Jesus and the Father | Kevin Giles

Kevin Giles. Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity. Zondervan, 2006. 256 pp.

This paperback is not Dr. Giles’ (Th.D., Tübingen University) first book on the topic of the Trinity and the gender debate. This volume has received some notice, with endorsements from Drs. Millard Erickson, Gilbert Bilezikian, and Paul Molnar. Giles’ first premise is that Trinitarian subordinationism is a modern extension of the Arian heresy, anathematized by First Council of Nicea, 325 AD.

The book sets the doctrine of the Trinity as the most important Christian doctrine; which raises this important question for evangelism: “Are evangelicals emphasizing the wrong things in soul winning?” That is to say, should we persuade people of the Trinity instead of “discussing righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come,” (Acts 24:25)?¹ The second stated premise was actually the primary proposition: opposition to traditional gender roles, with the straw men of “permanent subordination of women,” and “male hegemony.” Thus the book’s title flies under false colors as a book on the Trinity, when it is a discourse against traditional roles of women in the church.

After shockingly accusing Drs. Wayne Grudem² and Norman Geisler³ of the Arian heresy, the pattern of the argument emerged. Because some complementarians (Grudem and Geisler) use the hierarchical view of the Trinity as their model for gender roles, this became the point of attack for Jesus and the Father. The arguments used, however, were circular in nature, often begging the question. The author seldom dealt with Scripture, despite the page-and-a-half long Scripture Index. Giles decried proof-texting as a method of exegesis, but he himself never addressed Scripture exegetically. Rather, he argued primarily from the ante-Nicene to post-Nicene Fathers and the Creeds as they contended against the Arian heresy.

To resolve the problem passages that speak of the works of the Persons of the Trinity in obedience one to another, Dr. Giles wrote of an “immanent Trinity,” and an “economic Trinity.” As difficult as the doctrine of the Trinity is, the author produced for himself the undesirable task of explaining how the two are really one, how one Trinity is hierarchical and the other is not. The new problem thus created is: (there being two Trinities aside) an immanent and an economic Trinity would require God to change His essence, His mind, or His method, as He emerged from eternity into time. This subjects God to time, making Him dependent upon His own creation. Thus the Trinity would be mutable. Two familiar verses that speak to the immutability of God are: Malachi 3:6 “For I, the LORD, do not change,” and James 1:17 “from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

Jesus and the Father said the immanent Trinity is so undifferentiated and united that the only distinction among the persons of the Trinity is that one is called “Father,” another “Son,” and the third “Spirit,” a Unitarian view of God. By the law of the excluded middle, the Trinity either is, or is not, hierarchical. It does no good to say, with Giles, that the economic and the immanent Trinities (a plural term the author avoided) differ in their operation, one being hierarchical and the other not. For a theologian of the immutable God, the proposed differences between an immanent and an economic Trinity must be justified, not simply stated.

As part of his argument against traditional women’s roles, Giles disagreed with the definition of κεφαλή as literally meaning “head” in the Greek New Testament,⁴ against every major scholarly Greek tool, including BADG, BDAG, NIDNTT, Friberg, Barclay-Newman, Liddel-Scott, Thayer’s, Vines’, Louw and Nida, and Mounce, among other dictionaries and lexicons.⁵ In making this argument, Giles failed to give an acceptable rendering of the word; that is, no alternate meaning was given at all.

Of the seventy-one occurrences of κεφαλή in the GNT, thirty pertain directly to Christ. Of those, there are twenty-two analogies or metaphors; some theological, others not. As a metaphor, Matt. 8:20 says that “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head”; i.e. Jesus had no place to sleep, indicating His poverty. On the other hand, “head” in Matt. 26:7 simply refers to a body part, the woman poured a vial of perfume on Jesus’ head. Giles’ point in this is because of Eph. 5:23, “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.” Not wanting this verse to mean the husband is over the wife in authority, Giles missed the organic connection of head - body, husband - wife, Christ - church. For Giles, κεφαλή as it applies to the husband and wife must mean something different than the same word in the same sentence, as it applies to Christ and the church, and he says as much.

