Subordination Within The Godhead
Biblical Subordination expressed by scholars:
- Pauline Writings, Summary: ... Without doubt Paul attributes full divinity to Jesus ... Though at times he presents the Son as in some sense subordinate to the Father, he never makes the Son a creature. (The Triune God, Edmund Fortman, p23)
- Paul calls Him the image of God, Lord, Son of God, Christ. and Savior; he says that He subsists in the form of God and is equal to God; he assigns to Him the divine functions of creation, salvation, and judgment; and he probably also calls Him God explicitly. Paul makes Christ's eternal pre-existence more explicit than the Synoptists did. If at times he sees the Son as in some sense subordinate to the Father, yet he never makes Him a creature but always puts Him on the side of the creator. (The Triune God, Edmund Fortman, p31)
- "Although the Spirit is distinguished from Christ and subordinated to him, it can be said in 1 Jn 2:1 that Christ is the Paraclete with the Father. All this underlines the point that primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such as was subsequently elaborated in the creeds of the early church." (New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Brown, Colin, 1932, God, vol 2, p84, J. Schneider)
- At times Paul writes as if Christ were 'subordinate' to the Father. For he tells us that 'God sent forth his Son to redeem' (Gal 4-4) and 'did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all' (Rom 8.32). And in a notable passage he declares that 'when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to everyone' (1 Cor 15.28). Taken by themselves these passages might warrant the conclusion that Paul held a merely subordinationist view of Christ and did not place Him on the same divine level with the Father. But if they are taken together with the passages cited above in which Paul does put Christ on the same divine level as the Father by presenting Him as the creator of all things and the 'image of the invisible God' who was 'in the form of God' and equal to God. it becomes clear that Paul views Christ both as subordinate and equal to God the Father. Possibly he thus means merely to subordinate Christ in His humanity to the Father. But more probably he wishes to indicate that while Christ is truly divine and on the same divine level with the Father, yet there must be assigned to the Father a certain priority and superiority over the Son because He is the Father of the Son and sends the Son to redeem men, and there must be ascribed to the Son a certain subordination because He is the Son of the Father and is sent by the Father. Nowhere, however, does Paul say or imply that the Son is a creature, as the Arian subordinationists will say later on. On the contrary he makes it clear that the Son is not on the side of the creature but of the Creator and that through the Son all things are created. Paul is dealing with the mystery of Christ and is aware of the problem of his relationship with the Father. Perhaps his nearest approach to a solution of this problem turns not on the 'mission' of Christ by the Father but on the kenosis whereby being 'in the form of God ... [he] emptied himself, taking the form of a servant' (Phil 2.6, 7). (The Triune God, Edmund Fortman, p18)
- In Acts as in the Synoptics Jesus is presented sometimes as subordinate to the Father, sometimes as equal to Him in certain divine functions. (The Triune God, Edmund Fortman, p15)
- Paul ascribes to Jesus a divine nature, origin, power, and sonship that put Him on the same divine level as the Father. Though at times he presents the Son as in some sense subordinate to the Father, he never makes the Son a creature. (The Triune God, Edmund Fortman, p23)
- Thus the New Testament writers were not adoptionists, although in a few passages they can seem to point in this direction. ... Nor were they subordinationists in intention or words, if subordinationist is understood in the later Arian sense of the word; for they did not make the Son a creature but always put Him on the side of the creator. The New Testament writers do not witness to the Holy Spirit as fully and clearly as they do to the Son. (The Triune God, Edmund Fortman, p30-33) If God must have His Logos from eternity, must He also have His Son? Later theology and dogma will say yes unequivocally. But the Apologists are not quite clear on this point and rather seem to say no. For them. if the origination of the Logos from God is eternal, the generation of the Logos as Son seems rather to be pre-creational but not eternal, and it is effected by the will of the Father. This view. if compared with later theology and dogma, will smack of a subordination or 'minoration' of the Son of God. This subordination of the Son was not precisely the formal intent of the Apologists. Their problem was how to reconcile monotheism with their belief in the divinity of Christ and with a concept of His divine sonship that they derived from the Old Testament. (The Triune God, Edmund Fortman, p43) To some extent Origen was a subordinationist, for his attempt to synthesize strict monotheism with a Platonic hierarchical order in the Trinity could have and did have only a subordinationist result. He openly declared that the Son was inferior to the Father and the Holy Spirit to the Son. But he was not an Arian subordinationist for he did not make the Son a creature and an adopted son of God. (The Triune God, Edmund Fortman, p59-61)
- Although the Spirit is distinguished from Christ and subordinated to him, it can be said in I Jn. 2:1 that Christ is the Paraclete with the Father. All this underlines the point that primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such as was subsequently elaborated in the creeds of the early church." (New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Brown, Colin, 1932, God, vol 2, p84, J. Schneider)
- The NT does not approach the metaphysical problem of subordination, as it approaches no metaphysical problem. It offers no room for a statement of the relations of Father, Son, and Spirit which would imply that one of them is more or less properly on the divine level of being than another. (Dictionary of the Bible, John L. McKenzie, Trinity, p899)
- "Jesus Christ does not usurp the place of God. His oneness with the Father does not mean absolute identity of being. ... Although completely co-ordinated with God, he remains subordinate to him." (Theologisches Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament, J. Schneider, 1965, Vol. 2, p. 606)
- Wherever in the New Testament the relationship of Jesus to God, the Father, is brought into consideration, whether with reference to his appearance as a man or to his Messianic status, it is conceived of and represented categorically as subordination. And the most decisive Subordinationist of the New Testament, according to the Synoptic record, was Jesus himself (cf. for example Mk. x, 18; xiii, 32; xiv, 36). This original position, firm and manifest as it was, was able to maintain itself for a long time. 'All the great pre-Nicene theologians represented the subordination of the Logos to God." (The Formation of Christian Dogma, An Historical Study of its Problems; Martin Werner, p125, Werner is a modernist who also advocates angel-Christology)
- Rationalist critics lay great stress upon the text: "The Father is greater than I" (xiv, 28). They argue that this suffices to establish that the author of the Gospel held subordinationist views, and they expound in this sense certain texts in which the Son declares His dependence on the Father (v, 19; viii, 28). In point of fact the doctrine of the Incarnation involves that, in regard of His Human Nature, the Son should be less than the Father. No argument against Catholic doctrine can, therefore, be drawn from this text. (The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912, Vol. 15, p 47-49)
By Steve Rudd
