote one evangelical who denies God has made us men and women, differentiated in creation? To communication in the pursuit of truth words must be used as they are in everyday speech, or be carefully defined if a distinct meaning is intended.
Another ‘big picture’ thing that worries me with your review is that you imply you are representing a well established, widely held school of thought you call the eternal relation subordination position (ERS). The truth is the key elements in your position are held by you alone. No orthodox Eastern or Western theologian argues as you do and even evangelicals close to you on the subordination of women differ from you on significant points on the Trinity. Doyle insists that the differences between the persons are in essence and nature, Grudem speaks of eternal subordination of the Son in authority, Letham denies both that derivation implies dependency and that the Father, Son and Spirit each have their own will. The only thing that is common to all contemporary evangelical subordinationists is the assertion that the Son’s subordination is eternal and this implies ontology. If the Son of God’s subordination is eternal, however described, it is person defining. He is the subordinated Son. This is the essence of the error called ‘Arianism’.
On the doctrine of the Trinity you would think we should be able to come to a common mind on what is orthodoxy because on this matter (unlike the very contemporary debate about women, or the Reformation and post Reformation debate on baptism) we are not simply disputing the interpretation of texts, and the weight to be given to various seemingly conflicting comments in Scripture, but also what the creeds, confessions and the great theologians past and present conclude is the teaching of Scripture. On the historically developed doctrine of the Trinity there is so much prescribed that it is hard to comprehend how people can come to diametrically opposed positions on key elements in this doctrine, yet you and I do.
As far as I can understand your distinctive position, it is this. What is most important in any adequate doctrine of the Trinity is to maintain the essential difference between the Father and the Son is the ‘priority’ of the Father. He is to be understood as the cause of the being of the Son and the origin of the Son’s authority. This unchanging and unchangeable subordinate relationship defines the Son’s being/essence/nature in distinction to that of the Father. If he were not relationally subordinated, he could not be differentiated from the Father. Proof of your understanding of the Son’s dependent and subordinate relationship with the Father is found in the incarnation. What is seen in his ministry on earth teaches us accurately about his relationship with the Father in heaven for all eternity. In diametrical opposition, I hold that the Father and the Son are eternally one in being, power and authority. The Father is not prior in time, prior in being, prior in divinity, prior in power, prior in functions, prior in the relations. The divine persons are ‘co-eternal’ and ‘co-equal’ (the Athanasian Creed). The subordination and obedience of the Son is limited entirely to his incarnate ministry when he freely chose to become a human being, take the form of a servant and die on the cross for our salvation (Phil 2:4-11). When Paul speaks of the obedience of Christ he is depicting him in his earthly ministry as the second Adam who wins our salvation (Rom 5:12-21).
In my extended discussion of biblical teaching I do not simply “grapple” with the “passages most problematic for [my] (own) position”, as you dismissively say but give a thorough coverage of New Testament teaching on the Trinity, showing how it is incompatible with your views. In support that what I am teaching is orthodoxy, I first appeal to the Bible where the primary confession for all Christians is “Jesus is Lord”. This confession speaks not the ministry of the Son on earth, but the ministry of the Son after his ascension and exaltation to reign as Lord in all power majesty and glory (Phil 2:9-11). From this point on in my book, I go onto demonstrate that my conclusions on what the New Testament teaches on the Trinity are the foundation on which the most important theologians from the past formulated their doctrine. What they concluded is now summed up in the creeds and confessions. These binding documents explicitly exclude your position, deeming it to be heretical. The Athanasian creed speaks of the divine three as each almighty and Lord, none before or after, all coequal and virtually all the Reformation and post Reformation confessions speak of the divine three as one in divinity/being and one in power/authority. In the creeds and confessions, the persons are differentiated by differing relations, not subordinate relations. The Reformed Belgic confession denounces those who teach that the Son is eternally ‘subordinate’ or ‘submissive’. When you tell your readers in a brief aside that “most of his [Kevin Giles’] historical material is fair and accurate”, I take it you mean that in your opinion my exposition of the thought of Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Augustine, Calvin, and the creeds and confessions is basically right. I am very pleased to see you saying this. Does this mean that you are admitting that there is much in these secondary authorities that count against your position?
