Matthew Barrett in his 2021 Simply Trinity, argued vehemently against proponents of the Eternal Functional Subordination (EFS) of the Son to the Father, charging it with leading to all types of heresies, such as the rejection of divine simplicity and leading to tritheism and semi-Arianism, as well as rejecting the Trinity for a Quaternity. Writing against proponents of this theology (“EFSers”), we read the following:
To be pro-Nicene one must affirm inseparable
operations. Inseparable operations means more than just a cooperation or
involvement of all three persons. The persons are not three centers of
consciousness and will, as if they merely work together, share the same
desires, and agree to the same plan. Inseparable operations means every act of
God is the single act of the triune God. There are not different acts by
different agents, but one act according to one divine agency. Singularity in
will, singularity in operation. . . . [This is denied by EFSers when they] use
language that has historically entailed multiple wills. For example, EFSers not
only say the Father begetting the Son means the Father has “ontological
primacy,” but the Father sending his begotten Son into the world out of love
for the world reveals the “motive of the Father,” “which must be exclusively
the Father’s even if his motive is in concert with or united with the
motives of the Son and Spirit” (Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity: The
Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books,
2021], 227, italics in original, comment in square brackets added for clarification)
. . . the three persons cannot
perform a single action if one or more persons are, by definition of
their personhood, inferior in authority to another person. As soon as you
insert gradations of authority within the imminent Trinity, gradations
that are person-defining and therefore essential for the Trinity to be a
Trinity, you forfeit one will in in God (Giles, The Eternal Generation
of the Son, 232). You forfeit the Trinity’s one, simple essence. Our God
is simply Trinity . . . no more. (Ibid., 229, italics in original)
The Achilles’
Heel: The Danger of Subordinationism
Throughout this book we keep
repeating that basic principle of Nicene orthodoxy: eternal relations of origin
alone distinguish the persons in the immanent Trinity. But EFS adds a
novel category: eternal roles of authority and submission. Nevertheless, EFSers
insist eternal relations of origin are ontological while eternal functional relations/roles
of authority/submission are functional.
First of all, it is fallacious to
say there is something ontological as opposed to something functional within
the immanent Trinity. This is a strange dichotomy, one that is not just novel
in every way but antithetical to biblical, Nicene orthodoxy. In all their exegesis
of Scripture, the pro-Nicene fathers would never have recognized such categories.
The Nicene Creed never refers to “roles” of hierarchy within the immanent Trinity.
To speak of the immanent Trinity was always to speak of ontology. This
is the triune God we are talking about. All that is in God is
ontological, otherwise, it would not be God. What distinguishes
plurality in the simple God is not something functional but personal, hypostaseis
to be exact. Even then, each person is a subsistence of the one essence.
The essence has three modes of subsistence.
It doesn’t get more ontological than that. But by projecting societal roles
into the immanent Trinity, the persons are no longer subsistences alone
but distinct agents cooperating to form a community, n this case a community of
hierarchy. That may fit with a social Trinity, but it is anything but biblical,
Nicene orthodoxy.
Second, EFS’s insistence that
subordination is functional, not ontological, fails to understand the
connection between person and essence. EFSers have created a divide between the
two, and they must if they are to safeguard the Son’s ontological equality in
essence from his functional subordination as a person (not to mention, such
a divide creates a quaternity in God). Despite the Son’s subjection in
authority and lesser glory, EFS assures us that the “Son is equal to the Father
precisely because he possesses the identically same nature as the Father
possesses” (Ware, “Unity and Distinction of the Trinitarian Person,” 19). But
why? Why does the Son possess the identically same nature as the Father?
[Bruce] Ware [a leading proponent of EFS] never answers that question.
But the answer to that question reveals
the Achilles’ heel of EFS. . . . eternal relations—like the Son’s generation—not
only distinguish the persons, but Nicaea put eternal generation forward to
claim, over against Arianism, that the Son is equal to the Father. For the Son
is eternally begotten from the Father’s essence (ousia). . . . EFSers
fail to see the connection. They treat homoousios—the Son is one in
essence with the Father—as if it is but a box to check on the orthodoxy card,
so that they can simultaneously say that the Son is equal in essence but subordinate
in role. But they have removed homoousios from its organic, biblical
context. The reason the pro-Nicene tradition could claim the Son is homousios
with the Father is only because the Son is begotten from the Father’s essence (Ayres,
Nicaea and Its Legacy, 93-96; Hanson, Christian Doctrine of God,
673, 693). Hence the Great Tradition said repeatedly that the one essence has
three modes of subsistence, each person a subsistence of that one, simple, undivided
essence. How does the Son subsist in the same essence as the Father? He is
eternally begotten from the Father’s essence. This is Nicene Orthodoxy 101.
