The following is a series of blog articles by Dr. Sam Waldron regarding a current debate/discussion concerning the Trinity. All posts are here for reference sake:
Who’s Tampering with the Trinity? (Part 1)
Who’s Tampering with the Trinity? That is the name of a book that is perhaps the most recent installment of a major debate going on among “evangelicals” on the subject of the Trinity. The subtitle of the book identifies the debate in question: An Assessment of the Subordination Debate. In this book Millard J. Erickson attempts an even-handed evaluation of the debate over the Trinity as it relates to what is called the eternal subordination of the Son. In case you are new to this debate it is intimately related to the ongoing debate between “egalitarians” and “complementarians” on the relation of men and women in the home and in the church. The two sides to the Trinitarian debate are often, described by these two names. Erickson, however, prefers to call the egalitarians “equivalentists” because they believe that each person is equivalent in authority with regard to one another. He prefers to call the complementarians “gradationists” because they believe that the Son and Spirit are subordinate to the Father among the persons of the Trinity. At the end Erickson (who is an egalitarian with regard to the relations of men and women) sides with equivalentists. He even suggests, though he acknowledges no gradationist holds that heresy today, a danger that gradationists in future generations will fall into Arianism.
Erickson’s views have been reviewed and criticized in at least two major articles. One is by Steve Wellum in the journal of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. It is entitled, “Irenic and Unpersuasive: A Review of Millard J. Erickson, Who’s Tampering with the Trinity?” The other response is by Keith Johnson in Themelios(36:1). It is not a direct critique of Erickson, but mentions his views many times.
Though—quite honestly—I deplore Erickson’s conclusions on this subject, his book is a helpful primer on the whole debate. Again, though I think him quite insensitive to the nature of historical Trinitarianism on the issues under concern in the present debate, as a survey of Trinitarian approaches to this issue over the last 150 years it is quite helpful. Here are my conclusions from reading Erickson, Wellum, Johnson, and a host of others on the subject of the Trinity with a view to the modern debate over the eternal functional subordination of the Son.
I believe that (1) significant problems have developed among evangelicals since the Enlightenment on the doctrine of the Trinity, (2) these problems directly contributed to an egalitarian or equivalentist view of the Trinity, (3) an understanding of the historical Trinitarianism articulated in the Nicene Creed and its massive, abiding, biblical basis supports the doctrine of eternal generation, (4) the Nicene doctrine of eternal generation is the historical and biblical basis for holding what is (perhaps a little clumsily) called by recent theologians the eternal, functional subordination of the Son, (5) the eternal functional subordination of the Son is consistent with His full and undiluted deity, and finally (6) this Nicene doctrine of Trinity undercuts the fundamental premise of Egalitarianism that equality of nature and subordination of role are inconsistent.
Who’s Tampering with the Trinity? (Part 2) Do we really believe the Nicene Creed?
I concluded my last blog with a number of conclusions I have drawn as I have read, studied, and taught the doctrine of the Trinity in the midst of the modern debate over “egalitatarian” views of the Trinity and the role relationships of men and women. The first of those conclusions was that significant problems have developed among evangelicals since the Enlightenment on the doctrine of the Trinity.
I suppose that the first question someone might ask me about that assertion is, “By what standard?” My answer is by the standard of the Bible, but also by the standard of the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed or at least its identifying trinitarian formulas were adopted by all the mainstream confessions and creeds of the Reformation. Here is the language of the Nicene Creed in the form that it emerged after the Council of Constantinople in 381 and in which it is commonly used liturgies today. Though it differs slightly from the version published after the Council of Nicea, its doctrinal assertions have not substantially changed:
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and arose on the third day according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, and cometh again with glory to judge the quick and the dead; of whose kingdom there shall be no end.
And in the Holy Ghost the Lord, the Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets;
In one holy catholic and apostolic church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”
The key words of importance for the modern debate I have placed in bold italics. The Nicene Creed asserts, of course, that there are three persons who are God. It also asserts that there is only one God. Thus, the deity of the Son and Spirit is identical to the deity of the Father. The Son is “of one substance with Father” and by implication so is the Spirit.
But when these two truths (that there is one God and that there are three persons who are God) have been stated, the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity has not yet been fully stated. The Creed is at pains to state with incredible repetition and emphasis what we call the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father. Unless we believe this doctrine, we do not believe the Nicene Creed; and we do not—by the standard of the Nicene Creed—hold to the Trinitarianism of historic Christianity. Modern evangelicals need to think about that!
Who’s Tampering with the Trinity? (Part 3) I believe in one God the Father???
I suspect that many evangelicals today would choke on the very first words of the Nicene Creed—if they are really thought about what they were confessing. Here is the first paragraph of the Nicene Creed: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.”
