T. F. Torrance’s Christological Anthropology

Discerning Humanity in Christ

Christopher G. Woznicki

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000590456
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

This book demonstrates the promise of Christology for developing Scottish theologian T. F. Torrance's theological anthropology.

T. F. Torrance's Christological Anthropology: Discerning Humanity in Christ engages with several key themes in Torrance's theological anthropology and considers how each one of these topics—anthropological method, the metaphysics of human nature, the imago Dei, personhood, vocation, human destiny—can be further developed in light of Christ. Christopher Woznicki argues that Christology not only holds promise for the task of developing Torrance's insights on humanity but also for developing a constructive account of humanity.

The volume is valuable reading for scholars of T. F. Torrance's theology and for those who are interested in the role of Christology in theological anthropology.

1 Introduction

Approaching T. F. Torrance’s Theological Anthropology

DOI: 10.4324/9781003265832-1

Theological doctrine deals not only with the God who is known, but also—implicitly and necessarily—with the human subject who seeks to know. John Calvin famously began his Institutes by asserting that “nearly all wisdom we possess … consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”¹ It would be surprising, therefore, if a serious dogmatic theologian—especially one who so identifies with Calvin’s theological project—should fail to address theological anthropology, a standard topic of systematic theology, in a substantive way. Yet precisely such an omission seems to mark the work of Thomas Forsyth Torrance (1913–2007), the eminent Scottish theologian.

In his well-received intellectual biography of T. F. Torrance, Alister McGrath writes that Torrance is “widely regarded, particularly outside of Great Britain, as the most significant British academic theologian of the twentieth century.”² Torrance’s reputation stands not only on a stack of significant works on the relationship between theology and science as well as the doctrine of the Trinity, but also on the accolades he received during his lifetime, including the 1978 Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion.³ His work on the doctrine of the Trinity led to an important role in the joint statement of agreement about the Trinity between the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Orthodox Church. These honors alone are impressive. Torrance, however, is well known not only for these achievements; he, along with Geoffrey Bromiley, was responsible for the large-scale task of editing Barth’s Church Dogmatics—making Barth accessible to the English-speaking theological world—and along with his brother, David Torrance, he edited Calvin’s New Testament commentaries.

Nonetheless, despite being hailed as a “leading Reformed theologian,” “one of the most brilliant and seminal thinkers of our time,” as being among “the premier theologians in the second half of the twentieth century,” as the “most consistent evangelical theologian in our times,” Torrance’s lack of sustained focus on theological anthropology is conspicuous.⁴ Although Torrance’s corpus includes over 600 works on variegated topics such as theological exegesis, theological epistemology, theological science, and dogmatic theology, he has comparatively little to say about what it means to be a human from a theological perspective. In fact, only eight of his published works are dedicated specifically to theological anthropology.⁵

Torrance’s lack of production in the area of theological anthropology might not be so surprising. After all, he was of the opinion that

Reformed theology has always been shy about erecting an anthropology, not because it lacked a view of man, but because such a view cannot be enunciated as an independent article of faith as if it could of itself condition or contribute to our knowledge of God.⁶

Perhaps the absence of a fully developed theological anthropology can be attributed to his belief that theological anthropology—in the Reformed tradition—does not stand alone as an article of faith. This rationale, however, would seem to be an odd explanation of why he did not produce more works on theological anthropology given that on the same page of the same essay he claimed that no point in theology is “more relevant today than the issues it [theological anthropology] raises about our knowledge of man.”⁷ Those who would agree with Torrance’s observation regarding the relevance of theological anthropology for our day and those who see the prospects and promise of Torrance’s theology in general are left wondering: what might Torrance have said about humanity had he devoted more attention to the topic? How might he have further developed his sparse writing on the theology of the metaphysics of human nature, human constitution, the imago Dei, knowledge of God, sin, the will, race, gender, humanity’s place in creation, or a number of other topics of theological anthropology?

Relevant Studies of Torrance’s Theological Anthropology

Few theologians have attempted to analyze Torrance’s theological anthropology in a systematic manner. For the most part, Torrance’s theological anthropology has received attention as smaller components of larger projects. Elmer Colyer, for example, briefly addresses Torrance’s writings on the doctrine of humanity. In his almost 400-page introduction to Torrancian theology, How to Read T. F. Torrance, Colyer devotes a mere ten pages to theological anthropology. In a short section titled, “The Human Creature,” he summarizes Torrance’s understanding of the body-soul relationship, the dignity and depravity of humans, the imago Dei, and humanity’s role as priest of creation.⁸ While Colyer’s brief introduction is helpful for orienting readers to Torrance’s theological anthropology, Colyer is content with merely re-narrating several key elements of theological anthropology. Besides Colyer, and his brief description of Torrance’s theological anthropology as a small part of his introduction to Torrance’s thought, Eric Flett has also provided a brief treatment of Torrance’s theological anthropology as part of a larger project. Flett’s monograph, Persons, Powers, and Principalities: Toward a Trinitarian Theology of Culture, develops Torrance’s understanding of God as triune, creation as contingent, and human persons as stewards of creation in order to develop a trinitarian theology of culture. More specifically, Chapter 4 of his monograph is devoted to Torrance’s theologically anthropology, including Torrance’s understanding

of human persons as “priests of creation” and “mediators of order,” created in continuity with the contingent order but also in distinction from it, as creatures given a unique constitution and identity and entrusted with a cultural task that is doxologically motivated.⁹

