Subordinationism is the broad theological tendency — found in many early church fathers before Nicaea — to understand the Son as in some way subordinate to or derived from the Father. Not necessarily in Arius’s radical sense (the Son as a creature), but in the sense that the Father is the ‘source’ or ‘principle’ of the Trinity, and the Son and Spirit derive their existence from him. Origen’s theology is often described as subordinationist in this softer sense. The Nicene Creed attempts to rule out ontological subordinationism (the Son is of the same substance as the Father) while some theologians argue for a functional or relational subordinationism (the Son is equal in nature but subordinate in role — used today in debates about women’s ordination by those who draw an analogy between the eternal Son’s submission to the Father and women’s submission to men).