Trinity and Authority (Part Three of Five)

Theological Strategies for Eternal Relations of Authority

In order to make judgments regarding the eternal relations of authority effort, we suggest a review of their primary strategies for promoting their theological perspective. We discern three primary ways that the ERA theologians are advancing their theology: a scriptural strategy, an historical strategy, and a cultural strategy.

The Scriptural Strategy

Rather than glibly affirm a traditional heresy or neo-orthodoxy, the ERA theologians have recently busied themselves in two other ways. First, they seek to prove that their presentation of God is rooted in Scripture. In our mind, this has been their most successful strategy. They have demonstrated, without sufficiently detailed counter-arguments from their accusers, that Scripture constantly presents divine action—in creation, redemption, and consummation—as originating with the Father and moving toward creation through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. (Alongside this progression is the consequential return of the unitary divine activity from the Son and the Spirit to the Father.)

The most prominent exegetical argument(s) deployed against the ERA theologians are that the submissiveness of Jesus Christ toward God the Father in the New Testament is attached to his humanity rather than to his deity or that the divine economy is opposed to divine ontology. But these traditional arguments do not satisfy the free church desire for exegetical rigor over historical precedence and systematic expedience. On his part, ERA theologian Bruce Ware has repeatedly pointed to submission passages that broach, if not breach, the liminal boundary between time and eternity. 

In a first instance, 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 brings the subjection of all things at the consummation of time unto, if not directly into, the eternal relation between the Son and the Father. In Ware's favor, why should we believe that this passage has to do with Christ's humanity rather than his deity? On what basis is this exegetical division required? And what would the division do to the Son's unitary personhood as the God-man?

In a second instance, Grudem argues it is difficult to dismiss κεφαλή (kephale) in 1 Corinthians 11:3 as merely a reference to "source" rather than "head" (we believe it probably means both). If the correlation between the Father and Christ is merely ascribed to his humanity, how is it that this restriction is exegetically required? Again, what does this division do to the unitary personhood of Christ? Or why must we believe this passage is a reference to the economic Trinity rather than the immanent Trinity? Alternatively, if 1 Corinthians 11:3c is a reference to an economic Trinitarian work, why must we follow Warfield rather than Rahner and disconnect the economic from the immanent Trinity? And if we so follow Warfield rather than Rahner in this choice, are we not in some sense casting doubt on the trustworthiness of divine revelation?

With these judgments and queries, we are not permanently cutting off the ERA opponents and their interpretations of the biblical text, but we are saying the credibility of the ERA theologians' biblical hermeneutics is powerful and their judgments must receive deeper consideration. The scriptural case is far from closed but the weight so far in this particular debate favors the eternal relations of authority proponents, though we will have more to say in this regard later.

The Historical Strategy

The second major strategy of the ERA theologians has been to demonstrate their position is not a historical novelty. As historical theologians, we are not yet convinced by the ERA proponents here, though we believe the situation has not been finally determined. While Malcolm utilized the early church fathers in his own work on the Trinity, he did not read them with a focus on the questions raised by the eternal relations of authority theologians. Malcolm's other historical theological work has centered in the Reformation, while Karen has focused on early twentieth century German theology. We come to the current problem with appreciation for the historical task, though with limited patristic expertise.

But what we can say with certainty is that neither Wayne Grudem, who drafted Malcolm for his argument for eternal functional subordination, nor Mark Jones, who drafted Malcolm against Grudem, were entirely correct or incorrect. As Jones properly recognized, the indisputable fact is that Malcolm follows the classical eternal generation interpretation in his reading of the biblical text, and not the eternal relations of authority interpretation. This is not to say that Grudem was wrong to see a possible correlation with his position; it is to say that Malcolm's careful affirmation of equality with subordination did not distinguish the functional from the ontological in the way Grudem does. (It was perceptive and kind of Grudem to note Malcolm's use of the term, "subordination," is carefully paired with "equality.")

As for Mark Jones, we read his response to Grudem and found much with which to agree. Like Jones, we try to receive historical theology in a contextually sensitive way. In The Formation of Christian Doctrine and Royal Priesthood in the English Reformation, Malcolm argued that we should allow historical figures to speak for themselves according to their sitz im leben. We both remain convinced that meticulous re-presentation of the thoughts of those who have come before us is a necessary virtue.

However, Malcolm also remembers when his former professor and friend, the revered Reformed theologian John Webster, took him to task for dwelling upon historical fidelity. (For the curious, Malcolm was defending an historical reading of John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion in a seminar at Oxford University, while Webster was advocating a freer appropriation of Calvin.) John Webster responded that historical theology is fine even necessary, but systematic theology ultimately requires the judicious appropriation of history for eternal concerns now.

