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Chapter 3 Trinitarian Uniqueness
in the Whole
Since the Trinity is the key for
determining the whole person and the relationships necessary together to
be whole as God's family, we need to better understand the Trinity, to
further grasp the trinitarian persons and the depth of their
relationships together as the whole of God. This discussion will be
interrelated to current conversation of the human person and human
relationships, specifically as it involves distinctions like gender.
When we talk about trinitarian
uniqueness distinguishing the Father, the Son and the Spirit in their
persons, the ongoing central issue (along with past concerns about
tritheism and modalism) is some variation of subordinationism,
particularly as it formulates gender relations. Yet we need to
reconsider this issue more deeply in the relational context and process
of how God does relationship, first within the Trinity and then in
relation to us.
Two related theological issues to keep
in mind throughout this discussion will be helpful for our
understanding. One involves reducing the persons of the Trinity
(intentionally or inadvertently) into the whole of God's being such that
they lose their uniqueness or personhood (the loss of which becomes
susceptible to modalism); on the other hand, overstating their
uniqueness opens the possibility of shifting into tritheism. The other
issue involves reducing the whole of the Trinity (beyond us in eternity
called the immanent Trinity) into the economic Trinity (directly
involved with us in revelation) so that the eternal God loses mystery;
yet God's self-revelation is only partial (i.e., incomplete) and
provisional. Reducing the whole of each trinitarian person or the whole
of God's being are consequential not only for our understanding of the
triune God but also for understanding what is important about our
persons and our relationships in order to be whole in the likeness of
who, what and how God is.
We can rely only on God= s
self-revelation to properly understand the Trinity and their
relationships. Anything about God and how God does relationship beyond
this revelation is mere speculation. While revelation is only a partial
picture of the totality of God, we have sufficient parts of the picture
(or pieces in a puzzle) to provide us understanding of the whole of the
triune God, the persons of the Trinity and their relationship together.
The key, however, is properly putting the pieces together. Jesus
confronted his disciples about their lack of understanding in putting
the pieces together (syniemi, Mk 8:17, cf. Mk 6:52). Paul stated
that it was his purpose for us to have this understanding of the whole (synesis,
Col 2:2) in order that we would specifically know (not just be informed
about, epignosis) the full significance of the various parts of
the mystery of God revealed in the face of Christ.
Function, Uniqueness,
Subordination
The main area of disagreement between
complementarians and egalitarians over subordination in the Trinity
(thus in marriage and the church) involves authority and the roles
signified by authority. Whether differences in function also mean
differences in being (and essence) or only role differentiation (for
example as argued by Wayne Grudem1), subordination is seen as
the basis for the differences revealed in the Scriptures. These
differences in function God disclosed to us about the trinitarian
persons certainly establish their uniqueness. Whether this includes
subordination depends on putting the pieces together. We need to more
deeply understand the significance of their uniqueness and what it means
for their relationships as the whole of the triune God. For this, I
suggest not the primary focus of further exegesis of the specific
biblical passages in question (which has not resolved our disagreement
nor deepened our understanding) but the need to see them in the extended
and deeper relational context of God's desires for the eschatological
big picture. As noted earlier, this involves a relational epistemic
process.
God's self-revelation (which is
partial) is about God and about how God does relationship. Yet the
relational context and process of God's self-disclosure are always
related to us, directly or indirectly. Though revelation is about God,
God is focused on us. In other words, revelation is about how God does
relationship for us and with us. This is true before
creation (for us) as well as after (with us)--a point of disagreement
over functional differences within the Trinity which egalitarians tend
to affirm only during the incarnation. The various references to
functional differences prior to creation cannot be ignored but they are
clearly about God in relation to us (Jn 1:3; Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 8:6; Eph
1:4; Heb 1:2; 1 Pet 1:2).
Whether before or after creation, God's
activity in relation to us is how God does relationship. This suggests
how God is throughout eternity because God cannot be inconsistent with
the revelation of how God does relationship. This does not, however,
define or describe the totality of the immanent Trinity, which cannot be
reduced to the economic Trinity--a distinction which is important to
maintain. We can only talk about God in terms of how the Trinity is with
us--both before creation in anticipation of us and after.
In Two Relational
Contexts
Yet, we also need to distinguish
further that God does relationship in two distinct relational contexts.
One context is totally within the Trinity and their relationships
together. The other context is the Trinity's relational involvement with
us. How God does relationship is consistent for both contexts, though
the relational process is different for each context. Understanding the
different relational processes is critical for our understanding of the
Trinity and trinitarian uniqueness, as well as for grasping how to do
relationship with God and with each other.
