In popular imagination, even the imagination of of many trained in technical fields, evolution is a messy, chaotic, highly contingent and random process. Mark Whorton in Peril in Paradise comments that while he finds the evidence for an old earth convincing, the evidence for evolution is far less convincing. Most importantly, as a Christian he does not think that the origin and diversity of life is some lucky accident.

Is the acceptance of evolution a commitment to contingent randomness?

This image of randomness in evolution was made most emphatically by Stephen Jay Gould. Run the tape over and something entirely different will emerge. From his 1994 article in Scientific American (v. 271, pp. 84-91) The Evolution of Life:

History includes too much chaos, or extremely sensitive dependence on minute and unmeasurable differences in initial conditions, leading to massively divergent outcomes based on tiny and unknowable disparities in starting points. And history includes too much contingency, or shaping of present results by long chains of unpredictable antecedent states, rather than immediate determination by timeless laws of nature.

Homo sapiens did not appear on the earth, just a geologic second ago, because evolutionary theory predicts such an outcome based on themes of progress and increasing neural complexity. Humans arose, rather, as a fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of linked events, any one of which could have occurred differently and sent history on an alternative pathway that would not have led to consciousness.

The idea that we are products of random chance and historic contingency seems at odds with any reasonable Christian theology.  But evolution is not a random process where just anything can happen. Evolution is constrained by chemistry and physics.  Historical contingency may well play a much smaller role in the diversity of life we see around us than suggested by Gould.  Simon Conway Morris and Ard Louis, professors at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford respectively discuss randomness and convergence in the video below:

The point being made in this clip is that the scientific definition of randomness does not imply that something is is open-ended and purposeless. The evolutionary process is an efficient search algorithm optimizing for specific functions. In fact, the evolutionary process follows well defined roads and paths constrained by the nature of chemistry and physics. Not everything is possible, there are a limited number of possible solutions, stable points in biological space. There is no reason to conclude that evolution demonstrates that we are accidents of nature.

If we look carefully at the chemistry of life we can go much deeper than this. Chemistry (and physics) constrain the realm of biological possibility. I recently received a new book A World From Dust: How the Periodic Table Shaped Life (Oxford University Press) by Ben McFarland that digs into this question of chemistry, biology and evolution. McFarland is a biochemist, and a professor and chair of the department of chemistry and biochemistry at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle Washington. He received his Ph.D. in Biomolecular Structure and Design from the University of Washington in 2001 and has been teaching at SPU since 2003.

McFarland’s take on evolution and contingency comes from his understanding of chemistry and biochemistry.

As Darwin said of natural selection, “I believe in the truth of the theory, because it collects under one point of view, and gives rational explanation of, many apparently independent classes of facts (p. 16).” What natural selection did for Darwin, chemistry does for me. In my view, a chemical sequence and chemical order shape the chaos of biology and history in surprising, yet rational ways, explaining many facts. It is a long story, but it coheres with chemical logic, and it shows that the nature of history is ordered by chemistry. That has reshaped the way I look at every blade of grass and every rock on the beach. I hope you enjoy thinking about this old subject in this new way. (p. xiv)

This history talked of here is not human history, but natural history … the origin of the diversity of life and the convergence on similar solutions in multiple cases. McFarland plays off of the famous image of Gould’s tape of life to suggest that the tape played many times would come up with similar solutions to essential problems. Evolution is far less contingent that many suppose.

McFarland is a Christian, and this, of course, shapes his views as my Christian faith shapes mine. But I will also point out that I have colleagues who are not at all religious and are investigating the essence of the chemical toolbox in a manner consistent with McFarland’s approach.  I have sat through a number of talks at scientific meetings on this very subject in one fashion or another. As a chemist myself (Ph.D. 1986 UC Berkeley) I find McFarland’s approach compelling and fascinating.

Ben’s book is written for non-scientists (although some basic understanding of chemistry will help). There is a glossary of terms that will help the scientific novice and copious references at the end to direct the interested reader into the literature and more detailed discussion of the various points that are raised.

There is also an accompanying video series available YouTube.This trailer provides a short introduction.

The premise of the book is that 12 rules (colorful rules in the video series) shape life.

Somewhat longer videos – 7 minutes or so – dig into the concepts of each of the 12 rules and 12 chapters. The video below goes with the first chapter.

Several years ago scientists in California made a sensational announcement – life in Mono Lake could use arsenic (normally a poison) in place of phosphorous. Despite the media attention, most chemists were rather skeptical. Some things just didn’t seem to add up. Subsequent experiments proved the skeptics right. But the reasons for this deep skepticism are fundamental to McFarland’s argument. Chemistry constrains possibility and arsenic, for a number of sound chemical reasons, simply isn’t a good substitute for phosphorous.

Over the next several months I will dig into McFarland’s book looking at the arguments presented in each chapter. If you are interested, pick up a copy and follow along.

Is evolution an intrinsically random process?

What kind of control would you expect God to exercise over the process?

What role could chemical and physical constraints play in your understanding of creation?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

By Geoff Holsclaw, pastor at Life on the Vine and colleague at Northern Seminary.

Does the Trinity really matter to our regular lives?  And with this supposed “trinitarian revival” of the last 75 years, what are the options? Have things really changed? Or is it all useless?

Well, Zondervan’s Two views on the Doctrine of the Trinity brings together two examples of a “classical” understanding and two examples of a “relational” understanding of the Trinity into conversation, and we’re going to spend sometime looking at them.

