Torrance: Stratification of the Knowledge of God

It was the application of the homoousion (the Nicene creedal assertion that Jesus is "of one being with the Father," see previous post, Feb 2010) to the incarnate Son (and later the Spirit) that provided the church the "theological key" it needed to unlock the doctrine of the Trinity implicit in the New Testament and given formal articulation at the ecumenical councils of Nicaea and Constantinople (4^th C.). As Torrance (1996a:80) notes:

What the homoousion did was to give decisive expression to the truth that God's self-revelation of himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the incarnate economy of salvation was grounded in and derived from God as he is in his own eternal Being and Nature. It was thus at once evangelical and ontological in its purpose and import in asserting firmly that Jesus Christ the incarnate Lord and Saviour who constitutes the very heart of the Gospel is of one and the same Being as God the Father . . .

For Torrance, the Nicene homoousion is the ontological, epistemological, and evangelical link between the economic Trinity and the ontological (immanent) Trinity. Similar to the procedure of scientific inquiry developed by Einstein and others, Torrance posits a "stratification" of the knowledge of God (Torrance, 1980:156-164; 1996a:88-107; cf. Myers, 2008:1-15). As "one of his most striking and original contributions to theological method," this model is an elaborate attempt to demonstrate the importance of a knowledge of the Trinitarian relations of the being of God as the fundamental organising principle of all theology (Myers, 2008:1, 12).

Torrance sees human apprehension of the divine arising through three interrelated levels of knowledge. First is the "evangelical and doxological" level, that is, the knowledge of God that arises from the personal and communal experience of God in the day-to-day life and worship of the community of faith. This is the "tacit level" of implied theology, wherein knowledge of God in his Trinitarian relations is inchoate and precedes conceptual analysis. Quite importantly, this intuitive first-level knowledge forms the basis of all further theological thought and remains the touchstone upon which a more refined conceptualization of the knowledge of God rests (Torrance, 1980:156, 157; 1996a:88-91; Myers, 2008:7). As Torrance (1996a:90) notes, this ground level of evangelical experience and apprehension is the sine qua non of the other levels of doctrinal formulation developed from it.

Second is the "theological" level, a level of 'theoretical organization' that seeks to uncover and give order to the inner connections in reality that form the experiential basis of our knowledge of God in personal and communal encounter with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The second level is the "economic" level, wherein the Trinitarian relations in the economy (oikonomia) of salvation form the object of theological thought. At this level, the inchoate form of the doctrine of the Trinity, latent and implied in the doxological experience of the Father, Son, and Spirit, is given 'explicit' formulation as doctrinal knowledge of the Holy Trinity. The second level, therefore, involves a movement of thought beyond experience to the intelligible relations that undergird experience without themselves being experienced. While this level may appear to employ concepts that are unrelated to ordinary experience, these concepts arise, like theories in natural science, from the experiential level and remain epistemically correlated with it as refinements and extensions of the basic cognitions of the experiential level (Torrance, 1980:157, 169, 170; 1996a:91, 92; Myers, 2008:7, 8).

As we move from the first to the second level of the knowledge of God, we move from an intuitive, experiential grasp of God's reality to a more formal conceptualisation of the intrinsic relations underlying our experience. We have moved from a personal encounter with Jesus Christ to the conceptual understanding that in the incarnate Son we have to do with the real, intelligible reality of God. It is essential to note that in moving from one level to another, we have not moved away from the level of ordinary concrete experience; rather, we have penetrated into a deeper conceptual level that gave rise to our experience in the first place (Myers, 2008:9).

According to Torrance, the movement of thought from the evangelical-doxological level to the theological level is precisely the kind of conceptual movement that allowed the Nicene Fathers to concisely articulate the unity of being and agency in the Father-Son relationship. The all-important concept of the homoousion was developed not as an abstract theological concept but as an attempt to give expression to the concrete reality they had encountered and intuitively grasped at the evangelical-doxological level of communal encounter with Jesus Christ. As Torrance (1996a:93; cf. 1980:159) notes, "Face to face with Jesus Christ their Lord and Saviour they knew that they had to do immediately with God, who had communicated himself to them in Jesus Christ so unreservedly that they knew him to be the very incarnation of God." In order to express the unity of being and act in the Father-Son relation, the Nicene Fathers were compelled to formulate the entirely new concept of the homoousion, a concept that clarifies the fact that in personal and communal encounter with Jesus Christ, we have to do with the ultimate reality of God. Thus, the homoousion expresses the basic but profound evangelical-doxological intuition that God is inherently in himself what he is towards us in Jesus Christ, and that the three-fold pattern of revelation in the economy of salvation is nothing other than a revelation of the eternal, intradivine Trinitarian relations intrinsic to the being of God (Torrance, 1980:159-161; 1996a:93-95; Myers, 2008:8, 9).

The third level in the stratification of the knowledge of God is the "higher theological" and "scientific" level wherein we are concerned to give a theoretical account of the deepest epistemological and ontological structure of the knowledge of God. Concepts formulated at this level constitute the "basic grammar" of theological thought, for here we have to do with the ultimate relations intrinsic to the eternal being of God, which must, therefore, govern and control all true knowledge of God from first to last. The movement from the second to the third level involves a conceptual transition from the economic relations of the Godhead to the relations immanent in God himself (Torrance, 1980:157-159; 1996a:98, 99; Myers, 2008:9). In other words, this is a transition in theological thought from the "economic Trinity" to the "immanent Trinity."

As we move from the economic level (the Trinity ad extra) to the ontological level (the Trinity ad intra), we are "compelled" to acknowledge, under pressure from God's self-communication, that what God is toward us in Jesus Christ, he is inherently and eternally in his own divine being; that is, the eternal being of God (theologia) is not different from what he manifests of himself toward us in the incarnate Son (oikonomia). This epistemic movement of thought from one level to another is grounded in the prior movement of God himself who condescends in love to be one with us in the incarnation of his Son. Thus, the stratification of the knowledge of God is an a posteriori reconstruction of the way in which our knowledge of God arises in redemptive history, particularly in the incarnation (Torrance, 1980:158; 1996a:83).

