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    Trinity and History: The God-World Relation in the Theology of Dorner, Barth, Pannenberg, and Jenson
    Trinity and History: The God-World Relation in the Theology of Dorner, Barth, Pannenberg, and Jenson
    Trinity and History: The God-World Relation in the Theology of Dorner, Barth, Pannenberg, and Jenson
    Ebook474 pages10 hours

    Trinity and History: The God-World Relation in the Theology of Dorner, Barth, Pannenberg, and Jenson

    By Scott P. Rice

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    How does God relate to the world? What difference does our understanding of God make for conceiving of God's relation to us? Christian theology has seen a flourishing of activity in response to these questions under a common doctrinal theme: Trinity. That said, proposals for understanding how God relates to the world through the Trinity of God's being--otherwise known as the relationship between the immanent and the economic Trinity--vary significantly. This book, reflecting on the work of four modern theologians--Dorner, Barth, Pannenberg, and Jenson--offers a set of constructive proposals on key issues relating to the God-world relation, including a way to understand divine immutability without denying God's living history with others and a trinitarian notion of divine sovereignty that demonstrates how God transcends history from within the structures of time. At each step along the way the author conveys how Trinity opens up a richer, more expansive conception of God's relation to us. This book shows how Trinity serves the practical work of theology as faith seeking understanding.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPickwick Publications
    Release dateApr 21, 2022
    ISBN9781532668142
    Trinity and History: The God-World Relation in the Theology of Dorner, Barth, Pannenberg, and Jenson
    Author

    Scott P. Rice

    Scott P. Rice serves as Resident Theologian at Highrock Covenant Church in Boston, Massachusetts. He has published articles in Pro Ecclesia, The Heythrop Journal, and Canadian American Theological Review.

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      Book preview

      Trinity and History - Scott P. Rice

      Introduction

      How does God relate to the world? What difference does our understanding of God’s being make for conceiving of God’s relation to us? If God has become incarnate in Christ, if God somehow shares created history with us, how should we think about eternity? How should we think about divine transcendence? This book addresses these questions by way of a theological inquiry into Christianity’s foundational concept for God: Trinity. More specifically, this work reflects on how the doctrine of the Trinity provides a solution to the problem of understanding the relation between divine and created reality. The Christian theological tradition has historically understood the eternal reality of God in a timeless way. As Augustine writes, in eternity nothing moves into the past: all is present.¹ And as Boethius famously states, eternity is the totally simultaneous and perfect possession of unending life.² In his adaptation of Boethius’ idea of eternity, Thomas Aquinas claims that God is present to all time, and his glance is carried from eternity over all things as they are in their presentiality.³ However, the timeless conception of eternity raises some obvious and difficult questions. Above all, how does a timeless God become incarnate? How does a timeless God live out a history with others? This study enters into a conversation on the way that the doctrine of the Trinity can inform our understanding of the God-world relation. Tweaking the second question above, this study asks: What difference does Trinity make in a theological attempt to square the eternal life of God with the vitality of God revealed among us?

      Two points illuminate the basic background from which the study proceeds. First, the thesis of this work is set within the context of the revitalization of the classical doctrine of the Trinity in contemporary theology. Immanuel Kant once remarked that the doctrine of the Trinity, taken literally, has no practical relevance at all.⁴ And as recent as the middle of the twentieth century, Claude Welch could still lament Trinity’s place in prominent strands of modern theology as a doctrine of the second rank.⁵ This all changed, however, in the final third of the twentieth century. It is now widely acknowledged that the doctrine of the Trinity has come to fully occupy a central place in constructive theological reflection. One can readily find Trinity being put to use in the theological interpretation of Scripture, debates on personhood and subjectivity, gender studies, inter-religious dialogue, and much more.⁶

