I never inferred that Jesus’s divine nature becoming inferior. I always assume that Jesus has the same divine nature with God the Father though subordinate (not equal).
it seems that you are in the same position of eternal subordination. My question is never about Jesus’ divinity, but His equality with God the Father.
That is the wrong question. The right question should be “if Christ is already equal with the Father, what does it mean that God “highly exalted Him”?
The fact is there are different councils competing against one another at a time. Though the Catholic church had reformed itself, it went through quite a dark period where many bad things happened thus comes the reformation.
good thinking. the problem with the doctrine of trinity is that it was not revealed as such by our unknowable God, but it was conceived by human ingenuity. Man decided that our God is such (trinity) based on their understanding of the Bible and then claimed that this trinity (that is manmade) is unknowable. Kind of a circular argument.
Yes. I guess it is a commonly accepted fact that there were bad apples in the history of the so called apostolic succession, including even Popes. It demands much faith to believe that none of the councils or Popes made errors, when during the worst point of the history there were 2-3 competing Popes and as you wrote, competing councils.
From the first centuries onwards, there was a growing split between the west and the east of the Roman empire. There were also separate churches in the Near East. Relying on what one denomination decided after the growing split is an indirect claim that the other half of the Christianity went wrong - Holy Spirit guided us but not you.
After the western tradition faced internal divisions, there always pops up the same claim: Holy Spirit is with us and guides us but not you.
Unfortunately, the fruits often disagree with the words.
Despite these ugly facts, there is always a need to inspect and judge first me and my denomination before starting to judge the beliefs of the other believers or denominations. It is wisdom to be humble and recognize the possibility that all groups may support some number of wrong interpretations. Our reality is not a black-and-white world with some being 100% correct and the others being 100% wrong.
I think there’s a category mistake in the phrase “same divine nature, but subordinate (not equal).” If we mean “subordinate” in any ontological sense (lesser in rank of being, authority, or glory as God), then it clashes with what “same divine nature” means in classical theism and in the way Scripture speaks about the Son.
Divinity isn’t a class with internal ranks (“more God / less God”). The divine nature is infinite, simple, and indivisible. So if the Son truly possesses the one divine essence, He is not a lesser deity, nor a divine person with reduced attributes or authority.
That’s why Nicene Christianity didn’t say merely “similar nature,” but “true God from true God” and “of one substance.” Same essence entails full equality.
Even if we put aside later creeds, the New Testament repeatedly places the Son on God’s side of the Creator/creature line:
John 5:23: the Son is to be honored “just as” the Father is honored. If the Son is eternally lesser in divine status, that statement becomes very hard to square with strict monotheism.
John 17:5: Jesus speaks of the glory He had “with” the Father “before the world existed.” That is not merely incarnational; it’s pre-creational, shared divine glory.
John 1:3 (and parallels): all things were made through Him—creation is a divine act, not the act of a subordinate semi-divine agent.
So the NT doesn’t merely say “Jesus is divine in some sense,” but gives Him divine prerogatives, worship, and eternal glory that don’t fit “not equal.”
When Trinitarian theology says the Son is “from the Father,” it means relation of origin, not a chain of command.
The Father is unbegotten.
The Son is eternally begotten.
But that does not imply “the Father has more authority as God,” because authority/will in God is not divided by persons. God has one divine will and one divine power. If you posit an eternal authority structure where the Father commands and the Son obeys as God, you’ve effectively introduced two centers of will inside the divine life—which is not Nicene Trinitarianism.
So:
origin ≠ inequality
distinction of persons ≠ gradation of deity
In 1 Cor 15:24–28, Paul is describing the Son’s reign as the Messiah who defeats death and restores creation. That reign is “until” the final enemy is destroyed. Then He “hands over” the kingdom.
That language fits perfectly with a mission-role (mediator/head of the redeemed order), not with a claim that the Son is eternally a lesser divine authority.
And notice what the passage does not say:
It does not say the Son becomes less divine.
It does not say the Son is eternally under the Father in essence.
It describes the completion of a redemptive economy, so that “God may be all in all.”
So yes, the “subjection” continues beyond the earthly phase—but it continues as the Messiah’s mediatorial ordering of creation to God, not as an everlasting statement that “the Son is not equal to the Father as God.”
The Son’s obedience is real—but it is the obedience of the incarnate Son (the Son as man, and as mediator). That’s exactly the structure of texts like Philippians 2: the humility/obedience/exaltation sequence is about what the Son assumesin becoming man, not what He eternally is “behind” the incarnation.
If you make obedience/subordination eternal in the divine life (not merely in the economy of salvation), you end up with:
either a split will in God, or
a lesser divine person.
Either way, it stops being the classical Trinitarian position.
