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Critical Realism: Method Part 3

{ January 27, 2010 @ 7:50 am } · { Uncategorized }
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This will be the last post concerning method. I will explore the way that Torrance’s critical realism functions briefly.(1) This will hopefully mean we can move onto some doctrinal categories after this.

For Torrance all theological knowledge must be objective, that is, in accordance with the reality being investigated. Objective thinking “lays itself open to the nature and the reality of the object in order to take its structure from the structure of the object and not to impose upon it a structure of its own prescription.”(2) For Torrance this reality is God in his revelation, Jesus Christ. All theology therefore presupposes the objective revelation of God in Jesus Christ and indeed the way this knowledge of God is structured is revealed in Jesus Christ.(3)

This does not mean that we have a simplistic ‘correspondence theory’ of truth.(4) That is, by a kind of static correlation between knowledge and reality. But rather through repentance, and self-renunciation (metanoia) we are slowly changed in our mind to begin to think in accordance with the reality under investigation. Only by this subjective process can we come to know our object in any capacity, and therefore be “open to real objectivity”.(5) Thus, all knowledge is to be governed by the object under investigation and by freely deciding to allow this object to impose its structure of thought upon us, we come to know. “Theological conceptuality is therefore never equivalent to the ontic structures in reality, but it is at best a ‘disclosure model’ through which reality may make itself known to us.”(6) This means that the reality must disclose itself to us though our ontic structures of reality but is never itself those structures and as such our knowledge is real but not full.(7) Thus, Torrance’s epistemology is realistic, meaning that there is a possibility of actually knowing the reality as it is in itself as it impresses itself upon us; but critical because it must constantly be distinguished from created reality. Therefore, all theological knowledge for Torrance is a posterioi; a priori knowledge of God is rejected as importing anthropology into theology as it refuses to allow the object of knowledge to lay itself open and provide us with the appropriate thought patterns by which to speak of it within our created limitations.

1. For further elucidation see: Roland Spjuth, Creation, Contingency and Divine Presence in the Theologies of Thomas F. Torrance and Ebhard Jungel (Lund: Lund University Press, 1995), 94-101 and P. Mark Archtemeier, ‘The Truth of Tradition: Critical Realism in the Thought of Alasdair McIntyre and T.F. Torrance’, Scottish Journal of Theology 47 (1994), 362-5
2. T.F. Torrance, God and Rationality (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 9.
3. Benjamin Myers, ‘The Stratification of Knowledge in the Thought of T.F. Torrance’, Scottish Journal of Theology 16 no. 1 (2008), 2.
4. Archtemeier, ‘The Truth of Tradition: Critical Realism in the Thought of Alasdair McIntyre and T.F. Torrance’, 362.
5. T.F. Torrance, Theological Science (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), 311.
6. Meyers, ‘The Stratification of Knowledge in the Thought of T.F. Torrance’, 4.
7. It is interesting to note the similarity here to the veiling/unveiling dialectic which Karl Barth sees at work throughout the doctrine of revelation, see: Church Dogmatics, 14 Vols. Vol I/1 Trans. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1964).

The Stratification of Knowledge: Method Part 2

{ January 25, 2010 @ 9:56 am } · { Uncategorized }
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This post is the second in a series sort of exploring and outlining what I think. This will deal with the stratification of knowledge in T.F Torrance. Torrance’s epistemological commitments have had a great effect on the way I understand theological method and the function of the function of the Trinity in theology. Parts of this are taken from an essay I worked on last year and other parts have been fiddled with a bit. If nothing else, I hope this makes you curious enough to go and read the man himself. Torrance is a fantastic theologian!

A large portion of Torrance’s theological project has been devoted to the consonance between theology and science. Torrance sees theology and science sharing certain epistemological presuppositions. Obviously the nature of the subject matter is quite different, however he sees there being intersection in the way theological and scientific methodology function, so he speaks of theology as scientia.

Torrance leaves no room in his thinking for any kind of epistemological dualism. “If we operate, not with some kind of epistemological dualism between form and being or structure and substance, then to know God must be in accordance with the form or structure of his own being- that is, in terms of God’s inner divine being.” (1) In order to know God in his inner divine being Torrance has created an epistemological-methodological structure. This structure stratifies theological knowledge into three levels intrinsically linked, yet distinct, finding their ultimate ground in God’s Being in se.