      The second is a practical concern. This is a work in theology that follows the Augustinian-Anselmian dictum of faith seeking understanding. The use of Trinity in reflecting on the God-world relation in this study is meant to aid in understanding already existing beliefs in realities like divine presence and the sovereignty of God. I show how a trinitarian idea of God can resource a theological account of God’s relation to history that builds on these and other basic beliefs of the Christian faith. Relatedly, this work upholds the sentiment behind the slogan with which Karl Barth begins his Church Dogmatics: theology serves church proclamation. One of the central tasks of this study is to put forward an understanding of divine presence and the transcendence of God as simultaneously true, that is, to hold at the same time. To underscore the full presence of God in Jesus as the incarnate Son neither nullifies nor competes with the sovereignty and (omni)presence of God in and over all creation. To be able to wholeheartedly affirm the truth of God’s presence, to say to others, to the suffering and the dying, God is with us—God is with you—is a statement of immense pastoral significance. Equally important, though more conceptual, is to be able to say this without a divided perception of God’s being: of God with us or God below, present in the contingencies of creaturely reality, and God above, utterly transcendent in the absolute character of the divine nature; in short, two Gods. The solution to a problem like this lies in a trinitarian idea of God. I argue that Trinity affords an understanding of divine presence and transcendence to hold at once—one Trinity, with us by means of the transcendent liveliness of God’s own being.

      Utilizing the doctrine of the Trinity, this work addresses the relationship between God and history in four theological figures: Isaak A. Dorner, Karl Barth, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Robert W. Jenson. Each of these figures attends to the way that God’s revelatory activity in history proceeds from the Trinity of God’s being. In this way they take part in a tradition that includes Athanasius, Aquinas, Luther, Edwards, Hegel, and a host of contemporary theologians, such as Hans Urs von Balthasar, Leonardo Boff, Catherine Mowry LaCugna, Kathryn Tanner, and Miroslav Volf. More specifically and in highlighting the contextual nature of all theology, the central questions of this study derive from and are situated mostly explicitly within the German theological tradition as extended into English-language scholarship of the North Atlantic region. As I show, the historical and contextual connections which link together the four central figures of this study provide a rich supply of material that I build into the constructive analyses of this work. This often takes shape through the reception of theological ideas and their redeployment. For example, as I explore in chapter 2, Barth takes over Dorner’s doctrine of divine immutability in his treatment of divine constancy in Church Dogmatics II/1. However, Dorner’s idea of immutability can be seen to undergo a subtle but significant modification by Barth in Church Dogmatics II/2 in order to bring the vibrancy of God’s history with us into closer alignment with God’s unchanging being. Furthermore, while I treat each theological figure separately, increasingly bringing the relevant connections between them to bear as the work unfolds, the individual chapters of this book work together in order to provide a general outline of God’s relation to history. After clarifying the main problem of reconciling the eternal being of God with the vitality of God in history, I turn to the use of Trinity for an understanding of God’s living relation to history that takes into account three essential dynamics: the link between God’s pre-temporal eternity and God’s revealed history; the inner-historical vitality of God; and God’s transcendent-eschatological relation to history.

      The subject of God’s living or real relation to history is contested. Thomas Aquinas famously states, since God is outside the whole order of creation, and all creatures are ordered to Him, and not conversely, it is manifest that creatures are really related to God Himself; whereas in God there is no real relation to creatures, but a relation only in idea.⁷ By rejecting a real relation to the world, according to William J. Hill, Thomas does not mean the absence of an actual relation with created reality, but the absence of one that designates an ontic determination of deity, a passive dependence upon creatures.⁸ The efforts I make in this study to speak of God’s living or real relation to history do not mean that God is at the whim of creatures or creaturely reality. In relating to the world God remains sovereign Lord over and in all of the various parts of God’s creation. My aim in this study rather is to explore and tease out the possibilities for understanding some of the particularities of God’s living relation to the world through Trinity as a theological resource. This study is thus similar in intention to the claim of Thomistic scholar W. Norris Clarke when he writes, in God’s triune being receptivity is present in the Son and the Spirit . . . as a pure perfection of existence at its highest.⁹ Receptivity, in other words, is not alien to God but characteristic of God’s being insofar as God is triune. How does such a conception of God’s being, specifically as a perfection of God’s triunity, open up new possibilities for understanding God as not only active but also receptive in relation to us, in hearing and responding to the prayers of the faithful and so on? My concern in this work is not divine receptivity per se, though I do treat the question of whether history somehow determines God’s being. Rather, my central concern is how the idea of God as triune can help to inform an understanding of the transcendent movement and presence of God in time and the process of history. How does the triune God act and move among us based on the internal movements of God as Father, Son, and Spirit?¹⁰

