Egalitarians Revamp Doctrine of the Trinity: Bilezikian, Grenz and the Kroegers Deny Eternal Subordination of the Son

For centuries, the universal church has affirmed that Scripture teaches the eternal subordination of Jesus to God the Father. In creation as well as in redemption, Jesus functioned as the Father's agent. At the same time he sustained a status equal to the Father in essence and worth. In recent years, however, this historic view of the church has been under attack by socalled "biblical feminists" and egalitarians.

A primary reason for current efforts at redefining this doctrine is the problem created for an egalitarian view of gender roles. Egalitarians believe that any differentiation in role entails corresponding distinctions in worth or value. Hence they must maintain that God the Father and God the Son are eternally equal in roles, excluding any notion of the Son's eternal subordination to the Father. However, if Jesus has been subordinate to the Father from eternity in role, yet equal to the Father in essence and worth, then women can be seen legitimately as taking a different role without loss of equality in their worth or dignity.

Our evaluation of the legitimacy of recent attacks on the doctrine of the Son's subordination will focus on the question of whether the following two charges made by evangelical feminists are valid or not. The first is that this doctrine is a form of the Arian heresy of subordinationism.¹ The second is that the subordination of Christ occurred on earth only for the purpose of redemption, and that Jesus subsequently returned to the equal status and role in heaven he had maintained from eternity. We will conclude by considering the larger implications of this issue for women's roles in the church.

Is The Doctrine Of The Subordination Of The Son A Heresy?

Until recently, the doctrine of eternal subordination was questioned by few. From the second century A.D. until today, the orthodox church has held that Scripture teaches the Son's eternal subordination to the Father.² Almost all recent systematic theology texts that discuss the issue reflect this reality, including works written by Baptists (A.H. Strong, Gordon R. Lewis, Bruce Demarest), Lutherans (John Theodore Mueller), Anglicans (Edward A. Litton), Arminians (John Miley, Thomas Oden), Reformed theologians (Charles Hodge, Robert L. Dabney, Benjamin B. Warfield, William G. T. Shedd, Louis Berkhof, Wayne Grudem), and charismatics (G. Rodman Williams).³ In light of this broad consensus, it stands to reason that the recent objections to this doctrine are ideologically motivated. Their egalitarian commitment leads evangelical feminists such as Gilbert Bilezikian to call the doctrine of eternal subordination of the Son a "recent theological innovation" and causes Stanley Grenz to make the bizarre and unsupported assertion that the Father is "dependent on the Son for his deity."⁴ Where do these ideas come from? From reading the biblical text or the documents of church history? Arguably, they stem from egalitarian ideology, an example of which is found in the following discussion of the "heresy of subordinationism."

In an article on subordination, evangelical feminists Richard C. and Catherine C. Kroeger claim that the "heresy of subordinationism" is an ascription of inferiority of being, status, or role to the Son or Holy Spirit within the Trinity.⁵

But this conclusion is based on a failure to distinguish between a correct and an incorrect understanding of the Son's subordination. Michael Bauman, in his article on the heresy of subordinationism based on the early church controversies, makes a helpful clarification by laying out such a distinction between two views of subordination: the subordination of essence or nature (called "emphatic subordination")⁶ and the subordination of mission or status (called "economic subordination").

The council of Nicea (A.D. 325) called the first view (emphatic subordination) pertaining to the relationship between the Father and the Son heretical, because it denied the equality of essence or nature of Jesus to the Father. The latter view of the subordination of the Son to the Father, however, which states that Christ is equal in essence, yet eternally subordinate to the Father in mission and role, was officially adopted as the orthodox position of the Church and has continued as the view of the historic church to this day.⁷

Therefore the Kroegers' assertion that subordinationism represents a heresy is not only false but itself contrary to accepted Christian doctrine. It is based upon a dogma of modernity, rooted in Enlightenment thinking, that views a person's worth solely in terms of role and status. If any distinction in role is maintained between two given persons, it is argued, these lack equal value, worth, and dignity.⁸

According to this kind of ideology, any type of subordination, whether voluntary or involuntary, whether for a greater cause or the result of oppression, is wrong, because a person's inherent value is based on that person's status in society, not his or her essence or inherent value as a person made in the image of God.

Correspondingly, the word "subordination" has taken on the universal connotation of oppression in feminist circles.⁹ As has been demonstrated above, however, this negative stereotype fails to recognize that there are different types of subordination, including the kind of subordination where head and subordinate are of equal worth and dignity while one person voluntarily submits to the head for a greater cause. If a particular goal is to be attained in a given community, there will often be a need for certain individuals to subordinate themselves voluntarily to others for the accomplishment of a greater goal. But this does not mean that the person who submits is inferior in value or worth.

If Scripture teaches both that Jesus was fully God while occupying a different role than the Father (and the Spirit) from eternity and this does not make him inferior to the Father in essence and dignity, the same may be true for women or any other person in a different or "subordinate" role in the church today.

The Subordination Of The Son:
Temporary Self-Humiliation Or Eternal Role?

A second line of argument advanced by evangelical feminists is that the subordination of the Son to the Father was only temporary for the purpose of redemption. After dying on the cross for our sins, Jesus resumed his role of total equality of function and role. However, this evaluation seems to contradict the biblical data that shows the Son served an eternal role as the divine agent of the Father: "There is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live" (1 Cor. 8:6). It is hard to imagine a better way of keeping in balance Jesus' equality with the Father and their distinction in role. Moreover, Scripture is clear that this distinction is not merely temporary; Jesus is presented as the eternal Son of God, so that his role as divine agent stretches from eternity to eternity. Consider the following biblical passages.

