The
decisive factor and controlling centre of the Christian tradition is Jesus
Christ. In his incarnate constitution as God and humanity joined in reconciling
union, “the ground and goal of the Covenant and of the whole creation have been
embodied within actual human existence.” Thus, the real truth of human nature
is to be found in Jesus Christ and in him alone. In Jesus, God’s affirmation of
man as “good” is fully realized. Torrance writes:
Jesus Christ is the Word by whom, for whom, and
in whom we have been created in the image of God, so that in his Incarnation as
Immanuel, God with us and for us and in us, he is the secret of our creation
and redemption―in him we may now penetrate through all the distortion,
depravity and degradation of humanity to the true nature of man hidden beneath
it all.[1]
At the
cross, the truth of man’s sin and guilt is exposed and judged; at the same
time, God’s infinite love for man is revealed, so that the true worth of
humanity is disclosed as the object of God’s sacrificial love. In the humanity
of the incarnate Son of God, we find the truth that for man to live in union
with God is to become fully and perfectly human. Thus, the evil and wickedness
of man has nothing to do with his creaturely nature as such, but rather is a “perversion”
and “corruption” of his nature as a result of rebellion against the creative
source of his being.[2]
Torrance’s particular concern is to show what the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, along with God’s forgiveness of human sin, have to tell us about the real goodness and dignity of man.
Torrance’s particular concern is to show what the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, along with God’s forgiveness of human sin, have to tell us about the real goodness and dignity of man.
(1). For Torrance, the cross is
a window into the heart of God. Jesus Christ is God incarnate, God himself come
to be one of us and make our lost cause his own. Against a neo-Platonic dualism
that asserts that Christ suffered in his humanity but not in his divinity,[3]
we must think of God as directly present in the suffering of Christ on the
cross. We must look beyond the passion of Jesus all the way to the passion of
the Father, who suffered alongside his Son. [4]
As Torrance argues, “The self-abnegating Love of God the Father is surely the
supreme truth that lies behind everything else in the Gospel, and gives it its
decisive meaning and redemptive power.” Because God forgives our sin at
infinite cost to himself in the sacrifice of his Son, the cross proves that God
loves us more than he loves himself. The infinite price God has freely chosen
to pay in order to share his life with humanity attests to the immeasurable
worth and infinite value that God puts upon man. Hence, we are unable to set
any limits on the worth of our fellow human beings.
(2). Jesus Christ, the Eternal
Word of God, has become Man. In the incarnation, the creative ground and source
of our human being has entered the actualities of human existence. By taking
upon himself our fallen Adamic flesh, he has healed the dehumanising breach
between God and humanity, for he is the perfect man in whom there is no ontological
split between what he ought to be and what he is. If to be truly human is to
live in fellowship with God, then Jesus, the obedient Son who lives in perfect
filial relation with the Father, is
the one human being who truly reflects the image and likeness of God. Moreover,
because the fully divine Son of God has assumed our actual fallen human nature in the incarnation, notes Torrance, “it is in
the human being and nature of Jesus that the true nature and dignity of man are
ultimately disclosed and established.” Because he is the Creator Word in whom
God and humanity are indivisibly united in his incarnate Person, “the humanity
of every man, whether he knows it or not, whether he believes it or not, is
ontologically bound up with the humanity of Jesus.” This is precisely how God
makes good his original claim at creation that man is made “good,” notes
Torrance, for Jesus himself is “the true secret of the nature of every human
being.” Because he is both the image and the Reality of God, who has taken our
fallen humanity to himself, it is by reference
to Jesus that we must now think of man as created “in the image of God.”
Even though it may be hidden or distorted by sin, the image of God in man nevertheless
remains, sealed in place by virtue of our ontological bond with Jesus Christ.
Even if we cannot see it, Jesus acknowledges it in teaching that in our
relations with our fellow human beings, we have ultimately to do with him and, therefore,
with God.[5]
Jesus Christ is “humanising
Man” and “personalising Person.” He alone is fully and properly Man, “for in
him the creative Source of human being and the perfect actualisation of human
being are one.” He is the “fount” from which all that is truly human is
derived. We, on the other hand, are “humanised” men and women, for we are not
human by virtue of an innate “essence of humanity,” but only in virtue of what
we receive from his humanity. Therefore, for us to be truly human is to be “in
Christ.”
