Arianism: of straw men and fabrication
In this chapter Peter Carnley looks at the progress made towards ordaining women to the episcopate in the Anglican Church of Australia. It falls into six parts.
In the first part (pp. 208-14), Carnley reviews the history of the move towards the ordination of women to the priesthood, tracking the process through the Doctrine Commission, the Appellate Tribunal, and diocesan and General synods. This forms a backdrop to the move in General Synod towards female ordination to the episcopate, which is traced out in part two (pp. 214-15).
Part three (pp. 216-19) comments on the propriety of the processes involved in the move towards ordaining woman bishops, pointing out that both sides will have to compromise. The compromise for those wanting ordination is that women diocesan bishops will likely have their ministry restrained by protocols which require them to provide alternative, male episcopal ministry for dissenters. Carnley seems to foresee a fluid process, in which certain anomalies will have to be tolerated ‘while new developments are processed and managed (p. 217).’
In parts four to six, Carnley comes to what is a major interest, the theological issues involved. In four (pp. 219-24), he concentrates on the theological questions as they arise in Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, highlighting what from his point of view are encouraging developments, as well as identifying several problems.
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In the next section (pp. 225-31), Carnley outlines and rebuts arguments against the ordination of women by Sydney Anglicans. In describing what he sees as the main ‘Sydney’ argument, he focuses solely on one writing of Broughton Knox, an Addendum to a report of 1977. The crux as Carnley presents is ‘headship’, and particularly 1 Corinthians 11:3. It is a pejorative and dismissive summary of evangelical writings about headship which makes no attempt to understand the wider exegetical and theological arguments used by Knox and others. Here he comes close to creating a straw man.
Beside the way he sets up the ‘Sydney’ position, Carnley’s repost follows two main lines of thought. First, the meaning of the concept in Paul and the wider concerns of the New Testament; and secondly, that Broughton’s argument, as reconstructed by Carnley, lacks internal logical validity and force.
In seeking to find the meaning in 1 Corinthians 11:3 of ‘head’, Carnley presents ‘ruler’, ‘source’, ‘pre-eminence’ and ‘foremost’ in such a way as to imply that are equal possibilites. This is a good debating technique, but it is not scholarship. His drawing down on Anthony Thiselton’s magisterial commentary to validate the polymorphous possibilities ignores that fact that Thiselton, and on good grounds, does not favour ‘source’. (1) Carnley’s purpose is to accuse Knox of claiming ‘a privileged knowledge of the exact meaning of the exact metaphor of the head (p. 226).’ Knox, let alone the wider number of Evangelical scholars in this area, claimed no such privilege, either implicitly or otherwise.
However, Carnley’s main thrust is to assert that Knox’s position: ‘takes the form of an implicit fundamental confusion between categories of morality and providence, and between the human responses of moral duty and vocation(p. 227).’ And, on those grounds lacks internal logical validity.
This section is spoilt not only by the narrow and pejorative way he presents Knox, but also by the questions he begs. In this way, ‘implicit . . confusion’ really becomes an illicit assertion of inferences not present in Knox’s actual position.
Both selective presentation of Knox and question begging in Carnley’s own arguments can be seen working together in his appeal to the biblical idea of ‘mutual submission’ as a weapon against the ‘Sydney’ position. The question of what Knox thought about the essential nature of male headship is not canvassed, and the question of the nature of ‘mutual submission’ in the New Testament, and moral theory more widely, are not addressed.
Knox consistently taught that male headship consisted in the man having a primary duty to seek the welfare of the woman, and that how this might be worked out in practice was not fixed but dependent on circumstances, which by their nature are changeable. Not a word about this in Carnley’s presentation. The omission is not unimportant. Knox’s understanding of headship as taking the initiative in loving and sacrificial service somewhat ameliorates the field of pejorative meaning nowadays invoked by the word ‘patriarchal’. Further, the insinuation that Knox’s position implied that God’s will ought be applied in the same way at all times and in all places is false.