It is also basic to preserving the
equality of the persons in Scripture. Notice, any and every time Scripture
reflects on the immanent Trinity—and those times are rare, considering
the focus most of the time is on salvation and the humility of the incarnation—Scripture
always emphasizes the Son’s equality with the Father without any qualification.
And when I say always, I mean always [Barrett quotes/references John
1:1; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3; 1 Cor. 1:24; John 14:9; John 5:18] . . . Furthermore,
EFS insists that roles of hierarchy are person-defining. You cannot have a
Trinity without hierarchy is a point Gruden belabors again and again (Grudem, Systematic
Theology, 251. Cf. Grudem, Evangelical Feminism, 47, 433). To ensure
their necessity, EFS now says roles of hierarchy flow from the eternal relations
of origin (Ware, “Unity and Distinction of the Trinitarian Persons,” 23, 25-26).
But wait: if the persons are subsistences of the essence, what is to keep
subordination from the essence? If the essence has three modes of
subsistence, and if subordination flows out of the Son’s mode of subsistence
itself (eternal generation), what is to keep hierarchy from divinity? Inventing
a division between ontological and functional is a farce. The essence subsists
in the Son by means of his mode of subsistence (eternal generation), and that
mode of subsistence, according to EFS, is littered with subordination.
Third, EFS has robbed the
divine essence of power and authority and segregated power and authority to the
persons, but the Father above all, violating the simplicity of the Trinity.
Nicene orthodoxy was very careful in its affirmation of simplicity: essence and
attributes are not different things; attributes are not parts of God’s essence.
Rather, God’s essence is his attributes and his attributes of his
essence. As subsistences of the same divine essence, no one person possesses
one attribute more or less than another—God’s power and authority included. As
the Athanasian Creed says,
the Father is almighty, the Son
almighty
and the Holy Spirit almighty,
and yet there are not three Almighties
but one Almighty.
The Father, then, is not a greater
almighty than the Son. That would divide the simple essence of God and create
an inferior Son. Coequal in power and authority, there is but one Almighty
(The Evangelical Theological Society's statement of faith says all three persons are "one in essence, equal in power and glory." it is unclear how Ware and Grudem can affirm this statement without qualification).
By contrast, EFS does affirm a
greater almighty in the Father, and not just a greater almighty but a greater
glory. As we saw, EFS even says the Father alone deserves ultimate glory within
the immanent Trinity, and not just in the economy but by nature of his
paternity in eternity. The Son is a lesser glory than the Father (Ware, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, 51). Must EFSers not also conclude, if they are to be
consistent that the Father is to receive more, greater worship than the Son?
Must EFSers not also conclude, if they are to be consistent that the Father is
to receive more, greater worship than the Son?
Not only does this contradict the
Athanasian Creed, but it dispenses with biblical simplicity altogether.
. . . By claiming that the Son is a lesser power and glory, EFS takes what
belongs to the essence of God, and therefore what belongs equally, wholly
to all three persons who subsist in that same essence, and gives it to the Father
over and above the Son and Spirit, dividing the Trinity. Stripping the essence
of such authority and giving it to the Father above all creates a lesser son.
(Ibid., 232-34, 235, 236-38, italics in original, emphasis in bold added,
comments in square brackets added for clarification)
In an endnote to the above, we read his charging Bruce Ware of
semi-Arianism:
Ware tries to avoid the charge of
semi-Arianism by saying authority is not a nature-property, so it’s not
as if the essence of God involves hierarchy. Instead, it’s a
person-property. But the burden of proof is on Ware to prove this claim. For
authority has everything to do with divine power, and omnipotence is a divine attribute,
synonymous with the essence of God (simplicity). Also, Ware redefines authority
in the category of a relationship; just as humans can have differing authority
relationships and be equal as persons, so too God. But this is univocal
reasoning, applying creaturely and social characteristics to the divine, where
the persons are alike in all things (simplicity) except their modes of
subsistence. (Ibid., 344 n. 91)
I will say this: if Latter-day Saints were engaging in this type of public debate, accusing one another of embracing damnable heresies, our critics would use it against how "unified" Latter-day Saints are. Here we see within Evangelical Protestantism (and conservative Protestantism) one group (represented by Barrett et al.) charging the others (Bruce Ware; Wayne Grudem) of damnable heresy about the very nature of the Godhead and Christology.