Stephen R. Holmes and Paul D. Molnar offer “classical” perspectives and Thomas H. McCall and Paul S. Fiddes talk about a “relational” perspective, which seems to be a chastened, evangelical version of the “social Trinity” as espoused by Moltmann, Boff, Lacugna, and others.

Stephen Holmes opens up volume with a strong, clear, and accessible essay, even though at the end he says the Trinity is useless (I’ll let you know exactly what he means at the end).  This will be the longest post because I want to use Holmes to set up the conversation around which the other authors are engaged.

War of Words

Holmes begins by reminding us that words are slippery little things, often meaning different things in different contexts, especially different historical contexts.  After the Enlightenment the word “person” is a psychologically rich word indicating an individual center of will, reasons, creativity, and imagination.  But Holmes reminds us that this psychologically expansive understanding of “person” was not what the ancient church understood by the term when applied to the persons of the Trinity (instead, hypostasis indicated a particular or individual mode of existence within the Godhead).

Holmes brings this up put us on guard against an over hasty connect from what was a technical term of theology to our existential yearning for relationship with a personal God (and yes, Holmes affirms that God is personal, so don’t worry).

War of World (or Not)

Holmes also attempts to clear the air about the so-called split between an Eastern (relational) and Western (ontological) orientation toward the Trinity (and this is key).   The engrained idea is that the Eastern church fathers (Cappadocians) had a “good” perspective on the Trinity because they began with a plurality of persons (Father, Son, Spirit) and only then attempted to think the unity of God.  But the Western church fathers (see Augustine, the supposed father of all modern theological ills) began with the unity of God’s being and then only thought about the plurality of persons at the end.

This  “split” has been repeated for over a 100 years by “systematic” theologians, even though most historian have abandoned it (for the brave, Holmes rightfully points to Lewis Ayres Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology).  Historians have shown the significal cultural, linguistic, and theological congruencies that existed between East and West such that this split is more of modern creation than an ancient reality (I’d be happy to deepen this in the comments if asked).

Why has this “East/West split” persisted?  Usually because 20^th-century systematic theologians have a “story” to tell and the historical facts don’t always fit into that story.  As in biblical interpretation so too in historical narration, beware the theologian with an agenda.

Holmes clears air in these two ways because he wants us to be able to see and hear what the classical doctrine of the Trinity was really trying to express.  But first he speaks of the origins of the doctrine.

Origins of the Trinity?

Before looking at proof texts for the Trinity, Holmes suggest that we first remember the dogged commitment to “Oneness” that we find in the Old Testament, the commitment to monotheism.  We must remember that the history of God’s relationship to Israel consisted in God’s own uniqueness and Israel’s relationship to this God alone.  Before “monotheism” is a philosophical category or an apologetic argument, we must remember that it was first supposed to be a lived loyalty between God and Israel.  So the oneness of God is not a Greek philosophical fixation, but a Hebrew commitment of the highest order.

But then comes Jesus, and the church’s immediate and spontaneous worship of him, worship that traditionally had been reserved only for God.  How can they worship Jesus without violating monotheism?  Well this is a great question (and if you want details read anything by Larry Hurtado).  The doctrine of the Trinity comes out of these existential and practical commitments of the early church (and don’t forget about the baptismal formulas).

As Holmes says, “The doctrine of the Trinity is a set of conceptual distinctions and definitions that offer a theological account of the divine life that made sense of these primitive practices of worship.  At the risk of oversimplifying, the church always knew how to speak to God.  Yet it took four centuries or so to work out how to speak about God in ways that were compatible with this” (33).

What is The Doctrine of the Trinity?

Holmes claims that the doctrine of the Trinity is a conceptual framework through which we read Scripture and other doctrine.  In a sense, it is the interpretive lens which makes everything else clear, and with out which we would not be able to properly understand Christian experience or Christian revelation.

As a conceptual framework, the doctrine of the Trinity is not itself an ontological statement (a statement about the “being” of God). As Holmes say, “We can know that God is, but not what God is” (35, emphasis added) because the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is three persons, but not how or in what way God is three.  The early church did not claim to know (and often claimed it did not know) the “what-ness” (essence/nature) of God, but that it did proclaim the “that-ness” (existence) of God.

The “classical” statement of the Trinity (often disparaged as relying on a Greek metaphysical framework) is less philosophically interested in claiming to know what God is and more concerned on how our language often fails us.  The doctrine guards us from saying too much. 

But what does it say?

For Holmes, the “classical” understanding of the Trinity comes down to the 1) simplicity of God, and  the 2) relations within God.

Why is God simple?  The basic idea is that God is not assembled of smaller part into a larger composite.  If something is assembled this implies the agent who assembles, which would therefore be greater than God.  But if there is none greater than God, God must be simple (or incomposite).  Again, this is not a claim of knowledge (that we know what God is like in God’s simplicity), but a claim about the things we know, i.e. that God is not like anything else we can know about because God is absolutely simple, not composed of parts, not beginning in time, not assignable to a general class (practically this means that God’s attributes are all interlinking and in a sense “coterminous” such that God’s wrath is not opposed to his mercy, nor justice opposed to his love, etc).  Basically, divine simplicity is just an explication of divine unity, without any more robust philosophical commitments/ontologies involved.

