tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post8535336461349613332..comments2024-03-14T20:03:37.044+00:00Comments on Sussex Parson: Marc Lloyd's 'Miscellanies': The Eternal Submission of the Son and CompementarianismMarc Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12532904022047805067noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-38081447076009960512016-06-13T15:44:10.246+01:002016-06-13T15:44:10.246+01:00Thanks again.Thanks again.Marc Lloydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12532904022047805067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-9130394057323895432016-06-13T15:36:16.912+01:002016-06-13T15:36:16.912+01:00Lewis Ayres has spoken. See http://www.patheos.com...Lewis Ayres has spoken. See http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2016/06/patristics-scholar-lewis-ayres-weighs-in-on-the-intra-complementarian-debate/<br /><br />There are a number of interesting-looking papers of his at https://durham.academia.edu/LewisAyresThomas Renzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705647686623100131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-88227912736315996072016-06-13T14:19:32.512+01:002016-06-13T14:19:32.512+01:00I think "eternal" is often meant to mean...I think "eternal" is often meant to mean timelessly / atemporally / without respect to time or history, not just everlastingly, but it is hard to talk about without suggesting an eternal "moment". Agreed, the incarnation goes on everlastingly but it is a temporal event (with an ongoing effect). <br /><br />Yes, I agree it is hard to say what eternal obedience would mean if the Son shares the one divine will. Marc Lloydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12532904022047805067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-50418212783942496982016-06-13T14:07:01.067+01:002016-06-13T14:07:01.067+01:00"Eternal" seems to be a temporal term. T..."Eternal" seems to be a temporal term. The incarnation is eternal in one direction (forward) but not in both. And it is inside time, even if God is not. What I think I was getting at is that you cannot introduce temporal events (incarnation and, I suspect, submission and obedience) to a consideration of the inner life of the Trinity without committing a category mistake. As I see it, to speak of the Son's eternal obedience is very different from speaking of the aptness that the Son should become incarnate and obey the Father rather than the other way round) and is maybe not so much wrong as literally non-sensical, that is wrong to predicate because it does not make sense or only makes sense after one or two illegitimate moves, e.g. postulating diverging wills within the Trinity.Thomas Renzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705647686623100131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-33304330111573839672016-06-13T13:17:18.398+01:002016-06-13T13:17:18.398+01:00Yes, indeed, deep waters. Hard to speak about eter...Yes, indeed, deep waters. Hard to speak about eternity.<br /><br />Weinandy discusses the God's being as fully enacted, no potential, maximally alive thing in Does God Suffer? (I seem to remember I found it the hardest bit of the book not least because it involved some Latin!) But it obviously cannot mean that God cannot do things in history nor that from our perspective they are not in the future / potential but that all time and all of God's life is constantly "present" to God. The Son's aptness to be incarnate and his incarnation would be part of God's eternal life from God's point of view. I don't think it's fatal to talk about what God would do in time in certain circumstances being related to who he is in eternity?<br /><br />Strictly speaking I think we are meant to say that the divine nature is unchanged by the Incarnation but yes, now God the Son exists as a man. Again, Weinandy discusses that in Does God Change? The Word's Becoming in the Incarnation, I think, but I'm not sure I've read / recall the argument. <br /><br />The EFS people want to say the Son obeys the Father as God / Son not just as a man though, don't they, so that is why the eternal obedience has to be without respect to the incarnation. The Son obeying as a man wouldn't require any change in the divine nature. The point is whether the Son obeys the Father in eternity though everyone seems to admit it is a queer kind of obeying since they necessarily agree!<br /><br />I think the incarnation is a with respect to time thing and I imagine it would be a mistake to say that it is eternal from God's point of view? God after all created time and is Lord of time. It's not that he can't conceptualise it? Dunno.<br />Marc Lloydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12532904022047805067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-51193512394176667362016-06-13T12:37:14.287+01:002016-06-13T12:37:14.287+01:00If you call it "subordination" you'r...If you call it "subordination" you're saying that the Son is lower (sub) within the order of the Trinity than the Father (and the same would be said of the Holy Spirit presumably, after which it would remain to be decided whether in addition the Spirit is lower than the Son), and given the relative emptiness of the term on its own and its history you would need to add that you do not mean lower in terms of substance or majesty or rank etc. (and preferably add what exactly you do mean).