A.S. Radcliff: The Claim of Humanity in Christ (in the Torrance tradition), Post 4

Reference

Radcliff, A.S. 2016. The Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of T.F. and J.B. Torrance. (Princeton Theological Monograph Series 222), Eugene, OR: Pickwick. 208 pp.

Human Freedom

Torrance’s assertion of universal election as a fait accompli raises the issue of human freedom (per Radcliff). Does God’s sovereign decision to elect all humanity in Christ repudiate human autonomy?

No. Despite the post-Enlightenment insistence that we are all freely self-determining autonomous, individuals, we really are not as free as we may think (apart from Jesus, that is). Paul says we are “enslaved to sin” (Romans 6). Luther calls it the “bondage of the will” and Calvinists like to talk about how we are” dead in trespasses and sins” and can do nothing to save ourselves. “Dead men can’t even reach for the life ring,” as the Calvinists like to say.

However, the Torrance tradition insists that the human will is liberated. In the incarnation, Jesus assumed the fallen human will and bent it back to God, thereby setting humanity on a new footing. (As I think of it, we are no longer “in Adam,” we are “in Jesus.” By the way, “we” means everybody, even the brother-in-law you can’t stand!) In Jesus, our self-will is overridden, judged and forgiven, then “recreated and determined by love” (TFT).

Thus, the fait accompli of universal election does not undermine human freedom; rather, it recreates and establishes it, for now we are free to choose Jesus. TFT says, [Election] does not mean the repudiation of human freedom but its creation and the repudiation of bondage.” As Radcliff writes, “God does not undermine our human freedom but rather establishes it because we are liberated from our enslaved, sinful condition to participate in the very life of God” (p. 35).

Comment: As I understand all this, the human will is no longer fallen; it is recreated and made new in Jesus. All are set free from the bondage of the will to turn to Jesus. Neither does the five-point Calvinist notion of “total depravity” still obtain, because sinful, Adamic flesh is healed from its corruption and disease in the incarnation (hypostatic union).  Thus, Luther’s “bondage of the will” is no longer the case, and the Calvinists’ TULIP is short another letter.

Faith entails a genuine human decision, per Torrance, but at its heart is the prior divine decision to choose us. In other words, we can only make a decision for Jesus because Jesus has already made a decision for us. As Radcliff notes, “The relationship between the divine decision already decided and the decision of the human being in response is constituted by the Holy Spirit.” Thus, the human decision of faith has no independent action apart from the prior divine decision of election.

Radcliff does not elaborate on the Spirit’s role at this point. That comes in Chapter Three, and I am really looking forward to getting there in this blog, because I have a lot of questions, despite all the reading I’ve been doing lately on the Holy Spirit.

Universal vs Limited Atonement

The Torrances’ theology of universal atonement, or universal reconciliation, is challenged by Federal theologians (conservative Calvinists) who hold a doctrine of limited (or, “definite”) atonement, where Christ dies for the elect only (with “elect” narrowly defined as the chosen few.) Radcliff quotes a few Calvinists who say that assurance is possible only with the doctrine of limited atonement, because the elect are certain that Christ’s sacrifice is efficacious for them. On the other hand, these same Calvinists assert that a doctrine of universal atonement cannot offer assurance (huh?), because redemption is only a potentiality, since some do not choose faith in Christ. Gibson & Gibson claim that proponents of universal atonement (the Torrances) cannot, if being consistent, offer a belief in the “sincere offer” of salvation for every person. All that can be offered is the opportunity or possibility of salvation. Since salvation is only a possibility and assurance of salvation is lost (according to the Calvinists), we are thrown back upon our own response as the subjective ground of salvation.

Comment: The conservative Calvinists argue that universal atonement offers only the “possibility” of salvation, for not all choose Christ. What they fail to mention is that the doctrine of limited atonement makes salvation an impossibility for the vast majority of humans who have ever lived!!! Go figure.