Why does God have “relations”? The idea as Holmes explains it is that when it comes to the Trinity, heresies stumbles over two problems concern the nature or substance of something.  For the typical ancient mindset, a nature possessed a quality either “substantially” or “accidentally”.  When thinking about the Trinity if divine nature were a “substantial” quality that the something called the “Father” had, and a substantial quality that something else called the “Son” had, then “Father and Son are different in substance, and so they are not one God” but two gods (37).  If “Father” and “Son” are accidental quality of divine nature then God is composed of parts (is not simple) and therefore is not really the God of the Old and New Testaments.  So what is to be done?

Well, basically the early church invented another ontological category (not so behold to Greek metaphysics now is it?) call “relation”.  The Father and the Son are of the same divine nature (whatever that might be), but the Father is “the Father of the Son” and the Son is “the Son of the Father” in a way this is not reversible (for it would be false to say the Son is “the Father of the Son” and the Father is “the Son of the Father”).  These relations are the only “differences” within “unity”.

But Holmes is quick to remind that this is a logical category and that just as “person” should not trigger related ideas of “personal”, so too “relation” should not make us think of “relational” because then we would be tempted to say more about the “what-ness” of divine essence than we should.

The Trinity is Useless

Much more could be said about Holmes proposal, but we should cut if off there.  Holmes ends with the claim that, properly speaking, the doctrine of the Trinity is useless, that we should not attempt to put it to use in the world of our experience or draw practical lessons from it for the world.  Why?  Because something that is put to use is being used for a more ultimate purpose, or a higher goal or later end.  But there is no end that is higher or later than God.  Because God is the last end, or end-less, the Trinity is likewise useless, because it is that end toward which all other uses are directed.

“For us to see the beauty of the divine life and to respond with awestruck worship is not something that serves another, higher, end, not something of use.  Instead, it is, simply and bluntly, what we were made for” (48).

Geoff Holsclaw is Affiliate Professor of Theology at Northern Seminary, and Director of their new Masters in Theology and Mission.  You can also follow Geoff on Twitter and Facebook.

Out of Egypt I called my son. (Hosea 11:1)

Sojourns in Egypt plays an important role in the sweep of Scripture running from the opening frames of the story of Abraham and the covenant promise in Genesis 12 through the early story of Jesus (Mt 2).

Abram obeyed the call of God and went to the land of Canaan with the promise that he would become a great nation there. But all was not milk and honey… or fertile pasture land and sheep. In fact, the land of Canaan was soon afflicted by a severe famine. Abram and his household fled to Egypt to survive, sometime between 2100 and 1700 BC, when the sphinx had already been around for hundreds of years. (Image Credit)

Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to reside there as an alien, for the famine was severe in the land. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know well that you are a woman beautiful in appearance; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account.” When Abram entered Egypt the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. When the officials of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female slaves, female donkeys, and camels.

But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone.” And Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him; and they set him on the way, with his wife and all that he had.

So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negev.

This story of Abram’s sojourn in Egypt is important.  It is the first of three times a patriarch (Abraham twice and Isaac once) is reported as passing off his wife as his sister. This ruse strikes us in the 21st century as somewhat strange. The cultural context in which this maneuver makes sense simply isn’t clear. Much ink has been spilled in the attempt to reason through the significance of the maneuver and the relatedness of the three separate stories (they are not thought to be independent). The significance of our current story, however, does not lie in this ruse or in its relationship to the other two passages.

Abram’s household flees the land of Canaan in need, finds refugee in Egypt, gains in wealth – but needs to leave. The Lord afflicts Pharaoh with plagues and Abram leaves.  This is a mini-exodus story as is the latter journey of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus to Egypt and back.

Abram arrives in Egypt, either with or without God’s blessing. The story isn’t clear on this. Tremper Longman (Genesis in the Story of God Bible Commentary) suggests that the trip to Egypt signifies a lack of faith in God and his promises. Whether the trip itself carries such meaning, it is clear that Abram feels that he must trust to his own cunning for safety and prosperity in Egypt. As Longman puts it “He asks [Sarai] to suppress the most important part of his relationship with her for one and only one purpose, namely to save his own life. And not only that, but he plans to use her beauty in order to be “treated well.”” (p. 169)  This is no innocent ruse. He will be treated well, because as her brother he can negotiate a marriage for her!

It works – Pharaoh takes her into his palace and Abram is enriched in both livestock and servants. The text isn’t clear, Pharaoh may well have had relations with Sarai. Abram has treated his wife, the matriarch of God’s promise, as his property and for his own benefit.  But God’s promise is not so easily abrogated. The end result is God coming to the rescue, afflicting Pharaoh and his household with plagues. Abram and Sarai are sent away, substantially wealthier.

A foreshadowing? Elements of this story are familiar.  Bill Arnold comments that the story “has been edited in order to anticipate Israel’s subsequent exodus from Egypt, not only in despoiling the Egyptians, but also by Yahweh’s intervention and the sending of plagues.” (p. 138, Genesis)

Tremper Longman makes the connections more explicit. “Biblical history is never written for a purely antiquarian purpose; that is the authors are not interested in the past for the sake of the past.” (p. 171) The story was recorded in the form we have to provide meaning to the audience of the day. This could have been at the time of Moses, or later up to or around the time of the exile. Older sources were used, well known oral and written traditions, but they were shaped for a contemporary purpose. “The message that God delivers his people, even his sinful people from trouble, is a message that has relevance for the time of Moses, the time of the Babylonian exile, indeed for all time including today.” (p. 171)  Arnold places the dating of the composition of Genesis prior to the exile, but around this time.  Enns and Byas (Genesis for Normal People) place the final composition of the Pentateuch and thus the final shaping of Genesis around the return from exile. Longman doesn’t take a firm position on the date for the final composition of Genesis, but it was many centuries after the time of Abraham and may have been at the time of the exile.