Additionally, Dick Eugenio, in Communion with the Triune God, a work devoted to developing Torrance’s explicitly Trinitarian soteriology, makes the curious statement that, “Statements about Christ’s humanity are also statements about our humanity.”¹⁰ Eugenio uses this principle to elaborate upon why Torrance is committed to the view that Christ assumes a fallen human nature upon the incarnation, yet like Colyer and Flett, he does not further develop his discussion of Torrance’s theological anthropology beyond a portion of his larger project. Finally, Geordie Zeigler devotes one chapter of a book to Torrance’s theological anthropology. Zeigler’s Trinitarian Grace and Participation is his attempt to describe Torrance’s doctrine of grace and to demonstrate that grace is “Torrance’s basic theological centrum.”¹¹ Zeigler demonstrates that grace provides a vantage point for understanding the entirety of Torrance’s theology.¹² As part of his demonstration of the adequacy of grace for interpreting the whole of Torrance’s theology Zeigler examines theological anthropology through the lens of grace. To be a human creature, he argues, is to be caught up in grace. Humans are constituted as “creatures of Grace, created as the image of God for fellowship with God.”¹³ Humans are also fallen creatures, experiencing God’s loving judgment against sin. Yet even under judgment, God’s grace towards them is restorative, seeking fellowship with them.¹⁴ Through his treatment of the doctrine of the image of God (including humanity’s failure to live as the image of God), Zeigler makes a significant, though limited, contribution to the small field of studies on Torrancian theological anthropology.

Although most of the attention that Torrance’s theological anthropology has received has been smaller components of larger projects, one work stands out because it is a full-length project focusing on one aspect of Torrance’s theological anthropology. Myk Habets’s monograph, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance, is a full-length treatment of one aspect of Torrance’s theological anthropology, namely human destiny. Habets argues that Torrance’s doctrine of theosis, i.e., the doctrine of humanity’s telos, finds its grounding in Christology.¹⁵ He states,

In the person of Jesus Christ we see true humanity partaking of true Divinity by nature in such a way that by union, communion, and theosis with Christ by the Spirit we too, by grace, can participate in the divine nature.¹⁶

Although the monograph is devoted to one aspect of theological anthropology, namely humanity’s telos, Habets devotes half a chapter to an overview of Torrance’s theological anthropology, treating topics like the imago Dei, human constitution, personhood, and vocation, through the lens of theosis. Although short in length—which, coming in at a mere twenty pages, is still double the length of Colyer’s introductory section—this section holds significantly more promise than Colyer’s introduction to Torrance’s theological anthropology because it does not merely restate Torrance’s doctrine of humanity; it provides an interpretation of Torrance’s doctrine of humanity. While interesting, Habets’s interpretation rests on the contentious claim that theosis, as opposed to another topic like grace or Christology, is the best interpretative lens for approaching all of Torrance’s theology.¹⁷

A second full-length treatment of one aspect of Torrance’s theological anthropology of note is Hakbong Kim’s Person, Personhood, and the Humanity of Christ. This monograph, as the title implies, focuses on the concept of personhood. Kim’s aim in the book is to develop a Christian ethic which comes out of Torrance’s understanding of Christ’s role in personalizing humanity. Kim himself explains that “Torrance does in fact involve and display horizontal concerns and practical implications in his theological system and reasoning,” despite those who would argue that Torrance’s theology has no clear ethical implications.¹⁸ While the focus is on Torrancian ethics, it is grounded in Torrance’s understanding of persons, as such, Kim devotes three-quarters of the book to the concept of Trinitarian, as well as human, onto-relational personhood. According to Kim, Christ in his humanity not only reveals that we are “personalized or humanized as persons” when we are “in true relations with God and others” but that Christ is the one who makes the reconciliation necessary for personalization.¹⁹ Because of Christ’s revelatory and reconciliatory work, humans are free to “live out a new moral life and order before God and others.”²⁰ Like the others who have examined Torrance’s theological anthropology before him, Kim recognizes that “for Torrance, it is Christ who must be regarded as the absolute epistemic and ontological hinge of the biblical/Christian anthropology.”²¹ Kim’s monograph makes a significant contribution to discussions of personhood in Torrance’s theology—and in systematic theology more generally—yet it still represents an examination of only one key aspect of Torrance’s theological anthropology.

While Colyer, Flett, Eugenio, and Zeigler each examine aspects of Torrance’s theological anthropology as minor parts of larger projects, and Habets and Kim examine one aspect of Torrance’s theological anthropology in a comprehensive manner, Jing Wei provides the first—and to date, only—full-length, comprehensive, treatment of Torrance’s doctrine of humanity...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: Approaching T. F. Torrance’s Theological Anthropology
• 2. Method: Torrance’s Christological Anthropology and Christ’s Fallen Human Nature
• 3. Nature: The Metaphysics of Human Beings
• 4. Image: The Relational, Dynamic, Ecstatic, and Christological Imago Dei
• 5. Personhood: Onto-Relational Christological Anthropology
• 6. Vocation: Called as Priests to Know and Care for Creation
• 7. Destiny: Christ’s Deification of Human Nature
• 8. Conclusion: A Torrancian Christological Anthropology
• Index