Major Book Review: Karl Rahner – The Trinity[1]
Submitted to Mabiala Kenzo, Ph.D. www.ambrose.edu
Rahner's Thesis
Rahner's thesis is that the Immanent Trinity is the Economic Trinity and vice versa (22), and that no adequate distinction can be made between the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the Economy of Salvation (24).
Overview of Content
Rahner posits that Christians by the late 1960's were effectively monotheists without consciousness of the Trinitarian reality of God (10-11). At this time believers expressed interest in 'God incarnate' without an awareness of the "Word" who IS God incarnate. Such theological imprecision regarding the Trinity is viewed by Rahner to be a disservice to believers as it infers that there are no real distinctions to be had between the Three Persons (11). The fact that Trinitarian theology is so weak and imprecise indicates to Rahner that, in truth, Christians have a very poor idea of who God is and have lost a sense of God's connectedness to creation, unlike, for example, the medieval Franciscan theologian St. Bonaventure.
Rahner suggests that the Trinity was effectively forgotten due to its 'incomprehensibility', such that in contemporary times Christians have nothing to do with the Trinity except to 'know something about it'. He states plainly that if the believer cannot know the persons of the Trinity now, today, then the question becomes 'Can we know the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in eternity?' (14-15). Rahner then goes on to broach a number of theological problems that he perceives, for example:
- Aquinas sees God as the "essence" of the three persons rather than the unoriginate origin of divinity and reality.
- Rahner states that by the beginning of the 1970's there is no valid or serious consideration of the revelation of the Trinity in the OT (or other religious traditions) in terms of theological reflection being done by the Church.
It is Rahner's position that the mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of our salvation (22) and that the Immanent Trinity and Economic Trinity are one in the same. He states that Jesus 'as the Word incarnate' is uniquely God 'in this way' and the Father and Holy Spirit are 'not God in this way' (23), further positing that no adequate distinction can be made between the doctrine of the trinity and the doctrine of the economy of salvation. As regards reference to the Divine Persons we cannot claim to know fully what is the meaning of 'persons' or 'hypostases' in relation to understanding the Trinity (26), nevertheless Rahner holds that the Trinity fully communicates Godself to the world in light of the Economy of Salvation (27). It is the logos (λόγος) and no other of the Three Persons who reveals to us the triune God on account of the personal being which belongs exclusively to Jesus, the Father's logos (30).
Rahner uses the incarnation as an example of how the Immanent and Economic Trinity are One. He presents the idea that under contemporary circumstances theologians were not considering the Persons of the Trinity separately and states: "Suppose Jesus incarnate…- human as such - would not show us the logos as such", this hypothesis says that Jesus reveals essentially nothing of the reality of who He is in relation to the Father and Holy Spirit, rather He reveals only an 'image' of Himself that does not reveal His true self, or the heart / essence of who He is. Rahner posits that "what Jesus is and does as man reveals the logos as our salvation amidst us. Then we can assert, in the full meaning of the words: Here the logos with God, and the logos with us, the immanent and economic logos, are strictly the same (31-33)."
In Rahner's view, "each one of the three divine persons communicates himself to humanity in gratuitous grace in his own personal particularity and diversity. This Trinitarian communication is the ontological ground of man's life of grace and eventually of the direct vision of the divine persons in eternity (34-35)." Word and Spirit communicate to man who God is "as He is in Himself… the Economic self-communication of God is truly and really three-fold… it follows that this real mediation of a divine kind in the dimension of salvation history must also be a real mediation in God's inner life. The 'threefoldness' of God's relationship to us in Christ's order of grace is already the reality of God as it is in itself: a three-personal one (37-38)."
We do not fully understand the Trinity, which is described by Church councils as 'absolute mystery', although we do know the Trinity through revelation: "There are mysteries hidden in God which cannot be known unless revealed by God". That being said, the Church has historically left the " 'concept of mystery' undetermined… except that it is opposed to the rational-conceptual intelligibility of a statement or to everyday empirical knowledge"; therefore the Trinity is free to open new horizons of human knowledge, and "deepen the very concept of mystery [such that] God's very incomprehensibility might, as a positive predicate of our knowledge, be brought into inner proximity to the Trinity (50-51)", meaning the mystery itself deepens our true understanding of God as Trinity.[2]
As to the unity of the Three Persons, Rahner states that "on account of the unity of the essence the Son is from all eternity in the Father, the Father is from all eternity in the Son, and so on (79)." Further, when only one kind of activity is attributed to a particular Person of the Godhead such activity is nevertheless "implicitly attributed to both other persons, [keeping in mind that] each divine Person possesses its own proper relation to some created reality (76-77)."
