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way of conceiving personhood and in particular divine personhood by positing multiple consciousnesses in god prior to the incarnation of the son it is on this basis that god can have interchange with god second and related to this there is a more overt deviation from the sixth ecumenical council s declaration regarding the will of christ this too is perhaps only implicit the council determined as orthodoxy the teaching that christ has two wills one divine and one human because the faculty of the will goes with a nature not with a person because god has one nature or essence then god has one will and because they share the one divine essence the father son and holy spirit share one and the same will not that they always agree on a course of action as three distinct agents but that they possess one and the same faculty of willing the picture of the pactum seems to strain this nearly to the breaking point it does so by positing agreement between two parties father and son suggesting at least the theoretical possibility that they might not have agreed they might not have entered into such a mutual compact because while they share the same intentions they do not share the same faculty of will again i m not convinced that this is entirely fatal to the doctrine of the pactum salutis but the way in which a negotiated agreement appears to run against the grain of one divine will should give pause a number of potential solutions might be suggested here a one would simply be to reduce the pactum narrative to a mere illustration a sunday school lesson meant to give some insight into the different parts that the father son and spirit play in the work of redemption akin to those bad analogies still used to try and illustrate the doctrine of the trinity the pactum is an imaginative extrapolation on the son s sent ness but shouldn t be taken literally b another is to press on to a full argument for three centers of consciousness in god rather than a single subject who subsists in three ways god is a plurality of subjects who each has his own mind thought world and intention subjectivity here is a modern term that we may use to probe the character of oneness and threeness in the doctrine of the trinity augustus hopkins strong 1836 1921 was one who affirmed this view along with three divine wills systematic theology i p 326ff which of course entails its own set of problems c still another seen for example in francis turretin 1623 1687 institutes 12 2 is to articulate the eternal pact as an undivided work of the whole trinity with each divine person undertaking his own proper and peculiar mode of operation here agreeable to this saving economy 1 pet 1 2 turretin 12 2 7 cf owen death of death i 3 this places any notions of multiple wills of negotiation and of agreement strictly in the economy cf 12 2 13 placing the maxim opera ad extra sunt indivisa front and center it recasts the divine pactum such that the father and son are not legal parties who reach an agreement but the one god who is self appropriating the various elements of the covenant and its execution this i think is probably the only way forward but it does call into question whether this even qualifies any longer as the pactum salutis doctrine which seems to trade on the notion of a negotiated settlement between two parties the key to the problem as i ve tried to diagnose it then is how we will answer the question what is a person in god is a person a discrete subject an i with his own center of consciousness or is a divine person an instantiation of the single subject who is the one god who enjoys one center of consciousness in the godhead though in a different way with respect to the son and the spirit and what might this different way entail karl barth chooses the latter arguing for god s tri personal single subjectivity he seems to have the majority of the tradition behind him even with support to be found among the reformed scholastics cf the language of modus subsistendi and τρόπος ὐπάρξεως this goes a long way in explaining barth s criticism of cocceius and the pactum salutis doctrine the conception of this inter trinitarian pact as a contract between the persons of the father and the son is also open to criticism can we really think of the first and second persons of the triune godhead as two divine subjects and therefore as two legal subjects who can have dealings and enter into obligations one with another this is mythology for which there is no place in a right understanding of the doctrine of the trinity as the doctrine of the three modes of being of the one god which is how it was understood and presented in reformed orthodoxy itself god is one god if he is thought of as the supreme and finally the only subject he is the one subject and if in relation to that which he obviously does amongst us we speak of his eternal resolves or decrees even if we describe them as a contract then we do not regard the divine persons of the father and the son as partners in this contract but the one god father son and holy spirit as the one partner and the reality of man as distinct from god as the other when the covenant of grace was based on a pact between two divine persons a wider dualism was introduced into the godhead again in defiance of the gospel as the revelation of the father by the son and of the son by the father which took place in jesus christ the result was an uncertainty which necessarily relativised the unconditional validity of the covenant of grace making it doubtful whether in the revelation of this covenant we really had to do with the one will of the one god if in god there are not merely different and fundamentally contradictory qualities but also different subjects who are indeed united in this matter but had first of all to come to an agreement how can the will of god seen in the history of the covenant of grace be known to be binding and unequivocal the first and final word of god the way is then opened up on this side too for considering the possibility of some other form of his will the question is necessarily and seriously raised of a will of god the father which originally and basically is different from the will of god the son karl barth church dogmatics iv 1 p 65 emphasis mine for barth s full critique of this aspect of cocceius federal theology see cd iv 1 pp 64 66 the relation with which we have to do when we think of the basis the ground and starting point of redemption is not that of an agreement between the father and the son barth says but that of the union of god and humanity this seems right to me the basis of redemption is not an inter trinitarian pact but god s free election of grace that eternal work of god internum ad extra by which god determines to be god for us and to make us god s people the content of this decision that decision of the one subject in his unified will is that as father god will send as son god will go and as spirit god will complete this work in the perfection of divine unity those who have been following the current discussions over eternal submission may conclude that barth is working through the same problem of willing and obedience in a somewhat modalistic way how does the son obey the father eternally if they are one subject with one will this is a larger topic which requires that if we are going to hear barth s contribution to it we reorient ourselves a bit into his way of thinking about the trinity for