(The following is from my friend Errol Amey and is being shared with his permission [click here for Part II])
A Case for Subordinationism in Modern Apologetics: On How Polemicists for Athanasian/ Constantinopolitan Trinitarianism Actively Attempt to Suppress Knowledge of Subordinationist Trinitarianism Among Today’s Laity.
William Albrecht is a lay apologist for the Roman Catholic Church. I’d
been loosely aware of him for a few years, but had never viewed any of his
YouTube/Zoom livefeeds when on a whim I dropped in on one defending the Trinity
and asked him how he responds to the prevalent indication in patristic scholarship
of Subordinationism as the common or even universal view of the pre-Nicene
Church. Albrect took exception to this line of inquiry and at times seemed
quite perturbed as he denied that any of the pre-Nicene Christians held to
Subordinationism and attempted to draw me into a debate on the primary source
material for which I did not at that time have my notes gathered, so we agreed
that I’d come back the following week for discussion of such. We hashed out
some details, which he acknowledged: “You're going to have to narrow it down to
at least five Fathers because there's no way we're going talk about—to be able
to cover all of them in an two-hour span. So you've got Tertullian, Justin
Martyr, Origen, . . . Novatian, . . . Hippolytus.” He also acknowledged my lack
of interest in considering the Scriptures apart from the early Christian
understanding of them. He furthermore noted at the end of our discussion, “I
don't mute you or kick you [out]. As much as you talk I allow you to speak.
You'll be treated fairly. You can present your case.” And yet when I showed up
the next week, this is the reaction which I received from Albrecht and his
regular guest, Sam
Shamoun (aka, Ben Malik), starting when I came on at around the 1:44:00
timestamp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z7JbF9CJ1A&t=6225s
Shamoun paid lip-service to prima scriptura, but then insisted on having
me ejected when I attempted to cite the early Christians' commentaries on the
verses being discussed, becoming almost hysterical in demanding exclusively,
“the verse from the Bible!” Similarly, in my previous meeting with Albrecht, he
repeatedly insisted, “Show me from the Bible,” in response to my appeal to
patristic writ. Shamoun even took a page straight out of the Protestant
playbook by citing Irenaeus' belief that Christ lived into his mature years as
a reason to dismiss universal pre-Nicene understandings of the Scriptures
(e.g., Subordinationism). Such a sola
scriptura approach is not at all what one would imagine from those of Roman
Catholicism or Assyrian Church of the East, and yet there it is.
Shamoun did make some interesting comments in our brief exchange,
however, including a point which would contradict Albrecht’s stance that
pre-Nicene Christians didn’t teach Subordinationism: “Jesus residing in God as
the Logos and then becoming the Son? That is not warranted by Scripture so
though Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Irenaeus are Trinitarians they are wrestling
with how to properly articulate those relationships. But then you fully are
aware that later on, upon further reflection, those articulations were
abandoned. . . . Did Athanasius believe that Jesus wasn’t the Son prior to
creation but the Logos Who then sprung forth as the Son? So who’s right? . . .
I’m going to go with Athanasius. I like his interpretations. I’m going to pit
my [church] father against your [church] father.” Just prior to this Shamoun
had also denied that the Father is autotheos; an argument one would be hard
pressed to demonstrate from the pre-Nicene Christians, to say the least. All of
this only serves to attenuate Albrect’s previous argument that none of the
pre-Nicene orthodox held to Subordinationism. Indeed, Albrect’s responses to
the patristic scholarship which I had cited for him were (1) that the scholars
I cited were “liberal” scholars, and (2) that there are conservative scholars
who disagree with the idea that any of the pre-Nicene orhtodox were
Subordinationists. The former point was rather disingenuous given that Albrecht
had already admitted that he was unfamiliar with the scholars who I had cited,
and thus it would appear that he defines “liberal scholar” as ‘Any scholar who
disagrees with William Albrecht,’ when in fact all of the scholars I cited are
considered conservative by their peers. Here is how Albrecht attempted to
support his latter response:
“My scholar can beat yours up; I could use that argument all day. . . .