Reflection on the homoousion of Jesus Christ lifts our thoughts from the level of the economy of salvation to the level of the immanent relations in the eternal being of God, where we reach "the supreme point in the knowledge of God in his internal intelligible personal relations (Torrance, 1996a:102; cf. Myers, 2008:10). This level of conceptualisation requires the use of the term, perichoresis, a refined concept that expresses the complete "mutual indwelling," "mutual containing," or "interpenetration" of the three divine Persons in their immanent coinherent relations as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Perichoresis, or "coinherence," refers to the way in which the divine Persons "mutually dwell in one another and coinhere or inexist in one another while nevertheless remaining other than one another and distinct from one another." Applied to the Trinity, the concept of perichoresis enables us to realize that the coinherent Trinitarian relations revealed in the economy of salvation are not 'temporary' manifestations of the being of God but, rather, are grounded in the intrinsic and "completely reciprocal" relations of the ontological Trinity. As Torrance notes, "In this way, the concept of perichoresis serves to hold powerfully together in the doctrine of the Trinity the identity of the divine Being and the intrinsic unity of the three divine persons" (Torrance, 1996a:102; cf. 1988:305ff; Deddo, 2008:42, 43).

Torrance's stratification model is no mere reductionist attempt to neatly restrict knowledge of God to three levels (Myers, 2008:12). To be sure, to know God in Jesus Christ is to know God himself, for Jesus Christ not only mediates the revelation of God, he is the revelation of God; that is, in his own personal being he is identical with the revelation which he mediates (Torrance, 1988:138; 1992:9). Yet this does not imply that we can fully comprehend God, for God "as God" remains "ultimately ineffable, beyond all created being." God reveals himself as infinitely greater than we can conceive (Torrance, 1988:214). Yet we can apprehend God in our knowing and speaking of him for he is not "closed" to us but grants us true and accurate knowledge of himself in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit (Torrance, 1976:237). The homoousion allows our thought to move beyond the economic Trinity to the immanent or ontological Trinity. Our knowledge of God is, thus, not limited to what God is toward us (God pro nobis) but leaps across the "Kantian gulf" to penetrate into the intrinsic, eternal reality of God in himself. Thus, our knowledge of God is grounded in the inner reality of the unbroken homoousial relation of the Father and the incarnate Son (Seng, 1992:347). Given the homoousion, we can affirm that God himself is the "content of his revelation" in Jesus Christ" (Torrance, 1988:138, 202, 305).

Torrance appears to echo Karl Rahner in his assertion that the economic Trinity and the ontological (immanent) Trinity are "identical," for there is only one divine Reality of God both in his eternal intradivine being and in his saving and revealing activity in historical time and space (Torrance, 1980:158; Rahner, 1997:22; Molnar, 1997:292). The homoousion breaches the centuries-old gap between reason (De Deo Uno) and faith (De Deo Trino) by transcending medieval dualist epistemology to facilitate a realist, unitary doctrine of God (cf. Molnar, 1997:288ff), wherein Christian apprehension of God moves 'from' the evangelical level of our ordinary day-to-day experience with God 'through' what God is and has done for us in his redemptive activity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (the economic Trinity) 'to' what God is antecedently and eternally in his own being as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (the ontological Trinity) (Colyer, 2001a:292, 293).

In regard to the formulation of statements about God in the immanent relations of his eternal being, Torrance (1980:166, 167) wisely and humbly notes, "To speak like this of God's inner Being we cannot but feel to be a sacrilegious intrusion into the inner holy of holies of God's Being, before which we ought rather to cover our faces and clap our hands on our mouths, for God is ineffable in the transcendence and majesty of his eternal Being." Torrance goes on to assert that the God we have come to know in Jesus Christ is infinitely greater than we can ever conceive, so that all theological concepts ultimately fall short of the glory of the God to whom they refer. Notwithstanding the inadequacy of our concepts, however, knowledge of God at the higher theological level does not simply regress into some form of pre-conceptual apophatic or negative contemplation (i.e., "God is not this"), for the inherent rationality of God's self-revelation will not allow it; rather, we are summoned to higher levels of theological thought and speech that are "worthy" of God (cf. Torrance, 1971:170).

The stratified structure of the knowledge of God is "pyramidal" in shape. Beginning at the broad base of ordinary day-to-day experience (level one) scientific theological inquiry advances through levels of increasing rigor and logical economy (simplicity) until it reaches "the ultimate set of a minimum of intelligible relations" which constitute the "ultimate grammar" of the whole structure. As we transition from the second or theological level to the third or higher-theological level, we deepen and simplify the organization of basic concepts developed at the second level. At the third level of the knowledge of God, we develop an "ultimate theoretical structure" characterized by logical economy and simplicity, wherein we use a minimum of conceptual relations to form a unitary basis for simplifying and unifying the whole body of knowledge regarding the reality in question (Torrance, 1980:170-172; cf. Myers, 2008:9, 10). The homoousion and the hypostatic union, concepts developed to describe the relations inherent in Jesus Christ, are examples of logical economy and simplicity. These theological concepts, developed under the impact of God's self-revelation, succinctly capture the interior relations from which a unitary knowledge of God is developed. The homoousion describes the "vertical" aspect of the Father-Son relation, while the hypostatic union captures the "horizontal" aspects of the God-human relationship incarnate in Jesus Christ (cf. Torrance, 1980:172).

