Eternal Functional Subordination of the Son as Ground for Gender Hierarchy (EFS/ESS)

The egalitarian and orthodox response, represented most prominently by Millard Erickson (Who's Tampering with the Trinity?, 2009) and Kevin Giles (The Trinity and Subordinationism, 2002; Jesus and the Father, 2006), argues that EFS fails as Trinitarian theology and therefore cannot serve as the foundation for gender hierarchy.

1. EFS borders on Arianism.

Eternal functional subordination was precisely what Arius taught — the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father in being, will, and glory. The Council of Nicaea (325 AD) confronted this directly, declaring the Son ὁμοούσιος ("of one substance, consubstantial") with the Father and rejecting subordinationism in all forms. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed confesses the Son "begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God." The Athanasian Creed states: "In this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another; but the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal."

Erickson argues that EFS distinguishes "essence" from "role/function" in a way that, when examined carefully, is untenable. If the Son is eternally subordinate in will, authority, and glory, it is difficult to see how he is actually equal in essence — a subordinate will is a subordinate divine identity. The historic creeds intended to rule out precisely this kind of subordinationism, even when it is framed as "merely functional."

2. The Son's submission in Scripture is incarnational, not eternal.

Philippians 2:5-11 is decisive here. The hymn describes a descent-ascent arc:

• Pre-existence (v. 6): The Son was "in the form of God" (ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ) and equal with God (ἴσα θεῷ)
• Kenosis/incarnation (v. 7): He "emptied himself (ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν) by taking the form of a slave"
• Humiliation (v. 8): He "humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death"
• Exaltation (v. 9): "Therefore God exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every name"
• Universal confession (vv. 10-11): The Son receives the Isa 45:23 Yahweh-worship

The grammatical structure is a temporal narrative: eternal equality → incarnational self-emptying → exaltation to restored equal glory + divine name + universal worship. EFS collapses this into a single eternal state. The text forbids this move — especially the aorist verbs (ἐκένωσεν, ἐταπείνωσεν, γενόμενος ὑπήκοος, ὑπερύψωσεν) which all describe temporal acts, not eternal relational properties.

John 17:5 makes the same point compactly: "Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you (παρὰ σοί) before the world was." The imperfect εἶχον ("I had") denotes continuous pre-incarnate possession of equal glory; the Son is asking to be restored to this glory. EFS has no coherent account of this prayer — the Son cannot ask to be restored to a glory he already permanently possesses as a subordinate.

3. Rereading the EFS proof-texts

1 Cor 11:3 — "The head of Christ is God." The kephalē chain (God → Christ → man → woman) is offered as evidence of an eternal hierarchical pattern. But (a) the verse concerns the incarnate Christ's relation to the Father during his earthly ministry (note the ordering: man→woman reverses the Trinitarian ordering; the analogy is not parallel); (b) κεφαλή likely means "source/origin" rather than "authority over" in Pauline usage (see Cyril of Alexandria, Chrysostom); (c) even if "authority" is the sense, the verse is not an assertion of eternal Trinitarian hierarchy but a description of economic relations.

1 Cor 15:28 — "The Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, in order that God may be all in all." The future passive ὑποταγήσεται requires a temporal transition. A future verb implies a movement from pre-event state to post-event state. If the Son were eternally subordinated, Paul's grammar is meaningless. The subjection is the eschatological handover of the completed mediatorial kingdom (vv. 24-27), not an eternal state.

John 5:19 — "The Son can do nothing from himself except what he sees the Father doing." This verse is regularly misread. The discourse begins (v. 18) with the charge that Jesus is "making himself equal with God (ἴσον τῷ θεῷ)" — and Jesus does not deny the charge; he explains and deepens it. vv. 21-23 ascribe to the Son the divine prerogatives of life-giving and final judgment, and demand that the Son be honored just as (καθώς) the Father is honored. The "cannot do anything from himself" is perichoretic — the Father and Son act together in perfect unity (cf. John 10:30; 14:10) — not hierarchical.

John 14:28 — "The Father is greater than I." This refers to the incarnate Son's state, not the eternal Son's being (so virtually all the church fathers — Athanasius, Augustine, the Cappadocians — and the Nicene confession). During the incarnation the Son has voluntarily taken the form of a slave (Phil 2:7); in that state the Father is greater. John 17:5 shows the pre-incarnate glory was equal.

Phil 2:5-11 — See point 2 above. The passage positively refutes EFS by grounding the Son's obedience in the temporally-bounded kenosis.

4. If EFS falls, the gender analogy collapses.

Grudem's argument structure depends on (a) the Trinitarian claim being true, and (b) the Trinitarian pattern grounding gender hierarchy. Remove (a) and (b) has no foundation.

The proper Trinitarian pattern — eternally co-equal divine persons, with the Son's submission arising only in the economy of the incarnation — provides no template for a permanent, asymmetrical submission of one class of humans to another. If anything, the Trinity (properly understood) models mutuality, reciprocity, and shared glory — fitting better with egalitarian readings of the gender passages (Gal 3:28; Eph 5:21's mutual submission; Rom 16's women leaders; Joel 2 / Acts 2's gender-inclusive Spirit gifting).

5. The historic orthodoxy position

Importantly, the critique of EFS is not a feminist argument imposed on the Trinity. Millard Erickson is one of the most widely used evangelical systematic theologians; his critique of EFS in Who's Tampering with the Trinity? (Kregel, 2009 — art. 409 in Ryan's Kindle library) is made on grounds of historic Nicene orthodoxy. Kevin Giles makes the same case across multiple volumes. This is a critique from inside the evangelical tradition, arguing that EFS is a late-20th-century innovation that contradicts the historic Trinitarian confessions of the church.

When Grudem, Ware, and others appeal to the Trinity to ground gender hierarchy, they are not drawing on the classical Trinitarian tradition — they are constructing a new Trinitarian model to serve a specific contemporary complementarian theology. The price of this construction is doctrinal unorthodoxy.

Summary

EFS fails as Trinitarian theology because (a) it contradicts Nicene orthodoxy, (b) it cannot accommodate the grammatical structure of Phil 2:5-11 or John 17:5, (c) it misreads the Son's Gospel-era submission as eternal rather than kenotic, and (d) it collapses the temporal narrative of 1 Cor 15:24-28 into an eternal relational property. If EFS fails, the Trinitarian analogy Grudem uses to ground gender hierarchy collapses. Gender roles must be argued — if at all — from texts that actually address gender, without borrowing illegitimate support from a distorted doctrine of the Trinity.

Key Resources

• Millard Erickson, Who's Tampering with the Trinity? An Assessment of the Subordination Debate (Kregel, 2009) — art. 409 in Ryan's Kindle library; a leading evangelical systematic theologian's critique of EFS from within historic Nicene orthodoxy
• Kevin Giles, The Trinity and Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God and the Contemporary Gender Debate (IVP, 2002)
• Kevin Giles, Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity (Zondervan, 2006)
• Dennis W. Jowers and H. Wayne House, eds., The New Evangelical Subordinationism? (Pickwick, 2012)
• Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Zondervan, 1994) — the EFS position
• Bruce A. Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance (Crossway, 2005) — the EFS position