Interesting quote of Rowan Williams’ over on Ben Meyers’ blog:

Thursday, 2 April 2009

Jesus and the immanent Trinity

“If God is neither a quasi-Hegelian organizing principle, nor an abstract postulate, nor yet an agent among other agents, what is to be said of him? Christian practice begins to answer that question by repeating the story of Jesus: what is to be said of God is that Jesus of Nazareth was born, ministered in such and such a way, died in such and such a way, and was raised from death. This is an odd statement, in that it treats the narrative of a human being as predicated of a substance or subject which is God…. God is what is constitutive of the particular identity of Jesus; that is what can be said of him, and it is what the homoousion of Nicaea endeavored to say…. The ‘essential’ or ‘immanent’ Trinity can finally be characterized only as that which makes this life (and death and resurrection) possible and intelligible.”

—Rowan Williams, “Trinity and Ontology,” in Christ, Ethics and Tragedy: Essays in Honour of Donald MacKinnon, ed. Kenneth Surin (Cambridge UP, 1989), 79-80, 83.

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Carefully notice the hermeneutic—one can only say of God sans creation (that is, of the being of God, the ‘immanent’ Trinity) what is necessary to make meaningful Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection as God-incarnate. Note: Bruce McCormack.

What d’ya think? I have problems with it.

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 6/20/2009 5:36:13 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Tom) : 6/18/2009 1:18:28 PM (GMT-5)

Note that Jesus did what the OT (the Law, Prophetd,Psalms) said of him.

Some understood it more, and it was not fully undersand in its fulness (Was it Abraham who "saw His day?).

What text.

(IM me when you hear back, OK?

btw, I'm for a-a-temporality, or a-a-a-a-a-a-temporality, or ...)  

I LIKE BOTH OF THESE QUOTES

To help, here’s a quote of McCormack’s (Grace and Being):

“To say that ‘Jesus Christ’ is the Subject of election is to say that there is no Logos asarkos in the absolute sense of a mode of existence in the second ‘person’ of the Trinity which is independent of the determination for incarnation; no ‘eternal Son’ if that Son is seen in abstraction from the gracious election in which God determined and determines never to be God apart from the human race.”

This represents a popular new reading of Barth (McCormack is a Barth scholar) which basically says that God determines his own being as God in the choice to create and incarnate. God doesn’t exist as triune apart from divine election (i.e., the choice to create, redeem, glorify, etc.).

From Ben Meyers’ blog, re: McCormack’s book:

http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2008/09/bruce-mccormack-orthodox-and-modern.html

The argument here [of McCormack’s] is that Barth ought to have reversed his ordering of Trinity and election: properly understood, Barth’s own doctrine of election entails that God’s decision to be God-for-us is the ground of God’s triunity. Simply put: according to its own internal principles, Barth’s dogmatics ought to begin with the doctrine of election, not with the doctrine of the Trinity…

The gap between Jesus Christ and the eternal Son is thus eliminated; the second mode of being in God simply is Jesus Christ. Indeed, this insight can lead McCormack to support Bertold Klappert’s challenging remark that “Barth does not think incarnationally.” For Barth, there is no absolute metaphysical subject which unites itself to a human “nature.” Rather, there is a divine decision in which humanity is taken up into the event of God’s own being, so that “the human history of Jesus Christ is constitutive of the being and existence of [the second Person of the Trinity]” (p. 223)…

According to McCormack, God’s triunity is a function of the divine election; it is the act of God’s decision to be God-for-us that constitutes God as triune.

And there’s another great post here: http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2007/03/michael-menke-peitzmeyer-karl-barth-and.html.

I can see why so many are upset. By basing the trinity upon election, divine freedom evaporates. McCormack disagrees. He sees the act of divine election itself as free. But election can only be free if you posit a freely acting subject prior to the electing choice, which is what McCormack wants to deny. There is no God who is not the electing God-for-us in Christ. For McCormack, God’s very triune constitution, the divine subjectivity (or subjectivities), is constituted VIA the election of humanity. How then is election free in the sense of unnecessary to the being of God? That’s the brouhaha over McCormack these days.

T

Bruce: I like both these quotes:

“The movement of God’s triune life has its perfection in and of itself and is utterly sufficient to itself, but this perfect movement is not self-enclosed or self-revolving. In its perfection it is also a movement of self-gift in which the complete love of the Father, Son, and Spirit communicates itself ad extra.”

He then quotes John of Damascus (are you sitting down D?) [Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, II.2, Salmond, 18]:

“Since, then God, who is good and more than good, did not find satisfaction in self-contemplation, but in his exceeding goodness wished certain things to come into existence which would enjoy his benefits…he brought all things out of nothing into being and created them.” (my italics)

Tom: Are you sure you like them?

The first quote basically says that God’s not self-sufficient if he doesn’t create, that is, there is no God ad intra (God in and of Godself) who does not create ad extra. God's BEING and EXISTENCE entail the CHOICE TO CREATE. God HAS HIS BEING, determines the sort of God he is, ONLY when he determines to create.

You like that?

And the quote by JofD. You support the idea that God does not find full satisfaction in contemplating himself? God looks at Godself and says, "I could be happier if I created something"? So God creates in order gain an experience of satisfaction/happiness that’s lacking in his own experience of himself?

Sure you like that?

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 6/19/2009 6:19:56 AM (GMT-5)

I wrote three authorities on Greek and the Greek Fathers about the Damascene passage. Haven’t heard back. But I’m gonna say that in saying God “did not find satisfaction in self-contemplation,” John did not mean to say there is some measure of a lack of satisfaction in God essentially which creating then perfects and completes, although the words sure look like that's what he's saying.

I can’t say creation perfects God and makes God "happier" than God already is with himself. Besides, if you read Book I of St. John’s Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, he goes on and on about God being immutable, passionless, “wanting in nothing.” So either John isn’t being consistent and was just not careful in Book II when he said God “did not find satisfaction in self-contemplation,” OR he means something by the latter which is compatible with God’s being essentially, unimprovably, unsurpassably satisfied and happy (since he’s already said God is “wanting in nothing”). I’m gonna go with the latter option. In addition, John says God creates so that created entities benefit from “sharing and participating in God’s goodness,” which kind of suggests God doesn’t also “benefit” from creating. He must mean something like “God decided not to remain forever with his own self-contamplation.”

Tom

I agree with YOU here below, Tom.

(I maybe was reading sloppily where it said "also" in the first quote.)