The Need for Creeds & Confessions — 3 Reasons

The Need for Creeds & Confessions — 3 Reasons

by | Mar 7, 2025 | Biblical Theology, Christology, Confessionalism, Ecclesiology, Historical Theology, Practical Theology, Systematic Theology

Over the last 200 years or so, the use of creeds and confessions has become a controversial issue. There are several reasons for this. To the ears of those having come out from Roman Catholicism, the language of “creeds” and “confessions” sounds, well, Roman Catholic. Others have more technical concerns. Creeds and confessions, it is widely believed, can and often do undermine the general Protestant conviction that Scripture alone is the ultimate source of revelation for Christian faith and life. On these grounds, creeds and confessions should either be disregarded or otherwise carefully qualified, e.g., “creeds are helpful, but Scripture is my only authority.”

In this article, I want to discuss three reasons why creeds and confessions, in principle, are necessary for churches. And why the above concerns originate from theological and historical misunderstandings of the nature and function of credal and confessional documents.

First: Every Christian Has a Creed and Confession

Perhaps the strongest and most obvious reason, if not proof, for why creeds and confessions are necessary in principle is that every Christian has a creed and confession. Either Christians have their very own customized creed and confession to fit their individual doctrinal preferences, or they’ve adopted one or more of the ancient creeds and confessions framed by our spiritual ancestors.

The same goes for churches. Either a church structures its own credal and confessional documents according to what seems right to it, or it has chosen to adopt preexisting creeds and confessions penned over the last 1,700 years.

The point here is that everyone has a creed and confession.

“No. I don’t have a creed or a confession,” one might say, “I follow the Bible alone.” This is a common objection to the above observation. However, even those who hold this perspective usually draw conclusions about Scriptural meaning as they read and interpret the Bible, and they typically have little hesitancy in summarizing their beliefs either verbally or in writing. When a person is asked, “What do you believe about God, Christ, the gospel, the church, etc.?” the likely response is a summary of beliefs about those particular areas of Christian theology. This is a tell-tale sign that the person answering has a creed, whether acknowledged or not.

When a pastor preaches Scripture, he doesn’t simply read the text. He exposits the meaning of the words in the text so that the congregation can understand what the Scripture says. Likewise, creeds and confessions reflect the meaning of Scripture for the convenience of corporate confession of the faith, the understanding of the laity, and the preservation of biblical truth.

Second: Scripture Itself Requires Creeds and Confessions

The Greek term often translated to “confession” in Scripture is ὁμολογία. The root word of this term is λεγω, which means “to say” or “to tell.” The biblical witness to the principle of confessing the faith is why many churches throughout the ages have recited creeds within their orders of worship. “Saying” or “telling” the faith is an apostolic practice.

For example, the apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, says, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (1 Tim. 6:12) This practice of confessing the faith outwardly, or externally declaring what believers believe, stretches back to Deuteronomy 6:4 in the Shema, “The LORD our God, the LORD is one!”

In Hebrews 3:1, the author writes, “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus…” And again, in 4:14, “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.” Confessing the faith is even linked with salvation in Romans 10:9, “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Following the apostolic era, several heresies arose that required the simple statements in Scripture to be defended through the adaptation of theological grammar. The 4th century heretic, Arius, rejected the Son’s consubstantiality with the Father. For Arius and his followers, the Son was the highest created being, but a created being nonetheless. Thus, in a good-faith effort to preserve the Scriptural teaching concerning the Son’s deity, the Council of Nicaea developed the Nicene Creed. This Creed was and is substantially Scriptural in all its parts, but it used language that would prevent heretics from exploiting more basic scriptural statements to the detriment of their souls and the souls of others.