For God to do relationship with us
involves a very distinct relational process which tells us what matters
most to God and thus how God does relationships. In ultimate response to
the human condition "to be apart," God extended his love to us in the
person of Jesus, the Son (Jn 3:16, 17). Yet, unlike how the trinitarian
persons love each other in a horizontal relational process between
equals, the natural inequality between Creator and creature necessitates
a vertical relational process. The incompatibility between the holy God
and sinful humanity compounds this difference between us. In a
quantitative framework, we can say God reaches down from the highest
stratum of life to the lowest stratum of life; but, more importantly,
God pursues us from a qualitatively different context (holy or uncommon)
in a qualitatively different process (eternal and relational). In other
words, God had to initiate loving action downward to us in response to
our condition "to be apart" in order to reconcile us back together to
the whole of God.
This response of God's grace can only
be understood in a vertical relational process, which must be
distinguished from the horizontal relational process of how the Trinity
loves among themselves. Without God's loving initiative downward, there
would be no compatible relational basis for God to connect with us or
for us to connect with God.
In this qualitative process, God cannot
love us in a horizontal relational process just as the trinitarian
persons love each other. God can only do relationships as God and never
on any other terms. For God to be compatible with us and us with God,
the connection needs to be a vertical relational process because of the
inherent inequality between us. Nevertheless, in spite of God's obvious
superior position and authority, in loving us downward the Son came
neither to perpetuate nor to expand the quantitative and qualitative
differences between us. Nor did he come to put us down or to condemn us
to those differences (Jn 3:17). In the qualitative difference of God's
love, Jesus revealed how God does relationship, which the Spirit's
relational work extends for us to experience. It is vital for us to
understand the implications of this qualitative process engaged by
God--both in our relationship with God and in our relations with others,
as we will discuss later.
Subordination in
Context
For the eternal and holy God to be
extended to us in loving action downward required the mystery of a
quantitative-like reduction (not qualitative) of God. God's loving
action downward underlies the basis for the functional differences in
the Trinity revealed to us in the Scriptures. The Son, of course,
undertook the most significant aspect of subordinating himself to extend
love downward (Phil 2:6-8). This subordinate action of love is further
extended downward by the Spirit as the Son's relational replacement to
complete what the Son started (Jn 14:16, 18, 26). God's initiative
downward in the Son, however, must be distinguished from a view that the
transcendent God needed an intermediary (that is, Christ) to do this for
him--a form of Arianism which claims Christ is less than God in deity,
being or substance (ousia). The incarnation was the
nothing-less-and-no-substitutes God revealing how God does relationship
in love.
The relational context and process of
God's focus on us (even before creation) and involvement with us (during
and after creation) constitute the functional differences in the Trinity
in order for God to love us downward. Each of the trinitarian persons
has a distinct role in functioning together as the whole of God to
extend love to us in response to our condition "to be apart." Thus it is
in this relational context and process that the Trinity's functional
differences need to be examined.
As we consider trinitarian uniqueness,
there are two approaches to the Trinity's differences that we can take.
One approach is a static and more quantitative descriptive account of
the different functions and roles in somewhat fixed relationships.
Complementarians use this to establish the primacy of an authority
structure within the Trinity that extends to marriage and usually to
church. Many egalitarians take the same static-quantitative approach but
come to different conclusions about the meaning of functional
differences--sometimes even to deny them--yet the primacy of leadership
and roles remains.
The other approach is more dynamic and
qualitative, focusing on the relational process. While it fully accounts
for the different functions and roles in the Trinity, the relational
significance of all those involves how each of the trinitarian persons
fulfilled a part of the total vertical relational process to love us
downward as the whole of God. In this qualitative approach, the primacy
shifts from authority (or leadership) and roles to love and
relationships.
As we consider differing viewpoints on
trinitarian uniqueness and the aspects which are emphasized in those
views, we can assess what the whole is that those parts form, and what
kind of understanding of God and how God does relationship each view
gives us. Central to this assessment is the awareness of the influence
of reductionism.
Development of
Trinitarian Views
The doctrine of the Trinity emerged in
the fourth century as a response to theological conflict and
reductionism. Arius specifically taught that Jesus was subordinate to
God in substance (ousia) and was created (begotten) by the
Father. The Council of Nicea (the Nicene Creed in 325) countered that
Jesus was begotten (that is, generated, not created) from the substance
of the Father, of the same substance (homoousios) with God. In
further response to another form of Arianism (from Eunomius: divine
substance is unbegotten and only belongs to the Father), the Cappadocian
fathers (Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus, between
358-380) formulated the distinction between the same substance of God
and the different persons (hypostasis) of God, thus establishing
the doctrine of the Trinity: one God existing in three persons.2
Essentially, from the fourth century
into the twenty-first, we observe one aspect of God emphasized over
another (for example, the oneness of God or the divine threeness), and
some aspect of God reduced (for example, God's substance [ousia]
or the persons/personhood [hypostasis] of God), as well as
redefined or ignored (for example, "begotten" or the relationality of
the Trinity). If not in theology most certainly in function, these
perceptions/interpretations profoundly affect how we define God, define
ourselves and thus how we do relationships together as the church.
