While digging up material to supplement a fairly low-level Intro to Theology class newly offered by a nearby RCA church (which has graciously hosted some from our church in the past to teach evangelism, worldview, church history and Heidelberg), I stumbled across this Berkhof quote (Summary of Christian Doctrine, ch. 7) which I find quite troubling:
The three are not subordinate in being the one to the other, though it may be said that in order of existence the Father is first, the Son second, and the Holy Spirit third, an order which is also reflected in their work.
I do not know if this quote is accurate or not, but if so, my mind reels at his use of "order of existence", which implies, for the Son and the Holy Spirit, a "cessation of non-existence", which seems downright heretical. Was he ever challenged on the orthodoxy of this statement, or is he using--without clarification--some non-temporal combination of the terms "order, existence, first, second, third"? By way of apparent contrast, here are the appropriate lines from the Athanasian Creed:
10. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.
25. And in this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another.
26. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal.
Was Berkhof saying that the Athanasian Creed was wrong on these points? Did he claim to be in agreement by implying that the Son's
substance was coeternal with the Father, but that the Son's
person came into being later, upon having been begotten--and similary for the Spirit, upon proceeding? (I'm afraid his earlier remarks about the relation of the Persons to the Substance make me feel this is what he was saying.) Or was he just being very careless?
