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 . . . Continue reading →
eternal subordination
The Roof Was Not Strong Enough
My basic point remains: if you argue for EFS and/or reject (or even regard as negotiable) eternal generation, then you stand outside the bounds of the historic Nicene Christian faith as set forth at Constantinople in 381 and held thereafter by the . . . Continue reading →
A Response To Grudem’s Appeal To Hodge On Eternal Subordination
Hodge actually makes this restricted application explicit, “The subordination intended is only that which concerns the mode of subsistence and operation, implied in the Scriptural facts that the Son is of the Father, and the Spirit is of the Father and Son, and that the Father operates through the Son, and the Father and the Son through the Spirit.” (Systematic Theology I:461) The point he is making is that there is subordination in “the mode of subsistence and operation” only in the sense that one cannot reverse the orders of relation. They are not said to be subordinate in any sense of eternal submission, but are subordinate relationships in the fact that one relationship leads to the next and we cannot flip those. The Son is Son of the Father and so his Sonship depends on the Father being the Father. Nothing more is entailed or permitted. According to Hodge, the Son is Son in a subordinate way only in the sense that a Son has to have a Father, and that is the mode of subsistence and operation. Continue reading →
Why This Controversy Now?
During this same time, there was also groundbreaking historical work done by Richard Muller and those who followed in his wake. Muller’s research definitively smashed the “Calvin against the Calvinists” thesis, and his undeniably strong scholarship produced a whole new generation of . . . Continue reading →
Biblical, Ecumenical Christian Doctrines Are Not Adiaphora
Rachel Miller writes: “I hope that those who have read and recommend Dr. Grudem’s Systematic Theology will go back and reconsider what is being taught.” Continue reading →
Trueman: Might You Be A Socinian And Not Know It?
Cut some of the leading evangelical writers of the last decades and they bleed Socinus—without even knowing his name. For example, Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, the most widely read text of its kind in English-speaking conservative evangelical circles, rejects eternal generation of . . . Continue reading →
How The Athanasian Creed Can Help Contemporary Evangelical Theological Discourse
33. Equal to the Father, as touching his deity: and inferior to the Father as touching his humanity (Aequalis Patri secundum divinitatem: minor Patre secundum humanitatem)—Athanasian Creed. Yesterday, in our Reformed confessions course, we were considering Belgic Confession articles 18 and 19 . . . Continue reading →
The Incarnation Makes All The Difference
In Dr. Strachan’s brief comment on this section, he states that “In another little-discussed reality, everyone who believes Scripture must confess the Father’s headship over the Son to some degree. It does no violence to the Son—truly God, truly man—to be “subjected” . . . Continue reading →
Rescuing Complementarianism
Those who study these things (e.g., historians, sociologists) write of three “waves” of feminism. First-wave feminism accounts for the women’s suffrage movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Second-wave feminism is associated with the legalization of birth control (Griswold v . . . Continue reading →