T.F. Torrance: Scientific Methodology and the Knowledge of God

This is the first of three posts on T. F. Torrance's scientific theological method.

Comment: This post concerns the scientific methodological approach to the knowledge of God that is foundational to the thought of T. F. Torrance. The issue of methodological procedure may at first seem boring and irrelevant, but I assure you it is not. Theological method is concerned with how we go about developing knowledge of God. Where do we start? What determines the questions we ask? If we follow the Western Augustinian-Thomist tradition and develop our knowledge of God based upon the effects of the cosmos, we end up with the immutable, impassible, inscrutable, omnipotent God of the western tradition. On the other hand, if we follow the methodological procedure of the Alexandrian Fathers, including Athanasius (see final paragraphs of previous post), we end up with a view of God very different from the dreaded "omni-God" many of us grew up with.

As you read this post, keep several related questions in mind. How do we develop knowledge of God? Do we start with the creation (effects) and make inferences about its cause (God)? Do we follow the negative way (via negativa) by negating the empirical phenomena of the creation and asserting that "God is not this?" Do we start by removing the limits of creation and saying God is more than this (via emenintia)? Or do we follow Athanasius and the great thinkers of Alexandria and assert that knowledge of God must be developed in accordance with the nature of God? If we follow Athanasius (and Torrance), we will conclude that knowledge of God is developed in accordance with the one who is "of one nature (being) with the Father" ‒ Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God.

For Torrance, there is a "way of acting and thinking" which applies to every field of scientific endeavour, one which mirrors our ordinary way of thinking as we engage the environment in our daily lives. According to Torrance (1969:106, 107):

This is the way of acting and thinking that is no more and no less than the rigorous extension of our basic rationality, as we seek to act toward things in ways appropriate to their natures, to understand them through letting them shine in their own light, and to reduce our thinking of them into orderly forms on the presumption of their inherent intelligibility.

The operative word in Torrance's description is "appropriate," for "pure science can yield results only when the method and the matter are purely matched" (Torrance, 1969:107). Hence, the "fundamental axiom" of Torrance's scientific theological method is that knowledge in any field of inquiry, including theology, must be developed according to the nature of the reality under study. Torrance describes this general methodological principle as "kataphysic inquiry," derived from the Greek kata physin ("according to nature") (Palma, 1984:7; Torrance, 1992:25; 1994:45, 46; Colyer, 2001a:322).

For Torrance (1984:269, 270), to think theologically and scientifically is to think in accordance with the nature of things and in consonance with the "interior principles" that are disclosed in the process of inquiry. Early in his career, Torrance (1969:viii) wrote:

It is always the nature of things that must prescribe for us the specific mode of rationality that we must adopt toward them, and prescribe also the form of verification apposite to them, and therefore it is a major part of all scientific activity to reach clear convictions as to the distinctive nature of what we are seeking to know in order that we may develop and operate with the distinctive categories demanded of us.

For Torrance, whether in theology or science, there is only one basic way of knowing that develops different "modes of rationality" in accordance with the nature of the object of inquiry. Because we must allow the nature of what we seek to know to determine the form and content of our knowledge, our approach to knowing varies according to the nature of the object of inquiry. In seeking to understand what is knowable in its specific field of inquiry, science will develop investigative procedures, analytical tools, and structures of thought that are particularly suited to its object of inquiry (Torrance, 1980:8, 9; Colyer, 2001b:271). According to Torrance (1990:67, 68):

All scientific activity is one in which the reason acts strictly and precisely in accordance with the nature of its object, and so lets the object prescribe for it both the limits within which it may be known and the mode of rationality that is to be adopted toward it. But for that reason it also lets the nature of the object determine the kind of verification or demonstration appropriate to it. It will not insult the object by trying to subject it to some kind of demonstration that has been developed elsewhere in accordance with the nature of a different kind of object, nor by employing for its investigation external criteria dragged in from some other realm of knowledge. The kind of verification it must scientifically employ is the kind that derives from and is in accord with the actual way in which knowledge has arisen.

Because the inquirer is bound by the nature of the object under study and is committed to its "objective reality" and "intrinsic rationality," a rigorous scientific method does not allow for any "free thinking." Torrance (1990:126) explains:

Hence far from thinking in some free detached or dispassionate way, we think as we are compelled to think by the evidential grounds, and develop explanatory theories or laws strictly in accordance with the nature of things and their inherent rational order as they are brought to light in the course of scientific inquiry.

Comment: It is the nature of the object of inquiry as disclosed to us in the process of scientific investigation that determines the way the reality under study is to be known. This means that, contrary to new age, "feel good" theology," we cannot "design" a god that suits our particular tastes ("My god tells me . . ."). Rather, we humbly inquire into the nature of God as revealed to us and from there develop our theology in a scientifically appropriate way.

Because the subject matter of theology concerns, among other things, the Word of God who has become flesh in space and time, there is an aspect of its object of investigation that is open to empirical and critical observation, as in the natural sciences. According to Torrance (1994:48; cf. 1982:33, 34):

[T]he theologian is concerned with God as he reveals himself to us within space and time through historical Israel and in the incarnation of his Word in Jesus Christ, so that we cannot divorce what God reveals to humankind from the medium of spatio-temporal structures which he uses in addressing his Word to human beings. Empirical correlates therefore have an eradicable place in theology, as in natural science ‒ hence theological truths and concepts may not be resolved away or "demythologized" without losing their essential content or import.

Theology, therefore, operates within the God-world relation. The empirical correlate of theology means that God has entered human space-time relationships; that is, the life of God has fallen within the life of humankind so that God can really be known as God (Purves, 2001:70).

Comment: Torrance's "empirical" method, wherein God is understood to have entered space and time in a way that can be known, is directly opposite to theologians like Bultmann who are constrained by cosmological dualism (see my post, "Torrance and the Problem of Dualism, part 1, November, 2009).

In regard to knowledge of the divine, God has revealed himself to us in the theatre of space and time in "modes of rationality" that he has conferred upon creation and upon humanity; therefore, it is in and through the universe of space and time that theology seeks to make a disciplined response to God's historical self-revelation. In relation to its object of inquiry, a rigorous scientific approach to theology must be informed by actual knowledge of God as revealed to us in the economy (oikonomia) of salvation, that is, in God's historical dialogue with Israel and particularly through the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit. God's self-revelation in time and space calls into question "all alien presuppositions and antecedently reached conceptual frameworks" regarding knowledge of God. For Torrance, this necessitates the development of a rigorous, scientific epistemology that is governed from beginning to end by the 'nature' of its object of inquiry: "God in his self-communication to us within the structures of our human and worldly existence" (Torrance, 1980:1; 1990:62, 63, 122).

Comment: God's self-revelation in time and space calls into question "all alien presuppositions and antecedently reached conceptual frameworks" regarding knowledge of God. Torrance's scientific theology is an a posteriori (roughly, "after the fact") approach to knowledge of God. It develops its understanding from what has been previously given in God's self-revelation in Israel and particularly in the incarnation and the sending of the Spirit. This is diametrically opposed to an a priori (roughly, "before the fact") approach to knowledge of God that begins with humanly contrived presuppositions and conjectures as to what is proper for God to be.

Because God has given himself to be known in Jesus Christ, for Torrance, "the central and pivotal point of all genuine theological knowledge" is found in christology. In proceeding in reference to the nature of the object of inquiry, scientific theology will operate on a christological basis, for christology is critical to the understanding of the nature of God. Rather than go "behind the back" of Jesus to develop knowledge of God, christology teaches us to know God in strict accordance with the steps he has taken to make himself known to us and, therefore, to test our knowledge of God in accordance with the steps in which knowledge of him has actually arisen in space and time (Torrance, 1990:71). Hence, for Torrance, the incarnation of Jesus Christ is the "actual source" and "controlling centre" for the Christian doctrine of God (Torrance, 1996a:18). To know God through the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, who is of "one substance with the Father" (homoousios to Patri) is to know God in strict accordance with God's nature (kata physin) and, hence, in a theologically scientific way (cf. Torrance, 1969:110-113; 1988:3, 51, 52).

Comment: We can briefly sum up Torrance's scientific approach to theology as follows: A scientific approach to theology seeks to develop knowledge in accordance with the nature of the reality (God) under study. Because Jesus Christ is "of one nature or being with the Father" (homoousios to Patri), a scientific approach to the knowledge of God will begin with God's self-revelation in the incarnate Son. In short, a scientific approach to the knowledge of God begins with Jesus!!

