Recent Developments in Trinitarian Theology

An International Symposium

Christophe Chalamet, Marc Vial, Christophe Chalamet, Marc Vial

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781451470406
• eBook ISBN: 9781451487480
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Recent Developments in Trinitarian Theology explores the major renaissance that Trinitarian theology has undergone in recent decades. Remarkably, all the main Christian denominations have participated in this, and contemporary Trinitarian theology is a discussion that often crosses over confessional boundaries.

English-language theology plays an important role in the renewal of Trinitarian theology and that role is the focus of this symposium. Its purpose is twofold: to gather in an international setting leading thinkers to present the major developments in Trinitarian theology and to show how Trinitarian theology can contribute to new thinking in several contemporary systematic and critical fields, including political theology and the theology of religions.

Includes contributions by Karen Kilby, Gavin D'Costa, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Christoph Schwöbel, Christophe Chalamet, Mathias Hassenfratz-Coffinet, and Marc Vial.

1

Where Do We Stand in Trinitarian Theology?

Resources, Revisions, and Reappraisals

Christoph Schwöbel

The “Renaissance of Trinitarian Theology”—Revisited

Trinitarian Theology Today

Twenty years ago, I wrote a brief introduction to a volume of essays entitled Trinitarian Theology Today: Essays on Divine Being and Act, under the heading “The Renaissance of Trinitarian Theology: Reasons, Problems and Tasks.”^[1] The book is a collection of papers, originally delivered at the first international conference of the Research Institute in Systematic Theology, King’s College London, in 1990. Apart from giving a brief overview of the papers published in the volume, the introduction was intended as a kind of interim report on the new interest that had been given to the doctrine of the Trinity and its significance for the task of Christian theology at the end of the twentieth century. While noting the tremendous variety of approaches to the doctrine of the Trinity and the fact that the increased engagement with the doctrine of the Trinity is not restricted to one discipline of theology but somehow embraces all theological disciplines and the whole project of Christian theology in relation to its cultural settings, the introduction tried to point to a number of factors and motives that had contributed to the increased interest in the doctrine of the Trinity.

The first of these factors mentioned is the encounter of Western theology with the traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy in ecumenical conversations. These encounters have not only confronted Western theology with the significance that Eastern theology has ascribed to the doctrine of the Trinity, but also have pointed to effects this focus on the Trinity has for the practice of worship and for views of community organization in the church in the wider society. Apart from the notorious question of the filioque that once led to schism between Eastern and Western Christianity, there is also the issue of the personhood of the Holy Spirit, which Eastern theology raised as a problematic aspect of Western traditions. Encountering another tradition in ecumenical conversations not only leads to discovering the riches and problems of the other tradition but also encourages the critical engagement with one’s own tradition and its history as it is reflected in the eyes of the other. It is in this context that the question of the differences and similarities between both traditions arises. Is it correct to see decisive differences between both traditions with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, although they both profess the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed? If so, where would these differences then be located—in doctrine, in forms of church order, or in the practice of Christian worship? How should one assess the influence of complex historical and cultural factors?

The second of the factors mentioned for the new interest in trinitarian theology draws attention to the charge that the doctrine of the Trinity has been marginalized, as Karl Rahner so memorably diagnosed. Is it true that the distinction between the dogmatic treatises De Deo uno and De Deo trino indicates that the doctrine of the Trinity had become largely irrelevant for Western theology, relegated to spheres of abstract speculation and the liturgy? Is Rahner’s diagnosis correct that this marginalization, which has the effect that many Christians have a monotheist faith, lacking a distinctive Christian trinitarian profile, is connected to a separation of the inner processions and the economic missions of the Trinity? Do we find here the reason that the immanent and economic Trinity were not seen as constitutively related so that matters of biblical exegesis and questions of dogmatic reflection are pursued as independent exercises, despite all Protestant protestations that doctrine should be based on Scripture alone? If the diagnosis is correct, will Rahner’s therapy, expressed in the slogan “the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity, and the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity,” bring the desired recovery, restoring the doctrine of the Trinity to the center of the Christian faith?

