In a very stimulating presentation on “divine poetics” in Thomas, my colleague Jonathan McIntosh pointed to this very intriguing statement from Disputed Questions on Truth : “The one first form to which all things are reduced is the divine essence, considered in itself. Reflecting . . . . Continue Reading »
Mark A. McIntosh ( Mystical Theology: The Integrity of Spirituality and Theology (Challenges in Contemporary Theology) ) offers a profound and moving pneumatological response to what he describes as the “mythological” and “Cartesian” Trinitarian theology in Moltmann and La . . . . Continue Reading »
Zizioulas offers a thoughtful defense of the Cappadocian notion that there is “causality” in the relations within the immanent Trinity. He notes that “the issue of causality was introduced as a response to the Platonists, who believed that the procession from one to another, . . . . Continue Reading »
Barth, along with much of the Western tradition, defends the filioque on the basis of coherence of the economic and ontological Trinity. If God is not as He appears, we have no revelation of God. John Zizioulas responds by opening up a rather surprising gap between economy and ontology. . . . . Continue Reading »
Several years ago, I posted at length about Barth’s discussion of the filioque clause. One point I left undeveloped was: “If the Spirit is also the Spirit of the Son only in revelation and for faith, if He is only the Spirit of the Father in eternity, i.e., in His true and . . . . Continue Reading »
Barth’s problems with natural revelation and with creation seem to have a root in his trinitarian theology. The reconciling Son, he says, comes onto the field that has been created by the Father, yet “we must obviously distinguish them in such a way that we perceive and . . . . Continue Reading »
A neat statement from Barth regarding the Triune root of creation and revelation: “the intradivine possibility in virtue of which God can be manifest to us as the Creator and as our Father is not a self-grounded and self-reposing possibility. It rather presupposes a possibility of this . . . . Continue Reading »
We cannot, Barth insists, read off the relations of the persons from revelation. In comprehending the distinctions between the persons in revelation we “do not comprehend the distinctions in the divine modes of being as such.” That would lead to tritheism. To be sure, the . . . . Continue Reading »
Is the Son dependent on the Father? Yes; the Father begets the Son, so the Son is Son only because the Father has begotten Him. This is an eternal begetting, and so the Son always was. But the Son’s always-existing depends on the Father. Is the Father dependent upon the Son? . . . . Continue Reading »
The Spirit who comes to dwell “in” us is the Spirit who is “in” the Son, who is also “in” the Father. By grace, we are capacious enough to house God. But it goes in the opposite direction too: We live and move “in” the Spirit, who is . . . . Continue Reading »
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