References

Colyer, E.M. 2001a. How to Read T.F. Torrance: Understanding His Trinitarian & Scientific Theology. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 393pp.

Colyer, E.M. 2001b. A Scientific Theological Method. In E. Colyer, ed. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology: Theologians in Dialogue with T. F. Torrance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Ch. 9.

Palma, R.J. 1984. Thomas F. Torrance's Reformed Theology. Reformed Review, vol 38, no 1, pp. 2-46.

Purves, A.P. 2001. The Christology of Thomas F. Torrance. In E. Colyer, ed. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology: Theologians in Dialogue with T. F. Torrance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Ch. 3.

Torrance, T.F. 1969. Theological Science. Oxford: OUP. 368pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1980. The Ground and Grammar of Theology: Consonance Between Theology and Science. (Preface to new edition by T.F. Torrance, 2001). Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1982. Reality and Evangelical Theology: The Realism of Christian Revelation. (Forward by K.A. Richardson, 1999). Downers Grove, IL: IVP. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster. 174pp.

Torrance, T. F. 1984. Transformation & Convergence in the Frame of Knowledge: Explorations in the Interrelations of Scientific and Theological Enterprise. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 353pp.

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

Torrance, T.F. 1990. Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256pp.

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

Torrance, T.F. 1994. Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 71pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1996. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons. London: T & T Clark. 260pp.

T. F. Torrance: Scientific Theology and Critical Realism

In the last two posts ('The Problem of Dualism," I & II), we examined the problem of dualism in relation to the knowledge of God. We noted that the cosmological dualism of the ancient Greeks or the Newtonian-Deism of the Enlightenment asserts that the divine has not, or cannot, intervene in the space-time reality of human history. By shutting God out of worldly affairs, cosmological dualism renders the incarnation problematic if not unthinkable (hence, the Gospel is foolishness to the Greeks as well as to those bound by the dualisms of modernity). We also described the epistemological dualism associated with the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In arguing that we cannot know "the thing in itself" (Ger. Das Ding an sich), Kant posited a disjunction (dualism) between the human knower and that which we seek to know by asserting that our "knowing" is both shaped and constrained by the mental constructs (ideas, images, beliefs, presuppositions) we bring to the act of knowing. For example, according to Kant, the "order" we see in the universe is not a characteristic of the cosmos itself but, rather, is an imposition of a mental construct ("order") upon nature so that we might make sense of an otherwise chaotic manifold of sensory experience. Thus the "laws" of nature are not read from nature but are 'imposed' upon it by the human mind.
Against dualism, Torrance seeks to develop a "unitary" (not dualistic) approach to theology wherein knowledge of the reality under investigation (in this case, God) is developed according to the demands imposed upon us by the intrinsic nature of the object of inquiry. In order to better understand Torrance's approach, we shall explore the closely related topics of "scientific" theology and "critical realism." (In the next post, we will explore the methodology of Torrance's scientific theology.)
Scientific Theology
Torrance (1969:281) describes theology as "a dogmatic, or positive and independent, science operating on its own ground and in accordance with the inner law of its own being, developing its distinctive modes of inquiry and its essential forms of thought under the determination of its given subject-matter."

Comment: Torrance describes theology as a positive science. This may not seem significant, yet it is of major importance. Much western theology arises from the "negative" way (via negativa) promulgated by Thomas Aquinas (12^th C.) and others who articulated their doctrine of God based on a negation of the imperfections of the cosmos (e.g., "God is not this"). For example, the world is changing; thus God is "not-changing," that is, God is "immutable" (see my post, "Tommy A. and the Western Split."). In contrast to a negative theology that often (and wrongly) seeks to tell us what God is 'not', Torrance seeks to develop a positive approach to theology based upon God's self-revelation in Jesus.

Note also that Torrance's theology seeks to develop "its distinctive modes of inquiry and its essential forms of thought under the determination of its given subject-matter." Simply stated, God himself (the Object of scientific theological inquiry) sovereignly determines how he will be known, and he does so through the mediation of the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ.

Theology is "the unique science devoted to knowledge of God, differing from other sciences by the uniqueness of its object which can be apprehended only on its own terms and from within the actual situation it has created in our existence in making itself known." Scientific theological thinking does not arise from a centre within ourselves or from axiomatic assumptions we make in regard to the nature of God. "Theo-logical" thinking arises, rather, from a centre in God and is possible only because it really is God who is the object of our inquiry and the "ground and possibility" of all our knowledge of him.

Comment: "Theological thinking does not arise from a centre within ourselves." Compare this to Schleiermacher who developed his theology from the "feeling" of dependence in the human consciousness or Augustine who based his trinitarianism on an analogy of the human mind (see my post, "NeoPlatonism: Augustine and the Wedding Cake Cosmos"). Nor does theological thinking arise from "axiomatic assumptions we make in regard to the nature of God." Again, compare this to medieval theologies based on what human beings thought it "proper" for God to be (dignum deo). In contrast, Torrance's scientific theology is an a posteriori form of thinking grounded in the prior "given-ness" of God in Jesus Christ.

"Scientific theology," according to Torrance, "is active engagement in that cognitive relation to God in obedience to the demands of His reality and self-giving." A scientific theology seeks to bring knowledge of God into clear focus, so that the truth of God may shine through unhindered and unobscured by the "opacity" of the human mind. "That is to say, we seek to allow God's own eloquent self-evidence to sound through to us in His Logos so that we may know and understand Him out of His own rationality and under the determination of His divine being" (Torrance, 1969:v-viii).

Comment: Against the Kantian disjunction between the knower and the known, God's own "eloquent self-evidence" has sounded through to us both in the mediation of revelation in ancient Israel (see coming post) and particularly and most clearly in the incarnation of the Word (Logos) of God in Jesus Christ, who is "of one being with the Father" (homoousios to Patri).

In summary, Torrance's scientific theology is a positive (rather than negative) approach to knowledge of God developed in accordance with God's historical self-revelation in the history of Israel and the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Critical Realist Epistemology

In regard to the knowledge of God in general, and the mediation of Christ in particular, Torrance adopts a "Christian realist epistemology," that is, a "biblical and scientific realism" that has been called his "greatest contribution to the theological life and mission of the Church for ages to come." For Torrance, we can have real and accurate knowledge of things outside ourselves, including real and accurate knowledge of Jesus Christ (Kelly, 2007:75).
Critical realism arose in the United States in the early twentieth century as a rejection of an "idealist' over-emphasis on human consciousness and experience. Realism makes the "common sense" claim that realities exist independently of human perception. At its core, realism rejects the idealist insistence that esse est percipi ("to exist is to be perceived"), asserting, instead, that an object may exist apart from being perceived. Critical realism concedes to idealism that whenever something is perceived, it is an object of the mind; however, it does not follow from this that a given reality has no existence except in being perceived. Critical realism takes note of the Kantian emphasis on human perception, yet argues that, even though reality may be conceptually mediated, it does not follow that our concepts or apperceptions constitute reality. Theological realism [such as that embraced by Torrance] is committed to the view that the object of religious experience and inquiry (i.e., God) exists independently of human experience. In acknowledging an independent reality beyond our control, there is a basic humility associated with theological realism, wherein human experience is not the sole arbiter of what is real (Patterson, 1999:12-14; Padgett, 2002: 186, 187).
In his typically tortuous fashion, Torrance describes realism as "an epistemic orientation of the two-way relation between the subject and object poles of thought and speech, in which ontological primacy and control are naturally accorded to reality over all our conceiving and speaking of it" (Torrance, 1982:60). His conception of an "ontological primacy" appears to be a 'realist' assertion that the object of inquiry has a reality that is independent of the human subjective pole and open to scientific investigation.
In contrast to the Newtonian-deistic separation between God and the world or natural theology's attempt to develop knowledge of God apart from God's historical self-disclosure (see coming post), Torrance adopts an "interactionist" approach to knowledge of God, wherein God is understood as personally interacting with the world in space and time while remaining distinct from it. Against the Kantian disjunction between the knower and the known, Torrance's "realist" epistemology asserts that reality discloses itself in a way that we can really comprehend (Torrance, 1982:97-99; 1990:136).

