tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post115697546891703728..comments2024-03-25T13:40:30.747-04:00Comments on Faith and Theology: Theology for beginners (9): ElectionBen Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1157129838877126822006-09-01T12:57:00.000-04:002006-09-01T12:57:00.000-04:00BenOne more point: I noticed you never addressed t...Ben<BR/><BR/>One more point: I noticed you never addressed the doctrine of revelation or the doctrine of the Word of God (threefold, etc.). The only starting-point given was faith, but what about God's self-revelation, or the nature of the Word of God incarnate, written, and preached? Revelation has come up over and over again in the comments, and it seems rather necessary to address that, particularly as that is the one doctrine I see the most confusion over. Any thoughts on adding a post on that subject?David W. Congdonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03009330707703611224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1157129665469560122006-09-01T12:54:00.000-04:002006-09-01T12:54:00.000-04:00Ben,I agree with your critiques of both Molnar and...Ben,<BR/><BR/>I agree with your critiques of both Molnar and McCormack, although I think the jury is still out on whether McCormack indeed believes that election is logically prior to triunity. I have a strong suspicion that he was articulating a possible way of interpreting Barth, or, also likely, just offering a radical thesis to provide theological discussion. I think I was articulating McCormack's actual position by locating election and triunity together.<BR/><BR/>And just so I'm clear, the issue you had with "logically" in my statement is that we do not understand election and triunity from our own logic but only out of God's self-revelation, is that right? In other words, we do derive God's being-in-act from logic, but we instead think-after (Nachdenken) God's revelation.David W. Congdonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03009330707703611224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1157068496348435182006-08-31T19:54:00.000-04:002006-08-31T19:54:00.000-04:00You continue to express these profound and grace f...You continue to express these profound and grace filled theological sentiments with clarity and depth - thank you. The Church needs solid theolgy in an age of often lightweight exegesis.<BR/><BR/>The lightwieght bit is purely my own opinion of course...Alastairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05802335223679839807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1157033171064855882006-08-31T10:06:00.000-04:002006-08-31T10:06:00.000-04:00I am reading Barth once again!Good post Ben!I am reading Barth once again!<BR/>Good post Ben!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1157030940138693712006-08-31T09:29:00.000-04:002006-08-31T09:29:00.000-04:00Call me silly, but I can't make sense of the follo...Call me silly, but I can't make sense of the following statement:<BR/><BR/>"Thus God constituted himself through a free decision."<BR/><BR/>I think the bit about "constituting" is best phrased differently. In other words, I have the barest inkling of what you're trying to get across. But only the barest inkling, because I do not know how to paraphrase what you are saying in "Thus God constituted himself through a free decision."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1157025191044507032006-08-31T07:53:00.000-04:002006-08-31T07:53:00.000-04:00Whatever the last Word will be (and was, and is..)...Whatever the last Word will be (and was, and is..), election of grace is really good news! Kind regards from a Beginner of theology.Petter Öhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17316189717484844594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1157020164755343242006-08-31T06:29:00.000-04:002006-08-31T06:29:00.000-04:00Byron, I wouldn't want to use the slippery term "v...Byron, I wouldn't want to use the slippery term "voluntarism", since the view of election I'm sketching here isn't offering any general theory about the nature of "will", or any general principle about the priority of one psychological "faculty" over others. Instead, the point here is simply that God's being is <I>uniquely</I> self-determining. So although there are some parallels here to certain forms of voluntarism, I don't think any general "-ism" is really involved. If anything, it's more related to an <I>actualistic</I> view of being: God's being is an act, and this act takes the specific form of a decision. (As you can see, in all this I'm directly following Barth.)