Radcliff does a good job of countering these claims of the conservative Calvinists, which, in my view, are more properly directed at Arminianism than the Torrance tradition. For the Torrance’s, as we have already seen, salvation for all is not a “possibility”; it is a fait accompli. Jesus fulfills both sides of the covenant on behalf of all humanity. Our response to what Christ has already done contributes nothing to our salvation (this is good Reformed theology, by the way). Salvation does not depend upon our response, because Christ, our Substitute and Representative, has already made the perfect human response in place of, and behalf of, all. Our human response is a matter of living in accordance with this reality but it does not accomplish the reality.

To be sure, the doctrine of limited atonement cannot and, historically, has not offered assurance, as anyone knows who has read James Torrance’s “Introduction” to John McLeod Campbell’s The Nature of the Atonement. In the doctrine of limited atonement, Christ dies for the elect. That’s all well and good. But how do we know we are among the elect? Only by the hard work of producing fruits of repentance, and if you are like me, that can be really “iffy” sometimes. As Radcliff notes, “Definite [limited] atonement leaves people worrying whether they are one of the chosen few for whom Christ died, whereas universal atonement offers assurance that all are included in Christ’s perfect response in our place” (p. 45).

The doctrine of limited atonement cannot offer assurance, because it throws our religious efforts back upon ourselves. Whereas the gospel is the end of religion, limited atonement builds its awful structure right back again. As TFT observes, “For generations of people in the Kirk faith was deeply disturbed and shaken by the doctrine thundered from the pulpits that Christ did not die for all but only for a few chosen ones—as assurance of their salvation withered in the face of the inscrutable decree of divine predestination.” Yikes! More Prozac please!

***

For more on universal vs limited atonement, see my previous post here .

Please consider a small tax-deductible donation to AsiAfrica Ministries, Inc. We are working hard to bring incarnational-trinitarian theology to east Africa and south Asia. We could use some help! Click here . (Put “God for Us” in message area).

A.S. Radcliff: The Claim of Humanity in Christ (in the Torrance tradition), Post 3

Election of all in Christ

The title of this section makes me want to cheer! All humanity is elect in Christ.

Radcliff cites Ephesians 1:4-6. James Torrance believes this passage refers to all humanity, because verse 10 refers to Christ’s mediatorial headship over all, where God the Father “sums up all things in Christ.” I have often wondered about this passage, because the letter is addressed to the church. So when Paul says “we,” is referring to believers only, or to all humanity? I will go with the latter, following JBT and Irenaeus long before him.

For TFT, election is a fait accompli in Christ. For those who do not “parlez vous francais,” that means that it’s a done deal. (But you already knew that, didn’t you?). Torrance says:

In as much as no one exists except by the Word of God by whom all things were made and in whom all things  consist, and in as much as this is the Word that has one and for all enacted the eternal election of grace to embrace all men, the existence of every man whether he will or not is bound up inextricably with that election—with the cross of Jesus Christ.

God claims all humanity in Christ. In Christ, we are all judged. In Christ we are all chosen. That seems pretty plain to me.

Election is Grace

What is the relation of grace to election? Which is prior in God’s mind? According to the Calvinists, election precedes grace. God first elects a few from the mass of sinful humanity, then he offers them grace. (This is a rather ungenerous view of God.) In Arminianism, it’s the other way round: grace precedes election. God offers grace to all (I like that part), but then he only elects those whom he foreknows will decide for Jesus. (I don’t like that part.) This puts the burden for salvation back on our shoulders, for salvation is only actualized when we walk the sawdust trail and shake the preacher’s hand, while the choir sings the tenth stanza of “Just as I am.” We used to do that when I went to the Southern Baptist church. That was before I became a heathen Episcopalian. (Today I am a trans-denominational.)

Calvinism limits election. It turns what should be the good news of God’s election of all in Jesus into a nightmare. Out of the 100 billion (?) people who have ever lived, most of whom have never heard the name of Christ, God “mercifully” elects a few for salvation. I just can’t get my head around that kind of theology. According to this view, as I once heard Ken Blue say, the world is nothing but a “vast slaughterhouse.”