Nor does Carnley deal with the question of the asymmetrical nature of ‘mutual submission’ as it arises not only in the New Testament, but also in moral theory generally.
Other instances of this sort of question begging includes the way Carnley pits God’s calling of individuals against God’s will for moral relations. Rightly, Carnley notes that God has freedom to act providentially in history, and thus changes in the way God’s calls people to ministry ought be allowed to configure our expression of God’s will for relations. However, he does not allow us to limit our perception of what God’s providential work may be in calling people by what we know through biblical revelation of God’s express will for relations. The freedom Carnley’s position gives to our actions in ordaining people begs the question of God’s work in the world being limited by the law of his own being. For example, God may permit evil, but we may never endorse evil as good. God’s will is not arbitrary, it expresses his nature and his purposes for the world. Our perception of ‘calling’ must be normatively shaped by the revelation of the divine will for relations, and the nature and person of God more widely.
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Part six (pp. 232-41) is the longest section and consists of a protracted attack on ‘Sydney’s use of trinitarian theology, mainly focused on a 1999 report by its Doctrine Commission (refer http://www.anglicanmedia.com.au/old/doc/trinity.html). Carnley’s presentation of the report fabricates it as Arian. Here we have a genuine straw man, a hostile reading.
Using the classical terms of Trinitarian theological thought, the report makes a careful distinction between essential subordination and subordination in the relations between the three Persons. With the Creeds, the report clearly affirms that all three Persons are equal in substance or essence. There is no essential subordination. To assert that would be Arianism and contrary to the teaching of Holy Scripture. Then the report argues from the history of Christian thought and the Bible that there is, properly understood, a functional subordination, that is, in how the three Persons relate together. In this way, the report at least stands within the boundaries of the Creed of Nicea and Constantinople and the theological reflections on it amongst the Church fathers, and much contemporary theology, including Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, John Zizioulas and Colin Gunton.
In Carnley’s presentation, not a word about these distinctions between ‘essential’ and ‘functional’, and in the context of the writings of the fathers, the acceptability of the report’s position. By ignoring this most important distinction in the report, Carnley is able to treat all the report’s statements about functional subordination as if they are statements about the essence of God. This equation with respect to the report manufacturers a serious charge of Arianism.
Thus, by ignoring the distinction, Carnley is able to move quickly from, but not inaccurately, reporting the Commission’s position as teaching functional, relational, subordination, to accusing ‘Sydney’ of Arianism (pp. 234-5), that is, essential subordinationism. As a stepping stone, the report is accused of teaching the ‘essential inferiority of women to men’ because it is rooted in their subordinationist doctrine of the Trinity (p.232-3; emphasis mine).
In the course of this attack on his straw man, Carnley advances theological arguments or positions that I more than suspect members of the Commission can gladly affirm. I certainly do so. He would have been a positive asset to the Commission! However, putting aside the question of the validity of the application of these fine theological truths to the straw man, there are, however, serious problems in Carnley’s own trinitarian theology as it emerges in this chapter.
First, except for a useful if brief mention of Basil of Caesarea, the understanding of the fathers on order in Trinitarian relations is ignored.
Leading fathers like Athanasius and the Cappadocians in the East, and Hilary and Athanasius in the West carefully argued for the monarchy of the Father, and not just ‘monarchy’ meaning ‘sole or unique source’, but monarchy meaning ‘sole or unique rule’. ‘Monarchy’ is a compound word where the Greek words monos (mon-) means ‘alone’ or ‘unique’ or ‘sole’, and arche (‘-archy’)is used to designate either ‘origin’ or ‘rule’, or both. In the writings of the fathers, including Athanasius, when the monarchy of God the Father is talked about, discussions about his unique rule or authority are not far away.
