A Digest on the Trinity - Part 9: Heresies and Errors

This article is ninth in a series called A Digest on the Trinity.

The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated and refined to its present level of sophistication because of the presence of heresies and errors. The historical development of doctrines has always followed a similar pattern: heresies or errors arise, and the Church is forced to think deeply about biblical truth that she might produce statements with precise language to safeguard truth and establish correct fellowship.

Simply put, heresy is defined as a knowing and persistent rejection of a doctrine so fundamental to the Christian faith, that said knowing and persistent rejection puts the party out of the true Christian faith. Heresy is not defined by the individual Christian, but the Church catholic, in accordance to the Scriptures. Error is usually less significant in consequence, sometimes technically called “heterodoxy”.

This article will examine some common Trinitarian analogies and show how these analogies will almost always lead to a major heresy or error. Most of these analogies arise in response to the question, “What is the Trinity like?”

Tritheism

Analogy: Peter, James and John were three men who shared a common human essence. The Trinity is like that – there is the Father, Son and Spirit who share a common divine essence.

Heresy: Tritheism – the belief that there are three gods.

What this heresy denies: This heresy denies what is so fundamental to Christianity: monotheism, that there is only one true and living God. Peter, James and John, though sharing in a common human essence, are nevertheless three humans, though the Father, Son and Spirit are not three gods.

Where this analogy fails: Peter, James and John may share a common human essence, but Father, Son and Spirit do not – rather, they share the one in the same divine essence. Therefore, Peter, James and John are able to act independently and separably of each other, while the divine persons cannot.

Modalism

Analogy: The Trinity is like water. Just as water is solid, liquid and gaseous, God is Father, Son and Spirit.

Heresy: Modalism / Sabellianism – the belief that God is one person and Father, Son and Spirit are merely three different modes in which He expresses Himself.

What this heresy denies: This heresy denies the personal distinctions between the three persons, grounded by the eternal processions. To modalists, the Father is not the Father of the Son, but simply a name by which He expresses Himself to the world. What this means is that when God calls Himself “Father”, “Son” or “Spirit”, He is not really Father, Son nor Spirit, but an unknown God who takes on these masks. As such, we cannot know God truly, but only the identities that He expresses Himself in.

Where this analogy fails: Water is never solid, liquid and gas at the same time. However, God is Father, Son and Spirit. This is seen most clearly in the baptism of Christ, where the Father, Son and Spirit are all simultaneously present at the baptism – the Father blesses the baptism, the Son is baptised, and the Spirit anoints the Son in the baptism.

Related analogies: The Trinity is like a man who is a father, a son and a brother at the same time.

Arianism / Subordinationism

Analogy: The Trinity is like a star. Just as the star produces light and heat, the Father produces the Son and the Spirit.

Heresy: Arianism / Subordinationism – the belief that the Son and Spirit were created by the Father and are therefore lesser in status and glory than Him.

What this heresy denies: This heresy denies the full deity of the Son and Spirit. The Son and Spirit are created by the Father and are therefore, by definition, not God. To the Arians, followers of a bishop called Arius, there was a time when the Son was not, i.e. the Son is not eternal. Other kinds of subordinationism include doctrinal variants of the Son being adopted as or made God.

Where this analogy fails: The light and heat of the star are not of the same essence as the star itself. On the other hand, the Son and Spirit are of the same essence of the Father. Furthermore, the star is logically prior to the light and heat it produces, whereas the Father is neither logically prior to the Son nor the Spirit, but all are coeternal with one another.

Partialism

Analogy: The Trinity is like an egg. Just as the egg has a shell, the white and the yolk, God is the Father, Son and Spirit.

Heresy: Partialism – the belief that none of the divine persons are fully divine in and of themselves but are merely parts of the divine.

What this heresy denies: That each person is not fully the divine essence in Himself, but only one-third of God. The Father is one-third of God, the Son is one-third of God, the Spirit is one-third of God. This results in God not being simple, for He is made up of the Father, Son and Spirit. In that way, none of the divine persons are in and of themselves worthy of worship or adoration, for they are not each fully God.

Where this analogy fails: The whole egg is composed of its shell, its white and its yolk. Separate them each and what you get are parts of the egg. The Trinity is not like that, as though the Father, Son and Spirit come together to make up God. Rather, to be God is to be Father, Son and Spirit, as per divine simplicity.

Related analogies: The Trinity is like a three-leaved clover, with three leaves making up the whole clover.

A modern error

In recent years, there has been a debate that erupted within Reformed circles particularly, over the question of whether the Son eternally submits to the Father within the inner life of God. The positive position was soon called Eternal Functional Subordination of the Son, or EFS. Other names include Eternal Submission of the Son (ESS) or Eternal Relations of Authority and Submission (ERAS).

The argument for EFS began when some complementarian[1] theologians, in trying to maintain the submission of a wife to her husband as not indicating inferiority, looked to the Trinity for an analogy; in the heresies mentioned above, it was using creation to explain the Trinity. In the present case, it is the other way around. What they said was just as the Son submits to the Father because He is the Son but is not inferior to Him, a wife’s submission to her husband does not mean she is inferior to him. In essence, these proponents looked to the inner life of God to argue that submission did not mean inferiority.

The problems with this view are legion. While not strictly heretical since EFS proponents avowedly deny Arianism, there have been some who insist that it is functionally so: the Son is still lesser than the Father.

One of the most prominent issue is that it implies a division of the divine will. Suffice to say that the will belongs to the essence, while the act of willing belongs to the persons; essences do not act but provide the attributes necessary for persons to act in them. So, while the Father, Son and Spirit will, they each will through the same divine will in the same divine essence. By positing an eternal submission within the inner life of God, there is the implication that the Son has a distinct will from the Father that He submits, which destroys the unity of simplicity that they both share.

Furthermore, if the Son eternally submits to the Father and the Father eternally commands the Son, then the Son owes obedience to the Father. If that is true, then any obedience the Son renders to the Father is His own obedience and He cannot offer an obedience on the behalf of His people, which tears the gospel of vicarious obedience apart at its seams.

For a more detailed review and discussion of these problems with EFS, check out Glenn Butner’s excellent book, The Son Who Learned Obedience. Suffice to say at this juncture that the Son is the Son of the Father not because of any relationship of authority or submission, but merely by way of eternal generation. There can be no submission in the inner life of God because there is no difference in wills.

The methodological issue with this view is that it draws a false analogy between the divine Father-Son relation to the human husband-wife relation. While a stronger argument can be made to say that human father-son relations reflect more accurately the divine Father-Son relation, there is no reason to analogise husband-wife relations to that of God. Furthermore, we are told what to analogise human marriage to: the relationship between Christ and His Church (Eph 5:32). Biblical complementarianism does not stand or fall on this one analogy and the Scriptures are abundantly clear that the submission of wives to their husbands do not detract from their equal inherent glory as fellow image-bearers.

Answering the question

Back to the question asked at the start of this article: “What is the Trinity like?” In the fifth article, we mentioned that the external acts of God correspond to the internal order of God. Therefore, when asked “What is the Trinity like?” we need not resort to creaturely analogies, for they all fall short and worse, explain the Trinity in a heretical way. Rather, the correct answer to the question is this: the Father sending the Son and through the Son sending the Spirit.

With this answer, we have an answer to what the Trinity is like, for in this answer we have described the outward manifestation of the actual inner life of God, full and active and dynamic in plenitude: the Father generating the Son and through the Son breathing the Spirit.

In the next article, we examine the historical definitions of the Trinity that the Church catholic has produced in response to heresies and errors.