I can list my scholar and you can list yours. . . . You think your scholars are
correct; I think mine are correct. You list one, I’ll list one right now:
Bogdan Bucur blows away any of the scholars you’ve listed; he’s Orthodox; would
never make those arguments; google him; Bogdan Bucur, he’s not even Catholic;
one of the top scholars . . . would never make these ridiculous arguments.”
When I requested that Albrecht obtain a direct citation to this effect
by when next met for the debate, he refused and told me to look it up myself.
So I shouldered Albrecht’s burden of proof; a bibliophile friend of mine gave
me access to one of Bucur’s (rather expensive) works, and this is what I found:
“The fact
that Justin Martyr articulated his trinitarian faith by means of a problematic
trinitarian theology is a commonplace in scholarship. . . .
“The problem
most often associated with Justin’s trinitarian theology is its
subordinationism. Even more troubling is Justin’s view of the Holy Spirit. . .
.
“In Apol.
1.13.3, Justin states that Christ holds the second place after ‘the true God,’
while ‘the prophetic Spirit’ holds the third place. A similar subordinationist
scheme occurs in Apol. 1.60.6–7”
(Bogdan
Gabriel Bucur, Angelomorphic Pneumatology, pp. 139-141)
And thus we see Albrecht’s disingenuousness in
merely assuming that one of his favorite scholars would support his case when
he was clearly unfamiliar with what Bucur actually had to say on the matter.
Especially notice how Bucur noted this to be, “commonplace
in scholarship,” a point which was mirrored in one of the scholarly sources I
had cited:
“Ante-Nicene
Subordinationism
“It is
generally conceded that the ante-Nicene Fathers were subordinationists. This is
clearly evident in the writings of the second-century ‘Apologists.’ . . .
Irenaeus follows a similar path . . . . The theological enterprise begun by the
Apologists and Irenaeus was continued in the West by Hippolytus and Tertullian
. . . . The ante-Nicene Fathers did their best to explain how the one God could
be a Trinity of three persons. It was the way they approached this dilemma that
caused them insoluble problems and led them into subordinationism. They began
with the premise that there was one God who was the Father, and then tried to
explain how the Son and the Spirit could also be God. By the fourth century it
was obvious that this approach could not produce an adequate theology of the
Trinity.”
(Kevin
Giles, The Trinity & Subordinationism, pp. 60-62)
The fact that Giles himself, as an Anglican priest, agrees with later
Athanasian Trinitarianism only serves to bolster his attestation that
pre-Nicene Christendom was Subordinationist, a point which, like Bucur, he also
notes as being the consensus of patristic scholars as it is, “generally
conceded.” Additional examples from patristic scholars abound; we’ll consider a
few more as we refute Albrecht’s treatments of Justin Martyr.
I began my examples of primary source material with the following:
“we know no
ruler more kingly or just than He except God [the Father] who begot Him.”
(Justin
Martyr, ca. 153, First Apology 12, in Fathers of the Church 6:44,
brackets in original)
That the Son is less kingly and less just than the Father are examples
of subordination in personal attributes. Albrecht’s response was that in such
instances, “each and every time you’ll find that
in Justin, he’s talking about the human nature of Christ. He’s very clear about
that.” This would be a good point, were it actually true. Translations of
Justin Martyr’s First Apology are readily available in their entirety
online such as the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and anyone can see that nowhere
in the textual context does Justin even remotely insinuate that he’s here
talking about, “the human nature of Christ,” let alone being, “very clear about
that.” Indeed, I had already shared with Albrecht the Roman Catholic
translator’s commentary on this passage:
“This seems
to imply the error of subordinationism which teaches that the Father is greater
than the Son.”
(Thomas B.
Falls, Fathers of the Church 6:44)
Entirely in keeping with the consensus of patristic scholarship. Another
example from Justin, also without any contextual indication that he was merely
referring to Christ’s humanity:
“For we have learnt that he is the son of the true God, and we hold him
in second place, with the prophetic Spirit in the third rank.”