This means that knowledge is not gained in the flat as it were, reading off the surface of things, but in a multi-dimensional way in which we grapple with a range of intelligible structures that spread out far before us. In our theoretic constructions we rise from level after level of organised concepts and statements to their ultimate ontological ground. (2)

We shall use the doctrine of the Trinity as an example of the way Torrance stratifies knowledge, as this is the doctrine which he uses to describe it. However the aim of this section is to lay an epistemological framework for all theological thought. The three levels of theological knowledge are: first, the evangelical-doxological encounter with God through an experiential relation to divine revelation. Second, at the level of the economic action of God toward us we attempt to explain the way in which God’s works ad extra. Third, the level of the immanent relations of the Trinity, which is the way in which God, relates to himself in se. For Torrance this is seen as similar to the levels of scientific enquiry, however he notes that the movement is different in theological knowledge. The ontological movement is from the top to the bottom not the other way around.(3) The epistemological movement cannot help but be from bottom up however, because as humans we find ourselves working our way up through these ontological levels. Therefore, God in se informs his actions ad extra and the evangelical-doxological experience, whereas in science the experience of the object determines the nature of the knowledge.

First, we shall examine the level of evangelical-doxological experience. This is the level of “religious experience in which we have to do with God’s revealing and saving activity in the Gospel” (4). The evangelical level is seen by Torrance as fundamental to all further theological activity as it places the believer in communion with God and gives cues for further theological development. “Our minds apprehend this evangelical Trinity intuitively, as a whole, without engaging in any analytical or rational process of thought… thereby we gain the basic undefined cognition which informally shapes our faith and regulates our Trinitarian understanding of God.” (5)

Without this level all further theological elucidation is impossible as the pursuit of knowledge will not be done in gracious relationship with the object of investigation. Thus, “…it must be stated very emphatically that this ground level of evangelical experience and apprehension remains a necessary basis, the sine qua non, of other levels of doctrinal formulation developed from it.” (6) The other levels “…arise out of and develop the implicit and intrinsic Trinitarian pattern of God’s self-revelation in the Gospel…” (7) Even though this level does not demand analysis; Torrance argues that it is absolutely fundamental. Just as a child learns more about the world in its first five years than a physicist can explain in a lifetime, so we “learn far more about God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit… within the family and fellowship of the living tradition of the Church than we can ever say: It becomes built into the structure of our souls and minds, and we know much more than we can ever tell.” (8) However, knowledge does move beyond this level into analysis and development of theological concepts, so we turn to the second level.

The second level is termed the theological level. This is the point at which we begin to use rational and analytical faculties to understand the way God relates to the world. We understand God’s economic relations with humanity mediated through Christ and the Holy Spirit.

This level gives expression to the experience of reality in the first level. As such these concepts are “epistemically correlated with it [the first level] as refinements and extensions of the basic cognitions bound up with it”. (9) This does not mean that our concepts are constituted by our intuitive theological knowledge; but rather that we progress creatively from this first level constantly under its constraining reality. “They function as ‘freely chosen fluid axioms’ which remain open to revision in light of further disclosures from reality.” (10)

The Nicene theologians are illustrative for Torrance at this point. Torrance sees Nicaea as the development of a conceptual framework for thought from what is already intuitively known. The homoousion is integral to this for Torrance. That is, in Christ we are dealing directly with the Being of God. So there is a progression from the evangelical-doxological level into a deeper conceptual framework for understanding what is already intuitively known. “Face to face with Jesus Christ, their Lord and Saviour they knew 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.” (11) This is the second level of theological knowledge which Torrance speaks of.

