Tackling Tradition 95: Kat Boan Vs. Paul (On Baptism)

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One can’t help but notice she demands a prooftext without any exposition of the text.     Yet embedded in her own meme are 3 statements that are intended to inform us of what she believes the text to mean.   It (her prooftext) doesn’t say, “Christ sent me primarily to preach the Gospel. It does not say, “Baptism is important, just not the center of my ministry. It does not say, “Christ sent me to preach AND water baptize.” One the one hand, “I don’t need a paraphrase explaining what you think Paul meant,” yet on the other, she provides 3 statements that form either 3 short, one sentence, paragraphs or 3 short statements that form a single paragraph.     What she engages in the very behavior she herselfs eschews from any who dare challenge her.   Why should anyone here take her seriously?     She’s just another tantruming child testing people’s alleged biblical/theological illiteracy/ignorance as if she is in possession of knowledge ...
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Eternal Generation Or Autotheos?

 Steve Hays writes…

The doctrine of Eternal Generation leads to eternal subordination.  In formulating the Trinity, two opposing errors are to be avoided: tritheism and unitarianism. Nicene subordinationism is a harmonistic device to avoid tritheism by making the Father the primary God. Standing behind the phrases God “of” God, light “of” light, and true God “of” true God is the imagery of the Father as the fons deitatis or fons trinitatis. And this is a form of modalism. It preserves monotheism by treating the Son as a secondary or second-grade divinity, and the Spirit as a tertiary or third-grade divinity. What you have is a continuity rather than identity of essence. Creedal categories of generation and procession serve the same function.

Nicene subordinationism represents a compromise position, swapping one heresy for another.


The true doctrine is that the Godhead’s hypostases are each autotheos. To contend that each person is autotheos doesn't mean the persons exist independently of each other; rather it means that one doesn't cause the other two, yet all 3 are simultaneously and eternally perichoretic. They do not represent three different points of origin. On this model, they have no causal origin, yet they aren't separate. 


Eternal generation leads to the idea that that the Father and Son are not coequal insofar as the Son is derived from the Father.  His existence is generate, not ingenerate.   He isn’t really authotheos in a manner that isn’t derivative.  The Son still owes his existence to the Father. Since his existence is derivative, and contingent on another, he's not truly a se. The ontological asymmetry is stark. 


In relation to the Incarnation, Eternal Generation leads to the idea that that the Father and Son are not coequal insofar as the Son is derived from the Father & this applies not merely to Christ’s human nature which is created but also to His divine nature such that the Son’s existence is generate, not ingenerate.   He isn’t really authotheos in a manner that isn’t derivative.  The Son still owes his existence to the Father. Since his existence is derivative, and contingent on another, he's not truly a se.  The Father is the immanent & economic monarch of the Trinity. 


O LORD, Hear our prayer(s)! 



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