The Calvinists detach election from Jesus and move it into eternity past in the inscrutable will of God, whose purposes are unclear. As TFT often notes, this means there is a different God behind the back of Jesus, creating a lack of assurance for salvation and turning us back onto our own efforts to produce fruits (proof) of election. This amounts to a lot of hard work, and even then you can’t really be sure you’re in. Arminianism, on the other hand, make election conditional: “God’s electing foreknowledge is caused by the faith of the elect.” In other words, if you decide for Jesus, you’re in. Again, this puts the burden of salvation on our shoulders rather than on Jesus. When election is made either prior to or subsequent to grace, it is detached from its foundation in Jesus, and we are all left wondering whose in and who ain’t.

In the Torrance tradition, following my hero Karl Barth, grace is neither prior to nor subsequent to election. Rather, election is grace. As Radcliff notes, following TFT, the election of all humanity in Jesus offers assurance that we are all included in God’s love. David Fergusson writes:

Included in the election of the risen Christ is the election of every man, woman and child. Each individual is determined by the love of God.

The Calvinist doctrine of election is derived from logical-causal thinking. If not everyone is saved, as the Bible may (?) indicate, then obviously Jesus did not die for everyone, or else there would be a deficiency in the atonement. So clearly, Jesus must have died for the elect only (narrowly defined), and that brings you inevitably to the unbiblical doctrine of limited atonement.

Comment: If you think about it, the Calvinists are beginning with “man as sinner,” and they build their system from that. This is why the Torrances insist we must begin with the “Who” question: “Who is Jesus,” and derive the “how” from God’s self-revelation in his Son. It’s the difference between beginning your thinking with the first Adam or the Second Adam. I know which I choose. (In the Westminster Confession of Faith, their awful doctrine of election is in chapter three. They don’t get to Jesus till chapter eight. By then, most folks are already toast. Ugh!)

As Barth says, “The doctrine of election is the sum of the Gospel because of all words that can be said or heard it is the best.” Compare that to the “horrible decree” of the Calvinists! As Radcliff notes, as she will often in this book, our election in Jesus means “people do not have to depend upon their own religious efforts to provide evidence for their salvation. Rather, we are liberated to freely devote ourselves back to God.” The Gospel is good news folks. It’ time some people realized it!

Conclusion (per Radcliff, p. 33)

“The Torrances believe that God has elected all [contra Calvinism] of humanity unconditionally [contra Arminianism] in Christ. Election is not prior to grace, as found in Federal Calvinism, nor is grace prior to election, as found in Arminianism. For the Torrance’s, God’s election and grace must not be placed within man-made logical-causal categories but rather guided by God’s self-revelation of his filial purposes in Christ. This gives assurance of salvation because we do not have to worry whether we are one of God’s elect. Nor do we have to wear ourselves out trying to bear fruit that is the evidence of our salvation. God’s election of humanity in Christ means that we are all included in his plan of redemption.”

For more (a lot more!) on Torrance’s doctrine of election, see my previous post here.

Please consider a small tax-deductible donation to AsiAfrica Ministries, Inc. We are working hard to bring incarnational-trinitarian theology to east Africa and south Asia. We could use some help! Click here . (Put “God for Us” in message area).

Reference

Radcliff, A.S. 2016. The Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of T.F. and J.B. Torrance. (Princeton Theological Monograph Series 222), Eugene, OR: Pickwick. 208 pp.

T.F. Torrance: The Atonement, pt. 8

Universalism and Limited Atonement

Comment: Barth and Torrance are often wrongly "accused" of being universalists. They are not. Apparently critics don't take the time to differentiate between universal atonement and universalism.

Torrance’s assertion that God has chosen all humanity in Jesus Christ, coupled with his insistence on the universal range of atoning reconciliation, may lead to the erroneous conclusion that he is a “universalist,” that is, one who believes in the salvation of all mankind (Bloesch, 2004:14, 39, 40). In this regard, an examination is needed of his rejection of both “universalism” and the doctrine of “limited atonement.” As will become plain, Torrance’s argument against a doctrine of limited atonement is directly related to his rejection of the “Latin heresy” described in a previous post (March 9, 2011), particularly in regard to his repudiation of atonement as an “external” rather than ontological reality.

