Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity by Kevin Giles Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2006, 320pp. Review by Andrew Moody (Published in Briefing #341 February 2007 pp. 25-27)

Whatever you might make of his theology, you have to admire Kevin Giles’s energy and tenacity. Less than five years after the publication of his last book The Trinity and Subordinationism, he has produced another major work on the same topic called Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity. Spurred by the hostile reception of the earlier book and convinced that he writes in defence of orthodoxy, Giles has returned to the fray in the pose of an Athanasius contending alone against a modern Arianism.

For those who missed the first round, Giles’s target in both this and the previous book is to debunk the notion that God the Son is eternally submissive to God the Father. This idea (considered in the works of evangelicals such as Wayne Grudem, Robert Letham, and Sydney-based theologians, including Robert Doyle and Mark Baddeley) suggests that the relational pattern between the incarnate Christ and his heavenly Father is not temporary, but reflects the eternal relationship between the Father and Son. For some of these writers, this ‘eternal relational subordinationism’ (ERS) is a role chosen by the members of the Godhead in eternity. Others see the idea necessarily following from the causal relationship that exists between the Father and his begotten Son (‘functional subordination’—though Giles restricts this term to the actions of the Godhead). As the Father is the eternal source of the Son, so he is also the source of the Son’s mission, actions and will.

Giles is adamantly opposed to ERS. Reprising a theme from his first work, he maintains that the only reason modern evangelicals are interested in this topic is because it affords them a precedent for their ‘equal but different’ view of gender relations. If it were not for this blind spot, Giles argues, the holes in the theory would be immediately evident. Thus he lays out arguments and historical surveys to show that ERS is both heretical, and without respectable precedent in the church tradition.

So far we could be describing either of Giles’s books on this topic. But the second book is bigger and better. Stung, perhaps, by some of the justified criticisms of his methods and research, Giles has overcome a number of the shortcomings of The Trinity and Subordinationism. For example, Jesus and the Father no longer gives the impression that there are multiple legitimate ways to read the Bible. Nor does Giles imply that our culture should control our understanding of the meaning of the passage. These clarifications are good.

Giles’s follow-up book improves in other areas. Jesus and the Father dumps the discussion of gender relations and slavery that took over halfway through the earlier book. Also this work contains a useful survey where Giles sketches the different emphases of the New Testament writings, and tries to grapple with some of the passages most problematic for his own position. The remainder of the book is largely taken up with historical investigations of trinitarian theology. Most of his historical material is fair and accurate, and I was helped in a number of places by the breadth of his secondary reading.

Whether Giles has proven his point is questionable. What seems to emerge from his historical survey is something that looks quite compatible with the view of those he disagrees with. We see theologians affirming that the Son derives his essence from the Father, we hear that the Son is of or from the Father, and Giles even speaks of an operational order where the Son is the agent or representative of the Father. Halfway through reading the chapter on biblical theology, I’d become convinced that Giles had somehow become a functional subordinationist without realising it! For example, following Paul’s lead, he endorses the idea of a divine order with the Son as the Father’s agent in creation, redemption and revelation. Again, he cites Hurtado concluding that:

… the tension in John’s gospel between passages that speak of the Son as one with God the Father and those that seem to suggest he is subordinate in some way to the Father can be made to “fit together”. John holds that the Son is to be honoured and worshiped in the same way as the Father precisely because he represents the Father … perfectly sharing his divinity and authority. (p. 120)

This is a vast improvement on Giles’s statements elsewhere, where Jesus becomes temporarily subordinated to God in the incarnation. The incarnate Son remains equal to the Father in divinity and authority as the Father’s representative and agent. Jesus is not less than God at all while on earth, but equal in every action of the Godhead because he “does the Father’s will” (p. 122).

Yet, despite these statements, Giles persists in his criticism. Between these affirmations of legitimate order and what he describes as (ERS) sub-order, he sees fundamental differences. First, he argues that if the Son must submit to the Father, this can only lead to Jesus being either an automaton or deficient in power: if his authority is less than his Father’s, he has less power and is therefore less than God. Second, if the Son submits eternally, then Giles insists he must be less in nature than the Father. Third, the idea that the Son submits to the Father’s will creates a heretical split in the Trinity by suggesting that there are two wills, one subordinate to the other. Giles insists that the orthodox tradition makes the divine will singular, and to contend otherwise is tritheism.