Likewise, Jesus Christ is “person”
in the fullest sense, for, in him, the creative source of personal being and
the one perfect human person are united. We, on the other hand, are
“personalised persons,” for the source of our personhood lies not in ourselves
but in union with Jesus Christ, through whom, by the power of the Holy Spirit,
we participate in the communion of personal being of the Holy Trinity.
Therefore, for us to be truly personal is to be “in Christ.”[6]
The humanising and
personalising character of the incarnation must be understood in relation to
the infinite self-abnegating love of God embodied in Jesus Christ, “who did not
come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”
(Mark 10:45). In giving up his Son at infinite cost to himself, the Father has
proven that he loves us unconditionally, without reserve, more than he loves
himself. As Torrance argues, “That is the essential nature of his Divine Love
which bears upon us in Jesus with all the compelling claims of God upon us and
with the undiluted imperative that we love God … [with all our heart, soul, mind] … and our
neighbour as ourselves.” This is such a new kind of law, Torrance contends,
that a new word, agape, had to be
coined for it in the New Testament. As we reach out to the “objective other” in
agape, we pass beyond ourselves to
that place where the humanising and personalising power of Jesus Christ may be
actualised in our daily lives. It is here, argues Torrance, that the real
goodness and dignity of man is made manifest: in “loving others objectively for
their sake, and being accounted as the object of such selfless love for our
sake.”[7]
The Communion of the Holy Spirit
As already noted, the biblical
tradition eschews a Platonic dualism in favour of a unitary anthropology, where
man is body of his mind and mind of his body. Hence, the “spirit” in man, by
which he is related to God, is not a “third” thing but rather a “dynamic
correlate” to the Holy Spirit, by whose power man is sustained in his
distinctive existence in relation to other human beings. While transcendent and
wholly Other, the Holy Spirit is free to be present to man, in order to make
him open to God and bring him into fellowship with his Creator. While man has
no inherent “continuity” with God,[8]
he does have a relationship with God
that is unceasingly sustained by the Holy Spirit, who acts both from the side
of God and from the side of man, undergirding and upholding him in reciprocal
relation to God. Thus, man is not to be understood from a centre in himself,
but from above and beyond himself in his transcendent relation to God, as well
as within the nexus of his interrelations with neighbour.
In order to further develop his
argument for the goodness and dignity of man, Torrance turns to the doctrine of
the Holy Trinity and the trinitarian concept of “person.” The doctrine of the Trinity asserts that God is
three distinct “Persons,” who eternally coexist in a communion or fellowship of
love. In the Triune Godhead, notes Torrance, the relations of love between Father, Son and Spirit are “personal
relations subsisting in One Being.” That is, “the relations of Love between the
Persons of the Holy Trinity belong essentially to what the Divine Persons are.”
Noting that the trinitarian concept of “Persons” in the Godhead gave rise to
the Western concept of “person,” Torrance argues that God created human beings
to reflect on a creaturely level the inter-personal relations of God himself. As
the interrelations between the divine Persons are essential to their distinct
identities as Father, Son and Spirit, so also on the human level the relations
between persons belong to what persons really are. In other words, to be a
human “person” is not to be an isolated “individual” but is to be a
“person-in-relation,” for relationship
is integral to what a person is.
The trinitarian concept of
“person” illumines our understanding of the humanising and personalising impact
of Jesus on human nature. As the love that God is belongs to the inner personal relations of the Trinity, “love”
belongs to the “essential equation of the personal” at the human level. Yet,
this is love in a “profound ontological sense” that derives from the Holy
Spirit―the love between persons that belongs to what personal beings actually
are. According to Torrance, the Spirit dwells in our hearts and floods them
with the love that God is; thus, as he is the “bond of Oneness” in the Trinity,
he “may” also be the bond of unity, love and intensely personal relations among
us.[9]
“It is thus that in our frail contingent human nature,” argues Torrance, “we
may even be ‘partakers of the Divine Nature’ as through the Communion of the
Holy Spirit we are allowed to share in the very Love that God himself is.”
