The Aseity of God as a Material Evangelical Concern

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R.J. Holmes
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Antecedent Conditions ◽  
Hypostatic Union ◽  
Free Grace

‭An evangelical doctrine of God is concerned with not only the unfolding of the logic of God’s free grace but also the antecedent conditions whereby God is said to be gracious. In this article I demonstrate the extent to which for Karl Barth grace demands a “backward reference,” indeed the immanent processions of the Son and Spirit as the basis for their missions. Accordingly, I advance the notion that the question of antecedence—the “whence”—represents not simply a formal but rather a material concern, a concern which the Reformed appreciate. I unfold this contention with respect some New Testament texts and in relation to two doctrines, namely the doctrine of the divine attributes and that of the hypostatic union.‬

The theological function of the doctrine of the divine attributes and the divine glory, with special reference to Karl Barth and his reading of the Protestant Orthodox

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-223
Author(s):  
Christopher R. J. Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Clear Sense ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
Triune God ◽  
History Of ◽  
Attributes Of God ◽  
Short Hand

AbstractTheological discourse on the doctrine of the attributes of God has lacked a clear sense of its purpose within the doctrine of God. It has far too often led one into an abstract realm in which an incipient naturalism is present concerning who God is and what God is like: the attributes resemble those of a supreme being rather than the triune God of the gospel. If the doctrine is to perform the salutary theological work for which it is capable, it would be to its advantage to describe, as does Barth, God's attributes in terms of a series of short-hand descriptions which agree with God's enacted identity in the history of Israel as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In doing so, Barth offers a tremendously creative re-inhabitation of the doctrine. It is creative precisely because Barth avoids many of the shortcomings of the historical shape of the doctrine, as exemplified for him in Protestant Orthodoxy's tendency toward semi-nominalism, by attending anew to the declarative and communicative character of the glory of the Lord, a glory which is inclusive of a multiplicity of perfections. The result is a rearticulation of the doctrine of the divine attributes that is truly concrete, inasmuch as it eschews not only a false apophaticism, which would deflect attention away from the resplendent contours of God's saving self-display in the economy of salvation, but also attests the extent of God's propensity to ever give of himself as he is and to evoke a form of creaturely life commensurate with his self-giving.

On the Way from Schleiermacher to Barth: A Critical Reappraisal of Isaak August Dorner's Essay on Divine Immutability

2000 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Gockel
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Reciprocal Relation ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Historical Life ◽  
The Way

The theme of this article is the reconstruction of the doctrine of God offered by the German theologian and historian of doctrine Isaak August Dorner (1809–84), in his treatise ‘On the Proper Conception of the Doctrine of God's Immutability, with Special Reference to the Reciprocal Relation between God's Suprahistorical and Historical Life.’ Although the theme of God's immutability has received wide attention in the last years, Dorner's essay has gone largely unnoticed, and its contribution to the current debate still awaits appreciation. The following argument shall provide some building-blocks for this goal. It presupposes that Dorner's theology was shaped in dialogue with the thought of Schelling, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, but it will extend this perspective and ask for the particular systematic-theological link between Schleiermacher and Karl Barth that Dorner's essay represents.

The Nature of God and the Trinity

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-134
Author(s):  
Kyle C. Strobel
Keyword(s):  
Unique Feature ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Trinity

Commonly recognized as fundamental to his thought as a whole, Edwards’s doctrine of the Trinity has, nonetheless, been the subject of much discord in the secondary literature. After initially mapping the various perspectives (or ‘instincts’) on the issue, this chapter turns to the notion of personalism to explain the inner logic of Edwards’s account. This unique feature of Edwards’s doctrine explains how he can utilize traditional theological machinery in his doctrine of God (i.e. psychological imagery, simplicity, actus purus, filioque, and divine blessedness), to establish his idiosyncratic development of perichoresis and the divine attributes. What this reading of Edwards’s doctrine helps establish is how he articulates human speech about God, and various rules for how that speech functions (e.g. talk about God is to talk about person(s); God’s self-giving is funded by, rather than diminished by, God’s perfection).

Thomas F. Torrance and the problem of universalism

2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Molnar
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Objective Knowledge ◽  
Salvation History ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Universal Salvation ◽  
Existential Knowledge ◽  
Free Grace ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The Trinity

AbstractWhile Karl Barth and Thomas F. Torrance both believed in the possibility of universal salvation, they also rejected the idea that we could make a final determination about this possibility prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ. Hence, both theologians rejected what may be called a doctrine of universal salvation in the interest of respecting God's freedom to determine the outcome of salvation history in accordance with the love which was revealed in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus himself. This article explores Torrance's reasons for holding that ‘the voice of the Catholic Church . . . throughout all ages has consistently judged universalism a heresy for faith and a menace to the Gospel’. Torrance expressly believed in the ‘universality of Christ's saving work’ but rejected ‘universalism’ and any idea of ‘limited atonement’. He considered both of these views to be rationalistic approaches which ignore the need for eschatological reserve when thinking about what happens at the end when Christ comes again and consequently tend to read back logical necessities into the gospel of free grace. Whenever this happens, Torrance held that the true meaning of election as the basis for Christian hope is lost and some version of limited atonement or determinism invariably follows. The ultimate problem with universalism then, from Torrance's perspective, can be traced to a form of Nestorian thinking with respect to christology and to a theoretical and practical separation of the person of Christ from his atoning work for us. What I hope to show in this article is that those who advance a ‘doctrine of universalism’ as opposed to its possibility also have an inadequate understanding of the Trinity. Interestingly, Torrance objected to the thinking of John A. T. Robinson and Rudolf Bultmann because both theologians, in their own way, separated knowledge of God for us from knowledge of who God is ‘in himself’. Any such thinking transfers our knowledge of God and of salvation from the objective knowledge of God given in revelation to a type of symbolic, mythological or existential knowledge projected from one's experience of faith and this once again opens the door to both limited atonement and to universalism. Against this Torrance insisted that we cannot speak objectively about what God is doing for us unless we can speak analogically about who God is in himself.

