(The following is from my friend Errol Amey and is being shared with his permission. Click here to read Part I)
A Case for Subordinationism in Modern Apologetics, Part II: In Which a
Polemicist for Athanasian/ Constantinopolitan Trinitarianism
Forfeits All Credibility.
In an attempt to save face after my previous refutations of his
arguments, William Albrecht chose to double down on his claim that Bogden
Bucur, “would never make these ridiculous arguments” for Justin Martyr, et al.,
believing in Subordinationism: “You have ripped my friend Dr. Bucur OUT of
context.” Let’s consider the fuller context with one of the sections I cited in
bold, the section Albrecht cited underlined, and the intervening section
in plain text:
“The
problem most often associated with Justin’s trinitarian theology is its
subordinationism. Even more troubling is Justin’s view of the Holy Spirit.
Erwin R. Goodenough’s observation, that ‘[t]here is no doctrine of Justin more
baffling than his doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and no doctrine which has been
more differently understood,’ remains as true today as it was in 1923. His
writings contain numerous references to ‘the spirit,’ ‘the holy spirit,’ ‘the
divine spirit,’ ‘the prophetic spirit,’ ‘the holy prophetic spirit,’ ‘God’s
prophetic spirit,’ or ‘the divine, holy, prophetic spirit.’ Nevertheless,
Justin offers ‘very few clear ideas about the person and nature of the
Prophetic Spirit.’ Even though verdicts about Justin’s pneumatology ‘se
mantienen sensiblemente distanciadas,’ especially on the issue of deciding
whether pneuma is a personal or impersonal entity in the Apologies and
the Dialogue, scholars generally agree that, by contrast to his
extensive discussion about the Father and the Son, Justin is quite ‘discreet’
about the Spirit. In the words of André Wartelle, ‘one is tempted to write that
Justin has the Spirit intervene only when he cannot do otherwise.’ It has been
said, again and again, that Justin’s all-encompassing theory of the seminal
Logos precludes the articulation of a robust pneumatology: ‘in strict logic
there is no place in Justin’s thought for the person of the Holy Spirit because
the logos carries out his functions.’
“This
observation, although true to a large extent, is not entirely fair to Justin.
As José Pablo Martín has shown, since Justin’s thought is determined by several
‘conceptual schemes’ or ‘systems,’ a study of his christology cannot be reduced
to the ‘Logos-scheme,’ but must also take into consideration his extensive
speculations about notions such as the angels, the divine δύναμις, or the Messiah as bearer of the
Spirit. Similarly, a study of Justin’s pneumatology cannot be reduced to the observation that the
Logos-framework allows almost no place for a theology of the Spirit.”
(Bogdan
Gabriel Bucur, Angelomorphic Pneumatology, pp. 140-141, bold and
underline added)
While Albrecht would have us believe that Bucur’s reference to, “This
observation,” etc., was pertaining to his unqualified statement that, “The
problem most often associated with Justin’s trinitarian theology is its
subordinationism,” it’s clear from the context that Bucur was rather addressing
the second and separate issue he had raised, viz., “Even more troubling is
Justin’s view of the Holy Spirit,” which issue he had specifically spent the
entirety of the paragraph preceding Albrecht’s quotation discussing.
Next Albrecht takes to the footnotes to try and salvage his argument,
but it’s worth noting first the footnote to the sentence I had cited which he
surely must have seen when plotting his retort and in which Bucur tacitly
assents to the conclusion of other patristic scholars in not only their recognition
of Justin as having taught Subordinationism but so, too, of the ancient scribes
making this same observation:
“According
to Bobichon (Dialogue avec Tryphon, 5), Justin’s subordinationism may in
fact explain the very meager manuscript tradition of the Dialog with Trypho.”
(Ibid., pg.
140)
A rather glaring omission on Albrecht’s part. And again, Bucur, giving
further comment on his statement that, “In reaction most likely to contrary
views, Justin insists that Jesus’ baptism was a theophany, which did not create
Christ’s identity but revealed it to the world,” he elucidated in the
footnotes:
“In fact, it
is the concern about subordinationist interpretations of the Jordan event that
explain why, after being an essential article of faith, the baptism of Jesus
was eliminated from fourth-century creeds.”
(Ibid., pg.
150)
It is only after these instances, when Bucur has returned to Justin’s
“problematic” teachings regarding the Spirit, that we see Albrecht’s appeal to
the following footnote:
“It may be
that Justin’s reference to the Spirit as ‘third in rank’ is not necessarily
subordinationistic, but rather a way of stating that the gifts of the Spirit
became available only after the Ascension, that is, chronologically last.”
(Ibid., pg.
152)
Behold the emboldened language which Albrecht would have us believe
constitutes Bucur’s supposed position in which he, “would never make these
ridiculous arguments” for Justin Martyr, et al., believing in Subordinationism:
“It may be,” “not necessarily,” and this only in reference to one specific
instance out of several which patristic scholars have identified as
Subordinationistic teachings by Justin Martyr. No, it is clear that Albrecht
was in fact wrong when he merely assumed that one of his favorite patristic
scholars would agree with his views on this matter, when in reality Bucur only
serves to refute Albrecht.
Even worse is Albrecht’s diatribe in response to my refutation of his
argument concerning the scholarly commentary, “in the new editions of the
translations,” etc.:
“Aaron
[sic], you are an AMATEUR. You are making a FOOL of yourself. There are MANY
translations of Justin, but there is no critical 2014 EDITION. You continue to
SMASH pies in your FACE by pretending to KNOW what you are speaking of.”