Finally, there is the meta-theological level; the level of the ontological Trinity. At this level we are giving expression to the most fundamental ontological and epistemological structuring of our knowledge of God. This level is described by Torrance as constituting the ‘basic grammar’ of theological discourse. The meta-theological is the level of the most refined theological activity, the top of the pyramid from which all other theological knowledge is constrained by. (12) Thus this level, “govern[s] and control[s] all knowledge from beginning to end”. (13)

The movement from the second to the third level takes place in a process of moving from the economic Trinitarian relations to the ontological Trinitarian communion. While we cannot know the ontological in distinction from the economic, Torrance argues that what God is toward us in his economy he is “antecedently and eternally in his own Being”. (14) There is not a movement away from the grounding of concepts in intuitive reality but rather a deepening and sharpening of these conceptions. This knowledge always remained grounded in the homoousion as the bridge between God in his economic relations and his ontological Being. This level is the level of perichoresis, in that here we see the inner relations of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For Torrance this is the “supreme point in our knowing of God”. (15)

These three levels are, for Torrance, constantly interacting, yet distinct, in all theological work. We are anchored in the fact that at the evangelical-doxological level we encounter God as he is and so we are given understanding of the way God works in the world and we can begin to see how he is in himself. However, we are constantly dependent upon the first level of encounter with God in evangelical experience, which grounds us in relationship, without which we cannot know. Torrance sees this structuring of knowledge as basic to all human knowledge, as he adapts this from Einstein.

I may do one more post on method before we begin to deal with some more specific areas of doctrine. The next post will explore Torrance’s critical realism. Perhaps that post should have come before this one… oh well… I was asked in the last post about the Evangelical Calvinism posts. I think that doing these posts will expose my Evangelical Calvinism, but I will have a think about where to go with those in the near future.

1. T.F. Torrance, The Ground and Grammar of Theology, (T&T Clark: Edinburgh, 1980), 148.
2. T.F. Torrance, Reality and Scientific Theology (Scottish Academic Press: Edinburgh, 1985), 136.
3. T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons (T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1996), 87.
4. Ibid., 88.
5. Ibid., 89
6. Ibid., 90
7. Colyer, How to read T.F Torrance, 295.
8. Torrance, Doctrine of God, 89.
9. Ibid., 84.
10.Myers, ‘The Stratification of Knowledge in the Thought of T.F. Torrance’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 2008, 8.
11.Torrance, Doctrine of God, 93.
12.Torrance, Ground and Grammar of Theology, 171-2.
13.Ibid.,158-9.
14.Ibid.,158.
15.Torrance, Doctrine of God, 103.

Revelation, Trinity and Christ: Method

{ January 20, 2010 @ 9:35 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Any endeavor to lay out a comprehensive theological methodology in a 1000 word blog post is doomed to failure. However, I will attempt to share some very broad thoughts on method which I will attempt to adhere to and exhibit throughout this exercise.

Karl Barth opens his Church Dogmatics by stating that “As a theological discipline dogmatics is the scientific self-examination of the Christian Church with respect to the content of its distinctive talk about God” (CD I/1, 1). In other words, dogmatics is the process by which the Christian Church examines the very patterns of thought and speech which shape its conception of God and self. This is always a task undertaken in reliance upon God, by his Spirit, guiding and conforming our thought to his revelation in Christ. T.F Torrance argues that in theological investigation the reality itself must continually impress upon the observer the patterns of thought and speech appropriate to it. Therefore, for Torrance method is exceedingly important as it is only within a methodological framework in which we allow our minds to be given to appropriate patterns of thought by Christ in the Spirit that true knowledge of God will arise. This means we cannot operate with any kind of epistemological-ontological dualism, as this would abstract knowledge of God from the realities in which he gives himself to be known. Hence the title of this post. God reveals himself in his incarnate Son by his Spirit through his word. This basic pattern is fundamental to the theological task.

This means that fundamental to theological investigation is revelation. This is nothing new. Karl Barth maintains throughout his dogmatics an insistence upon revelatory priority in theological thinking. However, for Barth this was already inherent within the doctrine of God as Trinity. So, Barth will say: God reveals himself as the Lord: Father, Son and Spirit. God the Father reveals himself (objectively) in his incarnate Son in the power of his Spirit (subjectively) to the believer. There is already a Trinitarian pattern inherent within revelation itself.