<BR/><BR/>Yes, DWC, the McCormack-Molnar debate was definitely in the back of my mind as I was writing this! To put it a little crudely, I think both Molnar and McCormack are right in what they deny but wrong in what they affirm. I myself disagree with Molnar's account of divine freedom (i.e. that God is free "from" us, and so might have chosen not to be God-for-us); and I also disagree with McCormack's (brilliant but disastrous) thesis that election precedes triunity.<BR/><BR/>As Kim says, you're probably getting closer to the truth when you suggest that triunity and election are "one and the same event" (although I don't think I'd say "<I>logically</I> one and the same"). This is similar to Jüngel's interpretation: "This self-determination of God is an act of his self-relatedness as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.... God relates himself to himself in that he determines himself to be the one who elects" (<I>God's Being Is in Becoming</I>, p. 85). But I don't think this necessarily means that there is a <I>logical identity</I> between election and triunity. <BR/><BR/>In any case, it's a very difficult problem!Ben Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1157010249760773472006-08-31T03:44:00.000-04:002006-08-31T03:44:00.000-04:00Hi DW.Surely McCormack is right. Indeed Molnar's ...Hi DW.<BR/><BR/>Surely McCormack is right. Indeed Molnar's position strikes me as theologically incoherent. To debunk a pelagian understanding of <I>human</I> freedom, Barth deployed the image of Hercules at the crossroads. Pari passu with God.<BR/><BR/>Another way of putting this is that he whole notion of what God "could have done" misconstrues the <I>grammar</I> of God. The test case is the divine omnipotence, which, as T. F. Torrance (citing his mentor H. R. Mackintosh) says, "is what God does, and it is from His 'does' rather than from a hypothetical 'can' that we are to understand the meaning of the term."<BR/><BR/>One could say that God's <I>nature</I> is the grammar of God's <I>will</I>, not the other way round. Though, really, DW, you put it best when you suggest that "God's self-determination [his will] and triunity [his nature] are logically one and the same event.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1156995139909424092006-08-30T23:32:00.000-04:002006-08-30T23:32:00.000-04:00Stellar post, Ben! They keep getting better.It se...Stellar post, Ben! They keep getting better.<BR/><BR/>It seems that you have, whether intentionally or unintentionally, entered into the Molnar-McCormack debate over God's freedom. To sum up: Molnar wishes to argue that God's freedom means that God could have chosen to not become 'God for us,' that is, to forgo election altogether. McCormack argues that we can only understand God's freedom in light of God's election concretely revealed in Jesus Christ, and thus we have to understand God's freedom not as a secular freedom-from but as the truly Christian freedom-for.<BR/><BR/>I get the strong sense from this post that you would agree with McCormack? Is this right? Also, could you comment on whether you think God's triunity or God's act of election is logically prior — that is, whether God's triunity is the logical basis for election, or whether God's self-determination as the God who elects is the basis for God's triunity? An obvious via media would be to argue that God's self-determination and triunity are logically one and the same event. Would you choose this option? I felt like both sides were evident in your post.David W. Congdonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03009330707703611224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1156982838604932732006-08-30T20:07:00.000-04:002006-08-30T20:07:00.000-04:00Hey Ben (or others), I'm curious:God does not firs...Hey Ben (or others), I'm curious:<BR/><BR/><I>God does not first have a “being” which then makes certain decisions; rather, God decides to be who he is, he decides what his “being” will be like.</I><BR/><BR/>Do you then advocate <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntarism" REL="nofollow">voluntarism</A>? I realise this term has different uses in various areas of thought, but they seem to all stem from a basic theological voluntarism such as you seem to express here: that God's will precedes* God's being.<BR/><BR/>*Not necessarily a chronological precedence, of course, as you point out later in your post. Augustine distinguishes <I>four</I> different kinds of precedence in <I>Confessions</I> XII.xxxix.byron smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17938334606675769903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1156982030066073682006-08-30T19:53:00.000-04:002006-08-30T19:53:00.000-04:00... this post reminds me of how so many of Barth's...... this post reminds me of how so many of Barth's most profound ideas may be expressed in the simple term "Emmanuel."MMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14169520137196027425noreply@blogger.com