      The topic of God’s relation to the world involves the divine attributes. I treat several of them over the course of this study that bear on God’s living relation to history, specifically those that touch on divine transcendence and the reality of God’s presence with us. The question above on whether history determines God’s being points ahead to an engagement with the doctrine of divine immutability. Does God change? How does a trinitarian idea of God impact our understanding of whether (or how) God changes in God’s living relation to history? Also important are the doctrines of divine infinity and eternity. I largely leave aside two closely related themes: im/passability and divine foreknowledge. I attend to questions of God and the (self-)constitution of God’s being in the events of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, but a definitive position on the question of im/passability goes beyond the scope of this study. The im/passability question is both deeply significant and highly divisive in contemporary theology.¹¹ Likewise, the theme of divine foreknowledge could be addressed at different points in this work. Because of the central place of matters of divine ontology in this study, I focus rather on the question of the presence of the future to God, or, put somewhat crassly, God’s physical presence to the future.

      Outline of Work

      The chapter outline of this book is as follows: I make use of the work of the mediating theologian Isaak A. Dorner in chapter 1 in lieu of a longer introduction here to the theme of God’s relation to history. The engagement with Dorner’s important essay on divine immutability further specifies the problem of this study and shows how it takes shape within the context of the second half of the nineteenth century. The essential contribution of Dorner for the purposes of this work lies in the clarity with which he poses and responds to the question of how to reconcile a notion of divine immutability with the revealed vitality of God in history. Immutability, as noted above, is a secondary theme to be addressed in this study. The larger point here lies in the way that Dorner makes recourse to an ethical concept of God, construed along trinitarian lines, as the solution to the problem of reconciling immutability and the livingness of God. I show how Dorner’s approach, with a slight modification, can be adapted to form the basic question of this study in terms of how the doctrine of the Trinity works to establish a notion of God’s living relation to history.

      The more constructive argument of this work begins in chapter 2 and the engagement with the trinitarian theology of Karl Barth. This chapter consists of two parts. In part 1, I assess how Barth incorporates his trinitarian idea of God into his doctrines of revelation in Church Dogmatics I/1 and divine constancy in Church Dogmatics II/1 in order to show how God’s activity in history proceeds from the eternal (or antecedent) Trinity. Barth’s theology demonstrates the way that trinitarian reflection animates the theological approach of faith seeking understanding. More critically, I utilize Pannenberg’s argument concerning divine subjectivity and a key claim from Kathryn Tanner’s theology on the way that history impacts God’s identity in order to assess limitations in Barth’s trinitarian theology around both divine presence and how God is understood to abide and move in history. In the material treated up to Church Dogmatics II/1, I show how Barth makes only little of an advance on Dorner’s immutability essay. In part 2 of this chapter, I follow through on a point of doctrinal development in Barth’s theology and his use of Christology in the doctrine of election from Church Dogmatics II/2. This solves several dilemmas from part 1. I argue that Barth’s concept of the Son’s obedience, grounded in the concrete history of Jesus, provides a sense of continuity between God’s pre-temporal eternity and revelatory history and also precludes the problematic notion of a two-fold history of God. I also consider how Barth’s doctrine of election enables a view of divine immutability that more coherently integrates God’s eternal reality and living history than Dorner’s immutability essay.

      In chapter 3, I consider Wolfhart Pannenberg on the trinitarian mediated history of God. I return to Pannenberg’s criticism of Barth on the divine subjectivity, bringing it into shaper focus through a similar assessment of Barth’s theology by Jürgen Moltmann, in order to highlight the central themes of Pannenberg’s theology for understanding the God-world relation: eschatology and the reciprocity of the divine persons. I then lay out Pannenberg’s early views of God, revelation, and futurity before turning to his mature doctrine of the Trinity and trinitarian concept of eternity. This chapter also introduces a common way to conceive of God’s being and God’s activity ad extra in later twentieth century theology as the relationship between the immanent and the economic Trinity, which I employ in subsequent parts of this study. In the critical analysis of this chapter I show how Pannenberg sets forth a trinitarian concept of God compatible with God’s revealed history. More constructively, I utilize Pannenberg’s concept of the dependent monarchy of the Father to make the case for an understanding of the movement of God in time and the process of history. The key to this conception is an eschatological interpretation of the relations of origin from the classical doctrine of the Trinity. I pair this conception with a reflection on the immutability of God’s being in the midst of a changing history. My argument is that the unchanging God moves in history based on the (trinitarian) unity-in-distinctions of God’s being. In the final section of this chapter I highlight some ambiguities in Pannenberg’s doctrine of eternity that result in a timeless notion of divine reality. I argue that this stems from an inadequate application of Pannenberg’s trinitarian theology to his concept of eternity and show how this points up the need for an understanding of how God simultaneously transcends and indwells temporal reality.