Comment: Without doubt, most readers of this blog embrace a "realist" epistemology in the doctrine of God. In simple terms, we believe in the independent reality of God's existence and that God can be known. Against Kant, we do not regard knowledge of God as the result of the imposition of human thought forms on an otherwise unknowable reality; we believe that divine reality can be known because it has been revealed. Against cosmological dualism, we believe that God has (and continues to) intervene in human affairs, particularly in the history of Israel, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and the sending of the Spirit. Thus, for Torrance to assert that the divine exists independently of human perception is no big deal to most of us. Yet in the scientific and academic milieu in which Torrance develops his theology, a "realist" understanding of God is not taken for granted.

Moreover, Torrance adopts an interactionist approach to knowledge of God, wherein God is understood as personally interacting in human history. This is an important point. Torrance divides theologies into two overarching types: 1) theologies that operate from the perspective that God has really "interacted" with humanity in the realm of historical space and time, and 2) dualist epistemologies such as that of Bultmann that shut God out of the world.

Torrance's approach accords with "common sense." In everyday experience the human mind operates in such a way that we are able to distinguish between ourselves as knowing subjects and the objects of our knowledge. In common discourse, we employ ideas or words to represent the realities they signify so that ordinary communication is possible. Our attention is not focused on the words we use; rather, it is focused on the realties to which they refer. Hence, for Torrance, the natural operations of the human mind appear to be "realist" (Torrance, 1982:58)
Torrance insists that knowledge is not centred in the rational human subject only, for there is a "universal rationality" or inherent intelligibility woven into the fabric of the cosmos by its Creator. Because the universe not only exists in intellectu, but also in re, our mental operations are coordinated with patterns and structures in the universe that are independent of us. Realities are not merely the conceptual constructs of the human mind; rather there is a "noetic component" to things that make their intrinsic intelligibility accessible to human knowing. As we engage these realities, we become recipients and channels of their inherent intelligibility. Hence, our images and concepts are tools of discovery rather than tools of creation; that is, realities are discovered, not invented (Torrance, 1985:3; Patterson, 1999:14, 17).

Comment: The preceding paragraph is a powerful argument against Kantian epistemological dualism. Remember that Kant argued that the laws of nature are not "discovered" in nature; rather, they are "imposed" upon nature by the human mind.

Like philosophy, theology operates within a dialectical tension between realism and idealism; that is, "theology engages in its movement between the given object and thought about the object." Classical realism holds that all our knowledge of God arises out of actual experience with a given reality; yet, it also recognizes that there are both "inward" and "outward" aspects to our actual experience. The crucial problem for "realist" epistemology is to assert how we can distinguish independent objective reality from our experience of it. As Torrance (1990:52, 53) asks, "How do we know that the God whom we know in our minds has existence apart from our mental knowledge of him, that 'God' is anything more than an empty 'idea' in our minds?" In answer, Torrance's "realist" theology takes as its fundamental proposition that God is; that is to say, God has a reality independent of our knowledge of him, a reality made known to us "concretely" in the historical encounter with Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Torrance (1990:53, 54) writes:

It is in that encounter that we learn that the objective act of God upon us in the freedom of his Spirit is to be distinguished from our inward subjective conditions, and that the God who meets us face to face in Jesus Christ is . . . the living God who really comes to us from beyond us and acts upon us in the midst of all the other actualities and objectivities of our historical and natural existence.

Against all forms of idealism, wherein an encounter with God is reduced to mere subjective experience [as in Schleiermacher], Torrance argues that we must "let God be God"; that is, we must let knowledge of God be grounded in God's objective self-revelation in Christ and the Spirit. Against any "Pelagian" claim on the part of human reason to be able to acquire knowledge of God on its own [as in an independent natural theology], we must allow all our ideas about God to be called into question by God's objective self-revelation in time and space. Proper theological questions must be shaped by "the nature of God who gives himself to us in sheer grace and remains sovereignly free in his transcendent Lordship over all thoughts of him and over all our formulations of the understanding he gives us of himself in his Word" (Torrance, 1990:57). Torrance's realist approach to theology is exemplified in his description of "dogmatics" as "the actual knowledge of the living God as he is disclosed to us through his interaction with us in our world of space and time ‒ knowledge of that God that is ultimately controlled by the nature of God as he is in himself" (Torrance, 1980:15, 16).
Torrance's 'realist' approach to theology reaches back to the theology of the Patristic era, particularly that of Alexandria [Athanasius, Cyril], where "[p]recise, scientific knowledge was held to result from inquiry strictly in accordance with the nature of the reality being investigated, that is, knowledge of it being reached under the constraint of what it actually and essentially is in itself, and not according to arbitrary convention." In accordance with the Alexandrian fathers, Torrance asserts that to know things in strict accordance with their nature is "the only way to reach real, exact or scientific knowledge in any field of inquiry, through the faithful assent of the mind to the compelling . . . claims of reality upon it" (Torrance, 1988:51; cf. Grenz, 2004:204). Torrance also finds this approach to knowledge in the theology of the great Reformer, John Calvin, who saw that knowledge was derived objectively and "actively" from God "through modes of knowing imposed on us from the nature of God and from his self-manifestation through his Word." For Calvin, all knowledge of God must be referenced back to God himself, so that all or presuppositions may be unmasked and the idols of the mind dethroned in light of God's objective self-manifestation. As Torrance notes, this "principle of objectivity," wherein we detach ourselves from all presuppositions and prejudgments in favour of the given-ness of reality, played a forceful role in scientific knowledge following the Reformation (Torrance, 1996:90-92; Hardy, 1997:259).
Torrance argues for a realist approach to knowledge of God wherein the knower participates in Christ's own knowledge of God. Thus, we must get past all cognitive distortions of the knowledge of God in order to apprehend the reality of God independently of received language and culture, so that our minds may be transformed by God's revelation of himself in Christ. Theological realism insists that, in apprehending Jesus Christ, we do, in fact, apprehend God ‒ not merely ideas about God. Because knowledge of God arises from God's self-revelation in Christ, there is no external, independent court of appeal by which such claims to knowledge could be adjudicated. "Knowledge of God in and through Jesus Christ is inevitably a profoundly personal knowledge, the result of the Trinitarian pattern of God's self-revelation becoming stamped on our minds. This is the sine qua non for knowledge of God in which experience and apprehension lead to real knowing" (Purves, 2001:71).
In the next post (on or about January 15), we will discuss the methodology of Torrance's scientific theology.
.References
Grenz, S.J. 2004. Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress. 289pp.
Hardy, D.W. 1997. The Integration of Faith with Scientific Thought: Thomas F. Torrance. In D. Ford, ed. The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 257-261.
Kelly, D.F. 2007. The Realist Epistemology of Thomas F. Torrance. In G. Dawson, ed. An Introduction to Torrance Theology: Discovering the Incarnate Saviour. London: T & T Clark. Ch. 4.
Padgett, A.G. 2002. Dialectical Realism in Theology and Science. Perspective on Science and Christian Faith, vol 54, pp. 184-192.
Patterson, S. 1999. Realist Christian Theology in a Postmodern Age. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ Press. 184pp.
Purves, A.P. 2001. The Christology of Thomas F. Torrance. In E. Colyer, ed. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology: Theologians in Dialogue with T. F. Torrance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Ch. 3.
Torrance, T.F. 1969. Theological Science. Oxford: OUP. 368pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1982. Reality and Evangelical Theology: The Realism of Christian Revelation. (Forward by K.A. Richardson, 1999). Downers Grove, IL: IVP. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster. 174pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1985. Reality and Scientific Theology. (New Forward by T.F. Torrance, 2001). Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers. 220pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1988. The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. London: T & T Clark. 345pp
Torrance, T.F. 1990. Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1996. (orig. ed. 1965). Theology in Reconstruction. Eugene,OR:Wipf & Stock Publishers. 288pp.

Immanuel: God Comes to Us!

A new magazine article of mine, entitled, "Immanuel: God Comes to Us," has just been published by Plain Truth Ministries. During this Advent season, I hope you will take time to read the article and rejoice in the Good News that God is with us! You can read the article by clicking on "Immanuel" in the list of articles on the right hand side of this page.

Torrance and the Problem of Dualism, pt 2

In our last post we noted that dualism is the division of reality into two incompatible domains. Cosmological dualism, whether of the ancient Greeks or of the Newtonian-Deism of the Enlightenment, posits a separation (dualism) between God and the world, rendering the incarnation of Jesus Christ problematic if not impossible.

In today's post we will consider the dualism associated with the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. This is an epistemological dualism; thus, it has to do with human "knowing." Kantian dualism precludes meaningful knowledge of God. According to the Kantian thought, "We 'kan't' know God."

