a pinch of Pannenberg, jam in some Jenson, & a hint of Haught
by Jonathan
So, I mentioned in my post on Haught’s ‘metaphysics of the future’ that I would present a supplemental theory of the trinity to help resolve some of my misgivings concerning his theory. Here I intend to demonstrate how a closer reading of Pannenberg (whom Haught cited) and some contribution from Jenson could give Haught a more robust doctrine of God that upholds human freedom without extra acrobatics or presumptions about God’s actions.
First, recall from my review of Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Trinity that the triune life consists in mutual submission. The father and the son reciprocally hand lordship to the other, they together hand lordship to the Spirit who upholds the two in love. Two things that I did not include in my review that will be relevant here are his doctrines of ‘revelation as history’ and his location of the Holy Spirit as the inbreaking future of God. Jenson also has much to say on a similar note and discussion of his doctrines will be made in parallel to Pannenberg’s.
First, Pannenberg says on this topic:
When we think of God’s self-revelation we have to think of it as mediated by his action, for that is always the content of biblical ideas of the Word of God, whether it be God’s action in creation, his historical action as it was intimated in the prophetic word, or the action in Jesus of Nazareth to which the primitive Christian kerygma made reference. (Systematic Theology vol. 1 p. 243)
Here he begins making a strong connection between the acts of God in history (economy) to the revelation of God’s being (immanence). He then clarifies that these historical acts – which can also be called promissory acts of God – are fulfilled or to be fulfilled by the eschatalogical Spirit of God and this becomes present in Christ: “The future of God is not merely disclosed in advance with the coming of Jesus; it is already an event, although without ceasing to be future.” (p. 247)
Jenson says something similar in his Systematic Theology vol 1: ”For, precisely, promises not only open a future to our vision but themselves enable that future; they contain and convey the future possibility they signify. And therefore the gospel must itself have history.” (Kindle Locations 252-254) He goes on to clarify: “the God to be interpreted in this work is the triune God. For the doctrine of Trinity is but a conceptually developed and sustained insistence that God himself is identified by and with the particular plotted sequence of events that make the narrative of Israel and her Christ.” (Kindle Locations 852-853)
While I have some criticisms of the two identification theses of Jenson here, I will leave that discussion for another post. For this context, the claims of Pannenberg are sufficient to remind us that God is the inbreaking future (as Spirit), but to stop here is to neglect the fact that this future is God insofar as it is fulfillment, which is to say that there was first promise (or Father as giver of the promise).
Here, I think we are prepared to supplement Haught. If God is the future that brings creatures to higher levels of awareness/consciousness, creation is too easily seen as determined (without Haught’s kenotic proposal, see previous post). But if we develop the doctrine of Trinity in similar fashion to Pannenberg and Jenson, we see that God is not only future but God is Past and is for us Present. Therefore, first and foremost, God does not submit himself to us that we could be free; instead, I would say, God as Father (Past/History/Giver of Promise) hands lordship to the One who mediates to us as Son (Present/Promise) who hands lordship together with the Father to the Spirit (Future/Fulfillment of the Promise). And this same Spirit continues by uniting the Giver and the Promise in love. If we understand God’s activity as such (or something like it) then we can see that for God as Spirit to overpower human freedom from the Future would also mean that God as Spirit overpowered God as Father and Son, the Giver and Bearer of that very freedom.
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Haught, John F. God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. 2007. Kindle Edition.
Jenson, Robert W. Systematic Theology: Volume 1: The Triune God. Kindle Edition.
Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Systematic Theology vol. 1. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1991
I realize it’s three months later, but I have to make sure I’m getting this. The thesis begins with Haught, “If God is the future (promise fulfillment) that brings creatures to higher levels of awareness/consciousness, God is also the history (promise giver) and present (promise itself) of that development.”
If that is the argument, the question of human freedom seems to lie more in the next question of how we see God operating in this way; once we define what is meant by “freedom,” of course.
Yes, I think you’re right. Honestly, I have (and have had) some misgivings about Haught’s formulations as well as specific criticisms of Jenson’s and Pannenberg’s conceptions of the trinity. Part of this has to do with the very problem of human freedom. This little test case was done in the hope that I could bring one author (Pannenberg) that I’ve reviewed to bear on another author (Haught) and see if it could lead to more constructive development.
For a brief sketch of human freedom in this framework, I think I would posit something to this effect: human freedom is something to the effect of an individual presenting a (or some) desire(s) as worthy and plausible of being a goal or telos, and then setting out to bring it to actualization. This ideally is a formulation of ‘libertarian’ free will. Then, in theological discussion, we have to wonder what aspect of human freedom we’re wanting to explicate. Freedom in salvation? in everyday activity? for the process of history?
Let’s take history, as it’s the topic which got us to this question. For this, if we disregard eschatology for a moment, we want to look at the manner in which the Father grants us freedom in the Spirit through the Son. Could this be viewed as a promise of God? Would God promise humans/humanity the ability to affect the direction of history? It seems that the Old Testament actually presupposes that God does just this, the prophetic books being a great example of God’s dynamic interaction with the people God enables to enact history (and God’s warning of the consequences of their actions – here is seems that God could be in a sort of rational discourse with these immature children: “You are free to do this (adopt these desires as goals/teloi) but those are not worthy goals!” or even “what you think is the telos of your action is misguided, the consequences will be different.) In this situation, I think that we could say the Son (in whom we share our being/ we become one in Christ’s body) comes before the Father as his own Father enabling us also to come to God as Father. We receive the promise of God as a Father’s promise to his Son. (Granting, of course, that we can then adopt for ourselves other goals – creating our own alternative human promise.) The Spirit then is actively engaged in the possibilities within the created reality for that promise to be completed.
Granting, as I did, that humans – even those adopted to sonship through Christ – can adopt alternative teloi or create alternative promises, the future of history is not guaranteed to be an optimistic one (ie: God’s desire for the future may not be actualized). Here the transtemporal/eschatological promise of God comes into prominence. God has promised a divine ending to this created story. The Son as Christ has proclaimed and come as the embodiment of that very promise. The Spirit will ultimately breathe new life into the new creation of God at the eschaton.
Thus, we see that God’s own promises are dynamically related to the ones (us humans) with whom God covenants. Also, we have a more realistic and biblical vision of the development of history and the prospects for the future than Haught does. As well, we have an understanding of human freedom that does not require the inadequate appeal to kenosis that Haught requres.