What is missing in your ‘review’ is possibly more telling than what is say. You fail to mention that the position I expound is warmly endorsed without dissent by Cornelius Plantinga and Millard Erickson, two of the most able and respected conservative evangelical theologians in the world, both of whom have written substantial books on the Trinity and by Paul D. Molnar, one of the most sharp of Roman Catholic theologians whose specialty is the doctrine of the Trinity. The first review to appear by Professor Cary, an evangelical professor of Philosophy, who has written widely on the Trinity, is equally commendatory. I sent you a copy five months ago. You also fail to mention that so far the only theologians in the world who have dissented from my position in any substantial way are those committed to the permanent subordination of women. You also fail to mention that the basic argument of my book is that what I am expounding is historic orthodoxy as expressed in the creeds and confessions. You seem to imply I am the one with idiosyncratic opinions, if not the heretic!
To make a reply to me ignoring what the creeds and confessions prescribe as orthodoxy does not progress the debate one iota. It obfuscates matters. I ask you Andrew to openly face this issue. You have only two options: you unreservedly endorse the creeds and confessions as good summaries of biblical teaching, or you openly admit that you cannot endorse them and for this reason you cannot accept what I am teaching. Please tell me and your readers which of these positions you hold so that some clarity on what we are dissenting on is clear to everyone.
When I came to your paragraph where you say that I have so modified my position in Jesus and the Father that it seems that I now hold “something that looks quite compatible with” your position and that of your fellow subordinationists I wanted to cry out loudly, “NO, NO, NO! Please Andrew get the central issue in focus. Face the matter that divides us irreconcilably.” It is my argument that the historical texts with one voice exclude the idea that the Son is eternally set under the Father’s authority in being, function or relations: he is dependent God. My books, The Trinity and Subordinationism and Jesus and the Father speak with one voice in opposition to this teaching. Yes, you are right that it is within the bounds of orthodoxy to believe that the Father is the monarche of the being/essence of the Son and the Spirit, although I do not endorse this idea. What you completely fail to comprehend is that for Western and Eastern theologians, derivation does not imply subordination in being or authority. The Cappadocians rejected Origen’s neo-Platonic premise that derivation implies subordination and from then on no one who claims to be orthodox has followed Origen on this matter. Thus Robert Letham, (The Holy Trinity, pp. 159, 176, 177 etc), the most informed of evangelical subordinationists, rightly rejects that derivation implies subordination. Yes, you are right also that I accept that the Son is “God from God, light from light” language that has derivative connotations but as I point out the intent of this language is to show that the Son is exactly the same in divinity as the Father. He is true God, one in being, majesty, glory and authority with the Father. It is the X from X argument, not the X produces X argument. Yes, you are also right, I accept that in the New Testament the incarnate Jesus is depicted as ‘functioning’ as God and this is also the case for the ascended and glorified Christ. In the Gospels, what the Son does (his functions) show that he is fully God with all authority in heaven and earth. He drives out demons, heals the sick, forgives sins, raises the dead and after his ascension he rules in all power and majesty functioning as the Lord, God almighty.
What I argue is that the Son is depicted as functioning as God to make it clear that he is God in all power and majesty. Oneness in function in the Godhead indicates oneness in being and power. And yes, you are right, I endorse divine order. I believe nothing in God is random or disordered. What I oppose is the Arian principle that order necessarily implies hierarchical ordering in being and authority. I hold along with all dictionaries that neither the Greek word ‘taxis’ nor the English word ‘order’ necessarily imply sub-ordering. When one sees the word ‘order’ the question must be asked, what kind of order? I argue the three divine persons are horizontally ordered in being and power.
On all these matters, you and I stand on opposing corners on the exact same issues that were contested in the fourth century, with the ‘Arians’ on one side and Athanasius, the Cappadocians and Augustine among others on the other side. We are not close at any point except in terminology and on this we give different content to each key word.
Why you think my quote from Professor Hurtado counts against my case completely escapes me. You requote his words where he says in John’s gospel Jesus is depicted as God’s agent who “represents the Father perfectly sharing his divinity and authority”. Is not this my position exactly? Hurtado is of course describing how John speaks of Jesus earthly ministry when “the Word became flesh,” when the Son “descended from heaven”. At the beginning and the end of his Gospel, John makes it plain that this man Jesus of Nazareth is in reality God in all majesty and power without any caveats.
Next you raise the issue of the divine will, only to return to this later. I will deal with this matter once. Your case is that each divine person has their own will. Your first justification for this opinion is that all “social trinitarians,” those contemporary theologians who want to give more emphasis to divine differentiation than the Western tradition suggests, teach this. On this matter you are simply mistaken. Some social trinitarians speak of three centers of consciousness but I have seen none mention three wills. Can you cite one example? In any case you need to heed my warning in Jesus and the Father that social models of the Trinity err towards tritheism, a point Robert Letham also makes (The Holy Trinity, p. 316).
