R.K. McGregor Wright

Some of us have wondered why so few people are willing to speak out against hierarchicalism (as Cindy at the end of posting #13).  In my opinion, the main reason is because the idea of arranging everything according to grades of being or of importance, etc., is just a reflection of what I have dubbed the “generic pagan” worldview called the Great Chain of Being.  This august model of an evolving reality is basic to Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, (to mention only two powerful past influences on Christian thinking), Gnosticism, Hinduism, and many other Eastern-derived world visions.  It is also an important component of Darwinism as it frames an evolutionary view of life and human affairs, and strongly penetrates the realms of science fiction and fantasy.  It is one of the most pervasive models of reality ever devised, and permeates much secular thinking also.
If anyone wants to see the three essays I wrote long ago (Cheryl has them), about why the CM&W statement is nonsense, I can send them at request  to my e-mail address   rkwjc@charter.net   I will send them as attachments to be printed off.  The third discusses hierarchical thinking.  They are dated and need to be rewritten, but the essence of my repudiation of Chain-of-Being thinking is there.
Love,
Bob K.

Truthseeker asks a perfectly good question in #34 above.  The answer, I would think, is not to deny that under particular circumstances, person X may be subordinate, or subordinates his/her self to person Y, but whether this is a natural ontological order of a hierarchical nature, or simply a moral relation in a particular context.  Ephesians 5:21 states as a general principle that Christians should be mutually submissive “to each other.”  This is strictly unintelligible on a hierarchical basis, but is a perfectly normal moral relation between believers, on which the rest of the examples in the verses following make sense.  It suggests that in one situation, I will be “submissive to” my wife and in other situations she will be to me. that in some situations I will give place to a respected Christian leader who I differ from on some point, while on some matter in which he realizes I know more than he does, he will “submit” to me.  This is not some ontological rigidity, but a flexible pattern of relationships conditioned by love of the brethren, like everything else in the Christian life.  It’s GIFTS that should determine who takes the lead in a particular situation, not an ontological hierarchy.  My wife has different gifts than I do, and I submit to that fact, ordained as it is by God (1 Cor 12:4 fol.)
Mutual submission is much more difficult to practice than hierarchical submission.  The first is a moral relationship, a balancing act within a love-framework, while the second is an automatic acceptance of an inflexible state of affairs.  There is no question that hierarchicalism if assumed, will trump love every time….
Love, Bob K.

It seems Don Johnson sees eye-to-eye with me on these issues.  The systematization of the contents of the Bible is certainly not an exhaustive deductive process, but it is true that because of the “unity of Truth in the Mind of God,” it is both appropriate and necessary that we uncover the internal relations and interconnectedness of the various doctrines found in the Word as written.  God doesn’t tell us lots of things we would like to know, however, so we have to be satisfied with what he does give us, and not water it down with alien philosophic notions from the surrounding culture.  Many of the Fathers of the first five centuries certainly were guilty of this sort of thing.  If anyone wants my essay against allegorism it can be sent from my e-mail at rkwjc@charter.net  as an attachment and printed off to read at leisure.
Love,  Bob K.

Cheryl K.’s thoughtful comments (at 18 above) prompt me to comment on the technique of quoting early church Fathers to support a resurgent heresy.  Most of us who have read somewhat in the Fathers (the field is called “Patristics”) know quite well that most of them were unsound on one thing or another.  Many are also wordy, inexact, boring and idiosyncratic).  One can always select from such a large body of documentary testimony, the kind of emphasis that will support one’s views.  The Tractarians (the Anglo-Catholic movement in England in the 1800s) soon discovered that when they pleaded that the earliest Christianity must have been the purest, they quickly confronted the fact that the Fathers contradicted each other on almost everything .
Since references to the Trinity in the Fathers fall into the two categories of references to the Ontological OR the Economic Trinity, and since most of the references are to the Economic Trinity as God interacts with history in time, the vast majority of quotes on the Trinity in the Fathers is naturally going to include a lot of verses and interpretations implying subordination of the Son in time to the Father.  This is NOT EVIDENCE OF ETERNAL SUBORDINATIONISM, but only of passages describing or assuming the Economy of redemption.  Like certain other speculative theories, eternal subordinationism has disastrous implications for other areas of theology, as the followers of Origen eventually were forced to see.  There are very good reasons why, despite his real devotion to Christ, and his enormous scholarly output and vast and respectful following in the ancient churches, Origen is not “Saint Origen.”  The main one is that eternal subordinationism is flatly a heresy and the Holy Catholic Church has recognized this uniformly for well over 16 centuries (i.e., since 325 AD with the use of homoousios at Nicea).  Once more, notations of the economic aspects of God’s actions to redeem us in time have no bearing whatever on whether the three Persons are related in Eternity by a subordination of either function or being.  When the Reformed half of the Reformation insisted that “Finitum non capax Infinitum” (the finite is not capable of encompassing the Infinite) they were making this very point.  Therefore it is a serious error to measure what God “must” be like in Eternity (before the creation), by what we see him doing in the flow of time.  It should be the other way around: the Trinity is the presupposition and Origin of Meaning for understanding everything else.  Without assuming the Creator-creature distinctionm, we are just stuck with various grades of Pantheism.
The methodology of the New Subordinationism is to start with how they think of women in their churches, then move from that as a model to insist that Jesus was subordinate to the Father in the drama of redemption (which nobody denies, as it was a condition of the Incarnation) to then arguing what God “must” be like in Eternity.  In the fourth century, this was the method of Arius, with VERY bad results.
Love,  Bob K. Wright

Dear Cheryl: Subordinationism is a heresy of very long standing, that re-entered the protestant movement soon after the Reformation through Socinianism.  These people inherit the argumentaton of the Arians of the fourth century.  This is why they have similarities with the JWs.  I don’t know how much historical background you have been able to consider for the forth-coming DVD, but this issue is also tied up with the Socinian assertions about libertarian freewillism.  They argued that if freewill is essential to personhood, it follows that the Persons of the Trinity must also have this kind of freewill, and this makes the Trinity a committee of voluntary members.  The only question then is who is the most powerful member, and naturally they held that the Father holds this position.  Mormons reason similarly.  Arians also used this libertarian freewill argument to change the Bible’s doctrine of salvation through Grace alone.  Read the book Early Arianism on this topic of Arian salvation theory, by Gregg and Groh.  It’s on BookFinder.com for less than $20 including S&H.  Libertarian freewillism is also the guiding principle behind Openness Theology, as I argued in “No Place For Sovereignty” (IVP, 1996).  The error of Subordinationism was long ago declared a heresy by historic Christianity in Church Councils, and the result is summarized in the “Athanasian” Creed at articles 25-26.  THe argument for eternal subordination of the Son and Spirit is only made plausible by abandoning the orthodox distinction between the ontological Trinity (as it was in Eternity before creation) and the economic Trinity (as it is viewed during the drama of redemption in time.  To blend time and eternity is a philosophic disaster for Christian theology, and leads to pantheism in which the world and God are part of the One Ultimate.  The appeal to an eternal subordination of the Persons in the Trinity is probably the most dangerous heresy to reappear in many years, and will decimate the Evangelical movement.  There can be no compromise with it.  It just goes to show how far redeemed sinners will go to protect their male supremacy stance.  If Bruce Ware became an egalitarian he would be fired immediately by Mohler.
Love,
Bob K. Wright