It may be helpful to unfold Athanasius’ teaching in three steps:
i. Background: To understand Athanasius and the other fathers it is necessary to remember that their response to the Arian heresy was not narrowly about the Son’s nature and relation to the Father, but was set against the need to affirm and safeguard that fact that the Father is really Father in himself, that ‘Father’ as applied to God is not a merely figurative expression but names who he actually is eternally: the eternal Begetter of the Son, the eternal Source or Origen of divinity, the eternal Monarch. That is, the Father in his Person is not just the unique King and Source of divinity in the economy of salvation, but as Athanasius is at pains to point out, is so eternally, in the relations of the immanent Trinity.
Thus, by showing the Son is truly God, Athanasius is also defending the eternal fatherhood of the first member of the Trinity, for a father cannot be a true father eternally unless he has a son eternally. This priority of the Father, which John’s gospel and Paul’s writings attest to, includes the Father’s rule, his monarchy, in which the Son as eternal Son shares by way of defining himself in subordination to that monarchy.
ii. What Athanasius said: Now Athanasius does not use the term ‘monarchy’ himself, but when quoting others. Not only does he not attack the term, but seems to endorse the notions it contains concerning ‘rule’ (quoting Bp Dionysius of Rome - Defence of the Nicene Council/[Definition] paragraph 26; and for his general approval of Dionysius, On the Opinions of Dionysius). (2) Further, even without the term ‘monarchy’, the concept of the single rule of the Father is not uncommon, especially when Athanasius is combating polytheism:
[Against polytheism] For we must not think there is more than one ruler and maker of Creation: but it belongs to correct and true religion to believe that its Artificer is one, . . . Who then might this Maker be? . . . the God we worship and preach is the only true One, Who is Lord of Creation and Maker of all existence. Who then is this, save the Father of Christ, most holy above all created existence, Who like an excellent pilot, by His own Wisdom and His own Word, our Lord and Saviour Christ, steers and preserves and orders all things, and does as seems to Him best? (Against the Heathen, paragraphs 39-40; emphasis mine)
See Against the Heathen paragraphs 6-7, 39-40; also Defence of the Nicene Council/[Definition] 26, 30-31; and On Luke 10.22. These are discussions about relations in the immanent as well as the economic Trinity. The Father is the Ruler over all things, and gives the authority over all things to the Son, and because it is to his eternal Son he gives it, the Father yet remains the Lord of all things because the Father works through his Word (see Defence 30, On Luke 4-5). The Son is the unique Image of the Father, his proper Offspring, and has his being in the Father (see Defence 31, On Luke 4-5). Note that here and in Athanasius wider writings the priority (that is, the order) of the person and work of the Father in defining who the Son is: from the Father to the Son. From the Father who is the monarch, the one ruler as well as the one origin. In this way, Athanasius recognises the asymmetrical, yet mutually conditioning nature of the relations between Father and Son. By locating the monarchy in the Father, and his wielding of it through that which is also truly God, his very own Word, the Son, Athanasius keeps the Son and the Father as both truly God, and safeguards this differentiation in the one God from slipping into polytheism.
iii. Significance of Athanasius’ teaching: The clear implication of this in Athanasius is that in the relations between the triune members, God is no ‘egalitarian’. In the immanent Trinity the roles and functions of Father and Son are not interchangeable, but permanent. The Son is Lord by sharing in his own way the Monarchy of the Father who gives it to him.
For Athanasius, recognising the priority of the Father in trinitarian relations ought not to imply that the Son is inferior in essence. On the contrary, and here his skill as a theologian shines, the Father cannot really be the eternal Father unless he has such an eternal Son, of the same substance as himself, and to whom he gives his authority. The Father does not hand over his authority to an agent who is his essential inferior. Further, if the Father is not the final locus of authority, how indeed can he really be a ‘father’? It is proper for the divine Father to ‘give’ and the divine Son to respond to that. The triune Father is a real father and the triune Son is a real son. Neither names are metaphorical.