As Torrance notes, the argument for either universal salvation or limited atonement is commonly cast as follows: If Christ died for all, then all must be saved, whether they believe or not; but if all are not saved, then Christ did not die for all; therefore, atonement is limited. Behind both these alternatives, however, Torrance (1986b:481; 1993:245, 246) finds two “very serious heresies.”

First, in regard to the Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement, there is a “disjunction” or dualism that bifurcates the divine and human natures of Christ, divides his being and his acts, and consequently separates the incarnation from the atonement. As Torrance (1986b:481) notes:

On this view the humanity of Christ is not regarded as having any inner ontological connection with those for whom he died, but is regarded only as an external instrument used by God as he wills, in effecting salvation for all those whom God chooses and/or for those who choose to accept Christ as their personal Saviour. Thus a separation can be made between the universal range of the Kingdom of Christ and the limited range of his atoning sacrifice.

Because it fails to appreciate the ontological connection between Jesus Christ and all humanity, a doctrine of limited atonement minimizes the significance of the incarnation for atonement by treating the humanity of Jesus Christ in an “external” and “instrumental” way. By reducing the atonement to a forensic transaction or the fulfilment of a legal contract between God and mankind, this view makes the Son’s humanity merely a tool used by God for a temporary repair job and then returned to the cosmic tool box in heaven (Torrance, 2009:182; cf. Kruger, 2003:36, Jesus and Undoing of Adam).

In addition to its merely external or instrumental nature, a doctrine of limited atonement implies a “restricted and partial” view of the incarnate Son’s assumption of fallen Adamic flesh and a consequent notion of partial rather than total substitution in the atonement. According to Torrance, hyper-Calvinist views of the atonement create a Nestorian dualism, or split, in the incarnate reality of Jesus Christ by asserting that the deity of Christ was in “repose” at the cross, so that the incarnate Son suffered in his humanity only (Torrance, 2009:184). Against this view, Torrance (1993:246; cf. 2009:184, 185; Torrance, et. al., 1999:29) argues:

If we really hold that it is God himself who bears our sins in Jesus Christ, God himself who in becoming man takes man’s place and stands with man under his own divine judgement, God himself the Judge becoming the man judged, then we cannot allow any divorce between the action of Christ on the cross and the action of God. How is it at all possible to think of the divine judgement in the cross as only a partial judgment upon sin, or a judgement only upon some sinners, for that is finally what it amounts to if only some sinners are died for, and only some are efficiently implicated in atonement? The concept of a limited atonement thus rests upon a limitation of the very being of God as love, and a schizoid notion of the incarnation, i.e., upon a basic Nestorian heresy.

For Torrance, a doctrine of limited atonement rests on a Nestorian dualism that breaks apart the hypostatic union with its implication that God is not intimately and personally involved in the suffering of Calvary; rather, only the humanity of Jesus Christ suffers on the cross. Since God is not involved at the cross, except by consent, the atonement can be construed in a restricted and partial, as well as external and instrumentalist way, wherein Jesus offers his humanity on behalf of the elect few only. On the other hand, against a Nestorian dualism between the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ implied in a doctrine of limited atonement (cf. Torrance, 1996c:19, 133), Torrance rightly asserts, along with the New Testament writers, that the one who died on the cross is the eternal Word made flesh, the very one by and through whom all things are created and have their being, and in whom hold together. Because all humanity is ontologically bound to the incarnate Creator Word, there can be no restriction to the atoning work of Jesus Christ.

In addition to a Nestorian dualism underlying the partial judgement implied in the doctrine of limited atonement is the second of the serious heresies Torrance finds in common arguments regarding both limited atonement and universalism: that is, a controlling framework of thought based upon “logico-causal connections.” As Torrance argues, the insertion of a logico-causal relation between the death of Christ and the salvation of men and women has led to a view that the atonement of Jesus Christ is “sufficient” for all but “efficient” only for some. According to the logic of this argument, if the atoning death of Christ applies to all men, then logically and causally all men must of necessity be saved; on the other hand, if some perish in hell, then logically and causally the efficacy of the atonement does not reach them. According to Torrance, this view was introduced into post-Augustinian high medieval theology, later rejected by Calvin, then reintroduced into Calvinist orthodoxy by Theodore Beza (1519-1605). The place of “logico-causalism” within Protestantism was considerably reinforced by the Newtonian view of “causal connections” between external entities such as atoms or particles, a view that gave rise to the hard determinism of hyper-Calvinistic notions of predestination and limited atonement. As Torrance notes, the ongoing problem of universalism versus limited atonement attests to the deep entrenchment of the Latin heresy in Protestant and Evangelical thought, wherein atonement continues to be reduced to a logical framework of cause and effect (Torrance, 1986b:481, 482; 1993:245, 246).

