How Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware Explain Eternal Relations of Submission and Authority in Their Own Words

In heated debates, the key positions sometimes get lost in the fray. And since the complementarian Trinity debate has once more entered centre stage due to recent publications, we could use a spotlight to illumine the key theological issues.

For that reason, I want to clarify the eternal relations of authority-submission (ERAS) or eternal functional subordination (EFS) position on the Trinity.

This article aims to define ERAS sympathetically by outlining the views of Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware by citing their own words.

Summary

In what follows, I outline the positions of Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware since they seem to be primary proponents of the ERAS view. For reference, consider this table of their views before 2016:

At the 2016 Evangelical Theological Society meeting, Wayne Grudem and Bruce affirmed Eternal Generation. But they have not yet shown how eternal generation works within the ERAS paradigm.

Due to this reality, this article represents how things stand now. But we should wait to see further publications by both Grudem and Ware before making any final judgments.

Wayne Grudem

Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology (ST) has sold hundreds of thousands of copies, is the textbook for many Christian schools, and has been translated into 12 languages so far. It also teaches ERAS or EFS explicitly.

Eternal relations of submission and authority. After discussing how the persons of the Trinity acted in history, Wayne Grudem turns to God in eternity. He argues that how God acted in history appropriately describes the relations of the triune persons. He explains:

the role of commanding, directing, and sending is appropriate to the position of the Father, after whom all human fatherhood is patterned (Eph. 3:14–15). And the role of obeying, going as the Father sends, and revealing God to us is appropriate to the role of the Son, who is also called the Word of God (cf. John 1:1–5, 14, 18; 17:4; Phil. 2:5–11). These roles could not have been reversed or the Father would have ceased to be the Father and the Son would have ceased to be the Son. And by analogy from that relationship, we may conclude that the role of the Holy Spirit is similarly one that was appropriate to the relationship he had with the Father and the Son before the world was created. (ST 250)

Grudem then clarifies, “these relationships are eternal, not something that occurred only in time” (ST 250).

On the basis of the Son submitting to the Father in history, Grudem infers that this relationship has always likewise existed in eternity. The Father commands. The Son obeys.

Since Scripture does not say God created through the Father but through the Son and Spirit, Grudem again concludes:

the different functions that we see the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit performing are simply outworkings of an eternal relationship between the three persons, one that has always existed and will exist for eternity. God has always existed as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These distinctions are essential to the very nature of God himself, and they could not be otherwise” (ST 251)

The key sentence here is “These distinctions are essential.” By these words, Grudem sees the relationships of authority (Father) and submission (Son) as eternal relations that belong essentially to God and “could not be otherwise.”

With that said, Grudem affirms equality among the persons of God. He uses the phrase, “equal in being but subordinate in role” to describe the relationship of the persons in God (ST 251).

Eternal generation. By affirming eternal relations of authority and submission, Grudem rejects eternal generation. In 2016 he wrote:

But just what is meant by "eternal generation"? In what [Goligher and Trueman] have written, I cannot discover what they mean. To substitute the words "paternity" and "filiation" provides some Latinized terminology but those terms simply mean "existing as a father" and "existing as a son," which tells us nothing more. Quite honestly, I find it impossible to say whether or not I agree with "eternal generation" until someone explains, in ordinary English, what he means by it (not just what it does not mean). (If "eternal generation" simply means "an eternal Father-Son relationship," then I am happy to affirm it.)

Grudem calls eternal generation “some Latinized terminology” that requires further clarification. Theological terms, according to Grudem, should have an “ordinary English” explanation.

Sometime in the same year, Grudem may have discovered an “ordinary English” explanation of the doctrine because he began to affirm eternal generation at this point.

Evangelical feminism. Another aspect of Grudem’s argument should be noted. Grudem ties husband-wife and ecclesial relationships to the Trinity (e.g., One God in Three Persons, 17–45). So he partly sees his affirmation of eternal relations in God as a battle against feminism.

Inseparable operations. Grudem denies the doctrine of inseparable operations. Grudem speaks of “the tendency of evangelical feminists to claim that any action taken by any person in the Trinity is an action of all three persons in the Trinity” (One God in Three persons, 19).