“Genesis is not a series of pithy short stories with moral lessons, but a series of vital  stepping stones in the story of Israel’s beginnings.” (Enns and Byas p. 66)

The exodus theme, foreshadowed in Genesis 12, full blown in Exodus, is followed by a second exodus theme that runs through the prophets. It seems likely that the foreshadowing of the exodus in Genesis 12 as the story is told in the final version of Genesis, is an intentional literary device for a purpose.  Bookends so to speak.

As Christians we can take this theme even further. The second exodus theme continues into the New Testament.

The message of the New Testament is that the ultimate fulfillment of the second exodus expectation, plus the most powerful expression of the fact that God rescues his people, takes place in the work of Jesus Christ who saves his people from sin, guilt, and death. That Jesus’ life and ministry follows the pattern of the exodus story is signaled by the opening of the Gospel of Mark, quoting Isaiah and Malachi’s oracles that looked forward to a second exodus. …

Those who have a good knowledge of the exodus tradition will see the multiple connections often highlighted by the Gospel writers, particularly Matthew. Due to Herod’s persecution, Joseph and Mary take Jesus to Egypt when he is a youth. When Herod died, Jesus returned and the Gospel writer cites Hosea 11:1, “out of Egypt I called my son.”

The baptism of Jesus, the forty days in the wilderness, the culmination in his death as the Passover lamb. Jesus is the fulfillment of the exodus.

What message(s) do you take from the sojourn of Abram in Egypt?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

By John Frye

Jesus Roiling His World

Ministry in the 1980s included a two year teaching opportunity on the faculty of Moody Bible Institute and being called as pastor to Bella Vista Church, Rockford, MI, where I served 24 years. You can imagine the many books that I read to keep my mind and heart vibrant. Yet, reflecting on the decade of the 80s, two books were profoundly influential on my view of Jesus and pastoral ministry. In the line-up today is book #5 of ten that shaped my life: Donald B. Kraybill, The Upside-Down Kingdom.

Kraybill’s book was my first foray into the sociological, cultural underpinnings of the synoptic gospels. “I have completed graduate degrees in sociology and tend to read the Scriptures through the lenses of that academic discipline. Such an endeavor is quite precarious because as one wanders back and forth between the disciplines of theology and sociology, one is bound to insult the guardians of both traditions” (9). Kraybill is a person trained in “the radical reformation heritage” (an Anabaptist). Kraybill’s focus is Jesus’ teaching and demonstration of the Kingdom of God. Yes, I know many others have since written about Jesus and the kingdom within the cultural realities of 2nd Temple Judaism, yet Kraybill opened my eyes in wonder to the sheer courage and startling otherness of Jesus within his own Jewish context.

An interesting observation is made by John F. Alexander in the Introduction. He writes, “Jesus is very popular. … hardly anyone ever criticizes Jesus. Or obeys him. In fact, we go to great lengths claiming He didn’t teach what He clearly did” (13). If you want a current baptism into the challenge of Jesus, read and meditate through Scot McKnight, The Sermon on the Mount: The Story of God Bible Commentary. I learned that if we want to serve and represent a radical Jesus in our 21st century culture, we had better take the time to understand Jesus within his own time. We declaw the Lion if we don’t. Studying a theological construct of full deity and full humanity in one Person forever (while accurate) is a limp replacement for reading of the brazen audacity of the carpenter from Nazareth.

Kraybill’s section titled “The Female Box” left me breathless. In the discussion of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4), I saw redemptive dynamics and cultural bravery at work for the first time. Since that first reading, I’ve developed a powerful sermon (can I write that?) around Jesus’ and the woman’s conversation. By simply putting himself in the powerless position and asking a simple (human) question—“Will you give me a drink of water?”—Jesus literally exploded every cultural barrier between himself and the woman. The only person to whom Jesus revealed himself personally and privately as Messiah was to the marginalized Samaritan woman at the well. Kraybill writes of “Jesus’ revolutionary attitude toward women.”

In a stratified, shame-based society, Jesus dared to see all people the way his Father saw them: as loved bearers of the image of God. Sadly, we still live in a stratified society where power (Kraybill calls it “social muscle”) is encased in prestige, privilege, and status (263-264). Let me give you an example from my life here in Grand Rapids, MI. At the 20 year mark of living here, I met a wonderful Black brother and fellow-pastor. He had only lived in Grand Rapids for 2 years. In that time, he had been pulled over 15 times by the police not because he was breaking the law, but because he was Black. He told me this. In my now 35 years here, I have never been pulled over because I am White. I have an Hispanic friend who is a seasoned executive in the Steelcase Corporation. In his work world, he is respected, leads and gets things done. When he goes to lunch with his White friends, the people taking food orders treat him as if he were an illegal alien. He told me this. The kingdom of America is not the Kingdom of God.

The Upside-Down Kingdom was first published in 1978, but is as current as recent news out of Orlando.

The battle rumbles along: one side of the historic Reformed have announced that the complementarian–focused Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem have a faulty theory of the Trinity, and they have come back to announce they are fully orthodox. The issue here is the eternal subordination of the Son. Which they use, though in these newest statements they are not speaking into that issue, to prop up the subordination of women to men. Their distinctive emphasis on eternal subordination of the Son is connected to their complementarianism. They’re now trying to minimize this but the facts are otherwise… see both Trueman’s fuller response at the link and the final point made by Bird below.

