Subordinationism

Barth writes, “according to Subordinationist teaching even the Father, who is supposedly thought of as the Creator, is in fact dragged into the creaturely sphere. According to this view His relation to the Son and Spirit is that of idea to manifestation. Standing in this comprehensible relation, He shows Himself to be an entity that can be projected and dominated by the I. Subordinationism finally means the denial of revelation, the drawing of divine subjectivity into human subjectivity, and by way of polytheism the isolation of man with himself in his own world in which there is finally no Thou and therefore no Lord.”

The conclusion is characteristic Barth: God remains Lord in His self-offering and revelation, and any account of the Trinity that reduces God to an It-object that can be dominated by creatures is an offense against God. How he gets to that conclusion is not entirely clear. Subordinationism obviously and explicitly makes the Son and Spirit creatures, but Barth insists that it makes the Father creature too, or at least draws the Father into the “creaturely sphere.” The key point seems to be that the idea-manifestation relation is “comprehensible,” and therefore potentially under human control.

There are also some anti-Feuerbachian things going on in the use of “projection.” If we can take some comprehensible creaturely relation and project it onto the Father, then we are drawing the Father into creaturehood. If God is Lord, He is incomprehensible, and His relation to the Son and Spirit must likewise be incomprehensible.