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Locating Atonement: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics
240Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780310521167 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Zondervan Academic |
| Publication date: | 11/10/2015 |
| Series: | Los Angeles Theology Conference |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
Fred Sanders (Ph D, Graduate Theological Union) is professor of theology in the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University in La Mirada, California. He is author of numerous books including The Triune God in the New Studies in Dogmatics series; The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything; and Dr. Doctrines’ Christian Comix. He is coeditor of Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective: An Introductory Christology and Retrieving Eternal Generation. Fred is a core participant in the Theological Engagement with California’s Culture Project and a popular blogger at The Scriptorium Daily.
Read an Excerpt
Locating Atonement
Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics
By Oliver D. Crisp, Fred Sanders
ZONDERVAN
Copyright © 2015 Oliver D. Crisp and Fred SandersAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-310-52116-7
CHAPTER 1
THE PLACE OF THE CROSS AMONG THE INSEPARABLE OPERATIONS OF THE TRINITY
Adonis Vidu
The conference title invites us to "locate atonement" within a broader theological framework. In response to this challenge, I wish to explore the integration between the work of Christ at the cross and the classic doctrine of inseparable trinitarian operations. While I will not be defending a specific theory of the atonement, the theses that follow could be taken as a set of trinitarian constraints on any such theory. In particular, such constraints will affect the understanding of "divine punishment" in certain atonement models.
I will first attempt to unpack the logic of inseparable operations. While I am convinced that theology is still searching for an adequate conceptual model of trinitarian economic agency, the patristic grammar of the concept rules out certain misconceptions of what this inseparability entails. Next, I discuss certain problems in the recent application of the principle to the work of Christ by Kathryn Tanner and Bruce McCormack. In light of these perceived weaknesses, the third section turns to an exploration of the doctrine of the trinitarian missions, with the assistance of Aquinas and Bernard Lonergan. At this point, three theses will be made in relation to our topic. The final section will then outline the significance of these theses for penal substitutionary atonement specifically.
The Logic of Inseparability
Since the doctrine of inseparable operations is well engrained in the fabric of Reformational theology, and in particular among defenders of penal substitution (PS), I will not be defending it here. However, lax construals of this principle abound. In particular, this unity is often defined as a unity of intention and purpose. The tradition, however, is rather scrupulous about how this unity is to be construed. I will focus mainly on the Cappadocians and Augustine. This is not to say that other important statements of the doctrine are not to be found; however, the Cappadocians and Augustine crystalize some of these scruples, often neglected today.
That the Cappadocians affirm this principle is noncontroversial. Basil affirms it in relation to understanding the work of the Spirit: "The Holy Spirit is inseparable and wholly incapable of being parted from the Father and the Son ... in every operation." For Nyssen, the unity of operations is not a statement merely to the effect that the Father, Son, and Spirit do the same things independently of one another. Rather, because they do the same actions, they share the same power. The action of cleansing from sin, for example, is attributed to both the Spirit (Rom 8:2,13) and to Christ (1 Jn 1:9). Clearly, this is not simply the Spirit cleansing some and Christ others, but both being active in the very same action. For Gregory's argument against Eunomius to work, then, it is not enough to say that the two work in common, both with the intention of achieving an eventual end. Rather, they must each be involved in each other's activities.
Thus, writes Nyssen,
since among men the action of each in the same pursuits is discriminated, they are properly called many since each of them is separated from the others within his own environment, according to the special character of his operation. But in the case of the Divine nature we do not similarly learn that the Father does anything by Himself in which the Son does not work conjointly, or again that the Son has any special operation apart from the Holy Spirit; but every operation which extends from God to creation, and is named according to our variable conceptions of it, has its origin from the Father, and proceeds through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit. ... For this reason the name derived from the operation is not divided with regard to the number of those who fulfil it, because the action of each concerning anything is not separate and peculiar, but whatever comes to pass, in reference either to the acts of His providence for us, or to the government or constitution of the universe, comes to pass by the action of the Three, yet what does come to pass is not three things.
The above excerpt is extremely careful in the distinctions it is making. They bear directly on my thesis. Nyssen insists that, unlike the operations of man, which although similar and related are nevertheless ascribed to different agents (I read "the name derived from the operation" as a way of talking about ascriptions of agency), the actions of God bear a common agency of the three persons together. Gregory feels compelled to say this because he is concerned with preventing tritheism.
Gregory makes a second distinction between our perception of distinction and multiplicity, and the ultimate and transcendent unity of divine action. What appears to us are "three things," whereas the action of God is really one and indivisible. Human actions are indeed "separate and peculiar," whereas Triune action is indivisible and unified.
