Torrance: Evangelical Significance of the Homoousion

In the last several posts, we have considered the importance of the Nicene homoousion as it relates to epistemology. In plainer language, we have examined the importance of the creedal assertion that Jesus Christ is "of one being with the Father" (homoousios to Patri) in regard to the knowledge of God. We saw that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, is the definitive self-revelation of God. All human attempts to arrive at knowledge of God apart from, or behind the back of Jesus, ultimately fall short in the light of God's self-disclosure in Christ.

In the present post, we will consider the evangelical significance of the homoousion; that is, we will examine the significance of the consubstantial Father-Son relation for human salvation. In addition, we will consider the vital pastoral implications of the oneness in being between Jesus and God.

The material contained in this post is among the most important ever published on this blog. The material you are about to read is the heart of the hopeful, uplifting theology of T.F. Torrance. The ideas discussed below are what compelled me to learn more about his inspiring theology.

The Evangelical Significance of the Homoousion

Not only is the Nicene homoousion epistemologically vital to our understanding of the nature of God; there are important soteriological (salvific) considerations to the consubstantial Father-Son relation. To be sure, the Nicene homoousion did not arise from abstract, detached metaphysical arguments about the nature of a distant and impersonal deity. Rather, the fathers understood that the theological debates of their time concerned the foundational message of the Gospel: "for us and for our salvation" (this phrase is from the Nicene Creed). In their debates with the Arians, nothing less than the evangelical message of human salvation was at stake.

For Torrance, the soteriological implications of the consubstantial Father-Son relation, that is, the "evangelical significance of the homoousion," can be better understood by posing a vitally important question: "What would be implied if there were no oneness of being between Jesus Christ and God the Father?"

Comment: What Torrance is asking is this: What would it mean if Jesus is not God?

As Torrance rightly argues, if Jesus Christ were not homoousios to Patri, but rather created out of nothing, as Arius declared, then Jesus would remain "external" to God and altogether different from him; thus, God would remain utterly unknowable, for no "creature," however, exalted, can mediate authentic knowledge of God. "If what God is in himself and what he is in the Lord Jesus Christ were not the same, there would be no identity between God and the content of his revelation and no access for mankind to the Father through the Son and in the Spirit. Hence we would be left completely in the dark about God." Consequently, the Church would be left to pass off as "revelation" not something received from beyond itself but merely a "mythological" fantasy projected from a centre in human consciousness (Torrance, 1988a:132-134).

Comment: Torrance is asking, What if Jesus is merely a less than fully divine "creature" (created being) as the Arians argued (or as the Jehovah's Witnesses and other cults argue)? Jesus would then be "external" to God (as are all created things); hence, Jesus could not give us "inside" information about the nature of God, for Jesus would not be "of one being with the Father." We would be left "in the dark" about God and all our talk about God would be little more than "mythology" (rather than "theology").

Torrance (1988a:134) asks, "What kind of God would we have, then, if Jesus Christ were not the self-revelation or self-communication of God, if God were not inherently and eternally in his own being what the Gospel tells us he is in Jesus Christ?" He poignantly answers:

Would "God" then not be someone who does not care to reveal himself to us? Would it not mean that God has not condescended to impart himself to us in Jesus Christ, and that his love has stopped short of becoming one with us? It would surely mean that there is no ontological, and therefore no epistemological, connection between the love of Jesus and the love of God ‒ in fact there would be no revelation of the love of God but, on the contrary, something that rather mocks us, for while God is said to manifest his love to us in Jesus, he is not actually that love in himself.

If the Nicene homoousion were not true, the Gospel would lack any 'realist' (i.e., occurring in space-time history) foundation in the self-revelation and self-communication of God in Jesus Christ. The integrity of the Gospel, therefore, depends on the unity of being and act between Jesus Christ and the Father. The homoousion asserts the unity of the "I am" of the Father (Ex 3:14) and the "I am" of Jesus Christ (Jn 11:25; 14:6; 15:1, 5), for the incarnate Son of God is the "place" where we may know the Father as he is in himself, in accordance with his divine nature, so that we may draw near to him through his reconciling and saving activity toward us. As Torrance argues, "The homoousion asserts that God is eternally in himself what he is in Jesus Christ, and, therefore, that there is no dark unknown God behind the back of Jesus Christ, but only he who is made known to us in Jesus Christ" (Torrance, 1988a:135; 1996a:17, 18, 124, 125).

Comment: We may take great assurance in knowing there is no "dark, unknown" God hidden behind the back of Jesus, but only the God revealed in the compassionate eyes of our loving Saviour. The pastoral implications are enormous (see below).