Now to the principals: Bruce Ware, Wayne Grudem, and then responses from Carl Trueman and Mike Bird. All are reformed of one sort or another.

Bruce Ware:

God the Son, then, is both God and Son. As God, he is fully equal with God the Father, in that both Father and Son possess fully the identically same and eternal divine nature. As such, the equality between the Father and Son (and Spirit) could not be stronger – they are equal to each other with an equality of identity (i.e., each possesses fully the identically same divine nature). As Son, the Son is always the Son of the Father and is so eternally. As Son of the Father, he is under the authority of his Father and seeks in all he does to act as the Agent of the Father’s will, working and doing all that the Father has purposed and designed for his Son to accomplish. The eternal Son, God the Son, is both fully God and fully equal to the Father, while he is fully Son and eternally in a relationship of Agent of the Father, carrying out the work and implementing the will of the Father in full submission and obedience to all that the Father has planned. God and Son, i.e., fully God (in nature) and fully Son (in person)–this is who this Second Person of the Trinity is as Hebrews, John, and the New Testament declare.

Fourth, none of this glorious Trinitarian theology is being devised for the purpose of supporting a social agenda of human relations of equality and complementarity. I do believe there is intended correspondence, indeed. But that is a far cry from saying that we are “reformulating” the doctrine of the Trinity to serve our social purposes. God forbid! Let God be God, regardless of what implications may or may not follow! And may our sole aim be to know the true God through his self-revelation in Scripture–the one and only true God, who is God only as he is Father, Son, and Spirit.

Wayne Grudem:

I returned from vacation on Monday night, June 6, only to find that an article onMortification of Spin, a website of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, had accused me of presenting “a different God than that affirmed by the church through the ages and taught in Scripture.” I was surprised to read that I was “constructing a new deity,” that I was “reinventing the doctrine of God,” and that my view was “more like Islam than Christianity.”

In addition, I discovered that to hold my view of the Trinity is “to move into unorthodoxy” and “to verge on idolatry” and to advocate belief in “a different God.” The author recommended that holding my view of the Trinity should “certainly exclude” me and any who held my view “from holding office in the church of God.” Apparently those who had entrusted me to serve as a professor of Bible and theology for the last 39 years had made a dreadful mistake!… [The Berkhof, Strong, Hodge, Schaff notations fail to show he thought it was an “eternal” subordination of the Son. I read both speaking of the economical Trinity and incarnation. Why quote a summary of Calvin, not Calvin himself? What we need is the patristic Nicea era’s leading theologian speaking not only of subordination but of eternal subordination. As I read Grudem’s quotations, its seems to be found only in Frame, nor am I sure the Bromiley quotation speaks of eternal subordination.]

Carl Trueman:

[To Ware] Simply claiming the homoousion is not enough to make one a Nicene Trinitarian.  Were it so, history would make no sense.  After all, the term was adopted in 325 but it was another 56 years before Nicene Trinitarianism was finally defined.  The intervening years were largely spent battling over the nature of the relations.  One of the keys to the resolution of this problem was the concept of eternal generation.  Thus, I never denied that Professor Ware claims the homoousion, nor asserted that he is an Arian.  The point at issue is that of the nature of the relations.  In his writings, Professor Ware explicitly rejects the Nicene notion of eternal generation while asserting that of eternal functional submission.  That is in fact a very radical move to make, though not uncommon today.  Yet its popularity does not make it consistent with a Nicene position. In fact, rejection of eternal generation puts you definitively outside of Nicene Trinitarianism.  And that is what I was arguing.  And I cannot see how claiming the homoousion while altering your understanding of the relations does not leave your position vulnerable in the long term to one of the many problems which were debated and rejected between 325 and 381.

[To Grudem] To respond: I accuse no-one of rejecting the Nicene Creed of 325, as he states (at least in the version of the post available at 13:52 on Friday).  Nicene orthodoxy is actually defined at Constantinople in 381.  I simply state that those who get rid of eternal generation and speak of eternal submission are outside of the bounds set by 381 — which is the ecumenical standard of the church catholic, albeit in the West subject to the revision at Toledo.

If Nicaea 325 is the standard of Nicene Trinitarianism with which he and Bruce Ware are operating, then I understand why they think an appeal to the homoousion is sufficient.  But history and the church catholic say otherwise.  Eternal generation etc. etc. are also of critical importance, as Constantinople 381 indicates.

Mike Bird:

First, when I say “Homoianism” I refer to the view that was common in the 350s and 60s that stressed the subordination of the Son to the Father and declared that the Son is like the Father “according to the Scriptures,” that is, it emphasizes solely the economic subordination of the Son rather than utilizing ontological language and immanent relationships of equality. Read the Second Creed of Sirmium for an account of a Homoian Creed and R.P. Hanson’s The Search for the Christian God chap. 18 for more on Homoianism.

Second, the book by Bruce Ware and John Starke, One God in Three Persons sets out their understanding of this Complementarian view. Ware and Starke have both written to me privately to stress their acceptance of the term homoousion and their deliberate intent to avoid the language of “subordination,” both of which I affirm and applaud.  In fact, Ware prefers the term “eternal authority-submission relationship” over “eternal functional subordination,” though I’m not convinced it is that much of an improvement. Even so, to reiterate, they are definitely not Arians! For more, see Stephen Holmes’s review of Ware and Starke for some robust criticism and Fred Sanders’s review for a bit more sympathy.