The Nicene creedal concept of
"begotten" (giving priority or primacy to the Father) is problematic
today not so much in terms of crossing the line into Arianism but more
in terms of understating its significance (as egalitarians tend to do)
or overstating it (as complementarians do). That the Son was begotten of
(not created nor derived his being from) the Father indicates some
specific difference in their relationship. What is the significance of
this difference?
Wayne Grudem argues that this indicates
a functional difference of roles (not substance) that subordinated the
Son to the Father eternally. Even though the Son was begotten of the
Father, Grudem emphasized that this difference in their relationship
never began ("begotten of the Father before all worlds"), which
includes the authority of the Father over the Son and the Spirit as
always part (also "never began") of their eternal roles (on the basis of
Rom 8:29; Eph 1:4).3 Grudem affirms the equal substance (homoousios),
value and personhood of the trinitarian persons while maintaining their
differences in authority and roles. This certainly mitigated an Arian
controversy. Yet it is problematic to say that the trinitarian
differences indicated by begetting and authority "never began."
The term "begotten" is associated with
two terms used in the Bible. The most common Greek term is monogenes,
traditionally rendered "only begotten" with reference to Jesus (Jn 1:14,
18; 3:16, 18; 1 Jn 4:9). Monogenes means unique, one of a kind,
one and only, and is more accurately rendered "only one," "one and
only"--defining the unique relationship of the Son with the Father
without implying any element of procreation. We will discuss the
significance of this designation for Jesus shortly.
The other term for begotten occurred
initially in a messianic psalm about the Christ: "You are my Son; today
I have become your Father" (Ps 2:7, yalad, meaning become the
father of). This verse is quoted in the N.T. (Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5; 5:5)
with the Greek term gennao meaning to beget, become the father
of, generate, originate. This term more directly involves the function
of begetting and distinctly defines the relationship between the Father
and his Son. Yet when the Father said "today I have become your Father,"
the term for "today" (yom) denotes both a point in time and a
period in time. This certainly indicates that the Lord became the Father
of the Son from some point by a purposeful action--action, however, not
to be reduced to the procreation in Arianism, nor to overlook and fail
to understand its purpose.
If the Trinity functions in subordinate
relationships, either this structure always existed eternally (without
beginning as Grudem argues) or it was generated/originated (at some
point, however a mystery). I do not think these two can validly be
combined. If the structure always existed, the Father did not initiate
it by his action or authority; like God, it just is and always was. If
generated of the Father at some point, the question "why so?" remains
unaddressed--which unanswered leaves open the door to some form of
Arianism or even modalism.
The N.T. quotes of Psalm 2:7 help us
understand the Father's purpose to beget (gennao) the Son. In
Acts, when asked to speak words of encouragement Paul summarized God's
ongoing faithful response to their condition "to be apart" and the good
news that God fulfilled the promise to be the family of God now in Jesus
by repeating the reality of Psalm 2:7 (Acts 13:15ff). The truth of this
gospel is established further in the Hebrew epistle by clearly defining
the equality of the Son in the being of God (Heb 1:2, 3) and his
superiority even to the angels (1:4ff). In this comparison with the
angels, what is the significance of quoting Psalm 2:7 and also quoting
"I will be his Father and he will be my Son"? I suggest, because this is
about being God's family, the Father never said this to the angels. They
did not inherit the Father's family name and its rights (1:4),
suggesting that even though they were God's personal messengers and
servants they were not full family members. But, as Paul declared in
Acts, this is the good news for the rest of us. And this full membership
in God's family is secured by the Son as the great high priest (Heb
4:14ff). Yet this is not about role identity because Psalm 2:7 is quoted
(5:5) to focus on the purposeful action of the Father to extend the Son
to us in the function of relationships in family love (not priestly
duties) in order to reconcile us to God so that we can be in God's
family.
Role identity and function are not
fixed ends in themselves but always serve the whole of God's design and
purpose, particularly as God's thematic response to the human condition
"to be apart." We also need to understand this more deeply about
authority and the function it serves. In addition, the fact that the
Father's authority existed even before the foundation of the world does
not automatically mean that it never began. While eternity exists beyond
our time and space, whatever exists or took place before this created
context are not necessarily "eternal without beginning" (for example,
angels). "Never began" has to be assumed by Grudem without biblical
support.
Besides assuming "never began," Grudem
also gives a static and quantitative descriptive account of these
functions and thus ascribes fixed roles to the trinitarian persons in
their eternal relationship. In this framework the eternal nature of
these different roles constitutes the basis for eternal subordination in
the Trinity and establishes the primacy of trinitarian relations in its
authority structure. It is a major assumption, however, to define the
immanent Trinity by the economic Trinity (which includes before
creation). Since this authority structure and these fixed role
differences are also used as the basis for constituting gender relations
in marriage and the church, this implies the same authority and role
differences to continue eternally for men and women--even though
marriage does not exist in heaven. Furthermore, we need to see if
authority and subordination adequately define the primary function of
the relationship of God within the Trinity and if they signify the
primacy given to the relationship of God as revealed by the Trinity in
relationship with us.