At the heart of the “logico-causal” (i.e., “if . . . then”) assertions regarding universalism and limited atonement, Torrance (1993:246-249) finds “two fatal interconnected errors” that completely “shatter” the argument. First, to posit a logico-causal connection between the atonement and the forgiveness of sins is “falsely to project into the atonement a kind of connection which obtains between finite events and statements about them in our fallen world, and to substitute it for the transcendent kind of connection that is revealed in the creative and redeeming activity of God himself.” As Torrance argues elsewhere (1981b:135, 136), a logico-causal approach to the atonement, as particularly evident in Calvinist Scholasticism, attempts to read back into God the temporal, causal, and logical relations characteristic of human experience in the world. This forced Calvinist Scholasticism to connect “the relative apparent distinctions” between believers and unbelievers to the absolute decree of God, thereby forcing the construal of predestination into the double form of election and reprobation. The doctrine of double predestination, however, entailed a dualism in the heart of God, “an ultimate ‘Yes’ and an ultimate ‘No,’” that could not be explained away by regarding the “No” of reprobation as only the “passing over” of some rather than their deliberate damnation. Calvinism was trapped in its own logic, notes Torrance. While there is a “logic of grace” exhibited in the pattern of God’s grace in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Christ, wherein “he acted under the freely accepted constraint of his unreserved self-giving for our salvation,” to construe the logic of grace in terms of necessary, logical connections is to convert grace into something other than itself, for such a construal implies that there is not a “free, contingent relation” between the self-giving of Christ in the cross and human salvation but, rather, a “logico-causal” relation.

In a similar vein, Torrance argues that a doctrine of universalism commits the “logical fallacy” of “transmuting movement into necessity.” That is, universalism destroys the free decision of faith by making salvation necessary rather than possible. For Torrance, universalism can, at best, only be expressed in terms of “hope” or “possibility,” but never in terms of dogmatic necessity (Torrance, 1949:313; 1996c:277). It is the construal of a logico-causal relation between grace and human salvation that gives rise to the “twin errors” of both limited atonement and universal salvation (Torrance, 1981b:136).

As Torrance (1993:246, 247) wisely notes, the miraculous acts of God cannot be construed in the ordinary categories of human thought, for they operate from a “transcendent presence in which his being and act and Person are integrated in the power of his triune being.” Torrance finds this transcendent connection in the virgin birth, the resurrection, the miracles of divine healing, and the multiplication of a few loaves and fish. As Torrance argues:

Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life, and that cannot be construed within a system of this-worldly logico-causal relations. The kind of connection that obtains in the atoning death of Christ was demonstrated in the resurrection of Jesus. The connection between the atoning death of the Lord Jesus and the forgiveness of our sins is of an altogether ineffable kind which we may not and cannot reduce to a chain of this-worldly logico-causal relations. To do that comes very near to sinning against the Holy Spirit.

As Torrance rightly argues, there is no “logical-causal” connection between the death of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sins. Rather, the connection between the cross and human salvation is an ineffable mystery hidden in the heart of the Triune Godhead, one that cannot be captured within the bounds of ordinary categories of human thought. As Torrance (1981b:136) cogently notes, if human salvation is dependent on a logical connection between the death of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sins, “we would all be unforgiven whether we believe or not.”