In addition to the unity of being between the Father and Son, another vital aspect of the evangelical significance of the homoousion is the all-important issue of the unity of agency. Again, Torrance asks: "What would be implied if there were no oneness in act between the incarnate Son and God the Father?" Torrance asserts that the Nicene homoousios to Patri implies not only a oneness in 'being' between the Father and Son but also a oneness in 'act', as evidenced by Jesus' words, "My Father works hitherto and I work" (Jn 5:17). The homoousion implies that the Father and Son are one in agency as well as being, so that the work of the Father cannot be divided or separated from the work of the Son. Because there is an unbroken homoousial relationship between the Father and the Son, the acts of Jesus are the acts of God. If the actions of Jesus are not inherently the acts of God, then the "bottom falls out" of the Gospel. If what Christ has done for us is not the work of God, but merely the work of a godly man (as in much liberal theology), then he does not embody in his incarnate constitution the saving grace of God and, thus, is incapable of truly divine activity. "On the other hand," as Torrance argues, "if Jesus Christ cannot be divided in being and act from God the Father, then he constitutes in being and act in his incarnate presence or saving economy the creative self-giving of God to mankind" (Torrance, 1988a:137, 138).

Comment: The acts of Jesus are the very acts of God. What the Father does, the Son does; what the Son does, the Father does. The Nicene homoousion means that Jesus and the Father are one in both being and act (agency).

The evangelical significance of the homoousion (that is, the significance of the Nicene homoousion for reconciliation) becomes clear as it bears upon the saving acts of Jesus in healing, forgiving, and redeeming. All the redemptive activity of Jesus arises from his oneness in being with the Father. The saving acts of Jesus described in the Gospel are imbued with a divine finality and validity, for they are nothing less than the acts of God "for us and our salvation." As Torrance argues, "What God is toward us in his revealing and saving acts in the Gospel he is in himself in his own eternal Being as God." If this is not so, as the Nicene fathers understood, the Gospel is devoid of redemptive content, for what would be the value of a word of forgiveness from Jesus to a sinner if he, in fact, were merely a creature (created ex nihilo) and related to the Father in only an external way? If the words and acts of Jesus are not backed up by the being and reality of God, they amount to nothing more than the words and activity of a moral teacher of note and leave the Gospel empty of any divine reality or validity. In short, if Jesus Christ is detached from God, then his word of forgiveness lacks divine authority and becomes merely the empty word of one creature to another (Torrance, 1988a:141, 142; 1992:57, 58; 1994:53, 54; 1996a:21).

Pastoral Implications

The Nicene homoousion asserts an identity between the saving acts of Jesus and the reality of God; thus, God is not different in himself from what he is in the activity of his saving and redeeming love as expressed in Jesus Christ (Torrance, 1996a:5). As Torrance (1996a:18) rightly argues:

[T]o know God in Jesus Christ, and to know him as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, is really to know God as he is in himself in his eternal Being as God and in the transcendent Love that God is. He is in himself not other than what he is toward us in his loving, revealing and saving presence in Christ.

In regard to the transcendent love of God revealed in Jesus Christ, Torrance (1996a:5) expresses his pastor's heart:

It is in the Cross of Christ that the utterly astonishing nature of the love that God is has been fully disclosed, for in refusing to spare his own Son whom he delivered up for us all, God has revealed that he loves us more than he loves himself [cf. Rom 8:31ff].

As Torrance frequently notes, there is no dark, inscrutable deity behind the cross of Christ, for whoever has seen Christ has seen the Father. There is no other God than the God who has shown himself in the face of Jesus Christ, the very same God who has loved us to the uttermost in the incarnate Son and the gift of the Spirit (Torrance, 1986:303, 304; 1988a:8; 1990:176).

There are important pastoral considerations in connection to the evangelical significance of the homoousion. Torrance describes his experience as a chaplain on the battlefield when he held in his arms a young, dying soldier who asked, "Is God really like Jesus?" Such troubling questions, usually arising in moments of crisis and distress, reflect the insidious damage done to the faith of believers by the "dualist habits of thought" that drive a wedge between the transcendent Father and the incarnate Son (Torrance, 1992:59, 60; cf. 1994:55, 56). Torrance traces the "theological schizophrenia" arising from the perceived split (i.e., "dualism") between the loving Son and the "unknown" Father to the medieval habit of developing first a doctrine of the one God (De Deo Uno) derived by reason (natural theology) followed by a comparatively unimportant doctrine of the Triune God (De Deo Trino) based on faith (revealed theology) (Torrance, 1985:166, 167; 1994:56; cf. 1980:147, 148; 1996a:9, 10).

Comment: For more on the insidious dualism in the Western doctrine of God, see my posts, "Tommy A. and the Western Split" (March, 2009), and "How to Make a Western OmeletGod" (April, 2009).

The dualist split between faith and reason resulting from the bifurcation in the western doctrine of God has serious pastoral implications. This is particularly true in regard to the love of God. As Torrance (1992:59) asks, "Where would we be if the bond between the love of Jesus and the love of God were cut, which would be the case if there were no oneness of being between them, for God is love?" If Jesus Christ is not God become man, then God has not loved us to the uttermost; rather, his love has stopped short of becoming one of us in the incarnation for us and our salvation. As Torrance (1992:59, 60) observes:

Fearful anxiety arises in the human heart when people cannot connect Jesus . . . with the ultimate Being of God, for then the ultimate Being of God can be to them only a dark, inscrutable, arbitrary Deity whom they inevitably think of with terror for their guilty conscience makes them paint harsh angry streaks upon his face.

