Eternal functional subordination of the Son

This position holds that the Son's subordination to the Father is "eternal, unidirectional, and irreversible. It is both functional and personal, but never ontological." (Phil Gons)

Terms

  • Eternal subordination of the Son (ESS)
  • Eternal functional submission (EFS)
  • Eternal relations of authority and submission (ERAS)

Summary

"The ERAS view contends that the way the divine persons are distinguished is not merely by eternal “relations of origin” (taxis) but also by this authority-submission ordering between the Father, Son, and Spirit from eternity (ad intra). In this way, ERAS argues for a specific kind of taxis between the divine persons from eternity that includes relations of origin (paternity, eternal generation, and eternal procession) and authority-submission relations. What occurs in the economy (ad extra), especially in regard to the submission and obedience of the incarnate Son, is true of what the Son is from eternity as the Son who submits to the Father and derives his authority from him. “Authority,” then, is not an attribute of the divine nature; instead it is a personal relationship or role that is crucial in distinguishing the divine persons.

"Other evangelicals reject the ERAS view for at least two reasons. First, they argue that ERAS is not the consistent teaching of pro-Nicene orthodoxy and out of step with the tradition. Second, they argue that Scripture does not teach that there is an additional authority-submission ordering in eternity between the divine persons. Instead, the only eternal ordering (taxis) between the divine persons is the distinguishing person-properties of paternity (Father), sonship/eternal generation (Son), and eternal procession (Spirit). In other words, the only distinguishing person-properties of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are the “relations of origin” or “modes of subsistence” and not additional person-properties of authority-submission relationships or roles. Also, contra ERAS, this view argues that “authority” is best understood as an exercise of divine attributes tied to the divine nature which Father, Son, and Spirit share equally although they exercise authority according to their mode of subsistence, namely, the Father through the Son by the Spirit." (Stephen J. Wellum, SBJT 21.2 (2017): 6-7)

Media

Multiple perspectives

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November 2016 RTS Houston conference: "Confessing the Triune God" (audio)

Quotes

Affirming

Charles Hodge

Describing three types of subordination:

"1. A subordination as to the mode of subsistence and operation, of the second, to the first person in the Trinity; which is perfectly consistent with their identity of substance, and equality in power and glory. 2. The voluntary subordination of the Son in his humbling himself to be found in fashion as a man, and becoming obedient unto death, and therefore subject to the limitations and infirmities of our nature. [And finally,] 3. The economical or official subjection of the theanthropos. That is, the subordination of the incarnate Son of God, in the work of redemption and as the head of the church. [In this form of subordination,] He that is by nature equal with God becomes, as it were, officially subject to him." (An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 63)

"Subordination, as to the mode of subsistence, and operation, is a scriptural fact; and so also is the perfect and equal godhead of the Father, and the Son, and, therefore, these facts must be consistent. In the consubstantial identity of the human soul, there is a subordination of one faculty to another, and so, however incomprehensible to us, there may be a subordination in the trinity consistent with the identity of essence in the godhead." (Systematic Theology, 1, 474)

James Boice

"There is also a subordination of office or rank still more plainly taught. By virtue of this, the Father sends the Son, and the Father and Son send the Spirit. This could exist between persons in all respects equal to each other, both in nature and relation. In God, however, it is probable that the official subordination is based upon that of the personal relations. It corresponds exactly with the relations of the persons, from which has probably resulted their official subordination in works without, and especially in the work of redemption." (James P. Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology, ch. 15)

Michal Haykin

"I think with the claim that some make that a difference in property or function necessitates an ontological difference -- that fails to understand the nuances of classical Trinitarian thought. The Fathers were quite clear that there are differences between the persons. And there is a difference in terms of taxis -- order -- which has implications for authority. It was not the Father who became incarnate, but the Son. And therefore it's a given that there are differences between the persons. And yet that in no way -- at least in Fourth Century classical Trinitarian theology -- in no way implies an ontological difference or an ontological subordination. Again, with the Cappadocians: they always have present in their minds Origen and his initial attempt to frame a Biblical understanding of the Trinity. But he was hampered for a variety of reasons. And there are elements of subordinationism that dog some of his statements. And the fathers -- the Cappadocian fathers -- are determined to overcome this. But without compromising the fact that there is an order within the Godhead. That the normal designation of the Three is Father, Son, and Spirit....