(Justin Martyr, ca. 153, First Apology 13:3, in Oxford Early
Christian Texts 11:111)
This passage is of particular interest as Albrecht
had claimed, “Why is it that you don’t have any of this in the actual footnotes
? . . . Do any of these scholars appear in the new editions of the translations
that’re coming out? I can tell you right now they don’t. I’ve looked at Justin
Martyr. I have the new translations that’ve come out. You don’t have any of
these footnotes there; any of these commentaries that’re from scholars.”
Patently false. From the footnotes to the passage of the above translation, in
the 2014 edition:
“At D[ialogue
with Trypho] 5.4 Justin says that ‘only God is unbegotten and
incorruptible, and he is God for that very reason; everything else after him is
begotten and corruptible’. This is one of the grounds of Justin’s subordinationism:
an unbegotten, incorruptible, immortal God could not be crucified. But,
equally, such a God could not reveal himself to his creatures. Hence the need
for an ‘other God’ (ἕτερος θεὸς) besides the maker of the universe
(cf. D[ialogue with Trypho] 55.1; 56.4; 56.2; 128.4; 129.4), who ‘has
never done or said anything except what he who is the creator of the universe,
above whom there is no other God, willed him both to do and to say’ (D[ialogue
with Trypho] 56.11). Justin’s subordinationism succinctly emcompasses both
a courageous acknowledgement of the folly of the cross (cf. 1 Cor. 1:23), and
deliberately startling assertion of the real, though secondary, divinity of
Jesus.”
(Denis Minns
& Paul Parvis, Oxford Early Christian Texts 11:111)
And again, from the introduction of the same translation:
“Justin
believed that the very possibility of divine revelation required the existence
of such a distinct, subordinated, or second-order divinity, for the possibility
of God directly and immediately communicating himself to anyone else was ruled
out by God’s own transcendence. How, in view of this, God is able to
communicate himself to the Son is a question which Justin does not address. He
is aware, however, that to speak of this ‘rational power’ as ‘another God’
distinct from the Father who begets him, is problematic for the belief that God
is one. Justin solves the difficulty to his own satisfaction by insisting that
the ‘other God’ (θεὸς ἕτερος) and Lord
who is beside the maker of the universe, came into being by the will of the
Father, and, though numerically distinct from him, ‘has never done anything
except that which the God who is the maker of all, above whom there is no other
God (ἄλλος . . . θεὸς), has willed him to do and to say’ (D[ialogue
with Trypho] 56.4, 11).”
(Ibid., pp.
61-62)
And finally, yet another from Justin Martyr:
“I shall
attempt to prove my assertion, namely, that there exists and is mentioned in
Scripture another God and Lord under the Creator of all things, who is also
called an Angel, because He proclaims to man whatever the Creator of the
world—above whom there is no other God—wishes to reveal to them.”
(Justin Martyr, ca. 160, Dialogue With Trypho 56, in Fathers of the
Church 6:232)
When proponents of Athanasian Trinitarianism claim that there are
detractors among patristic scholars to the view that Subordinationism
constituted pre-Nicene orthodoxy, they rarely attempt to drop any names, and
even in such rare exceptions never cite the sources themselves. Albrecht isn’t
the first to try to hide behind the rarity and expensiveness of the volumes
necessary for fact-checking; last year it was Eastern Orthodox polemicist, John Yelland, who assured me that Fr. John Behr rejected this position, and like
Albrecht he failed to give a citation. And just as with Albrecht, I found the
truth to be quite the opposite of what I was assured it to be, and incidentally
in direct commentary to my last citation of Justin Martyr:
“As it is
not God himself who thus appeared and spoke with man, the Word of God who did
all of these things is, for Justin [Martyr], ‘another God and Lord besides (ἔτερος παρὰ) the Maker of all,’ who is also
called his ‘Angel,’ as he brings messages from the Maker
of all, ‘above whom
there is no other God’ (Dial. 56.4). . . . The divinity of Jesus Christ,
an ‘other God,’ is no longer that of the Father himself, but subordinate to it,
a lesser divinity”
(John Behr, Formation
of Christian Theology 1:104)