Based on these fixed role differences,
what becomes primary in how God does relationship? For Grudem, it is the
following: "The doctrine of the Trinity thus indicates that equality of
being together with authority and submission to authority are perhaps
the most fundamental aspects of interpersonal relationships in the
entire universe."4 I can understand his bias for order and
for the need for constraint on free will. Most certainly, there is need
for this. Yet Jesus vulnerably revealed more than this about
relationship both within the Trinity and for us. These are parts of
God's revelation which need to be put together to understand the whole
of God and God's desires in the eschatological big picture.
A Different Approach
I can affirm the functions of begetting
and authority of the Father but from a different approach. The other
approach to understanding the significance of trinitarian differences is
more dynamic and qualitative than the descriptive accounts of authority
and roles. This involves examining the relational process. Doing this
still accounts for the different functions and roles but shifts the
focus to the qualitative aspects of persons and relationships and the
dynamic process in which they are involved. This requires redefining the
person not based on what they do (for example, roles) or have (for
example, authority) but on what they are in qualitative significance,
thus understanding relationships as a functional process of the
relational involvement between such whole persons (unreduced) and not as
relationships based merely on authority and roles. These relationships
help us understand what is necessary to be whole as constituted by the
Trinity.
When relationships are defined and
examined merely on the basis of roles, this becomes a focus on the
quantitative definition of the person (at the very least by what one
does in a role) and a quantitative description of relationships (for
example, a set of roles in a family) according to the performance of
those roles--usually in a set order for different roles or even mutually
coexisting for undifferentiated roles. Yet this does not account for the
variations which naturally occur in how a person sees a role, performs
that role and engages in it differently from one situation to another.
Nor does it account for the dynamic relational process in which all of
this is taking place--a process necessary for roles to have relational
significance.
For example, when the primacy of the
Father's authority and role is emphasized as defining of his person and
as constituting the relationships within the Trinity, this tends to
imply two conclusions about the Trinity--if not theologically, certainly
in how we functionally perceive God. The first implication for the
Trinity is that everything is about and for only the Father; the Son and
the Spirit are necessary but secondary in function to serve only the
Father's desires. While there is some truth to this in role description,
the perceived imbalance reduces the oneness of the triune God with the
inadvertent perception of their roles being "different and less" thus
operating in stratified relationships. Secondly, such primacy of the
Father also tends to imply a person self-sufficient from the other
trinitarian persons. This unintentionally counters the relatedness or
relationality of God as constituted in the Trinity.
These two conclusions (or variations of
them) are problematic for trinitarian theology. But they have deeper
implications for our practice of how we define the person, how we engage
in relationships and how these become primary in the practice of church.
While the primacy of the Father's
authority and role must be accounted for in the revelation available to
us, our understanding of trinitarian differences deepens when examined
in the relational context and process of the whole of God and God's
design and purpose for us. God's self-revelation is about how the whole
of God does relationship as the persons of the Trinity in relation to
us. In what God disclosed, do role differences fully account for how God
does relationship and do they help us understand the significance of
what is primary and matters most to God?
The Relational
Significance of Jesus' Revelation
What Jesus revealed consistently
throughout the Gospel narratives is that he was indeed all about the
Father. He came to reveal the Father (Jn 17:6, 26), everything he did
was from the Father (Jn 5:19, 20) and all he said was for the Father (Jn
12:49, 50). Even the cross served the Father--not us, though we benefit
from it--as the redemptive means for adoption as the Father's very own
daughters and sons in his family together (Eph 1:5; Col 1:20). This
relational conclusion is what is primary to God in response to the human
condition "to be apart," what God started with creation (and planned
even before, Rom 8:29) and Adam and Eve were supposed to complete ("fill
the earth" Gen 1:28), and what matters most to God in the big picture
(Col 1:19, 20). And the Spirit serves to bring this relational process
to its eschatological conclusion (2 Cor 5:5; Eph 1:14); this specific
function of the Spirit will be discussed in Chapter 5.
There is a definite subordination
indicated in these functional differences. The question we need to
answer, however, is what this subordination signifies. Related to this
is why the Son originated from the Father and is designated as "the One
and Only" (monogenes) of God. Does it define fixed roles in a
hierarchy or does it signify the relational process of God loving
downward necessitating subordination among the trinitarian persons in
order to make a compatible relational connection with us, and thus us
with God with the result of becoming God's family?
A hierarchy is about structure and is
static. But authority (arche) is not merely what someone
possesses, rather it is always exercised over another in relationship--thus it involves a dynamic process. Hierarchy and authority together
need to be understood as the dynamics of stratified relationships which
involve more than order and includes how relationships are done.
Stratified relationships can range from the oppression of power
relations at one extreme to degrees of separation or, intentionally or
unintentionally, to merely distance in relationships. At whatever point
in this range, the relationships would be less intimate than what is
accessible in horizontal relationships. Does this represent the sum of
Jesus' relationship with his Father or are there more pieces to put
together for a fuller understanding of the Trinity?
