Triune sovereignty

Triune sovereignty November 30, 2011

Khaled Anatolios points out in his Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine that Athanasius charges that the Arians cannot truly honor God as Creator. The reasoning is: “If the Word is Creator and the Word is extrinsice to the divine essence, then the creative energy of God is extrinsic to the divine essence and God cannot claim the title ‘Creator’ as properly his own. To the exact extent that the creative Son is external to the divine essence, to that extent does God procure the title ‘Creator’ from outside his proper being.”

Athanasius is challenging the “framework of debate” that contrasts “trinitarian conceptions of unity of being versus those of unity of will.” He and his opponents both accept that creation is a result of God’s will, but Athanasius presses the point: “if the Son is the agent of the divine willing of creation, he must be integral to divine being in order for this willing to be properly owned by the divine being.” The sovereignty of God’s will, in short, is only properly affirmed Trinitarianly: God’s sovereignty as Creator “is ultimately only affirmed by recognizing the Son’s sharing in divine being.”

Question: Have Calvinists always recognized this?


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