Eternality of Sonship. The Bible always refers to Jesus as the Son. He is the "one and only" Son (John 3:16; 3:36) who was "sent" (John 3:17: Gal. 4:4) by God the Father according to the plan of God the Father before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:3-4): "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him." Since the foundation of the world, the Son has been identified as the Son who as the agent of God the Father performs functions.

Eternality of Roles. The functions performed by the Son stretch from creation to the restoration of creation. The Son is sent to perform these functions by the Father. At creation, Jesus served as the divine agent. He is the One "through whom" the universe is made (John 1:3; Col. 1:16) and sustained (Col. 1:18). Jesus also became the divine agent of redemption (Rom. 8:3-4; Gal. 4:4-5). Finally, he will function as the divine agent of God to restore creation and return it into the hands of the Father. 1 Corinthians 15:28 clearly indicates that Jesus will renew his voluntary subordination to the Father after returning to put everything under the Father's feet: "When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all."

We conclude with the biblical passage that perhaps most clearly relates Christ's relationship with God the Father to that of men and women. In 1 Corinthians 11:3, Paul writes: "Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." The issue is here framed in terms of headship, a term that has itself been the subject of extensive scholarly debate in recent years. The passage draws a clear connection between Christ's relationship to God and the woman's relationship to man. Moreover, the kind of relationship referred to here arguably is one of Christ's (the Son's) subordination to God (the Father).

The doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son has been the mainstream position in the history of the Christian church for good reason: such doctrine is clearly taught by Scripture, and it is not limited to Jesus' time on earth.10

The Revamping Of The Trinity And Women's Roles In The Church

Perhaps this is an area we are not used to hearing about. We are used to defending the deity of the Son, and that is also crucial. But we must remember that the doctrine of the Trinity includes both equality and differences among the members of the Trinity. Take away equality of being and you no longer have the Son and Spirit as fully divine. Take away differences in role and you no longer have three distinct persons; there is nothing that makes the Son to be the Son rather than the Father, or the Spirit to be the Spirit rather than the Father or the Son. If we abandon eternal differences in role, then we also abandon the Trinity. This egalitarian innovation in trinitarian doctrine carries a huge price tag.

It has not been the intention of this brief essay to prove that the role of women is different in relation to men pertaining to leadership roles in the church. However, the Son's subordinate yet equal relationship with the Father as part of the Trinity has crucial implications for the relationship between men and women in the church. Most important, if the Son was eternally subordinate to the Father in role yet equal in essence, the same principle may also apply to women's churchly status and roles in ministry. This angers many evangelical and other feminists. In fact, the clear link between trinitarian and gender relationships surrounding the doctrine of the subordination of the Son is a major embarrassment for egalitarians, which may explain why this topic is largely ignored in their writings. Conversely, complementarians should raise this issue in discussion or public debate with egalitarians whenever possible. The issue at hand, however, is not merely an intramural academic dispute promoting "controversies rather than God's work" (1 Tim. 1:4) that Christians are enjoined to avoid in Scripture. The implications of this question for Christian faith and practice are far-reaching indeed.

Thus a recent report of the Committee to Study the Role of Women in Ministry commissioned by the General Council of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (May 23-28, 1995) comes to the following conclusion: "Jesus is NOT SUBORDINATE to the Father and this kind of argument will not only create a sub-biblical role for women in the church, but will also create modern versions of ancient Christological heresy."¹⁰ One is amazed at the categorical nature of this assertion, struck by the egalitarian authors' awareness of the implications of the Son's subordination to the Father for women's roles in the church, and appalled by the glibness (not to say ignorance) with which they accuse proponents of this doctrine (which, after all, correctly understood, has been the virtually unanimous teaching of the orthodox church for two millennia) of "creating modern versions of ancient Christological heresy."

The implications of the subject at hand are larger still. This is not merely an in-house squabble about refinements in the church's trinitarian understanding. On a larger theological scale, a bona fide attempt is currently underway to dismantle the biblical and historical doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son. This effort is led by liberal feminist theologians who have undertaken a thorough reinterpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity not on the basis of Scripture but subjective human experience. As enunciated by liberal feminist Catherine Mowry LaCugna, Professor of Theology at Notre Dame University, one can only evaluate the Trinity on the basis of our being saved by God through Christ in the power of the Spirit.

LaCugna says that any discussion of the interpersonal relations of the Trinity is metaphysical speculation that must be rejected because it has given rise to "sexist and patriarchal" outcomes such as the church's teaching of the eternal subordination of the Son. Relating the Trinity to our own human experience means that the relationship between the Father, Son, and Spirit has equality, mutuality, and reciprocity.¹¹

This approach, with almost no reference to the biblical text and disdain for church history, does not allow for the notion of truth or revelation outside of personal subjective experience. Alarmingly, the spirit of this type of recent liberal interpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity can be recognized in the evangelical feminist argument to reinterpret the roles of men and women that have been affirmed throughout the history of the Christian church.

It is no coincidence that teachings such as that of an "egalitarian" Trinity take root in our day. In an age when doctrine is frequently surrendered for the sake of personal experience, is it any wonder that some manage to revise the very foundation of our faith almost unnoticed by the larger Christian populace? As a church, we must repent and educate ourselves from Scripture and church history, so that we can take our place firmly within the orthodox stream of biblical Christianity.