Trinity and Revelation

A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World, volume 2

Veli-Matti Karkkainen

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781467440486
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

In this book Pentecostal theologian Veli-Matti Karkkainen develops a constructive theology of triune revelation and the triune God in dialogue with Christian tradition, with contemporary theology in its global and contextual diversity, and with other major living faiths.Karkkainen's Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World is a five-volume project that aims to develop a new approach to and method of doing Christian theology in a pluralistic world at the beginning of the third millennium. With the metaphor of hospitality serving as the framework for his discussion, Karkkainen engages Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism in sympathetic and critical mutual dialogue while remaining robustly Christian in his convictions. Never before has a fullscale doctrinal theology been attempted in such a wide and deep dialogical mode.

II. Triune God

The first chapter of part 2 (chap. 9) seeks to establish the conditions for speaking of God in a contemporary culture plagued with secularism and speaking of theology that is challenged by forms of atheism, old and new, as well as objections to the possibility or meaningfulness of speaking of God. Another “foundational” task of clarifying the possibility and form of Christian theology of God in contemporary culture has to do with whether the Christian doctrine of God, based on biblical revelation, could — and even more importantly, should — engage and draw from philosophical resources, particularly metaphysics and natural theology’s “proofs” of God. This project argues that against all its rebuttals, metaphysics is not only necessary for any meaningful talk about God but that it should also be mindful of the changed epistemological and philosophical context of late modernity. Part of that discussion, the chapter continues the argument presented in chapter 7 for natural theology as trinitarian Christian theology.

In chapter 10 the material presentation of a contemporary doctrine of God for a pluralistic world is attempted under the novel nomenclature “Classical Panentheism.” Critiquing and reinterpreting both classical theism and contemporary forms of panentheism, the project seeks to offer a new vision of Christian theology of God. That vision is further clarified, expanded, and amplified in chapter 11, which will focus on the doctrine of the Trinity. Of course, trinitarian theology has been present in the discussion from the beginning of the volume. Recall that in chapter 2 a trinitarian vision of revelation was offered and that chapter 7 defended natural theology as trinitarian Christian theology. An important part of the trinitarian presentation of the doctrine of God is discussion of God’s works in the world, classically named the “divine attributes,” the theme of chapter 12.

The last three chapters discuss carefully the implications and meaning of the trinitarian theology of God in relation to cultural, sociopolitical, and religious plurality. With the title “Divine Hospitality,” chapter 13 seeks to argue for the (inclusively understood) liberationist impulse in the biblical trinitarian doctrine of God. It speaks for and leads those who put their trust in God to seek liberation, inclusivism, equality, justice, and human flourishing. Doing so, it resists violence, another important topic of discussion for the third millennium in that context. Before relating the Christian confession of the trinitarian God to other living faiths, a critical and sympathetic discussion of Christian pluralistic attempts to negotiate the plurality of religions is in order in chapter 14. Similarly to the end of part 1, in part 2 the longest chapter (15) is devoted to continuing the investigation of comparative theology, in this context focusing on the relation of the Christian view of God to conceptions of the Divine/Ultimate Reality in three living faiths, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. This volume ends with a brief epilogue, relating again the doctrine of the Trinity, as the discernment of the unfolding of the economy of salvation of the one God, Father, Son, and Spirit, to the wider systematic/constructive theological vision in a religiously pluralistic world.

9. On the Conditions and Contours of God-Talk

The Doctrine of God in a New Environment

Several important recent “turns” have both challenged and offered new resources for the constructive theology of God. In the aftermath of modernity, a secular age has pervaded most of the cultures of the Global North. New atheism has emerged to challenge the belief in God. Related to the marginalization of religion has been the heralding of the “end of metaphysics.” Constructive theology also faces the question of the role of natural theology, if any, in the doctrine of God.

At the same time, constructive theology looks toward new kinds of opportunities. One has to do with important changes in worldview and understanding of reality. Due to the move away from a substance ontology and (semi)mechanistic Newtonian worldview with rigid notions of causality and determinism toward a relational ontology and a dynamic and emerging worldview with quantum theory’s probabilistic and in some sense “chaotic” views of causality, we may now present the doctrine of God in a way more appropriate to both the dynamic narrative of the Bible and the complex contemporary world of ours. An important related factor here is the interface between science and theology, which Polkinghorne names a new form of “contextual” theology.1 It means that the construction of the doctrine of God cannot neglect anything in the cosmos.

Both a challenge and an opportunity, diversity and plurality are with us in a new and pervasive way, not only because of the advent of postmodernisms with a focus on differences but also because of massive philosophical, cultural, sociopolitical, and religious reasons. With the shrinking of the global village, religious plurality as well as forms of religious pluralism, ideologies, are putting talk about God in a new perspective. Within the Christian church and theology, another kind of diversity is emerging, namely, the coming of age of the “global church.” Furthermore, questions of diversity, equality, inclusion, liberation, and justice are being considered an integral part of the theological task. Hence, new ways of conceiving God are to be attempted.

God in a Secular Age

According to Pannenberg, “[i]n earlier cultures the words ‘God’ and ‘gods’ had a more or less clearly defined place in the cultural world and human vocabulary.” Not so anymore: “In modern secular cultures the word ‘God’ has increasingly lost this function, at any rate in the public mind.”2 Hence God has become a “problem” rather than a solution.3 This means the “reality denoted by the term [God] has thus become uncertain. In the context of a pub...