Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit Paperback – March 16, 2021

Simply Trinity, the Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spiritby Matthew Barrett (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2021) 364 pp, paper, $17.82Simply Trinity is the best book I have read in support of Classical Theism, what Matthew Barrett (Associate Professor of Christian Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) terms “The Great Tradition,” and the rule of faith (p. 35). The Great Tradition is grounded in the Nicene Creed (p. 37) and reinforced by the pro-Nicene Church fathers. Barrett turns to what he calls his “dream team” of pro-Nicene advocates as those who were the most influential in supporting and passing down the Great Tradition. The team consists of 12 theologians including: Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, John Owen, John Gill and the Cappadocian Fathers: Basil and the Gregorys. Barrett quotes from his dream team time and again to demonstrate that Classical Theism has deep roots and is biblical.The motivation undergirding Simply Trinity is Barrett’s belief that the Trinity has been manipulated and distorted beyond recognition, not only by liberals, but by evangelicals as well (pp. 14, 30-32, 73). He warns of Trinity drift (p. 21), led primarily by those who have moved from Classical Theism to social trinitarianism, (pp. 28-30 and chapter three). In social trinitarianism God is a community (pp.78-80), with each person of the Godhead having a separate will (pp. 148-149). Social trinitarianists twist the Trinity into conformity to their unique views on politics, unity, ecology, egalitarianism, patriarchy or sex (pp. 28-30). In doing so the Trinity is misunderstood, and misapplied, to support whatever position or cause one wants to emphasize. The evangelical form of social trinitarianism is found most predominately in the view known as eternal functional subordination (EFS) (p. 91), promoted by theologians such as Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware. Their position comes under extensive fire throughout, but especially in chapter eight (pp. 213-259).Barrett believes the Nicene Fathers got the Trinity right when they taught that the Father is the source of origin (paternity), the Son is eternally begotten (filiation), and the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and Son (spiration), (pp. 24-25). These are the only distinguishing marks within the Godhead (pp. 60, 106). “The Father is the principle in the Godhead… Unbegotten” (p. 171), but this does not imply a hierarchy or priority of the Father in relation to the Son and the Spirit (p. 172). While this may be the orthodox understanding of the Trinity, it leaves much to be explored, and Barrett does his best to explain important terms and concepts such as:• Begotten means to come forth or proceed. The Son is eternally begotten, or eternally generated. “Generation alone is what distinguishes the Son as Son” (p. 162). The Son is not generated in time, but from the Father from all eternity (p. 165). Barrett is convinced that if the Son is not eternally begotten, we have no confidence that we can be born again (p. 180).• Simplicity “means God is not made up of, composed of, or compounded by parts” (p. 54). “Simplicity is true of each person in the Trinity, since each person is a subsistence of the divine essence” (p. 55).• Inseparable operations explains that the Persons of the Trinity work inseparably in all things including creation and salvation (p. 57). “Every act of God is the single act of the triune God” (p. 227). Barrett phrases it this way: “Every operation is from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit” (p. 293), and “What the Father planned and the Son accomplished, the Spirit applied” (p. 290).• Divine appropriations further flushes out inseparable operations for, while the external works of the Trinity are indivisible, yet a “particular work may be appropriated by a person of the Trinity in a way that corresponds to that person’s eternal relation of origin” (p. 288). With divine appropriations, the Father begins, the Son executes, and the Spirit perfects (p. 300).• There is a difference between the immanent and the economic Trinity. “The immanent Trinity refers to who our triune God is in eternity, apart from the created order” (i.e. the ontological Trinity) (p. 112). “The economic Trinity, however, refers to how this triune God acts toward the created order (i.e. God’s external operations). The economic Trinity reveals God in external operations (p. 112); it reveals something true about the Trinity’s eternal, immanent identity, but God’s identity is not dependent on His actions in history (p. 116).• Impassibility “means God is not subject to emotional fluctuation” (p. 173).• Spiration simply means that the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and Son (p. 267).Barrett tackles the difficult questions and texts. He traces Old Testament evidence of the Trinity (p. 109), examines passages such as Psalm 2:7 and Acts 13:33 (pp. 195-198), 1 Corinthians 15:28 (pp. 218, 238, 242-246), 1 Corinthians 11:3 (pp. 222, 251-253), and Philippians 2:4-6 (pp. 246-248). Important questions related to the incarnation (pp. 294-297) and events at Pentecost are also addressed. I was unconvinced by the author’s use of the metaphors of wisdom (pp. 201-202) and the Ancient of Days (pp. 207-209) to explain the generation of the Son. And his attempt to introduce the Covenant of Redemption as an agreement within the Trinity was questionable. If there are not separate wills within the Trinity then in what sense is an “agreement” necessary or even possible? This is standard Reformed Theology but seems to me to undermine Barrett’s thesis. But Simply Trinity would be hard to beat for a valuable defense of Classic Theism.Reviewed by Gary E. Gilley, Pastor-teacher at Southern View Chapel