So I’m not arguing for “eternal subordination.” I’m arguing for:
Equality of essence (the Son is fully and eternally equal to the Father as God),
Distinction of persons (Father is Father, Son is Son),
Economic submission (the Son submits in the incarnation and mediatorial mission),
Relational origin without hierarchy (“from the Father” does not mean “under the Father”).
I certainly respect the fact that there are Christians who hold different views; at the same time I certainly don’t think it’s possible, personally, that God has possibly allowed the Church to teach falsehoods as dogma. So yeah this is one of those cases where two Christians from different denominations can only say “let’s agree to disagree”. 
I am a Unitarian Universalist. But I would think it would be great if we
could tone down the rhetoric about what is Christian heresy. It never goes well.
G.Brooks
Of course—my apologies. I was speaking from a Trinitarian perspective, where this is not considered an objectionable doctrine or something that would be granted the benefit of the doubt. I did not intend to be offensive.
you are defining “divinity” or “divine nature” based on what source? the Bible? This is unknowable subject beyond the scope of the scripture.
This is definitely not in the Bible. All man made up trying to define Who God is. “true God from true God”. Not sure if anyone can understand that term. All I am saying is that what you are taking out from Nicene creed lie outside the scope of the scripture. (beyond of what the scripture said) I am at the position to say that whatever is said about our God must be based on revelation instead of our own logical conclusion since God is unknowable.
I agree to what the Bible says about Jesus. the term “not equal” is actually mentioned by Jesus himself. “The Father is greater than the Son”. It is our theological framework that try to reinterpret it in view of incarnation, not of eternity. Why should we interpret what Jesus said as temporal in part?
the term revealed to us as the Father and the Son itself carry the connotation of hierarchy. Of course the Father should be greater than the Son since the Son is begotten from the Father.
if you look closely the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane, there Jesus who was always obey the Father and seemed to fear the coming persecution. Jesus has a different will from the Father. That is why the Father loves the Son because the Son obeys the Father.
I could not respond to this because I have no idea where you have that understanding that this is not “an everlasting statement”. I think you look and interpret all these based on preconceived idea of what the trinity is. I personally like to see the text and see what the text really say instead of trying to interpret everything we read in the Bible thru our preconceived understanding of trinity.
Again, you are thinking from classical trinitarian position, but not from the Bible point of view.
This is where my problem lies. We should go back to the Bible and judge whether the trinitarian position is biblical instead of starting from trinitarian position and interpret everything from that lense.
I don’t think “believing the gospel” the Jesus preached and Paul spread requires a formal doctrine of the Trinity. Obviously the people listening to the Sermon on the Mount or hearing Paul’s letter read in the assembly didn’t have the formal creeds and council declarations the church has today.
“Christian” as an identity label means many things to many people. If to you it means membership in a recognized historical Christian denomination, that is going to probably involve confessing creeds or signing your name to Trinitarian doctrinal statements. But all the time people have qualms about different areas of their particular tradition’s doctrinal or position statements on issues like the virgin birth, historical Adam and Eve, original sin, eternal conscious torment, penal substitutionary atonement, statements on gender, sexuality, marriage, divorce, and birth control, eschatology, inspiration, and other things. They still identify with the community for reasons.
And for some people “Christian” simply means a follower of Christ, and I think it’s certainly more challenging to put into practice the ethics of Christ’s teaching and follow the example of his life than to mentally assent to church doctrines. I sometimes wonder if we have really missed the boat assuming that the latter is more indicative of a transformed heart and mind than the former.
agree totally
That is a wise saying Christy.
The problem is that you do not distinguish between Jesus’ human nature and His divine nature. That is where your confusion arises. Even the early Christians, as Larry Hurtado has shown, had a strong understanding of Jesus’ full divinity while at the same time remaining monotheists. And it’s not like they had the Nicene creed.
I do appreciate your response. Can you please show me from the Bible where the Jesus human nature and His divine nature was clearly distinguished? If we are going back to the source (the Bible), then I am more than glad to accept that view that some of what Jesus was saying was temporal.
I understand why it might seem intuitive to say “the Father is greater because the Son is begotten from Him,” but that conclusion doesn’t actually follow—at least not if we’re talking about divine nature.
In Trinitarian theology, begetting does not mean producing something lesser or inferior. It means that the Son is from the Father, but receives the same divine nature fully and completely.
So the key point is: “from” does not mean “less than.”
If the Father communicates the divine nature to the Son, He does not give a reduced or partial divinity—because divinity isn’t something that can be divided or diminished. The Son possesses the fullness of what it means to be God, just as the Father does.
That’s exactly why the New Testament can say things like:
John 1:1 → “the Word was God”
Colossians 2:9 → “in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily”
John 5:23 → the Son is to be honored just as the Father is honored
If the Son were “lesser” in any real sense, that last statement would be very difficult to explain.
