by Brandon D. Smith
Many of us remember the now-infamous Trinity debate of 2016-2017 over the eternal functional subordination of the Son / eternal relations of submission and authority (EFS/ERAS), which populated blogs and books during and after the initial firestorm. Some of you—like me oftentimes—would rather not talk about that debate again. From my perspective, the EFS/ERAS position has been proven to fail on biblical, theological, and historical grounds, so I’ve stopped mentioning it in class or print almost entirely.
I’m grateful the debate happened, though. As with many popular public theological debates, many people changed, clarified, or adopted certain views in the moment and aftermath. In the Trinity debate, this ranged from seminary students to pastors to scholars. However, these types of debates have lasting ripple effects. On a much smaller scale, the Trinity debate has the potential to resemble the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement in the early- to mid-2000s: groups forming around particular views and personalities, which eventually create a “cage stage” situation around the doctrine of the Trinity, theological method, and theological retrieval.
As I’ve written elsewhere, the cage stage has (at least) four common signs:
1. Disdain for spiritual and theological forebears, heroes, or mentors.
2. Creating disciples who are cynical of their forebears, heroes, or mentors.
3. Narrowing orthodoxy to a neatly defined set of categories.
4. A tendency toward personal brand building that makes one a self-appointed savior of orthodoxy.
After a fight like the Trinity debate, there becomes a danger of creating a Cage Stage Trinitarianism movement. Any of us who have experienced a type of theological awakening or have seen it in our students know that it’s inevitable, even understandable. Good theology is beautiful and important. And the temptation to put on our gloves and put in our mouthguards to defend it is real. But the cage stage is something our wisest mentors always told us to avoid or eventually work ourselves out of.
Cage Stage Trinitarianism rose up in my heart after the Trinity debate. It was tempting, for example, to call EFS/ERAS “Arian” or to say that EFS/ERAS proponents like Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware have done serious damage to evangelicalism with their teachings. Grudem and Ware’s decades of teaching and writing could then easily be reduced to useless at best and heretical at worst, their books destined for a burn pile that we assume Athanasius and Augustine would dance around while reciting the Nicene Creed. It's also tempting to want to become or follow self-appointed 21st century Athanasiuses and Augustines with a new set of boundaries for a new day. Follow! Retweet! Buy their books! When positioned this way, all four tenets of the cage stage listed above are exemplified.
Jake Meador was right to point out at the time that the conversation was heated on both sides, and yet there were many folks in the middle seeking to have a real discussion about issues related to the Trinity and EFS/ERAS, largely exemplified in the bibliography linked above. This can still be the way.
So, what might it look like to avoid Cage Stage Trinitarianism? Here are two thoughts:
1. Spend meaningful time defining terms and understanding historical context
We would do well to be more informed and nuanced in the way we speak theologically and historically. It’s easy to call someone an “Arian” just like it’s easy to call someone a “liberal” or “fundamentalist.” These terms are just generic and pejorative enough to do the trick rhetorically, but don’t hold much water substantially until you actually define your terms. And these terms are always relative—I’ve been called a liberal and a fundy by different groups, depending on how “left” or “right” I am of them, and there’s always someone to the “left” and “right” of you if you’re looking for them.
So, do I think Athanasius would have liked what’s now called EFS/ERAS? Probably not. Are they Arians? Surely not. Even when Athanasius used “Arian” as a catch-all term for various groups, it’s obvious that they had one common theme: an ontological subordination of the Son. In fact, Athanasius had a lot of space for terminological and logical difference so long as the substance of Nicaea was affirmed. One example comes from his Tome to the Antiochenes. Here, he discusses a group some critique for emphasizing the three hypostases instead of using homoousios to describe the unity of the persons. It's striking to me that he seems content with the differing terminology or emphasis as long as the theological affirmation ultimately matches:
When we asked them what they say or how they say it, they replied: because they believed in a Holy Trinity, not a Trinity in name only, but true in substance and subsistence, “We acknowledge both a Father truly existing and subsisting, a Son truly substantial and subsisting, and a Holy Spirit existing and subsisting.” And they did not say that there are three gods or three beginnings, but that they resist those who say or mean this; rather, they acknowledged a Holy Trinity, one divinity, and one beginning, and that the Son is co-substantial (homoousios) with the Father, as the fathers said, and the Holy Spirit is not a creature, nor estranged, but proper to and inseparable from the substance of the Father and Son.[1]
In a similar vein, Grudem and Ware both affirm the substance of the Nicene Creed. So, having concerns over their logic and methodology is still different than calling them proper Arians. Indeed, Grudem says very clearly in his Systematic Theology that he rejects Arianism and affirms the Nicene Creed (285-89, second ed.). Whether you think it’s naïve or he denies important logic (as I argue below), it’s not too much to ask to take him at his word.