But this is special pleading. If multiple wills are a problem in the Trinity, then it is a problem not just for subordinationists, but for every kind of social Trinitarianism which depicts the Persons as discrete centres of will and action. The voluntary submission or even egalitarian mutual-service that Giles prefers are, if he is correct, just as ‘tritheist’.

Similar problems arise at another crucial point. Central to this is debate is the logical question of whether the Son can be simultaneously subordinate to the Father from his perspective, but equal from ours. This is impossible, Giles argues, because giving the Father authority over the Son makes the Son a lesser god. The trouble for Giles is that exactly the same differentiation is at work in the thoroughly orthodox doctrine of begetting and eternal generation (c.f. pp. 153-155). Here too the Father is simultaneously greater as the origin of the Son (Giles acknowledges that a number of theologians take John 14:28 to refer to this; c.f. p. 226), and equal—since the Son shares in the Father’s nature.

Giles has a serious problem on his hands here. If he allows the logic of begetting/causation, then ERS can swim right through the same hole in the net. But if he attacks it more strongly, he risks putting key figures such as the Cappadocians on the same side as the ERS crowd he is trying to marginalise. So he approaches the question softly, suggesting that such causation is only potentially subordinationist (p. 267) or perhaps impossible (p. 138) yet also attempting to minimise the significance of this pattern in historical theology.

To this end, Giles makes a series of unconvincing pronouncements. For instance, his attempt to distance Athanasius from the Cappadocians (who he acknowledges do make the Father the source of the Godhead) is terribly forced. Giles claims that Athanasius denies that the Son has an arché (a ‘beginning’ or ‘cause’). But in reading the quotes Giles supplies, it is obvious that Athanasius is speaking of time: the Son does indeed have a cause, but never a beginning—as if there was a time when he was not. The quotes Giles uses from Athanasius to show the whole Trinity (not the Father) as the originating cause are similarly unconvincing.

Elsewhere, Giles’s argument that the Nicene “God from God … Light from Light” does not imply derivation is mind-boggling. What does the “from” mean if it doesn’t mean that? His rebuttal quotes Michel Barnes as saying that “Light from Light” is an “X from X” argument (pp. 140, 150, 119, 223). But “X from X” is equality by causality and Barnes says so (see pdf link)! And what of the 325 AD version of the creed which speaks of the Son being “born of the Father’s essence”? Giles here is reading back a strongly Western (post-Augustinian) theology over the Nicene tradition. The trouble is, he exceeds even the West in his attempt to expunge causal origins from the Godhead. The Council of Florence, which Giles holds up as the zenith of unity and coequality (p. 231), still maintains the Father’s priority as the means by which they constitute a single source. There is no intention

… of excluding the Father from being the source and principle of all deity, that is of the Son and of the holy Spirit, nor to imply that the Son does not receive from the Father … [but that] since the Father gave to his only-begotten Son in begetting him everything the Father has, except to be the Father, so the Son has eternally from the Father, by whom he was eternally begotten, this also, namely that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. Council Of Florence, Session 6—6 July 1439.

Thus even at the ‘zenith’ of (Western) Trinitarianism, we see that priority of the Father maintained as the means of the Son’s equality. Both things can be true: the Father is the source relative to the Son, and yet the Son and Father together constitute a single source.

Giles’s whole case here is founded on false antithesis. It is also a departure from Nicene and biblical orthodoxy. The idea that the Father is God—and that the Son is too, because he wholly shares in the Father’s divinity—this is the orthodox position. It is implicit in 1 Corinthians 8:6 and John 5, and it is faithfully summarised in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed which begins with one God “the Father” and then includes the Son in the Father’s divinity because of his sonship. The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity stipulates not just that the Persons are the one God, but shows how they are one God. If the West has moved away from this position, then it has moved away from both the Bible and Nicaea. Biblical and Nicene orthodoxy gives us the means to articulate a coherent Christian monotheism.

