The Editor:
Thank you for publishing a review of my book, Jesus and the Father, by Jason Hall that I read with interest (JBMW, 12/1, 2007, 32-39). Because I am primarily interested in establishing what is the biblical and historically developed orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, I would like to make a reply to him.
I respond to his work in the order I have found comments that I cannot accept.
P. 31 col. 1. Jason says I accuse a "wide swath of evangelicals" of falling into heresy. The truth is I accuse a very small number of evangelicals for publishing in error on the Trinity. The evangelicals who have written on the eternal subordination of the Son can be counted on one hand. Not one Roman Catholic, not one mainline contemporary Protestant, and many informed evangelicals oppose this doctrine, including Millard Erickson, Roger Nicole, Cornelius Plantinga, and Philip Cary in the USA.
P. 32 col. 2. I do not speak at anytime as far as I am aware of an "egalitarian Trinity". What I endorse, taking up exactly the words of the Athanasian Creed, is a "co-equal" Trinity, where "none is before or after greater or lesser", and all three are "Lord" and "Almighty." Can I be in error if I exactly quote the creeds?
P. 33 col. 1. I do not oppose the subordination of the Son in any way. I endorse wholeheartedly, following scripture and the interpretative tradition, the voluntary and temporal (and if you like "functional") subordination of the Son for our salvation. What I oppose is the eternal subordination of the Son in being, work, or authority.
P. 33 col. 1. I do not call my debating opponents "Arians." (This claim is made repeatedly) What I accuse my debating opponents of is embracing in ignorance key elements of the Arian heresy. If one key element of the "neo-Arian" (i.e. Eunomian) position, opposed by the Cappadocians, was the subordination of the Son in authority—and it certainly it was#8212then Grudem, Ware et al have embraced a key element in the neo-Arian position.
P. 33 col. 2. I do not simply equate the terms "eternal" and "ontological." What I argue is that the minute it is claimed that the Son's subordination is eternal then his subordination is what defines his person. He functions subordinately because he is the subordinated Son.
P. 33 col. 2 last few lines. Jason very badly misrepresents what I say on the word "inferior."I completely agree that an inferior in role is not necessarily a personal inferior. What I argue is that someone who is permanently or eternally subordinated cannot be considered an equal in any substantive way. He or she is inferior in some way.
P. 34 col. 1. Jason suggests that I am mistaken to claim that the Church Fathers and Calvin consider the "functional subordination of the Son a heresy." It is true that none of them speak of "functional" or "role" subordination, but it is not functional subordination that I consider an error. The voluntary, temporal functional subordination of the Son can be accepted as pristine orthodoxy. This is what the incarnation is all about (c.f. Phil 2:4-11). What I oppose is the eternal subordination of the Son in being or function/work, arguing that the Church Fathers and Calvin deem this idea to be "heresy".
P. 34 col. 2. Jason claims that I do "not quote the church fathers" to substantiate my argument from "logic" that to deny the absolute authority and power (omnipotence) of the Son is to fall into error but I do and in great detail (See Jesus and the Father, pp. 185-190), especially in reference to the Cappadocians.
P. 35. In a major section entitled "Distinction of person and nature," Jason accuses me of "not making the necessary distinction between persons and nature in the doctrine of the Trinity. In trinitarian grammar the terms#8212substance, being, nature, essence#8212are exact theological synonyms. They are used interchangeably of what is one in God. The terms#8212person, hypostasis, subsistence#8212likewise are exact theological synonyms. They are used interchangeably of what is three in God. So the exact definition of the Trinity in the West is "one substance three persons", and in the East, "one being three hypostases". Jason and my debating opponents may be unaware of these exact terminological distinctions and get them confused, I do not.
P. 36 col. 1. Following this Jason Hall asserts that my "claim that eternal subordination in person is the same as eternal subordination in being is untrue." If the Father and the Son are one in being (homoousios), how can this be untrue? To confess that the Father and the Son are one in being is to believe that the three persons have the one substancenature- being-essence both in unity and in distinction as the person of the Father, Son and Spirit. There can be no distinguishing at any point in substancenature- being-essence in the divine three yet there is an eternal difference in the persons#8212one is Father, one is Son, and one is the Holy Spirit. How this difference is defined by orthodoxy I explain in a whole chapter in my book (pp. 205-241). What orthodoxy can never allow is that the persons are differentiated or divided in substance-being-essence-nature, or differentiated or divided in power-authority.
P. 36 col. 36. Jason says he has no need to "delve" into my innumerable quotes from the Church Fathers and Calvin because firstly they are the same as in my earlier book, The Trinity and Subordinationism, and secondly, because others have fully and "skillfully" shown these to be a misreading of the sources. Neither assertion is true. In Jesus and the Father I multiply the evidence from the Church Fathers at least fourfold, and even more so in the case of the Cappadocians. In addition in my second book I add a whole chapter on Barth and on the immanent-economic Trinity relationship. And, it is simply not true that anyone has shown that my reading of the historic sources is substantially wrong. If I am to be refuted it has to be demonstrated that my reading of the Bible, the Church Fathers, Calvin and the creeds and confessions are substantially mistaken. Asserting that I am wrong proves nothing.