The lack of distinction between what the persons bring about is an essential part of the grammar of the Cappadocian concept. It serves Nyssen's ultimate purpose of safeguarding the unity and simplicity of the divine essence as opposed to the division of human nature. And it is precisely "the unity existing in the action [which] prevents plural enumeration." Lack of distinction also implies lack of temporal distinction:
Every good thing and every good name, depending on the power and purpose which is without beginning, is brought to perfection in the power of the Spirit through the Only-begotten God, without mark of time or distinction (there is no delay, existent or conceived, in the motion of the divine will from the Father, through the Son, to the Spirit).
Thus, the Cappadocian construal of the unity of external operations is sufficiently precise to caution against construals of such a unity merely in terms of a common intention. The actions of Father, Son, and Spirit must be mutually involved in each other, such that the common action of the Trinity cannot be broken into simpler constituent actions. Basil is quite explicit on this latter point: "The operation of the Father who worketh all in all is not imperfect, neither is the creating work of the Son incomplete if not perfected by the Spirit."
Augustine regards the inseparability principle as something inherited from orthodox tradition: "The catholic faith has it, that the works of the Father and the Son are not separable." It is part of the very grammar of trinitarian monotheism to argue that "just as the Father and Son and Holy Spirit are inseparable, so they work inseparably." This means that in the context of economy, "Father and Son have but one will and are indivisible in their working." Or again, "with reference to creation, Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one origin, just as they are one creator, and one Lord."
Commenting on John's statement that "the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the father doing" (Jn 5:19), Augustine clarifies that this is
not the Father and the Son doing each his particular works, but the Father doing every work whatsoever by the Son; so that not any works are done by the Father without the Son, or by the Son without the Father; because "all things were made by him and without him was nothing made."
The temporal separation between the components of a possible collective action is rejected in favor of the mutual inter-penetration of the works of the three:
He [the Son, Jesus] meant for us to understand that the Father doeth, not some work which the Son may see, and Son doeth other works after he has seen the Father doing; but that both Father and Son do the very same works. ... Not after the Father hath done works, doeth the Son other works in like manner.
Thus, a particular kind of collective agency is implicitly rejected by Augustine as not adequately preserving the unity of divine nature.
Brian Leftow puts this consensus in the more technical language of the philosophy of action: "Any act-token which is the Father's is equally and fully the Son's and Spirit's, without overdetermination, partial contribution, etc." The caveats "without overdetermination, partial contribution" intimate that the trinitarian persons do not simply mirror each other's actions, neither are their actions simply components of larger collective actions. The unity of operations is not undifferentiated, while it remains simple.
Tanner's Christ the Key
A common objection against the classical understanding of the inseparability principle is that it leads to a "cloaking" of the immanent Trinity and its relations, stripping us of any genuine way of deriving those relations from the notional (personal) divine acts in the economy. Kathryn Tanner argues in Christ the Key that this is not the case. In fact, failure to discern the inseparability of action leads to undesirable Arian consequences.
There is a "pattern of trinitarian relationships" that is the subject of the gospel stories; "information about these relationships can be drawn directly from the way they are narrated in the storyline and does [not?] have to be inferred from what Jesus says." This pattern of relationships reveals an intra-trinitarian taxis, the way in which the persons are ordered to one another.
Tanner writes, "Because Jesus' human life exhibits the Word's relationships with the other members of the trinity, one can use it ... to uncover their general pattern." Such a statement of identity between economic and immanent trinities would please Rahner and LaCugna.
Atonement, then, is located in a trinitarian framework by the axiom that the pattern of intra-trinitarian relationships is mirrored in the economic relations between the Father and the Son. For Tanner this is essential, because "this sharing in trinitarian life from the first in Jesus' life by way of the incarnation is what brings about the redemption of the human as his life proceeds." Atonement turns precisely on the unrestricted and genuine presence of God in the midst of the human circumstances of Jesus' life, especially including his death.
I will return to the redemptive significance of this, but for now we must dwell for a moment on this "trinitarian mirroring" of the immanent into the economic. It is both the distinction as well as the unity that is so mirrored. Tanner writes, "The Word that becomes flesh in Jesus is taken to be clearly distinct from the Father and Spirit because in the gospel stories Jesus talks to the former and sends the latter." While here the distinction between trinitarian persons is observed, their unity is evident in an "equivalence of power and value among the three."