Giles is on firmer ground with the contention that there is only one will in God. Both East and West have, from early times, been wary of suggesting multiple wills or consciousnesses in the Trinity, and at the sixth ecumenical council (Constantinople III), this idea was rejected as ‘absurd’ (though strangely Giles doesn’t mention this Council). ERS (along with all social Trinitarianism) thus cannot be regarded as part of the mainstream. Furthermore, Giles’s challenge on this issue should force ERS advocates to work harder at what we mean when we use words like ‘obedience’ or ‘must’ of the Son. We can’t be saying that the Son is obedient in the same way he is on earth (where he learned obedience; c.f. Hebrews 5). Surely we are not to imagine the Father and Son have a chat, and the Son then changes his mind to reflect better what the Father says. And hopefully we are not saying that the Son is merely a reflex of the Father—that he is a robot, as Giles charges.

First, though, we should note that Giles’s argument is capable of proving too much. If the will of God is entirely simple, then how can we differentiate the Persons at all when it comes to the works of the Trinity? Giles insists that they work together but “do different things”. How do we get “they” and “do” if there is only one consciousness and will? Giles has painted himself into a corner where to speak of any of the Persons as doing anything of themselves becomes Tritheism. And where does this leave the community of love that Giles sees as the inner life of the Trinity? What kind of love is it where there is only one actor and one consciousness? How can parties love if they can’t do anything for each other or feel anything for each other?

Second, although orthodox doctrine states that will is proper to the (single) essence, it also insists that after the incarnation, the God-man has forever two wills: divine and human. It is entirely consistent, therefore, for ERS advocates to maintain that the Son is henceforth obedient to the Father’s divine will in heaven in the same way that he is on earth. Moreover, it is not heretical to suggest that the divine will transfers from Father to Son, as does the essence itself. Just as the Son has the divine nature from the Father, so also he has the Father’s will. Precisely this view is expressed by Gregory of Nyssa and Basil of Caesarea.

Giles raises difficult questions for those who would differentiate the Persons along ERS lines, but what is his alternative? Despite devoting a chapter to ‘Differentiating the Divine Persons’ and insisting that the persons are not the same, Giles is vague about what these differences—or indeed the Persons—are. In response to Rahner’s case that only the Son could become incarnate, Giles offers no clarity, rejecting both Rahner’s argument and Warfield’s theory that the Son becomes subordinate/incarnate by agreement (pactum salutis). On the traditional doctrine of begetting, Giles suggests that it is wrong but we should retain the language simply because ERS would be worse (p. 240). Elsewhere, Giles seems happiest to proof-text Athanasius: the Son is the same as the Father, except in name. All this takes us nowhere in our understanding either of the Trinity or the Bible (or Athanasius for that matter), and it leaves us with the bare assertion that God is one and three. Of course this is true, but how is it true? What is the one and what are the three? Giles gives hints and contradictions, but leaves us with the same gaps that were so evident in his last book.

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"RESPONSE" TO THE RESPONSE TO THE "REVIEW" OF THE BOOK - by Andrew Moody

Dear Kevin,

Thankyou for taking the time to make such a lengthy response to my review of your book. You have raised many issues here and it would take a lot of time to address each of them properly. Nevertheless I hope I can offer some helpful observations and clarifications on some points you mention. I will avoid repeating some arguments that we have, I think, been over before (see the list below). (If other readers wish to look into these they should click here to see a record of the interraction that occurred when Dr Giles first book (TAS) was published.)

Before I begin to answer any substantive issues I would like to say that I am sorry if my review made you feel personally insulted; it was not meant to. I thought I tried hard to choose my words and to show that I have benefited from reading and responding to your books on the Trinity. Nevertheless I fully concede that how things sound in my head doesn't necessarily correspond to how others hear them and I realise too that there is a fair level of frustration on both sides in this debate.

