Seminary president dismisses eternal subordination in the Trinity as ‘theological malarkey’

[Revmitchell]

Patriarchal assumptions of biblical writers and centuries of interpretation by men lead too many Christians today to wrongly believe that God is literally male, a female seminary president from the United States told a group of Baptist scholars at an international conference July 5-7 in Nassau, Bahamas.

Molly T. Marshall, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kansas, opened the 2019 Baptist International Conference on Theological Education focused on women in ministry with a paper noting that ancient texts routinely use masculine imagery that was common to the times in which they were written but in modern times sounds exclusionary.

Molly T. Marshall, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary since 2004, recently announced plans to retire in 2020.

“The problem is that people continue to read these ancient texts as prescriptive of the roles of women and men today, constructing the complementarian vision of male and female relationships to the detriment of both,” said Marshall, the first woman to lead the seminary aligned with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and American Baptist Churches USA.

“Some have even gone so far as to import eternal subordinationism into the Trinity as a ploy to argue for subordination in Christian marriage,” said Marshall, a theologian who began her teaching career in the 1980s at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. “That’s theological malarkey, to be sure.”

“Eternal subordination of the son” is a controversial view in Trinitarian debate being advanced in neo-Calvinist circles such as the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, a group that teaches that males and females both bear God’s image but are created for distinct and complementary roles in marriage.

Seminary president dismisses eternal subordination in the Trinity as ‘theological malarkey’ – Baptist News Global

 

[HankD]

CLEAR AS MUD.

 

[Ziggy]

There was a good reason why she was fired from Southern Seminary in Louisville after the conservative takeover...

 

[Jerome]

CLEAR AS MUD.

Indeed. This murky 'Eternal Subordination of the Son' business was cooked up by some of the CBMW crowd to try to bolster their their gender views.

Marshall joins many conservatives who have recognized the danger posed by this twisting of orthodox Trinitarianism to conform to 'complementarian' gender notions.

Banner of Truth recently warned about the "grievous errors" of the "view known as the eternal subordination or submission of the Son....sometimes abbreviated to the acronym ESS"

"ESS is untrue and unbiblical. And that it has dangerous implications for the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity and indeed the doctrine of salvation"

Although "not full blown Arianism it tends dangerously in that direction....The eternal submission of the Son is not taught by Scripture. It undermines the doctrine of the Trinity....If we wish to preserve the gospel and sound doctrine we should reject it."

 

[Jerome]

Tenth Presbyterian's Liam Goligher and Carl Truman of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals have also spoken out against the ESS error:

Is it New? Yes. Is it Orthodox? No.

"many Calvinistic Complementarians, especially one’s that know their...doctrine of the Trinity, have always balked at the idea of postulating the Son’s eternal subordination and questioned the wisdom of using the Trinity to bankroll a particular view of gender. In their mind, Calvinist Orthodoxy is Nicene, it affirms the eternal equality of the divine persons, which rules out any hierarchical subordination."

on the other hand:

"some contemporary evangelical scholars and pastors...are presenting a novel view of God; a different God than that affirmed by the church through the ages and taught in Scripture. This is serious....They are building their case by reinventing the doctrine of God, and are doing so without telling the Christian public what they are up to. What we have is in fact a departure from biblical Christianity"

"it is sad that [these New Calvinists are] advocating...this submission-driven teaching on the Trinity. In the long run such a tight pairing of complementarianism with this theology can only do one of two things. It will either turn complementarian evangelicals into Arians or tritheists; or it will cause orthodox believers to abandon complementarianism."

 

[Van]

ESS is as bogus as a three dollar bill.

 

[37818]

Wow. With the second Person in the Trinity, there has always been both eternal equality "was God," John 1:1, and an eternal subordination, being also someone else "with God," John 1:1-2.

 

[Jerome]

ESS is as bogus as a three dollar bill.

But after CBMW's gender-driven ESS ('Eternal Submission of the Son') contrivance was exposed, instead of retracting and repenting of the teaching, they'e 'rebranding' it!

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals • Owen Strachan Attempting to 'Rebrand' His Untenable ESS Theories

"One great consequence the Trinity Debate of 2016, which started over the issue of CBMW leaders teaching an ontological, eternal subordination of the Son to the Father (ESS/ERAS) and then applying that to men and women, is a resurgence of classical teaching on the Trinity"

"[Although] the overwhelming consensus was that those who teach ESS are not in line with confessional Nicene trinitarianism, there never was any retraction of the teaching from CBMW or the from leaders who taught it."

"Here we are, three years later, with the current president of CBMW positively referencing and linking to an article written by the previous president, Owen Strachan....Strachan’s argument is a rebranding of ESS."

 

[HankD]

Eternal Subordination of the Son is IMO not taught in the word of God.

There is one passage which is mistakenly thought to teach it.

John 14:28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

greater (military rank) - in terms of the earthly mission of the son - the Son willingly lowered Himself in rank to do the will of the father in His incarnation as a mortal man.

Philippians 2
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Jesus went from a General to a Private in terms of heavenly rank in the Incarnation being Almighty God made flesh.
A general is higher in rank but no less or greater a man than a private.

the lowering in rank was temporary:
RSV Hebrews 2:9 But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one.

Yes, "little while" is in the Greek text.

Hebrews 10:12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;

 

[HankD]

ADDENDUM

Philippians 2
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

In verse 7 we see " but made Himself of no reputation" that Jesus seeing He was equal with the father made of Himself no reputation (kenosis) - the father did not make Jesus of no reputation, but Jesus Himself having full authority willingly imposed the kenosis upon Himself.