P. 36 col. 2. The claim, common to the Grudem-Ware position, that "the Son can exercise his power under the submission of the Father" is an explicit parallel to the teaching of the Neo-Arian Eunomious. (See Jesus and the Father, 185ff). Gregory of Nyssa word for word rejects this argument (188). Orthodox teaching on the divine attributes predicated on the Bible also excludes this idea. Father, Son and Spirit are all omnipotent and this term is a superlative. The Father is not a bit more omnipotent than the Son! If he were he would be "more God" than the Son! Most importantly the primary New Testament confession, "Jesus is Lord" (more than 200 times) excludes this idea.
P. 37. Next Jason says that nowhere do I show or prove that the evangelicals I am debating against on the Trinity have a "deficient knowledge of the historical theology." (The same stark claim is made in the conclusion). This is what the whole book of over 300 pages seeks to establish. If I am substantially right in what I say it proves that what my opponents are substantially wrong. Given that they are Christian men of good will then this must be explained in terms of ignorance of what the historic creeds and confessions define as orthodoxy.
What is most surprising is that in this part of the review, rejecting my claim that Grudem, Ware et al are ill-informed on the historic doctrine of the Trinity, your reviewer explicitly says he and they know that "the Arians subordinated the Son in authority." What? Knowing this teaching is a key Arian error they endorse it? Did Jason mean to say, "we" were all ignorant of this fact (as well as many others you raise)?
P. 38 col. 2. Jason next claims that I teach the differences between the divine three are "relative." This is completely false and a direct denial of my repeated assertions that divine unity and divine threeness are absolutes and eternal. I am not a modalist in any way. I emphatically and explicitly teach the eternal differentiation of the divine three in the ways historic orthodoxy endorses. What I deny is that the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity eternally subordinates the Son in being, work/function, or authority. Difference and equality are not mutually exclusive ideas.
Following the suggestion that I am a modalist, relativising divine differentiation, your reviewer says he follows Grudem, Ware et al in endorsing the Arian practice of taking the divine titles "Father" and "Son" literally. Does he believe that the eternal Son gets old and one day dies? If not then he does not take the title "Son" literally. In the New Testament when Jesus is called the "Son" it most commonly alludes to his royal rule as I note John Frame teaches. This title never suggests his subordination in authority as those who draw on human experience rather than scripture hold.
I pray this response will encourage further debate and reflection on the primary doctrine of the Christian faith, our doctrine of God.
Kevin Giles
Melbourne, Australia
JBMW Response:
We encourage readers to go back and read Hall's review of Giles from JBMW 12, no. 1 (Spring 2007) for themselves, as well as Giles's book, Jesus and the Father. Having considered Giles's concerns, the editors continue to stand by Hall's review and do not feel that a point-by-point reply to Giles's response is necessary. However, some more important comments are in order:
(1) In response to Hall, Giles claims, "I accuse a very small number of evangelicals for publishing in error on the Trinity. The evangelicals who have written on the eternal subordination of the Son can be counted on one hand" (italics his). However, when one considers both the text of Giles's book and the footnotes, the results yield at least the following contemporary evangelicals who have affirmed what Giles claims to be an erroneous teaching: George Knight III, Wayne Grudem, Bruce Ware, Norman Geisler, John Frame, Robert Letham, Robert Doyle, Werner Neuer, Peter Adam, James Hurley, John Piper, J. Scott Horrell, and Peter R. Schemm Jr. This list is neither small, nor able to be counted on one hand. Moreover, one could add to the list several other very significant evangelical scholars (both complementarian and egalitarian) who have affirmed the idea of the eternal functional subordination of the Son to the Father in their writings, including D. A. Carson (The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God [Crossway, 2000], 30-43, esp. 40; see also 86, n. 6), Andreas J. Köstenberger (Encountering John [Baker, 1999], 160), Thomas R. Schreiner (see Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood [ed. Piper and Grudem; Crossway, 1991], 127-30), and Craig S. Keener ("Is Subordination within the Trinity Really Heresy? A Study of John 5:18 in Context" Trinity Journal n.s. 20, no. 1 [1999]: 47-49).
(2) Giles is astonished that Hall and the scholars he defends admit to knowing that "the Arians subordinated the Son in authority." Giles then asks, "What? Knowing this teaching is a key Arian error they endorse it?" But what Hall and others endorse is the eternal functional subordination of the Son to the Father. As Hall observes, according to Giles, these scholars are then guilty by association, since Arians also believed in the eternal functional subordination of the Son. But this is misleading, as Hall notes:
The most fundamental characteristic of the Arian heresy, the one that the Nicene Creed was crafted to dismiss, is the notion that the Son is a creature and therefore unlike the Divine Father in substantial ways. . . . The total subordination of the Son was a necessary corollary of this view, to be sure, but it was not the starting point. To boil Arianism down to make subordination as such its central tenet is misleading. No one in this debate is saying that the Son is a creature, and no one is arguing for the eternal functional submission of the Son on that basis. Thus, there is a great difference between classical Arian arguments for the subordination of the Son and contemporary arguments for the submission of the Son (37-38).
(3) Last, we encourage readers to consider the arguments of several recent authors who have interacted with Giles, including Bruce A. Ware, "Christ's Atonement: A Work of the Trinity," in Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective (ed. Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler; Nashville: B&H, 2007), 156-88; Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology and Worship (P&R, 2005); Peter R. Schemm Jr., "‘The Subordination of Christ and the Subordination of Women' (Ch 19) by Kevin Giles," JBMW 10, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 81-87; and Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More Than 100 Disputed Questions (Multnomah, 2004).
- Christopher W. Cowan for the Editors