      In chapter 4, I consider a temporally structured idea of transcendence based on Robert W. Jenson’s trinitarian theology. This chapter brings together Jenson’s early proposal for a temporal (futuristic) concept of transcendence with the trinitarian theology of his later work. Drawing from both my evaluation of Pannenberg’s doctrine of eternity in chapter 3 as well as Jenson’s critical assessment of Barth’s doctrine of election, I demonstrate the need for a more historical understanding of divine freedom. The concept of transcendence in this chapter rests on Jenson’s temporal ontology of the Trinity, which I unpack through his notions of narrative identity, divine envelopment, and his articulation of eternity through the events of Christ’s passion and resurrection. I argue that Jenson’s divine ontology, with key emphases on the governing role of the trinitarian unity-in-distinctions and the Spirit’s identity in God, opens up a way to conceive of God as present in history and transcendent being at once. I make this argument by drawing from both previous claims of this work, such as Tanner’s understanding of history’s meaning for God’s being, and distinct elements in Jenson’s trinitarian theology. I conclude by building on chapter 3’s claim on God’s movement in time and the process of history with a view of the Trinity as the transcendent source of time’s movement.

      The final chapter recaps the arguments of this study and highlights an intention that underlies the work as a whole: to demonstrate just how fruitful the doctrine of the Trinity is for conceiving of God’s relation to the creaturely reality God loves. I conclude the work with two constructive proposals that build on the arguments from chapters 1–4. The first is methodological. I make the case for a theological formulation of God’s being as Father, Son, and Spirit that includes the historical telos of their relations as a (self-)determinative fact of God’s being. I connect this proposal to Thomas Aquinas’ view of the eternal relations or processions of the divine persons as containing the temporal missions. In the second proposal I fill out a lacuna in Pannenberg’s and Jenson’s assertion that the immanent Trinity is the eschatological Trinity. I propose an eschatological understanding of the immanent Trinity based on the revealed being of God that utilizes both the concept of the Father’s realized monarchy and the Augustinian view of the Spirit as divine love. I show how these concepts serve as bookends of sorts, pointing to the animating source and the triumphant power of God’s self-enabled and living relation to history.

      An Acknowledgement and a Note on Gendered Language for God

      Before proceeding to the main body chapters of this work, two notes are in order. As mentioned before, this work is situated within the German theological tradition as it extends into areas of English language scholarship. Over the past few decades trinitarian theology has undergone a flourishing of activity in different theological domains and geographical areas. Moreover, this book reflects on the work of four theologians, all of whom are white males. I acknowledge at the forefront of this study that these factors place a significant limitation on the scope and perspective of this work. This study therefore makes no claim to be a comprehensive statement on the topic of the triune God’s relation to the world. Rather, while I believe these figures offer helpful contributions to the central theme of this essay, a fuller understanding of the triune God’s relation to the world will come by way of attending to a geographical, cultural, and social diversity beyond the focus of this study, especially to the essential contributions of women, persons of color, and LGBTQ+ people. In my own growing realization of the significance of these points, an important function of this work for me is to serve as an entry point into a vital and broader conversation that is giving shape to Christian theological studies and the church today.