<br /><br />If you make do without the term "subordination" you end up with a characterisation that, without further definition, is possibly even more vague. It was Augustine's key insight (or claim, if you wish) to say that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct in terms of their relationships to each other and in no other way. I don't know whether he or someone subsequently within the tradition ever went beyond the "begetter", "begotten", "proceeding" distinction towards postulating different dispositions. I suspect a problem with the term "disposition" (apart from needing to be complemented - disposition towards what?) is that it seems to imply a tendency and hence a potentiality which does not necessarily become actualised but, if I know this right, the traditional doctrine of God would be wary of non-actualised potentiality in the life of God.<br /><br />From our (temporal) point of view, there seems to be a change in the life of God with the incarnation (and ascension?). There was a time when humanity was not encompassed within the Trinity. It now is and ever will be. <br /><br />What EFS / ERS theories might be getting at is that from a divine (a-temporal) point of view there is no such change in the perfect being that is God. But presumably this would be because outside time there is (by definition) no time at which the incarnation was not? Deep waters here and I am not a confident doctrinal swimmer... Thomas Renzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705647686623100131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-45463828268462038072016-06-13T12:00:28.167+01:002016-06-13T12:00:28.167+01:00If I had to pick either EFS or ERS I think I'd...If I had to pick either EFS or ERS I think I'd call it Eternal Relational Subordination. But we would probably be better off without the word Subordination too! Eternal Relational Disposition?! Marc Lloydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12532904022047805067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-21088724903848897212016-06-13T11:04:24.537+01:002016-06-13T11:04:24.537+01:00The other thing one must watch out for is what mig...The other thing one must watch out for is what might happen if one adds the word "eternal" to something. I need to reflect further on the claim that "eternal functional" is a contradiction in terms but there is a certain prima facie plausibility to it. Once a role is not temporal but eternal, there is arguably an ontological shift. An eternal role is more likely to say something about the essence of someone than a role than is taken on temporarily. There is a difference between the aptness of person A becoming a lawyer and saying that being a lawyer is essential to being person A.Thomas Renzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705647686623100131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-65996708174811512422016-06-13T10:05:00.077+01:002016-06-13T10:05:00.077+01:00Yep. Ta.
Yep. Ta.<br />Marc Lloydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12532904022047805067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-33041292728182111462016-06-13T09:48:44.692+01:002016-06-13T09:48:44.692+01:00correction: the citation marks should encompass &q...correction: the citation marks should encompass "being begotten" not just "begotten".Thomas Renzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705647686623100131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-11075164833802496522016-06-13T09:47:14.908+01:002016-06-13T09:47:14.908+01:00The idea that the three persons within the Trinity...The idea that the three persons within the Trinity are equal but not interchangeable is basic to the doctrine of the Trinity. Probably also that they complement each other, albeit not in an hierarchical way (Et in hac Trinitate nihil prius aut posterius, nihil maius aut minus: Sed totae tres personae coaeternae sibi sunt et coaequales). <br /><br />From this it is a short step to affirm that there is an aptness to the Son, rather than the Father or the Holy Spirit, becoming incarnate (although I would like to see more reflection on this, which is to say in particular the difference between being "begotten" and "proceeding"). But one must not lose sight of the fact that it is God who takes on human flesh, not a "part" of God, which is to say that certain ways of expressing the order within the Trinity appear to abandon the doctrine of divine simplicity, so that Jesus does not so much reveal God but how one "part" of the deity relates to another.Thomas Renzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705647686623100131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-88094401969274451942016-06-13T07:36:03.407+01:002016-06-13T07:36:03.407+01:00Thanks.