It is important to note the deeper (theo)logic of Athanasius’ thought. Although asymmetrical in the way they relate to each other eternally, the Persons of the Trinity share or hold their one common divine essence in a special way: by mutually indwelling each other. This divine mutual indwelling, in which each Person finds the centre of existence or unique personhood in the other, means that even with the Father alone being the ultimate centre of rule, this asymmetricality does not on the its own terms infer that the Son or the Spirit are inferior in essence as they carry out the Father’s rule. That is, the Son is not only from the Father, but also in the Father. The language of ‘in’ is one that Athanasius stresses again and again, but he does not allow it to swallow up the from language.
The (theo)logic of asymmetrical relations between the Persons of the Trinity in favour of the priority of the Father, and of the divine mutual indwelling, come together in this way: even though he rules through his Agent, the Son, ‘the Father [still] wields the Lordship’. That is, because the Father wields his lordship through a Son who is eternally of the same essence as himself, and in the divine mutual indwelling, the Father is no absentee father working though an inferior entity, but truly remains the Lord eternally, ruling his creation, wielding ‘universal providence’, and therefore: eternally Father because ‘providing/providence/rule’ is what fathers do. Let me say it again, a careful reading of the texts referred to above shows that in Athanasius writings, the giving of authority to the Son by his Father belongs to the immanent Trinity, and not the economic alone. Moreover, the having of unique authority and the giving of it by the Father, and the wielding of it by the Son, is thoroughly appropriate to their divine, eternal Persons.
In this carefully nuanced way, Athanasius fends off both polytheism (many gods – multiple sources of ultimate rule) and Arianism (degrees of divinity within a ‘Trinity’). It is the priority of the Father, and the subsequent ordering of relations between the Father and the Son, coupled with the divine mutual indwelling, that guarantees both the fatherhood of the Father and the true divinity of the Son. This is absent in Carnley’s presentation.
To place the Sydney report in this context somewhat mitigates the pejorative sting in Carnley’s presentation and attack – it is within the pale of orthodox debate within the parameters set by the Nicaean-Constantinopolitan Creed. The report also sits in a similar context in the contemporary debate, including Karl Barth, and in his own way, Karl Rahner, and more recently J�rgen Moltmann and Colin Gunton.
Secondly, Carnley criticises ‘Sydney’ for reading back the functional subordination of the Son seen in the economy of salvation (i.e. in Jesus earthly actions) into the eternal or immanent Trinity (God as he is in eternity). We are guilty of: ‘pushing what is true of created time back into the timeless eternity of God.’
However, Carnley’s presentation does not adequately appreciate that every biblical statement is made under the conditions of the economy of salvation, in the context of the history of Israel and the world. This means that even ‘immanent’ statements are at least on the surface able to be interpreted economically, patent of a human, an historically limited, interpretation. The classic case of course is the title ‘Son of God’ as applied to Jesus. It can just, and at least means, ‘God’s chosen King’, like David. That is also may signify God’s unique, fully divine Son, comes from the wider context.
It is important to keep the distinction made in Trinitarian theology between ‘economic’ and ‘immanent’ statements about Christ and God. The distinction arises because on the one hand Jesus Christ is in various ways affirmed as truly God, and yet on the other he does and suffers things that the rest of Scripture teaches God does not suffer. God is all knowing, all sovereign, and present everywhere, where as Christ confesses ignorance about when he will return, suffers thirst and hunger, and patently in his mission is not everywhere. To honour Scripture, and thus God, instead of weakening or even denying one side or the other of this conflict, we have to accept both ways of talking about Christ. We need to understand economic and immanent statements on their own terms, and try to understand them together. That is, interpret both types of statements by way of a confluence, against the incarnation and mission of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. The fathers’ distinction, then, between economic and immanent statements about Christ, and ultimately the Trinity, humbly seeks to preserves this honouring of the speaking and acting God.
