Method Mistake: An Analysis of the Charge of Arianism in Complementarian Discussions of the Trinity -- By: Benjamin B. Phillips

Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 13:1 (Spring 2008)
Article: Method Mistake: An Analysis of the Charge of Arianism in Complementarian Discussions of the Trinity
Author: Benjamin B. Phillips


Method Mistake: An Analysis of the Charge of Arianism in Complementarian Discussions of the Trinity

Benjamin B. Phillips

Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Houston Campus
Houston, Texas

The debate between complementarians and egalitarians over the intra-Trinitarian relations between the Father and the Son has intensified significantly. In 2006, at the National Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), Kevin Giles presented a paper in which he alleged that certain complementarian expressions of the Trinity have degenerated into Arianism.1 Bruce A. Ware also read a paper in which he defended his own complementarian view against Giles’s accusation of Arianism.2 The charge of Arianism is a weighty accusation primarily because of the church’s traditional condemnation of it as a fundamental heresy—Arianism betrays a core teaching of Scripture. The allegation also has an immediate impact within the ETS. As Giles pointedly notes, “In the Evangelical Theological Society Doctrinal Basis only two matters are made fundamental to the evangelical faith: belief in the inerrancy of the Bible in its original autographs and belief in a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three ‘uncreated’ persons, who are ‘one in essence, equal in power and glory.’”3

The charge of Arianism hinges on a philosophical intuition about the nature of being. The defenses for this philosophical position offered by Gilbert Bilezikian and Kevin Giles, however, are incompatible with Scripture because they undercut the very possibility of Trinitarian theology. The failure of these arguments calls into question the validity of the position they defend. Because of these problems, current versions of the egalitarian case that the complementarian view of the Trinity constitutes Arianism are seriously flawed. This article provides an analysis of the flaw in the egalitarian accusation and suggests how the debate over the Trinity should proceed.

The Core of the Debate Concerning the Trinity

Many complementarians argue that the Son is eternally functionally submissive to the Father while still possessing absolute ontological equality with Him. The thesis of Ware’s 2006 ETS paper was,

The Father and Son are fully equal in their deity as each possesses the identically same divine nature, yet the eternal and inner-Trinitarian Father-Son relationship is marked, among other things by an authority and submission structure in which the Father is eternally in authority over the Son and the Son eternally in subm...

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe
visitor : : uid: ()