RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Barrett, Matthew. Simply Trinity
It’s hard to imagine a near-perfect book. This is one. I wanted to highlight every single word. I cannot imagine a better book on the Trinity. I am going to say something that isn’t commonly said in these debates: if you are manipulating the Trinity to back up a social program or second-order teaching, you need to be deposed from ministry. This book is a crash course in Trinitarian grammar. I cannot imagine a better intro to the Trinity.
Social readings of the Trinity cannot affirm one will in the Trinity or inseparable operations. That puts them outside of orthodoxy. Most cannot affirm eternal generation. That puts them outside Nicea.
Basic Trinitarian Grammar
It is not enough to say 1 essence/3 persons. It will not do to find proof texts that may or may not say that. Rather, you have to have a grammar that weaves these thoughts together. First, how do we identify the persons? We do so by their origins of relation. Full stop.
The three persons are subsistences of the one essence. Upon that sentence hinges the essence (no pun) of all Trinitarian grammar.
The immanent Trinity is ontology. The economic Trinity is God’s plan of salvation. The danger is identifying the two. What the Great Tradition does is see how one reflects the other. Barrett has a helpful chart:
The doctrine of simplicity keeps the Trinity from collapsing into modalism or tritheism. There is one simple essence that has three modes of subsistence. God is not simply just three persons. The one undivided essence subsists in three persons. This rules out multiple wills in the Trinity and demands the doctrine of eternal generation.
Eternal generation means from all eternity “God communicates the one simple, undivided essence to the Son.” This is a spiritual, not physical generation. Barrett lists how John Gill identified the marks of a wrong type of generation:
Some more grammar:
The Enemy: Social Trinitarianism
Barrett helpfully identifies the marks of social trinitarianism.
Eternal Functional Subordination
We will camp out here. As those who posit the Son is eternally functionally subordinate to the Father, they not surprisingly say, “To the Father belongs ultimate praise and glory” (Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 67). To Jesus, logically, belongs a lesser glory. That sentence should bother you. Barrett then points out a number of fatal problems to EFS/ESS.
Even more, EFS cannot simultaneously speak of ontology and function. They want to say that the Son is ontologically equal to the Father, though functionally subordinate. That cannot work. As Barrett notes, “As subsistences of the essence, the persons are ontological through and through.” You can’t simply add the category “functional” to this. While I am not a Van Tillian, he is right here: the persons of the Trinity equally exhaust the divine essence. If they fully exhaust the divine essence, function goes out the window.
Barrett goes on to say that they can’t appeal to homoousios to strengthen their position. You can’t simply say the persons are homoousios. Homoousios works in a specific context. That context, at least for the Son, is eternal generation. “The Son subsists from the same essence as the Father because he is eternally generated from the Father.” That’s it. Simply Trinity.
Hebrews and Jesus’ Obedience
Jesus couldn’t have been eternally obedient to the Father for one simple reason: he became incarnate to learn obedience. If EFS is true, then the contrast in Hebrews 5:8 is gone.
Conclusion
I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a book this much. It was pure delight.
It’s hard to imagine a near-perfect book. This is one. I wanted to highlight every single word. I cannot imagine a better book on the Trinity. I am going to say something that isn’t commonly said in these debates: if you are manipulating the Trinity to back up a social program or second-order teaching, you need to be deposed from ministry. This book is a crash course in Trinitarian grammar. I cannot imagine a better intro to the Trinity.
Social readings of the Trinity cannot affirm one will in the Trinity or inseparable operations. That puts them outside of orthodoxy. Most cannot affirm eternal generation. That puts them outside Nicea.
Basic Trinitarian Grammar
It is not enough to say 1 essence/3 persons. It will not do to find proof texts that may or may not say that. Rather, you have to have a grammar that weaves these thoughts together. First, how do we identify the persons? We do so by their origins of relation. Full stop.
The immanent Trinity is ontology. The economic Trinity is God’s plan of salvation. The danger is identifying the two. What the Great Tradition does is see how one reflects the other. Barrett has a helpful chart:
The doctrine of simplicity keeps the Trinity from collapsing into modalism or tritheism. There is one simple essence that has three modes of subsistence. God is not simply just three persons. The one undivided essence subsists in three persons. This rules out multiple wills in the Trinity and demands the doctrine of eternal generation.
Eternal generation means from all eternity “God communicates the one simple, undivided essence to the Son.” This is a spiritual, not physical generation. Barrett lists how John Gill identified the marks of a wrong type of generation:
Some more grammar:
The Enemy: Social Trinitarianism
Barrett helpfully identifies the marks of social trinitarianism.
Eternal Functional Subordination
We will camp out here. As those who posit the Son is eternally functionally subordinate to the Father, they not surprisingly say, “To the Father belongs ultimate praise and glory” (Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 67). To Jesus, logically, belongs a lesser glory. That sentence should bother you. Barrett then points out a number of fatal problems to EFS/ESS.
Even more, EFS cannot simultaneously speak of ontology and function. They want to say that the Son is ontologically equal to the Father, though functionally subordinate. That cannot work. As Barrett notes, “As subsistences of the essence, the persons are ontological through and through.” You can’t simply add the category “functional” to this. While I am not a Van Tillian, he is right here: the persons of the Trinity equally exhaust the divine essence. If they fully exhaust the divine essence, function goes out the window.
Barrett goes on to say that they can’t appeal to homoousios to strengthen their position. You can’t simply say the persons are homoousios. Homoousios works in a specific context. That context, at least for the Son, is eternal generation. “The Son subsists from the same essence as the Father because he is eternally generated from the Father.” That’s it. Simply Trinity.
Hebrews and Jesus’ Obedience
Jesus couldn’t have been eternally obedient to the Father for one simple reason: he became incarnate to learn obedience. If EFS is true, then the contrast in Hebrews 5:8 is gone.
Conclusion
I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a book this much. It was pure delight.