The second fatal error in logico-causal arguments for universalism or limited atonement, wherein attempts are made to explain why some are finally saved and others are not, involves a “rationalisation of evil.” For Torrance, a doctrine of universalism fails to take into account the irrational nature of the “mystery of iniquity” and the “abysmal irrationality of evil,” realities that cannot be explained away rationally, for to do so would mean that God need not have taken the way of the cross in order to save humanity. Evil involves a “radical discontinuity” that cannot be explained in terms of logico-causal relations (i.e., “continuity”) without explaining it away. Evil is so “bottomless,” or “abysmal,” that to overcome it requires nothing less than the direct presence and power of the eternal, infinite God (Torrance, 1949:313; 1996c:277; 1993:247). Torrance (1993:247, 248) argues:

In order to redeem us from the enormity of evil God “had to” become incarnate in our mortal existence and penetrate into the chasm of our sinful and guilty separation from himself, which he freely did on the cross out of his unlimited and unstinting love. Conversely, the fact that God himself, God incarnate, penetrated into our damned existence and death in order to save us, reveals the bottomless chasm and the irrational, inexplicable nature of evil by which we are separated from him. If then anyone thinks he can explain why the atoning death of Christ avails efficaciously only for some people but not for all through offering a logico-causal explanation, he is really putting forward an argument which is tantamount to doing despite to the infinite agony of God Almighty at Calvary, for he does not consider the fearful nature of sin and evil which cost God the sacrifice of his own beloved Son.

For Torrance (1993:248), both universalism and the doctrine of limited atonement are “twin heresies which rest on a deeper heresy,” that is, the recourse to a logico-causal explanation of why the atoning death of Christ avails or does not avail for all humanity. As Torrance pointedly argues, “Any such an attempt at logico-causal explanation of the efficacy and range of the atonement is surely a form of blasphemy against the blood of Christ.”

References: See previous posts.

T.F. Torrance: The Atonement, pt. 5

The Wonderful Exchange

An important aspect of Torrance’s understanding of the personal, ontological redemption embodied in Jesus Christ is the all-important concept of the “wonderful exchange,” that is, “the redemptive translation of man from one state into another brought about by Christ who in his self-abnegating love took our place that we might have his place, becoming what we are that we might become what he is.” The New Testament word for the “exchange” effected between God and sinful humanity in Jesus Christ is “reconciliation” (katallage) (cf. Rom. 5:11; 11:15; 2Cor. 5:18, 19), a word that brings out the profound importance of “atoning” exchange. For Torrance, the concept of atoning exchange, wherein Jesus Christ assumes our poverty, so that through him we might become rich (cf. 2Cor 8:9), is the “inner hinge” upon which the entire doctrine of incarnational redemption turns (Torrance, 1988a:179, 180; cf. 2009:151-153).

The atoning exchange lies at the heart of Nicene theology, wherein the death and resurrection of Christ were neither separated nor treated in isolation from one another. Redemption was considered to have taken place not only through the death of Jesus Christ but also through the resurrection and ascension, so that redemption is not only release from death, bondage, and judgement but also the pathway to new life and freedom in God (Torrance, 1988a:180). Following the Nicene fathers, Torrance sees redemption as taking place not only through the cross of Christ, but also through the empty tomb and ascension of the Risen Saviour. To be sure, the resurrection and the ascension are essential to Torrance’s doctrine of the mediation of reconciliation in Jesus Christ, for incarnational redemption involves not only the healing and renewing of our fallen humanity but also the restoration of relationships and consequent new life in union with God. As Torrance argues, “[I]t is not atonement that constitutes the goal and end of that integrated movement of reconciliation [i.e., the atoning exchange] but union with God in and through Jesus Christ in whom our human nature is not only saved, healed and renewed but lifted up to participate in the very light, life and love of the Holy Trinity” (Torrance, 1992a:66). In language echoing the Nicene fathers, Torrance (1988a:181) argues:

This atoning exchange, then, embraces the whole relationship between Christ and ourselves: between his obedience and our disobedience, his holiness and our sin, his life and our death, his strength and our weakness, his grace and our poverty, his light and our darkness, his wisdom and our ignorance, his joy and our misery, his peace and our dispeace, his immortality and our mortality, and so on.