Stick with me on this one and we will see how Kantian epistemological dualism has had damaging effects on Christian knowledge of God in the modern era.

Epistemological Dualism

In addition to the cosmological dualism in its ancient and modern forms, Torrance rejects the 'epistemological' dualism associated with the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724‒1804), who posited a disjunction (dualism) between the human knower and the reality the human subject seeks to know. According to Kant, since human knowing is always influenced by language, culture, and the structures of the human mind operative in the activity of knowing, we cannot know objective reality, that is, "the thing in itself" (Das Ding an sich), but only how it 'appears' to us through our "cognitive grid," that is, as 'interpreted' by the categories and mental structures of the mind (Colyer, 2001a:58, 329, 330). In positing an "unbridgeable gulf" between the mind of the knower and the object of knowledge, epistemological dualism asserts that our knowledge is in reality an imposition of the mind's own thought patterns in order to bring an artificial order to the undifferentiated chaos of sensory experience (Achtemeier, 2001b:273).

Comment: The essential point is that we can't know "objective" reality, that is, "the thing in itself"; what we "know," rather, is a combination of empirical data and a whole bunch of mental constructs that we impose upon it. The bottom line is that we can't really "know" God as an objective reality because of the vast amount of mental "stuff" we bring to the table. God is as much a "subjective" phenomenon of our own minds as he is an "objective" reality "out there."

For Kant, man can know only the phenomenal world (the world of "appearances"), for the mind requires empirical evidence before it can be capable of knowledge. Following the Scottish philosopher, David Hume (1711‒1776), Kant argued that concepts such as space, time, causality, quantity, substance, and relation are not empirically verifiable realities; rather, they are a priori interpretive principles that the mind 'imposes' upon nature to bring order to an otherwise chaotic and overwhelming manifold of experience.

Comment: Kant claimed that Hume awoke him from "slumber." According to Hume, we cannot assert that the 8-ball caused the 9-ball to fly to the corner pocket like a marten to the gourd. All we really see is the "phenomenal" world, in this case, two balls in motion. To say that one "caused" the other to move is to introduce a mental construct that we "impose" upon what we have observed. In short, "causality" is one of many mental constructs or a priori interpretive principles that we bring to the table in order to make sense of the game. Said another way, "causality" is inside our heads, not "out there."

These a priori concepts are not read out of experience but read into it. In other words, Kant argues that instead of reading the laws of nature from nature, man ultimately reads them into nature through the processes of the human mind. Hence, the "order" that man perceives in the world is not a characteristic of nature but of the human mind. Contrary to the assumptions of everyday experience, the human mind can never experience what is "out there," apart from the mind, as a clear and undistorted "objective" reality. "Reality," rather, is a 'construction' of the human mind imposed upon the world. In relation to scientific theology, since objective knowledge can only be derived from empirical evidence, metaphysics (knowledge of God) is beyond the powers of human reasoning (Tarnas, 1991:341-347).

Comment: In short, the world is not really orderly ("order" is one of those interpretive principles we bring to the table, something inside our heads rather than "out there."). We merely impose an "artificial" order onto reality so that we can make some sense of the chaotic manifold of data that confronts us. The point is: What we call "reality" is not something "out there," that exists independently of the human mind; rather, "reality" is a "construction" or fabrication of the human mind imposed upon the phenomena of the universe in order to enable us to make some kind of sense of the world. Stay tuned; this is important!

According to Torrance (1984:38ff), there was a major epistemological shift from Newton to Kant. With the former, knowledge is derived through discovery of the inherent intelligibility of the world; for the latter, intelligibility and the theoretical components of knowledge are shifted to the human mind, wherein the raw data of sensory experience is organized to make it intelligible. This constitutes an "inversion of the knowing relation" away from the intrinsic intelligibility of nature or reality (as in Newton) to the cognitive processes of the human mind (as in Kant). This results in a "constructivist mentality" in which the mind imposes order and form upon experience. Thus, from Newton to Kant epistemology shifted from the 'discovery' of form to the 'imposition' of form in everyday experience and scientific inquiry, that is, from the inherent intelligibility of the universe to the synthesizing and constructive power of the human mind, wherein rational structure is read into nature. With this major change in epistemology, the idea of the inherent intelligibility of the universe began to fade away in accordance with Kant's assertion that the human mind is the origin of the laws and perceived uniformity of nature (cf. Colyer, 2001a:330, 331).

Comment: From Newton to Kant we have a big-time "epistemological shift." For Newton the world was an orderly, albeit closed, system of cause and effect. We could investigate the cosmic time clock and eventually come to understand it as it really is. Thus, knowledge was derived by the investigation of the empirical phenomena of the universe. By the time we get to Kant, the source of knowledge has shifted from the empirical events of the world around us to what is inside our own heads. We no longer discover reality (as in Newton); we impose an artificial (mentally constructed) reality onto nature. With this epistemological shift, w began to lose sight of the intelligibility of the universe as woven into it by its Creator; instead, we begin to see an artificial "intelligibility" imposed upon reality by the cognitive structures of our minds. In other words, it's all in your head, Bubba!!

So the bottom line on Kant's epistemological dualism is this: We kan't know "the thing in itself" (Das Ding an Sich) because we impose all our mental "stuff" onto it. Thus, what we "know" is really a construction of our own minds. Apply this to God and I think you'll see the problem.

Adverse Effects of Kantian Dualism on Christian Knowledge

OK. Here's why it matters. Pay attention!

From early in his career, Torrance has noted the many adverse effects of Kantian dualism on Christian thought and speech. As Torrance (1976:269) argues:

The damaging effect [of Newtonian-Kantian dualism] nowhere appears more sharply than in the wide gap that opens up between an inert God who cannot be known in himself and the world of phenomena conceived as a closed continuum of cause and effect. . . . [Dualism is] also the source of the wide-spread doubt and difficulties about providence, prayer and worship, for it means that even Christian forms of thought and speech about God are uprooted from any objective ground in the being of God himself and float loose in the vague mists of modern man's vaunted self-understanding. (Underline added)

In positing a bifurcation between unknowable "things in themselves," which must be treated as nothing more than hypothetical entities, and what is scientifically knowable, Kant created a "damaging dualism" that has had profound effects upon theological inquiry, the faith of the believer, and biblical interpretation. By limiting scientific knowledge to what is empirically observable, Kant severed the connection between science and faith, thereby "depriving faith of any objective or ontological reference and emptying it of any real cognitive content." In practical terms, this means that it is impossible for us to have real knowledge of Jesus Christ as he is in himself, for our understanding of Jesus is limited to how he 'appeared' to his followers and to the impression he made on the structures of their consciousness, by which they made him the 'object' of their faith and knowledge. Thus, the biblical scholar, using the methods of historical criticism, is faced with the task of stripping away the theoretical (i.e., theological) accretions that accrued over time to the Jesus narrative in order to bring into view, as far as possible, the actual impression he made as he appeared to his contemporaries. It was in this troubling context that Schleiermacher, Ritschl, and their followers struggled to find some meaningful place in human culture for the message of the gospel. As nineteenth- and twentieth-century theology demonstrate, as long as one operates with "an axiomatic disjunction" [dualism] between a "noumenal" realm of ideas [what's "up there"] and a "phenomenal" realm of events [what's "down here"], nothing more than a moral, symbolic, or mythological meaning can be given to the biblical account of God's saving interaction with the world of space and time, particularly the Christian message of Jesus' incarnation, death, and resurrection (Torrance, 1980:28-43).

Comment: Let's face it: What else can you do if you decide that God (and everything else) cannot be known objectively? What happens when you decide that what we call "God" is as much an imposition of human thoughts forms onto the heavens as it is any sort of objective reality "out there"? So if we kan't know God (epistemological dualism) and if God cannot enter time and space (cosmological dualism), what are we going to do with the gospel message, particularly as revealed in the New Testament? We have no choice but to interpret it in moral, symbolic, or mythological terms, whereby we reduce Jesus to a nice Jewish boy who told really good stories and set a fine moral example for us all.

As Achtemeier (2001b:274) observes, epistemological dualism manifests itself in theological science in a tendency, especially pervasive since the Enlightenment, to reduce theology to anthropology or psychology. In the place of God's objective self-disclosure within the concrete structures of time and space [the incarnation], the 'subjective' religious experience of the believer becomes the object of theological inquiry. This distortion in theological science also manifests in a "constructivist" (i.e., "subjective") approach to theology, which assumes that the task of the theologian, like that of the modern artist who attempts to portray his subjective experience on canvas, is to construct "symbol systems" which serve to project the idea of god onto the cosmos in order to serve the religious needs and aspirations of "believers."