The intimate indwelling of the
Holy Spirit is made possible only through Jesus Christ, the one Mediator
between God and man. [10] In assuming
our sinful human flesh, Jesus made himself one with us, taking our lost and
damned condition to himself in atoning exchange, so that we might be restored
to communion with the Father. By making himself the “dwelling place” of the
Spirit, mediating within our fallen human existence the divine presence and
power of God, Jesus has healed the “ontological tension” that sin has created
between God and fallen humanity. The New Testament refers to this “new
spiritual and ontological condition” as being “in Christ,” or “in the Spirit.”
While this is true “in a distinctive and intimate way only of those who believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour,” notes Torrance, it has a wider
application. As all humans are
ontologically dependent upon Jesus Christ, so also all humans―regardless of whether they know it or believe it―are
ontologically dependent upon the immanent presence of the Holy Spirit, who has
been poured out on all flesh (cf. Acts 2:17). Torrance continues:
While we cannot
understand all that this being-constituting relation of the Spirit of God to
man involves for one who is “without Christ,” it certainly means for a man “in
Christ” that his human nature as body of his mind and mind of his body is
affirmed with a spiritual wholeness and a new ontological interrelation with
others that transcends his original creation, for now he exists not just
alongside of the Creator, but in such a way that his human being is anchored in
the very Being of God.
Torrance sums up his argument
for the goodness and dignity of man by restating the pivotal importance of the
incarnation, where the eternal purpose of God is gathered up in Jesus Christ.
In the incarnation, notes Torrance, “our human nature has been taken up in
Jesus to the top and summit of being, and that with him and in him man has been
located in the very centre of all things!” In lieu of a dualism between the
physical and spiritual realms, the incarnation shows that, despite the
contradiction introduced by sin and evil, God and man are forever one in Jesus
Christ and, through the cross, all things in heaven and earth are reconciled to
God (2Cor 5:19). In the incarnation, creation and redemption are perfectly
integrated; the original relation between the covenant and the creation has
been reaffirmed by God, so that the entire universe is redeemed, sanctified and
renewed in Jesus Christ. Man’s role is to serve the purpose of God’s love in the
ongoing actualisation of redemption, sanctification and renewal in the
universe, as a kind of “midwife” to creation, assisting nature out of its
divinely given abundance to ever bring forth new forms of life and richer
patterns of order. Torrance concludes:
Indeed as the covenant
partner of Jesus Christ man may be regarded as the priest of creation, through
whose service as a man of faith and a man of science the marvellous
rationality, symmetry, harmony and beauty of God’s creation are being brought
to light and given expression in such a way that the whole universe is found to
be a glorious hymn to the Creator.
[1] Note that Torrance distinguishes between
“depravity” and the “true nature” of man.
[2] For Torrance, sin
and evil are “perversions” of our nature. Contrast this with the NIV
translation of Romans 7:18, 25, as “sinful nature,” a translation that is
subject to criticism.
[3] This particularly
dualism, all too common in the Patristic era, was based on the radical
separation of the divine and material in Platonic thought.
[4] Torrance does not fall into the heresy
of patripassianism by asserting that
the Father was crucified; rather, he refutes both a dualism between the divine
and human natures of Jesus, as well as between the Father and the Son.
[5] Cf. Acts 9:4: “Saul, Saul; Why are you
persecuting Me?”
[6] Torrance quotes John 1:16: “And from his
fullness have we all received, grace upon grace.”
[7] According to Torrance, this is why John
focuses so much attention in his Epistles on the “new” commandment, where we
are to love others with the very love with which we ourselves are loved by God
in his self-giving at the cross.
[9] Torrance’s description of the Spirit as
the “bond of Oneness” in the Trinity is similar to Augustine’s description of
the Spirit as the “bond of love” between the Father and the Son. Augustine’s
description is useful so long as it is not taken to depersonalize the Spirit.
[10] In regard to the Spirit’s relation to
man, Torrance notes that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the
Son, and that he is mediated to humanity through the person and work of the incarnate Son. The Holy Spirit is the
personal presence of God to man, actualising knowledge of God within him and
creating in him the capacity to respond to God’s Word. Coming from the inner
communion of love in the heart of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit brings man’s human
relations to their true end through his “inter-personal” mode of presence to
man, effecting a communion of love between God and humanity.
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