      And second, I use the traditional nomenclature of Father, Son, and Spirit in this study. I realize that no simple equivalency in meaning can or should be made between these terms, especially of Father and Son, as they apply to God and their creaturely counterparts. I use this nomenclature in keeping with the teachings of the New Testament Gospels, specifically Jesus’ instructions on prayer in Matthew 6:5–15 and Luke 7:1–4 and the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19. I also employ it based on the conviction that it holds a place of theological and liturgical primacy—though by no means, of course, exclusivity—insofar as it captures both the specific coordinates of the gospel’s storyline and the particular identities (persons) of the Trinity in a way that proposed substitutes do not, such as Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer. I use the masculine pronoun when referencing Father, Son, or Spirit individually, but not in reference to the word God. I recognize the pastoral sensitivities that need to be considered here. I also acknowledge the important place of many feminist and womanist theological criticisms around divine naming, which rightly call attention to discerning forms of patriarchy and male sexism that accompany theological speech, and the need to root them out. Finally, I note my commitment here to regularly reevaluate the reasoning, significance, and broader impact of the language that I use to describe and name God. Theology is a living conversation, and for that to work I must leave open the possibility of changing my mind. I am deeply appreciative of those at Highrock Covenant Church (Boston, MA), where I currently serve as a Resident Theologian, and particularly to the members of the Theology Lab community whose persistent and thoughtful engagement on this subject helps to provide both accountability and a constructive context for theological dialogue.

      1

      . Augustine, Confessions, XI.

      11

      . Cf. Augustine, De Trinitate, IV.

      47

      .

      2

      . Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, V.VI.

      10

      . While Boethius makes the novel move of identifying eternity with the divine life itself, his definition has been received in the tradition mainly as the absence of time. See the example from Thomas Aquinas that follows, as well as Summa Theologica,

      1

      .

      10

      .

      1

      . See also Peters, God as Trinity,

      148

      .

      3

      . Aquinas, Summa Theologica,

      1

      .

      14

      .

      13

      ;

      1

      .

      57

      .

      3

      .

      4

      . Kant, The Conflict of the Faculties,

      65

      –

      67

      .

      5

      . Welch, In This Name,

      3

      –

      9

      .

      6

      . For a sample overview of different applications of trinitarian theology, see Green et al., The Trinity among the Nations; Adiprasetya, An Imaginative Glimpse; Johnson, Quest for the Living God,

      202

      –

      26

      ; LaCugna, God for Us.

      7

      . Aquinas, Summa Theologica,

      1

      .

      13

      .

      7

      .

      8

      . Hill, The Three-Personed God,

      213

      .

      9

      . Clarke, Person and Being,

      20

      –

      21

      ,

      82

      –

      87

      .

      10

      . For a similar expression that anticipates many of the arguments in this work, see Balthasar, Mysterium Paschale,

      28

      .

      11

      . For a helpful discussion on im/passability, see Keating and White, Divine Impassability and the Mystery of Human Suffering.

      1

      The Living Immutability of God

      Trinity and History in the Theology of Isaak A. Dorner

      How does the doctrine of divine immutability square with the revealed vitality of God? This is the question that Lutheran mediating theologian, Isaak A. Dorner, put forth in his three-part essay for the Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie, On the Proper Conception of the Doctrine of God’s Immutability, with Special Reference to the Reciprocal Relation between God’s Suprahistorical and Historical Life (1856–58).¹² I begin with Dorner’s immutability essay as a way to frame the central problem of this study. The problem derives from a modified version of the question above on bridging divine immutability with God’s revealed vitality as well as, mutatis mutandis, reconciling God’s unchangeability with the living character of God’s being. I ask: How does the eternal nature of the Trinity square with the revealed vitality of God? Specifically, how does the triunity of God’s being ground and enable God’s living relation to history? The scope of these questions will include treatments of Trinity’s significance for examining divine presence, the movement of God in time, the relation between divine transcendence and immanence, and the formulation (and reformulation) of divine attributes, such as divine immutability.