For Grudem, the idea of inseparable operations misreads the Biblical data. For example, after citing John 6, he writes, “Therefore the Son only “chooses” in conjunction with what he has been shown of the will of the Father” (21).

He continues: “When the Son chooses people for salvation, he is simply following the directives of the Father. He is not acting independently of the Father’s authority. Yes, both Father and Son participate in choosing, yet their actions are not identical but distinct” (21).

Both Father and Son choose to agree together. Yet these actions are distinct. They are separable operations. Grudem later grants that in some faint sense, the whole Trinity works together but he attributes this to perichoresis not inseparable operations (24).

He continues: “But this truth is not what Erickson means, because he is arguing not that the whole being of God is somehow involved in every action, but that the action of any one person is also in the same way an action of the other two persons, so that any action done by one person is also done by the other two persons. This is something Scripture never teaches and the church has never held. And it is something that means we no longer have the doctrine of the Trinity. We have modalism” (24–25).

In an unusual move, Grudem defines the idea that each person of the Trinity acts in the same way as the other two as modalism. The key here is Grudem’s assertation that if the persons act “in the same way,” then they are no longer distinct.

It should be noted that the doctrine of inseparable operations does not make this claim—although Grudem believes Millard Erickson makes the argument the persons all act in the same and thereby destroys the distinction in the Trinity.

Hence, the eternal roles of authority and submission acted out in separable ways, for Grudem, avoids modalism and rightly conceives of God.

In summary, Grudem argues that:

• God’s commanding and Christ’s submitting in history are key ideas that explain God in eternity.

• The relations of command and submission essentially belong to God in eternity and distinguish the Father from the Son.

• These relationships bear specific roles in humans relationships like marriage.

• The persons in God work separably in the Godhead.

Since Grudem now affirms eternal generation, it is not clear how he would integrate that doctrine with his affirmation of the eternal relationship of submission and authority in God.

As late as 2016, he still argued that the Father-Son relationship can be explained in terms of: “the eternal authority of the Father and the eternal submission of the Son within their relationship.” And as far as I know, he has not walked back this affirmation.

Bruce Ware

Bruce Ware taught one of my favourite classes in seminary. I spent a week with him during an intensive on the Trinity and the Providence of God. And I had the good pleasure of having lunch with him and then later talking to him about the Trinity while I was a student at SBTS.

Eternal submission. His writing, speaking, passion for God have left a mark upon me. And this passion comes across in his 2005 book Father, Son, & Holy Spirit.

In the book, Bruce Ware explains, “the Son in fact is the eternal Son of the eternal Father, and hence, the Son stands in relationship of eternal submission under the authority of his Father” (Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, 71).

Eternal submission orders human relationships. Throughout his discussion, Ware makes the theological case that what we see in creation among male and female relationships should also reflect something about God.

For example, he writes, “And would it not make sense, then, that the authority-submission structures in marriage and in church leadership are meant to be reflections of the authority and submission in the relations of the Persons of the Godhead?” (77). For Ware, the answer is yes. It does make sense.

Ware’s evidence involves biblical texts. He points 1 Corinthians 11:3, passages in John, and elsewhere to show that the Son does indeed submit to the Father. In particular, 1 Peter 1:18–21 explains that Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world. And Ware sees the Father as making the choice, of foreknowing (78–79).

He also makes the interesting argument that Augustine also affirms something like eternal relations of submission (80).

Taxis. Ware’s trinitarian theology relies on taxis or order. In practice, this looks like a hierarchy since he affirms that the Father is supreme among the persons in God (46).

He explains, “The Father is, in his position and authority, supreme among the Persons of the Godhead” (46). And this supremacy and authority define the inner-trinitarian relations as Ware explains: “If is the Father, then, who is supreme in the Godhead—in the triune relationships of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and supreme over all the very creation over which the Son reigns as its Lord” (50–51).

He again clarifies: “The Father is supreme over all, and in particular, he is supreme within the Godhead as the highest in authority and the one deserving of ultimate praise” (51).