If Webster's principle is correct, then Wayne Grudem is not entirely wrong to employ previous "subordination" claims in his favor, even if those authors used that language differently. Historical controversies rarely if ever exactly repeat themselves. And the ERA theologian need not necessarily adhere to a perfect correlation in order to infer a modicum of historical support, even if we ourselves prefer meticulous representation. Historical theology pursues truthful representation of the past; systematic theology utilizes historical theology to pursue truth itself. More thought is required in this question of theological method.

The Cultural Strategy

What the ERA theologians have not stressed in this latest round of controversy over Trinity and authority is their premier illustration for the immanent Trinity, the application to gender relations. For Grudem, Ware, and Ovey, gender relations in marriage has been the leading analogy in their presentation of the Trinity. This seems undeniable, though what is its import?

The ERA theologians have been accused of allowing contemporary cultural issues to drive their doctrine of the Trinity, but they have denied such. Similar accusations against their older evangelical opponents, the egalitarians, have also been leveled. Both the ERA complementarians and some egalitarians have found the Trinity helpful in addressing contemporary anthropological concerns, and both have been accused of reading anthropology into theology. The scandalous claim of idolatry has even been bandied about.

Whatever the case regarding currently unverified internal motivations, the marriage analogy is doubtless preferred among the ERA theologians. A preferred analogy is not all that unusual, but it can create problems. For instance, among those reviewing the classical tradition, the Cappadocians have sometimes been represented as leaning toward human community while Augustine has been represented as overextending human psychology. The Cappadocians were thus falsely accused of incipient tritheism and Augustine was thus falsely accused of incipient Unitarianism. The research of Barnes and Ayres has shown the so-called "de Regnon thesis" incorrectly fostered these readings of the fathers. Likewise, because of their preferred analogy, it may be that the ERA theologians have been falsely accused of Arianism.

In light of this, it seems prudent that we should never allow an analogy or illustration of the Trinity to remain unaccompanied. Malcolm encourages his systematic students at the least to use countervailing Trinitarian illustrations. This may help their people see that every analogy of the perfect God proves inadequate at some point. Unfortunately, if analogical variety is not deployed, somebody down the road may drag out a preferred analogy and attempt to hang its misuse against its proponent.

Misunderstanding or misrepresentation of intentions may also be driving some of the accusations against the ERA theologians. Apart from external proof to the contrary, or the omniscience which only one human being possesses, we who lack the divine nature must take the ERA theologians (and, by extension, the egalitarian theologians) at their word.

