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Atonement, Christology and the Trinity Seem Like Puzzling Constructions Produced by Academic Theologians

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Atonement, Christology and the Trinity Seem Like Puzzling Constructions Produced by Academic Theologians ATONEMENT, CHRISTOLOGYAND THE TRINITY Vincent Brümmer is a philosopher of religion who takes systematic theology seriously. In his new book he uses his philosophical acumen to elucidate central topics of Christian doctrine: the Atonement, Christology, and the Trinity. For him they are not mere theological constructions but have their meaning and function in the context of the believer’s search for ultimate happiness. There is much to be learned from his clear and careful philosophical reworking of classical views of Reformed theology. New and controversial is the idea of a ‘matrix of faith’by which Christians claim to attain ultimate happiness and which Brümmer believes can be defended not only within the Christian, but also the Jewish and Islamic traditions. This will no doubt provoke discussion, and it should. – Professor Dr Ingolf Ulrich Dalferth, University of Zurich Professor Vincent Brummer writes as an established philosopher of religion who places his philosophical expertise at the service of theology. Here he builds on his earlier work on the non-manipulative nature of true love, expounds the work of Christ as God’s own act, and presses the logical entailments of language about atonement and the Trinity. Whether or not readers endorse all of his conclusions, his arguments are to be reckoned with and incisive observations and rigorous logic pose questions that need to be addressed. This is a challenging resource for ongoing debate in this area. – Anthony C. Thiselton, Emeritus Professor, University of Nottingham; Research Professor, Chester University College; and Canon Theologian, Leicester Cathedral and Southwell Minster For many believers today the doctrines of Atonement, Christology and the Trinity seem like puzzling constructions produced by academic theologians. They are cast in unintelligible forms of thought derived from Platonism or from feudal society, and for many their existential relevance for life today remains unclear. This book introduces these doctrines and proposes a reinterpretation in the light of the claim of many Christian mystics that ultimate happiness is to be found in enjoying the loving fellowship of God. This claim is a ‘matrix of faith’ in terms of which these doctrines are shown to be relevant for the life of faith of believers today. Furthermore, since this matrix can be defended within all three Abrahamic traditions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the proposed understanding of these doctrines can also contribute usefully to the necessary dialogue between these traditions in a globalized world. This page intentionally left blank Atonement, Christology and the Trinity Making Sense of Christian Doctrine VINCENT BRÜMMER University of Utrecht, The Netherlands © Vincent Brümmer 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. The author has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Company Ashgate Publishing Limited Suite 420 Gower House, Croft Road 101 Cherry Street Aldershot, Hampshire Burlington, VT 05401–4405 GU11 3HR USA England Ashgate website: http//www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Brümmer, Vincent Atonement, Christology and the Trinity : making sense of Christian doctrine 1. Jesus Christ – Person and offices 2. Theology, Doctrinal 3. Atonement 4. Trinity I. Title 230 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brümmer, Vincent Atonement, Christology, and the Trinity: making sense of Christian doctrine / Vincent Brümmer. – 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–7546–5225–4 (hardccover : alk. paper) – ISBN 0–7546–5230–0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Atonement. 2. Jesus Christ – Person and offices. 3. Trinity. I. Title. BT265.3.B78 2004 230–dc22 2004014034 ISBN 0 7546 5230 0 (PBK) ISBN 0 7546 5225 4 (HBK) This book is printed on acid-free paper Typeset in Times Roman by IML Typographers, Birkenhead, Merseyside Printed in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd. Bodmin Contents Acknowledgements vii Part 1 Prologue 1 1 The Intelligibility of Christian Doctrine 3 Mysteries and Puzzles 3 The Limits of Metaphorical Thinking 6 The Puzzles of Metaphorical Thinking 11 Theology and the Puzzles of Doctrine 12 Conclusion 18 Part 2 Fellowship with God: The Matrix of Faith 21 2 Ultimate Happiness and Fellowship with God 23 Rich and Famous 23 Human Love 27 Divine Love 31 Unhappiness as Estrangement from God 36 3 Estrangement and Reconciliation 38 Estrangement 38 Reconciliation 41 The Price of Reconciliation 43 Divine Forgiveness 49 Change of Heart 53 The Matrix of Faith 60 Part 3 Christian Doctrine: Interpreting the Matrix 63 4 The Doctrine of Atonement 65 A Point of Departure 65 Patristic Ideas on Atonement 67 The Universal and the Particular 69 Penal Substitution 73 Atonement as Reconciliation 77 v vi Atonement, Christology and the Trinity 5 The Doctrine of Christology 81 Atonement and Christology 81 Natures or Functions? 