Trinity and Religious Pluralism

The Doctrine of the Trinity in Christian Theology of Religions

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti K�rkk�inen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138410503
• eBook ISBN: 9781351877510
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most distinguishing marks of Christian faith. This is the first book to present an overview of the role of the Trinity in Christian theology in relation to religious pluralism and other religions. Approaching the study of the relationship between Christianity and other religions from the perspective of the Trinity, this book surveys all the major contributions to the topic by leading theologians at the international and ecumenical level. Veli-Matti Karkkainen points to future challenges and areas in need of development, examining in detail a case study exploring how the Catholic Church has responded to Islam from the perspective of the Trinity. Students of theology and religious studies will find this an invaluable text for courses that discuss religious pluralism and Christianity's relation to other religions. Pastors, other Christian workers, and academics will also find it a handy reference tool for teaching and further study.

Part I

The Uniqueness of the Christian Trinitarian Faith as the End of the Dialogue

CHAPTER I

Karl Barth: The Trinity as the Distinguishing Mark of the Christian God

Prolegomena to Interpreting Barth

Karl Barth’s theology of religions – if there is any – poses a daunting challenge to the interpreter for several reasons. The most obvious is the fact that Barth never set out to write a distinctive theology of religions. He of course dealt with the topic of religion extensively, but it is often hard to say how much of that is general critique of religion and how much deals with either specifically Christian religion or other particular religions. Even though rarely noticed, in my opinion, the lack of focus on theology of religions in Barth is far from self-evident in light of the fact that so much of his theology arose out of reaction to Classical Liberalism. It was Liberalism indeed which for the first time on a wider scale, in the aftermath of the Enlightenment, questioned the traditional Christian orthodoxy and Christianity’s favoured place. And the fact that so much of Barth’s earlier work dealt with topics such as revelation makes one wonder why he was never driven to the interreligious problematic.

Furthermore, his dialectical, often polemic way of writing – to quote Donald W. Dayton’s (1990, p. 184) chiding remark: ‘What Barth takes away with one hand he gives back with the other’ – makes determining his stance extremely complicated. A corollary issue, routinely noticed by interpreters of Barth, is the question of the development of his theology: did he really change his major positions or not?

Ironically, scholarship and popular textbooks especially have added to the confusion: beginning from Hendrik Kraemer’s now classic The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World (1938), it took selected emphases of Barth’s theology as the major backup for an exclusivistic attitude towards other religions; Paul F. Knitter’s No Other Name? (1985) in a very unfortunate way classifies Barth among ‘conservative evangelicals’. Certainly conservatives may find in Barth’s theology affirmations that support their views, but there is a wide gulf between Barth’s neo-orthodox view of revelation and especially his universalistically oriented soteriology. Surprisingly even Knitter’s most recent text (2002) categorically regards Barth as a total denier of the value of other religions.¹

There is no denying the fact that Barth represents an unabashed restrictivism toward other religions. But what seriously complicates the picture is that, on the other hand, his Christology and thus soteriology seem to lead him eventually to universalism, the idea that (hardly) anybody will perish at the end. There are also other qualifying perspectives, such as Barth’s criticism of Christianity among religions questioning the typical textbook view, according to which for Barth Christianity without qualification is the norm.

In what follows I will enter into a critical dialogue with Barth in four movements. First, I will offer a brief exposition of Barth’s trinitarian doctrine insofar as it relates to theology of religions. Second, I highlight the dynamic – and in my judgment, somewhat self-contradictory – nature of Barth’s trinitarian theology by looking at his ‘revelational restrictivism’ and ‘soteriological universalism’. Third, I will search for resources to negotiate this built-in tension utilizing trinitarian resources. Fourth, I will take a critical look at a recent attempt to ‘open up’ Barth’s exclusivism and make it appear more like a sort of pluralism. The purpose of that dialogue is not to try to make Barth ‘fit’ the current more pluralistically oriented discourse, but rather to advance our theological quest.