Perhaps most important in Torrance's stratification of the knowledge of God is its emphasis on the continuing, vital correlation between the different levels of theological knowledge, so that theological thought at one level never becomes detached from the overall structure. In the transition to the highest level of theological thought, the homoousion remains decisive, for it signifies the unity in the economic Trinitarian relations and the relations immanent in the eternal being of God. Even at the highest level of theological conceptualisation, Jesus Christ remains the focal point of the complex process of theological thought. There is no movement of thought away from God's self-revelation in the incarnate Son into abstract speculation but only a deeper understanding of the divine reality already apprehended experientially and empirically. To be sure, experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ at the evangelical-doxological level may easily lapse into pure subjectivism if it is disconnected from the ontological structures underlying it. On the other hand, the refined concepts of the higher-theological level may devolve into mere abstractions if they are severed from the empirical realities that give rise to them. There must remain, therefore, a cross-level coordination of the levels of stratification so that empirical knowledge of God arising from the economy of salvation remains correlated with the immanent Trinitarian relations of God while a higher, theoretical understanding of these relations remains grounded in empirical experience. In short, theological concepts and empirical correlates must be integrated into a coherent system so that higher levels of formal conceptuality remain grounded in, and coordinated with, the concrete level of evangelical and doxological experience (Myers, 2008:10, 13-15; cf. Torrance, 1996a:82, 83).

As the ontological, epistemological, and evangelical link between the economic and the ontological Trinity, the homoousion stands for the basic insight that there is an absolutely faithful relationship between what God is toward us in the Gospel (oikonomia) and what he is in himself (theologia); that is, what God is toward us in his redemptive activity in the incarnate Son and the Holy Spirit, he is antecedently and eternally in himself (Torrance, 1980:161; 1986a:299; 1996a:83; cf. 1982:37). Through Jesus Christ God reveals himself as he is, "for God is not one thing in Jesus Christ and another thing behind the back of Jesus Christ." The homoousion tells us that the nature, content and event of revelation exist indivisibly in a unitary whole, for God himself 'is' the reality and content of his revelation (Torrance, 1986a:298, 299). In short, inherent in the Nicene homoousion is a two-way movement of epistemic understanding wherein God condescends to reveal himself in Jesus Christ, who is "of one being with the Father"; in turn, the incarnate Son, through the Holy Spirit, guides our thoughts upward to actual knowledge of God in his eternal, intradivine relations. As Torrance (1980:161) notes, "That is what the homoousion expresses so succinctly and decisively."

Torrance's model of the stratification of the knowledge of God allows us to move beyond dualist patterns of thought to a unitary, perichoretic vision of the Triune Godhead held together by the assertion of the unbroken homoousial relation between the Father and the Son (and the Spirit) (cf. Myers. 2008:12). The Nicene assertion of the unity of being and agency in the Father-Son relation (homoousion) is the epistemological and ontological thread that ties together the various levels of the knowledge of God into a unified whole and enables us to organise our knowledge into various levels of thought with fewer and fewer concepts (Torrance, 1985:155; Myers, 2008:12, 13). Torrance's stratification of the knowledge of God is a kind of "Ockham's razor" which enables us to slice away all unnecessary accretions in theological thought and remain true to the fundamental axiom of Torrance's scientific theology that knowledge is guided and governed by the nature of its object (Torrance, 1985:152, 153; Myers, 2008:13).

References

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

Deddo, G. 2008. T. F. Torrance: The Onto-Relational Frame of His Theology. The Princeton Theological Review, vol XIV, no 2, pp. 35-47.

Molnar, P.D. 1997. God's Self-Communication in Christ: A Comparison of Thomas F. Torrance and Karl Rahner. Scottish Journal of Theology, 50, pp. 288-320.

Myers, B. 2008. The Stratification of Knowledge in the Thought of T. F. Torrance. Scottish Journal of Theology, 61, pp. 1-15.

Rahner, K. 1997. The Trinity: Introduction, Index, and Glossary by Catherine Mowry LaCugna. New York, NY: Crossroads. 122pp.

Seng, K.P. 1992. The Epistemological Significance of Homoousion in the Theology of Thomas F. Torrance. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 45, pp. 341-366.

Torrance, T.F. 1971. God and Rationality. London: OUP. 216pp.

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. 1985. Reality and Scientific Theology. (New Forward by T.F. Torrance, 2001). Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers. 220pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1986a. The Legacy of Karl Barth. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 39, pp. 289-308.

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

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

Feeling Forsaken: A Lenten Meditation

A new article of mine has just been published by Plain Truth magazine entitled, "Feeling Forsaken." You can read it by clicking on the appropriate link under "Articles" in the right-hand column of this page. This article is an excerpt from my book, Ashes into Gold: The Journey of Spirituality, available through Amazon and other online bookstores or at www.mannabooks.org.

Torrance: The Epistemological Significance of the Homoousion

No need to roll your eyes at me! I can't help it! I just love expressions like the "epistemological significance of the homoousion." You ought to see the way my wife, Sara, looks at me when I start spouting off this stuff. She is definitely not impressed!

So here we go again with "All Things Torrance."

Let's get started with a short quiz. Put on your thinking caps and ponder the following riddle:

What do these three statements have in common?

1. Realties must be investigated in accordance with their natures.
2. Epistemology follows ontology.
3. Only God can reveal God.

For you brighter lights out there ‒ and I know there are many (?) ‒ the answer may seem obvious; yet, it only dawned on me after a few weeks of study that these three statements are saying essentially the same thing! Duh! Maybe I am denser than most; then, maybe not.

The fundamental axiom of Torrance's scientific approach to theology is that realities must be investigated in accordance with their nature. That is to say, our "knowing" of something, if it is to be authentic rather than a projection of our own fantasies, must be determined by the nature or "being" of the object of inquiry. In other words, "knowing" follows "being"; epistemology follows ontology. I admit this all sounds rather high-browed, so in regard to the knowledge of God, we can follow the early Fathers such as Irenaeus and Athanasius and assert simply that only God can reveal God. Thus, if we are to develop authentic knowledge of God, we must inquire into the nature of God.

And where do we do that? You guessed it, Grasshopper. We start with Jesus, for as the Nicene Fathers (4^th C) took great pains to articulate, Jesus Christ is "of one nature with the Father" (homoousios to Patri). Let me restate that so it is perfectly clear. If you want to know God, you start with Jesus!! And I don't want to hear any Thomist (Aquinas) belly-aching about starting with a tree (or any of the effects of the cosmos). The tree, as lovely as it may be, is not "of one nature with the Father"; Jesus is. Get the picture?

