The Father is Merciful

I remember seeing Rob Bell's clip where he asks the question whether Jesus saves us from the Father! An orthodox theology (i.e., one that is Trinitarian) would say emphatically "no!" because the cross is a triune event. Here are some words from Bruce McCormack on the subject:

“If the Father were not mercifully inclined toward the human race all along, why would he have sent his only Son into this world in the first place? Surely, a determination to be merciful and forgiving must precede and ground the sending of the Son into the world to die in our place. Surely forgiveness is not elicited from the Father (grudgingly?) by what Christ did on our behalf; it is rather effected by the Father in and through Christ’s passion and death. So the picture of an angry God the Father and a gentle and self-sacrificial Son who pays the ultimate price to effect an alteration in the Father’s ‘attitude’ fails to hit the mark.”[1]

---

[1] Bruce L. McCormack, “The Ontological Presuppositions of Barth’s Doctrine of the Atonement,” in The Glory of the Atonement, ed. C.E. Hill and F.A. James (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2004) 366 (346-66).

The Trinity in the New Testament

I'm spasmodically plugging away at an eventual "Evangelical Theology" volume. I'm currently getting into the Trinity and I am looking at the biblical basis of Trinitarian theology. Along the way I've found a couple of good quotes on the subject:

Concerning the devotional practices of early Christianity and the Trinity, Larry Hurtado writes:

The struggle to work out doctrinal formulations that could express in some coherent way this peculiar view of God (as “one” and yet somehow comprising “the Father” and Jesus, thereafter also including the Spirit as the “third Person” of the Trinity) occupied the best minds in early Christian orthodox/catholic tradition for the first several centuries. But the doctrinal problem they worked on was not of their own making. It was forced upon them by the earnest convictions and devotional practices of believers from the earliest observable years of the Christian movement.

Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 651

On the Trinitarian nature of the baptismal formula in Matt 28:19-20, John Meier states:

Certainly, one could hardly imagine a more forceful proclamation of Christ’s divinity – and incidentally, of the Spirit’s distinct personality – that this listing together, on a level of equality, of Father, Son, and Spirit. One does not baptize in the name of a divine person, a holy creature, and an impersonal force.

John P. Meier, Matthew (NTM 3; Delaware: Liturgical, 1980), 371-72

Trinity without Tiers - Graham Cole

Graham Cole teaches Systematics at TEDS and at Anglicans Together he gave a very good lecture on Trinity without Tiers. Basically it's a response to Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware about subordination in the Trinity. Myself and Robert Shillaker get a mention in despatches (@ 34.45 mins). It's easily the best lecture I've heard on the subject in terms of introducing the topic, what the debate is, who are the key players, and what is at stake. Though I'd press Cole on a few things such as whether "Christ" in the 1 Corinthians passages means Jesus' messianic role as opposed to his divine sonship before the Father. Also, I think he's a bit blaise with Rahner's rule. As long as the incarnation tells us something of the eternal life of God, then Rahner's rule (however imprecise in certain details) remains valid.

I stand by the point I've made with Robert Shillaker in a couple of Trinity Journal articles. (1) Ontological equality with functional subordination is biblical and orthodox. (2) The word "subordination" is dangerously flirting with Arianism and we need a better term like "the Son's obedient self-distinction from the Father". (3) This whole debate is being driven by gender issues in North American evangelicalism and I simply doubt whether intra-Trinitarian relationships can be or should be applied to male-female relationships.

Trinitarian Debates at Trinity

CT and Andy Naselli report on debates about the Trinity at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Central to the debate has been the subject of whether the Son eternally submits to the Father. Together Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware argued that relations of authority and submission do indeed exist among the persons of the Godhead, while Tom McCall and Keith Yandell argued against this proposal.

Ironically, myself and my systematics colleague Dr. Robert Shillaker have an article coming out on this very topic in Trinity Journal published by TEDS! A few thoughts:

I argue that the dynamics of the Father-Son relationship in the Fourth Gospel and key Pauline texts (e.g. Phil. 2.5-11, 1 Cor. 11.1-3, 15.28) all imply the functional subordination of the Son to the Father. If we hold to Rahner's axiom that the economic Trinity corresponds to the immanent Trinity, then these relations are rooted in the eternality of God and the Son is eternally sent by the Father. The incarnation of the Son (as opposed to the Father or the Spirit) was singularly appropriate to the Son in view of his eternal relationship the Father. The Son is of the same substance of the Father and Spirit, but has a different function within the Godhead.

Nonetheless, I would make several important qualification. (1) I do not like the term "subordination" because, whether you like it or not, you're beginning to edge yourself towards the categories of Arrianism. Instead, following Pannenberg, I prefer to speak of the Son's obedient self-distinction from the Father which is eternal. (2) I am concerned that a debate about intra-Trinitarian relations is being rigorously and inappropriately applied to gender roles within the church. Grudem and Ware are both avid complementarians and their interest in the debate is the application of the same principle (equal in being but subordinated in rank) to male/female relationships. My response is: (a) Yes, it is fine to have equality in being and subordination in rank, but there is nothing about the Trinity that tells you that rank is determined by gender; (b) the Trinity has three persons so it's application to marriage or ministry strikes me as exceedingly limited (unless you're marriage consists of some bizaar love triangle); (c) 1 Cor. 11.3 does relate divine headship to male/female relations, however, Paul does not say that man is the head of woman because the Father is the head of Christ, instead, he provides three analogies of headship to make the point that women and men must respect their respective heads! (d) The issue of gender roles in the home and women-in-ministy should be settled on more firmer exegetical ground than be based on the selective and slippery application of Trinitarian relations within the God-head. In fact, I think I could easily develop a Trinitarian argument based on subordination for the role of women in pastoral ministry if I had too! (e) As a result I would kindly ask all theologians, be they egalitarian or complementarian, to cease and desist from using the Trinity in any gender debates because the arguments are informed by other theological questions, by competing cultural ideas of gender and personhood, and denominational battles over the qualifications for pastoral ministry.

Trinity in the PCUSA

I could not resist this (HT: Virtuosity):