Comment: The idea is that we create God inside our own heads then project him onto the vast movie screen above. As a significant part of the movie script, we create "symbol systems' (religion) to give meaning to our otherwise hopeless lives. So theology is really anthropology. It's not really about God (theology), because he is merely a projection of human imagination; it's about us (anthropology) and our need to create religion to provide us solace and meaning.

In addition, the Kantian restriction of knowledge to what is observable, or to what may be deduced from observation, creates a divide between objective, ontological realities [God] and the human knower, thereby reducing human understanding to a form of existentialism such that knowledge is nothing more than an expression of one's attitude toward reality. [Read that again! I know you didn't get it the first time!] Within a dualist framework, whether of the cosmological or epistemological kind, theological statements necessarily lose their connection to any objective, ontological reality. [Here comes the "why it matters" part.] Consider the following biblical statements: "The Word was made flesh"; "God is love"; "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself." If the objective reality to which the biblical writers clearly refer is cut off by a "deistic disjunction" between God and the world, biblical statements must be interpreted merely in terms of the subjective, anthropocentric consciousness of the writers. That is, theological statements are diverted from their reference in the objective reality of God to subjective statements about ourselves as dependent on God [It's all in our heads]. Thus, the objective realities to which theological statements refer become merely a "mythological" way of expressing man's feeling of dependence on God [as in Schleiermacher] and the understanding of himself in the world in which he lives. Theological statements about Jesus, for example, are turned around toward us and reduced merely to the meaning he has for us in terms of how we order our lives. This reductionist way of handling theological statements shows what happens when we follow, for example, Bultmann, who rejects any conception of "the intelligibility of reality." Theological statements are stripped of any reference to an objective, transcendent reality so that they become nothing more than autobiographical statements about ourselves, with the result that theology is reduced to a poor form of anthropology. As Torrance rightly argues, it is the "anachronistic" persistence of these "damaging dualisms" that give rise to the "pseudo-theologies" that remain common today (Torrance, 1980:27, 34-36).

In our next post, we'll take a look at Torrance's "critical realist epistemology." I know you Kan't wait.

References

Achtemeier, P.M. 2001. Natural Science and Christian Faith in the Thought of T. F. Torrance. In E. Colyer, ed. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology: Theologians in Dialogue with T. F. Torrance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Ch. 11.

Colyer, E.M. 2001a. How to Read T.F. Torrance: Understanding His Trinitarian & Scientific Theology. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 393pp.

Kelly, D.F. 2007. The Realist Epistemology of Thomas F. Torrance. In G. Dawson, ed. An Introduction to Torrance Theology: Discovering the Incarnate Saviour. London: T & T Clark. Ch. 4.

Tarnas, R. 1991. The Passion of the Western Mind. New York, NY: Ballantine. 544pp.

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

Torrance, T.F. 1980. The Ground and Grammar of Theology: Consonance Between Theology and Science. (Preface to new edition by T.F. Torrance, 2001). Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1981. Divine and Contingent Order. (Preface to new edition, 1998). Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 162pp.

Torrance, T. F. 1984. Transformation & Convergence in the Frame of Knowledge: Explorations in the Interrelations of Scientific and Theological Enterprise. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 353pp.

Torrance and the Problem of Dualism, pt 1

Today's contribution to the cause of Trinitarian-incarnational theology is the first of a two-part post on the problem of "dualism." Even if you have read only a little T. F. Torrance, you have likely encountered his recurring critique of the problem of dualism, particularly in regard to the Enlightenment's dualistic Newtonian cosmology and the Kantian (dualistic) disjunction between the knower and the known (see below for explanations of these high-browed ideas). As someone noted, however, Torrance gives us (his readers) more credit than we deserve; that is, he assumes we know more than we really do ‒ and that can create problems for us readers. For example, consider the first few pages of The Mediation of Christ. In only a few paragraphs, Torrance probably manages to scare off most potential readers. Torrance graciously assumes we know what he is talking about when, in highly compressed prose, he notes the many problems associated with both cosmological and epistemological dualism and our need to embrace, as theologians, a unitary view of reality as conceived by modern science (beginning particularly with James Clerk Maxwell). (Note, however, that if you can get by the first three or four pages, the book gets easier ‒ though not necessarily easy.)

To be sure, reading Torrance often requires at least a general knowledge of the history of philosophy, history of theology, and a perverted desire to delve into the subatomic world of quantum mechanics. Ouch!! In regard to philosophy, if wrestling with the ephemeral world of Platonic and Neo-platonic philosophy is not bad enough, once you get into Torrance, you have to move on to the philosophy of the Enlightenment era if you want to have even the remotest clue about his critique of Kantian epistemological dualism. Problem is, most of us have lives to live ‒ you know, babies to burp and wood to chop. We simply don't have time for philosophy and quantum physics. We want to get to Jesus!

Never fear. This is where your faithful correspondent comes in. Think of me as a translator, like those who sit beside the diplomats at the U.N. This is not to suggest I am an expert in the Torrance "language"; I am not. But I am learning to speak "Torrance," and as someone who is a teacher by nature, I can't help but share what I am learning. Therefore, I seek to help my readers familiarize themselves with various concepts encountered in reading Torrance.

So here we go again. It's pipes for the men and cigars for the ladies. Sit back, kick off your comfy Mickey Mouse slippers, and enjoy a bit more of "All Things Torrance."

The Problem of Dualism

Torrance's scientific approach to knowledge of God as mediated by Jesus Christ draws him into sharp conflict with both ancient and modern forms of "dualism," that is, the division of reality into two independent, incompatible domains. Torrance (1980:76) notes that the Church has faced an ongoing struggle with dualism, particularly in the Patristic and modern eras. An appreciation of Torrance's rejection of cosmological and epistemological dualism is vital to grasping his "realist" understanding of the mediation of Christ (Colyer, 2001:57, 58).

According to Torrance, theologies may be divided into two distinct types: 1) interactionist and 2) dualist. An "interactionist" theology (such as that of Torrance) is one in which God is understood to interact closely with the world of nature and history without being confused with it. A "dualist" theology is one in which God is thought to be separated from nature and history by a "deistic distance." As an example of a dualist theology, Torrance cites Schleiermacher, who conceived of God as so transcendent and "other" that he cannot be the object of our knowledge; thus, knowledge of God arises from our immanent religious consciousness (Torrance, 1970:121; 1990:136).

Cosmological Dualism

Cosmological dualism posits "a separation between the reality or essence of something and the empirical sources of our knowledge about it," that is, a separation between "substance" and "appearance" (Achtemeier, 2001b:273). In regard to theological science, cosmological dualism posits a separation between God and the world, whether in the metaphysics of the ancient Greeks or in the "deism" of the modern era (Torrance, 1980:15ff).

Originating in ancient Greek thought, cosmological dualism asserts that what is "really real" is an eternal, unchanging realm of pure thought "forms" which stand in stark contrast to the imperfect, changeable realm of concrete appearances [we're talking Plato here]. In theological science, cosmological dualism typically asserts itself in an assumed incompatibility between the eternal, divine realm and the finite realm of space and time. For Christian theology, this has historically taken the form of a denial of the empirical reality of the incarnation, so that a wedge has been driven between the Christian understanding of Jesus Christ and genuine knowledge of God (Achtemeier, 2001b:273).

Comment: We've talked about this before (see The Wedding Cake Cosmos: Augustine and Neo-Platonism, 3/09). The Greeks posited a "dualism" between the divine and materiality. God is "way up there," we are "way down here," and there can be no interaction between the two. The dualist assumption that God cannot interact with materiality rules out the incarnation from the start! Thus, the gospel is "foolishness" to the Greeks.

Cosmological dualism arose again at the beginning of the modern scientific revolution, particular in the thought of the great physicist, Sir Isaac Newton (1642‒1727). The changes in cosmology initiated by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo were mathematically elaborated by Newton in his "system of the world." Newton's cosmology was characterized by "a thorough-going dualism between absolute space and time and the contingent events that took place within their embrace" (Torrance, 1976:268).