Torrance’s description of the wonderful, atoning exchange is similar to that of the great Genevan reformer, John Calvin (1509-1564). Drawing upon the Nicene fathers to articulate his understanding of the wonderful exchange between our poverty and Christ’s riches, Calvin (2008:IV.17.2; 896, 897; cf. Torrance, 1988a:179, n. 111) writes:

This is the wondrous exchange made by his boundless goodness. Having become with us the Son of man, he has made us with himself sons of God. By his own descent to the earth he has prepared our ascent to heaven. Having received our mortality, he has bestowed on us his immortality. Having undertaken our weakness, he has made us strong in his strength. Having submitted to our poverty, he has transferred to us his riches. Having taken upon himself the burden of unrighteousness with which we were oppressed, he has clothed us with his righteousness.

Christ’s union with us and our union with him in the wonderful exchange is part of a “miraculous commerce” between God and humanity (Dawson, 2007:62). As the early church understood, he who is Son of God by nature became son of man, so that we who are sons of men by nature might, by grace, become the sons and daughters of God (Deddo, 2007:140). The miraculous commerce of the atoning exchange is worked out “within the saving economy of the incarnation,” and in the “ontological depths” of the sinful Adamic flesh the incarnate Son assumed, and “therefore reaches its appointed end and fulfilment through his transforming consecration of us in himself and through his exaltation of us as one body with himself into the immediate presence of the Father” (Torrance, 1988a:181). In short, as Torrance (1996b:153) notes, “[T]hrough his incarnational union with us, he has established our union with him. . . . Through his incarnational fraternity, that which was lost in Adam is restored.”

In sum, Christ’s union with us in our fallen humanity entails not only the condescension and self-sacrifice of the incarnate Son but also the transformation and exaltation of our humanity, as it is cleansed, healed, and recreated in the incarnation, then lifted up in and through the Risen Christ into the very presence of God, where humanity is given to share in the Trinitarian life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Theopoiesis

Further insight into Torrance’s understanding of the wonderful exchange may be gained by an examination of what he regards as one of the significant aspects of the miraculous commerce wrought in Jesus Christ: this is the concept of theopoiesis (Gr. lit. “making divine”), the Greek Patristic assertion that Jesus was made man so that we might be made divine. While there is no formal explication of theopoiesis in Torrance’s work, his entire theology is influenced by the conception of human salvation as a process of theopoiesis (Habets, 2009:2, 5; cf. Hart, 2008: 79, 80).

Torrance is reluctant to use the term “deification,” preferring instead the term, theopoiesis, since the word’s grammatical construction keeps clear the creaturely nature of the verb’s object as well as the full deity of its subject (Hart, 2008:79; cf. Torrance, 1996b:243). For Torrance, theopoiesis involves no suggestion that the interaction between Christ’s deity and our humanity results in any change in either divine or human nature (ousia). Just as Jesus Christ is no less divine in assuming human nature, we are no less human in being brought under the cleansing and healing influence of his divinity. As Torrance notes, following Athanasius, “What makes us ‘divine’ is the fact that the Word of God has come to us and acts directly upon us.” In other words, in becoming human, Jesus Christ has brought us into “kinship” with himself, so that “our ‘deification’ in Christ is the obverse of his ‘inhomination’.” Thus, while we are “partakers of the divine nature” (2Pet 1:4), theopoiesis is not the “divinisation” of humanity; rather, it is the “recreation” of our lost humanity in the dynamic, atoning interaction between the divine and human natures hypostatically united in the one person of Jesus Christ, and its subsequent “exaltation” as it is lifted up in the Risen Saviour into union and communion with the Triune Godhead. While we are recreated and lifted up in Jesus Christ, however, we remain fully human, not divine (Torrance, 1988a:188, 189; cf. 1976:234). Elsewhere, Torrance (1992:64) connects theosis to the biblical concept of “adoption” (e.g., Rom 8:15; Eph 1:5). He writes: “[T]heosis . . . does not mean ‘divinisation’, as is so often supposed, but refers to the utterly staggering act of God in which he gives himself to us and adopts us into the communion of his divine life and love through Jesus Christ and in his one Spirit, yet in such a way that we are not made divine but are preserved in our humanity.” Finally, Torrance (1996b:243) notes, “Theosis describes man’s involvement in such a mighty act of God upon him that he is raised up to find the true centre of his existence not in himself but in Holy God, where he lives and moves and has his being . . .”

