On the Only-begotten Son's Essential Subordination to His God and Father

A trinitarian stated the following:

>[We do] teach that the Son is subject to the Father!<

Paul's statement that the Father is over all includes his being over the Son! We don't see in Ephesians 4:5, 6 anything about merely a functional subordination as opposed to essential (ontological) subordination for the Son, which should have been a critical distinction for the Scriptures to make at Ephesians 4:5, 6 for the Son's subordination were it so that a reader of Ephesians 4:5, 6 should not think that the Son's subordination is like that of all other persons with the Son in the set ‘All persons subordinate to the Father.’ In fact, we don't see anywhere in the Scriptures anything that should lead us away from the conclusion ‘The Son's subordination is essential, ontological.’ Yes, the Word is God's only-begotten Son; moreover, John 1:18 says that the Word is the only-begotten QEOS (god). This means that the Son's godship is derivative, whereas nowhere do we read that such is true for the Father's godship. The Father alone owns unoriginate (unbegotten, uncreated) godship.

The same trinitarian stated the following:

>That [subjection of the Son to the Father] has nothing to do with the fact that that they are equal in nature! The Son is begotten of the Father and is God by nature.<

We know from the Scriptures that the Son is by nature a divine being. He has a fullness of all the properties essential to godship (compare Colossians 1:19; 2: 9), but that does not mean that he has as many attributes in his being as has the Father (e.g., the Father does not live because of anyone else, but the Son lives because of the Father--John 6:57; compare Micah 5:2; the Son makes no procession of holy spirit, but the Father does; only the Father has necessary to his being that by which it is impossible for him to be other than loyal to the absolute, infinite holiness of his character--see Revelation 15:3, 4), nor does it mean that the Son’s godship properties are to the same degree as the Father's. Moreover, Paul's statement at Colossians 1:19 (“ . . . because [God] saw good for all fullness to dwell in [Christ]”) shows us that the Son's godship is not one unbestowed, that is to say, it is not an instance of godship that, by necessity, has existed from all past eternity. If it were so, then Paul should not have said the Son's fullness was because of the Father's good pleasure, His will, His decision. The Son, however, owns what was kindly given him by his Father (see also Philippians 2: 9).

The phrase “the only-begotten son of God” means ‘a uniquely generated son of God,’ or ‘a son uniquely generated by God.’ It does not mean that God does not have other sons besides the only-begotten son of God, but it does mean that their having been brought into existence by God the Creator is not like the way God brought into existence the firstborn of all creation, God’s only-begotten Son. (God directly created the firstborn of all creation.) And yet it is not how God brought into existence any of his sons—whether directly or through his privileging another person to serve as an intermediate agent in the creation of all persons besides the Creator and His intermediate agent--that necessarily makes any comment as respects the nature they have. What necessarily speaks to something in their nature as endowment that is necessarily present in their nature (in order that they should enjoy communion with God)? The phrase “son of God” speaks to that matter. The predicate in ‘One who is a son of God’ does not necessarily denote for the subject divinity, godship. (We need only to recall that Adam came into existence as a son of God, yet we know he was not a divine being.) The phrase “son of God” tells us that Adam was brought into existence as a rational and moral image of his Creator so that he could commune naturally with his Creator. Every actual son of God, i.e., one who is a son of God in the essence of his being, has received and retains endowment from God whereby he is naturally able to commune freely and acceptably with God, this regardless of whether we refer to the nature of earthly persons (e.g., the pre-fall Adam and Eve, and those to whom the apostle referred in Romans 8:21), or we refer to the nature of spirit persons so long as they, too, are in actual fact sons of God and not fallen angels (i.e., demons, those spirits cut off from spiritual fellowship with God).

Suppose for sake of argument that God’s firstborn of all (rational) creation had been Adam. Such an Adam would have been, at least for a while, God’s only-begotten son, which phrase can have for its referent the only person that God directly creates. Until such time as God might directly create Eve for her to be Adam’s wife, then such an Adam would have been for a while God’s only-begotten son. With direct creation of another person (Eve), however, such an Adam would lose his only-begottenness status, that is to say, such an Adam would no longer be the only one that God had directly brought into existence. Now, such an Adam as we postulate here merely for sake of argument would lose his status as God’s only-begotten son, but not because of any change in his nature; rather, he would lose it because of God’s having directly created another person.

Of course, such a scenario as we have imagined in the immediately preceding paragraph is not historical, but serves only to illustrate what we mean by the adjective “only-begotten.” Our imaginary scenario illustrates that it is logically possible that the phrase "only-begotten son of God" might have applied—at least for a while had there never been created any spirit sons of God prior to Adam's creation—to an earthly son of God (Adam), and yet no one argues that even if there had ever been such an only-begotten and earthly son of God, in the person of Adam, that it should mean that such an Adam was “God from God,” or even that such an Adam was a divine being lesser than Jehovah.