How far many of us have drifted from historic Trinitarianism is revealed by how queasy these words make us feel when we think about. “Surely,” we think, “The Son is also the Maker of heaven and earth. And does the Nicene Creed really mean to say that there is some distinct sense that we are to identify the Father as God? Does this imply that the Son and Spirit are not God?”
If these kinds of questions and concerns come to us when we really think about what we are confessing in the Nicene Creed, it should make us wonder if we have really understood and whether we entirely hold the historic Trinitarian creed. So what are we missing?
We are missing, first of all, that the creed is squarely biblical. In a number of important passages when the persons of the Trinity are being delineated the Father is given the personal name, God.
This happens in John 1:1-2: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” The context of these verses it is to be noted is not the economy of redemption. Orthodox Christians read these verses as speaking of the period at the beginning of the creation of the world. One cannot read into them the incarnation and the economy of redemption in which The Son became a man. They are speaking of the Trinitarian relationships which existed before the creation of the world—at the beginning. In speaking of these eternal relationships describes one person of the Trinity as “the God.” (The Greek definite article is present in both occurrences of the prepositional phrase, “with God,” in these verses.) The Apostle describes the other person of the Trinity as “the Word.” So in these verses you have two persons: “the God” and “the Word.” Both of these persons possess the entire divine essence. The Word is as to His substance and being God. Yet in the language of these verses, He is not “the God.” Clearly, in some distinct personal sense the Father is God, while the eternal and divine Son is “His” Word. Thus, the Nicene Creed confesses and must confess: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.”
Another illustration of this way of describing the Father is found in one of the most important assertions of the Trinity in the New Testament. 2 Corinthians 13:14 contains this Trinitarian benediction: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” Exegetes have often noted the unusual order of this benediction in which the Son is mentioned first, the Father is mentioned second, and the Holy Spirit is mentioned third. Egalitarian Trinitarians have leaped to the conclusion that this means there is no particular order in the Trinity. This conclusion is misguided for a lot of obvious reasons. First, it ignore that there is a common, ordinary, and dominant order in the mention of the person of the Trinity in the New Testament. It is usually Father, then Son, and then sometimes Holy Spirit. It is simply wrong to use the unusual order of 2 Corinthians 13:14 to contradict and undo this usual order and deny that there is a particular order in the eternal Trinity.
Other objections to this use of 2 Corinthians 13:14 might be mentioned, but the true explanation of the order of this benediction is that the Father is here given the central position in the benediction. The grace of the Son is traced up to the love of the Father and brought down all the way down to us in the fellowship of the Spirit. So even in the order of this benediction the first-ness of the Father is maintained. And what makes this so clear is the name given to the Father here. He is not called the Father in this benediction. In language which echoes John 1:1-2 he is called “the God.” How can we miss the implication that in some sense the Father occupies the first place among the persons of the Trinity? That is why the Nicene Creed must confess first its faith in “one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.”
Who’s Tampering with the Trinity? (Part 4) The Monarchy of the Father
In my previous blog I have expressed my suspicion that many evangelicals—if they were honest—are not really convinced of the first paragraph of the Nicene Creed: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.” How can God the Creed in some distinct sense identify the Father as the “One God”? My previous blog brought forward two of the many places in which the Bible itself identifies the Father as “the God” (John 1:1-2; 2 Corinthians 13:14). Of course, there are many other such places in the Bible. Consider John 17:1-3: “Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
We may be troubled by passages that identify the Father as “the one true God.” Historic Trinitarianism was not. This was because it understood the doctrine sometimes called the monarchy of the Father. While each of the persons of the Trinity possess the entire divine essence and are from their standpoint of their essence self-existent, the same thing is not true for the persons of the Trinity. Each person is eternal but in Nicene Trinitarianism the persons of the Son and Spirit originate from the Father. Thus, later in the Creed it is affirmed that both the persons of the Son and Spirit eternally come from or are derived from the person of the Father. Of the Son it is affirmed that He is “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father.” Of the Spirit it is affirmed that He “proceedeth from the Father.” This Nicene doctrine is sometimes called the monarchy of the Father. The term, monarchy, has a meaning which is a little foreign to us. It is Greek and is derived from two words: monos = one or sole and archei = origin or ruler. The Father is one origin of the persons of the Trinity. Thus, the unity of Godhead has a twofold basis. It is grounded both in the unity of the divine essence and in the eternal derivation of the other divine persons from the Father.