"I think eternal generation does imply an order of authority. It's the Father who begets the Son. And so the Cappadocians can even talk about the Father as the fons deitatis, as the source of Godhead. They don't mean by that that the Son or the Spirit are any less God. But they are thinking in terms of the personhood of the Three. And that there is therefore a priority. The Father has a logical priority. It's not a temporal priority because the eternal generation of the Son is indeed that: it's eternal. But the Son does not generate the Father. It's the Father [who] generates the Son. Which implies an element of authority there, I think, in the Cappadocians' thought." (transcription of Michael Haykin on the Trinity, December 17, 2009)

Wayne Grudem

Thus, while the persons of the Trinity are equal in all their attributes, they nonetheless differ in their relationships to the creation. The Son and Holy Spirit are equal in deity to God the Father, but they are subordinate in their roles. Moreover, these differences in role are not temporary but last forever. (Systematic Theology, 249)

This truth about the Trinity has sometimes been summarized in the phrase "ontological equality but economic subordination," where the word ontological means "being." Another way of expressing this more simply would be to say "equal in being but subordinate in role." Both parts of this phrase are necessary to a true doctrine of the Trinity: If we do not have ontological equality, not all the persons are fully God. But if we do not have economic subordination, then there is no inherent difference in the way the three persons relate to one another, and consequently, we do not have the three distinct persons existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all eternity. For example, if the Son is not eternally subordinate to the Father in role, then the Father is not eternally "Father" and the Son is not eternally "Son." This would mean that the Trinity has not eternally existed. This is why the idea of eternal equality in being but subordination in role has been essential to the church's doctrine of the Trinity since it was first affirmed in the Nicene Creed, which said that the Son was 'begotten of the Father before all ages' and that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son." Surprisingly, some recent evangelical writings have denied an eternal subordination in role among the members of the Trinity, but it has clearly been part of the church's doctrine of the Trinity. (ibid, 251)

Bruce Ware

Therefore, as we consider the incarnational mission of Christ, with the Son expressing his own submission to the Father with words such as, ‘I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me’ (John 8:28), we see that this same relationship of submission to the Father was true in eternity past, even before the creation of the world. The submission of the Son in the incarnation is but a reflection of the eternal relationship that has always been true with his Father. The Son always seeks to do the will of the Father, and this is true eternally. - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), 79.

Mike Ovey

If one thinks of ‘will’ as a faculty of nature, then in the distinction drawn between person and nature, which is the ‘grammar’ of Nicaea and Chalcedon, one must say Jesus has two wills, one for his human nature, and one for his divine nature, because he has both divine and human natures in their entirety. Similarly, if ‘will’ is an attribute of nature, then one has to say the triune God has one will since the triune God has only one nature. However, ‘will’ can also refer to someone more as a personal agent, where my ‘will’ and ‘I’ become close to synonymous. In this sense, where ‘will’ is being taken not at the level of nature but at the level of person, one has to say Father and Son have distinguishable wills because they are distinguishable persons. Those wills are in immutable harmony... ("Should I resign?", June 10, 2016)

Used in support of EFS

The following have been using in support of EFS, although critics have replied that they refer to ad extra submission.

Hilary of Poitiers

“Let us bring forward no isolated point of the divine mysteries to rouse the suspicions of our hearers and give an occasion to the blasphemers. We must first preach the birth and subordination of the Son [subjectio] and the likeness of His nature, and then we may preach in godly fashion that the Father and the Son are of one substance.” — De Synodis 70

Augustine

“If however the reason why the Son is said to have been sent by the Father is simply that the one is the Father and the other the Son, then there is nothing at all to stop us believing that the Son is equal to the Father and consubstantial and co-eternal, and yet that the Son is sent by the Father. Not because one is greater and the other less, but because one is the Father and the other the Son. . . For he was not sent in virtue of some disparity of power or substance or anything in him that was not equal to the Father, but in virtue of the Son being from the Father, not the Father being from the Son.” - The Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill, Vol. 5, The Works of St. Augustine (Brooklyn: New City Press, 1991), IV. 27

