Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?

27: SON NOT SUBORDINATE TO FATHER IN TRINITY? 211

The Nicene doctrine includes... the principle of the subordination

of the Son to the Father, and of the Spirit to the Father and the Son.

But this subordination does not imply inferiority.... The subordi-

nation intended is only that which concerns the mode of subsistence

and operation.... The creeds are nothing more than a well-ordered

arrangement of the facts of Scripture which concern the doctrine of

the Trinity. They assert the distinct personality of the Father, Son, and

Spirit... and their consequent perfect equality; and the subordina-

tion of the Son to the Father, and of the Spirit to the Father and the

Son, as to the mode of subsistence and operation. These are scriptural

facts, to which the creeds in question add nothing; and it is in this

sense they have been accepted by the Church universal.^7

Professor John Frame of Reformed Theological Seminary–Orlando
also affirms an eternal subordination of the Son to the Father, along with
an eternal equality of being:

So we may summarize by saying that biblical Trinitarianism denies

ontological subordination, but affirms economic subordination of

various kinds [here Frame is referring to activities of Father, Son, and

Holy Spirit with respect to the creation]. But there is a third kind of

subordination that has been debated for many centuries and has been

much discussed in recent literature. That might be called eternal sub-

ordination of role.

Both Eastern and Western thinkers have regularly affirmed that

God the Father has some sort of primacy over the other two per-

sons.... Furthermore, if, as I have claimed, the economic activities

of the persons are analogous to their eternal relationships, then the

forms of economic subordination mentioned above suggest a pattern.

The Son and the Spirit are voluntarily subordinate to the commands

of the Father, because that kind of subordination is appropriate to

their eternal nature as persons....

This kind of subordination is not the ontological subordination

of Arius. Nor is it merely economic, for it has to do with the eternal

(^7) Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1970 [reprint]),
1:460-462, italics added. A survey of historical evidence showing affirmation of the eternal sub-
ordination of the Son to the authority of the Father is found in Stephen D. Kovach and Peter R.
Schemm, Jr., “A Defense of the Doctrine of the Eternal Subordination of the Son,” Journal of
the Evangelical Theological Society 42/3 (September 1999): 461-476. See also Grudem,
Systematic Theology, 248-252.