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Trinity, incarnation and time: a restatement of the doctrine of God in conversation with Robert Jenson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Eugene R. Schlesinger
Eugene R. Schlesinger*
Affiliation:
Rev. John P. Raynor, SJ Fellow, Marquette University, 1250 West Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53233, USAeugene.schlesinger@marquette.edu
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Abstract

This article engages Robert W. Jenson on the question of the relation between the immanent Trinity and the person Jesus of Nazareth and proposes a restatement of the doctrine of God that takes into account his concerns. I note that many of the criticisms levelled against Jenson are contradictory and offer instead a rearticulation of Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of God, refracted through the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, as a more viable mode of engaging Jenson's ideas. In particular, I suggest an analogia temporalis rooted in the divine processions to account for the relationship between time and eternity, thereby showing how Thomas's theology can both accommodate and benefit from many of Jenson's insights, while also avoiding the more serious charges levelled against him.

Keywords

AquinasBalthasareternityincarnationJensonTrinitysimplicity
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 69 , Issue 2 , May 2016 , pp. 189 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 Jenson's major works on this front include The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), Systematic Theology (2 vols, New York: OUP: 1997, 2001), and Unbaptized God: The Basic Flaw in Ecumenical Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1992). For the controversy surrounding Jenson's proposals, see Farrow, Douglas, Demson, David and DiNoia, Joseph Augustine, ‘Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology: Three Responses’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 1/1 (1999), pp. 89–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hunsinger, George, ‘Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology: A Review Essay’, Scottish Journal of Theology 55/2 (2002), pp. 161–200Google Scholar; Molnar, Paul D., Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity (London: T&T Clark International, 2005), pp. 68–81Google Scholar. Emmitt Cornelius offers a sympathetic, though critical, appraisal in ‘The Concept of Christ's Preexistence in the Trinitarian Theology of Robert W. Jenson: An Exposition and Critique’, Ph.D. dissertation, Westminster Theological Seminary, 2005.

2 Jenson, Robert W., ‘Reply to Watson and Hunsinger’, Scottish Journal of Theology 55/2 (2002), p. 231CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jenson, Robert W., ‘Once More the Logos asarkos’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 13/2 (2011), p. 133CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 55Google Scholar.

4 Jenson, Triune Identity, pp. 2–5, 7–13; Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 4Google Scholar.

5 For this phrase see Jenson, Unbaptized God.

6 Jenson, , Triune Identity, pp. 57–61Google Scholar; Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 90–5Google Scholar.

7 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 14Google Scholar.

8 Jenson, Triune Identity, pp. 5–10; Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 31, 42–6Google Scholar.

9 Jenson, Triune Identity, p. 8.

10 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 31Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., pp. 31–2.

12 Cornelius, ‘Concept of Christ's Preexistence’, pp. 17–18; Tavast, Timo, ‘The Identification of the Triune God: Robert W. Jenson's Approach to the Doctrine of the Trinity’, Dialog 51/2 (2012), p. 160CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Verhoef, Anne H., ‘The Relation between Creation and Salvation in the Trinitarian Theology of Robert Jenson’, HTS Teologiese Studies 69/1 (2013), p. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol.1, p. 59Google Scholar.

14 Jenson, Triune Identity, p. 168. This was drawn to my attention by Cornelius, ‘Concept of Christ's Preexistence’, p. 128.

15 Jenson, Triune Identity, p. 156.

16 Jenson, ‘Logos asarkos’, p. 130; Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 126–7Google Scholar.

17 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 95–100, 103Google Scholar.

18 Jenson, Triune Identity, p. 25; Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 94, 110, 113Google Scholar. See also Cornelius, ‘Concept of Christ's Preexistence’, pp. 24, 48–9; Tavast, ‘Identification of the Triune God’, p. 158.

19 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 218Google Scholar.

20 Jenson, , Triune Identity, 25Google Scholar; Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 94Google Scholar.

21 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 138–40Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., p. 226; Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 2, pp. 34–5 (35).Google Scholar

23 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 217Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., pp. 216–18; Jenson, Triune Identity, pp. 176–7.

25 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 218Google Scholar.

26 Jenson, Triune Identity, p. 24.

27 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 2, p. 27Google Scholar.

28 Jenson, ‘Logos asarkos’, 130; Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 126–7Google Scholar.

29 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 141Google Scholar. Note Cornelius's criticism of the adequacy and coherence of this position in ‘Concept of Christ's Preexistence’, pp. 195–229.

30 Jenson, Triune Identity, pp. 140–1. See also Cornelius, ‘Concept of Christ's Preexistence’, p. 114.

31 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 142–3Google Scholar.

32 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 85Google Scholar.

33 Jenson, Robert W., ‘Jesus in the Trinity’, Pro Ecclesia 8/3 (1999), pp. 105–6Google Scholar.

34 Jenson, ‘Jesus in the Trinity’, pp. 106–7.

35 Jenson, Triune Identity, pp. 103–20; Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 105–14Google Scholar. Note, however, George Hunsinger's criticism of this pitting Augustine against the Cappadocians, which he grounds in the patristics scholarship of Michel Barnes and Lewis Ayres, ‘Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology’, pp. 187–92.