In the Nicene Creed, the Fathers cut away all ambiguity about the Father-Son relationship and (according to Torrance) removed any possibility of misunderstanding by inserting the crucial expression, homoousios to Patri, which meant that the Father and Son are equally God within the one being of God; that is, the Son is the very being of God and is God in the same way that the Father is God (Torrance, 1988a:122). In the creedal assertion that Jesus is "of one being with the Father," the Nicene Fathers articulated "what they felt they had to think and say under the constraint of the truth and in fidelity to the biblical witness to Christ and the basic interpretation of it already given in the apostolic foundation of the Church" (Torrance, 1996a:ix). Because homoousios was a non-biblical term, it had to be interpreted with great care. It steadily became clear that the term meant "of one and the same being and nature" and expressed equality between the Father and Son in asserting that the Son is identical in being with the Father and of one nature with him. As Torrance notes, properly understood, the Nicene homoousios to Patri means that the incarnate Son is "of identically the same being as the Father" (Torrance, 1988a:123, 124). As the word, homoousios, was debated, clarified, and refined throughout the fourth century, the Church came to believe that the word was a technical theological term that embodied the essence of the Gospel (Colyer, 2001a:72) and the "primary heuristic theological instrument" of a unitary, realist epistemology, whereby the church rejected the pagan dualism between the divine and material (Achtemeier, 2001:54). Whew!! That'll make your head hurt.

As Torrance (1986a:295; 1992:54, 55) rightly argues, the Nicene assertion that Jesus is "of one being with the Father" is the "central point" upon which the whole creed turns and perhaps the most important theological statement since apostolic times:

[The Nicene Creed] hinges upon the fact that he who became incarnate in Jesus Christ, he who mediates divine revelation and reconciliation to mankind in and through himself, is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God ‒ that is to say, Jesus Christ is to be acknowledged as God in the same sense as the Father is acknowledged as God, for it is in virtue of his Deity that his saving work as man has its validity.

The Nicene homoousion has tremendous implications for the mediation of revelation, for it concisely expresses the fact that what God is in our midst in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, God really is in himself. In terms of the mediation of revelation, the homoousion asserts that in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, it is not just something of himself, nor mere information about himself, that God has revealed but, rather, in the incarnate Son, God has revealed his very own self to us. As Torrance (1992:23) argues:

What God the Father has revealed of himself in Jesus Christ his Son, he is in himself; and what he is in himself as God the Father he reveals in Jesus Christ the Son. The Father and the Son are One, one in Being and one in Agency. Thus, in Jesus Christ the Mediation of divine Revelation and the Person of the Mediator perfectly coincide. In Jesus Christ God has given us a Revelation which is identical with himself. Jesus Christ is the Revelation of God.

In regard to epistemology, or the knowledge of God, the Nicene homoousion is of central importance in Torrance's scientific theology (Seng, 1992:341). Torrance (1980:39, 40) cogently and coherently articulates the epistemological significance of the homoousion as follows:

[Classical theology] was committed to the Gospel of the incarnation of the Son of God, the Word made flesh, and was concerned with a way of believing and thinking imposed upon it by the sheer fact of Christ, in accordance with which it was held that this world of ours in space and time is actually intersected and overlapped, so to speak, by the divine world in the parousia, or advent and presence, of Jesus Christ. He was acknowledged and adored, therefore, as one who is God of God and yet man of man, who in his own being belongs both to the eternal world of divine reality and to the historical world of contingent realities. The linchpin of this theology, the essential bond of connection that held it together in its foundations, as it was formulated in the great ecumenical creed of all Christendom at Nicaea and Constantinople, is the homoousion, the confession that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son is of one being or of one substance with God the Father. Because Jesus Christ is God of God and man of man in himself, in Christ we who are creatures of this world may know God in such a way that our knowledge of him rests upon the reality of God himself. It is not something that is thought up and devised out of ourselves and mythologically projected into God, but it is grounded and controlled by what God is in himself.

The Nicene homoousion is of "staggering" significance, for it crystallizes the Christian conviction that while the incarnation falls within the spatiotemporal events of human history, it falls within the eternal being of God. Thus, Jesus Christ is not a mere symbolic representation of God, ontologically detached from divinity, but rather is God in God's own "being and act" come among us, "expressing in our human form the Word which he is eternally in himself, so that in our relations with Jesus Christ we have to do directly with the ultimate Reality of God." As the "epitomized expression" of Jesus' oneness in being with the Father, the Nicene homoousion is the "ontological and epistemological linchpin" of Christian theology. "With it, everything hangs together; without it, everything ultimately falls apart" (Torrance, 1980:160, 161; cf. 1996a:95). As Torrance (1982:23) notes elsewhere, "Everything hinges on the reality of God's self-communication to us in Jesus Christ, in whom there has become incarnate, not some created intermediary between God and the world [as in Arianism], but the very Word who eternally inheres in the Being of God and is God, so that for us to know God in Jesus Christ is really to know him as he is in himself."

Torrance often notes the early Fathers' assertion that "only God can reveal God"; that is, no knowledge of God is possible apart from God's revelation of himself (Torrance, 1983:8ff; 1988a:54; 1994:54; 1996a:77). Thus, as Myers (2008:4, 5) notes, the incarnation is "epistemologically essential" to Torrance's realist, scientific theology, wherein knowledge of the reality under investigation (God) is developed in accordance with the objective nature of that reality. For Torrance, the "epistemological significance" of the incarnation is that we can know God only "in accordance with the way in which he has actually objectified himself for us in our human existence, in Jesus Christ" (Torrance, 1969:310). The incarnation of Jesus Christ is the "actual source" and "controlling centre" of the Christian doctrine of God, for Jesus Christ is one in both being and agency with the Father he came to reveal (Torrance, 1996a:18).