Trinity as the Means of Identifying the Christian God

Not inappropriately, Barth has been hailed as the herald of the ‘contemporary revival of theology’ in general and trinitarian doctrine in particular (Welch, 1952, p. 45). The starting point for his theology was the anguish over Liberalism’s approach in which ‘to speak about God meant to speak about humanity, no doubt in elevated tone, but… about human faith and works.’ Thus, in Liberalism ‘human beings were magnified at the expense of God–the God who is sovereign Other standing over against humanity’, the ‘free partner in a history’ (Barth, 1989, p. 48). The correction for this malaise was a turn to the Christian God who is identified as the triune God based on God’s own revelation.

For Barth, the doctrine of the Trinity is not only the structuring principle of Christian doctrine but also the means of identifying the God of the Bible. ‘The doctrine of the Trinity is what basically distinguishes the Christian doctrine of God as Christian, and therefore what already distinguishes the Christian concept of revelation as Christian, in contrast to all other possible doctrines of God or concepts of revelation’ (1:1, p. 301). The doctrine of the Trinity is the only possible Christian answer to the question of who the self-revealing God of the Bible talks about.

Changing the course of the writing of systematic theology, Barth begins the whole dogmatics with the doctrine of the Trinity and thus makes it foundational to all other topics. His starting point is the famous formula in the beginning of Church Dogmatics: ‘God reveals himself. He reveals himself through himself. He reveals himself’(I:l, p. 296). The theological conclusion here is that, for Barth, God’s revelation and God’s being are identical. God is who God is revealed to be. ‘Thus, it is God Himself, it is the same God in unimpaired unity, who according to the biblical understanding of revelation is the revealing God and the event of revelation and its effect on man’ (I:1, p. 299). The trinitarian God is the God revealed in and through Jesus Christ. Consequently, Jesus Christ is identical with God, ‘the reality of Jesus Christ is that God Himself in person is actively present in the flesh. God Himself in person is the Subject of a real human being and acting’ (I:2, p. 151). To the significance of this ‘circle of self-revelation’ for theology of religions we will return momentarily.

The trinitarian God revealed in Jesus Christ is a God who desires to enter into communion with human beings in his love. God is seen to be trinitarian as he is revealed in the self-giving love of the Father for the Son, which itself corresponds to the self-giving love of God for his creation. The trinitarian love relationships are fundamental to the loving relationship between God and the world (III:1, p. 14,49; see also Fulljames, 1993, pp. 21–2).

Barth is very concerned about emphasizing the importance of the unity of the triune God, to the point that he does not want to talk about three ‘persons’ according to the classical trinitarian canons, but rather takes up the somewhat ambiguous term Seinsweise (‘modes of being’) in referring to Father, Son and Spirit (1:1, p. 355). By eschewing the terminology of ‘personhood’, Barth also seems to distance himself from the kind of individualism so prevalent in Western theology. He also makes the significant statement that were Jesus Christ another personality different from the Father, then he could not be the Father’s self-revelation (1:1, p. 350–51; see also Grenz, 2001, p. 37). Furthermore, to posit a threefold subject would make three gods, tritheism (II:1, p. 297).

The use of the term ‘modes of being’ is another instance in which the shift from German to English has contributed to confusion. I do not think Barth is modalist² in adopting the language of ‘modes of being’. My assessment seems to be supported by the fact that – against much of earlier tradition – Barth takes history into the being of God, thus giving room for ontological distinctions in the triune God. This is also significant for our purposes in light of the fact that religions do belong to history and are thus not unrelated to who God is in his triune being. The way Barth introduces history into the being of God is instructive. He does it most dramatically in the last volume (part 1) of Church Dogmatics. He describes the incarnation as the Son of God’s journey into a far land. Acting as the Prodigal Son of Luke 15, the Son of God effects reconciliation since the journey is that of God himself revealed in the Son. ‘Barth brought the immanent and economic Trinities together by positing that the Son’s journey is God’s own journey and that the Son’s self-humiliation in birth, life, and death is an expression of God’s transcendence. God is exalted in the humility of the Son’ (Olson & Hall, 2002, p. 97).

