Kevin Giles vs. Fred Sanders on Eternal Subordination

The ff. are the 7 points (in his own words) that Kevin Giles made for rejecting any appeal to the immanent Trinity as the basis for either complementarianism or egalitarianism:

1.) The idea that the trinity prescribes human relations on earth is a very modern idea without historical precedence.

2.) The idea that the divine life in heaven prescribes human life and relations on earth is implausible. Where, we must ask, does God's perfect threefold relationship in heaven prescribe fallen human relations on earth? Nowhere in Scripture are we told to imitate divine, heavenly relations on earth. There is no biblical warrant for this idea whatsoever. Imitate Jesus? Yes. Imitate God's threefold relations in heaven? No.

3.) Specifically in regard to the man-woman relationship, to argue that the threefold divine relations in heaven prescribe the twofold man-woman relationship on earth, I think, is illogical.

4.) 1 Cor. 11:3 offers no convincing basis for this appeal to the Trinity.

5.) The idea of the Trinity speaks of the Father ruling over the Son is a denial of the full divinity of the Son and the unqualified lordship of Christ.

6.) To argue that the Son's eternal and necessary functional subordination does not imply ontological subordination is unconvincing.

7.) The idea of the Son as eternally subordinated to the Father is rejected by most contemporary Trinitarian scholars.

Kevin Giles Weighs In on the EFS Debate—From 10 Years Ago!

Click: The Evangelical Theological Society and the Doctrine of the Trinity

Prelapsarian Grace in the CoW—A No Tread Zone?

Was there an element of grace in the CoW? If, as John Owen states, Adam had the Holy Spirit, was not this an indication of grace? Does this view constitute a "flattening of the COW and COG [that] will actually get you somewhere... where Christians should never tread"? What if divine grace was actually part of God's essential attributes? Should Christians really not go there?

Let's allow Dr. Richard A. Muller to provide some precision here:

The Love of an Impassible God

If we define passions as the transition from one emotive state to another or the increase in intensity of such a particular state, then the doctrine of divine impassibility teaches us that God does not have passions as fluctuating within Himself or as influenced from anything outside Himself.

Far from espousing a cold, static, and uninvolved Deity, this doctrine actually enhances the Christian's hope and comfort in that when Scripture teaches that God is love, it does not say that God becomes more or less loving as contingent upon the creature, but that His love is as eternal as He Himself is. In fact "love" as predicated on God is God Himself! Such security and stability for the objects of His love in Christ!

Speaking on the doctrine of divine simplicity, which is foundational to the doctrine of divine impassibility, Dr. James Dolezal writes:

There is nothing in God that is not God. If there were, that is, if God were not ontologically identical with all that is in him, then something other than God himself would be needed to account for his existence, essence, and attributes. But nothing that is not God can sufficiently account for God. He exists in all his perfection entirely in and through himself. At the heart of the classical DDS [doctrine of divine simplicity] is the concern to uphold God's absolute self-sufficiency as well as his ultimate sufficiency for the existence of the created universe...By appealing to God's simplicity I aim to show that God and the world are related analogically and that the world in no sense explains or accounts for God's existence and essence. If God were yet another being in the world, even if the highest and most excellent, then the world itself would be the framework within which he must be ontologically explained. But as Creator, God is the sufficient reason for the world's existence and thus cannot be evaluated as if he stood together with it in the same order of being. It follows from this that God can neither be measured, nor his simplicity refuted, according to the modalities unique to created beings. (God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness [PICKWICK Publications, Eugene, Oregon:2011])

The ff. video is a discussion on the doctrine of divine impassibility that is as profound as it is edifying:

Holy, Holy, Holy Is the Lord!

Just yesterday, a package arrived at my doorstep. Even before glancing at the sender information, I already had a solid hunch about from whom it came, and I was right. My good friend from the U.S., Joel de Leon, had sent me another "bag" of Reformed goodies! Among them was a 3-CD goody from Ligonier containing R.C. Sproul's classic teaching series on the the holiness of God, aptly entitled The Holiness of God.

I haven't finished going through the whole set, but the second lecture entitled, "The Trauma of Holiness," struck a chord. In the lecture, Sproul exposits Isaiah 6, specifically, verses 1 to 8.

The following are the gems that I've gleaned:

The Self-Communication of God's Love

When mention is made of the love of God, it often is the case that this love is made to be grounded on the worthiness or comeliness of the object. We have heard it spoken that, "Even if you were the only person on Earth, Christ would have still come down and died for you." Of course, such musings about alternate universes are neither predicated upon good reasoning nor are they productive, as if counterfactuals had the being of actual facts themselves. What the phrase simply indicates is the sentimental, self-centered, humanistic notion of love that has captured the wider audience. It served Norman Vincent Peale well in his crusade for self-esteem but it does no good for the Christian fully devoted to the 5 solas of the Reformation.

Simply put, when we affirm that God is love, and how this bears upon its object, what we are really saying, if we are to be faithful to Scriptural import, is that God loves Himself as He sees Himself in the object. For humans to claim the same is the height of narcissism—though it is but an all too common instance of total depravity that we love those like us and hate those that differ—but for God it is the necessary corollary of His perfections. For God to be God, His love must always entail the proclamation of His glory. Indeed, for a person to truly say that he loves another, he must desire God's glory to be manifested in that person.

God's love then is "...that perfection of God by which He is eternally moved to self-communication. Since God is absolutely good in Himself, His love cannot find complete satisfaction in any object that falls short of absolute perfection. He loves His rational creatures for His own sake, or, to express it otherwise, He loves in them Himself, His virtues, His work, and His gifts. He does not even withdraw His love completely from the sinner in his present sinful state, though the latter's sin is an abomination to Him, since He recognizes even in the sinner His image-bearer. John 3:16; Matt. 5:44,45. At the same time He loves believers with a special love, since He contemplates them as His spiritual children in Christ. It is to them that He communicates Himself in the fullest and richest sense, with all the fulness of His grace and mercy. John 16:27; Rom. 5:8; 1 John 3:1." — Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, ch. 7, p. 71. 

The Trinitarian Ground of Good

"Within the three religions that have a personal view of God...(Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), only Christianity truly provides robust grounds for values. And this is because of the Trinity. The Trinity allows us to see God interact with himself; it is a window into his character. For example, how do we know God is a loving God? Surely, we could point to the Incarnation, but that relies on something outside himself (the world) and God doesn't rely on the world for the way he is. In the Trinity, however, we see him actively loving within thee Godhead, but without being contingent on anything outside himself. Only the Trinity allows God to escape being arbitrary or relying on something or some standard outside himself. Islam's view of God as radically one fails on one or both of these problems and prevents it from providing a proper grounding of values. And the non-trinitarian view of Judaism fails for the same reason. The way we can have confidence in God's character and his promises is through the Trinity."

- Doug Powell (MA in Christian Apologetics, Biola University; contributor to the Apologetics Study Bible), Modern Reformation, Vol. 18, Number 7, November/December 2009, pp. 38—39.