Any disjunction between the being of Jesus and the being of God disrupts the message of grace contained in the Gospel and introduces anxiety into the hearts of many Christians, who fear there may be a dark, inscrutable, arbitrary deity hidden behind the back of Jesus, "before whom in our guilty conscience as sinners we cannot but quake and shiver in our souls" (Torrance, et al, 1999:16). On the other hand, great comfort and assurance arise "when the face of Jesus is identical with the face of God . . . when the perfect love of God embodied in him casts out all fear" (Torrance, 1992:60). In the preaching and ministry of the Gospel, therefore, the most important consideration is to bring believers face-to-face with God in Jesus Christ, for it is the incarnate Son alone, who is one in being and agency with the Father, who defines God for us and does so in a way that calls into question all alien presuppositions about God arising from the "insidious effect of dualism" on both our theology and our pastoral care (Torrance, 1994:56).

Torrance (1988a:8, 142, 143) also notes the evangelical significance of the homoousion in terms of judgment. He asks, "And what about the ultimate destiny of mankind, the day when the Lord Jesus Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead?" If Jesus Christ were merely a created intermediary between God and man, he could not "go bail for our future," leaving us to face at the end an unknown deity who bears no relationship to our Saviour, for the final judgement would be a judgment "apart from and without respect to Jesus Christ and his forgiving love and atoning sacrifice." As Torrance argues:

Quite clearly the homoousion makes an immense difference to our understanding of the divine judgment, for it asserts that there is no interval or gap of any kind between Jesus Christ and God the judge of all the earth. The judgment of Jesus and the judgment of God are one and the same. Even in the final judgment God the Father and the incarnate Son are perfectly one in being and agency.

The believer may find assurance in Torrance's connection between Jesus, the compassionate Saviour, and Jesus the Judge into whose hands all judgment has been given (Jn 5:22), for the hands of Jesus and the hands of God are the same (Torrance (1999:17). There is great comfort in knowing that our final destiny lies in the hands of the one who cried from the cross on behalf of his tormentors, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Lk 23:34), for, in Torrance's trenchant, compelling words, "the voice of divine forgiveness and the voice of divine judgment are one and the same" (Torrance, et al, 1999:15).

Comment: For more on this subject, see my article, "The Judge Judged in Our Place," in the right-hand column of this page under "Articles."

In summary, Torrance (1990:191, 192) succinctly captures both the epistemological and the evangelical significance of the homoousion as follows:

Any disjunction between God and his self-revelation through Christ and in the Spirit could only mean that in the last analysis revelation is empty of divine reality, and any disjunction between God and his saving activity through Christ and in the Spirit could only mean that in the last analysis salvation is without divine validity.

To be sure, the Gospel account of the mediation of revelation and reconciliation would not be true if there is no oneness in being between Jesus and God. Yet, the epistemological significance of the homoousion is that, in Jesus Christ, God has revealed himself as he is, while the evangelical significance of the homoousion is the assuring good news that the loving, saving acts of Jesus are, in fact, the acts of very God for us and our salvation. There is great comfort and peace in realising that the pulsing, compassionate heart of Jesus is a window into the innermost heart of God, for the heart of the Father is not different from the heart of the incarnate Son. We may rest in the assurance that "God does not and will not act toward any one in life or death in any other way than he has done, does do, and will do in Jesus" (Torrance, et al, 1999:16), for, in loving us in the gift of his dear Son, who is "of one being with the Father," God loves us with the very Love which he is (Torrance (1996a:5).

*****

Hallelujah! See you again around August 1!

References

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

Torrance, T.F. 1992. The Mediation of Christ. (rev. ed.) Helmers & Howard Publishers. 144 pp.

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. et al. 1999. A Passion for Christ: The Vision That IgniteMinistry (edited by G. Dawson & J. Stein). Edinburgh: Handel Press. 150pp.

Torrance: Dualism and Natural Theology, pt 2

As well as rejecting the idea of a logical bridge between God and the world on epistemological grounds (see previous post), Torrance asserts that the medieval analogy of being (analogia entis) between the creation and the Creator is precluded by the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo. "The Christian doctrine of Creation asserts that God in his transcendent freedom made the universe out of nothing, and that in giving it a reality distinct from His own but dependent upon it He endowed the universe with an immanent rationality making it determinate and knowable" (Torrance, 1969b:59).

For Torrance, a fundamental aspect of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is the "contingent" nature of the creation; that is, the universe is wholly dependent upon God for its origin, existence, and order. Because the existence of the universe is solely the product of the will of God, it is neither logically necessary nor self-sustaining. As created out of nothing, the universe is entirely dependent on God for its ongoing existence; it is not self-sufficient, yet it has its own created integrity and independence that must be respected (Torrance, 1981a:vii, viii). Thus, a contingent universe would not contain within itself a self-explanatory logic as to why it came into existence or why it should continue to exist (Achtemeier, 2001:276).