This text is written with an admirable clarity, and a calling to explore the ancient traditions regarding Trinitarianism. It points out the pitfalls of ESF and social trinitarianism. I enjoyed how many voices from the church’s beautiful past have been included.

The product was sent in good condition. While the paperback is not my favorite quality, the information is invaluable. Matthew Barrett has a very helpful way of making difficult topics digestible. While there are many other resources that help in a discussion on the Trinity, Barrett’s unique contribution is the “simplicity” of His argumentation especially against the debate in reformed circles on the topic of eternal functional subordination of the Son. I think every one who wants a deeper love for their God who is Trinity will be deeply invested in this book and he nicely addresses the modern problems and conceptions of the Trinity.

This is a hard book to review. The author is attacking the view that Jesus Christ is, functionally, eternally subordinate to the Father even while being ontologically equal with Him. This view is known as eternal functional subordination (EFS). Barrett’s tone at the beginning was so unnecessarily off-putting to me that I had to get over my irritation before I was ready to fairly assess his argument. Eventually he was able to convince me.As far as the positives go, Barrett is clearly an accomplished expert on the church fathers, both pre- and post- Nicene. His arguments are firmly grounded in logic, philosophy, and the historical development of the theology of the Trinity. The vast bulk of his assertions come from these quarters, less so from Scripture (though he handles the Scripture well). Unfortunately, Barrett dismisses opposing arguments that rise from Scripture by perjoratively labeling his opponents as “biblicist,” as though they were unaware of the context and larger narrative of Scripture.Barrett’s main argument is that the only distinctions between the persons within the ontological Trinity (ad intra) are “eternal relations of origin:” the Father is unbegotten, the Father eternally begets (generates) the Son (meaning the Father eternally communicates to the Son His own essence and nature), and the Father and the Son spirate, or send forth, the Holy Spirit. Barrett admits to additional distinctions in the outward operations (ad extra) of the economic Trinity.In chapter three, Barrett does a good job in tracing modern liberalism’s illegitimate reconstruction of the Trinity to fit their own agenda for society. But in my opinion, he wrongly accuses conservative, biblical theologians of doing the same thing: starting with their desired construct of social relations and then imposing that construct on the Trinity. This seems to me to be a grossly uncharitable charge: is it not possible that those theologians derive their view of the Trinity (even though incorrect) from their honest understanding of Scripture and then see analogs in human relationships? Barrett gets in the way of his own message repeatedly with accusations like this. Another example is found on page 36 where he throws out the accusation that sola scriptura has been interpreted as “me and my Bible alone.” This is unfortunate: Barrett’s debate is with theologians, not the average believer in the pew. Does he really think any credible theologian would hold such a silly view?Occasionally Barrett appears to overstate his point. On page 104 we find this statement: “For the first-century believer, to become a Christian was to embrace the salvation given and accomplished by none other than the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…. For these early Christians, to believe the gospel was to believe that the one God of Israel was triune. Anything less was simply not Christian. A gospel that was not trinitarian was no gospel at all.”Well, yes. And, no. While belief that Jesus is the divine Son of God was (and is) crucial to salvation, there was still much confusion, even among believers, as to exactly how that truth was to be reconciled with the historic monotheism of the Jews. Barrett’s confident assertion flies in the face of 400 years of church history, in which godly men were seeking to untangle the mystery of the Trinity. Barrett seems to claim that the first century Christians had it all figured out. But does not the early history of the church record their debates, disagreements, and difficulty in fitting the pieces together?On the other hand, there are places in which Barrett is able to condense his argument to a single, brilliant