Finally, as to God's revelation of Godself to humanity, Rahner suggests the following:
The differentiation of the self-communication of God in history (of truth) and spirit (of love) must belong to God "in himself," or otherwise this difference, which undoubtedly exists, would do away with God's self- communication. For these modalities and their differentiation either are in God himself (although we first experience them from our point of view), or they exist only in us, they belong only to the realm of creatures as effects of the divine creative activity. But then they are God's mediations in that difference which lies between creator and that which is created out of nothing. Then they can only be that communication of God which occurs precisely in creation, in which what is created contains a transcendental reference to the God who remains forever beyond this difference, thus at once 'giving' him and withdrawing him. Hence there occurs no self-communication, God himself is not there, he is only represented by the creature and its transcendental reference to God. Of course, the real self-communication of God too has its effect in the creature (the creaturely reality of Christ and 'created' grace); and the relation between self-communication as such (divine hypostasis as hypostatically united; uncreated grace) and the effect in the creatures may ontologically be explained as one prefers, according to the different theories with exist about this point in Christology and the doctrine of grace. But if there is to be a real self-communication and not mere creation, this creaturely reality is, at any rate, not mediating in the sense of some substitute, but as a consequence of the self-communication (and as a previous condition brought about by itself). God's self-communication, as concretely experienced by us, may always already imply this creaturely consequence and condition. But if this created reality were the real mediation of the self-communication by way of substitute, in the difference between creator and creature, there would no longer be any self-communication. God would be the 'giver', not the gift itself, he would 'give himself' only to the extent that he communicates a gift distinct from himself (99-101).
If I understand Rahner correctly (and I elaborate upon the point below), this is to say that if God as Immanent Trinity does not communicate the fullness of Godself to humanity in a way that we can fully encounter (as Economic Trinity) then we do not know God in Truth nor in Love. If God who is entirely unlimited in His capacity to communicate Himself to humanity chooses not to let us know who He really 'is' in his being / heart then, from a human vantage point one might reasonably conclude that this God does not really love us (98-99).[3] Rahner is simply restating what has been the saints' experience of God's immense and unlimited love for the last two millennia; As Vietnam's proto-martyr Andrew of Phu Yen so clearly stated before his execution at 20 years of age, "Let us return love for love to our God, let us return life for life."[4]
Critical Evaluation of the book (with particular attention to its relevance to the ongoing discussion on Trinitarian Theology)
The Trinity fully communicating Godself to the world (27) seems obvious today in light of Scripture. That being said, I am aware of the fact that it took the Church centuries to 'explain' how God as One could be communicating Godself to the world in three different though complementary ways, under three hypostases / in three 'Persons'. I am going to consider Rahner's thesis by looking first at the consequences of belief in an 'Immanent' concept of the Trinity as distinct from the 'Economic' concept of Trinity, and then at the ultimate out-flowing of life that comes from the consideration of the Trinity as at once "God within the eternal divine life [Immanent]… [and] God as disclosed in the economy of salvation [Economic]" (Grenz, 55)[i].
The Immanent Trinity – 'God within the eternal divine life'
The first question that arises from the long held theological assertion of the Western Church that God does not reveal the 'heart of Godself' to us, (which is what the doctrine of the Immanent Trinity infers to me), is "If God is love, and God loves us, why does God choose not to reveal the fullness of who He is to us whom He claims to love enough to die for?" Indeed, if we are siblings and children to the Jesus and the Father as Hebrews teaches, then surely God withholding Himself from us in any way indicates that God does not in fact love us completely or fully or totally, and that Jesus' death on the cross was not an act of self-sacrificial love as the Church has long taught, but rather Jesus' death was merely a means by which God could reassert His authority over humanity so that we could be enslaved to His will.[ii]
The Immanent Trinity; a God that cannot be known.[5] How do humans 'know' love? If humanity is created in the image and likeness of God, and we as human beings have limited ways of coming to the experience or knowledge of love, then a God who loves us must be willing to come to us in the unlimited fullness of His capacity to make us know His love. When we are deeply loved we know our lover in a way that demands the fullness of self-revelation. Certainly God is not limited in the ways by which He can make Himself fully known to those He loves. A God who cannot be fully known by the believer whom He has loved into being is no God at all. "In God we live and move and have our being", but we cannot know God in Godself? Is this possible? Can Love withhold Love's Self from His beloved?