The creaturely (i.e., "created") integrity of the universe precludes the possibility of a direct movement of thought from knowledge of the creation to knowledge of the Creator (as in natural theology). As Torrance (1994:46) argues:

Since the universe has been given a reality of its own which, while contingent upon God, is utterly different from him, it cannot be known through a priori reasoning but may be known only out of itself, as it discloses its own nature to us in answer to experimental or physical interrogations.

The creation's lack of self-sufficiency means the universe will point toward some transcendent ground beyond itself, but any a priori thought or direct, deductive movement of thought from the effects of the created order to the nature or being of God is ruled out because the order of the universe is not a logically necessary emanation from the divine nature. Torrance characteristically makes this point by saying there is no logical bridge for moving between the created order and God (Torrance, 1980:53-56; Achtemeier, 2001:276).

In arguing that there is no "logical bridge" between the creation and its Creator, Torrance is refuting the supposed emanational continuity of the divine and materiality necessitated by the radical cosmological dualism of ancient Greek thought (see my post, "The Wedding Cake Cosmos: Augustine and NeoPlatonism," 2/09). As Torrance (1981a:21) notes, the universe has conferred upon it a created rationality derived from (not participating in) the uncreated rationality of God, yet transcendentally (not ontologically) grounded in it. Because the world is created by God out of nothing, rather than arising through some form of Neo-platonic emanationism, there is no intrinsic connection between God and creation. In other words, there is no causal connection between God and the world (as in Aquinas); rather, there is a contingent relationship between God and the world he creates ex nihilo in an act of sovereign freedom. Since God does not create the world out of himself, an independent natural theology is a form of "mythology," for it lacks a 'realist' foundation in any kind of intrinsic ontological and epistemological relation to God on which knowledge of God can be based (Colyer, 2001a:130, 196 n. 194).

Comment: Remember that in a scientific approach to theology, realties are known solely in accordance with the nature of that reality as it unfolds in the process of investigation. Thus, to know God through Jesus is a scientifically theological approach to knowledge of God, for Jesus is "of one nature with the Father" (homoousios to Patri). The creation, however, is not "of one nature with God"; rather, it is external to God. In plain speak, the creation is not made of "God-stuff," regardless of what the neopantheists of New Age thought may say. Thus, to inquire into knowledge of God based on the creation is a form of "mythology," derived from human thought, rather than "theology," derived from God's self-revelation in the incarnate Son.

The lack of an ontological connection between the Creator and the creation raises issues of methodology. In regard to scientific methodology, Torrance questions any natural theology that operates as an independent movement of thought based upon an "external" relationship between the Creator and the creation. Like any science, theology develops its epistemology and methodology not independent of, or antecedent to, its subject matter, but in conformity to the understanding of its subject matter gained in the process of investigation. A rigorous scientific theological method, therefore, will not allow a bifurcation between an a priori epistemological structure and empirical content. As Torrance rightly notes, when an independent natural theology is employed as a "preamble to faith" (praeambula fidei), that is, as an independent conceptual system detached from the material content of our actual knowledge of God, it opens the way for revealed theology to be interpreted within the framework of its presuppositions, so that God's triune self-revelation is "domesticated," "distorted," and "misinterpreted" by the antecedent conceptual system imposed upon it (Torrance, 1982:32, 33; 1984:281; 1988a:52; 1990:130, 154). This is precisely what occurred with the medieval habit of developing first a treatise on the one God (De Deo Uno) derived from natural theology followed by a relatively minor treatise on the Trinity (De Deo Trino) derived from revealed theology. In medieval Scholasticism, this led to the relegation of the doctrine of the Trinity to nothing more than an "appendix" to a more thoroughly developed doctrine of the one God, thereby splitting the fundamental concept of God and creating the "schizoid state of affairs" (i.e., epistemological dualism) characteristic of Western theism (Torrance, 1980:147, 148; 1996a:8-10; cf. Rahner, 1997:16-18). (For a review, see my post, "Tommy A. and the Western Split," 3/09.)