Malcolm and Karen Yarnell

Fort Worth, Texas

June 2016

Theological Inferences: Be Careful When Reaching Beyond the Bible

     When Scripture makes a theological claim, it is incumbent upon Christians to affirm that claim. However, the theological task is never a matter of merely repeating Scripture (though we should be doing that more than we do!) The task of theology includes speaking to people today about the coherence of the truth claims made in Scripture. Part of the difficulty in the theological task is that different theologians choose to speak in different ways about the coherence of biblical theology. These competing ways of speaking theology arise due to the nature of one of the necessary, though problematic tools that we employ: theological inferences.
     Let us begin with a relevant example. For instance, when Scripture speaks about human responsibility and God holding people accountable for their attitudes and actions, most theologians automatically posit a doctrine of "free will." Scripture itself speaks of the human constituency in terms of "spirit," "soul," "conscience," etc., but "free will" does not appear to be an explicit biblical category for humanity. "Free will" is thus a theological inference that derives from the theological task. Such theological inferences may be useful as ways to clarify and categorize our thoughts about God and His creation, but they should be carefully used. A theological inference may be true, and may be in some way based on Scripture, but it still remains a human theological inference rather than a theological claim explicitly affirmed in Scripture.
     "Free will," which is, in my opinion, a legitimate theological inference, very often becomes part of the theological framework that theologians attempt to construct. Personally, I have tended to shy away from using it too much, though I freely affirm my fellow theologians in their use of the term. Why do I personally shy away from its heavy use? Well, because once you have one theological inference, you then must relate it to other theological claims and inferences. Why do I then affirm its use? Well, because we must engage in theology if we are to be faithful to the Word and the task of preaching, and there is little doubt that the term is helpful to many preachers.
     Let us dwell upon the first point--the personal reticence to use some theological inferences too heavily--a little more. Again, we appeal to the example of "free will," though there are many such inferences in theology. Once a theologian has posited "free will," he may feel compelled to step beyond that and use the concept in more substantial ways. This is especially true in Western theology. Standing at the headwaters of Latin theology, Augustine of Hippo posited this human constituency of "free will." He then felt compelled to propose how human "free will" should be related to divine sovereignty, which is an explicit theological claim in Scripture. He also felt compelled to relate human "free will" with the problem of the Fall of humanity into sin with Adam. Augustine then went on to make his answers foundational for his doctrines of infant baptism, the relation of nature and grace, etc.
     Inevitably, then, in order to maintain theological coherence, other questions are raised. For instance, how do you relate human "free will" with divine sovereignty and with the Fall of humanity? Well, some theologians see the human "free will" as determined by God from eternity, while others say it was corrupted in the Fall and therefore is no longer "free" per se, while yet others see it as created by God and as being involved in Adam's fall but that human beings retain their freedom even through the Fall. Of course, then these diverse theologians begin to argue and classify each other's ideas and each other with categories. Historically, in the Dark Ages names started being thrown about, such as "Augustinian," "Pelagian," "Semi-Augustinian," "Semi-Pelagian," and later, carrying on the medieval fascination with scholastic systems, "Calvinist," "Arminian," "Modified Calvinist," "Moderate Arminian," etc. Of course, there were also the terms "error" and "heresy" too often loosely scattered.
     Mind you, and here we are being overly charitable, these Christians at their best are each attempting to be responsible theologians and arrive at some conclusion to the matter in order to maintain the coherence of their theology. But also mind this, most departed from direct biblical claims and began to build theological inferences upon both the theological inferences of men and the theological claims of the Bible. This way of doing theology is also tied up heavily with Roman claims for the infallibility of councils and popes. This stacking of inference upon inference and claim upon yet more inferences and claims results in what we call systematic theology. (Yes, I do this type of thing for a living. And, yes, it is something that all Christians should necessarily do, for it is part of submitting our minds to God.)
     However, in spite of the necessity of systematic theology with its structure of inferences and claims, it would be beneficial if we remembered that the human theological inference and the biblical theological claim are not of the same status. When God's Word speaks, it is incumbent upon every Christian theologian to say, "Amen!" When a preacher speaks about God's Word, and the listener's heart is prompted by the Spirit to affirm that that too is God's Word, then say, "Amen!" However, not everything that a preacher says about God's Word may itself be God's Word. (Jesus warned us about this, and those noble Bereans in Acts 17 understood this well, for they judged Paul's preaching by the Word.)
     Part of what this theologian or that preacher says may be an inference, an inference to which my own heart has not been prompted by the Spirit to say, "Amen!" Why would I not say, "Amen!"? The possibilities are (1) that the Holy Spirit has not illuminated that biblical truth to me; (2) that I am in rebellion against God's Word and Spirit; or (3) that the theological inference is itself a human inference that God's Word really doesn't teach. How then do we arrive at the truth of the matter?
     In such cases, humility and community must, among others, step in and have their say. Humility with a theological inference means that I must recognize that my theological inference, such as "free will" or "effectual calling" or "prevenient grace," may have a tenuous biblical basis. Indeed, the latter two inferences strike me as being more difficult to establish than the inference of "free will." This means that there is actually a hierarchy of inferences: on one end are such doctrines as the Trinity and inerrancy, which are soundly based in the scriptural witness, and on the other end are such doctrines as effectual calling and prevenient grace, which are based upon a system of inferences and claims. As one of my fellow faculty said this morning, some theological inferences are legitimate as walls, but not as "load-bearing" walls. This is a very good point!
     Humility demands that I be careful with my theological inferences so as not to assert that they themselves are direct theological claims from Scripture. Humility demands that I be careful not to place undue weight on human inferences. Humility demands that I always hold my system, especially those sections heavily dependent upon inferences, in some degree of suspicion. I may believe in this way of reading Scripture, because I am convinced that it is constructed from the theological claims of Scripture and from legitimate theological inferences from Scripture. However, my theological system is still my response to Scripture, my human construction.
     Community also has a role as we discern the truths of Scripture. This is what Paul spoke about in 1 Corinthians 14 and what in the Radical Reformation is called the "law of sitting" (German Sitzerrecht, Latin lex sedentium.)  Let the preachers speak in an orderly way and let the others sit and judge. The Anabaptists were so willing to go into formal disputations with Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman theologians, because they believed truth was arrived at together, that the text would lead Christians together into the truth. Sadly, they were often wrongly accused as heretics and then horribly tortured. Thousands of them were burnt at the stake, drowned for being baptistic, and driven mercilessly from their homes by Catholics and Reformers alike. Christian history presents some horrible lessons for us, today, in these matters.
     In spite of the difficulties of theological construction and discussion, I still believe that we can arrive at theological truth through theological inferences as we listen to Scripture together, but only if we will orderly and patiently hear one another. This entails a willingness to return to Scripture in order to establish each and every claim and inference, alongside the freedom to reject inferences not firmly based in Scripture. This is where we are as Southern Baptists right now. I have longed to see us converse about theology and do this well. I pray we will. I am committing myself to listening patiently to others, even as I remember that theological inferences must be handled carefully, for with them we are reaching beyond the Bible. And reaching too far beyond the Bible is always a dangerous move.

