Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Michael T. Dempsey is assistant professor of theology at St. John's University, New York.

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Trinity and Election in Contemporary Theology

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Contents

Acknowledgments....................................................................................................................................................................................ixIntroduction Michael T. Dempsey....................................................................................................................................................................11. God's Triunity and Self-Determination: A Conversation with Karl Barth, Bruce McCormack, and Paul Molnar Kevin W. Hector.........................................................................292. The Trinity, Election, and God's Ontological Freedom: A Response to Kevin W. Hector Paul D. Molnar..............................................................................................473. Can the Electing God Be God Without Us? Some Implications of Bruce McCormack's Understanding of Barth's Doctrine of Election for the Doctrine of the Trinity Paul D. Molnar.....................634. Election and the Trinity: Twenty-Five Theses on the Theology of Karl Barth George Hunsinger.....................................................................................................915. Election and the Trinity: Theses in Response to George Hunsinger Bruce L. McCormack.............................................................................................................1156. Obedience, Trinity, and Election: Thinking With and Beyond the Church Dogmatics Paul Dafydd Jones...............................................................................................1387. Barth and the Election-Trinity Debate: A Pneumatological View Paul T. Nimmo.....................................................................................................................1628. "A Specific Form of Relationship": On the Dogmatic Implications of Barth's Account of Election and Commandment for His Theological Ethics Christopher Holmes....................................1829. God's Self-Specification: His Being Is His Electing Aaron T. Smith..............................................................................................................................20110. Karl Barth, German-Language Theology, and the Catholic Tradition Nicholas M. Healy.............................................................................................................22911. Christ, the Trinity, and Predestination: McCormack and Aquinas Matthew Levering................................................................................................................24412. The Gospel of True Prosperity: Our Best Life in the Triune God Now and Not Yet Paul Louis Metzger..............................................................................................277Contributors.......................................................................................................................................................................................295Index..............................................................................................................................................................................................297

Chapter One

Kevin W. Hector

Introduction

Though Bruce McCormack and Paul Molnar agree with Karl Barth's insistence that God's immanent triunity is known only by way of God's economic triunity, they disagree sharply in regard to its implications. What, for instance, is the relationship between God's triunity and God's self-determination to be God-with-us? What does "freedom" mean when predicated of God? What is the identity of the Logos asarkos? Though they (appear to) agree that answers to these questions must be found in God's economic triunity, McCormack and Molnar disagree on what conclusions this entails. McCormack claims that God's economic triunity reveals that God is eternally self-determined to be God-with-us, such that God's being is eternally being-toward the economy of grace. From this, McCormack infers that (a) the Son must be identified as eternally toward-incarnation, and that (b) God's self-determination is logically prior to God's triunity, in the sense that God constitutes Godself triunely for the sake of being with humanity. Over against McCormack, Molnar contends that God's immanent triunity prevents such interpretations: on Molnar's account, God's immanent triunity is what guarantees God's freedom even in the economy of grace. As such, Molnar rejects the idea that the Son is eternally toward-incarnation and that God's self-determination is logically prior to triunity. (In fact, Molnar also appears to reject the eternality of God's self-determination.)

The agreement of McCormack and Molnar with regard to the starting point does, however, provide a helpful means by which to adjudicate between their respective claims: would either one, on the basis of their admitted starting point, need to reconsider his conclusions? In this chapter I claim that Paul Molnar's response to Bruce McCormack contains within itself the refutation of his own position, but that McCormack's position may move too far in the opposite direction. Toward this end, I will examine (a) the common ground between them; (b) where they disagree; (c) the relationship between their disagreement and the theology of Karl Barth (with which each claims to be in continuity); and (d) the implications that follow from this examination. On this basis, I will argue that (a) the Logos asarkos should indeed be understood as Logos incarnandus; (b) God's self-determination must be understood in terms of the concrete act of Father, Son, and Spirit, and thus not as the act that constitutes God's triunity (whereas McCormack seems to suggest that election is necessary and triunity contingent, I will argue that the reverse is true); and, (c) given that God eternally determined Godself to be-with-us and that God's freedom is freedom-for the covenant with humanity, there is a sense in which humanity is contingently necessary to God.

Agreement between McCormack and Molnar

Assessing the claims of McCormack and Molnar is simplified by the fact that each (a) affirms that theology must be nonspeculative (and each agrees that this means starting with God's economic triunity), and (b) affirms that his theology represents a faithful continuation of Karl Barth's.

Both McCormack and Molnar argue that theology must reject speculative claims about God and, furthermore, that the antidote to such speculation lies in relating God's immanent and economic triunity. In other words, for a theological claim to be nonspeculative, it must be based on God's self-revelation in the economy of God's work ad extra. Though McCormack spends little time defending this position in isolation from his argument, he makes it clear that he is taking up Barth's insistence on doing theology "without engaging in speculation." For his part, Molnar argues at length for this same rejection, insisting that "a contemporary doctrine [of God] should eschew irrelevant speculation about God's inner nature." Therefore, theologians must "adhere to the economic Trinity for our information about the immanent Trinity." From this point of view, Molnar contends that there are only two theological options (and McCormack would...