To support his criticism of the autonomous nature of natural theology and, hence, its consequent lack of validity in developing accurate knowledge of God, Torrance frequently points to Euclidian geometry as an example of a deductive science developed as an abstract conceptual system independently of the empirical realities it was purported to describe. In terms of Newtonian mechanics, Euclidian geometry was useful in advancing knowledge of bodies in motion; nevertheless, it was an idealized conceptual system developed independently of experience. Einstein questioned the validity of trying to force physics into the rigid framework of a conceptual system developed independently and antecedently to the science of physics and detached from actual experience. He showed that the idealized framework of Euclidian geometry did not conform to the actual character of nature as disclosed by modern physics (e.g., electromagnetic fields, the behaviour of light and radiation). Einstein argued that what had happened, and had to happen, was that geometry was transformed by actual knowledge of physical reality. Similarly, Torrance argues that rigorous scientific methodology in theology cannot allow itself to be controlled by an independent epistemology or antecedent conceptual system (as in an independent natural theology), but must be developed in light of God's self-revelation and self-communication in Jesus Christ (Torrance, 1970:129; 1984:281; 1985:39; 1990:130; Colyer, 2001a133, n. 26; 198, 199; cf. Tarnas, 1991:356). As Torrance (1990:130) argues:

What was at stake in both instances [i.e., Einstein's rejection of Euclidean geometry and Barth's rejection of natural theology] was the demand of faithful scientific method, in accordance with which we must allow all unwarranted presuppositions and every preconceived framework to be called in question by what is actually disclosed in the course of on-going inquiry, and the need to develop an epistemological structure that is indissolubly bound up with the essential substance or positive content of knowledge.

Comment: Torrance often refers to Einstein's repudiation of Euclidean geometry as an "idealized" conceptual system that did NOT fit the reality it was intended to describe. Euclidean geometry was used as a mathematical framework for the Newtonian-Deist view of the cosmos governed solely by the immutable laws of cause and effect. Einstein showed that the Euclidean framework did not fit the cosmos as it is. It was merely an "idealized" conceptual system developed prior to and apart from actual empirical investigation of the universe.

This is analogous to the problem of natural theology. It is an idealized, a priori conceptual system that does not fit the reality it intends to investigate. As the Bible and, especially the incarnation have shown us, God is not the immutable, impassible deity of classical theism developed by natural theology rooted in Aristotelian (pagan) metaphysics but is the self-emptying, self-abnegating, stooping God of the manger and the cross.

Hence, there is a "formidable scientific character" to the rejection of natural theology, for no genuinely scientific theology can allow itself to be controlled by a logical structure that is independent of the object of inquiry. The rejection of natural theology parallels the rejection of any "deistic disjunction" between God and the world of nature and history. In place of dualism, the ontic and noetic structures arising from our interaction with the self-revealing God are imposed upon us and grounded in the rationality of God himself (Torrance, 1970:129, 130). As Torrance (1988a:50) argues:

When we think and speak of God from the perspective of the Creator/creature relation . . . we can only think and speak of him in vague, general and negative terms [e.g., infinite, immutable, impassible], at the infinite distance of the creature from the Creator where we cannot know God as he is in himself or in accordance with his divine nature [as we do in Jesus], but only in his absolute separation from us, as the eternal, unconditioned and indescribable. In such an approach we can do no more than attempt to speak of God from his works which have come into being at his will through his Word, that is, from what is externally related to God, and which as such do not really tell us anything about who God is or what he is like in his own nature.

As stated previously, scientific theological inquiry must proceed in accordance with the nature of the object of inquiry. This is especially important in regard to the knowledge of God. Since there is no intrinsic "likeness" or ontological continuity between the being of God and the being of the created order, but only an "external" relationship, God cannot be known in a godly and accurate way through independent natural theology arising from the Creator-creation relationship (cf. Torrance, 1988a:52).

This is not to suggest, however, that Torrance finds no place for natural theology. Rather, natural theology finds it proper place in the overlap between theological and natural science, both of which operate within the same rational structures of space and time and have in common the inherent rationality of the universe (Molnar, 1997:291). The problem Torrance sees in natural theology is its independent character, wherein it seeks to develop an autonomous rational structure grounded in the natural world alone apart from God's concrete self-disclosure as mediated by the incarnate Son. In other words, the understanding of God generated by natural theology is an abstraction that falls far short of the trinitarian God revealed in Jesus Christ, one that misses the mark of God's triune reality as revealed on the ground of our knowledge of God through Jesus Christ (Torrance, 1970:128; 1980:90, 91; Colyer, 2001a:131).

Torrance (1980:91) does not deny the need for a proper rational structure in knowledge of God, such as that natural theology attempts to achieve. Yet he insists that the rational structure be bound up with the actual content of the knowledge of God, or else it becomes a "distorting abstraction." Thus:

[Natural theology must] be included within revealed theology, where we have to do with actual knowledge of God as it is grounded in the intelligible relations in God himself, for it is there under the compulsion of God's self-disclosure in Being and Act that the rational structure appropriate to him arises in our understanding of him. But in the nature of the case it is not a rational structure that can be abstracted from the actual knowledge of God with which it is integrated, and made to stand on its own as an independent or autonomous system of thought, for then it would be meaningless, like something that is complete in itself but without any ontological reference beyond itself: it becomes merely a game to be enjoyed like chess.

The rational structure that natural theology seeks to erect can be developed within the understanding of faith as we inquire into the objective reality of God's self-disclosure. As Torrance (1990:148) argues:

[W]ith the rejection of an independently thought-out epistemology [as in natural theology], on the ground that method and subject-matter are inherently connected, natural theology can no longer be pursued in its old abstractive form, as a prior conceptual system on its own, but must be brought within the body of positive theology and be pursued in indissoluble unity with it.