Christocentrism emerges time after time in Barth’s trinitarian theology, and we should take a look at it because of its relevance to our topic. Not only revelation and the identification of the triune God, but also creation and God’s dealings with the world and humanity (including religions as mediators of the human search for God), are channelled through Christ. There is a Christological origin to the world and humanity. When we ask why God created the world, the answer is simple and profound: Jesus Christ. God ‘needs’ creatures in order that there shall be the one creature Jesus Christ. The reason why God created the world and the purpose for which he created it … is that he was able, willing, and prepared to be one with the creature in Jesus Christ’ (II: 1, p. 579). And for this purpose, God made a covenant. For Barth, creation is the ‘external basis of the covenant’, it prepares the sphere in which the life under covenant will take place (III:1, pp. 94–228). The covenant relationship is based on grace and the relationship between God and the world is essentially based on God’s love. Creation and incarnation flow out of God’s self-willed free decision to let the eternal trinitarian love extend beyond the triune fellowship. This is the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ, and for Barth there is no other God.

Revelational Restrictivism

For Barth, ‘Revelation is God’s self-offering and self-manifestation. … In revelation God tells man that he is God.’ As opposed to Liberalism’s idea of ‘revelation’ as the elevation of human capacities, this is ‘something new, something which apart from revelation he does not know and cannot tell either himself or others’(1:2, p. 301).

And where do we find this revelation? Barth’s short answer: in Jesus Christ:

When Holy Scripture speaks of God, it concentrates our attention and thoughts upon one single point…. And if we look closer, and ask: who and what is at this point upon which our attention and thoughts are concentrated, which we are to recognize as God? … then from its beginning to its end the Bible directs us to the name of Jesus Christ. (II:2, pp. 52–4)

Accurately then, the Catholic interpreter of Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar, described Barth’s theology as an intellectual hourglass ‘where God and man meet in the center through Jesus Christ. There is no other point of encounter between the top and bottom portions of the glass’ (Balthasar, 1979, p. 170).

If God can be known only as God reveals himself – the affirmation that is the core of Barth’s trinitarian doctrine – and God has chosen to reveal Godself in Jesus Christ, naturally a question arises of primary interest to our inquiry: what, if any, is then the value of religions in general and specific religions such as Christianity, Judaism or Hinduism, in particular? We wish Barth had been much clearer here. To address the question even tentatively also takes us to the corollary problem of whether Barth changed his opinion or not. In dealing with this issue, two specific passages are usually quoted, and should be, since they highlight the tension present in Barth’s corpus. The first one comes from the famous passage dealing with other religions – and in fact, almost the only sustained discussion in Barth of that topic, the famous ‘paragraph’ 17 (over 80 pages!), titled ‘The Revelation of God as the Abolition of Religions’; it is found in the beginning of his Church Dogmatics (vol. one, entitled ‘The Doctrine of the Word of God’, part two):

From the standpoint of revelation religion is clearly seen to be a human attempt to anticipate what God in His revelation wills to do and does do. It is the attempted replacement of the divine work by a human manufacture. The divine reality offered and manifested to us in revelation is replaced by a concept of God arbitrarily and wilfully evolved by man. ‘Arbitrarily and wilfully’ means here by his own means, by his own human insight and constructiveness and energy. (I:2, p. 302)

In order to assess the significance of this statement, several points have to be noted. First of all, the title of the paragraph: the original German uses the term Aufhebung for the English ‘abolition’. Students of Hegel know how notoriously difficult it is to translate the term, the literal meaning of which is ‘lifting up’. Thus, ironically, it has the basic meaning of abolishing, but it may also have the related even though largely opposite meaning of lifting up, especially in Barth’s dialectical theology in which the ‘No’ is often said not for its own sake but to lead to ‘Yes’. And finally, it has to be noted that neither the passage nor the wider context lets us assume that Barth is excluding Christianity from the religions to be judged apart from the revelation in Christ. Consequently, the passage cannot be read – as it is often done – as a textbook example of Barth’s negative attitude toward other religions, but rather should be read as a judgment of religions in general apart from special revelation coming from the triune God.

