27: SON NOT SUBORDINATE TO FATHER IN TRINITY? 209the Father in their relationship (which exists along with equality in
essence or being), he is denying the teaching of the church throughout
history, and it is significant that he gives no quotations, no evidence, to
support his claim that his view “is the historical Biblical trinitarian doc-
trine.” This statement is simply not true.
The vast majority of the church has affirmed equality in being and
subordination in role among the persons in the Trinity, not simply dur-
ing the time of incarnation but in the eternal relationships between the
Father and the Son. The great historic creeds affirm that there is an eter-
nal difference between the Father and the Son (and the Spirit), not in
their being (for they are equal in all attributes and the three persons are
just one “being” or “substance”), but in the way they relate to one
another. There is an ordering of their relationships such that the Father
eternally is first, the Son second, and the Holy Spirit third.
The doctrine of the “eternal generation of the Son” or the “eternal
begetting of the Son” found expression in the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325)
in the phrase “begotten of the Father before all worlds,” and in the
Chalcedonian Creed (451) in the phrase “begotten before all ages of the
Father according to the Godhead.” In the Athanasian Creed
(fourth–fifth century A.D.) we read the expressions “The Son is of the
Father alone: not made, nor created: but begotten” and “God, of the
Substance of the Father; begotten before the worlds.”^4
It is open to discussion whether these were the most helpful expres-
sions of this doctrine,^5 but it is not open to discussion whether the entire
church throughout history has in these creeds affirmed that there was
an eternal difference between the way the Son related to the Father and
the way the Father related to the Son; that in their relationships the
Father’s role was primary and had priority, and the Son’s role was sec-
ondary and was responsive to the Father; and that the Father was eter-
nally Father and the Son was eternally Son.
(^4) Other creeds with similar affirmations include the Thirty-nine Articles (Church of England,
1571): “The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the
very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father”; and the Westminster Confession
of Faith (1643–1646): “the Father is of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding; the Son is eter-
nally begotten of the Father (chapter 2, paragraph 3).
(^5) For further discussion of the phrase “only begotten” and the Greek term monogen∑s on which
it is based, see Wayne Grudem, “The Monogen∑s Controversy: ‘Only’ or ‘Only Begotten’?”
appendix 6 in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1994), 1233-1234.
(This appendix is in the revised printing only, from 2000 onward.)