The mistake, I think, is assuming that origin implies hierarchy, like it does in created things.
For example:
a human father exists before his son
the son depends on the father
But that logic doesn’t transfer to God, because:
The Son is eternally begotten (not in time, not after the Father)
The divine nature is infinite and indivisible
So there is no “before,” no “less,” and no “greater degree” of divinity.
A better way to put it is:
The Father is the source (without origin)
The Son is from the Father (by eternal generation)
But both are equally and fully God
So begetting establishes a real distinction of persons,
but not a ranking of divinity.
If begetting implied inferiority, then the Son wouldn’t be truly God in the same sense as the Father—which would contradict the very passages that affirm His full divinity.
In short:
Not sure if I am qualified to respond to something that I think is unknowable. You do realise that all the assumptions or definitions you make about the Father and the Son is not from what the Bible define, but from the framework of trinitarian theology. I am not saying that you are wrong, but the subject is unknowable unless revealed to us by God Himself in the Bible.
That’s a great question—and I respect that you want to go back directly to Scripture.
You’re right that the Bible doesn’t present a later theological formula like “two natures” in technical terms. But what it does do—very consistently—is attribute to Jesus things that belong properly to God, and things that belong properly to man, and sometimes it even distinguishes them within the same context.
The only way to make sense of all of that together is to recognize a real distinction.
1. A direct textual distinction: “according to the flesh”
This is very important because Paul explicitly qualifies one aspect of Christ:
“according to the flesh” → His human lineage and nature
“Son of God in power” → His divine identity
That’s already a two-level way of speaking about the same person.
2. Simultaneous limitation and divine status
But also:
So:
He does not know something → proper to a human condition
He possesses all knowledge → proper to divinity
These are not easily reducible to one single “mode”—they point to a real distinction.
Hebrews 2:14
“He partook of flesh and blood…”
Hebrews 1:3
“…upholding all things by the word of His power.”
So the same author affirms:
He shares our human condition
He sustains the entire universe
One belongs to humanity, the other to God.
This is not:
“the Word stopped being God”
or “the Word appeared human”
Namely: the same subject is fully God and becomes truly human
That’s a distinction without separation.
5. Jesus acting from two different “levels”
John 5:19
“The Son can do nothing from Himself…” (dependence)
John 5:21
“The Son gives life to whom He will.” (divine authority)
Within the same passage:
He acts in dependence → fitting a human/mediatorial role
He gives life sovereignly → a divine prerogative
Luke 23:46 → Jesus dies
John 5:26 → He has life “in Himself”
God, by definition, cannot die, yet Jesus truly dies
The only coherent way to hold both:
He dies according to His humanity
He possesses life according to His divinity
The Bible repeatedly does this:
It attributes human limitations to Jesus
It attributes divine attributes to Jesus
It sometimes explicitly qualifies one side (“according to the flesh”)
It applies both to the same person
So when Jesus says things like:
“the Father is greater than I”
or speaks/acts in dependence
those statements fit naturally with what Scripture already shows: namely that He truly operates within a human condition but that does not negate the equally clear passages that affirm His full divine identity and nature.
The Bible doesn’t give the later terminology—but it gives something just as strong: a consistent pattern where what belongs to God and what belongs to man are both said of Christ, and sometimes distinguished.
And once you take all of those passages seriously together,
the distinction between His human and divine nature isn’t an added idea—it’s the best explanation of the data already in the text.
No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:18)
If we look at what is revealed to us from the scripture, then we might find a different picture of our understanding about trinity.
Just as that passage from John 1:18. No one (human beings) has ever seen God (the Father); the only God, (that is Jesus) who is at the Father’s side, he (Jesus) has made Him (the Father) known.
That is such an interesting revelation to us. No one has ever seen the Father. not one person even Moses. Jesus is referred in as the only God as if it is talking about a different entity than the Father. This God has made the Father known as this God is visible.
Not really. As I said, while the earliest Christians didn’t yet have a fully developed Trinitarian framework, they already worshipped Jesus as God while remaining strictly monotheistic. That means they already recognized the Son as truly God—just like the Father—distinct from Him, yet not a separate God, much less an inferior one. Have you ever read Larry Hurtado? I think you’d find his work worth exploring.
In the Old Testament, “elohim” is a category term, applied to Yahweh and also to other spiritual beings (e.g., Psalm 82). But Yahweh is uniquely the uncreated Creator and covenant Lord.
So the question is simply this:
Who agrees that Scripture can acknowledge other “elohim” while still denying any Yahweh-level rival?
For those who do, “many elohim” does not contradict the uniqueness of Yahweh.
Those do not need to identify which texts you think deny that distinction.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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