further reading i ll point you to cd volume i 1 and to my essay on obedience in barth s trinitarian theology in advancing trinitarian theology zondervan 2014 but in this immediate passage on cocceius barth does offer one important insight that we ought to attend to in god s free election of grace even in his eternity before all time and the foundation of the world he is no longer alone by himself he does not rest content with himself he will not restrict himself to the wealth of his perfections and his own inner life as father son and holy spirit in this free act of the election of grace there is already present and presumed and assumed into unity with his own existence as god the existence of the man whom he intends and loves from the very first and in whom he intends and loves all other men of the man in whom he wills to bind himself with all other men and all other man with himself in this free act of the election of grace the son of the father is no longer just the eternal logos but as such as very god from all eternity he is also the very god and very man he will become in time in the divine act of predestination there pre exists the jesus christ who as the son of the eternal father and the child of the virgin mary will become and be the mediator of the covenant between god and man the one who accomplishes the act of atonement he in whom the covenant of grace is fulfilled and revealed in history is also its eternal basis he who in scripture is attested to be very god and very man is also the eternal testamentum the eternal sponsio the eternal pactum between god and man this is the point which coccejus and the federal theology before and after coccejus missed cd iv 1 p 66 emphasis mine thus there is a basis for a distinction of wills between the eternal father and the eternal son for a relationship of command and obedience because and only because barth is convicted that the eternal son is already jesus christ the god human jesus christ in his very person is the covenant the pactum not only the redeemer in time but also in eternity the very basis for redemption but that is a topic for another time the point to focus on for the topic at hand is barth s conclusion that the pactum salutis doctrine is mythology it is a narrative which in seeking to explain the eternal covenant of grace and the modes of personal appropriation in the trinity instead manages to pile on at least implications if not material content that deviated from the ancient medieval and reformation tradition and muddied the waters of trinitarian theology for the next four centuries if barth is right in this judgment then the doctrine can provide no comfortable solution for contemporary reformed reflection upon the assertions of eternal functional subordination the story of god the father and god the son negotiating a mutually acceptable arrangement for the accomplishment of redemption requires unacceptable alterations to the doctrine of god it also seems to play into the hands of efs eras supporters by allowing for multiple minds one authoritative one equal but submissive in god share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email share on x opens in new window x like loading 11 comments from trinity what is the immanent trinity a clarification for the eternal subordination debate june 16 2016 by darren i ve continued to watch with some interest as the online conversation unfolds around the issue of the so called eternal functional subordination of god the son efs which some of its advocates also call the trinity s eternal relations of authority and submission eras for those just catching up bring the books has a good index of important posts and think theology runs down 10 of the driving theological questions at issue in my own entry from last week i offered a number of critiques about the efs project not so much to attack and deride it as heretical as to expose the structural flaws and historical naivete and to suggest further recourse for its proponents to improve their case for example giving up on the idea that efs is not a novum but self evidently nicene as i ve read some responses to that post and other entries into the conversation this week it seems to me that the discussion could benefit from further clarity at a number of points here i d like to focus on the difference between what theologians call the immanent trinity god in god s own inner life as father son and holy spirit and the economic trinity god with respect to creation as father son and holy spirit acting toward the world note that these are not two trinities but rather a conceptual distinction that regards our reflecting upon the nature of god some disputants continue either to ignore this distinction or to refer to it obliquely and incorrectly this lack of clarity hinders the discussion from producing much fruit because the immanent economic distinction in fact is absolutely crucial to the debate both on the side of efs advocates and as the grounds for those who oppose them let me take a stab at a typology here there are three ways in which one might argue that god the son has a relation of subordination or submission to the father type a the incarnate son jesus christ submits to his father the new testament is filled with statements that bear out this relation jesus says that he did not come to do his own work but that of the father who sent him john 4 34 6 38 he prays in the garden not my will but yours be done luke 22 42 the nt authors praise jesus for his obedience and lift up his humility as a virtue to be emulated ad infinitum in fact the vast majority of the bible s statements regarding the son s relationship to the father fall under this heading but we are not talking here about the immanent trinity this is the sphere of the economy of grace i e god s outward activity in movement toward creatures in fellowship with them and for their benefit and so none of this is pertinent to the efs eras debate all christians acknowledge the plain sense of scripture that the son submits to the father in the economy the christian tradition has generally invoked the language of reduplication the son submits according to his humanity in order to be precise about how it is that this economic obedience has no bearing on the son s essential co equality with the father nicaea s consubstantiality type b even before and apart from the incarnation the son submits to the father in the secret fellowship of the divine counsel we might think of this as how father and son relate to one another in heavenly places as the triune god witnesses sin and the fall and the son submits to the father s command to go into the world and make atonement the language of eternity past and eternity future has been invoked here e g by ware language which i think is unhelpful betraying a muddled and overly linear idea of eternity with respect to created time but here too the bible appears replete with supporting statements mark and luke state that jesus is seated at the right hand of god mark 16 19 luke 22 69 acts 7 55 and paul says that at the end of all things even the son himself will be subjected to god 1 cor 15 28 and we would grant that the divine counsel of election which includes the pactum salutis in reformed circles is indeed an eternal event in that election occurs before creation as the first of god s works ad extra once again however and this is key we are not yet talking about the immanent trinity if we are talking about god s activity ...