Is there subordination in the Trinity?
Is there subordination in the Trinity?
By Mark D Thompson
In this post I want to explore the strictly theological question of whether this doctrine inevitably involves a drift into the subordinationist heresy associated with Arius. This is the most common theological objection to the doctrine. In the next post I want to explore a more recent charge: that the doctrine compromises the revelation of God as Trinity in another way, namely through undermining the genuine incarnation of the Son.
To suggest that within the divine Trinity the Son is in any sense less than the Father is to fall into heresy. Subordinationism, the teaching most often associated with the early fourth-century Egyptian priest Arius, was very quickly recognised as biblically deficient, theologically confused and pastorally disastrous. It did manufacture a false view of God and so can rightly be described as idolatrous. Arius' 'son' was subordinate in being to the Father. But, as Athanasius wrote in response, the Son is every bit as much God as the Father is: 'And so, since they are one, and the Godhead itself one, the same things are said of the Son, which are said of the Father, except His being said to be Father' (Orationes III.4). As the Athanasian Creed (sadly not written by Athanasius) puts it, 'In this Trinity none is afore, nor after another; none is greater or lesser than another'. This is a confession disciplined by God's self-revelation in Scripture: 'I and the Father are one' (Jn 10.30); he 'did not count equality with God something to be grasped' — note the antecedent to 'he' in this text is 'Christ Jesus' (Phil. 2.5–6). It is the confession of the Nicene Creed: 'very God of very God ... being of one substance with the Father'. It is a confession no less urgent and vital to Christian faith in the twenty-first century as it was in the fourth century.
However we speak about the triune God, we must insist that we are speaking about one God, undivided in being, undivided in will and undivided in his action in the world. There is neither division nor hierarchy in the being of the one triune God.
We must also affirm, while holding them in the closest possible relation, a distinction between the eternal being of God and his self-revelation in the economy of creation and salvation. The relation of God in himself and God as he is towards us is, however, very much more than just extremely close. When we deal with God in Christ, we really are dealing with God. Care must be taken not to drive a wedge between the eternal or immanent Trinity and the revealed or economic Trinity. Otherwise confidence in God's self-revelation will be undermined — how could we be sure this is how God really is? To use the words of one recent contribution to the discussion, how could we be sure that these were more than just 'roles adopted by the persons to accomplish our redemption'? (Liam Goligher, here) Yet at the same time we must avoid a simple transfer of all we see of God in Christ to the eternal Trinity. An obvious example would be the hunger or tiredness of Jesus. The triune God is never hungry and never tired, but God as he has truly revealed himself in the incarnate Son does grow hungry and tired, he bleeds and dies. The limits of our understanding are not far from us here, since we cannot isolate Jesus' humanity from his divine nature in order to secure this distinction between the eternal and the economic. He is the one person, who is both fully God and fully man.
However we speak about the triune God, we must not collapse the economic Trinity into the ontological Trinity just as we must not separate them. God is as he reveals himself to be.
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