Separable operations? Ware cites Scripture to make his point (Eph 1; James 1:13; and others). During this discussion, he specially emphasized the will of the Father and his free choice. For example, he asserts, “The Father, then, is the one who has designed and will and purposed everything in all of creation” (53). So the Father’s will lies behind the creation.

Yet the Father “chooses to do his work in many cases through the Son and through the Spirit rather than unilaterally” (55). In other words, the Father can accomplish his will on his own, but he freely chooses to use the Son and Spirit “in many cases” to do so (see also 56–57).

The Father’s choosing or willing to work through the Son and Spirit not only represent God’s actions in history but in the Godhead: “What we see happening at the human level in relationship with the Father happens first in the Trinity” (59).

What remains unclear is how the Father can will and choose some times apart from the Son and Spirit. Theologians have usually said that the one God works inseparably in all that he does.

In 2016, Ware wrote an online clarifying what he meant. Speaking of the supremacy of the Father, he maintains that, “this is a hypostatic supremacy of relationship (he’s eternally Father of the eternal Son) and role (e.g., he sends the Son) – period!”

In this way, he continues to affirm what he said in Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, namely, that the Father is eternally the supreme person (hypostasis) in God.

Regarding the possibility of separable operations among the Trinity, Ware writes:

My point here is very simple: since the Father is omnipotent, there simply is nothing that could hinder him by nature from doing anything he would choose to do. Of course, this is purely hypothetical, and I acknowledge that my wording here could be made more precise. I did not intend to suggest that the Father ever would act in such an independent manner, or could act independently, strictly speaking, in light of the Trinitarian union of persons. Indeed, he acts always and only inseparably with the Son and the Spirit. Still, the point is that while he acts inseparably, he also wills with the Son and Spirit to act in full accord with them, and he intends in this to put the Son, in particular, in the place of ascendant exaltation. So, indeed, the work of God is inseparable, as the church has long held, but the work of the one God is also hypostatically distinguishable.

Ware’s answer takes an interesting tack. He affirms that the Father could act independently but chooses not to do so. Instead, the Father “wills with the Son and the Spirit.”

Three wills in God? The paradigm above seems to assume three-wills among the persons of God, if the Father can choose or will to work through or with the Son and Spirit. And the phrase “hypostatically distinguishable” seems to buttress this idea further.

In 2011, Ware had affirmed three separate wills in the persons: “I agree that the Trinity is most clearly understood when the Persons of the Godhead are seen as distinct centers of consciousness and will. How one would understand the eternal relatedness within the Godhead if this were not the case certainly is difficult to conceive.”

He no longer makes this affirmation. But something like three wills in God seems to course through his writings. As noted, Ware maintains that the Father wills with Son while their respective willings are personally distinguishable.

If this means God has one will, how can the Father’s personal distinguishing mark be choosing while the Son’s be obeying? This paradigm of relationships at least suggests some sort of multiplicity of wills in God.  

Ware does not define the particular way in which the Father can will something with the Son or choose a course of action in which the Son obeys.

Conclusions

Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware representatively argue for the ERAS position on the basis of Scripture and reason. Both men attempt to understand God and have spent years making him known.

We should celebrate their good work and their desire to magnify God. Yet we can also question whether they have chosen the best language or made the best arguments for their case.

Let me conclude by noting a number of obstacles to the ERAS position that proponents must overcome:

• Eternal generation has explained how the persons are distinguished in the Godhead. ERAS does not make an obvious improvement on this model.

• Inseparable operations follow from God having one will, one energy, and one power in one simple essence. Separable operations (Grudem) or inseparable operations according to will (Ware) each seem to gainsay the doctrine of simplicity—which means that God has one will, one energy, and one power.

• Eternal submission too readily reads Christ’s incarnational obedience into the Son’s eternal relations in God. Such a proposal leans too heavily towards univocal language of God instead of analogical language of God.

• Eternal submission may also indicate an improper hierarchy in God and imply that the Son is somehow less than the Father—something that the language of the Father’s supremacy also could imply.   

• Lastly, ERAS needs to show that it can replace the traditional theological lexicon for trinitarian theology, which so far, it has not done.