I think on a couple of occasions you were hearing a sneer in the text that was not really there; for example when I said that you “grapple” with difficult texts this was not intended to be dismissive but appreciative. Nor did I intend to suggest that you are a postmodern when it comes to biblical hermeneutics – though your first book did give me that impression at times and you should surely have expected this response when you wrote;

Many conservative evangelicals find this argument very difficult because they have been lead to believe there can be only one correct interpretation of any given text [of the Bible]… more than one interpretation is possible. (The trinity TAS.10)

I still don’t exactly know what you meant by “correct” here but am pleased that you still believe there is a correct meaning intended by God which Christians in different cultures can get right or wrong.

1. Why are we having this discussion?
Kevin, at one point you express surprise that we cannot find agreement on the Trinity despite all the work that has been done on this topic. I agree, but what is particularly odd from my perspective is that so much of the time when you state how our positions are different I do not at all disagree with what you are saying. Thus you declare that we are “diametrically opposed” – that you believe “the Father and the Son are eternally one in being, power and authority”, that I “completely fail” to comprehend that derivation “does not imply subordination in being or authority” but “that the Son is exactly the same in divinity as the Father…one in being, majesty, glory and authority”.

But of course neither I – nor any of the evangelicals you criticise – would ever dispute these statements. We are not "diametrically opposed" to them indeed we insist on them! The reason we are having this disagreement is simply that you refuse to believe us when we argue that there can be an ordered sending/commanding relationship between the Persons of the Trinity as well as equality as to divinity.

The vexing thing about this is that sometimes you speak as if you believe exactly the same thing as us. For example in JATF 122 you explain how John’s gospel distinguishes the “divine persons”. You observe how Jesus receives the Father’s commands and note that;

the Father is the one who sends, and the Son is he who is sent by the Father…the Son does the Father’s will [and] not vice versa.

iimmediately you add that;

…none of this language subordinates the Son to the Father. It differentiates them…[and] suggests that the Father and the Son always work harmoniously and reciprocally together in an orderly manner.

And in your response to me you write that

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.

Kevin, this is wonderfully put and exactly expresses the distinction that I – and I am sure other ERS advocates of various flavours – are trying to demonstrate. There can be a pattern of commanding and sending (which is all I mean by “relational subordination”) which does not signify "ontological subordination" or detract from the Son’s divine equality. Indeed, as you write, the agency of the Son proves that the Persons work together as one divinity! The only difference here is that while you limit this differentiated equality or "agency" to the Son’s earthly sojourn (mostly, but see JATF 110) we see the same pattern in operation eternally. But it seems we all believe that the Son can be equal but different and we all believe that the difference can involve commanding and sending. Let’s stop this argument and work out an agreed statement!

But I suspect we will not agree so easily after all these years. In fact it seems to me you have a hard time agreeing with yourself on this point. For while you insist above that the incarnate Son is not subordinate you also describe exactly the same pattern as subordination (eg. JATF 7 par 2-3; TAS 125). In your response to my review you write that “Jesus is Lord” speaks “not of his earthly ministry, but the ministry of the Son after his ascension and exaltation.

I have a hard time reconciling these two ideas. Is the Son subordinate on earth or not? Is his Lordship contradicted by being commanded and sent or not? Can differentiated equality encompass the Son doing the Father’s will or not? I think you give conflicting answers.

2. Social Trinitarianism and will
In my review I acknowledged your point that the ERS position seems to imply a multiplicity of wills between the persons of the Godhead but I attempted to show that this is a problem for all modern social Trinitarianism. You object to this very strongly and write that I am,

…simply mistaken. Some social trinitarians speak of three centers of consciousness but I have seen none mention three wills. Can you cite one example?

Well I can. But your objection is odd. In your own book (JATF 238) you criticise Jürgen Moltmann on precisely these grounds, writing that;

I find [multiple consciousness and mutual submission in the Godhead] very problematic. I think that perfect communal unity implies that God is of one mind and will.

