Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 05:1 (Spring 2023)
Article: Does Complementarianism Depend On ERAS?: A Response To Kevin Giles, “The Trinity Argument For Women’s Subordination”
Author: Stephen J. Wellum

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 58

Does Complementarianism Depend On ERAS?: A Response To Kevin Giles, “The Trinity Argument For Women’s Subordination”

Stephen J. Wellum

Stephen J. Wellum is Professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and editor of Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. His is married to Karen with five adult children and five grandchildren.

Over the years, the doctrine of the Trinity has been at the center of discussion in the larger complementarian and egalitarian debates. For some, one of the key theological arguments for complementarianism has been a Trinitarian argument. This argument depends on a specific view of how the divine persons are distinguished from each other ad intra (or within God) due to their eternal relations and ordered authority roles. Today, this view is identified by the acronym ERAS (“Eternal Relations of Authority and Submission”).

ERAS, in agreement with Nicene orthodoxy, affirms that the divine persons are equally and truly God, since they share the one undivided divine essence. Also, ERAS agrees with the classical view that the divine persons are distinguished by their eternally ordered relations of origin (i.e., paternity, filiation, and spiration). In contrast to Nicene orthodoxy, however, ERAS contends that the eternal relations between the Father, Son, and Spirit also entail a hierarchy of authority roles, thus resulting in the eternal priority of the Father’s authority, the Son’s eternal submission to the Father’s will, and the Spirit’s eternal submission to the will of the Father and the Son. For ERAS, these ordered authority relationships do not result in any ontological subordination within God, since the divine persons share the one divine essence. Instead, these hierarchical authority roles are the means by which the divine persons are distinguished as persons. As ERAS is applied to human relationships, specifically the relationship between men and women,

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 59

the argument is this: analogous to the Trinity, men and women are ontologically equal as image-bearers but functionally distinguished by their authority role differences in marriage, the church, and the larger society.

In recent years, however, due to a renewed study of historical theology, ERAS has come under serious scrutiny, especially regarding how it distinguishes the divine persons ad intra by hierarchical authority roles and relationships. Historically, classical Trinitarianism has affirmed that the only way to distinguish the divine persons is by their eternally ordered relations, but these ordered relations do not entail a hierarchy of authority roles between the divine persons. Instead, divine authority is what the Father,...