2. Pursue a catholicity that can disagree without heated rhetoric and division
It should go without saying that division over theology is sometimes necessary (2 Pet. 2). But division can take a lot of forms, from denunciation of orthodoxy to intramural disagreements. We would do well to learn the difference between heresy and intramural disagreement. Perhaps a good dose of theological triage is in order.
I personally think EFS/ERAS and its iterations in Grudem and Ware undermine some of the underlying logic of the Creed—namely, their early questioning of and later very minimalistic and underwhelming affirmation of eternal generation (EG). EG is a crucial piece of Nicene logic, and they both (now) affirm it, though I personally think the way they affirm it is still insufficient.
For example, I find Grudem’s handling of EG problematic for two reasons: (1) it seems to me that EG and EFS/ERAS are incompatible, since EG biblically and theologically affirms the Son’s equality with the Father not only in nature but the entailments of nature, such as equal divine authority, power, and glory (John 10:18; John 17:5; Rev. 4-5); (2) Grudem in particular affirms EG grammatically based on a monogenes biblical word study more than theologically or historically (SysTheo, 296-98), though I think the theological and historical reasons for EG are just as biblical and important.
I also find Grudem (and Ware’s) larger project problematic for two reasons: (1) Grudem’s examples from history of those he sees in agreement with EFS/ERAS (SysTheo, 314-17) can all be demonstrated quite clearly to either disagree with his logic or not even be aware that his logic could exist due to their own contexts; (2) EFS/ERAS is largely driven by a modern concern about cultural movements in gender ideology and defending complementarianism rather than focusing on the ontological subordination of the Son; nonetheless, allowing anthropology to shape your theology proper is usually a bad move.
So, as Scott Swain says, EFS/ERAS “manifest[s] profound structural instabilities” to the classical Trinitarian position (The Trinity, 87). Matt Emerson and Luke Stamps, likewise, say that EFS/ERAS is “insufficient” biblically and creedally. I completely agree.
In fact, I don’t rely on Grudem and Ware’s Trinitarian work in my classes or in my writings, not because I think they’re heretics (they’re not), but because I find their theological and hermeneutical methods on this point insufficient. I critique EFS/ERAS as “novel” in a footnote in my The Trinity in the Book of Revelation (34n79)—and I don’t use the word “novel” as a compliment. But there are a lot of authors that I either don’t use for similar reasons or mainly use as examples of an opposing view to mine. And when/if I present their view, I try to present it fairly. I’m not perfect at this—I like a good sparring match—but at my best, I hope to model this kind of charity.
Some might say I was too pointed above; others might say I wasn’t pointed enough. But it seems entirely reasonable to me that I can pointedly critique EFS/ERAS like this without calling them “Arians” or casting them aside as underminers of the evangelical church for the past 40 years. Neither, in my view, is correct.
In fact, if I were to make such claims, I would be sideswiping thousands upon thousands of faithful pastors who began to understand and care about theology in the first place because they had accessible theology at their fingertips thanks to Grudem and Ware. I would be sideswiping many friends and colleagues who cut their teeth on these men’s works, whether they still agree with them or not. And if one is able to detach themselves from their academic or social media bubbles, one would see how many faithful pastors preach the gospel weekly to this day who are unaware of this debate and who still use these resources in their teaching and preaching. Grudem and Ware have also provided helpful and orthodox resources over the years on issues like God’s sovereignty, the atonement, and open theism.
So while I love to introduce people to resources better attuned to the history of Trinitarian doctrine and method—and this in part why the Center for Baptist Renewal exists!—I would hope to do so without cynically “canceling” the good, long ministry of Grudem and Ware and those they’ve trained directly and indirectly.
Let’s all seek to avoid or step out of the cage and articulate orthodoxy in a way that is rigorously biblical, theological, and historical both in content and character.
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[1] My rough translation