Here you are making exactly the same point as me! Inter-personal submission in the Godhead implies more than one will at work. But even so, I have to say that this is another area where you never express yourself clearly – in the above quote you speak of "communal" unity and then one mind and will. But how can there be "community" if there is only one? What does it mean to say that there is only "one will" for you? Does it mean that there is only one conscious centre of volition? Or does it mean that there are three centres of volition which (luckily!) happen to perfectly agree? Or does it mean – as we have both noted in Basil (eg JATF 186-187) that the Father's will is passed or reiterated in the Son wholly and perfectly? Is it something else altogether? You never answer the questions I raised in my review about how there can be mutual love or differentiated action in the trinity without some kind of differentiation in will but simply restate that;

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.

Again though "unison" indicates plurality! If there is only one centre of volition then there is no unison simply a single subject. Once again I agree that there is "unison"; but it's how this unison works that I am trying to explore. I don't profess to know exactly how it works but I do know that the Son does choose things as the Son. And so do you;

Paul spoke of the Father, Son and the Spirit in fully personal terms…Each has distinctive work, although Paul would have them always working together inseparably and cooperatively. It is the Son who voluntarily and freely humbles himself to become a man and die on the cross for our salvation, not the Father or Spirit. (JATF 110-111)

The Son “voluntarily”… As in voluntas; as in will. Why are we even having this argument?

But you ask for examples.

[Social Trinitarianism] must have Father, Son, and Spirit as distinct centers of knowledge, will, love, and action. Since each of these capacities requires consciousness, it follows that, on this sort of theory, Father, Son, and Spirit would be viewed as distinct centers of consciousness or, in short, as persons in some full sense of that term.
Cornelius Plantinga, “Social Trinity and Tritheism.” in Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement: Philosophical and Theological Essays. ed. Feenstra, R., and Plantinga, Jr., C. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989) p22

In most versions of ST [Social Trinitarianism], each person has his own discrete mind and will.
Brian Leftow, “Anti Social Trinitarianism” in The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity. ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) p204.

On ST the Persons are robust – robust enough to constitute a genuine “other”; they are three centers of consciousness, will and action.
Stephen Davis, "Perichoretic Monotheism,” in Melville Y. Stewart (ed.), The Trinity: East/West
Dialogue (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003), p38

I could list more. Moltmann describes the Trinity as a “community of will”, Richard Swinburne discusses at length how the different wills in the Trinity might be imagined to avoid conflict, Amy Plantinga describes Jonathan Edwards as a social Trinitarian using the language of will. But I think the point is made.

3. Subordination of the eternal humanity of the Son
Kevin you react very sharply to my suggestion that the pronouncements of the 6th ecumenical council imply that Jesus is eternally subordinate in his humanity even if not in his divinity or subsistence “as Son”. You write that this idea 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 idea that Jesus is always subordinate as human is serious theology. The council insisted that will is essential to nature and that union of the natures was “inseparable”. Further to this, the eternal submission of Jesus Christ has historically played a crucially positive role in the conception of Christ as our priest who enables and (vicariously) mediates our service and praise to the Father. T.F. Torrance (who, I think you will agree, is serious) writes at length concerning this theme as it is found in Cyril of Alexandria;

…Christ is himself the true worshiper of God, who in his vicarious mediation is himself our redemption and worship, himself the altar, and as such the pattern of all our service in prayer, adoration and worship, which we offer in and through and with him to the Father. This worship which characterized the whole life and obedience of the Incarnate Christ in the form of a servant, and [is] fulfilled in a heavenly mode in which Christ continues to exercise his priesthood as man… Theology in Reconciliation. (London: SCM Press, 1965) pp178-179

4. Fatherhood and monarchy
You rightly observe that the idea of causation is important to me in my understanding of the Trinity but suggest this implies a;

…literal understanding of the word "begetting" that Arius adopted. He thought this term implied creation, dependency and relational subordination.

