1. Owen on undivided divine operations: "The reason, therefore, why the works of God are thus distinctly ascribed unto each person is because, in the undivided operation of the divine nature, each person doth the same work in the order of their subsistence; ...
2. not one as the instrument of the other, or merely employed by the other, but as one common principle of authority, wisdom, love, and power. How come they, then, eminently to be assigned one to one person, another to another? . . . And this is done,—
3. (1.) When any especial impression is made of the especial property of any person on any work; then is that work assigned peculiarly to that person." Owen’s point is that eminent appropriation is due to trinitarian relations.
4. In other words, the Bible attributes distinct divine acts 2 distinct persons of the Godhead in an attempt 2 reveal something of the Trinity 2us. Bavinck says, “[the] immanent relations of the 3 persons in the divine being also manifest themselves outwardly...in their...works.”
5. This is why Bavinck says later, “All things proceed from the Father, are accomplished by the Son, and are completed in the Holy Spirit.” Note the prepositions “from,” “by,” and “in.”
6. This reflects the order, or taxis, within the Trinity and the personal properties of each subsistence: the Father is first, or unbegotten, the Son second, or begotten, and the Holy Spirit third, or the One who proceeds from the Father and the Son (2LCF 2.3 says,
7. “the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son . . .”). It also alerts us to the fact that the appropriated works of the distinct persons are not random.
8. As Webster says, “Appropriation is not random assignation. . . . appropriation is not individuation. And eminent assignation is not exclusive assignation.”
9. In other words, attributing a work to one person does not negate the activity of the other persons in the same work, but it does highlight something of that divine person’s relation to the other divine persons.