"Absolute space and time," presupposed by Newton's laws of motion, form a static backdrop against which the movement of bodies can be described and plotted. According to Newton, "absolute space" is structured according to the uniform principles of Euclidean geometry; "absolute time" provides a universal frame of reference against which events anywhere in the universe can be described as occurring simultaneously, before, or after one another. Absolute space and time form a vast "envelope" that contains all that goes on in the universe, "inertially conditioning" events and our knowledge of them while remaining unaffected by them. The contents of universal space-time are understood in atomistic terms as discrete particles, or "point-masses," called "corpuscles," which move and interact with one another according to the influences of gravitational "forces." Newton's "particles in a box" paradigm readily lends itself to mechanistic, reductionist ways of thinking about the universe; that is, if the universe is composed of particles moving according to fixed laws of motion, then all phenomena could conceivably be explained in those terms. The determinism evident in Newton's "corpuscular" view of matter gave rise to the conception of the universe as self-perpetuating clockwork-like machine. Newton's mechanistic-dualistic cosmology has dominated Western science for centuries (Torrance, 1980:75; 1984:270, 271; Achtemeier, 2001b:282, 283).

Comment" Newton's "corpuscular" view of particles moving around in the vast arena of space is often portrayed something like a giant pool table with billiard balls rolling around all over the place, more or less at will.

As Tarnas (1991:270, 271) notes, "By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the educated person in the West knew that God had created the universe as a complex mechanical system, composed of material particles moving in an infinite neutral space according to a few basic principles, such as inertia and gravity, that could be analyzed mathematically. . . . It also seemed reasonable to assume that after the creation of this intricate and orderly universe, God removed himself from further active involvement or intervention in nature, and allowed it to run on its own according to these perfect, immutable laws. The new image of the Creator was thus that of a divine architect, a master mathematician and clock maker, while the universe was viewed as a uniformly regulated and fundamentally impersonal phenomenon."

Newton's appeal to absolute time and space as an a priori "philosophical backdrop" to his theory creates a rigid cosmological dualism between absolute space-time and the material contents of the universe, a dualism that closely mirrors the ancient Greek distinction between an eternal, divine world of rational "forms" and a material world of subjective appearances. Not only has the Newtonian cosmology "built a deep-seated dualism into the whole fabric of Western science, philosophy, and culture" but also has encouraged a view of the universe as a "closed continuum of cause and effect," far removed from the ongoing providence of a loving God (Torrance, 1976:268, 269).

Torrance rightly observes that there are significant theological implications associated with the Newtonian view of the cosmos. To be sure, Newton's view of the material contents of the universe as "particles in a box" moving in strict accordance to fixed laws of motion leaves little room for God's involvement in the world, except as the "first cause" or creator of the universe. Moreover, Newton's dualistic outlook, coupled with a "Baconian" understanding of scientific method (wherein speculative hypotheses are shunned in favor of theories developed strictly by inductive means based on experimental data), drives a wedge between scientific and "religious" ways of knowing. "Science" is viewed as empirical and "objective," deriving its understanding from experimental data, while "religion" is viewed as "subjective," tenuously grounded in personal belief. The net result of this is a "powerful resonance" between the scientific view of Newtonian physics and Deism, a theological view that understands the world to function in an autonomous "clockwork" fashion that requires no divine involvement other than as a "first cause" (Torrance, 1981:43, 44; Achtemeier, 2001b:284).

Comment: That's the essential point. The Newtonian view of the cosmos as a closed system of cause and effect leaves God out of the picture. In fact, according to this view, if God were to intervene, say with miracles, it would throw everything out of whack, upsetting the delicate balance of the cosmic pocket watch. In short, miracles are a no-no in this view.

As Achtemeier (2001b:285, 286) observes, "The radical disjunction in Newton's thought between the philosophical backdrop of absolute, eternal, and unchanging space and time on the one hand, and the dynamic world of objects and appearances on the other, is thus mirrored in an equally radical disjunction between the creator God and the independent, ongoing processes and activities of the created order." Newton's "container" view of absolute space and time as the philosophical backdrop of his thought renders the Christian doctrine of the incarnation extremely problematic, since it is not clear (in a Newtonian view) how the infinite God could be contained in the limited structures of time and space. The theological implications of his theory were not lost on the great physicist. As Torrance (1980:68) notes, Newton was compelled to deny the incarnation and to support Arius against Athanasius.

In embracing a dualistic worldview, wherein the universe is conceived in terms of a self-containing and self-explaining deterministic framework, some theologians have gone to great lengths to "cut off faith from any empirical correlates in physical space-time reality" [i.e., incarnation, miracles, etc. didn't really happen in time and space, just in the collective imaginations of us dumb Christians]. In so doing, they have replaced objective, God-centered theology with a radically subjective, man-centred outlook (Torrance, 1981:62, 63). [What else can you do when God is disqualified as a player from the start?] Those who hold dualistic views tend to interpret the biblical accounts of God's agency in the world as "nonliteral symbolism or premodern mythology, and therefore subject to allegorical or demythological strategies of interpretation in order to extract or explain the meaning embedded in the symbol or myth" (Colyer, 2001:58). [In other words, the Bible is nothing but a collection of fairy tales.] Bultmann is a prime example of a theologian who is constrained by a modern dualist worldview. Bultmann held that historie, that is, history understood solely in terms of a closed system of cause and effect, ruled out of rational consideration anything that could not be interpreted in terms of natural physical laws. Thus, Bultmann was compelled to rule out any thought of incarnation, miracles, resurrection, or God's interaction in human history. "[Bultmann's] acceptance of the idea of an unbroken continuity of cause and effect governed by natural law made him regard the central Christian beliefs embedded in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament as a mythological account of reported this-worldly events in other-worldly ways lacking objective truth and reality." Thus, Bultmann devised a method of "demythologizing" the New Testament so that modern people could understand it within the framework of a Newtonian-deistic dualism, wherein the world is considered a closed system of cause and effect not subject to intervention from the "outside." In offering an "existentialist reinterpretation" of the gospel, Bultmann insulated the Christian message from the critical investigations of science while at the same time rendering the gospel completely irrelevant for modern science and technology (Torrance, 1980:18, 19; 1994:4-5).

This kind of "demythologizing" of scripture is alive and well today with the so-called "Jesus Seminar." In their vaunted wisdom, they get together and vote on which portions of New Testament scripture are authentic (they put colored balls into a hat I think) and which are merely the superstitious accretions of those silly first Christians. Like Bultmann, they appear to embrace a cosmological dualism in their assertion that God does not (or perhaps cannot) intervene in history. Thus, they get out their scissors and cut out everything in the Bible that smacks of the miraculous (including the Virgin Birth, incarnation, resurrection, ascension and other little things like that). When they get through, they have a really, really thin Bible. (I like mine better.) So you see, cosmological dualism is alive and well. Just watch the "biblical scholar" "Domino Croissant" who gets interviewed by the History Channel every time the subject of the "historical" Jesus comes up.

See part 2 for a discussion of Kant's epistemological dualism.

That's all for now. Stay tuned. Next post due in a week or so.

References

Achtemeier, P.M. 2001. Natural Science and Christian Faith in the Thought of T. F. Torrance. In E. Colyer, ed. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology: Theologians in Dialogue with T. F. Torrance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Ch. 11.

Colyer, E.M. 2001. How to Read T.F. Torrance: Understanding His Trinitarian & Scientific Theology. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 393pp.

Tarnas, R. 1991. The Passion of the Western Mind. New York, NY: Ballantine. 544pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1970. The Problem of Natural Theology in the Thought of Karl Barth. Religious Studies, vol 6, pp. 121-135.

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

Torrance, T.F. 1980. The Ground and Grammar of Theology: Consonance Between Theology and Science. (Preface to new edition by T.F. Torrance, 2001). Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1981. Christian Theology and Scientific Culture. Oxford: OUP.152pp.

Torrance, T. F. 1984. Transformation & Convergence in the Frame of Knowledge: Explorations in the Interrelations of Scientific and Theological Enterprise. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 353pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1990. Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256pp.