In the incarnation an "epistemic bridge" is established in Christ between God and humankind that is grounded in both the being of God and the being of man. In one of his more straightforward descriptions of the epistemological significance of the incarnation, Torrance (1980:165) notes:

[T]he incarnation of the Son or Word constitutes the epistemological centre in all our knowledge of God, with a centre in our world of space and time and a centre in God himself at the same time. It is in and through that Word that we have cognitive access to God and to knowledge of him in himself.

A 'Christian' doctrine of God, therefore, must be developed from the "unique, definitive, and final self-revelation of God" in Jesus Christ, for, in the incarnate Son, God defines and identifies himself for us as he really is. Jesus Christ is the complete revelation of God to man, for in Jesus, who is "of one substance with the Father" (homoousios to Patri), God's historical self-manifestation to us in the Gospel as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is wholly commensurate with who God is "inherently and eternally in himself" (Torrance, 1996:1). For Torrance, therefore, the homoousion occupies a place of "unique and controlling finality" in our knowledge of God (Torrance, 1980:40). If Jesus Christ were not wholly God, that is, "of one being with the Father," but remained external to God (as Arius argued), then God would remain utterly unknowable, for there would be no access to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit (Torrance, 1996b:34, 35; Achtemeier, 2001:55). If the ontological "bridge" between Jesus Christ and God is severed, revelation is emptied of ultimate truth and reality and we are left with a merely symbolic or mythological way of speaking about God. In short, if we say that Jesus Christ is God when in fact he is not God, then there is no fidelity between what he reveals and what God is. As Torrance notes, this is why the Nicene Fathers fought so hard for the preservation of the creedal assertion that Jesus Christ is homoousios to Patri. Without the unbroken homoousial relation between Jesus and God, the foundation of the Gospel crumbles (Torrance, 1994:54).

Stay tuned! There is more to come on Torrance and the homoousion!! Next post around April 5. See you then.

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.

Myers, B. 2008. The Stratification of Knowledge in the Thought of T. F. Torrance. Scottish Journal of Theology, 61, pp. 1-15.

Seng, K.P. 1992. The Epistemological Significance of Homoousion in the Theology of Thomas F. Torrance. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 45, pp. 341-366.

Torrance, T.F. 1969a. 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. 1983. The Deposit of Faith. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 36, pp. 1-28.

Torrance, T.F. 1986a. The Legacy of Karl Barth. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 39, pp. 289-308.

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

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

Two Gods: An Historical Overview

My friend and theologian, Dr. Baxter Kruger, recently published a post entitled, "Two Gods," http://baxterkruger.blogspot.com, Jan 22, 2010. My post for today is intended to contribute to that ongoing conversation. In order to make the post understandable for non-theologians, I will be using general rather than technical terms (so this is one you can share with your spouse without appearing too weird!)

As Baxter notes, Paul Young's book, The Shack, is spreading like wildfire around the world, selling multiple millions of copies. Thank you, Jesus! This book strikes a chord in the human heart as it unveils a winsome portrait of the Triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - the God revealed in Jesus to be, by nature, a God of self-emptying love who pours himself out in sacrificial self-giving for the cosmos he has created.

Paul Young's portrait of God is far different from the ugly monstrosity that historically has been passed off as God in much western theology. In harmony with Baxter's post, I want to offer a general historical overview of how the western church lost the portrait of the loving Father painted by Jesus and replaced it with a monstrous distortion of the face of God painted in the opaque colours of pagan philosophy.

In the fourth century, as a result of heretical attacks on the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Fathers were compelled to inquire into the eternal, intradivine nature of God. Prior to this time, theologians such as Irenaeus, as well as the community of faith at large, were generally content to develop their thinking about God solely in terms of God's historical, redemptive self-revelation in the history of Israel, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. Yet, heretical attempts to reduce Jesus Christ to a created intermediary between God and the world forced the Fathers to think about the eternal nature of God rather than restricting their inquiry to God's historical self-revelation in Jesus and the Spirit. Consequently, and no doubt unintentionally, theologians began to focus on the nature of God apart from God's self-revelation in the historical Jesus.

The formulation of a doctrine of God apart from God's historical self-revelation in Jesus was particularly evident in the trinitarianism of Augustine, who, for better or worse (mostly worse in my opinion), is considered by Roman Catholics, as well as many Anglicans and Protestants, to be the "father" of western Christianity. Augustine turned away from God's three-fold self-revelation in time and space to develop an analogy of the Trinity based on the processes of the human mind. This is Augustine's famous "psychological analogy" of the Trinity.

What drove Augustine to turn away from Jesus, the incarnate Son, to develop his trinitarianism based on the human mind? First, because he spoke Latin, not Greek, he was not thoroughly versed in the trinitarian thought of his predecessors, the Greek Fathers, particularly Athanasius and the Cappadocians, wherein the Triune Persons-in-relationship constitute the being of God. Secondly, he was thoroughly enamoured by Neo-Platonism, a form of pagan thought wherein the world is regarded as passing and relatively unimportant - even evil (in contrast to the biblical view, "and God saw that it was good."). The Neo-Platonists regarded the human mind as that place wherein a "spark" of divinity is imprisoned in the (evil) human body. Thus, because he regarded matter - including the human body - as inherently evil, it would be difficult, if not repugnant, for Augustine to develop his trinitarianism on the incarnation, that is, the "em-body-ment" of God in Jesus Christ. Given his pagan assumptions, including a disregard for the body and the elevation of the mind as the repository of divinity, it seems quite natural for Augustine to develop his trinitarianism based on a psychological analogy of human cognitive processes.

The overwhelming problem in Augustine's trinitarianism, however, is that in turning inward to the human mind to develop his trinitarian thought he turned away from God's redemptive self-revelation in Jesus! In turning away from God's self-disclosure in time and space (i.e., the incarnation), Augustine focused attention on the eternal nature ("substance") of God considered apart from God's triune self-revelation in redemptive history as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (I cannot over-emphasize the importance of that statement). In very non-technical terms, as the hidden, impersonal substance of God gained importance, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were lost like bits of bad potato in a cosmic vichyssoise!