83 Reconciliation and the Divinity of Christ 85 Reconciliation and the Humanity of Christ 89 6 The Doctrine of the Trinity 93 Atonement and the Trinity 93 Social Trinitarianism 97 Latin Trinitarianism 106 Part 4 Epilogue 113 7 Dialogue and the Matrix of Faith 115 The Children of Abraham 115 Dialogue and Christian Doctrine 117 Exclusivism 119 Index 123 Acknowledgements I would like to thank a number of friends and colleagues for reading the manuscript of this book and making some valuable suggestions for improving my argument and clarifying my ideas. First I would like to thank Professor David Brown from Durham for his friendly comments. I appreciate these especially since his approach to the issues discussed here is in many ways very different from mine. Secondly I am very grateful to Professor Roel van den Broek, my colleague for patristics in Utrecht, for checking my treatment of the Church Fathers and making sure that I have not misunderstood them. Thirdly I would like to thank Dr Saeid Edeladnejad from Tehran and Professor Ghasem Kakaie from Shiraz for going through my manuscript and making some very valuable comments from a Moslem point of view. I am also most grateful to Ghasem Kakaie for his kind invitation to run a graduate seminar on this book at Shiraz University during the first week of Ramadan in October 2004. The enthusiastic response of his students confirmed my claim that what I call the ‘matrix of faith’ is not only fundamental to the Christian tradition but could also very well be defended within an Islamic context. Finally I would like to thank Agneta Schreurs and the Scheurs family for permission to use the painting of Christ with the crown of thorns by Jaap Schreurs (1913–83) on the cover of this book. This painting provides a perfect expression of what in this book I call the ‘price of forgiveness’. vii This page intentionally left blank PART 1 PROLOGUE This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER 1 The Intelligibility of Christian Doctrine Mysteries and Puzzles Whosoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith … And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father: another of the Son: and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one … For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity: to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord: so we are forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say, there are three Gods or three Lords … Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation: that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess: that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man. God, of the Substance of the Father; begotten before all worlds: and Man, of the Substance of his mother, born in the world … One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh: but by the assumption of the Manhood into God. One altogether; not by confusion of substance: but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man: so God and Man is one Christ; Who suffered for our salvation: descended into hell: rose again the third day from the dead. He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty … This is the Catholic Faith: which except a man believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved.1 If we were to ask ordinary believers in the pew to explain what exactly this confession means, they will probably be at a loss. Although contemporary believers would grant that these doctrines are fundamental to the Christian faith, most of them, when pressed, would have to admit that they remain puzzling conundrums. How are we to make sense of the claim that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons each of which is to be ‘acknowledged by himself to be God and Lord’ and yet that they are not three Gods but one ‘undivided substance’? Since for us ‘persons’ are by definition distinct individual agents, it is difficult to see how three persons can be merged into one undivided substance without ceasing to be distinct persons. It seems that the various attempts to solve this conundrum either do so by maintaining the unity at the expense of the Trinity or the Trinity at the expense of the unity. And how are we to make sense of the claim that Jesus is both wholly God ‘of the substance of the Father’ and at the same time wholly man ‘of the substance of his mother’? If Jesus is ‘wholly God’ he must presumably have the attributes of divinity like omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and so on.
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