      This chapter, however, presents more than a mere overview of Dorner’s immutability essay that frames the basic problem of this study. My way to this problem comes through a critical engagement with the role of Trinity in Dorner’s immutability essay. I argue that Dorner applies the trinitarian understanding of God more consistently to the latter of the two problems posed above; that is, he constructively applies Trinity to the problem of reconciling immutability and the vitality of God’s being. This opens up a dynamic ontology for understanding how God relates to history through God’s triunity. But Dorner does not similarly employ Trinity for the other problem of reconciling immutability with the revealed being of God in history. The meaning of Trinity for the history that God lives with others is largely left unsaid. This lacuna in Dorner’s application of a trinitarian ontology to the God-world relation marks a gap that I attempt to fill out in subsequent chapters through engagements with the other central figures of this work. Furthermore, Dorner’s essay plays a significant role when we turn to Karl Barth’s trinitarian theology in chapter 2. While the immutability essay garnered little attention in the theological scene of Dorner’s time, it was given something of a historical lifeline shortly before the middle of the twentieth century when Barth noted his indebtedness to the work in his doctrine of God from Church Dogmatics II/1.¹³ In chapter 2 I use Dorner’s essay for two purposes: first, as a key point of comparison in the critical assessment of how Barth’s trinitarian theology construes God’s living relation to history; and second, to demonstrate the importance of election for a concept of immutability that includes both God’s eternal vitality and being in time.

      Dorner’s constructive proposal centers on his concept of God’s ethical being in part III of the essay. In order to understand both how Dorner arrives at this notion as well as the underlying problems he identifies in the doctrine of immutability, and the role Trinity plays in fixing them, it is important to consider the immutability essay more broadly. In section 1 of this chapter I lay out Dorner’s objection to the classical understanding of immutability. Next I unpack Dorner’s initial use of trinitarian doctrine to conceive of the liveliness that underlies God’s immutability, giving specific attention to the way Dorner relates this concept to God’s involvement in creation. I then turn to Dorner’s trinitarian understanding of God’s ethical immutability. Section 2 of this chapter concludes with a critical analysis of Dorner’s account that derives the central problem of this study by recasting Dorner’s task in the immutability essay along more robustly trinitarian lines.

      1: Immutability, Trinity, and the Vitality of God

      1.1: The Context of the Immutability Essay

      Dorner’s immutability essay is occasioned by the kenotic controversy of the mid-nineteenth century. In part I of the essay Dorner assesses this controversy. The debate, mainly between Lutheran and Reformed theologians, laid claim to the concept of the communicatio idiomatum or the communication of properties that belong to the distinct natures (human and divine) of Christ’s person. A key Lutheran figure in the debate, Gottfried Thomasius, advanced the idea that the incarnation of the Logos entails not only the non-use but the actual divestment of certain divine attributes. The Logos surrenders the relative divine attributes, or those that pertain to the divine essence in the being and activity of God ad extra (e.g., omnipotence, omnipresence) and not the necessary attributes of God such as divine love and wisdom.¹⁴

      Dorner is severely critical of Thomasius’ Christology. Thomasius wants a conceivable account of the unity of divinity and humanity in Christ’s person. But to achieve this by way of a self-divestment of the Logos’ divine attributes, Dorner argues, comes at the expense of one of the very things that Thomasius wishes to uphold within the unity of Christ’s person: his deity or divine nature. Consequently, it is not the immanent eternal Son of God, but only another, naturally subordinate ‘great man’ that becomes incarnate.¹⁵ Moreover, Dorner takes issue with a problem that he finds endemic to the kenotic project of his contemporaries as a whole. On one hand, they dwell on a fixed unity between the Logos and humanity that begins at the outset of the Son’s incarnation; on the other, this unity is conceived as a goal to be attained over the course of Christ’s life. The kenoticists therefore assume an idea of divine immutability, in this case, one that dictates the terms of Christ’s personal development in time, which they otherwise oppose.¹⁶ Dorner’s dissatisfaction with the kenotic project is, however, only mildly telling of his larger aims. His constructive proposal around divine immutability becomes more clear through his foray into the doctrine of God in part II of the essay.

      He begins part II with an overview of Augustine’s idea of God and his understanding of immutability. God, according to Augustine, is the highest good and does not change. All that comes into being through God’s creative power is distinct from God and subject to change. As Augustine puts this in his Confessions, all mutable things have in you their immutable origins. In you all irrational and temporal things have the everlasting causes of their life.¹⁷ Augustine’s concept of immutability is bound up with his doctrine of divine simplicity, captured in the succinct expression that all that God has, God is.¹⁸ Therefore God is identical to God’s attributes; God does not merely have power, but is omnipotent. For created entities, in contrast, an underlying distinction applies between being itself and the more fundamental parts upon which creatures depend for actualization. In

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