The Mystery of the Spirit in Three Traditions: Calvin, Rahner, Florensky Or, You Keep Wondering Where the Spirit Went

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century North Atlantic theology has seen a succession of Trinitarian revivals. Some observers take as an index of a theologian's success whether he or she has much interesting to say about the Holy Spirit, and some, including Robert Jenson, have also noted a tendency to announce the Spirit and talk about the Son. While Rogers shares that concern, he qualifies the characterization to note that authors in three traditions sometimes admit the charge and demur, claiming that is how it should be, citing passages in Calvin, Rahner, and Pavel Florensky. Of these the boldest is Florensky, who anticipates Jenson's critique but, writing in 1913, makes it not of Barth but of Eastern Orthodox theology (usually seen as a model to follow here), even in its liturgy. Rogers leaves this puzzle unresolved.     

'Until He Comes': Towards an Eschatology of Church Membership

This article is a critical consideration of Robert Jenson's understanding of the church as the Body of Christ in the light of 1 Corinthians. Jenson is understood to be claiming that the church is the presence on earth of the eschatological kingdom. This is based on a variety of faulty presuppositions. But Jenson's view of the church as a social political reality is found not to allow for a distinctive ethic. 1 Corinthians is shown to assert the priority of the Word, creating the church, and to have an eschatological morality, relating worship and church polity.     

On Robert Jenson's Trinitarian Thought

This paper addresses Robert Jenson's critique of impassibility along with his Trinitarian formulations. Jenson's decision to eschew a doctrine of divine impassibility leads him to adopt a Kantian conception of subjectivity in order to explicate the traditional concept of hypostasis. In turn, Jenson advocates a Hegelian notion of determinate negation to relate to a concept of being dependent upon a German Idealist figuration of temporality. The final section of the paper contrasts Jenson's modernist immanentism with the positive perichoretic movement of Jonathan Edwards' trinitarian thought. For Edwards, the Trinity cannot be known as a repeatable object of knowledge reflected within human consciousness, but as a non-identical repletion of eternal love to which univocal categories do not apply.     

Leashing God with Levinas: Tracing a Trinity with Levinas

Levinas' ethical metaphysics opens up a nexus of relationships, in the midst of which God becomes accessible as the counterpart of the justice I render to others. Although Levinas refuses a theorising theology which does violence to God, we attempt in this article nonetheless to glimpse the possibility of a divine threesome (leash) which can be articulated in the language of ethical metaphysics. We seek to trace a Trinity, not in Levinas, but with Levinas. We seek to 'leash God with Levinas.'
Thus, we argue the liturgical nature of God . God is utterly 'for-the-other.' The Father, as utterly self-diffusive, is 'for-the-Son', and the Son, as utterly responsive, is 'for-the-Father.' The divine nature ( ousia ) is the ethical reality of 'for-the-other.' Secondly, this one nature ( ousia ) has three distinct hypostases , which need to be understood ethically. The relationship between Father and Son is not the same as the relationship between the Son and the Father. The Father and the Son are the same in that they are essentially 'for-the-other,' bound by a bond or a Spirit of responsibility . Yet, the Son's relation to the Father is responsive, whereas the Father's relation to the Son is initiative or originary. Thus, there is both an identity yet a non-identification of Father and Son. Again, since responsibility is the ethical hypostasis of 'the-other-person-in me,' we might say that the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father (cf. John 14:10,11), in a non-identical way, and that it is precisely this perichoresis of the one in the Other which constitutes the hypostasis of each.     

The Body of Christ: Rethinking a Classic Ecclesiological Model

Abstract:   The image of the church as the body of Christ is deployed by Karl Barth and Robert Jenson in the service of very different and equally unsatisfactory ecclesiologies. While Barth's concern for divine freedom causes him to accentuate the distinction between head and members to the point of positing two churches, Jenson's stress on Christ's objective presence in the world risks collapsing Christ into the church. Against both positions, attention to the fact that human bodies can be encountered in what may be distinguished as second- and third-person modes allows the image of the body of Christ to be deployed in a way that precludes both any confusion of divine and human agency and any separation of Christ from the earthly-historical community.     

The End of the Incarnation: John Owen,Trinitarian Agency and Christology

Recent interpreters of John Owen incorrectly argue that Owen's trinitarian theology undermines the doctrine of inseparable operations (Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa). On the contrary, this article argues Owen upheld this doctrine like his Reformed Orthodox contemporaries, using the incarnation as a test case. Owen maintained the incarnation was an undivided act of the Trinity, which had its appropriative terminus on the Son alone – a pattern of thought he extended to the Spirit's work on the Son's humanity. Owen's creative use of the tradition is an example for contemporary theologians who would emphasize the Spirit's role in Christology.     

