Evangelical Uses of Trinity as an Archetype for Gender (Part Four): Rahner's Rule and Theological Language
A
third key distinction regards the rules of how human language can transfer into
a reference of God. For example, the EFS
advocates are quite forceful to take the concept and language of human
fatherhood and its implicit authority over human sons, and apply this concept
to God’s eternal relations. Grudem writes:
“God the Father has always been a Father, and has always related to the Son as
a father relates to a son.”[1] And Bruce Ware is even more explicit:
“clearly, a central part of the notion of father is that of fatherly
authority.”[2] Ramping up the emphasis yet again is the
opinion of Robert Doyle which we have previously quoted: “The Father is a real
father, and the triune Son a real son. Neither names are metaphorical.”[3] Implying, again, that the concept of a human
father’s authority over his son, and a son’s obedience to the father, can be
read back in a fairly straightforward or univocal manner into God.
As a
general extension of this principle, Grudem, Ware, Letham, and virtually the
entire host of EFS defenders want to argue that the subordination we see in the
economy of salvation can be “read back,” into the eternal relations of the
Trinity.[4] There is of course nothing illogical about
this. Both sides want to “read back”
certain features of the economy as representative of God in se—the question then becomes what are the criteria or filters
for what counts as legitimate, and what does not? This question is not limited to these Evangelical
debates—in fact in one respect it represents a wider trend in the Trinitarian
renaissance.[5] To use the terms of the wider debate, the
EFS school takes a much more univocal emphasis on what has in this century been
termed “Rahner’s Rule,”[6]—that
the “economic trinity is the immanent trinity, and vice versa”[7]—than
do Egalitarians.[8] In
other words, what we see in Jesus’ relation to the Father in history (with
varying levels of definitiveness, given ones interpretation of Rahner’s Rule
itself—“Rahner’s rule is an axiom in search of an interpretation,”[9])
reveals the inner contours of God’s eternal life itself. One of Karl Rahner’s biggest complaints in the
Trinity was the “manual Thomist” claim that any
of the persons could have become incarnate, which Rahner argued essentially
eliminated our ability to know anything in particular about God via the
incarnation.[10] Thus instead of a strong doctrine of
“appropriations,” Rahner argued that the obedience and incarnation was proper
to the particular identity of the Logos.[11]
Thus,
so argues EFS adherents, Jesus’ submission to the Father in the economy is not
just a temporal and temporary economic movement akin to the kenosis and
incarnation (as Egalitarians argue), but is indicative of the eternal nature of
God’s Trinitarian relationship itself: “The human obedience of Christ has a
basis in the Son of God himself.”[12] But
here again we witness another sort of “talking past,” one another. And the way the EFS school defines the
issue—whether or not there is a basis for the Son’s obedience in the economy in
God’s eternal life—is not wrong, but can be misleading. For the Egalitarians do affirm that yes, absolutely, there is an identity-constituting
feature of the Logos that is revealed via the economic obedience of the Son. But this feature of God’s immanent life is
that the Son is, to use Nicene language, “God from God.”[13] They then also employ an “Augustinian gloss,”
on the creed: we should not read the language of the Son as “sent” from the
Father to imply subordination of any sort.
“This then is the rule which governs many scriptural texts, intended to
show not that one person is less than the other, but only that one is from the
other.”[14] Or to quote Thomas Aquinas: “What comes forth
interiorly [in the life of the Godhead] by spiritual process is [all] the more identified with its source,”[15]
so “the term principle [for the Father] has as its meaning not priority, but
simply source,”[16]
and so “we recognize an equality in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in that
no one of them comes first in eternity, excels in greatness, or surpasses in
power.”[17]
Thus
Letham’s description of the need for a continuity of identity between the
pre-incarnate, and the incarnate word, is surely correct, but does not of
itself describe an ethos dividing the EFS from the Egalitarians. The real point of difference is that the EFS want to note that the continuity is described by “eternal function
subordination,” while Egalitarians use the more generalized Augustinian gloss
that the Son “is from” the Father as an equal from equal. An additional point of confusion arises at
this juncture as both sides affirm what has traditionally been called the
eternal taxis or irreversible
“ordering” of the Godhead “From the Father, through the Son, in the Holy
Spirit.” Yet EFS theologians like Letham
argue the traditional use of the concept of taxis
“is a question of order, not rank,” and so implies EFS without the charge
of ontological inequality.[18] Conversely the egalitarian reading notes this
is exactly the point: it’s a question of order, not rank![19] It in no way implies any chain of command or
eternal structure of obedience, but is rather a description of the dynamic of
God’s inner life as actus purus.[20] At this point one begins to wonder if such
difficulties are arising because both sides are not noticing how their new
questions are perhaps transcribing values into the tradition where they are not
originally present? If one asks of the
tradition EFS type questions, one receives EFS type answers, and mutatis mutandis the same goes for
egalitarian agenda.[21]
In
the name of future dialog between the two sides, we must ask the question: how many
(and how much) of our metaphors, names, and images can be “read back,” into
God? If one takes the fairly extreme phrasing
of Doyle—that Father are Son are not metaphorical names—what could this
mean? Clearly the Father did not
impregnate some goddess and have a son.