Because of this Trinitarian pattern of revelation, Christology becomes basic to all theology. As the Father reveals himself in the Son and so the Spirit reveals the Son all knowledge of God is tied up with who Jesus Christ is. Theology must never be abstracted from the incarnate Lord of the gospels. As T.F Torrance would say, there is no God ‘behind the back’ of Jesus Christ. Who we get in Jesus Christ is none other than God himself. God therefore is in the incarnation who he really is. God is like Jesus. How can this happen? Barth puts it beautifully:

We may believe that God can and must only be absolute in contrast to all that is relative, exalted in contrast to all that is lowly, active in contrast to all suffering, inviolable in contrast to all temptation, transcendent in contrast to all immanence, and therefore divine in contrast to everything human… But such beliefs are shown to be quite untenable and corrupt and pagan, by the fact that God can and does do this in Jesus Christ… By doing this God… shows himself to be more great and rich and sovereign than we had imagined… he is absolute, infinite, exalted, active, impassible, transcendent, but… He is all this as the Lord, and in such a way that he embraces the opposites of these concepts even while He is superior to them… His particular… presence… in the man Jesus… is itself the demonstration and exercise of His… perfection… His omnipotence is that of a divine plenitude of power in the fact that (as opposed to any abstract omnipotence) it can assume the form of weakness and impotence and do so as omnipotence triumphing in this form. (CD IV/1, 186-7)

The incarnation then, forms the very ground of all theological thought. Doctrine which strays from a Christological center has lost its way. That was a very brief intro, but I think it lays a bit of groundwork for further investigation. The next post will look at the stratified nature of theological truth with the help of T.F. Torrance.

Prologue

{ January 19, 2010 @ 5:47 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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I have recently been thinking about what could be a productive way to spend my blogging time. I then decided that it might be quite fun to do something of a walk through the basic elements of the faith to really see what I think and also to force me to engage in some specific areas (as well as, hopefully, both of you who read here will find it interesting). So starting now I will begin a series exploring the ways that my theological education thus far has helped form the theological system I now hold and continue to work on. First up will be, ‘Revelation, Trinity and Christ: Method’. So, lets do it!

Žižek, ‘Violence’

{ January 8, 2010 @ 10:30 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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This is the climax of the first chapter of Zizek’s ‘Violence’, which I have just begun and had to share. It exposes beautifully the way the liberal communist and the fundamentalist are really just, as he will go on to say, “two sides of the same coin”.

We live in a society where a kind of Hegelian speculative identity of opposites exists. Certain features, attitudes and norms of life are no longer perceived as ideologically marked. They appear to be neutral, non-ideological, natural, commonsensical. We designate as ideology that which stands out from this background: extreme religious zeal or dedication to a particular political orientation. The Hegelian point here would be that it is precisely the neutralization of some features into a spontaneously accepted background that marks out ideology at its purest and most effective. This is the dialectical ‘coincidence of opposites’: the actualisation of a notion oor an ideology at its purest coincides with, or, more precisely, appears as its opposite, as non-ideology. Mutas Mutandis, the same holds for violence. Social-symbolic violence at its purest appears as its opposite , as the spontaneity of the milieu in which we dwell, of the air we breathe.

The liberal communist then (remembering the context here), while they fight subjective violence, acts as the very agent by which the structural violence which leads to the subjective violence taking place is created. Hiding behind their philanthropy, they destroy millions by monopolizing the market and breeding the conditions which create the need.

Im still here

{ January 1, 2010 @ 2:50 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Hi Folks,

I have not been posting much recently for several reasons. I have been tired after a long year, I have just recently gotten myself engaged and I have been home visiting family and friends for the Christmas period. I am back now.

While I have been home in Taranaki for Christmas I have been making my way through Barth’s Romans again. I have also been cooking my way through my new Jamie Oliver cookbook, which has been both a therapeutic and frustrating exercise! On Barth, I have been thinking about my next few years research. I want to explore the way negation functions in Barth’s thought. I think that it provides a key to understanding the way that Barth’s thought unfolds and develops. Here are a few small bits that have stuck with me over the last few days from Barth:

Precisely because the ‘No’ of God is all embracing it is also his ‘Yes’. (on Rom 1:16, p38)

God, who confronts all human disturbance with an unconditional command ‘Halt’, and all human rest with an equally unconditional ‘Advance’; God the ‘Yes’ in our ‘No’ and the ‘No’ in our ‘Yes’, the First and the Last and consequently, the Unknown, who is never a known thing in the midst of our known things. (on Rom (9:1, p 331)

Key to understanding the way Barth’s dialectical method functions is understanding his use of negation (I think). This is where I want to go. With my work on Gregory of Nyssa which I am undertaking this year I think it would be interesting to see how far Barth maintains a cappadocian apophaticism (after 1936 in particular).

