Evangelical Uses of the Trinity as an Archetype for Gender (Part Two): Person, Relation, Structure

Though the numerical ordering of these issues is not meant to rank them necessarily in terms of importance (as they are all interrelated and cannot be truly discrete issues), nevertheless it could rightly be said that this is the most important of the issues—a “first among equals” so to speak.  We have previously stated that the core of EFS is that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father in function.  By extension this claim, according to EFS proponents, buttresses the idea that women should be subordinate to men.  Though the argumentation is complex, the claim at least can be seen to be relatively simple.  It has an additional element to it, however: the persons of the Trinity are distinguished precisely, and only, by the authority structures that define their relations.  The Father, for example, commands.  This makes Him the Father.  The Son, on the other hand, obeys.  This makes Him identifiable as the Son.  The EFS Complementarians are of one mind on this, even if they emphasize it to various degrees.  Thus, to make an analogy, when the church confesses “one essence, three persons,” the “three persons” bit could be glossed as: three functionally-differentiated authority relations.  This probably will not make it into the hymnals any time soon, but it does seem to be a fair summary of the EFS creed.  For persons to show up as persons, the structural differentiation of authority-submission must always-already be present.[1]  Relations are actually a function of differentiated power structure.  Wayne Grudem in particular notes that this stands at the very heart of his Trinitarian theology: “Authority and submission between the Father and the Son…and the Holy Spirit…is the fundamental difference between the persons of the Trinity.” And conversely: “If we did not have such differences in authority in the relationships among the members of the Trinity, then we would not know of any differences at all.”[2]  There is for Grudem nothing more important, and this is not an overstatement of his position, he writes: “it is the most fundamental aspect of interpersonal relationships in the entire universe.”[3]

This in turn leads to several distinctive theological moves.  The first, which we will only briefly mention, is that provides Grudem with (at least theoretically) a solution of how to differentiate yet unite the persons once he drops the eternal generation of the son as unbiblical.  In brief, eternal generation as understood by say, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, or Augustine, both allowed an identity of nature as the Father generates a consubstantial (homoousios) son, and it also ensured that the Father and Son (and Holy Spirit) would not collapse into each other in modalism.[4]  Athanasius argues, for example, that that which is homoousios must be at least in some sense two, or else the co- in consubstantial (to transfer the argument into English) would not make any sense.[5]  One can see then why Grudem stresses as he does how utterly and unequivocally vital EFS is—without it the best case scenario would then be modalism, if not just plain monism.

Two, this leads to the equal yet opposite charge of modalism against the egalitarians.  So Robert Letham: “if the Son is not eternally [functionally] subordinated to the Father, we are left with modalism.”[6]  And so: “With a feminized doctrine of God…a thoroughgoing homogenization of the persons in fully mutual relations is the overpowering tendency.”[7]  By extension similar charges then move into the human realm: Egalitarians homogenize the differences between sexes precisely by undoing the power-structures which allow relational distinctions to exist at all.[8]  This is, as one may have predicted, also a key moment when the two sides start talking past one another. 

The Egalitarians, of course, do not accept that relational distinctions must per necessity presuppose hierarchical power arrangements.  Thus the charge that they are modalists, or erase gender distinctions, seems less of a charge, and more of an imposition of an alien framework. At this point too, I think Giles is right to point out a notable lacuna in the EFS position.[9]  On the one hand, the EFS apologists are constantly reaffirming that what they are doing is nothing new, but fully in line with the tradition of Trinitarian orthodoxy, from Athanasius, to Augustine, to Calvin, et al.  Yet it is precisely at this point that Grudem and others explicitly drop the eternal generation of the son, which was how the tradition itself held in tension the identity and distinction of persons.  Of course the argument can (and is) made that if a tradition is not explicitly supported by scripture, so much the worse for tradition.  This is an important discussion that needs to be had.  But Grudem at this point does not seem to realize the inconsistency of his claims that he is simultaneously impeccably “orthodox” (i.e. traditional) and biblical in his affirmation of EFS when he is using it as a substitute for eternal generation.  Even if the tradition could be shown to affirm something like EFS (and this itself is hard enough to maintain) once EFS substitutes for eternal generation, it must mean something entirely different than the tradition could have ever meant it. 

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[1] I’m still baffled at how this could possibly be true.  I would love to ask Grudem how he then deals with relations of friendship.  Do they dissolve difference?  What about pure Democracies? Playing the “friendship” card is not just a random cheap shot—the concept of friendship, for example, is a key metaphor for Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine of the Trinity.  C.f. Matthew Levering, “Friendship and Trinitarian Theology—A Response to Karen Kilby,” in Internation Journal of Systematic Theology vol 9 no. 1 (2007): 39-54.

[2] Grudem, Evangelical Feminism, 433.

[3] Ibid., 429.

[4] C.f. Keith Johnson, “Augustine, Eternal Generation, and Evangelical Trinitarianism,” Trinity Journal 32 (2011): 141-163.

[5] C.f. the summary in J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines 5^th ed. (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1977), 254.

[6] Robert Letham, “The Man-Woman Debate: Theological Comment,” Westminster Theological Journal, 52 (1990): 69.

[7] Letham, The Holy Trinity, 392.

[8] Ibid., 394.

[9] Giles, The Eternal Generation of the Son, 220-236.