Bruce Ware and the Trinity: Response to John Starke

John Starke has mentioned an article by Bruce Ware ,written in 2006, which pertains to authority and submission within the trinity. My first reaction is that I am relieved to see him clearly differentiate the quality of the relationship which exists between human beings and the Father and the Son in the Trinity. He writes,

The equality of essence among the members of the Trinity, then, is greater than the equality that exists among human beings or among any other finite reality. For example, my wife, Jodi, and I are equally human, in that each of us possesses a human nature. That is, her nature is of the same kind as my nature, viz., human nature, and so our equality surely is real as an equality of kind. But the equality of the three divine Persons is even more firmly grounded. Here, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit each possesses not merely the same kind of nature, viz., divine nature; rather, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit each possesses fully and eternally the identically same nature. Their equality, then, is not merely an equality of kind but an equality of identity.

This is much more representative of what Augustine writes in De Trinitate IV,

In such wise that, whereas four things are to be considered in every sacrifice—to whom it is offered, by whom it is offered, what is offered, for whom it is offered,— the same One and true Mediator Himself, reconciling us to God by the sacrifice of peace, might remain one with Him to whom He offered, might make those one in Himself for whom He offered, Himself might be in one both the offerer and the offering. 8

He was not sent in respect to any inequality of power, or substance, or anything that in Him was not equal to the Father; but in respect to this, that the Son is from the Father, not the Father from the Son; for the Son is the Word of the Father, which is also called His wisdom. What wonder, therefore, if He is sent, not because He is unequal with the Father, but because He is a pure emanation (manatio) issuing from the glory of the Almighty God? For there, that which issues, and that from which it issues, is of one and the same substance. For it does not issue as water issues from an aperture of earth or of stone, but as light issues from light. For the words, For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, what else are they than, she is light of everlasting light? For what is the brightness of light, except light itself? 20

What I fail to understand is how the relationship between the Father and Son, both masculine, and one an emanation of the other; pertains to the way a husband would treat a wife, who is another distinct human being. As God provides the Son as an emanation of himself, to reveal himself to mankind and to be the offering for sin; does man send woman into the fray as a revelation to the world and an offering for sin?

I persist in viewing this as one of the most inhumane and ungodly teachings on the face of this earth, that the wife is to be sacrificed, willingly or not, at the will of the husband. Or was the Son not sent to be an offering? But Augustine says this was the purpose of his being sent.

My second observation is that Bruce Ware in no way demonstrates that he is dealing with the Latin text of Augustine. Ware writes,

Finally, Augustine also affirmed that the distinction of persons is constituted precisely by the differing relations among them, in part manifest by the inherent authority of the Father and inherent submission of the Son.

This is directly contradicted by Augustine, when he writes,

For he was not sent in virtue of some disparity of power or substance or anything in him that was not equal to the Father, but in virtue of the Son being from the Father, not the Father being from the Son.

Ware does not in any way acknowledge or respond to the simple fact that when Augustine wrote this in Latin, using potestas for "power", he was using the Latin word for "authority" in the Greek. That is, potestas is the translation in the Vulgate for exousia - authority. In the trinity, there is no disparity of authority, according to Augustine.

It is difficult to dialogue with an idea that contains such fundamental weaknesses. Ware does not acknowledge that as light is sent by the sun, so is the Son sent by the Father, but the sun has no need of authority over the light, because they are one in substance.