Further, the fathers were at pains to see the immanent implications of even the most obviously economic statements, like that of Matthew 24:36: ‘No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son but only the Father.’ Such statements where beloved by Arians as teaching essential subordination.
For example, Basil of Caesarea, after having explained Matthew 24:36 as properly belonging to the economy of salvation, of speaking of Jesus inferiority in ‘the form of man’, is not content to leave it there. ‘Let me knock at the door of knowledge, if happily I may awake the master of the house.’ Basil then goes on to show that it is the Son’s proper function, as the eternal Son of the Father, to point towards the fount of Godhead: that is, to the Father.
Thirdly, as he misrepresents Sydney by saying that it portrays the obedience of the Son to the Father as a ‘mechanical and enforced, even automatic or programmed response’, Carnley appeals to a notion of freedom which is not limited by the being of a person. The latter notion he sees as static, and not allowing genuine free agency. Here (p. 233f.) pejorative description abounds: coercion, compulsive behaviour, and the like.
The clear implication of this is that for divine freedom to be genuine there must be the possibility of the Father not sending the Son, but the Father being sent by the Son instead, for the Father to take flesh and die for us. Implicit in this is the possibility of a divine ‘no’ by the Son which is accepted by the Father.
This is totally abhorrent. and the sending of the Father is roundly rejected, for example, by a long tradition stretching from Augustine, through Aquinas, to Karl Rahner. There is no possibility of the Father being the Sent One, for because he is Father he is the Sender.
In his On Trinity, Rahner strongly insists that the Father could not die. The roles/functions/operations of the Persons of the Trinity are not interchangeable, but eternal. What happened in the economy is rooted in the eternal differentiation of the three Persons. If every divine member of the Trinity could become man, become incarnate, that would ‘create havoc with theology’ and ‘be against the whole sense of holy Scripture’. Rahner also affirms that the incarnation reveals not only something about God generally (some of which we already knew from the Old Testament), but particularly about the Person of the Son or the Logos, ‘his own relative specific features within divinity (On Trinity, 28).’ Later, Rahner ties the obedience of the Son in the economy back into the immanent Trinity (pp. 62-3).
That is, the freedom exercised by the different Persons in the their mutual love and communion, operating as it does according to their personal distinctions, is not a static ontology as Carnley would have it. For because of the divine mutual indwelling (perichoresis), and the other-person-centred nature of God (Knox’s favourite phrase), the Father shares his monarchy willingly and the Son and the Spirit respond to it willingly.
Carnley’s stress on equality in the relations between the three Persons leads him to speak of ‘the authentic monarchy of the Son (p. 241.’ Much better to say, the Son shares in the monarchy of the Father.
Let me address to Carnley a question that I have elsewhere directed to Kevin Giles: (3)
Does the Father have the right to delegate authority to the Son (which because of delegation implies filial subordination in the relations)?
Since Carnley’s treatment denies that right, then there are only two possible choices: either he must establish an alternative basis for the Son’s cosmic kingship, or surrender the Son’s kingship.
If Carnley opts for an alternative basis for the Son’s cosmic kingship other than its delegation to him by the Father, there is no final centre of rule (monarchy), but authority in the Trinity comes from more than one source, more than one final origin. This the fathers saw, including Athanasius in Against the Gentiles, clearly implied polytheism. In our relativistic, contemporary culture the polytheistic implication of Carnley’s position is conspicuous.
If in order to safeguard monotheism Carnley opts to surrender the Son’s cosmic kingship, then the Son is not cosmic king, and this affects the security of our salvation.
Thus, as Rahner warned, Carnley has created havoc.
Robert Doyle
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Endnotes
1. Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: a commentary on the Greek text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 800-23; his summary and conclusions are on pp. 820-2.
2. Using the table of contents, these can be read in English translation in volume IV, second series, of The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Michigan: Eerdmans reprint, 1978).
3. Refer http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/briefing/webextra/apr04_giles.html
