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Overview
- Michael T. Dempsey
- Nicholas M. Healy
- Kevin W. Hector
- Christopher Holmes
- George Hunsinger
- Paul Dafydd Jones
- Matthew Levering
- Bruce L. McCormack
- Paul Louis Metzger
- Paul D. Molnar
- Paul T. Nimmo
- Aaron T. Smith
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780802864949 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company |
| Publication date: | 06/10/2011 |
| Pages: | 311 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d) |
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Read an Excerpt
Trinity and Election in Contemporary Theology
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Copyright © 2011 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8028-6494-9
Chapter One
God's Triunity and Self-Determination: A Conversation with Karl Barth, Bruce McCormack, and Paul MolnarKevin W. Hector
Introduction
Though Bruce McCormack and Paul Molnar agree with Karl Barth's insistence that God's immanent triunity is known only by way of God's economic triunity, they disagree sharply in regard to its implications. What, for instance, is the relationship between God's triunity and God's self-determination to be God-with-us? What does "freedom" mean when predicated of God? What is the identity of the Logos asarkos? Though they (appear to) agree that answers to these questions must be found in God's economic triunity, McCormack and Molnar disagree on what conclusions this entails. McCormack claims that God's economic triunity reveals that God is eternally self-determined to be God-with-us, such that God's being is eternally being-toward the economy of grace. From this, McCormack infers that (a) the Son must be identified as eternally toward-incarnation, and that (b) God's self-determination is logically prior to God's triunity, in the sense that God constitutes Godself triunely for the sake of being with humanity. Over against McCormack, Molnar contends that God's immanent triunity prevents such interpretations: on Molnar's account, God's immanent triunity is what guarantees God's freedom even in the economy of grace. As such, Molnar rejects the idea that the Son is eternally toward-incarnation and that God's self-determination is logically prior to triunity. (In fact, Molnar also appears to reject the eternality of God's self-determination.)
The agreement of McCormack and Molnar with regard to the starting point does, however, provide a helpful means by which to adjudicate between their respective claims: would either one, on the basis of their admitted starting point, need to reconsider his conclusions? In this chapter I claim that Paul Molnar's response to Bruce McCormack contains within itself the refutation of his own position, but that McCormack's position may move too far in the opposite direction. Toward this end, I will examine (a) the common ground between them; (b) where they disagree; (c) the relationship between their disagreement and the theology of Karl Barth (with which each claims to be in continuity); and (d) the implications that follow from this examination. On this basis, I will argue that (a) the Logos asarkos should indeed be understood as Logos incarnandus; (b) God's self-determination must be understood in terms of the concrete act of Father, Son, and Spirit, and thus not as the act that constitutes God's triunity (whereas McCormack seems to suggest that election is necessary and triunity contingent, I will argue that the reverse is true); and, (c) given that God eternally determined Godself to be-with-us and that God's freedom is freedom-for the covenant with humanity, there is a sense in which humanity is contingently necessary to God.
Agreement between McCormack and Molnar
Assessing the claims of McCormack and Molnar is simplified by the fact that each (a) affirms that theology must be nonspeculative (and each agrees that this means starting with God's economic triunity), and (b) affirms that his theology represents a faithful continuation of Karl Barth's.
Both McCormack and Molnar argue that theology must reject speculative claims about God and, furthermore, that the antidote to such speculation lies in relating God's immanent and economic triunity. In other words, for a theological claim to be nonspeculative, it must be based on God's self-revelation in the economy of God's work ad extra. Though McCormack spends little time defending this position in isolation from his argument, he makes it clear that he is taking up Barth's insistence on doing theology "without engaging in speculation." For his part, Molnar argues at length for this same rejection, insisting that "a contemporary doctrine [of God] should eschew irrelevant speculation about God's inner nature." Therefore, theologians must "adhere to the economic Trinity for our information about the immanent Trinity." From this point of view, Molnar contends that there are only two theological options (and McCormack would agree): "If our knowledge of God is not grounded in the very being and action of God himself—and consequently in his Word and Spirit—then it is in fact nothing more than our own religious or irreligious speculation grounded in our self-experience." If claims about God are not based on God's work, they are ipso facto based on a human projection of "God." As both McCormack and Molnar agree, then, a doctrine of God must be based on God's economic triunity.