scholarly journals The Future of New Testament Theology, or, What Should Devout Modern Bible Scholarship Look Like?

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1072
Author(s):  
Douglas A. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Language Game ◽  
The Self ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Self Disclosure ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Triune God ◽  
The Church

Consideration of the nature of New Testament Theology (NTT) necessitates an account of theology or “God-talk”. Karl Barth grasped that all valid God-talk begins with God’s self-disclosure through Jesus and the Spirit, which people acknowledge and reflect on. Abandoning this starting point by way of “Foundationalism”—that is, resorting to any alternative basis for God-talk—leads to multiple destructive epistemological and cultural consequences. The self-disclosure of the triune God informs the use of the Bible by the church. The Bible then functions in terms of ethics and witness. It grounds the church’s ethical language game. Creative readings here are legitimate. The New Testament (NT) also mediates a witness to Jesus, which implies an historical dimension. However, it is legitimate to affirm that Jesus was resurrected (see 1 Cor 15:1–9), which liberates the devout modern Bible scholar in relation to history. The historical readings generated by such scholars have value because the self-disclosing God is deeply involved with particularity. These readings can be added to the archive of scriptural readings used by the church formationally. Ultimately, then, all reading of the NT is theological (or should be) and in multiple modes. NTT focuses our attention on the accuracy of the God-talk operative within any historical reconstruction, and on its possible subversion, which are critical matters.

The Doctrine of Christ

2019 ◽  
pp. 331-348
Author(s):  
William B. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Hypostatic Union ◽  
Theologically Conservative

Christology in the Presbyterian tradition has reflected two continuing concerns—the safeguarding of Christ’s humanity and the recognition that Christ is central to both the accomplishing and the application of salvation. Calvin and other Reformers defended the deity of Christ against anti-Trinitarians, and they debated the nature of the hypostatic union with Luther and his successors. Reformed Christology was further codified as Orthodox theologians carefully explained that the union of natures does not entail the communication of divine attributes to Christ’s humanity. The nineteenth century saw increased focus on the humanity of Christ, the rise of ethical Christologies as alternatives to Chalcedon, and efforts to place Christology at the center of the theological enterprise. Twentieth-century Presbyterianism experienced conflict between the theologically conservative and liberal elements and the retrieval by Barth and others of the classical Christological tradition. Contemporary Presbyterianism is characterized by significant and perhaps irreconcilable Christological diversity.

The ‘Compatibilism’ of Human Freedom and Divine Omnipotence

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 257-266
Author(s):  
Wyatt Harris
Keyword(s):  
Martin Luther ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Theological Method ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Divine Omnipotence

Abstract Katherine Sonderegger’s doctrine of God, constructed on the basis of a meditation on the incommunicable divine attributes, is here elucidated. I detail Sonderegger’s commitment to divine simplicity and explain her preferred theological method: metaphysical compatibilism. I show how Sonderegger’s unique understanding of compatibilism allows her the freedom to bypass or displace most normative metaphysical arguments proffered by the tradition that attempt to elucidate divine and human freedom. Granting divine simplicity, thus that omnipotence is a moral doctrine, in other words, that omnipotence is good, I present Sonderegger’s notion of compatibilism in her account of Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush in Exodus 3 and examine pertinent issues. A novel account of the nature of God is given that presents human freedom in a new light. By way of conclusion, Martin Luther is brought in to shed critical light on Sonderegger’s doctrine of God.

Bridging the gulf between biblical scholars and theologians: Can Barth and Wright provide an answer?

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 420-434
Author(s):  
Maico Michielin
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Length Relationship ◽  
Biblical Texts

AbstractThere was a time when the interpretation of the Bible was a seamless integrated theological activity. Today, the separation of biblical studies from theologically interested exegesis amongst theologians encourages a sceptical arms-length relationship between Old and New Testament scholars and theologians. Theologians criticise biblical studies' so-called objective and disinterested approach to interpreting the Bible for requiring scholars of both testaments to suspend their theological convictions. Biblical scholars condemn theologians for misusing biblical texts in support of their own preconceived theological agendas. The article suggests a way to bring these divergent exegetical approaches into conversation in a charitable, yet critical fashion, by comparing Karl Barth and N. T. Wright's exegesis of Romans 3:21–4:25. It concludes that the biblical scholar's and theologian's respective sensitivity to the historical and theological sense of the biblical text can, when brought together, benefit each other's reading of the Bible.

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