Acts 4:11, “He is the STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, but WHICH BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone;” is another passage where Giles says κεφαλή cannot mean “head.” The author was right in that κεφαλή is translated “CHIEF CORNER,” and not “head,” with “stone” in italics provided by the translators; but the clear and immediate referent is “οὗτος ἐστιν ὁ λίθος.” This verse quotes Psalm 118:22: (as do Matt. 21:42, Mark 12:10-11, Luke 20:17, and 1 Peter 2:7 with identical wording) אֶ֭בֶן מָאֲס֣וּ הַבּוֹנִ֑ים הָ֝יְתָ֗ה לְרֹ֣אשׁ פִּנָּֽה׃.⁶ The last of the verse in Hebrew⁷ reads “the head of the corner,” and is faithfully given as “κεφαλὴν γων́ιας” in both the LXX⁸ and GNT, but is rendered “the very corner” in the NASB-U, forcing the translators to supply “stone” from the beginning of the verse to fill out the meaning.

In this argument against the plain and accepted meaning of κεφαλή Giles’ pro-egalitarian ideas became most transparent as the driving force for his doctrine of the Trinity. Giles’ “conservative” doctrine of the Trinity did not inform his feminism, but rather his liberal feminism drove his doctrine of the Trinity.

The clincher against the thesis of Jesus and the Father is a paragraph in the summary chapter where Giles admits that his “economic” Trinity is hierarchal. The Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten, and the Holy Spirit is sent. The Father sends the Son; together the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is sent in the name of the Son, following the Nicene filioque (without saying so). The Son obeys the Father who sent Him; the Spirit obeys the Father in the Name of the Son. This flies against his own argument for an undifferentiated Trinity throughout the book. If Giles believes in the unity of the Trinity, he denied that in his conclusion.

Finally, the arguments of Jesus and the Father overly complicate the already difficult doctrine of the Trinity for devout lay church members who follow these issues, and for pastors who must make sense of the Trinity and women’s roles for their congregations. The ideas of “unbegotten, begotten, and sent” as these concepts apply to the Trinity must be explained (e.g., since Jesus is God, and God is eternal, in what sense is Jesus “begotten?”).

When this reviewer chose this volume to read, he was looking for a solid treatment of the Trinity, and not a book to review. Because Giles handled the Scripture so inaccurately, his feminism was so biased, and his accusations of heresy were so freewheeling, he lost his case at every point. Contrary to the author’s expressed desire, this reviewer now stands with Drs. Geisler and Grudem on subordination within the Trinity, where he had no opinion before reading Jesus and the Father.

Let us carry out scholarly exegesis on this subject in order to separate the feminist ideas of the roles of men and women from their traditionally liberal base. Only by dealing with the original languages of the pertinent texts, and not going to predefined corners but letting the words and the grammar drive the results of our exegetical investigation, can we separate “liberal” and “conservative” positions from the issue at hand. Let the clear meaning of the text hold no fear for conservative theologians.

Timothy Mills
Pastor, Whitton Baptist Church
Tyronza, AR
Mid America Baptist Theological Seminary Alum
July 14, 2007

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Notes:

1. All English Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1988, 1995. Used by permission. [↩]
2. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), 1994. [↩]
3. Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volumes 1-4 (Bloomington, MN: Bethany) 2005. [↩]
4. Kurt Aland, et al., eds., The Greek New Testament, Fourth Edition; (Stuttgart: 1966, 1968, 1975 by the United Bible Societies [UBS] and 1993, 1994 by Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft [German Bible Society]). [↩]
5. s.v. κεφαλή [↩]
6. K. Elliger and W. Rudolph, eds., Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, Fourth Corrected Edition, (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft [German Bible Society]), 1966, 1977, 1983, 1990. [↩]
7. Willem A. VanGemeren, et al., eds., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), s.v. רֹאשׁ. [↩]
8. Alfred Rahlfs, ed., LXX Septuaginta (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt / Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft [German Bible Society]), 1935. [↩]

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