Hence, following Arius, who himself claimed to confess with his mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in his heart that God raised Him from the dead, the question arose, “Who is Jesus?” The purpose of the Nicene Creed was to answer this very question while preventing the perversion of the biblical grammar by heretics. Those who claimed to be Christians could not reject the language of the Nicene Creed, not because the Creed itself possessed an inherent authority above or beside Scripture, but because it was nothing more than a reflection of the aggregate biblical data concerning the Son of God. If those professing to be Christians rejected the Nicene Creed, the early Christians could easily conclude that said professors had a different Jesus. (Lk. 17:22-23; 1 Jn. 2:18)

In Romans 15:5, the apostle Paul says, “Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus…” Scripture makes creeds and confessions necessary by commanding like-mindedness toward one another — an impossibility without formal doctrinal standards.

Third: Creeds and Confessions Unify Churches

Many believe that “doctrine divides” and that creeds and confessions exclude more than they include those with differing theological opinions. In a sense, the creeds and confessions indeed exclude. This is part of their design. The goal of creeds and confessions is to exclude doctrinal error and heresy while including doctrinal truth, thereby preserving the teaching of Scripture as understood by the faith community.

The way this works within an ecclesiastical setting should not be missed. A church needs a way to distinguish and preserve its beliefs about what Scripture teaches. More recently, a popular way to do this is through broad summaries of general beliefs, or “statements of faith,” largely designed to accommodate, as much as possible, those holding diverse theological opinions. 

The problem with this method is that it allows one to seemingly affirm basic statements that no professing Christian would disagree with while, at the same time, holding more nuanced doctrinal aberrations. For example, some statements of faith define the Trinity simply as “One God in three Persons.” But a functional tritheist could trivially hold to this statement while also saying, “This one God is made up of three Persons, each of whom possess its own will, consciousness, substance, nature, etc.” Functionally, this represents the belief that the “one God” is actually a conglomerate of three distinct beings or gods, i.e., the heresy of tritheism.

However, this problem is mitigated by a more precise confessional statement, such as what we find in 2.1 of the Second London Confession (2LCF), which reads, “In this divine and infinite Being there are three subsistences, the Father, the Word or Son, and Holy Spirit, of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided…” This language builds on the credal language set forth by the early church. For instance, in the Athanasian Creed, we read:

Now this is the catholic faith:

    That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,

    neither blending their persons

    nor dividing their essence.

Creeds and confessions unify churches on the truth of what they believe Scripture teaches. They are designed to exclude those who would deviate from orthodoxy and include those who share the same doctrinal convictions. They are unifying documents that produce and preserve a unity founded upon a mutual concern for theological accuracy.

More pointedly, creeds and confessions are necessary for church unity. After all, how could a church unite upon the doctrine of God, Christ, or the gospel if every member in that church had a different conception of such essential doctrines? Any unity they may have would be apparent unity, not unity founded upon like-mindedness in the truth.

Abraham Booth on the Incarnation of the Son

Abraham Booth on the Incarnation of the Son

by | Jan 10, 2024 | Christology, Historical Theology, Systematic Theology

The “extra calvinisticum” is a fancy name for a proper understanding of the incarnation of the Son. If kenotic Christology suggests a conversion of deity into humanity (in some sense or other), the extra calvinisticum pronounces the full integrity of both divine and human natures united in the one Person of the Son, “without conversion, composition, or confusion…” (2LCF 8.2) The extra calvinisticum enjoys a rich reception by Baptists, both general and particular.

We could name several of our forerunners who affirmed this doctrine, from Benjamin Keach to John Gill and others. Indeed, it would be safe to say that the Christology of the Baptist movement falls right in line with that of Augustine, Aquinas, the Reformers, and the post-Reformation Puritans. The extra calvinisticum is simply a designation for a biblically orthodox and creedal article of faith that has existed throughout the ages. Baptists find themselves within this wider Christological tradition.

One such Baptist was the 18th century English pastor-theologian, Abraham Booth (c. 1734-1806). But before we get to Booth, we need to understand why his theology is important in the present moment.

