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| Examination of the meaning of 'subjection:' in that he says that the nature of the Holy Spirit is subject to that of the Father and the Son. It is shewn that the Holy Spirit is of an equal, not inferior, rank to the Father and the Son.
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§16. Examination of
the meaning of ‘subjection:’ in that he says that the
nature of the Holy Spirit is subject to that of the Father and the Son.
It is shewn that the Holy Spirit is of an equal, not inferior, rank to
the Father and the Son.
Let us first, then, ascertain
the meaning of this word ‘subjection’ in Scripture. To whom
is it applied? The Creator, honouring man in his having been made in
His own image, ‘hath placed’ the brute creation ‘in
subjection under his feet;’ as great David relating this favour
(of God) exclaimed in the Psalms109
: “He put
all things,” he says, “under his feet,” and he
mentions by name the creatures so subjected. There is still another
meaning of ‘subjection’ in Scripture. Ascribing to God
Himself the cause of his success in war, the Psalmist says110
, “He hath put peoples and nations in
subjection under our feet,” and “He that putteth peoples in
subjection under me.” This word is often found thus in Scripture,
indicating a victory. As for the future subjection of all men to the
Only-begotten, and through Him to the Father, in the passage where the
Apostle with a profound wisdom speaks of the Mediator between God and
man as subject to the Father, implying by that subjection of the Son
who shares humanity the actual subjugation of mankind—we will not
discuss it now, for it requires a full and thorough examination. But to
take only the plain and unambiguous meaning of the word subjection, how
can he declare the being of the Spirit to be subject to that of the Son
and the Father? As the Son is subject to the Father, according to the
thought of the Apostle? But in this view the Spirit is to be ranked
with the Son, not below Him, seeing that both Persons are of this lower
rank. This was not his meaning? How then? In the way the brute creation
is subject to the rational, as in the Psalm? There is then as great a
difference as is implied in the subjection of the brute creation, when
compared to man. Perhaps he will reject this explanation as well. Then
he will have to come to the only remaining one, that the Spirit, at
first in the rebellious ranks, was afterwards forced by a superior
Force to bend to a Conqueror.
Let him choose which he likes of
these alternatives: whichever it is I do not see how he can avoid the
inevitable crime of blasphemy: whether he says the Spirit is subject in the
manner of the brute creation, as fish and birds and sheep, to man, or
were to fetch Him a captive to a superior power after the manner of a
rebel. Or does he mean neither of these ways, but uses the word in a
different signification altogether to the scripture meaning? What,
then, is that signification? Does he lay down that we must rank Him as
inferior and not as equal, because He was given by our Lord to His
disciples third in order? By the same reasoning he should make the
Father inferior to the Son, since the Scripture often places the name
of our Lord first, and the Father Almighty second. “I and My
Father,” our Lord says. “The grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and the love of God111
,” and other
passages innumerable which the diligent student of Scripture
testimonies might collect: for instance, “there are differences
of gifts, but it is the same Spirit: and there are differences of
administration, but it is the same Lord: and there are differences of
operations, but it is the same God.” According to this, then, let
the Almighty Father, who is mentioned third, be made
‘subject’ to the Son and the Spirit. However we have never
yet heard of a philosophy such as this, which relegates to the category
of the inferior and the dependent that which is mentioned second or
third only for some particular reason of sequence: yet that is what our
author wants to do, in arguing to show that the order observed in the
transmission of the Persons amounts to differences of more and less in
dignity and nature. In fact he rules that sequence in point of order is
indicative of unlikeness of nature: whence he got this fancy, what
necessity compelled him to it, is not clear. Mere numerical rank does
not create a different nature: that which we would count in a number
remains the same in nature whether we count it or not. Number is a mark
only of the mere quantity of things: it does not place second those
things only which have an inferior natural value, but it makes the
sequence of the numerical objects indicated in accordance with the
intention of those who are counting. ‘Paul and Silvanus and
Timotheus’ are three persons mentioned according to a particular
intention. Does the place of Silvanus, second and after Paul, indicate
that he was other than a man? Or is Timothy, because he is third,
considered by the writer who so ranks him a different kind of being?
Not so. Each is human both before and after this arrangement. Speech,
which cannot utter the names of all three at once, mentions each
separately according to an order which commends itself, but unites them
by the copula, in order that the juncture of the names may show the
harmonious action of the three towards one end.
This, however, does not please
our new dogmatist. He opposes the arrangement of Scripture. He
separates off that equality with the Father and the Son of His proper
and natural rank and connexion which our Lord Himself pronounces, and
numbers Him with ‘subjects’: he declares Him to be a work
of both Persons112
| 112 he
declares Him to be a work of both Persons. With regard to Gregory’s own belief as to the procession of
the Holy Spirit, it may be said once for all that there is hardly
anything (but see p. 99, note 5) clear about it to be found in his
writings. The question, in fact, remained undecided until the 9th
century, the time of the schism of the East and West. But here, as in
other points, Origen had approached the nearest to the teaching of the
West: for he represents the procession as from Father and Son, just as
often as from one Person or the other. Athanasius does certainly say
that the Spirit ‘unites the creation to the Son, and through the
Son to the Father,’ but with him this expression is not followed
up: while in the Roman Church it led to doctrine. For why does the Holy
Spirit unite the creation with God continuously and perfectly? Because,
to use Bossuet’s words, “proceeding from the Father and the
Son He is their love and eternal union.” Neither Basil, nor
Gregory Nazianzen, nor Chrysostom, have anything definite about the
procession of the Third Person. | , of the Father, as
supplying the cause of His constitution, of the Only-begotten, as of
the artificer of His subsistence: and defines this as the ground of His
‘subjection,’ without as yet unfolding the meaning of
‘subjection.’E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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