Third, I remain concerned of two things: (a) That the notion of authority and/or hierarchy is still being applied by proponents to the Trinity which potentially makes the God-head a Tri-archy rather than a Tri-unity, and I don’t think this can be squared with a Nicene theology; and (b) The whole debate is motivated by gender issues and not solely by a careful appropriation of biblical materials and their reception among the Nicene Fathers.

I speak here of the eternal subordination of the Son, of a teaching that some Reformed theologians are saying fellow Reformed types are not only not consistent with the Reformed tradition but are flirting with idolatry if not heresy. There are three posts of late at Mortification of Spin, two by Liam Goligher and one by Carl Trueman, and I take a clip from each.

These posts are aimed at Wayne Grudem, Bruce Ware and Owen Strachan. I have been in communication this week with a bundle of theologians who (1) are deeply concerned about these theologians and what they are teaching the church and (2) know that it is an uphill battle to get the principals to listen. But the voices from within the complementarian crowd that is self-critical on this issue of Trinitarian relations as a template for hierarchical complementarianism may move more and more to a position that sees the folly of this new theology.

I’m glad to see this conversation come into full view, and it’s coming into view with the right people doing the honors of debate. I hope it comes to a peaceful resolution, but I fear it could be a very serious battle first.

Before I get to Mortification of Spin, I point you to Mike Bird who thinks there’s a coming war on this one:

I predict that there is about to be a miniature civil war among conservative Calvinist Complementarians about Trinity and gender.

One wing of that movement has been arguing for a while that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father and importantly the way that the Son submits to the Father is mirrored in the way that wives submit to their husbands. So the hierarchy in the Trinity is said to provide grounds for a hierarchy in gender relationships. Since this trinitarian debate is not really about the Trinity but about gender and equality, it is no surprise that Complementarians have been arguing for the subordinationist view (e.g., Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem) over and against the Egalitarians who have been arguing for an equality of persons view (e.g., Kevin Giles, Gilbert Belizekian).

Yet it is worth noting that many Calvinistic Complementarians, especially one’s that know their patristic theology and doctrine of the Trinity, have always balked at the idea of postulating the Son’s eternal subordination and questioned the wisdom of using the Trinity to bankroll a particular view of gender. In their mind, Calvinist Orthodoxy is Nicene, it affirms the eternal equality of the divine persons, which rules out any hierarchical subordination. They are still complementarian in regards to marriage and ministry but they reject perceived tinkering with the Trinity by the Subordinationist Calvinists. This group of Nicene Calvinists has always been rather silent and never really offered vocal protest against the Subordinationist Calvinist. However, I think that is about to change.

Now to Mortification of Spin, linked above, and to the two-part post by Liam Goligher:

Is the Trinity no more than a social program for the world and the church? Is the eternal life of the Trinity hierarchical or egalitarian? Are there three minds, three wills, and three powers within the Godhead? Are the current Trinitarian views of some evangelical people in danger of leading them out of orthodox Christianity into eccentricity (at best) or idolatry (at worst)?

“The Father is the authority of Christ, and always has been…There is no Holy Trinity without the order of authority and submission” (Strachan and Peacock, The Grand Design).

“I hold to the eternal submission of the Son to the Father” (Wayne Grudem,www.waynegrudem.com).

Then Goligher turns to classic orthodox statements, and adds this:

It’s not hard to see who has moved! These quotes highlight what is at stake in the teaching of some contemporary evangelical scholars and pastors: they are presenting a novel view of God; a different God than that affirmed by the church through the ages and taught in Scripture. This is serious. It comes down to this; if they are right we have been worshipping an idol since the beginning of the church; and if they are wrong they are constructing a new deity – a deity in whom there are degrees of power, differences of will, and diversity of thought. Because, mark this, to have an eternally subordinate Son intrinsic to the Godhead creates the potential of three minds, wills and powers. What they have done is to take the passages referring to the economic Trinity and collapse them into the ontological Trinity. …

They are building their case by reinventing the doctrine of God, and are doing so without telling the Christian public what they are up to. What we have is in fact a departure from biblical Christianity as expressed in our creeds and confessions. Out of that redefinition of God their teaching is being used to promote a new way of looking at human relationships which is more like Islam than Christianity; more concerned with control and governance than with understanding the nuances of the relationship of the Son with His Father in eternity on the one hand and how that differs from the roles they adopt in the economy of redemption on the other. They make this move by failing to distinguish between God as He is in Himself (ontology) and God as He is in Christ in outworking of the plan of redemption (economy).

[his second post] The church long ago rejected any form of primacy of the Father within the eternal Trinity, though there were some among the fathers who wanted to assert primacy to justify bishops in the church, just as there are some among evangelicals who want to assert primacy to justify patriarchy in the home and beyond. And the church long ago rejected any form of eternal subordination of the Son to the Father. The language of Psalm 110 makes it quite clear that when the Son speaks to the Father, He speaks as God to God, as Lord to Lord. Jesus quotes that psalm in Mark 12 where He claims to be Lord, and is completely understood by the rabbis as claiming to be the ‘Son of the Most High’ that leads to their charge of blasphemy. In other words, the Pharisees understood Jesus’ claim to be Son as an ontological claim. …