The third group of factors mentioned in my 1995 introduction refers to the relationship between philosophical theism and its modern twin, philosophical atheism, and a trinitarian doctrine of God. It is noted that the philosophical debate on the existence of God and the coherence of theism have, at least sometimes, ignored the Christian confession that God is triune. Conversely, trinitarian theologies, it seems, have at least sometimes ignored the thorny questions of how confessing God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shapes the views of divine essence and existence, of the divine attributes and their relationship to divine agency. Twenty years ago, systematic theologians and philosophical theologians moved in different circles of thought and exchange. The new interest in trinitarian theology, however, has motivated the analysis of questions of the doctrine of God in the confinium of Christian doctrinal theology and philosophical theology, so that the doctrine of the Trinity is now a focus of lively debate in philosophical theology.

The fourth group of factors points to the connections between the understanding of God and the understanding of human persons and human society, especially in the way both come together in the understanding of the church. The temptation to draw easy correlations between a unipersonal image of God and authoritarian structures in church and society and contrast them to a trinitarian view of God and a correlative view of church and society, where personal particularity and social community are respected and celebrated, is criticized in the 1995 introduction: “It would be theologically disastrous if one criticized the projection of certain views of the divine nature on the order of human society for its alienating effects and then proceeded by projecting a view of desirable human relationships on the divine being.”^[2] Nevertheless, in spite of this criticism of a way of doing trinitarian theology, it is acknowledged that, because theology always has social effects, although they may be quite indirect and mediated in various ways, the question of the relationship of our images of the divine and our view of social relationships has to be analyzed. Does it matter for our engagement in the social world whether our theology is trinitarian or not?

The question of how this new interest in trinitarian theology should be interpreted already played a role twenty years ago. Is it a revolution moving theological thinking forward into new areas of theological exploration, or a restoration of an already established doctrine, a return to conciliar orthodoxy? Clearly, both elements played a role in the engagement with the Trinity. On the one hand, it was a new development if one considered the established forms of theological thought in the time immediately before the renewal of trinitarian interests. On the other hand, this step forward beyond the fashionable theologies of the time consisted in taking seriously the developments in the history of doctrine that had played a formative role in establishing Christian orthodoxy. At the time, it seemed that the metaphor of renaissance or revival captured most accurately the spirit of the new way of doing theology. Theologians employed this metaphor well aware that trinitarian theology was never completely dead, although it may not have had a high point on the theological agendas. And, of course, that there had been quite a number of previous revivals, for instance the conscious turn to trinitarian thinking in the systems of German idealism over against the deistic and theistic reductions of the doctrine of God during the Enlightenment. The interesting question, however, is not whether the metaphor is appropriate but whether the renewed interest in trinitarian theology has produced productive and significant theological developments.

The Forgotten Trinity

The papers from the aforementioned conference are, of course, only a small detail of a much larger picture of the development of trinitarian theology. Academic theological conferences do not occur in a vacuum, and their topics do not grow out of academic interest alone. Many more factors influencing this development would have to be taken into account.^[3] For the British setting, one particular event needs to be mentioned. The immediate context of the revival of interest in the doctrine of the Trinity was very much influenced by a Study Commission of the British Council of Churches on “Trinitarian Doctrine Today,” which met between November 1983 and May 1988. With Costa Carras and James B. Torrance as their joint chairs, the study commission published a report under the evocative title The Forgotten Trinity, a selection of papers with the same title, and a study guide for local churches.^[4] The impact of these three pieces should not be underestimated. The report was intended not only to offer trinitarian reorientation in matters of church doctrine on God, but to reshape the life of the churches from a trinitarian perspective. This can most clearly be seen in the study guide, which relates the Trinity to worship, Scripture, tradition, our relationship with God, human relationships, and society. The renaissance of trinitarian theology was from the beginning much more than a new theological orientation. As the work of the BCC Study Commission makes quite clear, it was aimed at reshaping the life of the church in its liturgical, doctrinal, and ethical dimensions.