If all this seems strange and “Eastern,” it should not. It was the doctrine of Calvin himself. In the midst of his critique of Erickson’s sub-Nicene Trinitarianism, Wellum makes this point:
“In a similar way, Erickson is not helpful in his discussion of Calvin. He argues that Calvin does ‘speak of the distinctions between the three persons of the Trinity’ (162). He even admits that in Calvin ‘there is a type of order’ (162) but then simply reduces this order for Calvin to a ‘logical or psychological order’ (162) thus implying that Calvin would have accepted the equivalence view that all references to an ordering among the persons is only economic and temporary. But this is not correct. The same Calvin who denies any subordination when it comes to the three persons sharing the divine nature, also affirms, along with the Patristic Fathers that there are distinct, eternal relations between the persons so much so that Calvin regarded the Father as the (beginning) or origo, that from him is the Son, and from both is the Spirit-in respect to the persons and not the nature (see Institutes 1.13.18-20). Calvin’s view is precisely what the equivalence view does not affirm. Furthermore, Erickson concludes from his historical survey that ‘it is difficult to contend that throughout its history the church has taught the eternal functional subordination of the Son (and the Spirit) to the Father’ (167).”
Just as Calvin is often cited by Egalitarians, so also is Augustine. But just as Calvin affirms the monarchy of the Father, so also does Augustine. Here is a gem from Keith Johnson’s article on Augustine’s Trinitarianism:
“Although he affirms that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, Augustine offers an important qualification. He notes that John 15:26 does not say, ‘whom the Father will send from me,’ but rather ‘whom I will send from the Father.’ By this, Christ ‘indicated that the source (principium) of all godhead (divinitatis), or if you prefer it, of all deity (deitatis), is the Father. So the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son is traced back, on both counts, to him of whom the Son is born’ (De trin. V.29, 174). Thus, although Augustine clearly speaks of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one substance, he also affirms that the source and origin of deity (principium deitatis) is the Father.”
Calvin and Augustine are often cited by Egalitarians as exemplars of Western Trinitarianism and exponents of a more Egalitarian view of the Trinity. There may be differences between Western and Eastern Trinitarians. I think there are. But one of those differences is not that they reject the Nicene doctrine of the monarchy of the Father. If we are uncomfortable with this doctrine, it is we who have the problem and not the Nicene Creed!
Who’s Tampering with the Trinity? (Part 5) The Nicene Doctrine of the Eternal Generation of the Son
In my previous blogs posts I have cited a little of the biblical and historical evidence for the doctrine called the monarchy of the Father. This doctrine is clearly articulated in the first words of the Nicene Creed: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.” But the real emphasis of the Nicene Creed makes explicit the monarchy of the Father by affirming the eternal generation of the Son. Here are the key words which state it in the second paragraph: “And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made…”
Perhaps the first order of business for contemporary Christians is to really understand the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. The simplest way to do this is to work through the above statement phrase by phrase.
The Lord Jesus Christ is “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father.” This affirms that there is an organic relationship between God the Father and God the Son similar to that of an earthly father-son relationship. Of course, it is not that Scripture and the Nicene Creed borrow the human father-son relationship after the fact to illustrate this Trinitarian relationship. It is rather that the human father-son relationship was created to illustrate this divine relationship in the Trinity.
As with all human analogies for the divine, there are limits beyond which this analogy must not be taken. I will mention one of them below. Yet the Nicene Creed stresses that this analogy holds with regard to the point of begotten-ness. The Son is “begotten” of the Father. This means that the person of the Son is somehow derived from the person of the Father and dependent upon it. It also means that this derivation and dependence is filial in character. Or to put it from the standpoint of the Father it is paternal in nature. It is not a bare derivation. Nor is it the same as the relationship of derivation and dependence sustained by the person of the Spirit to the Father and the Son through His eternal procession from Them. Eternal Procession does not create a Father-Son relationship. Eternal generation does.
The immediate objection which students of mine have made to this doctrine over the years is that it implies that the Son is not eternal. They have difficulty putting the concepts of derivation and eternity together. However we may further respond to this natural objection, it is clear that the Nicene Creed had no difficulty in putting these two concepts together. It does so explicitly in the words which follow those we have been discussing: “begotten of the Father before all worlds.” The intent of these words is to stress that the generation of the Son is not temporal (taking place in time), but eternal (taking place before all worlds—the ages of space-time existence.)
Another natural objection to the doctrine of eternal generation which occurs in the minds of many is that this doctrine must mean that the Lord Jesus is not truly, really, and in the highest sense God. The contemporary controversy with the Jehovah’s witnesses and other modern Arians has perhaps led some evangelicals to be suspicious of the historic doctrine of eternal generation. Again the very next words of the creed refute this suspicion. The Lord Jesus, it asserts, is “very God of very God.” Though eternally generated—in fact, for the authors of the Nicene Creed, because he is eternally generated—the Son of God is really and truly God. While this assertion may not fully express the later explicit assertion by Calvin of the “self-existence of the Son,” it certainly prepares the way for it. Sometimes the Nicene Creed has actually been accused of containing remnants of the Subordinationism of some forms of Ante-Nicene Trinitarianism. This remarkable assertion (which implies that Athanasius and his fellows were Subordinationists) is refuted by this phrase.