Lets be praying for Bobby

{ December 8, 2009 @ 9:49 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Hi guys,

Our brother Bobby Grow (from over at the Evangelical Calvinist) is going into chemo-therapy tomorrow. For those of you who do not already know, Bobby has been diagnosed with a very rare cancer. Lets keep him and his wife and young children in our prayers through this very tough ordeal. You can read more of his journey through this and there are ways of offering some practical help here.

Thanks,

Scott

Filioque, Personhood and Ecclesiology

{ November 17, 2009 @ 4:57 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Here is an exerpt from a paper I will be presenting this week. This is the opening section on Thomas Weinandy’s formulation of the trinitarian processions. Bear in mind it is an oral presentation so this is not particularly polished as of yet. The paper will head on from here to discuss Gunton on personhood and Bonhoeffer on community.

Weinandy on Trinitarian Processions

His Basic Thesis

The filioque clause has been the centre of much modern Trinitarian discussion as we are all aware. The biblical, systematic and historical validity of the clause has been highly contested. Thomas Weinandy has made a rather interesting contribution to this conversation. Weinandy’s basic thesis is ‘the Father begets the Son in or by the Spirit’. On the surface this sounds quite an odd contribution but I hope here to give some substance to it and to move to understand the way in which this thesis may help us see the ongoing role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian community.

Weinandy states that:

“Recent efforts creatively to address these issues [being the filioque and its corollary] have been inadequate. The inadequacy stems, I believe, from the fact that both the more traditional theologians and even the more progressive ones are working from within Trinitarian parameters that are unsuitable to meet the existing biblical, systematic, spiritual and ecumenical issues. The historical Trinitarian development contains within it weaknesses which make true radical Trinitarian enrichment impossible.”

What Weinandy sees as the problem for both the Eastern and Western traditions is there reliance upon a priori philosophical systems. In the East, he argues, there is a neo-platonic emanationism; and in the West, he argues, there is reliance upon an Aristotelian epistemology.

“Specifically there are traces of Middle and Neo-Platonic emanationism, especially within Eastern Trinitarian thought. Similarly Aristotelian epistemology fashions the Western conception of the Trinity. That is, something must be known before it can be loved.”

Weinandy wishes to maintain, the monarchy of the Father without falling into these traps. The East, he argues, fall into the trap of locating the one being of God soley in the Father and the West locate the one being of God in the language of substance behind the persons. In order to maintain the monarchy of the Father, but keep away from the language of substance as preceding personhood, he argues, with Athanasius, that a more faithful way to deal with the oneness of being is “to conceive of the one being of God as the Father who, from within the homoousious, begets the Son and spirates the Spirit and so establishes them both in their personhood and deity.” Thus, the Father then gives his deity completely to the son and to the Holy Spirit. “The Godhead is neither in the Father alone nor is it in a solitary substance distinct from the Trinity. The Godhead is the Trinity.” The one God is the three persons.

Weinandy then argues that, in light of this a radically new conception of the Trinity is on order. So then Weinandy develops his basic thesis that:

“…the Father begets the Son in or by the Holy Spirit. The Son is begotten by the Father in the Spirit and thus the Spirit simultaneously proceeds from the Father as the one in whom the Son is begotten. The Son, being begotten in the Spirit, simultaneously loves the Father in the same Spirit by which he himself is begotten (is Loved).”

Weiandy believes that this overcomes the dilemma of the west in that it locates the Spirit in the act of generation of the Son. So that the Spirit functions as the love in which the Son is begotten. This means that both knowing and loving are simultaneous. The Son is begotten in the Spirit and so in that moment the Father is who he is as Father of the Son whom he loves in the Spirit. Again, it is in the person of the Father that the Son and the Spirit are constituted as persons. However it is not the person of the Father who is the one being of God alone. The one being of God is the Father begetting the Son and spirating the Spirit.

