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What does it mean to say that Jesus Christ is indispensable to a properly conceived doctrine of the immanent Trinity?

A response to Jeffrey Hensley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2008

Paul D. Molnar
Paul D. Molnar*
Affiliation:
St John's University, Queens, New York 11439, USAmolnarp@stjohns.edu
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Extract

Let me begin by thanking Jeff Hensley for taking the time and expending the effort to respond to my book on the Trinity. Naturally I appreciate his positive assessments offered in the opening pages of his paper. As any reader might expect, I was less enthusiastic about his Rahnerian proposals, together with his other two critical questions. As Hensley mentioned, it might very well be helpful to discuss these issues in greater depth so that we might come to a deeper appreciation of how and why a properly conceived doctrine of the immanent Trinity might help us recognise more clearly both divine and human freedom at a time when God's freedom for us so frequently takes the form of a purely economic trinitarianism which leaves no room for God really to act for us within history in his own distinctive way. And it is worth noting, of course, that the purpose of my book was not to discuss any and every possible implication of a properly conceived doctrine of the immanent Trinity; my purpose, rather, was to clear the ground of misconceptions of divine freedom, in order that any theology claiming to be based on sound trinitarian doctrine could be seen to be grounded in God rather than being the product of human projection. My book, then, was not a book about social justice, which certainly is a worthy topic of discussion in its own right, even though it seems Hensley would have preferred such a work.

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Type
Article Review
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , February 2008 , pp. 96 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2008

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References

1 Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity: In Dialogue with Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology (hereafter: Divine Freedom) (London: T&T Clark/Continuum, 2005).

2 Hensley's misguided statement that the difference between Barth and Rahner is ‘more material than formal’ is curious indeed, because if their differences are material, then Hensley's own analysis confirms my judgement that those differences stem from Rahner's methodological choice not to begin and end his thinking exclusively with Jesus Christ. Ultimately, the issue here concerns the fact that I opted to follow Barth, who insisted that the form of revelation could not be separated from the content, whereas Rahner and Hensley obviously think they can. See Molnar, Divine Freedom, p. 51.

3 Karl, Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. Dych, William V. (New York: Seabury, 1978), p. 13Google Scholar.

4 Surprisingly, Hensley cites Rahner's attempt to construct an a priori doctrine of the God-man as an indication that Rahner preserves the priority of christology over anthropology. But my whole point was to demonstrate that any such attempt already undermines that priority. A theology that truly accords priority to Christ will never be in search of such an a priori because it is not enough to say that Jesus Christ has ontological or epistemological priority in theology – one's thinking must actually bear the mark of that priority by really beginning and ending with Jesus Christ himself and not with an experience or an idea of him generated from transcendental experience or from some ‘context of intelligibility’ (cf. Divine Freedom, p. 129). He also thinks that Rahner's belief that the world is evolving towards Christ is an indication of this, in spite of the fact that I noted that Barth criticised Schleiermacher for this very thinking (Divine Freedom, p. 131).

5 Karl Rahner, ‘Jesus’ Resurrection’, Theological Investigations (23 vols) (hereafter: TI), vol. 17, Jesus, Man, and the Church, trans. Margaret Kohl (New York: Crossroad, 1981), pp. 16–23, 18. And while Rahner immediately takes steps to make this remark sound acceptable by appealing to grace and scripture – the very fact that he can make that statement at all shows that he has misconstrued both grace and scripture at the outset by thinking he could explain the resurrection, even momentarily, without faith in the risen Lord himself as the only one who could validate his assertions. Indeed, as I stress in Divine Freedom, pp. 50ff., it is just because Rahner thinks there is an ‘unthematic’ and ‘anonymous knowledge of God’ present in everyone that he thinks this way in the first place.

6 See Molnar, Divine Freedom, pp. 162ff.

7 See Joseph, Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, trans. Mary, Frances McCarthy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), p. 167Google Scholar.

8 Hensley's claim, that Rahner's thesis of identity actually could be understood in a way which upholds the Chalcedonian union and distinction without separation or confusion, completely disregards my careful presentation, which illustrated that Rahner's philosophy and theology of the symbol presented in TI 4 caused him to argue that Jesus is the revealer in his humanity as such – an idea which both Torrance and Barth rightly and unequivocally rejected in order to preserve the distinction of natures in Christ. This leads Rahner to confuse Christ's divinity and humanity as I documented in my book. It is therefore his symbolic view of identity which leads to many of his trinitarian and christological difficulties.

9 See Molnar, Divine Freedom, pp. xii and 126.

10 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4 vols in 13 pts (hereafter: CD), II/1, The Doctrine of God, trans. T. H. L. Parker, W. B. Johnston, Harold Knight and J. L. M. Hare, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1964), p. 159.

11 See Paul D. Molnar, ‘Love of God and Love of Neighbor in the Theology of Karl Rahner and Karl Barth’, Modern Theology 20/4 (Oct. 2004), pp. 567–99, esp. pp. 568–9 and nn. 6–7 where I specifically address the kind of reading of Rahner which Hensley claims to offer.

12 Barth, CD I/1, pp, 118–19.

13 See Molnar, Divine Freedom, pp. 130–1, 232–3 and 252ff.

14 See esp. ibid., pp. 142–3, 223, 242–3, 252, 297–8, 318ff.

15 This means that for Barth knowledge of God includes the determination of our entire being without compromising our human self-determination. Ibid., p. 236.

16 E.g. ibid., pp. 130, 141, 236, 243 and 260.

17 See Barth, CD II/1, pp. 181, 205. See also Molnar, Divine Freedom, pp. 236 and 241.

18 E.g. ibid., pp. 158, 160, 162, 192–3 and Molnar in Modern Theology cited above.

19 See esp. Molnar, Divine Freedom, pp. 144–5.

20 Ibid., p. 270.