Contemporary Christological Issues

In Sunday School, many of us learned simply that “Jesus is God and He became a man for our salvation” (or something like that). It’s a wonderful truth to be sure. But we live in a theologically imprecise season, and statements like the above have been taken in different directions that regularly depart from the orthodox formulation of the doctrine of Christ. To be sure, that simple Sunday School saying is completely orthodox, and while we could qualify some of the terms, there is nothing wrong with the words as they sit. It’s true as far as it goes — Jesus is God and became a man for our salvation. Yet, because of theological imprecision and malnourished theological training and teaching — within seminaries and churches — the word “become” has taken on some other-than-desirable connotations.

It’s now almost commonplace to assume the Son of God left some of His God-ness behind when He “became” man. Kenotic Christology has apparently become a normal assumption among the laity of Christ’s church. Sometimes the incarnation is described in terms of Jesus “leaving behind” some of His divine attributes. Sometimes it’s described as a period wherein the Son ceases to operate according to certain “divine prerogatives.” On a more extreme end of the spectrum, the Son may even be said to transform from deity into humanity. All of this is kenotic language, to one extent or another. But kenotic Christology is not what Scripture teaches, nor is it what our Protestant, baptistic forerunners have believed.

This is why Abraham Booth becomes relevant for us today. He was a clear Baptist proponent of the orthodox doctrine of the extra calvinisticum.

Abraham Booth’s Christology

In the recent reprint of The Works of Abraham Booth (vol. 1), we find rich Christological discourse, predominantly in chapter eleven, titled, ‘Concerning the Person of Christ by Whom Grace Reigns.’ In that chapter, Booth unequivocally affirms the hypostatic union. He writes:

It was absolutely necessary also, that our Mediator and Surety should be God as well as man. For as he could neither have obeyed, nor suffered, if he had not possessed a created nature; so, had he been a mere man, however immaculate, he could not have redeemed one soul. Nay, though he had possessed the highest possible created excellencies, they would not have been sufficient; because he would still have been a dependent being. For as it is essential to Deity, to be underived and self-existent, so it is essential to a creature to be derived and dependent. The loftiest seraph that sings in glory is as really dependent on God, every moment of his existence, as the meanest worm that crawls. In this respect, an angel and an insect are on a level.[1]

What a wonderful statement!

The one Person of the Son is both very God and very man. In the Person of Christ, two natures are perfectly united without “conversion, composition, or confusion…” (2LCF 8.2) By affirming this orthodox article of the hypostatic union, Booth lays the foundation for avoiding just about every variety of kenotic Christology, especially those which remain on today’s smorgasbord of confusion. But he further strengthens his position when discussing the distinction among the Persons in the Godhead. He writes:

Agreeably to this distinction, we behold the rights of Deity asserted and vindicated, with infinite majesty and authority, in the Person of the Father; while we view every divine perfection displayed and honoured, in the most illustrious manner, by the amazing condescension of the Eternal Son—By the humiliation of him who, in his lowest state of subjection could claim equality with God.—Such being the dignity of our wonderful Sponsor, it was by his own voluntary condescension that he became incarnate, and took upon him the form of a servant.[2]

Here lies a strong affirmation of the extra calvinisticum, that Christ while “in his lowest state of subjection could claim equality with God…” Booth also seems to cut against the grain of contemporary subordinationist theories as well. For “every divine perfection” was “displayed and honoured” in the “condescension of the Eternal Son…” And, this “Eternal Son” was “no way obliged” to perform “obedience in our stead…” If the Father’s authority was in the Father alone (at least to a greater degree than is in the Son), the Son would have been obliged to obey. Booth, however, avoids this notion. He goes on to discuss reasons the hypostatic union was necessary:

That it was necessary our Surety should be God and man, in unity of person. This necessity arises from the nature of his work; which is that of a mediator between God, the offended sovereign, and man, the offending subject. If he has not been a partaker of the divine nature, he could not have been qualified to treat with God; if not of the human, he would not have been fitted to treat with man. Deity alone was too high to treat with man; humanity alone was too low to treat with God. The eternal Son therefore assumed our nature, that he might become a middle person; and so be rendered capable of laying his hands upon both, and of bringing them into a state of perfect friendship.[3]

For Christ to be qualified to “treat with God” He must Himself be God. For Christ to be qualified to stand before God on behalf of man, He must Himself be man. Booth grounds the necessity of complete divine and human natures united in the one Person of Christ based on what the work of redemption requires. We might say that if Christ is not all God, even in His state of humiliation, His humiliation wouldn’t mean anything. Likewise, if Christ is not all man, there is no sense in which He could be humiliated (since God never changes).

