All That Is in God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism

by James E. Dolezal

Plantinga’s social trinitarianism has removed the safeguards against tritheism.

John Owen explains that the “mutual in-being of the persons” is “by reason of their unity in the same substance or essence.”

Thomas Aquinas offers the same reason for coinherence among the persons: “The Father is in the Son by His essence, forasmuch as the Father is His own essence, and communicates His essence to the Son not by any change on His part. Hence it follows that as the Father’s essence is in the Son, the Father Himself is in the Son; likewise, since the Son is His own essence, it follows that He Himself is in the Father in Whom is His essence…. And the same applies to the Holy Ghost.”54

What is needed is not simply a mechanism by which to bring the divine persons into proximity with each other in the “circulation of the divine life,” but a mechanism by which to unite the divine persons as one. Where perichoresis may make oneness among the three persons possible, divine simplicity makes it necessary.57

But as Ortlund shows, without first grasping certain truths about the divine existence and essence—most importantly, divine simplicity—there is no guarantee that one’s doctrine of the trinitarian relations and persons will be necessarily monotheistic.

The more cautious accounts of compositional unity manifest their affinity with social trinitarianism in particular when it is argued that the three persons of the Godhead are three centers of consciousness with three distinct wills. Often this communal account of divine knowledge and will is found alongside traditional affirmation of the persons’ identity of substance and essence.

This is the logical conclusion of a social trinitarianism, it leads to many possible errors in explaining God's Knowledge and Decree to name a couple. I am sure that there are many more undesirable consequences of this social trinitarianism (Open theism & Molinism). Need to explore this more.

The result of this is that divine knowing and willing are distinguished from the divine essence; and to the extent we say God knows or God wills, it can only be the result of discrete personal acts of knowing and willing coalescing together. The divine mind is hereby reduced to a form of “group thinking.” This compositional unity of God’s mind and volition appears to be an inchoate form of social trinitarianism.

Another way in which some recent Calvinist theologians advance the notion of a compositional unity of divine knowledge and will is through the teaching of eternal functional subordination. In short, this teaching claims that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father such that the Father has a unique power and authority to issue commands to the Son, and the Son, in turn, has the unique obligation to submit Himself to the Father’s command. Thus, each possesses a power of will that is really distinct from the other.

What makes this claim controversial is that this command-obedience arrangement is said to characterize the relations of the persons within the Godhead itself (ad intra) and not merely to ...

In other words, the singular power of God and will of God need not be one in any sense other than that of moral collaboration and agreement. More to the point, it would seem they cannot be one except through a corporate unity of purpose and agreement since eternal functional subordination requires that the volition of the Father, Son, and Spirit be three really distinct volitional acts.64

Dolezal's assertion of how ESS functions

It is difficult to overstate the contrast between the older outlook of classical Christian theism and the newer viewpoint of theistic mutualism. These two approaches to the doctrine of God are not two slightly different ways of saying basically the same thing. The classical view insists upon God’s unchanging plentitude of being, while the mutualist view believes such an emphasis presents a barrier to the possibility of creatures enjoying a significant relationship with God.

Nevertheless, many evangelical theistic mutualists are wary of abandoning the claims of classical theism altogether. They desire to continue confessing that God is self-sufficient, infinite, eternal, and unchanging. In order to accommodate the demands of both the classical and mutualist approaches, they propose that God is all that classical theism claims with respect to His essence, while He is all that theistic mutualism requires with respect to those aspects of His being that are not part of His essence.

Without simplicity, it is not clear why God could not experience temporal change and thus fail to be timelessly eternal.

In fact, the God of classical Christian theism is infinitely more concerned with the welfare and conduct of His creatures than the God of theistic mutualism could ever be. This is because on the classical account God’s concern and care do not come and go; they do not rise and fall. They are one and the same as His eternal act of creation and, for His elect, the same as His eternal decree to do them good through the salvation He provides in His Son.

God cannot be made more compassionate toward sinners or more opposed to sin than He is from all eternity. This is because it is His nature to love, and it is His nature to detest sin.

God need not experience changes of relation in order to meaningfully relate Himself to His creatures. He need only ordain a change in the revelation of His unchanging being in accordance with His wisdom and the needs and requirements of the creature in time. In this way, it is not God who changes but rather the manifestations of God, which are perfectly suited to the needs and circumstances of His creatures—whether

Indeed, it would seem that the One who is unchanging, simple, and purely actual in all that He is—which is exactly what classical theism claims about God—is the One who is most profoundly vibrant and powerful in relating Himself to others.