[Editors note: Prof. Steven D. Boyer's article below, first published back in 2009, clarifies the present debate over the nature and meaning of the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of our Lord Jesus within the Trinity. Here, Dr. Boyer (Professor of Theology at Eastern University) demonstrates that the church's orthodox confession of the Trinity has, from the time of the Arian heresy, explicitly declared the order within the Trinity. Further, that this declared order (or hierarchy) is not merely analogical, nor is it limited to the Son's mediatorial work. Rather, the order must be (in some sense) ontological—and therefore eternal.
Dr. Boyer warns that the orthodox confession of the Trinity has fallen on hard times due to the egalitarian spirit of our age. He discusses the pros and cons of terminology used to discuss Trinitarian order today such as "roles," "command and obedience," and "subordination." He explains the confusion surrounding the word "ontological," pointing out that the denial of ontological order is a doctrinal error equivalent to the denial of ontological equality. Finally, Boyer makes some recommendations for word usage that may protect the order of the Trinity in this age when order and authority are despised.]
Articulating Order: Trinitarian Discourse in an Egalitarian Age
by Steven D. Boyer
Throughout its history, Christian orthodoxy has affirmed an understanding of the triune nature of God that includes, despite certain logical tensions, both order and equality among the divine Persons. Since most of that history played out in a social context that took hierarchy for granted and that therefore required a sturdy articulation and defense of the equality of the Persons, it sometimes appears that the tradition emphasized equality alone, and not order. But this conclusion is easily upset by a closer look at the evidence. To speak of order within the Godhead has been a commonplace ever since the patristic era, and it is often embodied especially in affirmations about the unique position of the Father in the Godhead. The Father is the “beginning of the whole divinity,” says Augustine; “the source” of Son and Spirit, says Gregory Nazianzen; the “cause of the Son”, says John of Damascus; “the principle of the Son,” says Thomas Aquinas; the “origin” of Son and Spirit, says Calvin; the “fountain of deity,” says Richard Hooker; “first in order,” says Jonathan Edwards.[1] Ordered relationships within the Trinity are as strongly affirmed by the orthodox tradition as equality is.
Yet the last two centuries have seen dramatic changes in the social context of the Western world, and many Christian theologians today work in a culture in which equality is the dominant principle. Hence, the equality of the divine Persons is easily granted in contemporary discussion, whereas the notion of order in the Trinity is often addressed with less conviction, and sometimes even with suspicion...
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All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, But the LORD weighs the motives. (Proverbs 16:2)
Carl Trueman teaches church history at Philly's Westminster Seminary. In his