Tradition
Subordinationism
Overview
Subordinationism is a Trinitarian doctrine wherein the Son (and sometimes also the Holy Spirit) is subordinate to the Father, not only in submission and role, but with actual ontological subordination to varying degrees. It posits a hierarchical ranking of the persons of the Social Trinity, implying ontological subordination of the persons of the Son and the Holy Spirit. It was condemned as heretical in the Second Council of Constantinople.
It is not to be confused with Arianism, as Subordinationism has been generally viewed as closer to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan view. While Arianism was developed out of Subordinationism, it did not confess the personhood of the Holy Spirit and of the Son, both eternal.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
As far as one can judge, it is for the same reason that philosophers have aimed at a threefold division of science, or rather, were enabled to see that there was a threefold division (for they did not invent, but only discovered it), of which one part is called physical, another logical, the third ethical. The Latin equivalents of these names are now naturalized in the writings of many authors, so that these…
of Hippo Augustine, The City of God, Volume I
States what Subordinationism is; the author is tied to Subordinationism in the knowledge graph.
CHAP. XVIII.--27. On the question of baptism, then, I think that I have argued at sufficient length; and since this is a most manifest schism which is called by the name of the Donatists, it only remains that on the subject of baptism we should believe with pious faith what the universal Church maintains, apart from the sacrilege of schism. And yet, if within the Church different men still held different opinions on…
of Hippo Augustine, Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy
States what Subordinationism is; the author is tied to Subordinationism in the knowledge graph.
Seeing this, others maintained that this word "person" in God signifies both the essence and the relation. Some of these said that it signifies directly the essence, and relation indirectly, forasmuch as "person" means as it were "by itself one" [per se una]; and unity belongs to the essence. And what is "by itself" implies relation indirectly; for the Father is understood to exist "by Himself," as relatively…
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
States what Subordinationism is.
Related ideas
- Eusebius
- God in Christianity
- Arianism
- John Calvin
- Justin Martyr
- Samuel Clarke
- Cappadocian Fathers
- Augustine of Hippo
- Ascension of Isaiah
- Person
- Platonism
- Ontology
- Athenagoras of Athens
- Hypostasis (philosophy and religion)
- Christian theology
- Epiphanius of Salamis
- Trinity
- Ousia
- Tertullian
- Gregory of Nyssa
- Incarnation (Christianity)
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- Hippolytus of Rome
- Demiurge
Place in the tradition
Part of Monotheism.