One God in Three Persons: Unity of Essence, Distinction of Persons, Implications for Life

by Bruce A. Ware, John Starke, Kyle Claunch (Contributor)

How do the three persons of the Trinity relate to each other? Evangelicals continue to wrestle with this complex issue and its implications for our understanding of men's and women’s roles in both the home and the church.

Challenging feminist theologies that view the Trinity as a model for evangelical egalitarianism, One God in Three Persons turns to the Bible, church history, philosophy, and systematic theology to argue for the eternal submission of the Son to the Father.

Genres: Theology

274 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 30, 2014

About the author

Bruce A. Ware (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is professor of Christian theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has written numerous journal articles, book chapters, book reviews, and has authored God's Lesser Glory, God's Greater Glory, and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Reviews

[Rex Blackburn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boy, this book just went straight over my head. I know this isn't the case, but it seemed to me throughout the book that so many of these arguments were merely semantical. I was able to get my head around many parts of it, but the level of precision we apparently must use in our language to avoid heresy is pretty intimidating. I'll need to revisit this one in about a decade.

[John Brackbill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would recommend this book for those wanting to understand the "Eternal functional subordination" (EFS) view in contrast to the "Eternal functional equality" (EFE) view.

It is composed of 11 chapters by a total of 12 different authors. There are differences among the authors, but as a whole, the book does a good job exposing misunderstandings and misrepresentations that the EFE view has with the EFS view.

Chapter one starts off with a tone of controversy as Wayne Grudem dealing with "Doctrinal Deviations in Evangelical-Feminist Arguments about the Trinity."

Chapters 2-4 are the most exegetically focused chapters in the book dealing with the Father and Son in the Gospel of John (Cowan); "God is the Head of Christ" (Claunch; 1 Cor. 11:3), and "That God May be all in all" (Hamilton; 1 Cor. 15).

Chapters 5-8 deal with the doctrine of the Trinity throughout specific areas of church history. Suprisingly, I found these to be helpful in further clarifying and defining the issues.

Chapter 9 is an especially well laid out chapter dealing with three philosophical arguments against the EFS position. This chapter especially shows that there are strawmen arguments that are regularly used against the EFS position.

Chapter 10 deals with the simplicity of God.

In Chapter 11, Ware zeros in again on one of the philosophical arguments against the EFS position (Does affirming an Eternal Authority-Submission RElationship in the Trinity Entail a Denial of Homoousions?)

Multiple authorship books rarely satisfy, but this was a successful joint venture.

[Josh Stowers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book brought about by a bad argument. Although the argumentation that brought about this book has much heat but little illumination, it’s a fun read. Chapters 1-4 give great trinitarian theology, and is what I wanted in the whole book. Chapters 5-7 seemed disconnected because they are - the writers are forced to examine church fathers in a mere paragraph, expanding their trinitarian views in contrast with opposing egalitarians theologians, pulling out of their writings allegorical interpretations with a 21st century feministic view. ( Thats was a mouth full). However, chapter 8 pulled me back in with late church history that has more relevancy. Chapters 9-11 were intriguing as well spanning from philosophy to God’s simplicity. A good read over all.

[Davey Ermold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great primer for the view that the Son is eternally functionally subordinate to the Father. The subject is examined from exegetical, theological, historical, and philosophical vantage points. The arguments of those who deny EFS are brought up, considered, and rebutted. If one is quick to call EFS heterodox or heresy, they’d do well to read this book, particularly if they haven’t previously read any EFS work, instead relying on EFE sources to describe the view.

[Andrew Mulnix · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essential book for those researching EFS

[Nat Clements · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want a strong defense of EFS before the controversy, here is the book. A bit disjointed due to the multi-author format, but overall an enjoyable volume.

[Kendall · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read select essays of this for a paper about ESS. Wayne Grudem introduces the the entire complication in chapter 1. The book is brash.

[Zach Barnhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

The bill for this collection of essays was full of pastors/theologians I was excited to learn from: Grudem, Hamilton, Starke, Oliphint, etc. As it turns out, however, I was learning just as much about complementarianism as I was about the Trinity. What this collection of thoroughly academic work did was do more than analyze how the Trinity operates, and how to understand it, but more so, how we understand us in relation to it. 

Egalitarianism and other feminist theology has posed different angles in how we should understand the Trinity, and thus, ourselves and how man and woman relate to each other. In this book, scholars aim to put to rest these egalitarian ideas about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In this collection, you’ll find Scriptural arguments for eternal submission to the Father, the immanent Trinity, and the distinct actions of each person in the Trinity. 

I really enjoyed most of the essays. Some of the most interesting pieces to me include Cowan’s work on the Trinity as revealed in the gospel of John, Claunch’s exposition of 1 Corinthians 11:3, and Starke’s piece on Augustine.

I provide a word of caution here: many readers may pick up this book anticipating clarification on the Trinity, when in fact, at some points it almost seems to get more confusing. This is not a systematic treatment of the Trinity, but rather, a defense of complementarian views, with the Trinity as the basis for those views. I don’t necessarily agree with all of these implications of this approach — I feel like the complementarian vs. egalitarian debate can sometimes use the Trinity as their “power play” when in reality the Trinity is all about submissiveness, not necessarily power and authority. For further elaboration on what I mean, check out this great post by Scott Swain.

Here’s why you should read this book: It’s a great collection of well-thought-out academic work on the complementarian view of the Trinity, and how those who hold to such a view can rightly make a defense for it against the egalitarian approach. It’s pretty advanced, but if such topics are up your alley, you’ve got a great resource here.

Stars: 4.0/5.0
I was provided this book via Crossway in exchange for my review.