Conclusion

Abraham Booth, along with many other Baptists from yesteryear, provide us with rich historical precedence for classical doctrines such as the extra calvinisticum. A reading of Booth and other 17th and 18th century Baptists, e.g. Benjamin Keach and John Gill, would reveal that the majority report in today’s (even Reformed) Baptist circles concerning the doctrine of God and the incarnation of the Son is not the historical norm. But more constructively, Baptists such as Booth provide plenty of Scriptural and historical food for pastors attempting to lead their flocks to the cool, clear waters of Christian orthodoxy.

Tolle lege.

Resources:

[1] Abraham Booth, The Works of Abraham Booth, vol. 1, (Knightstown, IN: Particular Baptist Heritage Books, 2022), 334-35.

[2] Booth, Works, vol. 1, 336.

[3] Booth, Works, vol. 1, 337-38.

 

Shall We Worship Love? The Dilemma of Denying Divine Simplicity

Shall We Worship Love? The Dilemma of Denying Divine Simplicity

by | Dec 21, 2023 | Confessionalism, Philosophy, Systematic Theology

“For since ‘God is love,’ he who loves love certainly loves God; but he must needs love love, who loves his brother.” ~ Augustine, On the Holy Trinity, Bk. 8, Ch. 8

Contrary perhaps to a first glance, Augustine isn’t waxing redundant. If God is love, it certainly follows that this love must be loved more than anything or anyone else. It is a love that must be adored, pursued, and even worshiped.

In 1 John 4:8, the apostle writes, “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” And again in v. 16, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” These two substantive clauses identify the perfection of love with God Himself. To put it more technically, the divine essence just is love, according to the apostle. Hence, as Augustine observes, this love must be loved. This love must be loved and adored above all else — for God is love.

But this causes a dilemma for those who would deny the identity of divine love with the divine itself. If love in God is God, this love must be worshiped. If love in God is not God, it must not be worshiped.

Let me try to explain…

The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity

The doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) states that God is not composed of parts. Any parts. No really… there are no parts in God. Zip. Zero.

To put the doctrine of divine simplicity in the words of Herman Bavinck, “But in God everything is one. God is everything He possesses. He is his own wisdom, his own life; being and living coincide in him.”[1] To use the title language of James Dolezal’s helpful book, All That is in God Is God. The Second London Confession (1677) expresses the doctrine as follows, “The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite in being and perfection; whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself; a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto…” (2LCF 2.1; emphasis added)

According to DDS, any kind of partition or parthood in the divine essence must be denied. If mereology is the “study of parthood,” God does not have a mereology. Dolezal defines a “part” as “anything that is less than the whole and without which the whole would be really different than it is.”[2] Stephen Charnock expresses the same point, “the compounding parts are in order of nature before that which is compounded by them… If God had parts and bodily members as we have, or any composition, the essence of God would result from those parts, and those parts be supposed to be before God.”[3] In other words, if God had parts those parts would make Him who He is. He would be, in a sense, caused. To put it another way, God would depend on that which is more basic than Himself to be Himself. In sum, God would not be God if He were not simple.

Love in God, therefore, must not be thought to be anything other than God Himself. Hence, 1 John 4:8, 16, “God is love.” Love is not something God “has.” Love isn’t something God participates in with other beings. It’s not something more basic than Himself making Him to be what He is and without which He would be different.