McCormack and Molnar also converge in identifying their projects as continuous with the theology of Karl Barth; in particular, both recognize that their rejection of speculation — and specifically theology's necessary basis in God's economic triunity — owes much to Barth. Though McCormack suggests that some elements of Barth's theology require revision, this is the result of McCormack's attempt to think through Barth's own positions; therefore, both McCormack and Molnar see their stances as the continuation of Barth's project.
In light of these convergences, we may fairly apply two criteria in adjudicating between their claims: (a) Do their arguments include any of the "speculation" that each eschews? (b) Whose project represents the continuation of Barth's? In order to address these questions, we must first outline the claims made by each.
Disagreement between McCormack and Molnar
McCormack and Molnar disagree with regard to (a) the relationship between God's economic and immanent triunity; (b) the relationship between God's triunity and self-determination; (c) the nature of God's freedom; and (d) the character of God's Logos. Whereas McCormack emphasizes that God's economic triunity reveals God's eternal being, Molnar stresses that this same economic triunity discloses the absolute freedom with which God acts.
Following Barth, McCormack's claims take the form of an answer to the question "If God is truly revealed in God's triune economy, who must God be antecedently in Godself?" In other words, what must be eternally true of God if God has revealed Godself in Christ? To answer these questions, McCormack argues (a) that the triune God is eternally God-for-and-with-us; (b) that the Logos asarkos must be identified as the Logos incarnandus; and (c) that God's self-determination to be God-with-us is logically prior to God's triunity.
Because Christ reveals God, and because we see in Christ that God is God-with-us, we must conclude that, from all eternity, God determined to be God-with-us. "The electing God," McCormack argues, "is not an unknown 'x.' He is a God whose very being—already in eternity—is determined, defined, by what he reveals himself to be in Christ." If God reveals Godself, then we cannot speculate about a God behind God," a deus absconditus; we must trust that God is eternally who God reveals Godself to be. Moreover, the God revealed in Christ is this God—God-with-us—such that we must recognize this as eternally characteristic of God. God's self-determination to be God-with-us is accordingly an eternal self-determination.
Therefore, in order to understand God correctly — "correctly" here meaning "according to God's revelation in Christ" — we must do so in light of God's eternal self-determination to be God-with-us; any God other than this God is the product of our religious imagination. There is, according to this account, no "neutral" God, a God other than the one who has already determined Godself in this particular way. What, then, does this entail for an account of the Logos asarkos? If the "second identity" of God's triune life is an identity of this God, we cannot speak as though this identity were "neutral," or of an unknown determination. In light of God's eternal self-determination to be God-with-us, McCormack insists that the Logos asarkos (the pre-incarnate Son) must be identified as the Logos incarnandus (the Son who was to become incarnate). The second triune identity is eternally self-determined to be with us, such that we must speak of this identity as being-toward-incarnation. McCormack observes: "If we were to posit the existence of a Logos asarkos above and prior to the eternal decision to become incarnate in time, Barth feared that we would be inviting speculation." Accordingly, he must deny to the Logos a mode or state of being above and prior to the decision to be incarnate in time. He must, to use the traditional terminology, say that there is no Logos in and for himself in distinction from God's act of turning toward the world and humanity in predestination. Given that God is eternally God-with-us, the second triune identity must be identified as Logos incarnandus — the Word who would become incarnate.