What are the crucial questions that give direction to such a reshaping as envisaged by the BCC Study Commission? It is still useful today to turn to the seminal paper John Zizioulas presented to the commission, delineating its task and defining its agenda.^[5] Zizioulas agrees with the view of Barth and Rahner that the doctrine of the Trinity has become marginalized in the church, both East and West, not only in matters of doctrine, but also with regard to the devotional life of Christians. Does it make a difference whether a prayer is addressed to the Father, as in eucharistic prayers, or to the Son, or to the Spirit, as in other services? The sensibility for the question has, in Zizioulas’s view, disappeared in both Eastern and Western churches. Does the doctrine of Trinity have anything to say to the question of personal identity, relationality, and communion, or is that left to sociology or psychology because it is felt that there is nothing distinctive that Christian theology has to contribute? Is there a place for the Trinity in the views of the institution and constitution of the church, or is the foundation of the church understood exclusively along christological lines, so that the shape of ecclesial community is dependent on the historic episcopate and the question of apostolic succession? And what is distinctive about Christian views of monotheism in dialogue with other religions? Is there a trinitarian notion of the one God that is different from arithmetical singularity and embraces a notion of relational unity?

The answers to these questions revolve for Zizioulas around three decisive issues. The first focuses on the relation between God and the world as it is expressed in the relationship between the immanent and the economic Trinity. Is there a distinction between the economic and the immanent Trinity which can safeguard against the kind of ontological monism that would make the being of God and the being of the world intrinsically bound up, at the expense of being unable to speak of the freedom of God? Is it right to identify the order of knowing God in the divine economy with the ontological question of God’s being? Zizioulas emphatically denies Rahner’s identification of the economic and the immanent Trinity:

If God is Trinity, he must also be outside the Economy. If he cannot be known as Trinity except through and in the Economy this should not lead us to construct our Trinitarian doctrine simply on the basis of the Economy. Without an apophatic theology, which would allow us to go beyond the economic Trinity, and to draw a sharp distinction between ontology and epistemology—something that classical Greek thought as well as Western philosophy have been unable to do—or between being and revelation, God and the world become an unbreakable unity and God’s transcendence is at stake.^[6]

The second big issue that Zizoulas identifies, and which has shaped the discussion of trinitarian theology ever since, concerns God’s being in Godself. How are threeness and oneness related in God? For Zizioulas, the possible answers to this question boil down to a choice between what he calls “the Augustinian tradition” and “that of the Greek Fathers.” If we start from the oneness of God in the sense of the divine ousia shared by Father, Son, and Spirit, we cannot logically give primacy to the threeness in God. The Trinity will always remain logically and ontologically secondary: “what is shared is prior to what shares in it.”^[7] This, however, has far-reaching consequences for the understanding of God and of humanity. Starting from the oneness of God would commit us, Zizioulas insists, to a view that three persons necessarily share in the one divine ousia, which, in turn, removes all freedom from the being of God. God is necessarily self-existent, in Zizioulas’s words: “The dead ousianic tautology of something existing because it exists.”^[8] For Zizioulas, the only alternative consists in starting from the Father, the one God, who is the free ground of the being of the Son and the Spirit. This would both give a distinctively Christian view of monotheism, grounded in the freedom of God, and make divine freedom the ground of all created personhood, of who human persons are destined to be in their eschatological participation in the personal communion of the triune God. The choice, according to Zizioulas, is this:

If God’s existence is determined by the necessity of his ousia, if he is . . . a necessary being, ‘being itself’ . . . etc., then all existence is bound by necessity. On the other hand, if God’s existence is not bound by a ousianic tautology but is caused by a free person, then there is hope also for the creature which by definition is faced by the priority of substance, of ‘given realities’, to be free from these ‘givens’ to acquire God’s way of being in what the Greek Fathers called theosi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Introduction
• Where Do We Stand in Trinitarian Theology?
• Trinity, Tradition, and Politics
• The Necessity for Theologia
• The Trinity and the World Religions
• Colin Gunton on the Trinity and the Divine Attributes
• God’s “Liveliness” in Robert W. Jenson’s Trinitarian Thought
• Social Trinity
• List of Contributors
• Index