The Dilemma of Denying the DDS

If God is love, we must love love, as Augustine observes above. But this means that the divine essence (God Himself) and love as it is in God must be the same. If this love were not God, it would be a gross error to love love as the highest good. It would be unthinkable to love, adore, and worship that which is not God Himself. To worship what is not God is to commit idolatry according to the first and second commandments. (Cf. Ex. 20) Thus, either love in God just is God, or it is not God. But if it is not God, it cannot be loved as the highest good, adored, and worshiped.

A denial of DDS (as stated above) would seem to imply a real distinction between God’s essence and the love that exists in God. But if this is the case, to worship and adore the love that is in God would be idolatry. Furthermore, the twin substantives in 1 John 4, i.e. “God is love,” would be nothing but poetic, if not hyperbolic, expressions. But this doesn’t seem likely given the identification of love with knowledge of God in v. 8. Nor would v. 16 easily permit flexibility in the language since it identifies the act of abiding in love with the act of abiding in God Himself, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” Abiding in love just is to abide in God, but this would not necessarily be the case if love and God were really different “things.”

The denial of classical DDS seems to encounter a dilemma — worship love or not. If love is not God, it would be a sin to worship it. If love is God, it would be a sin not to.

Resources:

[1] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 174.

[2] James Dolezal, “Still Impassible: Confessing God Without Passions,” in Journal of the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, 132.

[3] Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, vol. 1, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Company, 1979), 186.

Divine Self-Existence & Holy Jealousy

Divine Self-Existence & Holy Jealousy

by | Dec 13, 2023 | Biblical Theology, Systematic Theology

The doctrine of divine aseity (self-existence) teaches us that God does not depend upon that which is not God in order to be God. God’s “God-ness” isn’t something that He has, it is something that He is. As such, His divinity, perfections, attributes, etc. are not things that He shares with other beings — as one man may share strength in common with another man. A shared property is something that is possessed in part but not in whole. For example, strength can never entirely belong to a single man, since that would mean no other man could have strength.

This is not the case when it comes to God. What God “has” He has entirely. To put it another way: What God is only God is. This is why God, in Scripture, is said to be “jealous.” He doesn’t share what only He is — that which belongs to Him and Him alone.

Scripture fleshes this out brilliantly. One shining example comes within the context of the second commandment, “For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…” (Ex. 20:5) Consider that text along with the following, “For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it; For how should My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another.” (Is. 48:11)

Divine Self-Existence from Isaiah 42:8

The introduction of Isaiah 42:8 reads, “I am the LORD, that is My name…” This is an important point because it invokes the covenant name of God revealed to Moses in the burning bush, “The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.” (Ex. 3:15) This name derives from v. 14, the famous, “I AM WHO I AM” designation, which many scholars agree denotes self-existence, i.e. God just is.

The invocation of this covenant name revealing God’s self-existence naturally proceeds to a further implication, “And My glory I will not give to another…” The same point is made in Exodus 20:5, but in different terms, “I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…” God’s holy jealousy in Scripture is an expression of His self-existent, independent nature — which does not have glory but is glory exclusively. It is not shared with another. God wouldn’t have all the glory if it were shared with other beings. But if God does have all the glory, it follows that it will not be given to anyone or anything else.

Hence, we should not worship anything or anyone other than this God, because to do so is to ascribe divine glory to something or someone other than Him. So, all praise must be directed to Him, “And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images.” This phrase echoes the second commandment, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image… you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.” (Ex. 20:4-5) 

The ground of the second commandment is the aseity of God — He is His glory, and He is all the glory. To share it with another would be to subtract from who He is (an impossibility, to be sure). The sinfulness of idolatry, therefore, consists in the impossibility of God’s glory belonging to anything or anyone else. Thus, when we ascribe the glory of God to something other than God, we also violate the 9th commandment in bearing false witness about who God is, i.e. that He shares His glory when in fact He does not.