All Things Torrance: An Introductory Post

OK, gang. Here we go with "all things Torrance." Starting with this post, we are going to probe deeply into "the mediation of Jesus Christ" in the "scientific" theology of T. F. Torrance.
If you have tried to read Torrance, you have made an inevitable discovery: this brother is hard to read. For a while, I thought it must be me. Then I discovered that Torrance is notorious for his "difficult writing style" and "overly-compressed prose" that is "dense to the point of obscurity" (as Elmer Colyer puts it). No mistake, Torrance will compress an entire chapter into a paragraph! So don't feel bad if you have trouble with Tom Torrance. His writing style is not only difficult, but the content of his thought presupposes a working knowledge of the history of theology, the history of philosophy, and the history of science. If you have struggled with Torrance, join the club.
In coming posts, I hope to untangle some of Torrance's intricate, highly complex thought and perhaps even shed some light on an evangelical, doxological view of the mediation of Jesus Christ that is unparalleled since Athanasius.
So kick back, light up a big cigar, and let's get started.
(In today's post, I will introduce some fundamental concepts in Torrance's thought. These will be developed in detail in future posts.)
While T. F. Torrance was widely known throughout his career for his interest in the relation between theology and the natural sciences, a number of Torrance's works, arguably his greatest, were published relatively late in his long life, after the end of his formal academic career. These books are concerned primarily with the nature of God, particularly as revealed in the economy of salvation in the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. Among his most compelling books (at least for the present writer) are: The Mediation of Christ (1983; rev. ed. 1992), which introduces readers to a number of important themes in Torrance's christocentric theology, including his understanding of Israel as "the womb of the incarnation" as well as his vision of the one simultaneous activity of revelation and reconciliation in the incarnation of Jesus Christ; The Trinitarian Faith (1988), which, as it subtitle indicates, is a thoroughly evangelical exposition of the ancient catholic faith as expressed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and is also an excellent introduction to the Patristic roots of Torrance's theology, especially as found in Athanasius; Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian (1990), which describes Torrance's relation to his great teacher and introduces Torrance's own theological vision, and his last book, and one that has been regarded as his masterpiece, The Christian Doctrine of God (1996a). Published when Torrance was in his early eighties, this book is a thorough articulation of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity grounded in God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ, implicit in the New Testament and articulated in the doxology and theology of the early church. This important work should serve as a classic treatise on the Holy Trinity well into the third millennium (and perhaps beyond). These late works, combining the intellectual rigor of the accomplished theologian with the compassionate heart of the son of Scottish missionary parents, reveal the doxological, evangelical, and thoroughly christocentric content of Torrance's theology.
Despite his life-long interest in the interface between theology and the natural sciences, Torrance remained a deeply devotional man of faith. In his introduction to Theological Science (1969:v), he wrote:

If I may be allowed to speak personally for a moment, I find the presence and being of God bearing upon my experience and thought so powerfully that I cannot but be convinced of His overwhelming reality and rationality. To doubt the existence of God would be an act of sheer irrationality, for it would mean that my reason had become unhinged from its bond with real being. Yet in knowing God I am deeply aware that my relation to him has been damaged, that disorder has resulted in my mind, and that it is I who obstruct knowledge of God by getting in between Him and myself as it were. But I am also aware that His presence presses unrelentingly upon me through the disorder of my mind, for He will not let Himself be thwarted by it, challenging and repairing it, and requiring of me on my part to yield my thoughts to His healing and controlling revelation.