I have to say this is a very strange statement. Yes, Arius thought fatherhood connoted creation but such an understanding is precisely non literal.5 It is orthodoxy that has insisted that the Father is the literal “true” father from who all fatherhood derives its name (Eph 3:15). As Athanasius writes;

… it must be of the substance of the Father that He partakes; and if of the substance, it must be a whole participation,…[God] begets; and what does begetting signify but a real Son? …And beholding the Son, we see the Father; for our conception and comprehension of the Son is knowledge concerning the Father, because He is the proper Offspring from His substance. And there is nothing to hinder our belief in a true and literal Son of God… (Athanasius, Discourses against Arianism 1.5.27)

and

Men are not really fathers and really sons, but shadows of the True. (Athanasius, Discourses against Arianism 1.6.16)

You spend quite a bit of time responding to the idea of monarchy in your response but I’m not sure you quite see why it is important to this discussion. I brought it up for two reasons.

1. Logical: You cannot denounce ERS advocates for saying the Son has a dependent authority when the same logic is at work in the orthodox idea that the Son is derived or dependent on the Father for his divinity. You dance around this but never face up to it. You concede that the idea is orthodox but then quote John Meyer calling the monarchy an “Arian blunder”. Why include this quote? Is Meyer right or isn’t he? Is the fact that the Son is “dependent God” (your charge against ERS but the same is true of the monarchy) a contradiction of his full equality? If so say so plainly and face up to the fact that you believe large swathes of Christendom from Augustine (see quote below) to the current Pope1 are Arian blunderers. Or if it is only potentially heretical to speak of the Son's divinity deriving from the Father then please concede that it might only be potentially Arian when we speak of the Son's divine authority deriving from the Father.

2. Historical: The monarchy of the Father is historically linked to a the way the persons operate together despite your protestations. This is true both of those who believe the Son derives his divinity from the Father and those westerners (such as Calvin) who see begetting as simply an inter-personal event within the essence. I have supplied quotes to show this before but to refresh our memories, let’s look again at how Augustine puts it;

For the Father is greater than I” and, “The head of the woman is the man, the Head of the man is Christ, and the Head of Christ is God” and, “Then shall He Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him” and, “I go to my Father and your Father, my God and your God,” together with some others of like tenor. Now all these have had a place given them, [certainly] not with the object of signifying an inequality of nature and substance. But these statements have had a place given them, partly with a view to that administration of His assumption of human nature in accordance with which it is said that “He emptied Himself:” not that that Wisdom was changed, since it is absolutely unchangeable; but that it was His will to make Himself known in such humble fashion to men. Partly then, I repeat, it is with a view to this administration that those things have been thus written which the heretics make the ground of their false allegations; and partly it was with a view to the consideration that the Son owes to the Father that which He is, - thereby also certainly owing this in particular to the Father, to wit, that He is equal to the same Father, or that He is His Peer, whereas the Father owes whatsoever He is to no one. (On the Faith & Creeds 9.18, emphasis added)

Here we see three very important facts: (1) Augustine – the father of Western Trinitarianism – makes the equal divinity of the Son dependent on the Father; this is the monarchy idea. (2) This monarchy creates an order which Augustine relates to headship, subjection and the fact the Son calls the Father “God”. (3) There is a congruence between the earthly subjection of the Son and the relationship resulting from his begetting. The two are not the same but clearly there is overlap.

5. Is your research fair?
Kevin you seize on my acknowledgement that I consider much of your research fair and accurate and enquire whether this means I am, “admitting that there is much in these secondary authorities that count against [my] position?” The answer to this is “no”, but since you press me on this point I would like to add that your treatment of historical and contemporary sources is not consistently fair. You sometimes seem unwilling to deal with or even mention the most difficult passages for your thesis. Thus you never deal with that passage from Rahner (quoted by Mark Baddeley) where he explicitly links relational subordination to the Son's eternal mode of subsistence2. Nor do you ever ever acknowledge that Barth draws the same parallels between gender and Trinitarian relations3 that you consistently accuse us of making. This is a serious omission and damaging for your case. And at one point (p. 271) you (coincidentally?) use a quote from Aquinas which is also cited by Millard Erickson (God in Three Persons p.295). Both you and Erickson believe this quote shows that the "scholastics" thought any member of the Trinity could have become incarnate. It doesn't of course - the statement is an objection against which Aquinas argues (standard Summa format).