Several paragraphs later, you return to this matter. Here you speak of me being on “firmer ground” in arguing that the divine three have one will. I certainly am. I know of no orthodox theologian, Eastern or Western, who teaches otherwise. Orthodoxy with one voice holds that to argue for three wills in the one God is to breach divine unity. It implies necessarily tritheism. You then ask if the divine will is “entirely simple”—by which I take it you mean one—then how can we differentiate the persons? In answer, orthodoxy says in unison, not by positing three separate wills. This leads to three separate persons, tritheism. Chapter 6 of my book, Jesus and the Father, is given solely to answering how orthodoxy has eternally differentiated the divine persons in ways that avoid tritheism, subordinationism and modalism. At this point I will not travel that ground again. To reply that unless the Son is eternally relationally subordinated to the Father differentiated cannot be upheld is mind numbing. Two human beings can be clearly differentiated and yet be equals in the broad sense of this term; why not two divine persons?
In seeking to find some support to substantiate your view that Father, Son and Spirit each have their own will, you appeal to the incarnation where it is agreed that the human and the divine wills are present in the one man, Jesus Christ. This is was the conclusion reached at the sixth ecumenical council in 680 you mention. As Jesus continues as God and man after the ascension, you draw the novel conclusion that the eternal Son must have two wills in heaven. You thus add it is “entirely consistent … to maintain that the Son is henceforth (i.e. after the ascension) obedient to the Father’s divine will in heaven in the same way that he is on earth.” This is not serious theology. Should we really believe that the exalted divine Son who now rules as Lord has two wills in heaven and like in the Garden of Gethsemane he can find these two wills in tension?
The problem with this argument is that it demands correlating the ministry of incarnate Son in on earth with the exalted and glorified Son in heaven. Orthodoxy does not follow this path. Orthodoxy holds that the Son continues to be God and man after the ascension but clearly distinguishes his incarnate state and his exalted state. Augustine makes the contrast between the Son in “the form of a servant” (the incarnate Christ) and the Son in the form of God (Christ without the limitations of the flesh); in Reformed theology the contrast is made between the humiliated, incarnate Son and the exalted, glorified Son, and Barth takes up the contrast between the Son in the flesh and the Son without flesh. 1 Corinthians 15:42-49 would seem to support making such a contrast. What we are to believe is that in the ascension Christ’s humanity was exalted and glorified not his divinity compromised and subordinated.
Now I turn to what seems to be central to the position you espouse in this ‘review’ of my latest book. The eternal relational subordination of the Son is to be assumed, you insist, because he derives his being/essence from the Father. Because the Father gives to the Son everything he has he is less than the Father. The Father has, to quote your term, “priority” in the Godhead and thus conversely the Son is eternally sub-ordered. You first introduce this idea when you suggest that “the logic” of the “begetting” of the Son by the Father indicates “causation.” This sounds to me very like a literal understanding of the word ‘begetting’ that Arius adopted. He thought this term implied creation, dependency and relational subordination. Athanasius and all orthodox theologians since his time have in contrast insisted that the term ‘begetting’ is a metaphor, speaking of a father-son relationship marked by intimacy and common being.
In the last paragraph of your ‘review’, you tell your readers that I hold that “the traditional doctrine of begetting is wrong but we should retain the language”. You misrepresent me. On this matter, I argue against the principal theologian for the contemporary evangelical doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son, Wayne Grudem, who wants to eliminate the language of ‘begetting’. I argue in contrast it should be retained, although it is not well attested in Scripture, because it helpfully distinguished but does not subordinate the Father and the Son.
You claim that the language of ‘begetting’ indicates causation then leads you to take up again the idea that the Father as the monarche (sole source or cause) of the Son (and the Spirit). You tell us the 15th-century Western Council of Florence teaches this thereby giving “priority” to the Father. This council was an attempt to reconcile the teaching of the East and the West on the monarche of the Father, a doctrine as I have said I accept as within the bounds of orthodoxy, so long as it does not imply any diminution in divinity or authority for the Son and the Spirit. The conclusion that derivation implies relational subordination, as you suggest, is forcefully excluded in the words you quote from Florence, “the Father gave to his only begotten Son in begetting him everything the Father has, except to be Father.” Please note the word ‘everything.’ These words from Florence closely reflect Athanasius’ rule, that “the same things are said of the Son which are said of the Father except for calling him Father” which at the end of your ‘review’ you castigate me for quoting as if it were a “proof text”. Even if it is a proof text it represents orthodoxy.
