by Matthew Y. Emerson and R. Lucas Stamps
Wayne Grudem, Professor of Theology at Phoenix Seminary and highly influential evangelical theologian, has recently released the second edition of his best-selling Systematic Theology (Zondervan Academic, 2020). While many of us have read Grudem with benefit, assigned his textbook in classrooms, and recommended it to others, some of us have also expressed serious concerns about his treatment of doctrine of the Trinity. So, one of the big questions surrounding this new release was whether or not Grudem would qualify any of his previous teachings on the eternal functional submission of the Son to the Father. Having read the revised chapter on the Trinity, it is apparent that Grudem has attempted to make a couple of noteworthy adjustments/clarifications: he now affirms the eternal generation of the Son (though on fairly narrow lexical grounds and without any significant reference to or defense of the eternal procession of the Spirit) and admits (in some sense) that there is one divine will (although it’s difficult to see how these admissions cohere with his broader understanding of the Trinity; more on this later in the essay). But rather than retract any of his former writings on EFS, he actually doubles down. He still believes the Son is functionally subordinate to the Father, not just in terms of his incarnate mission, but in the eternal life of God himself, even speculating (with only a little caution) that this relationship of subordination in function is precisely what distinguishes the persons as persons.
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