But often I did find your research fair – and in a quite exasperating way! For what emerges from your research time and time again is something that (as I said in my review) looks completely harmonious with the ERS position but which you then contrast with the ERS position. Time and again you delineate a pattern of order or commanding/obedience in the Bible or some other writer and then offset it or contextualise it to show that this does not indicate ontological subordinationism and state therefore that this is different from what we believe. For example John Thompson speaks of filial obedience but you show that it is an active passivity, by which he shares the power of the Father (JATF 302-303). Who would deny this? Pannenberg speaks of obedience but you point to a mutuality or reciprocity in the relationship between Father and Son (JATF 202). Again who would deny this? Haven’t we been arguing that the Father and Son honour each other through their ordered relationship?

The bottom line it seems for you is that you insist on treating your evangelical brothers and sisters as a special category. You look at conservative evangelicals and say; "You state that you believe that the Son and Father are equal in essence but you can't because you also talk about eternal obedience". Then you look at a theologian from some other tradition and say; "He talks about obedience but that's okay because he also states that he believes that the Son and Father are equal in essence." There is no way to win against this! Given that we are pre-judged to be Arian all you have to show is that any other theologian who uses the same language is not an Arian and voila! They are in a different category!

6. Father and Son, what is the difference?
One of the things that we have been disagreeing about over the last twelve years is how the Father and Son are differentiated and here I think we have made a bit of progress in each other's understanding. You rightly observe that for me the key to understanding the unity of the Persons and Godhead is the arché of the Father – as Paul writes;

[Y]et for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. 1Cor 8:6 my emph.

What you believe is still a little mysterious to me but I do think we have been talking at cross-purposes somewhat. When you insist you believe that the Father and Son are "different" you seem to mean that they are two distinct hypostases – in other words they are not the same person –  whereas I have been asking what characteristics distinguish the two persons.

So now I know that you believe the persons are distinct, can you tell me what you see as their distinguishing characteristics? In your book and in your response to me you seem to allude to a horizontal order which you distinguish from ERS "vertical" order. It would be helpful to have this unpacked. Is it the same as the order you observe in Paul (JATF 110) where the Father works through the Son "cooperatively and reciprocally"? If so then, once again, I think we are speaking about the same thing.

On the other hand we are definitely not saying the same thing when it comes to the Persons and their origins. Kevin you ask me to show you where you have departed from the creeds and confessions. Let me stress that I am not accusing you of heresy – I don't think any council has ever addressed what you believe – but what you say here (below) is certainly not found in either the Nicene or pseudo-Athanasian creeds;

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.

This seems to be one of your clearest statements so far on this topic but even here it is difficult to work out what you are saying. The first sentence sounds like Calvin - he says the person of the Father begets the person of the Son. But " the divine three in unity are the monarche of the being of the three persons"? I can only assume that you are trying to express what T.F. Torrance believes but how can the "three in unity" be the arche of the "being"? This sounds more like John Zizioulas and I know you don't like him.

But assuming you are using the Torrance model I would like to point out a couple of things about it. Firstly it is not what Calvin believed (despite Torrance's claims)4. Calvin has the Persons and their originating relations operating within the essence; Torrance denies originating relations between the persons and has the Son begotten by the essence itself. This position is quite idiosyncratic and (ISTM) has more to do with Barth than any historical theologian. It also has bizarre implications; if it is the being of the Father which begets the Son and the being of the Father is the same as the being of the Son then doen't this mean the Son begets himself? If, as you say, you want to retain the language of begetting to distinguish the Persons, Torrance is the last place you should go.

I think the final indication of the difficulty you face here is where you contrast the monarche model with your (economic) depiction of the Persons. You make the Father the monarche of the person of the Son. But is this the person (Calvin) of the Father or the (triune) being which Torrance also dubs "Father"? If it is the latter then your scheme completely omits the person of the Father! You make the Son monarche of revelation – but how then is Father is involved? You make the Spirit arche of sanctification – but where are the Son and Father in this? The beauty of the monarchy as you observe in John's gospel is that it allows us to see how the Persons work together and separately. The Father is always the arche but not in a way that excludes the Son and Spirit through whom he speaks and works. As you yourself put it;

[The] passages that speak of the Son as one with God the Father and those that seem to suggest he is subordinate in some way to the Father can be made to "fit together". John holds that the Son is to be honoured and worshiped in the same way as the Father precisely because he because he perfectly represents the Father, yet he is not the Father.