For you my exposition of the Trinity is impossible to accept not only because along with historic orthodoxy I reject that derivation implies the eternal subordination of the Son in being, authority, functions, or relations, but also because I argue against the idea that the Father is the monarche of the being/essence of the Son and the Spirit. The rejection of this model of the Trinity is particularly difficult for you, Andrew, and other contemporary evangelicals who advocate the permanent subordination of the Son and women because it is on this basis of the “priority” of the divine Father that you argue for the priority of men in the home and the church. (Why not society as well?) You first of all raise objections to my case against the idea that the Father is the monarche by describing my arguments that Athanasius makes the whole Trinity the monarche of the three persons and that on this he differs from the Cappadocians as “unconvincing” and “terribly forced.” Some significant differences between the Athanasius and the Cappadocians is almost universally recognized so I do not think this claim is so easily dismissed. In questioning that the Father alone is to be understood as monarche of the being of the Son and the Spirit, I follow no lesser scholar than T F Torrance who was able to convince a significant number of leading Eastern Orthodox theologians in the International Reformed-Eastern Orthodox Dialogue that this was the case.
Since I have published, John R. Meyer, ‘God’s Trinitarian Substance in Athanasian Theology,’ Scottish Journal of Theology, 59, 2006, 81-97 has appeared. He likewise argues for the monarche of the Godhead, not the Father. He concludes that “to assert that the Father is the sole cause of the Trinity is an Arian blunder”(p 97).
In any case the rejection of the idea that the Father is the monarche of the being/essence of the Son and the Spirit does not rest on whether or not Athanasius was the first to see the conceptual and theological problems inherent in this model of the Trinity. Western theologians have generally not endorsed that the Father is the monarche of the being/essence of the Son and the Spirit. Possibly Calvin is the most critical of this idea. He thinks to make the Father the sole “essence giver” is “to cast the Son down” (Institutes, 1.13.22). On this matter, you and Calvin are the ones standing in opposite corners. Andrew, I take it you would also reject Calvin’s case that the Son is autotheos, God himself (in his own right)? The Nicene Creed as confessed in all Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches does not make the Father the monarche of the Son and the Spirit, and the Athanasian Creed excludes this idea. A far better alternative is to think of the Father as the monarche of the person of the Son. He is the Father of the Son; there can be no Father without Son and vice versa, the divine three in unity are the monarche of the being of the three persons, the Son is the monarche of divine revelation and the Spirit is the monarche of empowerment and sanctification for the believer. I think this gives a far better picture/model of the creedal ‘co-equal’ Trinity than the monarche model.
Your assertion that my doctrine of the Trinity “is a departure from Nicene and biblical orthodoxy” does not follow from any thing you have said and I find it offensive. We are debating the questions, what does the Bible actually teaches on the Trinity in general, and the monarche of the Father in particular. You have not given one example where I have departed from Scripture, and if the creeds and confessions prescribe how the Bible should be interpreted by those who claim to hold the catholic faith or be orthodox, and you agree that I basically reflect their teaching, how can I be unbiblical and unorthodox? Have you not conceded that on many key issues you and your evangelical subordinationist friends are the ones who have departed from historic orthodoxy? Who else teaches each divine person has their own will, or who else teaches that the Son is eternally subordinated in authority to the Father, functionally or relationally? If at any point you can show me that I have departed from what the creeds or confessions teach I will recant.
I probably should not take up the many little asides you give that make me seem ridiculous or outside the evangelical family, but human frailty drives me to take up a few of the more untrue or unfair ones. I have never argued that there are “multiple legitimate ways to read the Bible”. And I have never suggested that “culture should control our understanding” of Scripture. What I argued in The Trinity and Subordinationism is that the Bible is open to more than one interpretation on most key issue. Who could dispute this? I regard to the Trinity my point was that the creeds and confessions should be our guide to a right understanding of what the Bible teaches, not personal commitments for or against the permanent subordination of women. And I argued that culture is like a pair of glasses that bear upon what we see and how we understand Scripture. Does anyone deny this? Your final aside that my book “takes us nowhere in our understanding either of the Trinity or the Bible,” leaving us “with the bare assertion that God is one and three,” is I suggest a bit over the top. Even for someone so adamantly committed to the correlated doctrines of the eternal (relational) subordination of the Son and the permanent (relational) subordination of women. If the book is so unhelpful and simplistic, I wonder why Zondervan published it—why, within two months, it went into a second printing—why Professors Cornelius Plantinga, Millard Erickson, Philip Cary and Paul Molnar exuberantly commend the book—why dozens of informed Christians have told me the book is one of the best and most helpful they have read on the Trinity—why over 200 professors, including Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware, came to hear me speak on the Trinity at the 2006 annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting in Washington DC—and why you have bothered to write a review of it?