Natural theology must be included in, and subsumed under, revealed theology, for the reality of God's self-revelation includes the truth of divine creation. Thus, "while knowledge of God is grounded in his own intelligible revelation to us, it requires for its actualization an appropriate rational structure in our cognizing of it, but that rational structure does not arise within us unless we allow our minds to fall under the compulsion of God's being who he really is in the act of his self-revelation and grace, and as such cannot be derived from an analysis of our autonomous subjectivity" (Torrance, 1970:128, 129; cf. Molnar, 1997:293).

In its attempt to build an epistemological Tower of Babel between earth and heaven, natural theology falls short in the following specific ways: it ignores the Patristic assertion that only through God can God be known; it is undermined by the epistemological significance of sola gratia and the contingent nature of creation; it runs counter to the methodology of scientific theology, wherein realities are investigated according to their natures, and it wrongly subverts the realist principle of scientific theology wherein epistemology follows ontology.

References

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

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.

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

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

Torrance, T.F. 1969b. Space, Time and Incarnation. London: OUP. 92pp.

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. 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. 1981a. 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. 1985. Reality and Scientific Theology. (New Forward by T.F. Torrance, 2001). Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers. 220pp.

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

Torrance, T. F. 1990. Karl Barth: Biblical & Evangelical Theologian. Edin: T & T CLark. 256pp.

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: Dualism and Natural Theology, pt. 1

In a recent post, we considered the "epistemological" significance of the Nicene homoousion, that is, the Nicene creedal assertion that Jesus Christ is "of one nature with the Father" (homoousios to Patri). We were trying to understand the significance of the incarnation for the knowledge of God. To gain a greater appreciation of the incarnation as the means to an accurate knowledge of God, we need to look at what happens when we do not start with Jesus in our theology. We have done quite a bit of that in this blog.

Today we need to consider in detail the dualism that is created in the doctrine of God when we start our speech about God, not with Jesus, but with "natural theology" based on human reason and the creation as means to the knowledge of God.

We gain a greater appreciation of the epistemological significance of the homoousion by an exploration of Torrance's rejection of natural theology as an independent means to the knowledge of God. Torrance closely follows his teacher, Karl Bath, in his rejection of natural theology and the dualism in the knowledge of God that results from it (Torrance, 1970:121-135; 1980:75-109; 1982:31-34; 1984:287-301; 1990:136-159).

In addition, an exploration of Torrance's rejection of natural theology will both illuminate the understanding of his repudiation of the dualisms embedded in Western theological thought and facilitate an understanding of his scientific approach to knowledge of God with its fundamental axiom that knowledge in any field of inquiry must be developed according to the nature (kata physin) of the reality under study.

Natural theology is the attempt to "prove" God's existence or to develop an understanding of God's essential attributes on the basis of an independent movement of thought from the created order to God the Creator, considered apart from revealed theology (Colyer, 2001a:194).

Comment: At this point, it might be helpful to review my posts dealing with natural theology, particularly "How to Make a Western Omelet God" (4/09).

As Torrance (1985:38) notes, natural theology attempts to gain knowledge of God apart altogether from any interaction between God and the world, proceeding by way of abstraction from sense experience and inferential and deductive reasoning from observed (empirical) facts. In short, natural theology operates on the assumption that knowledge of God may be developed by a process of logical deduction from sensory experience and empirical observation; that is to say, a cause (Creator) may be known by its effects (creation) (Colyer, 2001a:195, 196). Torrance (1970:125) rightly offers this caustic criticism of natural theology:

Natural theology as such arises out of man's natural existence and is part of the whole movement in which he develops his own autonomy and seeks an explanation for himself within the universe. . . . That is to say, the claim to a natural knowledge of God . . . cannot be separated out from a whole movement of man in which he seeks to justify himself over against the grace of God, and which can only develop into a natural theology that is antithetical to knowledge of God as he really is in his acts of revelation and grace.

Analogy of being: A Logical Bridge

Arising from a perceived dualism or deistic disjunction between God and the world, natural theology seeks to close the "gap" between God and creation, and provide rational support for faith, through a "logical bridge" from the world to God which operates on the basis of a logical connection between concepts and experience. The idea of a logical bridge between concepts and observed facts (experience), or an "inherent isomorphism" (Colyer) between God and humanity, provides the epistemological foundation for natural theology.

Comment: Make sure you get that point. The "epistemological foundation" (the basis on which speech about God is grounded) of natural theology begins with the assumption that there is a logical connection (bridge) between what we see happening around us (experience) and the concepts we derive from experience (for example, we see objects in motion; therefore, there must a "first cause" for that motion). As we will see below, there are problems in that assumption. But for now, the important thing to note is that Jesus Christ, the definitive self-revelation of God, is left out of the picture.