In the expansive wake of Augustine, western medieval theologians focused more and more on the eternal nature of God considered apart from God's historic self-revelation. They begin to think of the nature or "substance" of God as the "real" God. The "substance" (being, nature) of God became the all-important "fourth-something" underlying the Triune persons. As Baxter often says, the "deepest truth" about God was thought to lie hidden in the unrevealed, hence, mysterious, impersonal substance of God. Are you getting the picture? It ain't pretty!

Commensurate with the resurgence of Aristotelian (pagan) thought in the western medieval church, Thomas Aquinas (another "doctor" of the Roman Catholic Church), built on the Augustinian emphasis on the unrevealed substance (nature) of God. Aquinas formally split the western doctrine of God into two treatises. This had never been done before, even though we are now more than one thousand years into the history of the church! First, Aquinas developed a major treatise entitled, "On the One God." In this treatise, he built on Augustine's emphasis on the hidden substance of God by painting a portrait of God based on human reason and the observation of nature. His thinking is based on the assumption that a cause (God) can be known by its effects (the varied phenomena of the universe). (As an aside, Karl Barth, and later T.F. Torrance, blew out of the water the assumptions underlying this method. We'll have more on that in future posts). Aquinas followed Aristotle and Greek philosophy in general to draw a number of conclusions about God. His thinking ran something like this: The world is changeable and passing away; therefore, God, who is perfect, must be unchangeable (immutable). The world is full of suffering; therefore, God, being perfect, must not suffer; that is, God is impassible (what does that do to the passion of Christ?). Human beings have power and wisdom; therefore, God being perfect, has all power (omnipotence) and all wisdom (omniscience). The world is finite; therefore, God, being perfect must be not-finite (infinite), etc. Aquinas bequeathed the western church the infinite, impassible, omnipotent, omniscient God of western Christianity, aka, the omniGod. The essential point is that in developing a doctrine of God derived from human reason and the observation of the cosmos, Jesus was once again left out of the picture!!!

After he develops a major treatise on the one God, Aquinas developed a second, relatively minor treatise entitled, "On the Trinity." The problem is, as Colin Gunton has observed, by the time Aquinas finally got around to the Trinity, it appeared that everything worth saying about God had already been said in the first treatise ("On the One God"). The Trinity was reduced to a relatively minor appendix to a thoroughly developed doctrine of the One God. As a result, in post-Thomist medieval Scholasticism ("How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?), the Trinity was hardly studied at all! In terms of everyday piety, Jesus was so far removed from the doctrine of God that the ordinary believer had no choice but to venerate the saints. After all, with Jesus out of the picture, who else can you pray to!

In dividing the doctrine of God as he did, Aquinas left the western church with two versions of God: one based on natural theology and human reason (the One God) and another based on revealed theology and faith (the Triune God). All the hype has gone to the One God and the Trinity has been reduced to an interesting but confusing distraction in the western doctrine of God.

In bequeathing the western church with two versions of God, the Augustinian-Thomist tradition has created a deep dualism (split, divide, disjunction) in the heart of western Christianity. Faith is pitted against reason, creation is separated from redemption, and the Father is separated from Jesus! This sad state of affairs has produced the "theological schizophrenia" (Torrance) that has plagued and terrorized the western mind in regard to God.

Unfortunately, this sad state of affairs was not corrected in the Reformation. Because the Reformers were occupied with the important issues of "justification by faith" and "ecclesiastical authority," the Augustinian-Thomist distortion of the character of God passed right into Protestantism, as evidenced by Charles Hodge, who wrote a 2,300 page systematic theology and devoted only four pages to the doctrine of the Trinity. Moreover, as T.F. Torrance has noted, this "un-Christian" (his word) doctrine of God was enshrined in the Westminster Confession of Faith, otherwise known as the constitution of Calvinism. No wonder most Calvinists are so grim!

With a few notable exceptions (e.g., John McCleod Campbell, George MacDonald), such was the sad state of affairs in the western doctrine of God until, in the twentieth century, the great Karl Barth roared, "Nein!" The echo of his mighty shout is growing ever louder throughout the western church thanks to theologians like Torrance, Gunton, Jenson, Kruger, Rahner, LaCugna, and many others and to popular writers like Paul Young. Slowly but steadily, the western church is throwing off the bonds of its Augustinian captivity and learning to live in the joyous freedom of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the God who pours himself out in self-giving love for all humanity. Amen.

For a much more detailed account of the above, complete with many references, simply go back through my old posts, beginning with the earliest. I intend to present a more formal, academic paper on the above when I get around to it. You know how that goes!

T.F. Torrance and the Relationship Between Epistemology and Ontology

This is the third in a three-part post on T. F. Torrance's "Scientific Methodology and the Knowledge of God." For parts one and two, see below. Warning: This post is pure unapologetic academic theology. You will need to light up a pipe to appreciate this one!

Because knowledge of the reality under consideration must be developed in accordance with the nature of that reality (see part 1), to know God in strict accordance with his nature establishes the proper relationship between epistemology and ontology. Torrance uses a "common sense" philosophy to suggest that knowledge arises through insight shaped by the internal structure of the reality under study. This insight develops from a "structural kinship" that arises between the knower and that which is known as we cognitively "indwell" the object of inquiry and gain access to its meaning through an "intuitive anticipation of a hitherto unknown pattern." Torrance is not referring to a priori concepts imposed upon the object or to a Platonic form of recollection; rather, Torrance understands the human mind to have a "tacit power" to bridge logical gaps in knowledge and discern Gestalten (coherent patterns) through creative leaps of the imagination from the parts to the whole (Torrance, 1984:113, 114; Hardy, 1997:258).

In regard to the knowledge of God, the "primary task" in epistemology is "to focus our attention on the area where God is actually known, and seek to understand that knowledge in its concrete happening, out of its own proper ground, and in its own proper reference to objective reality." In theological inquiry, we are concerned with the knowledge of the living God; we are engaged with a Reality that cannot be construed in terms of what is already known to us. Therefore, we must be prepared to conform our knowledge to what God reveals of himself, and therefore be open to what is genuinely new (Torrance, 1969:25, 26).