Yes, if one is willing to admit that at s...Thanks.<br /><br />Yes, if one is willing to admit that at some points the biblical writers spoke better than they knew real and correct doctrinal development becomes very plausible. I think it would be had to deny that as we apply the truths of the Bible to new situations our understanding of them grows. And that is without getting into any material contributions from reason or experience. <br /><br />If one grants the aptness of the Son becoming incarnate, presumably there is no reason in principle to say that something else in the incarnation (such as the obedience of the Son as man to the Father) could not have some kind of aptness in the eternal relations of Father and Son (which did not compromise their equality)? By the time one has said all the stuff about analogical language and Creator/creature distinctions and the divine manner of willing and "deciding" any right view of Eternal Relational "Subordination", it seems to me doesn't get much beyond that anyway. Of course if the Father had wanted the Son to do something which he didn't want to do (which couldn't happen because they wouldn't disagree and they share one divine will, oh, and don't forget we are talking about eternity here) it would have been apt for the Son to do it!Marc Lloydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12532904022047805067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-25853444333667616992016-06-12T23:17:21.526+01:002016-06-12T23:17:21.526+01:00Marc, I cannot see any comments on Mark Jones'...Marc, I cannot see any comments on Mark Jones' post... <br /><br />I found Ratzinger's essay on personhood impressive and I was struck by his comments on further developments which we await. The development of doctrine is in fact one aspect of the debate that interests me. Is doctrinal theology an attempt to organise biblical teaching along systematic lines, with a little help from my friends (Church Fathers, medieval theologians, Reformers or whoever I consider my friends), or is it a matter of the church drawing out implications and exploring truths from different angles which over time lead to a genuinely deeper understanding of biblical teaching than could have been had in biblical times? To put it sharply, did Augustine understand the doctrine of the Trinity better than the apostle Paul?<br /><br />For a Christian theologian in the Western tradition to seek to develop further the doctrine of the Trinity without sustained engagement with Augustine, Aquinas and probably a few others is bound to lead to shipwreck. Ratzinger claims that Augustine, having made a hugely significant and valuable contribution to the doctrine, nevertheless got something important wrong which set off the tradition on a wrong path - and so, e.g., Aquinas did not correct it either. I am ok with that. Calvin may have "furthered Trinitarian theology when he helpfully noted that the Son of God, considered as to his godness or divinity, is autotheos. The son as to his divine essence is co-equal with the Father and the Spirit. There is no subordination here. But as to his person the Son is derived from the Father and the Spirit is derived from the Father and the Son" (Jeff Waddington) although I am not yet persuaded of this.<br /><br />To postulate that there is within the Trinity a paternal compassion, a filial compassion and a spiritual (?) compassion; a paternal way to be almighty, a filial way to be almighty and a spiritual (?) way to be almighty etc. sounds to my ears unorthodox.<br /><br />I am not sure that Darren Sumner is entirely right when he claims that Ware engages in an exercise in natural theology but there is clearly a danger of reading a range of cultural notions of what it means to be father and son into the biblical language of Father and Son. <br /><br />It is very uncontroversial (within the tradition) to say that given that the Son is begotten and the Holy Spirit proceeding, there is an aptness in the Son and the Holy Spirit being sent and not the Father. And the difference between "begotten" and "proceeding" suggests an aptness about the Son becoming incarnate, not the Holy Spirit. And maybe there is something about self-giving being especially apt for the Father, self-emptying for the Son (and self-forgetfulness for the Spirit?)...I don't know.<br /><br />Thomas Renzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705647686623100131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-88226562414732514132016-06-12T21:10:04.298+01:002016-06-12T21:10:04.298+01:00Thomas, what do you make of Tim Wickham's comm...Thomas, what do you make of Tim Wickham's comment on Mark Jones' post?<br /><br />Do you think there might be millage in the suggestion that the Son has all the divine attributes in a Sonly way on the basis of his relation of origin to the Father and that this might give him a disposition analogous to "submission" / response / "obedience" / aptness to the sent with respect to the Father?<br /><br />And do you have any sympathy with the idea that the patristics / medievals may not have given us that last word on what a divine person is and that that might affect this debate?!Marc Lloydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12532904022047805067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-88112767357032548652016-06-12T19:50:04.703+01:002016-06-12T19:50:04.703+01:00Thank you, Thomas. I look forward to reading them ...Thank you, Thomas. I look forward to reading them in more detail. Marc Lloydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12532904022047805067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20918615.post-63341638594886887422016-06-12T18:03:36.686+01:002016-06-12T18:03:36.686+01:00Darren Summner at https://theologyoutofbounds.word...Darren Summner at https://theologyoutofbounds.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/some-observations-on-the-eternal-functional-subordination-debate/<br /><br />Mark Jones at http://newcitytimes.com/news/story/gods-will-and-eternal-submission-part-oneThomas Renzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04705647686623100131noreply@blogger.com