Amen. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Issues previously covered in previous discussions: …back to top of article
1. Is ERS monolithic or mainstream?
2. Does eternal relational subordination = ontological subordination = Arianism?
3. Was Jesus “Lord” when he was on earth?
4. Must an intra-trinitarian disparity of authority signal that the Son is less “God” to us?
My position on the Nicene and pseudo-Athanasian creeds.

Notes

1. [The] nonhierarchical rendering of trinitarian theology is apparently dictated by a desire to justify a democratic or congregational church order. …Recent denials of the divine monarchy, Joseph Ratzinger, contends, are distortions of the faith under the pressure of church politics. …Just as God the Father rules in order to give life, so on earth the hierarchical ministers have power only for the purpose of service.
Cardinal Avery Dulles, "The Trinity and Christian Unity", in God the Holy Trinity. ed. Timothy George, (Grand Rapids:Baker,2006) 77-78

2. [It is] dangerous to separate … various aspects of this concrete reality (his human created “nature”) from the whole which he himself calls “Son”… May we really say without more ado that from the concept of the Son of the synoptic Jesus we must eliminate his obedience to the Father, his adoration, his submission to the Father’s unfathomable will? For we eliminate them when we explain this kind of behaviour in him only through the hypostatic union as such.
Karl Rahner, The Trinity (Tunbridge Wells, Kent: Burns and Oats, 1970) 62.

3. 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 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 the homoousi of the modes of divine being?
As we look at Jesus Christ we cannot avoid the astounding conclusion of a divine obedience. Therefore we have to draw the no less astounding deduction that in equal Godhead the one God is, in fact, the One who rules and …who obeys in humility. CD iV.1 202
(Please note that Barth uses words like "downward" and "subordination" without signifying a lack of divinity. Note too that it is Jesus Christ – ie the one God in his mode/Seinseweise as Son – who expresses this obedience. It is simply not true, as you argue (eg. JATF 298), that that Godhead is subordinate. God is subordinate for Barth but only in one mode – as the Son.)

4. For those interested in Calvin's views at this point Warfield's brilliant article from the 1909 Princeton Theological Review (vol 4) is a must (you can read a mostly accurate version online). Of particular interest in this article is the whole idea of autotheos. What you'll notice here (and elsewhere) is that many of those attempting to interpret Calvin in a traditional light insist that he believes both that the Son receives the essence by communication and that he is autotheos. Calvin almost certainly doesn't believe this but the attempt to bring the two ideas together is significant.

Kevin, you ask me if I believe the Son is "autotheos". That kind of depends on whether you consider yourself human in your own right? I would have thought the answer to that is "yes" but not in a way that would deny that your humanity is also derivatively subordinate to Adam. It seems to me that it is crucial in understanding both humanity and the godhead (in biblical terms) to observe a tension between genericism and dynamic continuity. Levi is his own man but also a continuation of Abraham (Heb 7:9-10). The curses, covenants and blessings flow down through the generations (eg. Rom 5:12ff; Gen 9:24ff etc etc) because in a very real sense the descendents are not simply separate individuals but extensions or prolations (Tertullian's term) of the patriarch. In the same way the Son is a dynamic reiteration of the Father. He is so continuous that to see him and deal with him is to deal with his Father yet the Son is not passive - he actively extends the Father with the same divine energy and will that first belongs to the Father. To put it plainly the Son is the archetypal Son. A perfect echo and prolation of the perfect Father.

5.The Word ...is called Word conceptually, and is not by nature and of truth Son of God, but is called Son; He too by adoption is a creature -- Arius, quoted by Athanasius, cited in Thomas Weinandy, Does God Change? (St Bede's, 1985) p. 5

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