Despite his intellectual rigor, Torrance insisted that accurate knowledge of God cannot be developed in a detached, merely academic way. To know God intimately requires that we enter into a personal and saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Hence, revelation and reconciliation are inseparable in Torrance's theology, for we cannot know God in a detached, impersonal manner without regard for his purpose for our lives (Torrance, 1988:3; 1996b:132). For Torrance, theology is one aspect of the church's response to grace in obedience and worship; thus, theology can never be more than a refinement and extension of the knowledge of God as it arises in the liturgy and doxology of the community of faith and in the believer's living personal relationship with Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Throughout his work, Torrance intertwines theology and worship, so that the theology of T. F. Torrance is not only rigorously scientific and intellectually challenging but devotional and evangelical as well (Colyer, 2001a:25, 28).
Torrance's theology, including his doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ, is strongly influenced by the methodology of the natural sciences. For Torrance, the basic methodological principle of scientific theology, like that of the natural sciences, is that knowledge in any field of inquiry must be developed according to the nature (kata physin) of the reality under study. Thus, a scientific theological method is one in which every aspect of its inquiry is governed by, and proceeds in accordance with, the nature of the 'object' in question: "God in Jesus Christ as the Truth" (Torrance, 1969:112, 113; cf. 1988:51).
In relation to its object of inquiry, a rigorous scientific approach to theology must be informed by actual knowledge of God as revealed to us in the economy (oikonomia) of salvation, that is, in God's historical dialogue with Israel and particularly through the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit. God's self-revelation in Christ and the Spirit calls into question "all alien presuppositions and antecedently reached conceptual frameworks" regarding knowledge of God. For Torrance, this necessitated the development of a rigorous, scientific epistemology that was governed from beginning to end by the 'nature' of its object of inquiry: "God in his self-communication to us within the structures of our human and worldly existence" (Torrance, 1990:122).
Because God has given himself to be known in Jesus, "the central and pivotal point of all genuine theological knowledge" is found in christology. Scientific theology, therefore, will operate on a christological basis, for christology is critical to the understanding of the nature of God. Rather than go "behind the back" of Jesus to develop knowledge of God, christology teaches us to know God in strict accordance with the steps he has taken to make himself known to us and, therefore, to test our knowledge of God in accordance with the steps in which knowledge of him has actually arisen in space and time (Torrance, 1990:71). Hence, for Torrance, the incarnation of Jesus Christ is the "actual source" and "controlling center" for the Christian doctrine of God (Torrance, 1996a:18). To know God through the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, who is of "one substance with the Father" (homoousios to Patri) is to know God in strict accordance with God's nature (kata physin) and, hence, in a theologically scientific way (cf. Torrance, 1969:110-113; 1988:3, 51, 52).
In addition to the basic methodological principle that knowledge of God must be developed in his strict accordance with the divine nature as revealed in Jesus Christ, an important aspect of Torrance's scientific approach to theology is his attempt to reduce a vast amount of theological data to a few "elemental forms," that is, basic concepts that have the effect of illuminating and simplifying an otherwise incomprehensible array of data (Torrance, 1969:116-119). A grasp of these constitutive concepts is essential to an understanding of Torrance's overall vision of the mediation of Jesus Christ.
Two central concepts on which Torrance builds his doctrine of the mediation of Christ are the Nicene homoousion, that is, the creedal assertion that Jesus Christ is "of one being with the Father" (homoousios to Patri), and the doctrine of the 'hypostatic union' of the divine and human natures of Jesus Christ. After studying Barth, Torrance realized that concepts such as the Nicene homoousion and the hypostatic union provide a framework for embodying the "essential connections" of the material content of our knowledge of God, so that a "coherent and consistent account of Christian theology as an organic whole" might be developed in a rigorously scientific way in terms of its own "objective truth and inner logic" (Torrance, 1990: 123). Torrance believes that basic theological concepts such as the homoousion and the hypostatic union enable us to apprehend and articulate the inner matrix of relations revealed to us in the economy of God's self-revelation (oikonomia) in the Old and New Testaments. Together, these concepts provide a "disclosure model," or conceptual "lens," through which we allow realities to reveal themselves to us in a progressive way (always subject to revision as realities unfold) that simplifies and clarifies our knowledge of God and enables us to integrate the complexity of Scripture in a way that illumines God's self-revelation in the economy of salvation while strengthening our faith and experience (Torrance, 1980:125, 126; Colyer, 2001b:225).
For Torrance, the Nicene homoousion is the epistemological and ontological "linchpin" of revelation and reconciliation, and, therefore, of the entire enterprise of a Christian scientific theology. The homoousion is of the utmost evangelical significance. It is essential to our salvation that Jesus is of one nature with God, for only God can save. In light of the orthodox creedal assertion that Jesus Christ is "of one being with the Father," the homoousion "crystallizes" the Christian conviction that while the incarnation falls within historical time and space, it also falls within the eternal life and being of God (Torrance, 1980:160, 161; 1988:110ff; 1996a:30; 1996b:128). As noted above, a rigorous scientific theology must be developed in light of the nature of God as it comes into view in God's actual self-revelation. This is precisely what takes place when we develop our knowledge of God in accordance with the divine self-revelation in the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, who is homoousios to Patri (Torrance, 1988:52).
In addition to the Nicene homoousion, the 'hypostatic union' of the divine and human natures of Jesus Christ is a constitutive elemental form in Torrance's doctrine of the mediation of Christ. While it is essential to our salvation that Jesus Christ is of one nature with God, it is also essential that he is of the same being and nature as humanity. If Jesus is not human as we are, then the gospel is emptied of soteriological content, for his actions have no connection to us and God has not bridged the gulf between himself and humanity created by sin (Torrance, 1988:4, 8, 146, 147; 1992:56-59). Yet the Patristic doctrine of the hypostatic union asserts that God has joined himself to human flesh in the incarnate person of Jesus Christ. In the "God-humanward" movement of the incarnation, God reveals himself within the limits of our creaturely existence (i.e., the mediation of revelation). The eternal Logos takes the form of a servant (Jn 1:1,14; Phil 2:5ff) and assumes our actual diseased, sinful humanity, not only atoning for it, but healing it and bending it back to the Father (Torrance, 1988:153, 157, 161ff). Because the incarnate Son is both fully divine and fully human, he encompasses both sides of the mediating relationship between God and man in his one incarnate person. Thus, the hypostatic union itself is the atoning reconciliation between God and humanity (i.e., the mediation of reconciliation) (Torrance, 1992:56-59).
Closely related to the above is another elemental form that constitutes Torrance's vision of the mediation of Christ: the important concept of "incarnational redemption." For Torrance, the incarnation and the atonement are intimately connected: the incarnation is inherently redemptive and redemption is inherently incarnational. Atoning salvation is not an "external" transaction, as in a forensic concept of atonement; rather, atoning reconciliation occurs "within" the incarnate constitution of the person of Jesus Christ. In the incarnate life of the Mediator there occurs an "agonising union" between God the Judge and man under judgment in a continuous movement of atoning reconciliation running throughout the life of Jesus, from his virgin birth through his resurrection and ascension. Hence, Jesus does not merely "mediate" a reconciliation that is other than himself, as though he were merely an instrument of reconciliation. Rather, Jesus embodies what he mediates, for what he 'is' and what he mediates are the same. He is the reality and content of divine reconciliation. He does not merely propitiate, redeem, and justify; he is our propitiation, redemption, and justification. In the identity of the Mediator and mediation the heart of the gospel is to be found (Torrance, 1986:476-478; 1988:155, 159; 1992:62-67; Colyer, 2001a:85).
A final and particularly characteristic feature of Torrance's understanding of the mediation of Christ is his important concept of the "vicarious humanity" of Jesus Christ. Here Torrance stresses the "human-Godward" movement of Christ, wherein, throughout his entire incarnate life ‒ from birth through death, resurrection, and ascension ‒ Jesus "vicariously" makes the perfect filial response of faith and obedience to the Father on behalf of, and in the place of, all humanity, in such as way as to undergird, rather than undermine, the integrity of our own human response to God in faith, repentance, and obedience (Torrance, 1988:149-154; 1992:73ff; 1996b:132; Colyer, 2001a:28, 29).
In summary, the Nicene homoousion, the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures of Christ, the doctrine of incarnational redemption, and the "vicarious humanity" of Jesus Christ are among the elemental forms of Torrance's vision of the mediation of Christ. Torrance weaves these basic constitutive concepts together into an intricate coherent whole, so that they are not easily conceptually separated from one another. These concepts are closely related, interpenetrating one another because they are all functions of the being and life of Jesus Christ, who in his one incarnate person is the mediation of God to man and man to God.
The coherence of these basic elemental forms is related to another essential aspect of Torrance's thought: his theological "holism." Inspired by his reading of natural scientists such as James Clerk Maxwell and Albert Einstein, Torrance's theological holism is rooted in his basic convictions concerning the "dynamic interrelationality" of reality and the kind of inquiry needed to grasp this interrelatedness. These interrelations, or "onto-relations," as Torrance calls them, are relations so basic they are inseparable from, and characteristic of, the realities they constitute. If we are to understand the nature of various realities, they must be investigated within the nexus of the interrelations of which they are a part. Realities must not be studied in isolation, for they are what they are by virtue of the relations wherein they are embedded (Torrance, 1984:215ff; 1992:2, 3, 47-50; Colyer, 2001a:55, 56).
The holism of Torrance's thought is related to the elemental forms described above, for each basic concept in Torrance's thought is inherently relational. The Nicene homoousion describes the Son's eternal, ontological relationship with the Father. The 'hypostatic union' articulates the nature of the relationship between the divine and human natures "within" the one incarnate person of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of "incarnational redemption" connects the incarnation and atonement in a holistic rather than dichotomous manner. The doctrine of the 'vicarious humanity' of Christ describes the incarnate Son's relationship with the Father as man. Thus, an understanding of the constitutive concepts of Torrance's theological vision arises as they are investigated within the nexus of interrelations that constitute them.
Because the fundamental aspects of reality are 'relational' rather than atomistic, the goal of theology, for Torrance, is to investigate and to coherently articulate the essential interrelations embodied in our knowledge of God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, to understand Jesus Christ and the mediation of revelation and reconciliation, we must view Jesus within the nexus of interrelations that disclose his identity and mission: that is, we must adopt a two-fold approach in which we examine Christ 1) within the matrix of his interrelations with the history and people of Israel in covenant with God and 2) in light of Christ's internal relations with both God and humanity. As theology investigates and articulates these inner relations as disclosed in God's self-communication to us in word and deed as reflected in the gospel, it enables us to grasp the "organic structure" of our knowledge of God and of God's relation to us in creation and redemption. Torrance finds this kind of approach in the early church, wherein the followers of Jesus sought to understand his significance within the dynamic field of God's covenant interaction with Israel and also in light of Christ's relationship to the one he called "Father." Within this complex of interrelations, the early church found itself coming to grips with the essential message of the gospel, a message of salvation for all mankind, embodied in Jesus himself, in continuity with the message of God that had been worked out in covenant partnership with historic Israel. "In that mediation of God's saving revelation, the startling events in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus fell into place within a divinely ordered pattern of grace and truth, and the bewildering enigma of Jesus himself became disclosed: he was incarnate Son of God and Saviour of the world" (Torrance, 1992:1-5, 47-50; cf. Colyer, 2001a:55-57, 345).
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References (All references listed may not be used in every post).
Colyer, E.M. 2001a. How to Read T.F. Torrance: Understanding His Trinitarian & Scientific Theology. Downers Grove, IL: IVP. 393pp.
Colyer, E.M (ed). 2001b. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology: Theologians in Dialogue with T. F. Torrance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 354pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1969. Theological Science. Oxford: OUP. 368pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1976. Theology in Reconciliation: Essays toward Evangelical and Catholic Unity in East and West. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 302pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1980. The Ground and Grammar of Theology: Consonance Between Theology and Science. (Preface to new edition by T.F. Torrance, 2001). Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1981. Divine and Contingent Order. (Preface to new edition, 1998). Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 162pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1982. Reality and Evangelical Theology: The Realism of Christian Revelation. (Forward by K.A. Richardson, 1999). Downers Grove, IL: IVP. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster. 174pp.
Torrance, T. F. 1984. Transformation & Convergence in the Frame of Knowledge: Explorations in the Interrelations of Scientific and Theological Enterprise. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 353pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1988. The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. London: T & T Clark. 345pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1989. The Christian Frame of Mind: Reason, Order, and Openness in Theology and Natural Science. Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard Publishers. 164pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1990. Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1992. (orig. ed. 1983). The Mediation of Christ. Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard. 126pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1994. Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 71pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1996a. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons. London: T & T Clark. 260pp.
Torrance, T.F. 1996b. (orig. ed. 1965). Theology in Reconstruction. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers. 288pp.

God for Us! One Year Anniversary

Greetings Everyone!

This month marks the one year anniversary of God for Us! ‒ a blog on Trinitarian theology.

I am grateful to all you regular readers for your interest, and I especially appreciate the kind comments you have offered. Many have found this blog helpful for their growing understanding of the goodness and unfailing love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. I have been very encouraged to receive your emails informing me about the ways this blog has been useful to you.

In the last year, we have spent much time and effort discussing the problems in the Western doctrine of God, a rather "un-Christian" synthesis of biblical and pagan thought. We have seen how the doctrine of the Trinity was relegated to the status of a relatively minor appendix to a practical unitarian view of God developed apart from Jesus. The 20^th century, however, witnessed a renaissance in Trinitarian thought, pioneered by the great Karl Barth. This renaissance continues today, and this blog is intended to play a role in the reawakening to the good news of the Father's love as revealed in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

In that light, beginning with the next post, we will charge off in a new direction in this blog. In the months to come, I will be posting on "all things Torrance." I will be sharing with you the things I discover and learn as I probe deeply into the theology of T. F. Torrance, a modern Father of the Christian Church. I hope you will continue on this journey with me, so that we may grow together into a fuller understanding of God's unfailing love for all humanity as revealed in the incarnate Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

So stay tuned! The news is good; really good!!