And obviously this is not what Doyle meant—yet what could “not
metaphorical” then mean when sex and inter-gender partnership are literal
prerequisites for human fatherhood? What
about the fact that all human fathers have fathers? Without sounding too accusatory, “not
metaphorical” as Doyle uses it seems somewhat empty and needs further
clarifying. As it stands it appears as a
case of special pleading to assume that “not metaphorical” gets one the
authority relations of human fathers and sons, but none of the immediately less
orthodox sounding ad absurdum characteristics that might stem from a “non-metaphorical”
ascription of fatherhood to God. By
extension we thus might generalize this idea and say Egalitarians conversely
play the “analogical speech” card, and take a softer read of Rahner’s
Rule. For example, it is argued that the
predicates “Father,” and “Son” must first be translated through the logic of
infinity and perfection before they can even remotely be adequate ascriptions
to the Trinity that God is. Again, take
Augustine as example: “In what way could the Father be greater [than the
Son]? If he is greater, he is greater
with greatness. But since His greatness
is shared with the Son…the father cannot be greater than the greatness he is
great with. So [they are] equal…and it
remains if they are not equal in any one
thing, then [the son] is not equal.”
But if that is indeed the case, then if the Father and Son are both
perfects, and the Son is, in Augustine’s language “a Perfect from a Perfect,”
then the authority relationship of human fathers to human sons seems, at the
very least, to not mean the same thing when predicated of God.[22]
Conclusion
[1] Grudem, Systematic
Theology, 459.
[2] Ware, “Tampering with the Trinity,” 245.
[3] Doyle, “Are We Heretics?” 14.
[4] Here, as with many places, the considerably more
nuanced Letham disagrees: “This is to use a human metaphor… to govern the
doctrine of the Trinity.” Letham notes this
is “exactly the reverse,” of his
argumentation. Rather, “The point is
that the Trinity is three irreducibly different persons in indivisible union,
one in being, equal in status, indwelling in mutual love, in an order (not a
rank).” (399n.59).
[5] So pervasive is the influence of Rahner that Fred
Sanders writes (I believe quite correctly): “It is possible to tell the whole
story of Trinitarian theology from 1960 on as the story of how Rahner’s work
was accepted, rejected, or modified.” Fred Sanders, “The Trinity,” in Mapping Modern Theology: A Thematic and
Historical Introduction eds. Kelly M. Kapic & Bruce L. McCormack (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2012), 36. Indeed Sanders
himself has done this: Fred Sanders, The
Image of the Immanent Trinity: Rahner’s Rule and the Theological Interpretation
of Scripture (New York: Peter Lang, 2001).
[6] The term “Rahner’s Rule” was first coined by Ted
Peters, “Trinity
Talk,” in Dialog 26 no.1 (Winter
1987) pp.44-48 and 26, no.2 (Spring 1987), 133-138. C.f. Ted Peters God as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in Divine Life
(Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 213 n.33.
[8] For Giles “egalitarian,” position on “Rahner’s Rule,”
c.f. Jesus and the Father, 242-274.
[9] Randal Rauser, “Rahner’s Rule: An Emperor Without
Clothes?” International Journal of
Systematic Theology, 7 no. 1 (2005): 81-94.
Quote at 81.
[10] Rahner, The
Trinity, 23.
[12] Letham, Holy
Trinity, 397.
[13] Giles, Eternal
Generation of the Son, 151-172.
[14] Augustine, The
Trinity II.i.3 (p.99)
[15] Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologia, 1q.27a.2.2.
[18] Letham, The Holy
Trinity, 399-400; 480-481. In this
manner of putting it Letham is much more nuanced than Grudem, Ware, and many of
his fellow EFS Complementarians who pull no punches and simply say “the Father
commands, the Son obeys.” Letham notes:
“I never use hierarchy or subordination or
their functional equivalents. Instead I
consistently use the word ‘order’ … (taxis).’”
(480) where taxis means “orderly
disposition,” not rank. (483). How
exactly this in itself is different from “egalitarian” positions which retain taxis escapes me.
[19] Giles, Eternal
Generation of the Son, 205-220; c.f. our own note 59 above.
[20] But again there are exceptions which muddy the
waters. For example Bilezikian,
“Hermeneutical Bungee-Jumping,” 64 seems to believe taxis does in fact imply “hierarchy.” Letham, The
Holy Trinity rightfully disabuses such a notion (480).
[21] In this respect the argument of taxis may also revolve around EFS proponents equating egalitarian
arguments with their extreme possibility in the theology of the vastly
influential German theologian Jürgen Moltmann.
C.f. Jürgen Moltmann The Trinity
and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (London: SCM, 1991). C.f. for example: “It is not the monarchy of
the single ruler that corresponds to the triune God; it is the community of men
and women, without privileges and without subordination.” (198); Moltmann even
suggests that the “order” of the Trinity goes through every possible iteration
or what he calls “transformations” in the progressing of the economy of
salvation—from Father-Son-Spirit, to Spirit-Son-Father et al (94-97). This in itself is a provocative claim; when
one adds to it the weight of the EFS party that set authoritarian relations are responsible for personhood and
relation, one can see how this sort of dynamism would be met with ire.
[22] Augustine, The
Trinity, VI.i.6 (p.208).
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