Beautiful Tunisia: A Call to Prayer

Update: This essay has been republished by Baptist Press. A few photos are newly added here.

Several years ago, alongside several other professors, Dr. John Mark Yeats and I led a group of students to Tunisia in order to study North African Christian history and theology. Today, we see occurring what the media has dubbed a "jasmine revolution," which is apparently the first populist rejection of an Arab leader and the first governmental change wrought through the activities of Wikileaks. President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who is accused of having ruled Tunisia on behalf of the economic interests of what became known as "the Family," has fled the country. It is still unclear as to what the form and composition of the government will be, and the interim government itself has already changed structure in a matter of hours as the frantic search for constitutional legitimacy and political stability vie with one another.

The place known today as Tunisia has a long and colorful history. Phoenician traders settled here around the tenth century BC, establishing a colony that became the world power known as Carthage in the sixth century BC. The Carthaginian navy's capabilities, shrouded in secrecy, and the Carthaginian army's tactics, exemplified in Hannibal's surprise march through the Alps, were nothing short of brilliant, even as their religion was marked by incredible brutality. Phoenician ships brought a barbaric religion from the Middle East, which was affiliated with the god known in the Old Testament as Molech. Molech's priests were particularly adept at the sacrifice of infants by making them "pass through the fire." The Carthaginians sacrificed their own children to Kronos, or Saturn, according to ancient historians, by placing an infant on the hands of the bronze god, hands which were then raised by hidden priests through a pulley system, dropping the helpless child into a gaping maw to be consumed in flames. The bones of the infant would then be interred in a small stone sarcophogus, and were often deposited in the foundation of a new building, such as a private home. So many were sacrificed in the hope it would bring happiness and prosperity to a new family. (The Western idea that children are an economic burden worthy of abortion was thus prefigured.) Hundreds of children at a time were also sacrificed during times of war as a way to appease their offended god. The vigor with which the Israelite king Josiah suppressed such misguided brutality is, to say the least, understandable (2 Kings 23:10). To this day, I cannot forget the haunting scene of thousands of small stone sarcophogi still littering ancient Carthage outside modern Tunis. The children paid for the sins of their fathers, at their fathers' own hands.



When, in the second century BC, the Romans finally put an end to Carthage at the conclusion of the third Punic War, they salted the site of the city but developed the rest of North Africa into a breadbasket for Rome itself. Roman culture followed Roman agriculture as it spread through North Africa, south toward that oceanic desert now known as the Sahara, east toward modern Libya and west into Algeria. Tunisia is filled with ancient sites containing coliseums, temples and palaces from the Roman period. The surviving mosaics that abound there are absolutely beautiful and indicate an advanced culture. Christianity thrived in the early centuries in North Africa, in spite of the intense persecution the Christians often suffered. The saga of Perpetua and Felicitas, two young Christian martyrs, still inspires those who read of the suffering of these faithful witnesses. (The ancient arena in which the Christians were martyred in Roman Carthage and many of the early churches are accessible today.) Providentially, in spite of the intent of the imperial authorities, the blood of the martyrs proved not to be the burial of the church of Jesus Christ, but the seed for her growth, as Tertullian noted.

As the church of North Africa grew in both difficult and easier times, it produced a number of very important theologians--especially Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine--who shaped the way Western Christians still think about their faith. Tertullian, whose writings are available here in both the original Latin and modern translations, was a converted Roman lawyer active at the turn of the third century AD. This ground-breaking church father developed the rudiments of the Western understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. His refutation of the modalist heresy has been most helpful to those who desire to see God as the Bible reveals Him to be. Tertullian also expressed misgivings about the innovative doctrine of infant baptism, even as he flirted with the spiritualistic and ascetic heresy of Montanism. The early churches of North Africa, many of whose ruins are still in existence, long retained the architecture of a New Testament faith. There is nothing more informative than seeing with one's own eyes the extant visible evidence of the North African baptistries standing, sometimes in the pattern of a womb, at the very entrances of their churches. Moreover, these earliest baptistries were fully immersionist. The late historical development of infant baptism with sprinkling is readily perceptible, for small raised baptismal fonts were centuries later placed in and over the old immersionist and often richly-decorated mosaic baptistries, the ruins of which have been preserved in the semi-desert open air.