By establishing a logical bridge between ideas and being in order to reach out inferentially to God, natural theology attempts to develop a rational approach to knowledge of God and, thereby, bridge the "gap" between faith and reason. Torrance notes that a great deal of modern apologetics, both liberal and fundamentalist, is based on the assumption of a logical bridge between the Creator and the creation (Torrance, 1982:32; 1985:38; 1994:44; Colyer, 2001a:134, 195, 196; M^cGrath, 2001:216).

During the medieval era, Thomas Aquinas sought to span a perceived "gap" between God and the cosmos via the "Five Ways," a series of logical "proofs" which were claimed to demonstrate natural knowledge of God (Aquinas, 1989:12ff; cf. Torrance, 1980:80; 1981a:86, 87). Aquinas asserted that there is an "analogy of being" (analogia entis) between God and the world; that is, there is a logical bridge or inherent isomorphism between God and creation, wherein the world mirrors God in the same way a work of art tells us something about the artist. Aquinas asserted that analogical speech about God is possible, not because God is similar to creatures, but because creatures are similar to God; that is, every effect in some way reflects its cause. Thus, we can speak of God in analogical terms because there is an "analogy of being" which is prior to our own discovery of it. This "fundamental likeness" (similitudo) between God and the world is a consequence of a relationship of 'causal' dependence between the Creator and the creation from which all things derive their existence. Because God is both the first cause and the designer of the world, what we observe in the world points us toward the Creator (Aquinas, 1989:11, 12; Gonzales, 1987:271; McGrath, 2001: 208, 245).

Comment: On the surface there is nothing wrong with Aquinas' approach; yet, it led to drastic consequences for the Western Latin doctrine of God. Aquinas split the doctrine of God into two parts, formally creating a dualism or bifurcation in the Western doctrine of God. First, he developed a doctrine on the One God (De Deo Uno) on the basis of human reason and natural theology. Here we get the infinite, immutable, impassible, omnipotent omniGod. This doctrine of God, developed apart from God's self-revelation in Jesus, became the dominant doctrine of God in the West. Second, after a thorough development of the "attributes" of the One God, Aquinas developed a relatively minor treatise on the Trinity (De Deo Trino) based on revealed theology (Scripture). In subsequent Western Latin theology, the doctrine of the Trinity was hardly considered at all, for Aquinas had relegated the Trinity to a minor "appendix" to the more thoroughly developed doctrine of the One God. In short, Aquinas bequeathed the Western church two competing versions of God. For a review, see my post, "Tommy A. and the Western Split" (3/09).

In contrast to Aquinas' attempt to span the perceived gap between God and creation via a logical bridge, Torrance follows Barth in rejecting the medieval idea of analogia entis, though perhaps not as vehemently as the latter, who described the doctrine as "the invention of the Antichrist" (Barth, 1975:viii).

There are both epistemological and methodological reasons for Torrance's rejection of natural theology as an independent means of arriving at knowledge of God by means of the creation. In terms of epistemology, Torrance rejects natural theology on the ground of the doctrines of justification by grace (sola gratia) and creation ex nihilo. In terms of methodology, Torrance rejects natural theology because it is only 'externally' related to its object of inquiry and violates the fundamental axiom of scientific theology that realities must be investigated in accordance with their natures.

In today's post we will consider Torrance's rejection of natural theology on the epistemological ground of justification by faith (sola gratia). This post will be followed in a week or so by another post on Torrance and natural Theology.

Epistemological Relevance of Sola Gratia

In his rejection of the medieval analogia entis, Torrance notes that the idea of a logical bridge between God and the world undermines the uniqueness and exclusiveness of the divine self-revelation in Jesus Christ, thus epistemologically undercutting the hallmark Reformation principle, sola gratia (Torrance, 1970:126; 1990:143-145; cf. Seng, 1992:362-365). The analogia entis leads to an interpretation of the Gospel in terms of "an independent conceptual system reached before and apart from the actual knowledge of God given to us through his incarnate self-revelation in Jesus Christ" (Torrance, 1990:169). Because it is exclusively through Jesus Christ, the incarnate self-revelation of God, that true and accurate knowledge of God is mediated, the epistemological implications of "justification by faith" force upon us "a relentless questioning of all our presuppositions, prejudgments and a priori authorities, philosophical or ecclesiastical," so that we are finally thrown back wholly upon the nature and activity of God himself for the verification of our concepts and statements about him. Apart from Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life (Jn 14:6), there is no way to the Father; thus, we cannot rely on our own innate capacities of reason to achieve the cognitive union with God which true knowledge of him requires (Torrance, 1970:126, 128). In terms of its epistemological significance, sola gratia means that we are unable to attain accurate knowledge of God through our own natural powers. As Torrance argues elsewhere, "[N]o work of ours . . . can establish a bridge between our understanding and the Truth of God. Knowledge of God is in accordance with his nature, that is, in accordance with grace, and therefore takes its rise from God's action in revealing himself and reconciling us to himself in Jesus Christ." We cannot forge a relationship between our own statements about God and God himself in his own truth. We can only "allow" revelation to "happen to us" as we obediently and gratefully submit to the revealing and reconciling actions of God (Torrance, 1996b:26; cf. Seng, 1992:363).