Besides the functional differences in
authority and roles within the Trinity, what other aspects of their
relationships are revealed to us? There are two clear overlapping
statements Jesus made to define his relationship with the Father: (1) "I
and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30; 17:11, 22), and (2) "the Father is in
me and I in the Father" (Jn 10:38; 14:10, 11, 20; 17:21). We need to
understand these both ontologically and relationally, thus expanding on
the Greek concept of perichoresis in trinitarian theology.
The first declaration revealed the
ontological oneness of the trinitarian persons in qualitative substance
(homoousios) which cannot be differentiated in any of their
persons from the whole of the triune God, as well as undifferentiated in
this sense from each other. Each person is wholly God and a part of the
whole of God, suggesting that each is incomplete without the others. Yet
what is disclosed to us is not the totality of God but the whole of God
in who and what God is and how God does relationship. Paul affirms the
whole of God ("fullness," pleroma, complete, Col 1:19) residing
in the incarnate Son. Each person is that who, what and how of
God without distinctions that would reduce their persons from that
whole. Thus they are inseparable, possibly suggesting in a limited sense
interchangeable in function. So, on the one hand, if you see one
trinitarian person you have seen them all; while on the other, to see
the whole of the triune God is to see the trinitarian persons because
each person is distinct in the whole but not distinguished from the
whole. This constitutes the main basis for Jesus' bold claim that
"anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9; cf. 12:45). He
did not merely resemble (homoioma, cf. Rom 8:3) the Father but is
the exact copy (charakter, cf. Heb 1:3) of the Father.
Jesus prayed to the Father that his
followers may "be one as we are one" (Jn 17:11, 21, 22). Yet, we cannot
have ontological oneness with the triune God such that either we would
be deified or God's being would become all of us (pantheism). What Jesus
prayed for that is possible, however, involves his second
declaration overlapping with their ontological oneness. "The Father in
me and I in the Father" further reveals their oneness not only in ontic
qualitative substance but also in the qualitative significance of
relational oneness constituted by their intimate involvement with each
other in communion. This deep intimacy together uniquely made Jesus the
only one (monogenes) to fully exegete (exegeomai) the
Father
(Jn 1:18)-- not to merely inform us of the transcendent God but to
vulnerably make known the Father for intimate relationship as his
family. These relational terms provide the remaining basis for Jesus'
claim that if we truly see him we see the Father.
It is important to understand that when
Jesus said seeing him was seeing the Father, he revealed in this twofold
ontological and relational reality the importance of both what
constitutes God's triune being as well as what matters most to God.
Though unique in function by their differences in roles, what primarily
defines their trinitarian persons are not these role distinctions. To
define them by their roles is to define the trinitarian persons by what
they do, which would be a reduction of God. This reduction makes role
distinctions primary over the purpose for their functional differences
to love us downward, thereby reducing not only the qualitative substance
of the Trinity but also the qualitative significance of what matters
most to God.
God's self-disclosure is about how God
does relationship. As disclosed in the persons of the Trinity: the
Father is how God does relationship--not about authority and influence;
the Son is how God does relationship vulnerably--not about being the
obedient subordinate; the Spirit is how God does relationship in the
whole--not
about the helper or mediator. In their functional differences, God is
always loving us downward. Yet we cannot utilize how each trinitarian
person discloses an aspect of how God does relationship in loving
downward in order to make reductionist distinctions between them by
which to define their persons. Just as we reduce defining human persons
(for example, to what we do) and relationships (for example, to role
behavior), this becomes a reductionism of God. Likewise, reducing the
whole of each trinitarian person to the particular function each one
enacts in loving downward becomes a reduction of how God does
relationship, thus reducing the primacy of God's desires, purpose and
actions to reconcile us from our condition as well as ongoing tendency
"to be apart." The emphasis on authority and roles does not give us this
primacy for relationships nor is it sufficient to reconcile us from
being apart--even if our condition "to be apart" only involves
relational distance minimizing intimacy in our relationships.
Furthermore, this reduction removes
trinitarian uniqueness from the relational context of the eschatological
big picture and from its relational process constituted by the primacy
of how God does relationship both within the Trinity and in relation to
us. What constitutes this primacy in the Trinity's relationships is how
they function in their relationships together in the whole of God
as the whole of God and for the whole of God. This
functional-relational togetherness of the whole of God is not signified
by their authority and roles. Authority and roles would not be
sufficient to enable Jesus to say seeing him was seeing the Father.
Jesus' declaration to be in the Father
and the Father in him was not simply to inform us of God but to provide
the primary means to truly know and experience God and be his family. As
we grasp this, we more fully understand the significance of his
designation as "the One and Only" (monogenes). This primacy of
relationship within the Trinity is signified only by their intimate
communion and love (Jn 3:35; Mk 1:11; Jn 5:20; Mt 17:5; Jn 14:31).