This pattern is illustrated in several Christological kairoi. First, Weinandy illustrates the way in which the Spirit functions in the birth of Jesus. And I quote:

“The depiction of the Father begetting the Son in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit becomes, I believe, a temporal icon of his eternal begetting in the Holy Spirit. Firstly, as the Son is sent forth by the Father into the world by the power of the Holy Spirit, so the Son is eternally begotten of the Father in the Holy Spirit. Secondly, as the son is conceived in the womb of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, and so conforms the Son to be Son now as man, so the Holy Spirit conforms the Son to be the eternal Son of the Father within the immanent Trinity.”

And Again:

“We cannot infer too much from Matthew’s infancy narrative, but we can at least infer a Trinitarian pattern. Jesus was conceived in the Holy Spirit, and Yahweh (the Father) was instrumental in his conception to the extent that he sanctioned it in his confirmation to Joseph. Therefore the Son born of Mary manifests God with us.”
While we may be less confident in asserting as strongly a direct parallel with the immanent life of God, it can be argued that there is a relationship between the missions of God ad extra and the processions in se. This allows us to maintain the freedom of the divine life in se while simultaneously maintaining that the missions reflect something of the inner divine begetting and proceeding. The begetting of the Son in the womb of Mary by the Spirit is then a reflection of the eternal act in which the Son is begotten by the Father in/ by the Spirit.

Another Christological moment cited by Weinandy is Jesus’ Baptism. Weinandy states that in the baptism of Jesus:

“A Trinitarian pattern is clearly discernable. God’s creative and prophetic word is always spoken in the power of the Spirit, and as such, in light of the New Testament revelation, we have a clue to the inner life of the Trinity. The breath/Spirit by which he eternally breathes forth his Word/Son. As the Father commissioned Jesus by the power of his Spirit to recreate the world so, in the same Spirit, God eternally empowered him to be his Word.”

And again:

“the Father speaks as the Spirit descends upon Jesus, declaring him to be his Son in whom he is well pleased. The Father’s words are selected from Isaiah 41:4 and 44:2-3 where the prophet speaks of God’s suffering servant upon whom he will bestow his Spirit, and the royal enthronement Psalm – ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’ (Ps 2:7).”

So Weinandy continues to argue that Christ’s Sonship is bound up with the way he is identified by the Spirit as the Son of the Father. The expression ‘today I have begotten you’ is then a temporal expression of an eternal act. These Christological Kairoi function as moments in which the way the Son is begotten by the Father is revealed in a partial, economic way that mirrors, to some extent, the intratrinitarian begetting.

Weinandy’s Pneumatology

So then, this conference is to do with Pneumatology, and it is to this that we shall now turn. Within this basic thesis there is an interesting way of framing the role and function of the Spirit within the life of God. The Spirit is framed as the one who is the agent of the Son’s begetting, but also as the one in whom the Son turns himself towards the Father in love.

Christian theology, particularly the Western tradition with its Augustinian heritage, has often had trouble really identifying what we mean when we say that the Spirit is personal. At least one recent treatise has even seen it appropriate to approach the Spirit as an ‘it’. The trouble with much of this has been with the filioque clause. While an ecumenical statement has now been signed, the Catholics and much of Protestant theology still professes the filioque. The issue, in brief, with regard to the Spirit is that the Spirit only functions after the generation of the Son, as Augustine’s Aristototelian order of knowing would have it, as a bond of Love which binds the two persons together. This means that “Holy Spirit as the Love between them does not play an active role, and thus appears less clearly as an acting subject.” However, Weinandy’s thesis, I believe, offers us a way of thinking about the personhood of the Spirit which respects the tradition but moves constructively beyond the filioque.
The Trinitarian ontology expounded by Weinandy allows us to begin to think of the Spirit as, what I have called rather awkwardly, the ‘personalising person’. I quote:

“The Spirit (of Love) then, who proceeds from the Father as the one in whom the Father begets the Son, both conforms or defines (persons) the Son to be the Son and
simultaneously conforms or defines (persons) the Father to be the Father. The Holy Spirit, in proceeding from the Father as the one in whom the Father begets the Son conforms the Father to be the Father for the Son and conforms the Son to be the Son for (of) the Father.”