Kenosis,Necessity and Incarnation

The doctrine of the Incarnation faces the following modal challenge: ‘The Son, as God, exists of necessity; Jesus, as man, exists only contingently. Therefore they cannot be one and the same.’ On the face it, the kenotic model, on which the Son gave up some of the divine properties at the Incarnation, cannot help to meet this challenge, since the suggestion that the Son gave up necessary existence implies that the necessity in question was only contingent, and this notion makes no sense. A necessary being is necessarily (and therefore eternally) so. This paper, however, argues that some necessities may appropriately be described as ‘contingent’, being conditional on contingent and mutable circumstances, and that there is a natural understanding of divine necessity on which the Son could give up necessary existence on becoming incarnate.     

Messianism and Kingship in the Gospel of John: A Comparison Between the Fourth Gospel and the Royal Psalms 2, 72, and 110

The article shows that messianism and kingship in the Gospel of John are involved in the royal psalms, such as Psalms 2, 72, and 110. Although these psalms were never quoted in the Gospel of John, there is a strong likelihood that the royal psalms have been alluded in the Gospel of John. This article examines the similarities and differences between the royal psalms and the Gospel of John, and, thus, shows how each present the messiah as the ideal king, concentrating on the terms “the Son of God,” “the Son of man,” and “the kingdom of God” that John shares with the royal psalms in terms of the messianic views. It appears that John uses the terms, in a unique way to emphasize the divine aspect of the messiah, by putting weight on the main characteristics of the messiah as the ideal king who was pre-existent before creation.     

Assumption,Union and Sanctification: Some Clarifying Distinctions

In this article I engage with the notion that Christ ought to be understood to have a fallen human nature because Christ sanctifies human nature, and it is fallen humanity that needs sanctifying. In opposition to this line of thought, I argue that the Son of God assumed an unfallen nature, but with the powers of fallenness operative within it, and that this notion is consistent with a distinct account of sanctification. In support of these claims, I develop distinctions between a conjoining union and a transferring union, and between the Chalcedonian union at the incarnation and the extension of that union on the cross. At the assumption a conjoining union occurred, not a transferring union. Christ sanctified his own nature, prior to a transferring union.     

Holy Scripture under the Auspices of the Holy Trinity: On John Webster’s Trinitarian Doctrine of Scripture

As he approached the monumental task of writing his own systematic theology, John Webster gave strategic attention to constructing a doctrine of Scripture that was adequate to support such a project. In contrast to some well‐respected modern systematic theologies that got by with less robust bibliologies (those of Pannenberg and Jenson), Webster saw the need to establish from the outset a more fully elaborated doctrine of Holy Scripture. He framed that doctrine of Scripture by appealing above all to his central dogmatic commitment, the doctrine of the Trinity. The trinitarian contours of Webster’s doctrine of Scripture are most conspicuous in his treatment of the missions of the Son and the Spirit. Webster understands the entire Bible as the self‐testimony of the risen Christ (mission of the Son), and explains its cognitive effectiveness in terms of the full range of the work of the Holy Spirit in inspiration and illumination (mission of the Spirit). The trinitarian grounding of his doctrine of Scripture enabled Webster to retrieve the Protestant orthodox doctrine of Scripture’s inspiration.     

God by Any Other Name?

"Father, Son and Holy Spirit" is not a name for God, but a doxological convenience; a mode of reference to the transcendent mystery that is condensed in Jesus' person and work. It therefore ought to be possible to refer to God differently without referring to a different God, to use other "names" for God that are just as true to the triadically structured mystery revealed in the economy of God's salvation. Those who argue that this breaks the semantic link with the narrative of God's incarnation in Jesus Christ neglect the subjective and pneumatological aspect of our address to God.     

God's Triunity and Self-Determination: A Conversation with Karl Barth, Bruce McCormack and Paul Molnar

Abstract: A recent disagreement between Bruce McCormack and Paul Molnar highlights some of the issues involved in discussing the relationship between God's triunity and determination to be God‐with‐us. Can we say that God's determination to be with us is the basis of God's triunity? Must we identify the Son's being as eternally toward‐incarnation? How does God's freedom relate to God's eternal decision to be God‐with‐humanity? In this article I argue (contra McCormack) that God's triunity logically precedes God's determination to be with us, but (contra Molnar) that this logical precedence entails neither that the pre‐incarnate Son is utterly unknown to us nor that God retains some freedom to be God‐without‐humanity.     