Relationships of intimate communion and love are both sufficient and
necessary to constitute the whole of the triune God (homoousios)
as well as to identify the significance of the trinitarian persons (hypostasis)
and their relationships. This intimate communion of love is what matters
most to God because it reflects what is most important in
God and represents what is most important of God--not authority,
different roles, unique functions. And this is what Jesus foremost wants
us to experience relationally together, and, therefore, is the primary
purpose of his formative prayer summarizing his incarnation (Jn 17).
This intimate relational involvement of
love signifies both the relational oneness which we can have with the
triune God in likeness to the Trinity's oneness and which we need to
have also with each other in the intimate relational process vulnerably
revealed by Jesus as the One and Only (Jn 14:20; 17:23, 26). Yet, this
relational oneness is not about the structure of authority and roles but
the function of relationships in the intimate relational process of
love. These ongoing dynamic relationships of love, however, require the
qualitative substance of God (Eph 1:4; Mt 5:8) and thus relationships
only on God's terms (Jn 14:21; 15:9, 10; 17:17-19). Intimate communion
with the whole of the triune God cannot be based merely on love because
God is holy. This relationship requires compatibility of qualitative
substance, therefore the need for our transformation in order to have
intimate relationship with the holy God. God's love downward does not
supersede this necessity, only provides for it.
From creation, God constituted the
human person in the image of the qualitative substance of God (signified
by the heart). The trinitarian persons and human persons cannot be
separated from this qualitative substance and still be defined as whole
persons. This substance is necessary for the primary definition of the
person, not the secondary definitions of what they do (roles) or what
they have (authority). The Cappadocians formulated the initial doctrine
of the Trinity by distinguishing the persons (hypostasis) from
substance (ousia) but advanced the person as ontologically more
important than substance in order to give priority to the relationality
of the triune God--establishing a social trinitarianism--though their
persons were based on begotten and spiration. While this significantly
countered the prevailing idea of God's essence as unrelated (or
nonrelational), we should not reduce the importance of the qualitative
substance of God because both interacting together are necessary to
define the whole (oneness) of God and the relationships (threeness)
necessary to be whole.
Moreover, to better grasp the
qualitative significance of God helps us to more deeply understand the
relationality of the Trinity. In trinitarian theology, the predominant
explanatory basis for relationality is the Greek idea of perichoresis:
the interpenetration of the trinitarian persons in dynamic
interrelations with each other. The importance of perichoresis is
certainly critical for our perceptual-interpretive framework and it may
be a conceptually more complete term to define the ontology of the
Trinity. But we need to expand this idea of relationality because it
lacks the functional clarity to be of relational significance to more
deeply grasp the whole of God and to intimately experience the who, what
and how of God in relationship. Jesus provides this clarity in how he
functioned during the incarnation.
Without this clarity of relational
significance, we function less relationally specific--though the
intention may be there--to the whole of God, and thus we practice church
apart from the relationships necessary to be whole as God's family
constituted in the Trinity--even though the idea may be understood. The
lack of functional clarity has further ramifications for how the human
person is perceived in the image of God and how our persons function in
the relationships necessary to reflect the whole of God's likeness
signified in the Trinity as well as to represent and build God's family.
This lack results in ontological simulations and epistemological
illusions of the whole with reductionist substitutes.
The need for our understanding of the
Trinity is not to be informed of God--which perichoresis merely
tends to do--but to experience the whole of God for relationship:
specifically to be involved with God as whole persons in the whole of
God's family constituted in and by the Trinity. In the incarnation, the
whole of God ultimately coheres for this relationship. The experience of
this relational reality of the whole has been the integrating theme of
the Trinity's response to our condition "to be apart" from the whole
ever since the creation of the first person. God's desires indeed were
formulated even before creation to restore us to the whole in the new
creation to be completed at the eschatological conclusion.
Reductionism counters all this
relational work, as we will see demonstrated by the churches in Ephesus,
Sardis and Laodicea (in Rev 2, 3).
Reductionist Intrusion
in the Process to Family
Reductionism of the person (trinitarian
and human) affects how relationships are done--affecting what we give
priority to or minimize, even ignore. The basic issue involves defining
the person in quantitative terms from the outside in (which does not
include "in" very far) based, for example, on what one does or has,
versus in qualitative terms from the inside out based on the primary
substance of the inner person (signified by the heart), yet including
the whole person, physical as well. The qualitative approach makes
secondary any outer distinctions used in a quantitative approach to
establish primacy for those differences. This is not to say, for
example, that role differences are unimportant--only that they become
secondary in priority to what is primary.
While there are functional differences
in the Trinity and in the church, to focus on authority and roles to
define persons in order to differentiate them from one another as well
as to determine the primary way in which they will do relationships
together becomes quantitative reductionism of the whole person and of
the primary relations necessary to be whole--as revealed by Jesus in how
the Trinity does relationship.