The Spirit then functions so as to draw the Father and the Son together and so to ‘person’ them. This avoids the trouble of the filioque which can only see the Spirit as binding the Father and Son together after the Father has begotten the Son by making the Spirit the agent of the Son’s begetting. This in turn persons the Father, as the Father is only the Father in that he has the Son. The Son returns love to the Father in same Spirit in whom he was begotten. The Father then ‘persons’ himself in the act of begetting the Son in the Spirit, as he cannot be Father without the Son. This does not undermine the monarchy of the Father as he remains the sole ungenerate source of the Trinity. Rather it provides more “precise definition to the paternity of the Father, for now we clearly see that the Father is truly the Father not only in begetting the Son, but he also exercises his paternity in spirating the Spirit as the Fatherly love in whom and by whom the Son is begotten.”

The filioque is unable to ascribe this role to the Spirit because the Spirit only proceeds after the begetting of the Son. Hence, there are issues surrounding just how the west can conceive of any kind of subjective depth to the Spirit. He does not have a defining role except to be a bond of love between the Father and Son, which while being true, does not do justice to his own distinct personhood.

So just how does this mean that the Spirit functions as a ‘personalising person’? As I have argued, if the Son proceeds from the Father in the Spirit it is in the Spirit that the Father gives his deity to the Son. The Son is then defined by his relationship to the Father in the Spirit. The Father also, in having given himself to the Son in the Spirit, ‘persons’ himself as the Father of the Son in the Spirit. So them we have a Spirit who functions in the immanent life of God to ‘person’ the other persons to be who they are in relation to eachother.

This is ultimately displayed most profoundly for Weinandy in the crucifixion:

“Now if Abba can only be spoken in the Spirit (Gal 4:6; Rom 8:15), then it is in the crucifixion that we witness most clearly the bond of love forged in the Spirit between the Father and the Son. Within the crucifixion, at this most severe and radical moment we behold in time the eternal enactment of the Father being ceaselessly, in the Spirit, the Father of and for the Son, and the Son being always, in the Spirit, the Son of and for the Father.”

Sigur Ros- Heima

{ November 16, 2009 @ 9:36 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Last weekend I sat down and watched Sigur Ros’ DVD ‘Heima’. I have to say, it is probably the most amazing music DVd I have ever seen. The way they have worked with the music and visual to show something of the beauty of their country is just astonishing. Sigur Ros say that they fashion their music after the scenery and the people of Iceland.

Watching this, I couldnt help but think of Moltmann and the way he speaks of the Spirit being in all. While I dont want to go where he goes, I would like to reflect on this a bit. There is a sense in which we, having been given the eyes to see who God is, are now able to go into the world and see the beauty and the goodness there for what it really is. There are times then, I think, where we find ourselves seeing, hearing, tasting or smelling something which we cant help but say is a part of God’s good gift to creatures and in a sense reflects something of his love for us. This experience can never become doctrine, but I did sit there with Sigur Ros the other day and was just left in awe of the beauty of God. These people know not what they are doing, but through the eyes of faith we can be given to see something quite astonishing.

Anyway, despite what you think of that :) here is a video

Bonhoeffer on the ‘invisibility’ that is killing us

{ November 3, 2009 @ 11:49 am } · { Uncategorized }
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While writing my paper I came across this. Bonhoeffer raging a bit at the way in which church can often etherialise symbols and structures to refer to some kind of ‘heavenly reality’ alone, which is other than what is taking place really in the community there and then with Christ in its midst.

Is our time at an end? And has the gospel been given to another people, to be preached perhaps with totally different words and deeds? How do you view the indestructablility of Christianity given the situation in the world and our lifestyles today?… How is one to preach such things to people here? who still believes in these things? The invisibility is killing us… To be continually cast back on the invisible God is insane; we can no longer accept it.”

(Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften 1:61)

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