So, here is the bottom line: God has revealed Himself as Trinity. To speculate, suggest, or say that there is a real primacy of the Father or subordination of the Son within the eternal Trinity is to have moved out of Christian orthodoxy and to have moved or be moving towards idolatry. Idolatry is to believe or say of God something which is not true of Him. Scripture is our authority in the matter; and the church’s confessed faith is a safety check on our understanding of it. This gospel clarity is imperative for the pastor/preacher. With the souls of men and women at stake, confusion or unwarranted speculation (in the interests of novelty or academic advancement) at this point is fatal. The church took so long to articulate its position on the Trinity and Christology because it recognized the danger of heresy and blasphemy. What we face in evangelicalism today is at best shoddy thinking and at worst ungodly thinking about the first principle of our religion – “Who is God?” The teaching is so wrong at so many levels that we must sound a blast against this insinuation of error into the body of Christ’s church. Before we jettison the classical, catholic, orthodox and reformed understanding of God as He is we need to carefully weigh what is at stake – our own and our hearers’ eternal destiny.

Carl Trueman, in his post called “Fahrenheit 381,” is calling for the leaders to take a stand:

That this species of subordinationism has been endorsed by New Calvinist leaders is disappointing.  The movement has been swift to deal with errors on the doctrine of scripture or justification but, historically speaking, errors on the doctrine of God have more often been the real source of problems for the church, whether we are thinking of Arians in the fourth century, Socinians in the seventeenth, kenoticists in the nineteenth or open theists in the late twentieth….

Because we live at a time when good teaching on the differences between men and women is needed more than at any previous moment in history, it is sad that the desire to maintain a biblical view of complementarity has come to be synonymous with advocating not only a very 1950s American view of masculinity but now also this submission-driven teaching on the Trinity.   In the long run such a tight pairing of complementarianism with this theology can only do one of two things.  It will either turn complementarian evangelicals into Arians or tritheists; or it will cause orthodox believers to abandon complementarianism.   The link is being pushed so firmly that it does not seem to offer any other choice.

The leaders of the organizations which represent New Calvinism have weathered storm after storm, from Driscollgate onwards, by maintaining a firm grip on the mainstream New Calvinist media, by licensing just enough criticism to reassure concerned onlookers, and by stoic public silence in the face of numerous scandals and controversies.  But this one is surely too big and the stakes are too high.  It has to be addressed.  We are not here dealing with the rogue actions of some boisterous celeb preacher in a Mickey Mouse tee-shirt; this is a specific form of theology which is deeply embedded in the very foundations of one of the movement’s professed central distinctives.  The New Calvinist leaders need to speak up, and they need to speak up now….

Subordinationism was found wanting in the fourth century and set aside for very good reason.  It is thus surely time for somebody of real stature in the New Calvinist world to break ranks with the Big Eva[ngelical] establishment and call out this new subordinationism for what it is: a position seriously out of step with the historic catholic faith and a likely staging post to Arianism. For if this is allowed to continue with official sanction or simply through silent inaction, then the current New Calvinist leadership will have betrayed the next generation in a deep and fundamental way.  Far more so, I might add, than those who allow a talented woman to teach the occasional Sunday school class.

Folks, these are not folks on my team in this debate, but I have ever since I began to hear this connection of Trinitarian relations and male-female relations said “These folks sound far too Arian.” Now we are hearing from within their own circles. Will someone stand up and say, “This is not right. Be done with it.” Or are the powers that be so enthralled with each other that if one cat falls off the fence the whole lot of them falls — so let’s surround one another in a night song?

By Joe James, the Education minister at the SouthSide Church of Christ in Rogers Arkansas.

Trusting the Table (4): Let Them Grow Together

“Trusting the Table” is my name for the Third Way in a world that pulls us in two directions: conservative and progressive. In my previous posts, I have argued that conservatives root their hopes in returning to days gone by and that progressives root their hopes in a future of our own making. There has been some really helpful push-back on both of these (which I really do appreciate) and nuance may be called for. But I think the general premise works and here is why I think so: progressives talk as if the world is generally a better place than it was a few generations ago, while conservatives talk as if the world is generally worse.   I don’t think either of these views fully captures what is happening in the world.

Weeds, Wheat & Worldview

In Matthew 13:24-30, Jesus gives us an incredible parable.

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and pull them up?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let them both grow together until the harvest; and at the harvest I will tell the reapers to collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

As in all of Jesus’ parables, this one is rich in ideas, possessing multiple layers of meaning. First, there is the obvious meaning that it is not the job of the workers to root out evil. That job does not belong to us because, frankly, God doesn’t trust our judgment. Our job is to simply work for the good of the field (which Jesus says in 13:38 is the world). Secondly, it tells us where good and evil come from. Good comes from the Master, the one who made the field possible. He sows only good seed in the world. Evil comes from an enemy. Notice that the “enemy” is not the weeds, but the one who sowed it – something Paul hints at in Ephesians 6:12.

But there is yet another layer to this parable (at least). For years now, I have been obsessed with this parable, and this is why. I believe it is a window into Jesus’ own worldview which refuses to get drawn into conservative and progressive categories. That window into his worldview comes in these words: “Let them both grow together.”

The world is not getting worse. The world is not getting better. Rather, good and evil grow alongside one another. Are some things better? Absolutely. Are some things worse? Absolutely.   And here is why I think it matters that Jesus followers see it that way.

The Righteous Mind

Jonathan Haidt’s now famous book “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Religion and Politics,” outlines the psychology behind why “being on the right team” is so seductive. Haidt argues that moral reasoning is more intuitive than it is strategic. We have gut-level emotive responses to issues when they are raised. “Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.”