Jonathan Edwards

“Though a subordination of the persons of the Trinity in their actings be not from any proper natural subjection one to another, and so must be conceived of as in some respect established by mutual free agreement. . . yet this agreement establishing this economy is not to be looked upon as merely arbitrary. 3. . . But there is a natural decency or fitness in that order and economy that is established. 'Tis fit that the order of the acting of the persons of the Trinity should be agreeable to the order of their subsisting: that as the Father is first in the order of subsisting, so he should be first in the order of acting. . . . therefore the persons of the Trinity all consent to this order, and establish it by agreement, as they all naturally delight in what is in itself fit, suitable and beautiful. Therefore, This order [or] economy of the persons of the Trinity with respect to their actions ad extra is to be conceived of as prior to the covenant of redemption. . . . That the economy of the persons of the Trinity, establishing that order of their acting that is agreeable to the order of their subsisting, is entirely diverse from the covenant of redemption, and prior to it, not only appears from the nature of things, but appears evidently from the Scripture . . .” - “Economy of the Trinity and Covenant of Redemption,” (1740), The “Miscellanies” 833-1152.

Critical

Fred Sanders

Against resting all the weight for the Father-Son distinction on a relationship of authority:

"The Grudem-Ware argument [takes] the distinction between the Father and the Son and ground it, resting all the weight, for that distinction on a relationship of authority. I look at that and think: That wall will not bear that kind of weight. Traditionally eternal generation has been the thing that has borne the weight of distinguishing between the Father and the Son. That's a study wall, it's a solid thing to build on. I wish that in your theology you would build on that. I think if you rest it on that other wall you're going to find that other things go messy in your theological architecture at some point. But not: That's a heresy. Just: That's not the right way to do things." (The Trinity and Gender: The Recent Debate Among Evangelicals, published December 10, 2012)

On describing the three Persons as first, second, and third:

"Even in that absolute abstract language we're doing some kind of priority and posteriority; or even, if the words weren't overly loaded, super-ordination and sub-ordination in a non-hierarchical sense. But there's something going on there. And I think that that something tells you more about who the Son is. It gives you a relational identity of logical posteriority that the Son possesses that is permanent, eternal, and necessary." (ibid)

On the "strangely logical final conclusion in the sending of the Son":

"There is, in the relations of origin of the triune God, an irreversible taxis to which the obedience of the incarnate Christ corresponds in human form. It’s an eternal procession that reaches its strangely logical final conclusion in the sending of the Son. As for his submission to the Father, I don’t know what they call it in the happy land of the Trinity, but when it lives among us it is rightly named obedience." (Things Eternal: Sonship, Generation, Generatedness, May 8, 2015)

Michael F. Bird

"The Protestant scheme, then, was not eternal functional subordination, but rather something better described as preincarnate functional obedient subjection, since these theologians would reject any sense that the Son’s subordination corresponded with his eternal divinity or even his personhood. In a distinctively Protestant way, they supposed that the preincarnate submission of the Son to the Father was exclusively because of the triune plan that he would assume the office of the mediator and not because of his personal relationship as Son to Father." (Trinity Without Hierarchy, 18)

Non-affirming but tolerant

Graham Cole

"Although this is not my view and I find it highly problematical, it falls within the bounds of Christian faithfulness." (Trinity Without Hierarchy, 281)

Al Mohler

"[Grudem and Ware's] teachings do not in any way contradict the words of the Nicene Creed, and both theologians eagerly affirm it. I do not share their proposals concerning the eternal submission of the Son to the Father, but I am well aware that nothing they have taught even resembles the heresy of the Arians. To the contrary, both theologians affirm the full scope of orthodox Christianity and have proved themselves faithful teachers of the church." ("Heresy and Humility — Lessons from a Current Controversy", June 28, 2016)

Craig Keener

"Regardless of one's view of gender roles, one can make a case for the Son's subordination to the Father, probably even in some sense for his eternal subordination. Nevertheless, labels like "heresy" and "tampering with the Trinity" are inappropriate for either side of this debate, and are best reserved for sects that genuinely subvert biblical Christology such as Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons." (Trinity Journal, Spring 1999, 39-51)

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