Cyprian, whose writings are available here, came from the Roman colonial elite itself and brought a stable leadership to a church experiencing even more thorough persecution under the emperors Decius and Valerian. After the Decian persecution, Cyprian led the way in providing church fellowship to those Christians who had lapsed under persecution but who subsequently repented. One of his most famous works, On the Unity of the Church, has been the source of both inspiration and tribulation for those churches dependent upon his theology of episcopacy, due to the work's existence in two variant forms. From a free church perspective, Cyprian's legacy is most difficult, for the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers offering spiritual sacrifices was lost in the midst of his advocacy of episcopal authority, sacerdotal administration of the sacraments and his peculiar sacrificial presentation of the Lord's Supper. On the other hand, encouraging all later Christians, Cyprian remained firm in his Christian faith and was executed in 258 for refusing to sacrifice to the imperial cult.

Though his bishopric was based over the border in modern Algeria, Augustine of Hippo, whose voluminous and theologically essential Latin works are available here and described here, spent a good deal of his life in Carthage. The mental portrait of Augustine's mother, Monica, standing at the dock as her son fled her presence for a profligate life in Europe, is one that should strike any Christian mother's heart. Be encouraged, Christian parents, for Monica's fervent prayers and continual witness ended in her son's glorious conversion. Augustine describes his conversion to Christ (and presents a sublime view of the relation between eternity and time) in his introspective and authentically open Confessions, a must read for every Christian. After his conversion, Augustine returned to North Africa, where his works were instrumental in helping Western Christians understand that salvation is entirely by divine grace, as he fought against the works-salvation taught by the British monk, Pelagius. Unfortunately, at the same time he underscored divine grace, he also led the church to embrace the conscience-violating doctrine of the baptismal regeneration of infants.

In yet another controversy, with the Donatists, Augustine argued for the universality and unity of the church, but horrifically through the advocacy of governmental coercion of unbelievers and dissenters into the state-supported churches. In yet another controversy, against the pagans, who were blaming the fall of Rome in 410 on the rise of Christianity, Augustine worked out a comprehensive philosophy of history, inclusive of both the sacred and secular. His monumental The City of God is simultaneously majestic and utterly persuasive. In his 15 books on The Trinity, Augustine established the Western view of the relations between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, a view that ultimately ended in the theological division of East and West. Augustine's days ended as his city of Hippo was under siege by the invading barbarians, who would restructure and shape the Europe as we know it today. Augustine of North Africa remains the premiere theologian of Western Christianity, thus the faith of most Europeans and Americans remains in profound ways an African faith.

Although Constantinople under Justinian the Great recovered North Africa, the Byzantine empire could not retain its hold in the face of the onslaught of military Islam. Christians (and Jews) survived for centuries under Muslim rule, and huge Christian graveyards are still in evidence, but with time and the slow persecution of the dhimmitude system coupled with periodic onslaughts of intense persecution worsened by the invasion of the Sicilian Normans, Christianity (and Judaism) were eclipsed by Islam. I can still see the stone blocks with crosses on them that were torn from old churches and used to build mosques for the increasing number of Muslim people. As a French colony, Roman Catholic Christianity was revived, but, especially outside the capital of Tunis, there is not much that survives. During World War II, Rommel's troops battled with American and British armies for control of Tunisia and a large cemetery is maintained there to memorialize the multitude of Americans who gave their lives to push Hitler's Nazis out of Africa. Yes, the first (or, is it fourth?) "Star Wars" film was made in the Tunisian Sahara. And, yes, you can still visit the beaches that are traditionally swamped by European tourists. And, yes, the American ambassador at the time was a fine fellow and a gracious host to this American visitor.

As I survey the photographs of protest-torn Tunisia, I remember the beauty of the cities and, most importantly, the beauty of the people. I also remember the calls to prayer at the local mosque that wafted through our open windows every morning. But mostly, I remember that Tunisians are now suffering. There are many young people who need stable employment, and all Tunisians are doubtless concerned about what tomorrow will bring them. The people I encountered in Tunisia were kind and wanted to know about these wandering Christians, and, with appropriate prayer and cultural sensitivity, they were open to hearing the gospel. This brings us to the primary purpose for this post: Would you please pray for Tunisia? For her political freedom and stability? For the gospel of eternal peace, once again, to flourish in this beautiful land?