Holy Jealousy, Self-Existence, & the Divine Identity of Christ

This divine glory, and therefore holy jealousy, is said to belong to Christ, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (Jn. 1:14) Does this mean that God has violated His rights to exclusive divine glory? Has He begun to share His glory with someone who is not God? Has God rescinded His rule, “My glory I will not give to another”? The short answer is a resounding, no! In light of Isaiah 42:8, the Son’s glory in John 1:14 is an attestation to His divine nature which He has in common with His Father. John does not want us to conclude that God shares His glory with another, but that the Son of God is God Himself.

An appeal to the begottenness of the Son in John 1:14b is an insurance policy to secure his readers from heresy. Far from God sharing His glory with another, the Son is none other than what the Nicene Creed calls “God from God, Light from Light.” The Father, through eternal generation, communicates the fullness of deity in eternally begetting the only begotten Son.

Isaiah 42:8 and the exclusive glory of God — God is glory, and only God is this glory — when paired with John 1:14 presses us to conclude that Christ is indeed YHWH, the same God who revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush, (Ex. 3:14-15) the same God who issued the second commandment, (Ex. 20:4-6), and the same God who became us to redeem us. (Jn. 1:1-14)

When we think of divine jealousy and the exclusivity of the divine glory, we should be drawn to consider the divine majesty of Christ, the wonder of His incarnation, and the great privilege we have in redemption

What Is Theoretical Theology?

What Is Theoretical Theology?

by | May 26, 2023 | Systematic Theology

When we speak of theology as “theoretical” we are not speaking about something uncertain or non-factual.

The term “theory” comes from the Greek term theoria. It means “to contemplate.” Theoretical theology is what happens when we think, or contemplate, theologically. To put it more simply, theoretical theology is theology as it is known.

Theoretical theology is what we encounter while reading a system of theology, like Herman Bavincks Reformed Dogmatics or Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae.

Biblical Precedent

Scripture itself witness to the place of theoretical theology. There is an emphasis through Scripture placed upon the knowledge of God.

In Psalm 100:3 we read, “Know that the LORD, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.” In Colossians 1:9, the apostle Paul writes, “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding…”

In Colossians 1:10, the prayer is that the Colossian church would increase “in the knowledge of God…” And in Colossians 2:2, they would attain “to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ…” The apostle Peter greets his audience, saying, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord…” (2 Pet. 1:2)

While all these uses of knowledge certainly move beyond a mere theoretical apprehension of doctrinal facts, a theoretical grasp of theology must be received by the intellect before the same can affect the will of man.

To use a popular illustration: theology is “head knowledge” before it becomes “heart knowledge.”

Conclusion

Theoretical theology is theology as it is known by the creature. There is another way of considering theology as practice, or practical theology. If theoretical theology is known, practical theology is that same theology lived.

Persons or Subsistences? Trinity In Theological Perspective

Persons or Subsistences? Trinity In Theological Perspective

by | Jan 30, 2023 | Philosophy, Systematic Theology

The Confession (1677/89) states the doctrine of the Trinity as follows:

In this divine and infinite Being there are three subsistences, the Father, the Word or Son, and Holy Spirit, of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided: the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son; all infinite, without beginning, therefore but one God, who is not to be divided in nature and being, but distinguished by several peculiar relative properties and personal relations; which doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God, and comfortable dependence on him. (2.3)

With a great deal of intention, the Confession employs the term “subsistence,” a noticeable change from the language used by the Westminster Confession, which instead reads, “In the unity of the Godhead there be three Persons of one substance…” (2.3, Emphasis added) Explaining this significant change in language, Dr. James Renihan states: 

More significantly, when introducing Trinitarian terminology, the text changes the WCF/Savoy language from persons to subsistences. Richard Muller has composed a lengthy article on the Latin term persona and its perceived liabilities in the history of Trinitarian discussion, asserting that subsistentia came to be a preferred term by some theologians, such as John Calvin.[1]

The term subsistence tends to avoid the confusion caused by the word person which, in addition to its historical obscurities, has of late taken on a unique psychological connotation binding the term to human features, e.g. reason, will, conscience, etc. As a result, modern social trinitarianism and tritheism tend to distinguish the persons along the lines of distinct centers of consciousness or distinct wills.

