EFS, Metaphysics and Theology - A second response to Derrick Brite on EFS (Part 1)

Back in December 2021, Rev. Derrick Brite wrote a response to Dr. Owen Strachan concerning his most recent defense of EFS (Eternal Function Submission or ESS - Eternal Submission of the Son).^[1] Despite the fact that I had expressed skepticism over his desire for conversation, Brite did seem sincere and I wrote a response to his article.^[2] One month went by, then two. My cynicism however was misplaced, as Derrick Brite pulled through with his commitment to a conversation on the topic of EFS, and wrote a response to my post.^[3] I would therefore like to respond to his article with the same care and kindness he has shown.

In this first response, Brite expressed dissatisfaction with my response. In his view, while he acknowledges that we (EFS and EFS-adjacent) overtly reject ontological subordination, our theologies would ultimately result in a belief in ontological subordination. In his view, “You can’t make the claim that EFS/ERAS isn’t about ontological subordination while continuing to make statements of ontological disparity.” In other words, according to Brite, any statement in line with EFS is a statement of ontological disparity. Therefore, even though we deny ontological subordination, our statements are making a case for ontological subordination despite our denials that we are doing so.

Since I as a Reformed Christian focus on the Pactum Salutis, it is fitting that Brite addressed that issue head-on. According to Brite, he believed that distinct wills are not required for a covenant, stating that such “would be news to many Reformed theologians” and that “submission is not a necessary ingredient for covenant.” Citing D. Glen Butner and Herman Witsius, Brite believed that my interpretation of the Pactum is in error. What is required for the covenant is merely agreement without the Son “subject[ing] … to the Father.”

Brite’s response is careful and nuanced. As someone who learns how to see things from different angles (i.e. different paradigms), I would certainly agree with him if I held to his philosophical presuppositions. But that is the crux of the issue: I don’t. With that, I will like to unpack what this means in the rest of this response.

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On the Metaphysics of Will and Submission

What is “will”? What is “submission”? What do these words mean? Brite has not really explained them, but rather used them in a certain manner which I guess he thinks is self-evident. “Will” to Classical Theists is a theological term with a history going back to the Sixth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople III - 680-1AD), where Monothelitism was rejected as heresy against the Catholic (i.e. universal) Church. In this early medieval setting, “will” was understood to be a property of nature. Since Jesus Christ has two natures (human and divine), a truth established at Chalcedon in 451 AD, he must have two wills as well (human and divine). From then on, theology done in line with that tradition ties “will” to “nature.” Shifting from Christology to Theology Proper, the fact that God has one nature must necessarily mean that God has one will as well. The link tying “nature” to “will” is taken to be an axiom in theological discourse, but for some strange reason was never questioned at all. Why should “will” be a property of “nature”?

We can see Brite taking this axiomatically when he asserts that “will is a natural property,” and therefore states that “to teach that the Son submits His will to the Father in eternity strikes at the heart of the doctrine of divine simplicity.” Lost in all this is the failure to question that key assertion. Lost in this as well is the failure to think critically about church history. We must remember that the Sixth Ecumenical Council was no ecumenical council at all, regardless of whether what they had pronounced was or was not true. Furthermore, as it emerged in a time when the light of the Gospel was rapidly fading leading to the relative darkness of the medieval period (thus necessitating the Reformation), questions should be raised as to the orthodoxy of that council. Ruminating on the progress of church history, we should realize that the same Eastern splinter of the Church Catholic directly contradicted Scripture in the “Seventh Ecumenical Council” of Nicaea II where it mandated the use of icons.

The axiom that “will” is a property of the nature and not of the person poses problems for one’s theological anthropology as well. The Eastern Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky asserts that in a human person, “the nature wills and acts, the person chooses, accepting or rejecting that which the nature wills.”^[4] In other words, in order to preserve Constantinople III’s assertion that will is a property of nature, Lossky states that the person does not will anything at all, but chooses after the will wills. Of course, that helps to preserve the Synergism in Eastern Orthodoxy, since the human nature is totally sinful yet Man is free to choose or not choose God. Regardless of that, the point to take note here is how unnatural such a definition of “will” is.

It is Brite and the Classical Theists’ prerogative to define “will” in that strange manner. For the rest of us however, “will” just means “will” - what a person does in choosing something or another thing; one action or another action. Therefore, because we do not define “will” in that strange, unnatural manner, Brite’s argument fails. We do not therefore see the submission of the will of the Son to the Father as undermining the doctrine of divine simplicity.

I have a few questions here for Brite and other Classical Theists: (1) Can you admit that we EFSers are running with a different definition for “will” here? (2) In light of Martin Luther arguing for the bondage of the will, do you agree that both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy would have no problem with Luther’s view on the will if a distinction is made, per Lossky, between “will” and “choosing”? (3) Therefore, do you think that the definition of “will” you are running with (Constantinople III’s definition) is truly the normal meaning of “will” and the prevalent one in the Reformed Tradition, and if so why?

On the meaning of the word “submission,” I must state again that in EFS, the word always indicates an action. The idea that “submission” necessarily implies ontological ordering, or any idea of superiority or inferiority, is a view we reject. Here again, I would like to ask Brite and the other classical theists: Can you agree that EFSers do not associate superiority or inferiority to the word “submission”? Therefore, would you be willing to not read tones of superiority and inferiority every time you see the word “submission”?

[to be continued]

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[1] Derrick Brite, “A Response to Strachan,” Reformation 21 (blog), Dec 13 2021. Accessed Feb 14 2022 (https://www.reformation21.org/blog/a-response-to-strachan)

[2] Daniel H. Chew, “A Response to Derrick Brite on the Issue of EFS,” Daniel’s Place (blog), Dec 16 2021. Accessed Feb 14 2022 (https://puritanreformed.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-response-to-derrick-brite-on-issue-of.html)

[3] Derrick Brite, “Covenant and Ontology: An EFS Rejoinder,” Reformation 21 (blog), Feb 10 2022. Accessed Feb 14 2022 (https://www.reformation21.org/blog/covenant-and-ontology-an-efs-rejoinder)

[4] Vladimir Lossksky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1957), 125