Haidt illustrates how this works by talking about an Elephant and its Rider. In this model, Haidt uses the Elephant to talk about our intuition, and the Rider to talk about our cognition. Haidt argues that human beings are more than a collection of convictions, ideas and beliefs we hold in our head – cognitive beings. Rather, he says we are emotive creatures, driven by our intuition. Sometimes our intuitions can be influenced by a shift in our cognition, but mostly we are driven by our intuition.

Haidt argues that politics is seductive precisely because we operate from intuition. Something feels right, and it is not that our cognitive reasoning has thought it through. Rather, our cognitive reasoning has simply “functioned like a press secretary to automatically justify any position taken by the president (our emotions).”

Haidt says that Jesus had social-psychology right millennia ago. The proper way to navigate our world is to be self-reflective, “removing the plank from our own eye, rather than seeking to remove the speck from our enemy’s eye.” Haidt takes Jesus seriously on this point because he knows that our minds work overtime as our press secretary not only to justify our own position, but to demonize the enemy position. The Righteous Mind, it turns out, is the wedge that divides good people; the knife that slices up the world into “us” and “them.”

The Table

When we get drawn into the progressive worldview we suddenly become seduced into thinking that conservatives are the enemy. When we get sucked into the conservative worldview, we can become convinced that the key is in rooting out progressives. But there is a problem with this: Jesus calls both conservatives and progressives to the Table. Jesus washes the feet of Zealots and Tax Collectors at the Last Supper. And then he commissions them to do the same for one another and the world. The task of the worker in the field is not to root out the enemy; rather it is to work for the good of the world. 

And that brings me to the Table.   At the center of Jesus’ mission in the world is his establishment of the Table. The Table is a call to be reconciled to God, but it is more than that. The Table is a call to be reconciled to our siblings, but it is more. The Table is a call to feast on the body and blood of Jesus, but it is more. The Table is a call to feed the hungry and care for our neighbors, but it is more.   The Table is a call to trust in the Way of Jesus in the world.

At the Table we lay down our devotions to Zealotry as a way. At the Table we give up our Herodian desires. At the Table we fix our eyes on Israel’s Messiah, Jesus, who refuses to be devoted to either the fearfulness of a world falling apart, or the pride of a world getting better under its own steam. Rather, at the Table, we learn to trust in the reconciling work of eating bread and drinking wine.

Next week, in the conclusion to this series, I will explore why the church (people of The Table) is a sign and not a solution, and why that is good news.

By Michelle Van Loon patheos.com/blogs/pilgrimsroadtrip or michellevanloon.com

I don’t know how to go to a church service anymore.

I spent a lot of time during the 1990’s writing and occasionally producing skits for church services, as well as a few full-length plays. These bits of spiritual theater were once known as “chancel dramas”. With the advent of the seeker service, they became a way for service producers to highlight conflict, questions and spiritual awakening in story form. My writing eventually led to producing church services for a mid-sized non-denominational congregation, then daily chapel services at a college and seminary.

I learned during those years that services needed to both excellent and authentic, but it was a delicate balance between the two. When authenticity was the driver, awkwardness often ensued in the form of off-key worship leaders, overhead slides that never transitioned on time, and clumsy transitions from one part of the service to the next. When excellence dominated, a cool, controlled performance, timed down to the minute, resulted in the congregation becoming a passive audience at a religious show.

During those years, I was a part of teams who attempted to plan services with excellence, down to the minute. Certainly there was plenty of prayer and good intention behind these acts. Those with whom I worked had a desire to move the gathered people toward God, toward some kind of meaningful connection with one another, and toward release into mission as they headed out into the world. All that planning, strategizing and debriefing with a heavy focus on excellence while seeking authenticity in our expression – has nearly drained me of the ability to simply participate in a corporate worship service. I can’t turn off my internal church service analyzer.

Sermons bring another kind of challenge. I find at this point in my life, I can no longer simply listen and absorb a message. Every theological book, article and blog post I’ve read, on top of more than four decades of listening to sermons great, flat-out heretical, and filling the vast expanse of in-between, forms the filter through which I listen to a message. I can’t simply “receive” as I did when I was a young believer. Am I growing wiser or simply warier? I suspect it’s a measure of both, skewed by my experience toward the wary.

My most transcendent moments of worship during the years I was involved in some form of service planning never, ever came during the church services I helped to develop, but during the time I spent dreaming, praying, and preparing with a planning team or practicing with a worship team prior to the service. Nowadays, no matter how I try to discipline myself to enter into a worship service as a member of the congregation, I can’t turn off my inner analyst/critic.

I believe with all my heart we’re called to be the church, rather than seeing ourselves as people who go to church. However, being the church doesn’t negate the formational importance of corporate worship. It is the way we practice our identity as part of a body far greater and more beautiful than the sum of its parts:

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. “ (Rev. 7:9)

And yet, today I find myself standing on the sidelines, grappling to find my place in the multitude. I’ve found that I can enter into corporate worship more freely when I am a visitor in a different church, especially if is from a different stream or tradition than my own. Formal liturgy has been a help for me, but is not a cure for my analysis-itis. I recognize that novelty carries temptations of its own, and is at best a temporary treatment of my problem.

Am I alone in this struggle? Do you find as you accumulate experience in corporate worship, the voice of your inner critic grows louder? Why or why not? I’d love to hear from those who’ve spent years in the pews, as well as from those who were once pastors, worship leaders, or involved in some way in platform ministry.