36 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 104–6Google Scholar; Jenson, , Triune Identity, pp. 106–7Google Scholar.

37 Jenson, Triune Identity, p. 113.

38 Hunsinger, ‘Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology’, pp. 167–74.

39 Jenson, ‘Response to Watson and Hunsinger’, p. 231.

40 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 104–13Google Scholar.

41 Hunsinger, ‘Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology’, pp. 187–92.

42 Aran Murphy, Francesca, God Is Not a Story: Realism Revisited (Oxford: OUP, 2007), pp. 263–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 95–100, 103Google Scholar.

44 This particular way of putting the matter is Hunsinger's, ‘Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology’, p. 175.

45 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 141Google Scholar.

46 Jenson, ‘Logos asarkos’, p. 131.

47 Bentley Hart, David, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2004), p. 157Google Scholar.

48 Ibid., pp. 162–3.

49 Ibid., pp. 162–3, 166.

50 Ibid., pp. 164–6.

51 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (hereafter ST), I.10.1.

52 Ibid., I.10.2.

53 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 140–1Google Scholar.

54 Pannenberg, , ‘Eternity, Time, and the Trinitarian God’, in Gunton, C. E. (ed.), Trinity, Time, and Church (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2000), p. 70Google Scholar. Pannenberg identifies this notion of eternity as ‘Plotinian’, however, the definition is the same as the one Aquinas cites from Boethius. The connection with Pannenberg is particularly interesting. Pannenberg has undoubtedly had a profound influence on Jenson, particularly in the future-oriented cast of his work. In this particular essay, Pannenberg notes that he differs slightly from Aquinas's axiom that God is his own esse, by positing God as ‘his own future’ (pp. 68–9), a phrase which Jenson picks up (Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 157). What I am suggesting here is that, given a proper understanding of Aquinas's identification of eternity with God's life, Pannenberg's move need not be seen as a difference.

55 Jenson, Triune Identity, p. 25; Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 94Google Scholar. But see Douglas Farrow's criticism that this ‘is not the rout of the timelessness axiom it is meant to be’ (‘Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology’, pp. 92–3).

56 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 55, 226Google Scholar.

57 Ibid., pp. 66, 217; Jenson, Triune Identity, pp. 177, 180, 182.

58 Stated most clearly in Jenson, ‘Logos asarkos’, p. 133.

59 Jenson, Robert W, ‘Conceptus . . . De Spiritu Sancto’, Pro Ecclesia 15/1 (2006), pp. 105–6Google Scholar.

60 On the basic and constitutive character of the container metaphor for human cognition see Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999), pp. 30–6Google Scholar.

61 Colin Gunton has a helpful discussion of the container metaphor in ‘Creation and Mediation in the Theology of Robert W. Jenson: An Encounter and a Convergence’, in Trinity, Time, and Church, pp. 87–9.

62 Aquinas, ST, I.10.1.

63 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 113Google Scholar.

64 Affirmed by Aquinas, ST, I.43.2.

65 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Action, vol. 4 of Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory (hereafter TD, 4), trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), pp. 323–7, 331.

66 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 2, pp. 26, 48Google Scholar.

67 Aquinas, ST, I.14.8; I.19.4.

68 Aquinas, ST, I.19.1–3.

69 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 102Google Scholar.

70 Jenson, ‘Logos asarkos’, p. 133.

71 Aquinas, ST, I.10.1.

72 See also Cornelius's analysis of Jenson on time, and the suggestion that God's time becomes the condition of possibility for created time in ‘Concept of Christ's Preexistence’, pp. 138–47. Where my proposal differs is by envisioning the same basic relationship, but without positing ‘time’ in the divine eternity.

73 Ive, Jeremy, ‘Robert Jenson's Theology of History’, in Gunton, Trinity, Time, and Church, pp. 154–5Google Scholar. So also Simon Gathercole, ‘Pre-existence, and the Freedom of the Son in Creation and Redemption: An Exposition in Dialogue with Jenson, Robert’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 7/1 (Jan. 2005), p. 50Google Scholar; Hunsinger, ‘Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology’, p. 172.

74 Jenson, Triune Identity, p. 125.

75 Jenson, , Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 59Google Scholar.

76 Aquinas, ST, I.43.2.

77 Balthasar, , TD, 4, pp. 323–7, 331Google Scholar.

78 Ibid., pp. 329–32. Similarly, Gunton suggests that some of the problems attendending Jenson's formulation would be ameliorated were we to see creation taking place in Christ, ‘rather than within God simpliciter’, ‘Creation and Mediation’, pp. 91–2.

79 Hart, Beauty of the Infinite, p. 158.

80 Aquinas, ST, I.3.1–8.

81 Aquinas, ST, I.3.3.