How Did Early Christians View Military Service?

I have had in my library for about twenty years now a book (second edition) by Jean-Michel Hornus (translated by Alan Kreider and Oliver Coburn), IT IS NOT LAWFUL FOR ME TO FIGHT. Early Christian Attitudes Towards War, Violence, and the State (Herald Press: Scottdale, PA / Kitchener, Ontario, 1980) 370 pages. It puts into perspective the fact that there were (some--very few) soldiers who found themselves in an especially dangerous position because, now that they had accepted the Gospel, they were finding themselves increasingly conflicted and subject to execution should they follow the dictates of their conscience in refusing to act out entirely the role expected of soldiers in the emperor's service. However, there were other nominal Christians serving as soldiers who had the name of being Christian before ever they found themselves in the emperor's military. Hornus puts all this in perspective:

"But we can say confidently that the Christians then in the army ["a result of Roman recruiting methods of compulsory service whereby a as certain category of persons would be impressed all over the empire at a time when Christianity, as an unrecognized religion, could not provide grounds for exemption"] had not enlisted voluntarily after they had become Christians. Their presence in it, which initially was a result of the persecution, soon ran the risk of eliciting further persecution, as uncompromising Christians began to bring out, for all to see, the latent opposition between their faith and the empire. The more cautious believers [i.e., the ones more fainthearted and willing to make compromise of their faith] were therefore enraged and terrified to hear [, for example,] of the soldier's daring exploit in Tertullian's De Corona [, "which concerns a soldier who suddenly refused to wear a laurel wreath which was given him, in accordance with custom, at the time of donativum. Many Christians were critical of his refusal; but Tertullian defended it by moving progressively from a discussion of the nature and significance of garlands to a clear and categorical denunciation of military service. Two things are especially noteworthy here: until his sudden gesture this Christian had been a soldier; and Tertullian tells us that there were other Christian soldiers who did not have the courage to follow his example."]--pp. 123-24.

Hornus helps us to appreciate that some nominal Christians were in the military and were soldiers before they heard the Gospel. After hearing the Gospel, some became increasingly conflicted until they made open acknowledgment of their newfound faith-- and paid the price for it. Other nominal Christians who were in the military after they had become Christians were in the military because they were impressed under persecution so that they compromised their faith when becoming soldiers for the emperor. Some of these later found courage of their convictions--and they, too, paid the price for it. Many others remained cowered by Roman persecution.

Clement addresses a situation where some soldiers become believers. Hornus helps us to appreciate the real meaning of what Clement advised. Hornus quotes Clement, and afterwards makes comments on Clement's words. (I have added in brackets words that are not a quotation taken from Hornus' book, but are words that present the meaning that Hornus argues was in Clement's words.)  So, in Hornus' book we read:

                         ""Till the ground, we say, if you are a husbandman,
                            but recognize God in your husbandry. Sail the
                            sea, you who are seafaring; but ever call on the
                            heavenly pilot. Were you a soldier on campaign
                            when the knowledge of God laid hold on you? 
                            Then listen [as any good soldier would listen
                            to his commander, but only now you should be
                            determined to listen instead to the only
                            worthwhile commander,] to the commander
                            who signals righteousness.... "

"This text is not to be interpreted as an approbation of [Roman] military service; rather it must almost certainly be understood as an invitation to leave the army.... From these various passages [where Clement touches on soldiering] we may conclude that military life was a reality which Clement observed in the world; but it was not a course of action which he endorsed for the Christian."--pp. 124-25

I find Hornus especially insightful in what he writes on page 67:
"Once one admitted that Constantine was God's elect, one was compelled to falsify the historical truth where necessary to make his personality correspond to [traditional Christian] expectations [of how a spiritual brother ought to treat another brother] . . . Thus, while Constantine and Licinius were still fighting as allies against Maxentius and Daia, the first editions of Eusebius and Lactantius depicted both men--Licinius as well as Constantine--as acting in God's name and with his help. But later, after Constantine had
quarreled with Licinius and then deposed him, the two Christian writers had to make hurried and clumsy emendations in their work.
Now they vilified Licinius and attempted to demonstrate retrospectively that in reality the light of God's grace had all along shown on Constantine alone. The most egregious Soviet historians of the Stalinist period could scarcely have done better--or worse."

I may post more excerpts from Hornus. But I recommend that you visit a library in order to read all of Hornus' work. He helps put the lie to some revisionist historiography, namely, that which seeks to distort the record of early Christianity as respects how early
Christians before the fourth century were opposed to the idea that they (loyal Christians) may serve in any earthly army.