Kevin DeYoung on the Trinity Debate

Kevin DeYoung on the Trinity Debate September 28, 2016

Over at TGC, Kevin DeYoung Chimes in on the Trinity Debate with a blog post on Distinguishing Among the Three Persons of the Trinity within the Reformed Tradition. After surveying several leading Reformed thinkers in the European and American traditions, DeYoung surmises:

I find that some proponents of ESS answer Ursinus’s question—“How are the three Persons of the Godhead distinguished?”—in a way that is foreign to, and really at odds with, the Reformed tradition. All five representatives (Ursinus, Pictet, à Brakel, Hodge, and Berkhof) answer that question by starting with the same foundation: paternity, generation, and procession. Not incidentally, this is the explicit teaching in the both the Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession Article 8) and even more clearly in the Westminster Standards (WLC 9, 10). The distinctions among the three Persons only hold in place if the Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. This Scriptural and creedal formula is the sine qua non of Trinitarian theology, at least when it comes to distinguishing among the Persons of the Godhead. And yet, this is not how many of the proponents of ESS distinguish among the three Persons. In his Systematic Theology, Grudem argues, “The only distinctions between the members of the Trinity are in the ways they relate to each other and to creation” (emphasis original, 251). So far this sounds a lot like the usual business about ad intra and ad extra. But then instead of talking about subsistences or modes of operation, Grudem argues that the distinctions among the three Persons can be summarized as “equal in being but subordinate in role.” Grudem may not explicitly deny the Nicene language of “begotten” and “proceeds” (though in a subsequent edition of his Systematic Theology he argues that we should no longer retain “eternal generation” in modern theological formulations), but he assumes “subordination in role” simply says the same thing and says it better. Because Grudem equates the personal properties of Nicea with authority and submission within the immanent Trinity, he insists that without eternal subordination you cannot even have a Triune God (251). Without the doctrine of the Son’s eternal subordination to the Father in role or function, Grudem maintains, “we would lose the doctrine of the Trinity, for we would not have any eternal personal distinctions between the Father and the Son, and they would not eternally be Father and Son” (245, fn. 27). It seems that Grudem—whom, it should be said, has been a blessing to me and my church in many of his writings—is either unfamiliar with the way in which the Persons are distinguished in the Reformed tradition or finds the tradition inadequate. He prefers what these representatives of the Reformed tradition decidedly do not: to distinguish among the Persons of the Trinity by the means of eternal subordination instead of eternal generation. This is not a small switch.

DeYoung is very charitable towards ESS/ERAS folks, but I think his post is symbolic, including its place on the TGC website, of a move among conservative complementarian groups to unmoor the ESS/ERAS ship from their theological harbour.


Browse Our Archives