From the back cover of the same volume I had cited:
“The Oxford
Early Christian Texts series presents this new critical edition of
the Greek text of the Apologies with introduction, English translation,
and textual commentary.” (bold and underline added)
All Albrecht would have had to do was check the reference to the Oxford
Early Christian Texts series which I had provided and he would have known
that he was wrong, but he manifestly values rhetoric over research. He
apparently didn’t even know of the existence of this scholarly series until I
presented it to him despite the fact that this particular volume was originally
published in 2009 and then reprinted in 2014. His argument on this matter as
well thus stands refuted; the scholarly commentary in one of the newest
editions to have been published does—in fact—readily attest to Justin Martyr’s
belief in Subordinationism.
Most of the above information was presented to Albrecht on Facebook,
which posts he promptly deleted, and I’ve been informed that he didn’t correct
any of his false statements after having blocked me. And thus Albrecht’s
integrity implodes upon itself, leaving only the empty shell of an apologist
serving as an echochamber for his patreon supporters.
Yet the problem runs even deeper than this. Albrecht assured me that he
understands perfectly well how Subordinationism is defined by scholars: “I’m
well aware of the term and I don’t agree with the way you’re defining it. . . .
To be able to get on board with Him being eternal God, yet He’s still
subordinate; He has all of the attributes that the one true God does have, yet
He’s subordinate. That’s really . . . looking for loopholes and really creating
your own definition.” And again: “I’ve looked at Arianism. I’ve looked at
Subordinationism. . . . At the end of the day, they’re still heresies. One of
them is really, really careful at the way they veil their heresy.” I had
initially given Albrecht the benefit of the doubt and assumed that such claims
were true, and conducted my discussion with him accordingly, but his arguments
became increasingly more suspect as he continued to cite Scriptures which,
while certainly presenting difficulties for a system such as Arianism, in no
wise precluded the principles of Subordinationism as expressed by the patristic
scholars I had cited. Indeed, much as he had taken Bucur out of context, so,
too, did he take a clip of our initial exchange out of context claiming that
his argument for the Spirit being given the moniker of Yahweh in the Old
Testament had left me, “speechless,” when in reality it had simply left me
disinterested in the conversation due to being the latest in a series of non
sequitur tangents. An earlier statement he had made, for instance (and the one
which really got me to start questioning his grasp of the subject), was that,
“we’re told that Christ is given worship; He’s given latria over and over . . .
. he says He’s to be given worship, and only God is given worship, so I don’t
see Subordinationism there at all.” You’ll note that none of this conflicts
with the patristic scholarship which I cited in my previous article, nor with the
following example which I had furnished for Albrecht:
“it was
necessary to defend the real distinction between the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit. Such writers as the author of the Contra Noetum, Tertullian
and Novatian did so by basing their claims primarily on the traditional Testimonia
of the Bible (see Uribarri, Trinidad). Though able to formulate well,
even with technical terms (esp. persona), the distinction of the divine
persons (distributio), they were less successful in expressing the substantial
unity in the distinction, unable to overcome a certain subordinationist
tendency (ontological gradation of the persons in the overly close connection
of the origin of the Son and the Spirit with the creation).”
(Basil Studer, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 3:836)
Nor in this scholarly definition:
“Subordinationism
“Thus we
call the tendency, strong in the theology of the 2nd and 3rd cc., to consider
Christ, as Son of God, inferior to the Father. Behind this tendency were gospel
statements in which Christ himself stressed this inferiority (Jn 14, 28; Mk 10,
18; 13, 32, etc.) and it was developed esp. by the Logos-Christology. This
theology, partly under the influence of middle Platonism, considered Christ,
logos and divine wisdom, as the means of liaison and mediation between the
Father’s position to him. When the conception of the Trinity was enlarged to
include the Holy Spirit, as in Origen, this in turn was considered inferior to
the Son. Subordinationist tendencies are evident esp. in theologians like
Justin, Tertullian, Origen and Novatian; but even in Irenaeus, to whom
trinitarian speculations are alien, commenting on Jn 14, 28, has no difficulty
in considering Christ inferior to the Father.”
(Manlio Simonetti, Oxford Encyclopedia of the Early Church 2:797)
And the list goes on. The simplest scholarly explanation of
Subordinationism, given in a lecture delivered to an audience of laity and from
which I drew the explanation I had repeatedly given Albrecht, directly
contradicts Albrecht’s recent claim regarding the position: “it means that they
argue that the Son and the Holy Ghost are inferior—even though they don’t want
to use that term—They’re inferior to the Father. And when it comes to the Holy
Spirit, that has got to be via nature.” Such a misunderstanding of this
scholastic term can only be the product of relying on sources as dubious as
Wikipedia and the like. From the aforementioned lecture:
“The key to
having an orthodox, Scriptural understanding of the Trinity is to grasp that there
is a difference between three attributes or terms. They are nature, personal
attributes and order. . . . The Nicene Creed affirms that the Father and the
Son are of the same nature or substance. . . . Personal attributes are
something altogether different. Personal attributes refer to the individual
characteristics and differences between members of the same class or nature.”
Etc.
(David W.
Bercot, ‘What the Early Christians Believed About the Trinity,’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpPmXUEK3F8)
Albrecht, then, vindicates how Bercot rightly noted in his lecture,
“When Christians don’t understand the difference between nature, personal
attributes and order, they end up with a very confused understanding of the
Trinity. They usually end up getting into heresy even though they are trying to
have an orthodox view of the Trinity. They totally misconstrue what the
Scriptures teach about the Trinity and if they read the early Christian writings
they are baffled by what they read there. . . . In the early Christian
understanding there are no problem verses. It fits perfectly the totality of
Scripture.” (Ibid.)