Without being able to address the wider question of the extent to which there is a change taking place in Barth’s theology, it is safe to say that with regard to Christianity’s relation to other religions, there is a change of tone, if not opinion, as is evident in another passage from a later stage of Church Dogmatics, paragraph 69 in volume four (part three) dealing with Christology (the ‘prophetic office of Christ’):

We recognize that the fact that Jesus Christ is the one Word of God does not mean that in the Bible, the Church and the world there are not other words which are quite notable in their way, other lights which are quite clear and other revelations which are quite real. … Nor does it follow from our statement that every word spoken outside the circle of the Bible and the Church is a word of false prophecy and therefore valueless, empty and corrupt, that all the lights which rise and shine in this outer sphere are misleading and all the revelations are necessarily untrue. (IV:3, p. 97; see also Braaten, 1992, pp. 53–9)

In the same context, Barth also maintains that ‘the criticism expressed in the exclusiveness of the statement affects, limits, and relativizes the prophesy of Christians no less than the many other prophecies, lights, and words relativized and replaced by it’ (IV:3, p. 91), thus reminding us of the fact that Christianity is not immune to criticism of religion any more than acknowledgment of its relative value – and here the term relative has to be taken in its literal sense: ‘in relation to’ Jesus Christ. We will return to the assessment of these perspectives on theology of religions once we have exposited in more detail Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity.

Soteriological Universalism

The key to Barth’s soteriological universalism – which, of course, stands in tension with his revelational exclusivism – is the dual role of Christ as the Mediator between the triune God and humankind. Christ serves as the agent of revelation and of reconciliation. By virtue of the incarnation, God and humanity are united. In his divinity, Jesus represents God to us; in his humanity, Jesus represents humankind to God. By virtue of the incarnation, human beings can be made participants in the covenant to which God has obligated himself. In this covenant, God acts on behalf of us, through and in Christ.

In Barth’s distinctive terminology, Jesus Christ is both an ‘Electing God’ and ‘Elected Man’ (II:2, pp. 105–6). On the basis of the dual agency of Jesus Christ, Barth recasts the whole concept of election. In contrast to the traditional Reformed position, according to which God has elected some for salvation and others for perdition (double predestination), Barth maintains that all God’s elective actions are centred on Christ and Christ only. The election of God does not apply to individuals. Barth regards Calvin’s Reformed doctrine of election as too static and a misrepresentation of the Bible. The passages in the Bible that talk about election (Rom. 9 and Eph. 1 being the most important ones) have to be read Christologically. When doing so, one formulates a doctrine of election and predestination in light of God’s work of revelation and atonement. By sending his Son to be the incarnate God-man, God revealed his will to save men and women, not to reject them. The incarnation is proof that God is for humanity, not against it.

The only person(s) to be elected by God is the person of Jesus Christ. This is Barth’s major modification of the traditional view of election. The eternal will of God is realized in the election of Jesus Christ from eternity. There is no other will of God, no other unchangeable ‘decree’ (a technical term in classical theology to denote God’s predetermined will to elect) apart from or beyond Jesus Christ and his election. God is not bound to any kind of deterministic, unchangeable decree of his, but like a king with ‘holy mutability’, he is absolutely free to fulfil his purpose of saving all. Jesus Christ as the focus of God’s election acts not only as an individual but is also the representative of the rest of humanity. In him, the entire human race has been chosen for salvation. But Barth goes further than that. Not only is Jesus Christ the elected man, he is also at the same time the electing God. This is Barth’s version of ‘double predestination’. As the representative of the whole human race, Christ has freely chosen, not only to become a man, but become a man for us; he chose the ‘reprobation, perdition, and death’ that was ours (11:2, p. 163). Voluntarily, he chose to be rejected by humanity and be crucified on the cross. Thus God elected Christ to bear completely the pain and cost of redemption. God chose to accept the cross and the lot of fallen humanity. Furthermore, God elected Christ to take from us the judgment. Christ was rejected in order that we might not be rejected. The negative side of predestination, which was to be ours, is directed towards Christ.

Thus, rather than speaking about do...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Challenge of Religious Pluralism
• Part I: The Uniqueness of the Christian Trinitarian Faith as the End of the Dialogue
• Part II: The Potential and Critical Function of the Christian Trinitarian Faith in the Dialogue with Other Religions
• Part III: The Christian Trinitarian Faith as an Embrace of Pluralism
• Part IV: A Case Study in Trinitarian Theology of Religions
• Conclusion: Toward a Trinitarian Theology of Religions
• Bibliography
• Index