"The whole story of the gospel is taken, moreover, to be their working a single action of salvation together, through equivalently divine capacities; they each act but always jointly by the very same powers for the very same end." The three accomplish the very same thing, through the very same power "but in different, non-interchangeable manners of fashions."
The missions of the Son and Spirit are also described in ways which uphold a very classic account of inseparability. Tanner denies that the missions are "two separable and sequential acts." Again, remember that for her the economic relationships mirror the immanent relationships. Thus, the processions of the persons are mirrored by the economic missions.
However, there is a wrinkle in the story at this point, related to the ancient dichotomy between the immanent and economic trinities. Tanner explains:
Even if the very same relations are simply being extended into the mission they undertake for us, when they incorporate the human in a situation of sin and death through the Word's incarnation, the relations that the members of the trinity have with one another come to reflect that fact.
In such a case, to continue the visual analogies, the trinitarian light is not so much reflected (as in a mirror), but rather refracted, as through a blurred medium. "Not everything, therefore, about the relations among the persons of the trinity in their mission for us also holds for their relations simply among themselves."
Tanner goes on to highlight two aspects of this "deforming." The first bears on temporally indexed acts; the second on the issue of obedience/ subordination. I will consider each in turn.
While eternally the mission of the Son is simultaneous with the mission of the Spirit, economically they are temporally indexed and sequential events. There is a "spreading out over time in the mission of movements that coincide in eternity." In the economy, "perfect return is delayed, hampered by the sin and death in human life that the Son and Spirit face in the course of the mission." While eternally the Son and the Spirit proceed from the Father "in interwoven, mutually dependent fashion," in the economy this takes time.
Note Tanner's position here: "The Son can send the Spirit — specifically to us — only because he has already received the Spirit and felt the effects of its working within his own human life." Now, all of this takes time. Remember, though, that this is crucial for Tanner's argument: "The very life of God itself ... must be directly mixed up with suffering, conflict, death, and disease in the saving action of Christ." The question is, obviously, in what way can the life of God be mixed up with these? One potential difficulty for Tanner's position can be noted at this point.
In making the Son's sending of the Spirit conditional upon his being first Spirit-filled, Tanner is making the human nature of Jesus a causal (or constitutive) condition not only of the sending of the Spirit, but of the very ability to send it. If this is the case, then it can no longer be asserted, as Tanner would want, that the Son and the Father act jointly by the very same power for the very same end. The Son's power to send the Spirit seems to have an additional constitutive condition. As I will show in my discussion of Thomas's doctrine of trinitarian missions, it is problematic to make Christ's human nature into anything more than just a "consequent condition" of his sending the Spirit to us.
Let me address the second aspect of the "economic refraction" identified by Tanner. The subordination of Jesus to the Father is something to be explained on account of his human nature. However, the Son's human obedience to the Father is indicative of something about the personal identity of the eternal Son:
There is something in the relations between Father and Son that corresponds to the suggestion of inferiority in Jesus' relation with the Father. There must be, since Jesus is the Word and behaving as himself in his relations with the Father. It is just that what corresponds to it is not properly characterized as a relationship of superiority and subordination.
Tanner is perfectly right to appeal at this point to two staples of the classic inseparability doctrine: (a) The economic relationships between the persons are constituted by their relationships of origin. Thus, it is fitting that the Son be obedient to the Father, because he proceeds from the Father and not vice versa. (b) The Son is obedient to the Father by virtue of their common will. The Son does not obey an external will. Rather, the Son shares the same will as the Father. In this case, the language of "obedience" almost entirely misfires when applied to the eternal relations between the persons.
All of this is consequential for the doctrine of redemption. If the economic relationships between the trinitarian persons reflect/refract eternal relationships of origin and therefore eternal personal identities, and moreover, if even economically distorted relations such as "obedience" reflect something about personal identities, then might it be the case that statements such as "It was the Lord's will to crush him" (Isa. 53:10 NIV) also have their constitution (to speak "Lonerganian") in the personal identities of the Father and the Son? In other words, is there any trinitarian ground for the claim that there is a direct divine punishment of Jesus? Of the Son by the Father? Bruce McCormack can get us started on this ref lection.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Locating Atonement by Oliver D. Crisp, Fred Sanders. Copyright © 2015 Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
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Table of Contents
AcknowledgementsIntroduction (the Editors)
List of Contributors
1. Bruce Mc Cormack, Princeton Theological Seminary
2. Michael Horton, Westminster Theological Seminary, CA
3. Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary
4. Eleonore Stump, St Louis University
5. Benjamin Myers, United Theological College, Charles Stuart University, Australia
4-6 more essays TBD
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