Loving Father, Embodied Son, and Life-Giving Spirit: The Trinitarian Narrative and Liturgical Experience

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes This essay is built on and draws heavily from my Trinity and Revelation, vol. 2: A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), chap. 2. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, bk. 2, eds. Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas Forsyth Torrance, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956–1975), 483, 512–13. Gospel and the Church—The Malta Report (1972), no. 16, available at http://www.pro.urbe.it/dia-int/l-rc/doc/e_l-rc_malta.html. Dei Verbum, no. 2, available at http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html. For theological reflections, see Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “‘Evil, Love and the Left Hand of God': The Contribution of Luther's Theology of the Cross to an Evangelical Theology of Evil,” Evangelical Quarterly 74, no. 3 (July 2002): 215–34. Martin Luther, “Heidelberg Disputation,” in Luther's Works, eds. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1957), 31:57 (hereafter LW). LW, 31:52. Ibid. LW, 31:53. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, trans. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993), 26. Ibid., 27. Chung Hyun Kung, The Struggle to Be the Sun Again (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 39. Luther juxtaposes “negative” and “positive” works of God using different kinds of nomenclatures, such as left and right hand or alien and proper work. He uses them in the context of speaking of two governments, divine and earthly; in the context of two kinds of theologians, namely theologian of the cross who discerns God in opposite elements such as divine suffering and humiliation, and theologian of the glory; in the context of soteriology, namely showing us, first, to be sinners who are desperate, and then making us just and hopeful. Anne Wonhee Joh, Heart of the Cross: A Postcolonial Christology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006), xxi. Andrew Sung Park, The Wounded Heart of God: The Asian Concept of Han and the Christian Doctrine of Sin (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 123. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.6.6, available at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103406.htm. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word 8.1, available at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2802.htm. Aquinas, Summa Theologia 3.1.1, available at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/. Karl Rahner, “The Quest for Approaches Leading to an Understanding of the Mystery of the God-Man Jesus,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 13, trans. David Bourke (New York: Seabury, 1975), 200. Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans. Joseph Donceel (London: Burns & Oates, 1970), 32–33 (33). Karl Rahner, “The Body in the Order of Salvation,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 17, trans. Margaret Kohl (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 74. Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, bk. 1, 119 (see n. 2); cf. Vatican II's Dei Verbum no. 4. See 1 Corinthians 2:9–10: “But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,’ God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 379. Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 49–50. Ibid., 216. Additional informationNotes on contributorsVeli-Matti KärkkäinenVeli-Matti Kärkkäinen is professor of systematic theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, and Docent of Ecumenics, University of Helsinki, Finland.