212 FEMINIST VIEWS BASED ON UNTRUTHFUL CLAIMS
nature of the persons, the personal properties that distinguish each
one from the others.... it is right to describe this difference of role
as eternal. We may put it this way: There is no subordination within
the divine nature that is shared among the persons: the three are
equally God. However, there is a subordination of role among the
persons, which constitutes part of the distinctiveness of each.
But how can one person be subordinate to another in his eternal
role while being equal to the other in his divine nature? Or, to put it
differently, how can subordination of role be compatible with divin-
ity? Does not the very idea of divinity exclude this sort of subordina-
tion? The biblical answer, I think, is no.^8John Frame here is reflecting the historic doctrine of the church. Several
other great historians of Christian doctrine have affirmed the same
thing.
Louis Berkhof (1873–1957) writes:
The only subordination of which we can speak, is a subordination in
respect to order and relationship.
d. The subsistence and operation of the three persons in the divine
Being is marked by a certain definite order. There is a certain order
in the ontological Trinity. In personal subsistence the Father is first,
the Son second, and the Holy Spirit third. It need hardly be said that
this order does not pertain to any priority of time or of essential dig-
nity, but only to the logical order of derivation. The Father is neither
begotten by, nor proceeds from any other person; the Son is eternally
begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and
the Son from all eternity. Generation and procession take place
within the Divine Being, and imply a certain subordination as to the
manner of personal subsistence, but not subordination as far as the
possession of the divine essence is concerned. This ontological Trinity
and its inherent order is the metaphysical basis of the economical
Trinity.^9Church historian Philip Schaff (1819–1893) writes:
(^8) John Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2002), 719-720.
(^9) Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (original 1939; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1969
[reprint]), 88-89, italics added.