Comment: Torrance is arguing that we cannot "figure out" God on our own. Left to ourselves, we come up with everything from a golden calf to the omniGod defined in terms of pagan philosophy. If we are to know God as God is, not as we think God ought to be (dignum deo), then God must reveal himself to us. God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ is an act of sheer grace (sola gratia).

If we are really to know God as God is, we must be redeemed from our mental alienation and reconciled in our minds (cf. Rom 12:2), so that they may be adapted by grace to God's divine self-disclosure (Torrance, 1970:126; 1990:143, 144). Torrance continues:

The fact that God himself had to become man in order to break a way through our estrangement and darkness, and work out a way of bringing us back to himself through the saving life and death and resurrection of Christ, not only precludes us from entertaining other possibilities of a way from man to God but actually invalidates them all. . . . [A]ll natural theology perishes at the point where the knowledge of the one and only God is gained in the face of Jesus Christ and by the renewing of human beings in the Holy Spirit.

Comment: In short, God's self-revelation in Jesus "trumps" natural theology.

God has sovereignly and unconditionally given himself to us in Jesus Christ, who himself is the Truth. This Truth can only be only be known by pure grace (sola gratia), for God not only mercifully provides us Truth but also the conditions by which we may perceive it. In graciously revealing the Truth to us, God calls into question all forms of natural theology which attempt to bridge the gulf between God and man from the side of man by claiming knowledge of God apart from God (Torrance, 1996b:125; cf. Seng, 1992:362). Thus, we must acknowledge the unconditional priority of the Truth revealed in Jesus Christ as well as the "irreversibility" of the relation he establishes with us. Torrance refers to this priority and irreversibility as the "logic of grace," meaning that our "theological rationality" must be bound by the "incarnational rationality" which is in Christ before it is in us. In other words, we must think "economically" following the actual, irreversible movement of the "Word became flesh" (i.e., we could never say that "the flesh became Word."). Thus, we may say that we "know" God provided we mean it is by grace alone that we are enabled to know him (Torrance, 1969:206ff; Seng, 1992:363, 363 n 68).

As justification by grace through faith in Jesus sets aside all our works of righteousness, the "epistemological relevance" of justification by grace sets aside natural knowledge of God, for we know him only by his gracious self-revelation as mediated in Christ and not through the efforts of human reason. Just as there is no "co-redeemer" in Christ's saving work, there is no "co-revealer" in the mediation of revelation. Justification by faith rules out all forms of Pelagianism, whether ethical or epistemological (Seng, 1992:364; cf. Torrance, 1990:57; 1996b:163).

Furthermore, justification by faith rejects the claim that the criterion of truth is found in the "knower" [as in Kant]; rather, it insists that the truth of a statement is to be found only in the reality to which it refers and may be verified only by the grace of that reality. Sola gratia, therefore, calls into question "all our preconceptions or vaunted authorities" and forces us to "transfer the centre of authority from man or the Church to the objectivity of the Truth itself." That is why justification by faith remains "the most powerful statement of objectivity in theology," for it throws us back on the reality of what God has done for us in Christ and will never allow us to rest on our own efforts (Torrance, 1971:67, 68: cf. Seng, 1992:365).

If God is the content of his revelation (as indicated by the Nicene homoousion), our knowledge of God does not arise through human attempts to philosophically construct a logical bridge between creation and the Creator. It is not by our created light that we see God but only in and by God's light do we see God; that is, only by God can God be known. Knowledge of God does not arise in a "Socratic" manner whereby man "recollects" the truth latent in the human soul or by an "Ariadne's thread" of immanent continuity between the divine and the material. All human knowing that takes the path from man to God instead of following the incarnational revelation of God to man is finally anthropology, that is, man speaking of himself in a loud voice or an eminent extension of man's being to infinity or a mythological projection from the depths of man's creative spirituality and zealous piety. Genuine theology (theologia) refuses to start with man in an attempt to construct a mythological path to God. Rather, it follows the actual way of the incarnation of the Word of God to man. It does not possess truth in itself but finds its truth in Jesus Christ (Seng, 1992:351, 352, 354; cf. Torrance, 1971:181ff).

References

Aquinas, T. 1989. Summa Theologiæ: A Concise Translation (edited by T.S. M^cDermott). Allen, TX: Christian Classics. 652pp.

Barth, K. 1975. Church Dogmatics (vol 1.1) (edited by G.W. Bromiley & T.F. Torrance; translated by G.W. Bromiley). Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 503pp.

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

M^cGrath, A.E. 2001. Christian Theology: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 616pp.

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

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

Torrance, T. F. Karl Barth: Biblical & Evangelical Theologian. Edin: T & T CLark. 256pp.

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

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

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!