Another vital aspect of Torrance’s (1988a:189, 190) understanding of theopoiesis is concerned with the reception of the Holy Spirit, which is made possible through the atoning exchange that takes place in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. In the incarnation, God is imparted to humanity by means of the Spirit and man is attached to God by Jesus’ assumption of fallen human flesh. In the incarnation, the Holy Spirit “became accustomed to dwell in humanity,” while, on the other hand, man became “accustomed” to receive God and be indwelt by him. Thus, God the Holy Spirit is mediated to mankind “by” and “through” the humanity of Jesus Christ. When the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ in the Jordan River, it was not because the sinless Son of God needed the sanctification of the Spirit; rather, the Spirit’s descent was a descent upon the fallen humanity assumed by the incarnate Son. Because Jesus Christ is homoousios with fallen Adamic flesh, the descent of the Spirit at the Jordan is a descent upon all those who partake of the nature of Adam, that is, a descent upon all humanity. As Athanasius (Contra Arius: Torrance, 1988a:190 n 152) asserted, when Jesus Christ, as man, was “washed” in the Jordan River, we were “washed”; when he received the Spirit, we received the Spirit. As Torrance notes:

This twofold movement of the giving and receiving of the Spirit actualised within the life of the incarnate Son of God for our sakes is atonement operating within the ontological depths of human being. It constitutes the “deifying” content of the atoning exchange in which through the pouring out of the same Spirit upon us we are given to participate. The indwelling of the Spirit mediated to us through Christ is the effective counterpart in us of his self-offering to the Father through the eternal Spirit.

Two important ideas come into view in Torrance’s understanding of the mediation of the Spirit by and through the humanity of Jesus Christ: First, Because Jesus Christ, the one through whom all things are made and in whom all things consist, has assumed fallen Adamic flesh, all those who partake of the nature of Adam are implicated in the Spirit’s descent upon the incarnate Son in the Jordan River. This is the sense in which Peter can proclaim that the Holy Spirit has been poured out on all flesh (Acts 2:17; cf. Joel 2:28). Secondly, in keeping with his unitary, holistic theology, Torrance does not allow a dualism between the work of the Son in atonement and the work of the Spirit in sanctification. As Torrance (1988a:190) notes, Pentecost (cf. Acts 2) is not something “added” to atonement; rather, it is “the actualisation within the life of the church of the atoning life, death and resurrection of the Saviour.” Thus, for Torrance, justification and sanctification are not two separate events but, rather, are each an integral part of the atoning exchange wrought by the assumption of fallen Adamic flesh in the incarnation.

References

Calvin, J. 2008. Institutes of the Christian Religion (translated by H. Beveridge). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. 1,059 pp.

Dawson, G.S. 2007.Far as the Curse is Found: The Significance of Christ’s Assuming a Fallen Human Nature in the Torrance Theology. In G. Dawson, ed. An Introduction to Torrance Theology: Discovering the Incarnate Saviour. London: T & T Clark. Ch. 3.

Deddo, G.W. 2007. The Christian Life and Our Participation in Christ’s Continuing Ministry. In G. Dawson, ed. An Introduction to Torrance Theology: Discovering the Incarnate Saviour. London: T & T Clark. Ch. 7.

Habets, M. 2009. Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance. Farnham (Surrey): Ashgate. 224 pp.

Hart, T. 2008. Atonement, the Incarnation, and Deification: Transformation and Convergence in the Soteriology of T.F. Torrance. Princeton Theological Review, vol XIV, no 2, pp. 79-90. Available at http://www.princetontheologicalreview.org/issues_pdf/39.pdf

Torrance, T.F. 1976. Theology in Reconciliation: Essays toward Evangelical and Catholic Unity in East and West. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 302 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1988a. The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. London: T & T Clark. 345 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1992. The Mediation of Christ (rev. ed.). Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard. 126 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1996b. (orig. ed. 1965). Theology in Reconstruction. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers. 288 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 2009. Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (edited by R. Walker). Downers Grove: IVP. 489 pp.