Kyle Claunch notes this in relation to the subordinationism of Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem. He writes, “they are making a conscious and informed choice to conceive of will as a property of person rather than essence. This model of a three-willed Trinity then provides the basis for the conviction that structures of authority and submission actually serve as one of the means of differentiating the divine persons.”[2] It appears the modernist assumptions behind the term person have led to a conception of trinitarian relations as distinct intellectual beings—since they each consists of substantially different things, e.g. minds, wills, consciousness, etc.

Conversely, Cornelius Van Til arrives at the awkward language of, to paraphrase, “God the one person in three persons.” He writes, “Over against all other beings, that is, over against created beings, we must therefore hold that God’s being presents an absolute numerical identity.”[3] This is true as far as it goes. But Van Til misses out on some important language and distinctions, concluding, “[God] is one person.” He goes on to correctly note, “When we say that we believe in a personal God, we do not merely mean that we believe in a God to whom the adjective ‘personality’ may be attached. God is not an essence that has personality; he is absolute personality.”

Van Til obscures the manner of distinction between essence and subsistences by identifying essence and subsistences as a numerically single person. He is correct to say that “personality” is not something that God has, but something that God just is. However, he is incorrect to imply the elimination of personal properties by declaring the numerical singularity of personality in God. That God is one essence subsisting in three distinct modes or relations seems to be a consideration lost on Van Til, though seemingly implied in other areas of his work. While the essence and subsistences are substantially identical, there are yet personal properties distinguishing each Person one from another. Such a consideration would prevent the Van Tillian from collapsing the three Persons into one persona.

Renihan helpfully provides the missing piece in much of these contemporary discussions when he writes, “In his Marrow of Sacred Divinity, William Ames uses [subsistence] in these two ways. Prefixed to the front of the book is a brief glossary of terms. It defines subsistence as ‘the manner of being.’”[4] (Emphasis added) Francis Turretin likewise states:

Thus the singular numerical essence is communicated to the three persons not as a species to individuals or a second substance to the first (because it is singular and undivided), nor as a whole to its parts (since it is infinite and impartible); but as a singular nature to its own act of being (suppositis) in which it takes on various modes of subsisting. Hence it is evident: (1) that the divine essence is principally distinguished from the persons in having communicability, while the persons are distinguished by an incommunicable property; (2) that it differs from other singular natures in this—that while they can be communicated to only one self-existent being (supposito) and are terminated on only one subsistence (because they are finite), the former (because infinite) can admit of more than one.[5] (Emphasis added)

Hence, the language of the Confession, “In this divine and infinite Being there are three subsistences, the Father, the Word or Son, and Holy Spirit, of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided…” (2.3) In other words, Father, Son, and Spirit just are the one divine essence. As the Athanasian Creed points out, “Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three gods; there is but one God.” The one and undivided essence subsists in three ways distinguished by personal properties—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Each of these relations are explained by way of origination: the Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son. As the Confession likewise states, “the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son…”

The Athanasian Creed states, “The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone. The Son was neither made nor created; he was begotten from the Father alone. The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten; he proceeds from the Father and the Son.” Further, the Nicene Creed also says of the Son, “We believe… in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made…” And regarding the Spirit, the same creed says, “He proceeds from the Father and the Son…”

Resources:

[1] James Renihan, To the Judicious and Impartial Reader: Baptist Symbolics, Vol. II, (Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2022), Kindle Edition, Loc. 2260-2265.

[2] Kyle Claunch, “God Is the Head of Christ,” in One God in Three Persons, ed. Bruce A. Ware; John Starke, (Grand Rapids, MI: Crossway. Kindle Edition), 88-89.

[3] Cornelius Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2007), 364.

[4] Renihan, To the Judicious and Impartial Reader, Loc. 2259.

[5] Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. I, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1992), 282.