The second triune identitymust be so identified not only because God is eternally God-with-us, but also because any other way of identifying the Logos entails that the incarnation introduces a radical change in God's very being. In addition to ruling out speculation about a "neutral," indeterminate God, McCormack's characterization of the Logos as Logos incarnandus guards against the suggestion that the incarnation was discontinuous with God's being, such that prior to the incarnation God was one kind of God, but afterward a different kind. "How is it possible," McCormack asks, "for God to become, to enter fully into time as One who is subjected to the limitations of human life in this world, without undergoing any essential (i.e., ontological) change?" The answer, according to McCormack, is that the Logos must be eternally Logos incarnandus, such that "who or what the Logos is in and for himself (as the Subject of election) is not controlled by the decision to become Mediator in time; that the identity of this Logos is, in fact, already established prior to that eternal act of Self-determination by means of which the Logos became the Logos incarnandus." If God has always been the God who is (and thus could and would be) God-with-us, then the incarnation introduces nothing essentially new into God's being; rather, in the incarnation God takes to Godself that for which God has always been prepared. In light of God's eternal self-determination, God's being can be seen as eternally "fit" for the incarnation. From these reflections on God's eternal "fitness" for the incarnation, McCormack identifies two ways in which Barth's theology would, according to Barth's own strictures, need revision: first, Barth's occasional talk about an "unknown" Logos asarkos would need to be corrected; second, Barth's (non-)discussion of the relationship between God's triunity and self-determination as God-with-us would need to be amended. With regard to the first concern, McCormack argues that statements such as the following appear to be lapses in Barth's theology: "The second 'person' of the Godhead in Himself and as such is not God the Reconciler," Barth claims. "In Himself and as such He is not revealed to us. In Himself and as such He is not Deus pro nobis, either ontologically or epistemologically." Whereas Barth had earlier insisted that, on the basis of God's eternal self-determination, God is God-with-and-for-us, he now appears to posit a God above or prior to this God. If God is eternally self-determined as Godwithus, how can Barth now suggest an "unknown" or indeterminate second triune identity? McCormack contends that this assertion of an "unknown logos" represents a departure from Barth's own project and must therefore be revised.
In addition to this lapse, McCormack maintains that Barth's theology needs revision in another area as well: the relationship of God's triunity and self-determination. McCormack contends that God's being is not imposed on God but freely chosen: God is thus "a Subject insofar as he gives himself (by an eternal act) his own being." If it is true that God freely (though eternally) assigns God's eternal being to Godself, do we have any insight into the basis of this decision? McCormack argues that we do: God's eternal decision to be God-with-us. McCormack reiterates that "God determines to be God, from everlasting to everlasting, in a covenantal relationship with human beings and to be God in no other way." This determination, according to McCormack, includes ontological implications: "This is not a decision for mere role-play," McCormack insists, but "it is a decision which has ontological significance. What Barth is suggesting is that election is the event in God's life in which he [God] assigns himself the being he will have for all eternity." Though God's self-determination and God's triunity are both eternal, self-determination must be seen as logically prior to triunity; triunity, according to this account, is the being that God assigned Godself for the sake of and as a result of God's determination to be God-with-us. In other words, while triunity and self-determination are each eternal, self-determination is necessary while triunity is contingent.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Trinity and Election in Contemporary Theology Copyright © 2011 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. . Excerpted by permission of William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction Michael T. Dempsey 1
Part I The Debate
1 God's Triunity and Self-Determination: A Conversation with Karl Barth, Bruce McCormack, and Paul Molnar Kevin W. Hector 29
2 The Trinity, Election, and God's Ontological Freedom: A Response to Kevin W. Hector Paul D. Molnar 47
3 Can the Electing God Be God Without Us? Some Implications of Bruce McCormack's Understanding of Barth's Doctrine of Election for the Doctrine of the Trinity Paul D. Molnar 63
4 Election and the Trinity: Twenty-Five Theses on the Theology of Karl Barth George Hunsinger 91
5 Election and the Trinity: Theses in Response to George Hunsinger Bruce L. McCormack 115
6 Obedience, Trinity, and Election: Thinking With and Beyond the Church Dogmatics Paul Dafydd Jones 138
7 Barth and the Election-Trinity Debate: A Pneumatological View Paul T. Nimmo 162
8 "A Specific Form of Relationship": On the Dogmatic Implications of Barth's Account of Election and Commandment for His Theological Ethics Christopher Holmes 182
9 God's Self-Specification: His Being Is His Electing Aaron T. Smith 201
Part II Roman Catholic Perspectives
10 Karl Barth, German-Language Theology, and the Catholic Tradition Nicholas M. Healy 229
11 Christ, the Trinity, and Predestination: McCormack and Aquinas Matthew Levering 224
Part III Implications for Ethics Today
12 The Gospel of True Prosperity: Our Best Life in the Triune God Now and Not Yet Paul Louis Metzger 277
Contributors 295
Index 297