Thus, for Torrance, there is a close relationship between ontology (i.e., the 'nature' of the object of inquiry) and epistemology; that is, there is a close relationship between the 'substance' to be understood and the means of understanding it, so that epistemology must always accord with ontology. Knowledge is possible because the nature of the reality under study prescribes the "mode of rationality" by which it may be known. That is, a "correspondence between reality and thought" is possible to the extent that the knower conforms to the "mode of rationality" inherent in the object of inquiry (Grenz, 2004:204).

Given this understanding, theology is not only an objective science but also "the positive science in which we think only in accordance with the nature given." That is, in theological inquiry, "we must allow the divine realties to declare themselves to us, and so allow the basic forms of theological truth to come to view and impose themselves on our understanding" (Torrance, 1996:9).

In describing theology as a "positive" science, Torrance rejects the "progressive ignorance" associated with the negative or "apophatic" approach to knowledge of God developed by Basileides of Alexander (who argued that we cannot say what God is, only what he is not). Following Gregory Nazianzus (329-389), Torrance sees the apophatic approach as self-contradictory in that we must have some positive knowledge of God in order to say what God is not. Torrance adopts a "kataleptic" approach which refers to the compelling claims of reality to which the human mind must assent. If we are to learn anything new, we must allow our minds to fall under "the compulsive self-evidence of its objective reality and its intrinsic intelligibility." Therefore, throughout the process of theological inquiry, we must operate with an "open" epistemology or "epistemological reserve," wherein "we allow the way of our knowing to be clarified and modified pari passu [at equal rate]" as we advance toward deeper and fuller knowledge of the object under study. Consequently, our way of knowing cannot be determined in advance but only as we look back from what has been established as knowledge (Torrance, 1969:10; 1988:159, 160; cf. 1989:108, 109).

"Christian theology," argues Torrance, "arises out of the actual knowledge of God given in and with concrete happening in space and time. It is knowledge of the God who actively meets us and gives Himself to be known in Jesus Christ ‒ in Israel, in history, on earth." It is essentially 'positive' knowledge, mediated in concrete experience with a content that can be articulated. Furthermore, it is concerned with empirical fact ‒ the fact of God's historical self-revelation in time and space. "We do not therefore begin with ourselves or our questions, nor indeed can we choose where to begin; we can only begin with the facts prescribed for us by the actuality of the object positively known. Anything else would be unreal and unscientific, as well as untheological." Thus, theological thinking is "theo-logical" in that it does not arise from a centre within ourselves but from a centre in God. It is essentially "theo-nomous" thinking that revolves around the fact that God has made himself known and continues to do so; that is, God "objectifies" himself for us so that "our knowledge is a fulfilled meeting with objective reality" (Torrance, 1969:25-29).

In theology, we encounter an objective Word, or Logos, from beyond our experience, which speaks for itself and guides us to an ever deepening understanding of its objective reality. This Word is encountered as a word to be heard and an objective truth to be acknowledged, not merely a rationality to be interpreted. This means that theological thinking is more like 'listening' than any other kind of knowledge. Yet, if we fail to listen to the objective self-interpretation of the Reality given, we, like Schleiermacher, are thrown back on ourselves in an attempt to authenticate the objective reality of God "by putting our own words into his mouth and by clothing him with our own ideas." As Torrance observes, "That kind of God is only a dumb idol which we have fashioned in our own image and into whose mouth we have projected our own soliloquies, and which we are unable to distinguish from our own processed interpretation. In other words, we have no genuine knowledge of God at all, for we are left along with our own thoughts and self-deceptions." This "theology" is, in actuality, nothing more than 'anthropology', for its rests upon a "basic falsification," that is, an ultimate failure to distinguish objective reality from the subjective state of our own consciousness, or to distinguish "what is not ourselves from ourselves" (Torrance, 1969:30-32).

As Torrance (1969:32) argues, apart from the objective reality of God's Word to us, we cannot distinguish the objective reality of God from our subjective experience. "In a true theology God's Word is the condition and source of real knowledge, for it is in and through his speaking that I am not cast back upon my own resources to establish his existence or to devise a symbolism in order to make it meaningful." It is in and through his Word that God distinguishes himself from the subjective experience of our own consciousness so that "he is not left to the mercy of our questions and answers, but we ourselves are questioned by a Word from beyond which draws us out of ourselves and declares to us what we are utterly incapable of learning and declaring to ourselves."

Torrance rejects the development of epistemologies in abstraction from actual knowledge developed by inquiry into the nature of the object of study. A truly scientific method of inquiry will develop epistemological structures according to the requirements imposed by the nature object, uncompromised by a priori assumptions of any kind (Torrance, 1970:128). Genuine scientific theological inquiry is distrustful of all speculative thought and a priori reasoning. Theological thinking is a 'positive' form of thinking [in contrast to apophatic or "negative" approaches], grounded in the actual reality of its subject of inquiry; it is an a posteriori form of thinking in that it follows and is obedient to the objective Word and Act of God that is given to it as the material for its reflection; in addition, it is an 'empirical' form of thinking in that it is based on real experience of God determined by God. Theological thinking has its "reality" in the objective 'given-ness' of God; thus, all theological thinking must be tested in reference to the "concrete reality" of the object under study (Torrance, 1969:33).

Therefore, in order to probe into the "ontic basis" or "the inner basic forms" of its object of inquiry, scientific theology will employ no abstract criteria in the testing and establishing of its knowledge and will posit no epistemology in abstraction from the material content of its knowledge of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. That is, a scientific theology will allow a correct epistemology to emerge and a proper theological method to develop in the process of coming to understand its object of inquiry, all the while constructing its dogmatics in utter obedience to its object. Hence, epistemologies will properly arise toward the end, rather than the beginning, of scientific inquiry, as our understanding gradually conforms to the nature of the object under study. As Torrance observes, "[I]t is only at the end of the work of dogmatics, therefore, that it will be possible to offer a proper account of an adequate epistemology" (Torrance, 1990:71, 72, 146; cf. 1970:127, 128), for ontology and epistemology should unfold together (Colyer, 2001a:323).

