Hello, Paidion,
Thank you for your response.
kaufmannphillips: ...what is the purpose of excluding a (putatively) complete sharer in divinity from the outworking of God being "all in all"?
Paidion: The Son of God (the second God, if you will) was always submissive to the Father, was submissive to Him while on earth, and will be submissive to Him in the future. It is the paradigm of a father-son relationship as it was meant to be. By turning over the Kingdom to the Father that God (the Father) may be all in all, does not "exclude" the Son, "this complete sharer in divinity" from anything. It expresses His Sonship, His relationship with the Father as being always secondary to the Father in position, not in essence , that is, not in regards to His Deity.
An anology might be the ideal relationship between a husband and wife as God intended it, and as the apostle Paul expressed it (Wives submit yourselves to your husbands). In this relationship, the wife is secondary in position, but not in essence (her humanity).
Your answer is theologically clever. Yet, I am skeptical of the likelihood that cleverness leads to truth.
Your answer opens the door to a number of questions:
(aleph) Why is the one divine individual paradigmatically submissive to the other? Is it merely didactic, or is it actually pragmatic?
(beth) If didactic:
(alpha)If such a submissive relationship is so important as to involve the deference of one divine individual to another throughout all eternity, then why does this particular exemplar not emerge until many centuries into the thread of revelation? Should it not have been part-and-parcel of the revealed paradigm from the beginning?
(beta) Is it your position that fathers & sons and husbands & wives will remain in hierarchical relationships throughout eternity? If not, then what is the purpose of subjecting one divine individual to another throughout eternity, for the sake of relationships that are not eternally submissive?
(gamma) Then again, if submissive relationships are an eternal part of the social order, is it your position that this exemplar of submissive relationship will be eternally necessary? Will those who participate in the world to come have an everlasting need for such an object lesson? And if so, must such a need be met in the dynamics of divine interrelationship, and not simply in the example(s) of sanctified humans?
(gymel) If pragmatic:
(alpha) Shall we understand that there will eternally be a pragmatic need for one divine being to submit to the other? If so, what is the nature of this pragmatic need?
(beta) If it is a pragmatic matter of differing wills, are the divine individuals never to attain complete unity of will? Elsewise, why the eternal economy of submission?
(gamma) Then again, if it is a pragmatic matter of relative skill or fitness, on what basis is the one divine being ordered hierarchically over the other? Is the one divine being wiser or more gifted? And if so, will this relative condition remain eternally, so that the one divine being never attains parity with the other?
kaufmannphillips: Does this not rob one "God" of that which is rightly his?
Paidion: In no way is God the Father robbed of anything. Nor is the Son of God robbed of anything. It's exactly what the Son wants.
If this were so, then one might be forced to revise their understanding of divine character. One no longer could imagine that it is an essential aspect of divine character to be jealous, wishing to be first in people's hearts. One no longer could imagine that it is an essential aspect of divine character to be the ultimate ruler of creation. Actually, one no longer could imagine that it is an essential aspect of divine character to be the ultimate
anything, insofar as one divine being would in all things be surpassed by the other, who alone is "
all in all."
Such a submissiveness reaches far beyond the limited economies of father-son and husband-wife relationships, for neither fathers nor husbands have any basis to claim that they are "
all in all," even within their paradigms.
Shalom,
Emmet
