As Shawn Wright pointed out on Gender Blog recently, church history is neither authoritative nor decisive in establishing correct doctrine. Most evangelicals are "people of the book," and thus hold firmly to the formal principle of the Protestant Reformation, sola scriptura or "scripture alone" as their sole source of authority.
But church history is by no means unimportant in the discussion of doctrine. After all, we are not the first Christians who have wrestled with the proper interpretation of Scripture as evidenced by thousands who have written on Christian doctrine and practice. Likewise, we are not the first Christians to see an intra-trinitarian authority/submission structure in Scripture.
Egalitarians often argue that the doctrine of the Son's eternal submission is akin to the heresy of Arian subordination that was condemned in the early church. Arius argued that the Son was a created being and that "there was a time when he was not;" in other words, there was a time when the Son did not exist. This heresy (which lives today and is seen most clearly in the teachings of the Watchtower Society) viewed the Son as ontologically inferior to the Father; that is, the Son was not equal in essence to the Father.
The doctrine under consideration in this series, however, must not be confused with the heresy of Arius and others. The orthodox view of subordination has been affirmed by many in the mainstream of orthodoxy throughout church history, including:
- Hilary of Poitiers (c. 291-371), who was widely known as the Athanasius of the Western tradition. His work on the Trinity, De Trinitate, clearly expresses order and ranking in the Godhead.
- Athanasius (c. 296-373) argued against Arianism at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and saw his view emerge victorious. Yet, in his Orationes contra Arionos (Orations against Arius), he articulates the eternality of the Son and expresses a clear order within the Godhead.
- St. Augustine (354-430), famed bishop of Hippo, whose theology undergirded the Reformation. In his classic work On the Trinity, Augustine emphasized the unity of the Trinity and also reflected on the eternal subordination of the Son.
- Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-394), Basil of Caesarea (c. 329-379) and Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 330-390), the great Cappadocian Fathers, whose teachings on the Trinity were formative for the nascent Christian church, expressed order or ranking within the Godhead.
- Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), a profoundly important philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition. In his classic work Summa Theologica (Sum of Theology), he argues that, as the Father is not from another, it is in no way fitting for Him to be sent, but only for the Son and the Holy Spirit.
- John Calvin (1509-1564), a father of the Reformation and author of the first systematic theology, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin adopted Augustine's view of the Trinity.
- Charles Hodge (1797-1878), principal of Princeton Theological Seminary and stalwart theologian in the Reformed tradition. Hodge, in his renowned Systematic Theology, writes, "In the Holy Trinity there is a subordination of the Persons as to the mode of subsistence and operation..."
- B.B. Warfield (1851-1921), among the last of the great Princeton theologians who fought for orthodox Christianity at the turn of the 20th century. Warfield also serves as a model of self-sacrifice commensurate with the intra-trinitarian relationships; soon after his marriage to his wife Annie in 1876, she was struck by lightning and was rendered an invalid. Warfield traveled little and served as Annie's primary caregiver until her death in 1915.
- Augustus H. Strong (1836-1921), a renowned Baptist theologian at Rochester Theological Seminary. Strong, in his Systematic Theology, upholds the doctrine and applies it to the home, writing that "In office man is first and woman is second, but woman's soul is worth as much as man's see 1 Cor. 11:3."
- Louis Berkhof (1873-1957), noted Reformed systematic theologian, who, in his great Systematic Theology, sought to separate the heretical doctrine of subordinationism that was condemned in the early church from the orthodox teaching that the Son has a subordinate functional role to the Father.
For further study: