An empty God?

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That is exactly right (IMO) ; Grudem is inconsistent! Neither does he deal with the evidence. Name one verse which he provides which defines an eternal relationship between the Trinal Persons as a hierarchy of authority.

Others, you see, base the supposed eternal authority of the Father over the Son on differences between the Persons and these other define those differences. Dahms says the difference is that the Father causes the being of the Son. Burk Jr. (see ref above) says that the meaning of Phil 2:6 is that the Son has not "equality" with God despite being ontologically God!

Grudem is inconsistent because he says:

1) The Trinial Persons act economically and temporally as they do eternally and immanently.

BUT, then, he later says that only the humanity of the Son is obedient, not the deity. IMO THAT is inconsistent. If obedience is by the humanity, then, that is NOT a prolongation of an eternal status.

Grudem's incarnational Christology IMO is inconsistent with his doctrine of God.

2) The Trinal Persons have the same attributes.

BUT, many theologians take sovereignty as an attribute. BUT if the Father is sovereign over the Son, then, the Son is not sovereign in the way the Father is. If the Son is subordinate because He is Son, then , the Son has that eternal and ontological quality which the Father does not have. THEN , there are attributional differences between the Persons!

Yet the divine attributes are regularly taught as inhering in essence not in subsistence of that essence.

3) The Son is economically subordinate.

BUT, IF the Son's subordination is His quality because of His being Son, and if He is eternally and immanently Son, THEN, subordination occurs IN God, not just economically. That which is IN God is ontological. So, that difference would be ontological NOT just functional!

 

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Erickson qualifies his view on 338 with the phrase" for a time" and for "a particular function." If you read Ericksons "God in Three Persons" you will see that Erickson says the Father at times is subordinate as well to the Son.

I agree with your last paragraph. But that references events IN CREATION. But Grudem is implying that IMMANENTLY AND ETERNALLY the Son flitters about the PRECREATION doing the will of the Father. I much resent that.

Follow this reasoning with me: Grudem is saying that the eternal subsistence "Son" has as His main characteristic obedience to the Father. Well, how old is creation? How was that main characteristic at all functional in the precreation?What was God doing before creating?

Doesn't it seem curios to you that the principal basis of Trinal relationships must be obedience when without a creation there would be no cause for obedience? So, creation is the occasion for the Trinity?

 

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The thread is still on target. It all relates to the kenosis and to the nature of Christ.

If you suggest that I may be misunderstanding the context of Grudem's comment, then I think that you should provide reasons for suggesting that. That is the evidence I asked for from you. I still am waiting for evidence from Bob.

Because your request for my evidence closely followed my request for Bob's evidence, it might be (wrongly I hope) assumed be that you were going to get that wise guy who challenged Bob.

But I've thought a lot about this subject, and know something about it as it was studied for a dissertation. It is very important to me, and frankly, I don't see why when Christians don't even grasp Christology that bthey fret and fuss over less central doctrinal issues.

Of course, I'm happy to be challenged on my views, and may be shown to be wrong.

ButIMO when claims are made here , those should be convincingly substantiated.

 

Just chewing on this a tad. God is trinity - three equal in all respects - Father Son Holy Spirit - do not the terms Father and Son require a relationship subordination in some manner from eternity past into eternity future?

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Grudem says that the term 'Son' implies a role subordination. I disagree. EG, IMO, "the sons of the prophets' were not subordinate to the prophets. That Hebraism means that those in that group were prophets too.

Yes, the three terms require a relationship. But what verse says that relationship is a hierarchy?

Do you think that God has three faculties of will? If He does not, then how could the Son as God submit to the Father?

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Do relational differences require inequality? If so, why?

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IMO they do not.

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You mentioned "The Son's obedience IMO occurs both in and by the humanity NOT in and by the deity."

Sorry if you have made this clear in your posts and I am too foggy to see it

Would you view this as for the time on earth only or from the birth into eternity future?

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Gary Derickson (of Western Baptist College) says that the Lord's role subordination to the Father is into eternity. Erickson disagrees. I agree with Derickson because IMO Christ retains His full humanity and humanity is not the equal of deity.

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Was not the Son (deity) obedient before the humanity existed by submitting to the flesh in the birth?


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No. Otherwise why would the pronoun in Phil 2:7 be emphatic?

Look at it this way: The obedience of Christ on earth cannot be a prolongation of an eternal relationship because that incarnational obedience was decreed! But God decrees NOTHING within Himself.

If you will look at Phil 2 you will see that it was in His humanity that the Son humbled Himself.

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Does agreeing to comply with a decree by the Son require loss of sovereignty? If so, why? [/qb][/QUOTE]===

Decrees are made by the Father as Eph 1 says because the Son as man is the object of the decree. The decree only concerns that which is outside of God. In those decrees it is not the Son as God that loses anything. How can God lose what He is? It is the Son as Man that is humbled.

 

I don't wish to speak for Him but his statement, I believe, may have been a general statement which I might well have made from my reading over the years.

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Then I hope that one of you will support it.

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I don't know that the Son agreeing to follow the decree is a loss of anything thus He would still be totally God. Not a lot different than the Son "sending" the Spirit (John 15.26) - but still chewing

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I did not say that following the decree would make the Son give up anything. His obedience therein determined is in and by the humanity. Therefore, nothing is given up by the deity!

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Has Dr. Derickson written on this or did you take a class from him, I haven't seen anything in the way of books, but then my visits to the bookstore are quite limited. [/QB][/QUOTE]

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Yes. Gary W. Derickson, 'Incarnational Explanation For Jesus's Subjection in the Eschaton' in Looking Into The Future: Evangelical Studiesw In Eschatology, ed. David W. Baker, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001.

Gary there disagreed with me re the nature of the Son's humanity. I personally spoke with him re this at length and Gary was gracious enough to as an informal reader advise me on my UNIZUL dissertation. I understand that he now would describe Christ's humanity differently and make a distinct human will part of that nature whereas before, Gary denied that.

 

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Paul

The relationship of the Son as God to the Father can hardly be rightly defined,( ie, in terms of the Revelation which provides a little insight, not that our minds can understand the whole), unless His humanity and its relation to the Father also is rightly defined. But think about it: HOW can humanity have the attributes ,as sovereignty, which God has? THAT is Lutheranism!

Just as the humanity, IMO, never in itself becomes omniscient or omnipotent or omnipresent, just so, neither does it become sovereignly equal to God. But as God Christ is equal to God. That is how the Jews defined Sonship to God in Jo 5.

To the Jews His claim of being God's Son meant equality. It didn't mean inequality of authority - as Grudem says.

I think that I already have here opined that the humanity of Christ ,while being personified only in conjunction with the deity of Christ, nevertheless is in its own right capable of thought, will, experience, and action in distinction , but not in separation from, His deity. As Leo says in defining Chalcedon and as Agatho defines Constantinople , "The humanity does what is proper to it, and the deity what is proper to it."

Subordination IS proper to humanity, but not to deity.

That is, IMO, the humanity of Christ has its own " mind" and will. As Grudem, The Damascene, Hodge, Tertullian and others contend, incarnationally that human nature is what functioned in subordination-- not the divine nature.

Now in the Eschaton, Derickson is saying that the human nature continues its subjection to the Father, but the divine, he (and I ) think does not ---as it never was subject.

 

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You're welcome re Derickson.

IMO it is NOT the historic theological definition of the Kenosis to say that God the Son gave up the independent use of some divine attributes:

1) The ancient theologians would not say that. Read Book 1, chap 7 of Augustine on The Trinity. Read John of Damascus On Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, eg, ch 15!

2) The Reformational theologians would not say that. Read Chemnitz, The Two Natures of Christ, ch 2. Read Calvin, Institutes, Book 2, ch 13.

3) Modern theologians oft repudiate that view. Read Grudem's Systematic Theology or Frame, Doc of God, or Hodge or read Reymond who says that folks like Erickson who teach that are kenoticists--and are wrong!!

It is NOT the historic view.

 

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???????????? Where did I say He emtied Himself into non existence? Where did I say that He emptied Himself of anything?

IF you choose not to do the work to exposit the text or to cohere your thesis to a belief system, then, at least please READ the thread before you use yourself to exemplify deity in an effort to correct something that I never said..

[ April 18, 2005, 09:55 AM: Message edited by: UZThD ]

 

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agreed