Grudem identifies the differences in
authority among Father, Son, and Spirit as the only interpersonal
differences existing eternally in the Trinity. In his approach, he needs
this difference not only to define the trinitarian persons but also to
determine how they will do relationship. Moreover, he boldly declares
that functioning without this quantitative distinction "would destroy
the Trinity."5 Since Grudem defines the person by one's role
in order to differentiate the trinitarian persons and to delineate the
way they relate to one another, he argues that without this they would
be identical not only in being but also in role and how they relate
together. This stands in contrast to Jesus' declarations noted earlier.
Grudem's confusion of what is primary
about God and thus matters most to God is a result of reductionism--
which is not unique to complementarians but includes egalitarians also.
To define the person and to maintain this identity in relationships as
the primary way to do relationships (and church) based on quantitative
terms are contrary to the God in self-revelation. It is one matter to
affirm functional differences (with or without subordinationism) but a
contrary matter to use those quantitative distinctions as the primary
way to define the person and to engage in relationships--which is a
practice of both complementarians and egalitarians.
Further, Grudem uses the name "Father"
and "Son" to support these distinctions. Though he suggests a biblical
basis that only indirectly may define the immanent Trinity (in
eternity), he makes assumptions for a syllogistic-like conclusion: since
"those names have belonged to the Father and the Son forever"6
then their roles are also eternally theirs "because by nature
they have always existed as Father and Son,"7 therefore the
Son is eternally submissive to the Father "simply because He eternally
existed as Son, and submission to the Father was inherent in that
relationship."8 Yet he does not account for the Son as
messiah also named "Everlasting Father" (Is 9:6), not to mention Psalm
2:7 noted earlier. Besides making assumptions for the immanent Trinity
based on the economic Trinity (as revealed even before creation), Grudem
does not adequately put the pieces of revelation together to understand
(syniemi) the triune God because he focuses on the quantitative
distinctions of reductionism. Such an epistemic process is always
inadequate to grasp the qualitative whole of God.
In addition, along with his position
that this authority and submission "never began," Grudem supports his
conclusion that it will "never end" with 1 Corinthians 15:28: "the Son
himself will be made subject to him." This text refers to after the Son
hands over the Kingdom to the Father signifying the beginning of the
eternal state, which suggests to Grudem that it will continue for
eternity.9
Two things strike me about this verse.
The Son was already subject to the Father even in the plans made before
creation. So why does the Son need to be subject to the Father again at
this future point if this was the eternal nature of their relationship?
The term for "subject to" (hypotasso) is in the Greek future
tense passive voice which could be either the regular passive (the Son
receives the action by the Father) or the reflexive passive (the Son is
acting upon himself). If the regular passive is used here, it also begs
the question why future action by the Father is indicated to subject the
Son. If it is the reflexive passive in use, then we have to ask what the
Son's purpose would be in this action upon himself. I have no answer to
the former other than to try to understand this from a qualitative
approach examining the variability of a dynamic relational process as
opposed to a static quantitative approach of fixed roles and
relationship structure. Regarding the Son's action upon himself, I will
suggest a purpose in the discussion ahead.
God's self-revelation is how the
Trinity does relationship in loving us downward in response to our
condition "to be apart." We need to extend our understanding of the
names of the trinitarian persons, their roles in the Trinity and their
relationships together by seeing them more deeply in the relational
context and process of God's response to us--the response God planned
even before creation. Yet this response exceeded not only what is
commonly perceived at creation (as discussed previously) but also goes
beyond the limited perceptions of sacrificial love (agape)
defined only by "doing something" on the cross.
When the cross serves the human
individual instead of the Father, it becomes only about atonement for
our sins. While atonement is certainly a necessary outcome of Christ's
sacrifice, the cross serves only the Father as the redemptive means to
make us compatible relationally in qualitative substance to be adopted
as the Father's very own daughters and sons in his family together. As
Psalm 2:7 is used in the N.T., this is about being the family of God,
not merely about being saved from our sins.
God's love is always relational--about
how to be involved with others in relationship, not about doing
something especially on the basis of a role (for example, the Son as the
obedient subordinate). To love us God had to extend love downward to be
involved with us, as discussed earlier. By further examining this love
in the relational context and process of God's response, a deeper
understanding emerges. This is how God's response functions in
relational terms: God as Father extended God down to us in the
trinitarian persons (the Son and the Spirit) to pursue us in our
condition "to be apart" in order to take us back to their family and
attend to our needs--not for a visit or to be their guest (or to become
an employee in the household)--so that the Father did not merely receive
us into his house but more importantly formally adopted us to be his
very own as a full member of his family permanently in intimate
interdependent relationship together with all the rights and
responsibilities just as the Son, which the Spirit makes an experiential
reality and brings to completion at the eschaton. This is the process of
God's family love.
This trinitarian relational process of family love gives coherence to
all the doctrines and aspects of Christian faith but most of all to the
primacy of God's desires.