In sum, a truly rational approach to scientific inquiry, whether in the natural sciences or in theological science, will never seek to impose a preconceived conceptual pattern on the material it seeks to understand; rather, it will humbly inquire of a given field of reality, question it, and then allow it questions to be questioned. Thus, in Torrance's scientific theology, 'knowing' follows 'being' (operari sequitur esse); that is, epistemology follows ontology (Kelly, 2007:76; cf. Hardy, 1997:257).

References

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

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.

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

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. Realism and Openness in Scientific Inquiry. Zygon, vol 23, no 2.p 159-169.

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

T.F. Torrance: Faith and Prayer in Scientific Theology

This is the second of a three-part post on Torrance's "Scientific Methodology and the Knowledge of God." For part 1 in this series, see below.

As stated in part 1 above, scientific inquiry is conditioned by the 'nature' of the object under investigation. In the natural sciences, the object of investigation is, to varying degrees, subject to experimental control. God, however, is not an object to be controlled and manipulated; he is not subject to man's command and cannot be put to the test or brought under controlled scrutiny. Thus, in regard to theological science, the method of inquiry must be appropriate to the nature of God who addresses us in his Word. Whereas the natural scientist employs controlled observation and experimental verification in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, the theological scientist must cast himself upon the grace of God, allowing God to determine the form his knowledge will take, as well as the kind of verification appropriate to the divine nature. Since real knowledge of God can be developed only to the extent that God sovereignly and freely gives himself to be known, the appropriate attitude for theological science is one of 'prayer', so that we may humbly listen to what God tells us of himself and understand it under the illumination of the Holy Spirit. "It is because the object of theological knowledge confronts us always as subject, and indeed as absolute subject as the Lord God, that prayer is the scientifically correct mode of inquiry, for it is the mode of inquiry that corresponds to God's nature as man's creator and redeemer" (Torrance, 1969a:38; 1990:67).

Throughout his long career as a respected academic theologian, Torrance remained a deeply devotional man of faith. In his introduction to Theological Science (1969a: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, 1988a: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).

As a deeply devotional theologian, Torrance argues that human epistemological process, in both the natural sciences and theological science, is dependent on a fundamental stance that he calls "faith." "[F]aith is the very mode of rationality adopted by the reason in its fidelity to what it seeks to understand, and as such faith constitutes the most basic form of knowledge upon which all subsequent rational inquiry proceeds." More simply, faith is "the orientation of the reason toward God's self-revelation, the rational response of man to the Word of God." Hence, faith is crucial to scientific inquiry because it allows the epistemological process to unfold (Torrance, 1969a:33; 1984:194; Grenz, 2004:204, 205).

In regard to theological knowledge, our human way of knowing undergoes a radical change, or "epistemological inversion," wherein God is "Lord of our knowing" (Torrance, 1969a:132; 1994:47, 48). That is, we can only know God in accordance with his gracious self-revelation and, thus, only in a mode of prayerful worship and devotion as we humbly and obediently respond to the God's divine initiative in making himself known. According to Torrance (1994:48):

Here the modality of our reason undergoes radical adaptation in accordance with the compelling claims of God's transcendent nature ‒ that is precisely what authentic theology involves. This is very important because it calls for a real [and often painful] change . . . in our approach to God . . . in which the self-centred structure of our minds is turned inside out and transformed. Apart from such a metanoia or deep-seated change in mind and heart, you cannot really be a theological student, far less a minister of the gospel.

Because God is the absolute subject who freely chooses to give himself to be known and determines the method by which he will be known, faith is an essential part of the "epistemological inversion" required in scientific theological thinking. According to Torrance (1969a:132):

Faith entails the opening up of our subjectivity to the Subjectivity of God . . . Faith is the relation of our minds to the Object who through his unconditional claims upon us establishes the centre of our knowing in Himself and not in us, so that the whole epistemological relation is turned around ‒ we know in that we are known by Him. His Objectivity encounters our objectivity and our objectivity is subordinated to His and grounded in His.

Thus, the appropriate procedure for theological science (and all other science) is one in which the mind of the knower conforms to the nature of the object of inquiry. In scientific theology, human reason allows itself to be guided by the nature of God in his revelation and adopts a mode of rationality that corresponds with God's "objectifying" of himself for humankind. Here then, for Torrance, is the 'epistemological' meaning of faith: faith is not an irrational leap; rather, it is "a sober commitment to the nature of the given reality, a determination of the reason in accordance with the nature of the object as it becomes disclosed, an orientation of the mind demanded of it in encounter with its unique and incomparable object that is and remains subject, the Lord God." In short, faith means that, to the self-giving of God, there corresponds in the human knower a receiving and appropriation of the truth in such a way that the rationale and necessity of faith lies not in itself but in the object of faith. Theological knowledge, therefore, is not a rational explication of the nature of faith; rather, it is, 'in faith', an explication of the independent reality known. "Theological activity does not proceed in the light of the theologian's faith, but in the light of what comes from the side of that in which he has faith, the self-authenticating and self-revealing reality of God which according to its very nature can be known and understood and substantiated only out of itself" (Torrance, 1990:68, 69).

It is precisely because theological science is confronted with the Lord God who has an absolute claim over us that it must be carried out "in the strictest discipline, in stringent self-criticism and in utter obedience to the object." Moreover, because it is God who confronts us, he is always greater than we can conceive and transcends all our formulated knowledge about him; nevertheless, he really gives himself to us as the object of our knowledge. "Hence, even if our knowing of him is not adequate to his nature, it is not for that reason false, for he has come to us, adapted himself to us, and given himself to us to be known as reality within the actualities of our own being and existence, in Jesus Christ" (Torrance, 1990:70, 71).

References

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

Grenz, S.J. 2004. Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress. 289pp.

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

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

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

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.