The Holy Trinity Revisited by Thomas A Noble Jason S Sexton

Author:Thomas A Noble,Jason S Sexton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Authentic Media

Subordinationism Left Unrefuted

Since ineffability is necessarily false it cannot be used to refute subordinationism. Where does that leave Christian theology? It leaves us in the position of having to give real answers to serious and ancient objections to our faith. Elsewhere I have offered a suggestion for how to deal with subordinationism, and I shall briefly sketch a possible strategy in the conclusion. For now, I wish to lay out exactly what the problem is so that others might rise to the challenge. Here is one Eunomian-style subordinationist challenge that must be met.

First, assume the orthodox Creator/creature distinction. God is a necessary and eternal being, whereas creatures are contingent and time-bound beings.44 A necessary being does not have a cause for its existence and does not depend upon anything for its existence, whereas a contingent being does. Contingent beings only exist by the free and gracious volition of God.

Next, assume the orthodox doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son by the Father. Eternal generation, or eternal begetting, is a causal notion. It posits a timeless cause with a timeless effect. The Father does not have a cause for his existence, but the Father causes the Son to exist.45 As Gregory of Nyssa puts it in On Not Three Gods, ‘The principle of causality distinguishes, then, the Persons of the holy Trinity. It affirms that the one is uncaused, while the other depends on the cause.’ Further, as Holmes makes clear, the ‘act of begetting … is personal and volitional, not some sort of involuntary overflowing.’46 The Father freely causes the Son to exist.

With these two assumptions we can begin to understand one form of the Eunomian-style subordinationist argument. I say one form because the original form of the argument assumes divine simplicity. Contrary to what Holmes suggests,47 one does not need divine simplicity to get the argument up and running. To be God is to be a necessary being. A necessary being does not have a cause for its existence. It thus exists a se. A being exists a se if and only if that being does not have a cause for its existence. That being’s existence is not derived from, nor dependent upon, something outside of itself. The Father is a necessary being, and so does not have a cause for his existence. The Father exists a se. The Son, however, does have a cause for his existence. The Son is caused to exist by a free volitional act of the Father. Thus, the Son is a contingent being and does not exist a se. To be a creature is to be a contingent being. The Son is a contingent being, and thus a creature.

How are orthodox theologians to respond? They cannot invoke ineffability since ineffability is self-referentially incoherent. They must come up with a different strategy. It should be noted that trying to draw a distinction between begotten and made will be of no use. Both are causal notions. To be made is to have a cause for one’s existence such that one begins to exist.

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