statement, and this constitutes a large part of the value of his book. For example, on page 123 Barrett states: “[Christ’s] eternal relation to the Father constitutes his redemptive mission to the world, but not vice versa. Get that order right, and we see the gospel in proper trinitarian perspective; get that order wrong, and we misuse the gospel to redefine the Trinity in eternity.”In my view, Barrett makes his strongest argument against EFS on pages 138-9. He builds a case that to be one in essence but manifested in three persons, means of necessity that there cannot be three different wills. Because the three (persons) are one in essence, there can only be one unified (simple) will. The one shared will of the Trinity rises out of the one shared divine nature of the Trinity. The problem with EFS is this: if Christ is eternally submitted to the Father’s will (rather than sharing the one and same will), it implies that there are two different wills—the Father’s, and Christ’s—which would then argue for two different natures. This creates an untenable division in the ontological Trinity; such a thing cannot be.Barrett makes another powerful argument on page 239:"But EFS is asking the wrong question. The right question is this: is submission ad intra or ad extra; is it intrinsic to the immanent Trinity, or is it something that occurs in the economy (in the context of salvation history)? Biblical Christian orthodoxy has always acknowledged that the economy of salvation involves the incarnate Son submitting to the mission his Father has given to him for the purpose of salvation."Barrett goes on to flesh out the thought. I think this is the point in which I finally allowed Barrett to sharpen my understanding, by understanding the Son’s submission to the Father to be connected to his redemptive mission but not to his eternal relation to the Father. Barrett deals with 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 on page 243, stating that it applies not to the Son in the form of God, but to the Son in the form of a servant: “The context is not the immanent Trinity but the economy, the redemptive mission of the incarnate Son.”Like Barrett’s book, this review has already gone on too long. In conclusion I believe Barrett makes his principal point, demolishing EFS and asserting that the distinctions in the immanent Trinity have to do with eternal relations of origin. It is unfortunate that Barrett occasionally gets in his own way by unnecessary and uncharitable characterizations of people on the other side of the fence. For his excellent command of the early church fathers, Barrett gets five stars. For his at-times-uncharitable tone and the excessive length of the book and the sense of repetition, three stars. For the fact that he did ultimately convince me that my former position (EFS) on the Trinity was wrong, we’ll settle with four stars. Recommended.If you don’t have the time to read Barrett’s book, read Mike Riccardi’s excellent five-page blog post entitled, “EFS Redux: Aiming for Closure on the Trinity Debate.” Google it. Riccardi gets right to the point (in five short pages), and his logic is unassailable.

The beautiful and so succinct way this book has been written, allows you to want to read for hours without end. I have truly enjoyed its clear and simple message of who G*d is and why the Adversary and accuser of G*d’s people wants these truths hidden from us. To know Him (G*d Simply Trinity) is to love Him; and to behold Him is to become the way He is ! How can we not want to love a G*d like this.Quote by Dick Winn.

An excellent review of the doctrine of the trinity and a helpful reminder of the pitfalls to avoid. And all of this in an enjoyable and readable style.

Supported by Scripture and by Church history. If you want to know what the Christian faith actually teaches about the Trinity, and how Scripture is used to defend the classical form of the Trinity, read this.

Initially purchased the Audible copy but realised I wanted MORE. I have been spiritually refreshed by this theological journey and thank Matthew Barrett. I am now rejoining a pathway that in every way has helped me appreciate the value of reading the works of our Church fathers ... Sola Scriptura

Chapter 8 alone is worth the price of the book. Truly enjoyed reading this. Plan to read it more often

To dig deep into the trinity is to plunge into an ocean that is God. The ocean is infinite, more than we could understand or imagine, but Matthew as help us understand that ocean a little better. Thank you Matthew.