Eternal generation is also sometimes misunderstood as implying that the Son is created. But this is exactly and precisely what the doctrine does not mean. Because of His eternal generation, and diametrically opposed to the Arian doctrine, the Lord Jesus is “begotten not made.”
The phrase, “being of one substance with the Father,” is probably the most important phrase in the entire creed. It contains the key Greek word, homoousias, which affirms that that the Son possesses the very same being as the Father. This word was at the center of the controversy with the Arians and the Semi-Arians in the fourth century. Against them it affirms that the Son is not merely like (homoios) the Father, nor merely like-essenced (homoiousias) to the Father, but that the Son has the same essence as the Father. It is nonsense to say that the Nicene Creed is guilty of the Subordinationism associated with the Logos Christology of the 2nd and 3rd centuries in light of this assertion.
But the Creed ends this important section by once more affirming that this eternal relationship lies behind the historical relationship of the persons of the Trinity. Because He is the eternally begotten Son of God, it is through or by Him that the Father made the world: “by whom all things were made…” The eternal Son of God is the instrument and means by which God the Father made everything (John 1:3; Col. 1:16-17). He is, thus, subordinate to the Father in the act of creation.
Who’s Tampering with the Trinity? (Part 6) An Objection to the Doctrine of Eternal Generation: Is it “Subordinationism”
The rumor has lingered in evangelical circles over the last couple of centuries that the Nicene doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son is “subordinationism.” One may hear this rumor already in the writings of Princeton’s B. B. Warfield and his opinion that the Nicene Creed contains remnants of subordinationism. It also comes out in Millard Erickson’s expressed fear that those who defend the eternal functional subordination of the Son are opening a path to Arianism for their spiritual descendants.
Any number of responses may be made to this rumor. The first is that the Nicene Creed affirms in the strongest possible ways the full and true deity of the Son. As we have seen, it affirms that the Son is “very God … being of one substance with the Father.”
The second is that this rumor misunderstands the nature and background of Ante-Nicene Subordinationism. This subordinationism was based on the Logos Speculation that arose within Greek Platonism. To make a long story short, the Logos Speculation was adopted and applied to Christian theology by Justin Martyr and Origen. It was based on the Greek doctrine of an utterly remote God or Supreme Being incapable of coming into contact with finite reality. In order to create and communicate with finite creation the Supreme Being brought forth a subordinate being called the Logos who was by definition and necessity less transcendent and remote from finite reality. Necessarily (in order to fulfill his philosophical function) this Logos possessed only a diluted or mediating form of deity.
When this philosophical construct was used to explain the Trinity, it had a number of evil results. One was the notion that the deity or being of the Son was less than the being of the Father. To put this another way, the Logos Speculation had everything to do with the hierarchy of being taught by Greek philosophy in which everything from the Supreme Being to the world was arranged on a scale of being. One’s place on the scale of being was determined by the level (or density) of being one possessed. Thus, for a Christian Platonist on the scale of being the Father was higher than the Son, the Son higher than the Spirit, the Spirit higher than the created world, men higher than women, and fauna higher than flora and both higher than rocks and dirt. Now this kind of Subordinationism is utterly absent from the Nicene Creed. It is the person of the Son that is generated by the Father. His deity is exactly the same as that of the Father’s.
The third problem with this rumor is that it leads and must lead to the conclusion that both Augustine and Calvin taught Subordinationism since both taught the eternal generation of the Son by the Father. Since even Egalitarians cite Augustine and Calvin as teaching a doctrine of the Trinity that fully equalizes the persons, the implication or notion that they were subordinationists is nonsense.
The fourth problem with this rumor is that it confuses two very different kinds of subordination. To put this another way, those who foster this rumor assume that there are only two kinds of subordination discussed in relation to the Trinity, when actually there are three. All Christians, including Erickson and the Egalitarians, believe that there is subordination in the economy of redemption. We may call this economic subordination. Their mistake is that they think there is only one other kind of subordination—subordination of essence or essential subordination. While they correctly see this kind of subordination to be wrong and false, they do not realize that this is not the kind of subordination implied in the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed actually teaches a third kind of subordination. It is neither economic nor essential subordination. It is the subordination of the persons of the Son and Spirit to the Father. Since the Greek word used to describe a real, personal distinction in the Trinity is hypostasis, we may call this personal or hypostatic subordination. Personal or hypostatic subordination is entirely different than the essential subordination of the Logos Speculation or Logos Christology.
Furthermore, since this distinction between essence and person is vital to the Trinity, there should be no logical problem for any Trinitarian in denying a subordination of essence while affirming a subordination of person. It is a subordination of person and not essence that the modern defenders of the eternal functional subordination of the Son (like Bruce Ware, Wayne Grudem, and John Piper) intend to teach. They are emphatically not guilty of the Subordinationism of Justin Martyr and Origen.