《管子》论“国有四维”的现代启示

“礼”、“义”、“廉”、“耻”为国家的“四维”,《管子》曰：“国有四维,一维绝则倾,二维绝则危,三维绝则覆,四维绝则灭。”可见“礼”、“义”、“廉”、“耻”犹如支撑国家大厦的四根柱子,如果有一根断裂,就会危及国家的安危。在市场经济高度发展的现代,我们要借鉴“守国之道,在饰四维”的治国之道,汲取中国传统文化中“礼义廉耻”的合理因素,加强道德建设,使我们的国家更加昌盛富强。     

Did Christ have a Fallen Human Nature?

Abstract: Recently, it has become common to claim that the human nature assumed by the Son was ‘fallen’, although sinless. This seems a difficult thing to say with a traditional understanding of original sin. This article explores this difficulty, proposes a possible solution, and then shows that the solution proposed also faces logical difficulties. The article thus argues that it is not possible to make logical sense of the notion that Christ's humanity was fallen.     

Trinity, Temporality, and Open Theism

A number of thinkers today, including open theists, find reasons to attribute temporality to God. According to Robert W. Jenson, the Trinity is indispensable to a Christian concept of God, and divine temporality is essential to the meaning of the Trinity. Following the lead of early Christian thought, Jenson argues that the “persons” of the Trinity are relations, and these relations are temporal. Jenson’s insights are obscured, however, by problematic references to time as a sphere to which God is related. Schubert M. Ogden gives the notion of divine temporality coherent content by arguing that God’s actuality is best understood as an unending succession of experiences. This paper was delivered in the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God.     

Launching themes in Israeli fathers and mothers

This study focused on launching processes as reflected in the reactions of Israeli parents to the drafting of their eldest son. A questionnaire tapping parents' reactions was constructed and administered to 237 couples. Factor analysis delineated eight substantive factors: Emotional Investment, Parent-Child Strains, Fostering Son's Maturity, Parental Disengagement, Parent's Transitional Phase, Dissatisfaction with Army, Son's Unpreparedness, and Strengthening Family Relations. The factors depicted modes of coping with launching and transitional midlife processes. The construct validity of the factor scales was examined in a multivariate regression analysis with 12 predictor variables related to sociodemographics, attitudes, personal concerns, and satisfactions. Mothers differed from fathers in some factor scale means as well as in the pattern in which the predictor variables related to the factor scale scores. The results are interpreted in terms of ambivalent launching reactions involving distress on the one hand and a sense of growth on the other. While adaptation to this transition in the family takes place within a specific cultural context, its implications for universal launching features are also discussed.     

Taking Pictures of Jesus: Producing the Material Presence of a Divine Other

A new form of visual representation of divine others is emerging: photography. I examine here a set of photos of deities related to an apparition claim. The goal I pursue is to analyze the self-constitutive features of these pictures – how they produce what they claim to be. I argue that the “presence' of the deities in the photos is achieved through “incarnation practices.' But these pictures are not just a factual representation of alleged mystical events. They constitute an update and a variation on the “Grand Christian Narrative' wherein the factual poses the moral problem of belief. In that sense, divine photography does not modify the epistemology of religious belief.     

Jenson,Hegel and the Spirit of Recognition

This article engages the pneumatology and account of divine freedom found in Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology. It raises a novel set of questions about Jenson's account of divine freedom, which bears on persistent questions regarding the nature of G.W.F. Hegel's influence upon Jenson. While most engagements with Jenson take for granted what it is to be ‘Hegelian’, this article foregrounds the diversity of contemporary Hegel interpretation. It argues that Jenson's account of divine freedom would profit from a stronger dose of Hegel's philosophy – specifically, Hegel's account of mutual recognition – provided that Hegel is interpreted along the lines of the non‐traditional school of Hegel interpretation. The article concludes with a brief constructive sketch of a Jensonian pneumatology conceived along these lines.     

“Being there” and remembering it: Presence improves memory encoding

Few studies have investigated the link between episodic memory and presence: the feeling of “being there” and reacting to a stimulus as if it were real. We collected data from 244 participants after they had watched the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron. They answered questions about factual (details of the movie) and temporal memory (order of the scenes) about the movie, as well as their emotion experience and their sense of presence during the projection. Both higher emotion experience and sense of presence were related to better factual memory, but not to temporal order memory. Crucially, the link between emotion and factual memory was mediated by the sense of presence. We interpreted the role of presence as an external absorption of the attentional focus toward the stimulus, thus enhancing memory encoding. Our findings could shed light on the cognitive processes underlying memory impairments in psychiatric conditions characterized by an altered sense of reality.