Since God's self-revelation is about
how God does relationship in loving us downward, this purpose is the
significance of functional subordination in the Trinity--necessary for
the relational significance of God connecting with us in the context of
relationship. Further revealed is how the whole of God does relationship
by vulnerably extending family love to us, thus the significance of the
functional difference in familial names
--particularly the Father and the Son, though including the Spirit as
their relational extension (Jn 14:18; 16:13-15; Rom 8:15, 16), to be
relationally specific and significant as the family of God. Other names
could have served to define functional differences for the Father (for
example, King or CEO) or the Son (for example, Prince or chief
operations officer). But it is neither an empire (kingdom
notwithstanding) nor a corporate organization which can be relationally
specific and significant to God= s design and purpose, God's response of
love and God's desires for us. Only family, the family of the Father,
the Son and the Spirit intimately in relationship together as the whole
of God fulfill God's purpose and desires. While "kingdom" certainly
describes God's covenant people, family is what deeply defines in
ongoing function the redeemed children of God in the likeness of the
Trinity.
This is who, what and how the whole of
God was fully extended, directly revealed and vulnerably responding to
us. The dynamic of family between the Father and Son does not describe
the primacy of fixed roles in a permanent structure of authority and
submission but rather reveals the process for the primacy of their
intimate oneness together and their deep relational involvement of
love--for which perichoresis lacks functional clarity. This
relational process can only be experienced in the function of
relationships as family--the family of God. The Son was uniquely the
only one (monogenes, Jn 1:18) to extend the Father (as "nothing
less and no substitutes") to us in family; and the Son in function and
relationship defined for us how to be the Father's very own as his
family together. In "the One and Only" there is clarity, which is why
the Father told us to listen to his Son (Mt 17:5) and planned for us to
be exactly like his "firstborn" (prototokos, pre-eminent) in his
family together (Rom 8:29). No one else could fulfill this except "the
One and Only" (as Son, not another name)--not at the exclusion nor
subordination of the Spirit--because this was totally about the
relational context of God's family and the relational process of God's
family love, which the Spirit brings to completion.
The Relational Outcome
of the Whole
Going back to 1 Cor 15:28, the
relational context and process of the whole of God's response to us to
build the family of God suggest a purpose to the Son's action upon
himself (reflexive passive of "subject to"). When God's family is
complete in heaven, we will be ontologically whole with each other in
the likeness of the whole of God as in the Trinity, as well as
relationally whole with the Trinity in the whole of God--the complete
fulfillment of Jesus' prayer in John 17. God's family will not need
intercession by the Son and transformation by the Spirit. These
functions cease to be needed because God's family will be whole
(complete); and the trinitarian persons can continue on to be the whole
of God without the distinctions in vertical function necessary to do
relationship in loving us downward in response to our condition "to be
apart."
It is the whole of God that I suggest
is the Son's purpose to subject himself. That is, as the Son's purpose
originated from the Father at some point in eternity--not created in
essence but originating in function--to extend family love to us is
completed, this allows the Son and the Spirit to "return" to the Father
in function fully in the horizontal relational process as the whole
(oneness) of the triune God without the functional differences
previously necessary in the vertical relational context. This is not
about only the Father but only about the whole of God together as one.
When this is all enacted, the relational outcome will be the result that
"God may be all in all" (pas, the whole, cf. Eph 1:23; 4:10).
Though God will certainly be over all things at this future point, this
result is not about the primacy of authority structure and role
subordination. As Paul emphasized in 1 Corinthians 15, this is about the
resurrection of the new creation--what Jesus saved us to. This is
the relational outcome of the whole of God's family as
constituted and signified in the whole of the Trinity. This is
the relational progression of God's self-revelation in Christ which
together with the relational work of the Spirit is brought to
eschatological completion.
To be in intimate communion together in
the primacy of the relational involvement of family love (not role
behavior) has always been God's design and purpose (which are
functionally whole and wholistically relational) and what matters most
to God because this is who, what and how the whole of God is.
Trinitarian differences in name and function cohere in how God does
relationship with us in order to be family together, and any reduction
of these differences (for example, to quantitative matters) affects the
integrity of the whole of God and the primacy of the relationships
necessary to be whole. Such reductionism, in turn, affects what we will
pay attention to or ignore in defining our persons and where our focus
will be in how we do relationships and thus practice church. And while
reductionism may be convenient and simplify our perceptions and
interpretations, it always comes with great cost to us at God's expense.
We must understand further how the
influences of reductionism in our modern context affect this whole of
God and the relationships indwelling the whole.
_________________________________
1. Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism
and Biblical Truth (Sister, OR: Multnomah Publishers: 2004),
405-433.
2. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian
Doctrines, rev. (Peabody, MA: Prince Press, 2004), 252-269.
Catherine Mowry LaCugna, ed. Freeing Theology: the Essentials of
Theology in Feminist Perspective (San Francisco: Harper, 1993),
85-87. Stanley J. Grenz, Rediscovering the Triune God
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 7-8.
3. Grudem, 405-418.
4. Ibid., 429.
5. Ibid., 433.
6. Ibid., 413.
7. Ibid., 438.
8. Ibid., 435.
9. Ibid., 414.
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