Both Scripture and the apophatic tradition within Christianity testify to the fullness of God's self-giving both in Jesus' personal sacrifice and in how God communicates Himself intimately to believers today. A God who cannot be known in the depths of His being by those whom the Scriptures claim He loves - we whom He calls His Bride - is not a God but a caricature of the God revealed in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
The Economic Trinity – 'God as disclosed in the economy of salvation'
God as we know the Trinity to be is accessible to us through our experience of the created order, Scripture states as much. I understand the historical position of theologians in expressing the point that creation is limited in the extent to which it can possibly reveal to humanity the 'full' nature of the Trinity, however, creation in and of itself has never had this function according to the Biblical witness so far as I am aware. Creation has clearly played a significant role in God's plan for revealing Himself to humanity.
What motivated the God whom we cannot really know in the depths of His being to reach out to us in love; the God who "so loved the world that He gave His only son that whoever would believe in Him would have eternal life"? Scripture says that it was love that motivated God to come to us and die in order to bring us home… but that's only the Economic Trinity talking… what motivated the Immanent Trinity to reach out to humanity? All we can know is 'a' face of God, an 'image'[iii] that He lets us see, He doesn't reveal His heart to us. How is this significantly different from an Islamic conception of God? Maybe we are loved by God and maybe we are not, we can never know the heart of God, or God's real motivations.
The Immanent Trinity is the Economic Trinity ~ The Economic Trinity is the Immanent Trinity
If "God is Love" (1 Jn. 4:8) and our experience of 'love' reveals certain necessary qualities to the fullness of what love is, and if we assert that the communion of the Divine Persons is a communion of love, then I offer the hypothesis that – due to God's nature and Being as Divine Love and the very source of all Love, and in light of God's relationship to Israel and the Church as 'Divine Spouse' – God must certainly reveal the fullness of Godself to His people. Total self-revelation to the fullest extent possible, in the human experience, is what true love demands. If total self-revelation, indeed total self-sacrifice (death to self), were not a requirement of Love in its fullest expression then, quite likely, there would have been no need for God to come to humanity, a man amongst men, making himself lower than his very creatures through subjecting Himself to humiliation, condemnation, and bodily destruction at our very hands. If in seeing Jesus we have seen the Father (Jn. 14) and through Jesus' life, death, resurrection and his final sending of the Holy Spirit we have come to know the third person of the Trinity, then Rahner's postulation is correct that the Immanent and Economic Trinity are one in the same reality for believers.
The view held by some theologians that the Trinity did not reveal the heart or essence of their relationship to humanity is presumptuous in my view. Again, if God is Love, then in his infinite capacity to love and reveal Himself to us He would surely not intentionally withhold from us anything of who He truly is in the fullness of his Being. Surely the only limits to God's self-revelation that humanity will experience are those that we ourselves place upon God; meaning, God has allowed each one of us to freely choose Him, but He awaits our love, he awaits our welcoming Him into our lives so that He can freely give fully and completely of Himself to us. Mystical theology in the writings and experience of such persons as Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross and others testify to this. I suggest that God's free choice of the manner by which he reveals Himself to us individually, (and as His Body - the Church), are the only limitations we experience pertaining to God's revelation of Himself to his people.
(with particular attention to its relevance to the ongoing discussion on Trinitarian Theology)
The development of the doctrine of the Immanent Trinity seems to have grown out of a time in Western Church history when theologians were disconnected from their own humanity. Perhaps that was a consequence social hierarchies that perpetuated systemic injustice in the medieval Western world, or of Scholastic Theology (-ies) that developed out of monastic traditions that encouraged disconnection from family, society, and the creation? I know that Eastern theologians for a time regarded Western theology to be focused on reason and lacking prayer. Contemporary theologians in the West, like Rahner, have suggested that theology cannot be done without prayer. Praise be to God for that!
Rahner's contribution to the ongoing discussion of Trinitarian theology seems to be a much needed reaffirmation of the Incarnation, the humanity of Jesus, and the Trinitarian love that brought each one of us and all humanity to birth. In light of Rahner's Trinitarian theology I am better understanding the need for the liturgical reforms of Vatican II for example. The Tridentine (pre-1965) Mass, insofar as I perceive it from personal experience, is very much an affirmation of the unknowability of an Immanent Trinity. It discourages any sense of 'God with us' while stressing an experience of God us untouchable, unknowable, and unreachable. The new (novus ordo) Mass of the Latin Rite communicates God as 'with us' or even 'in us', thus an immanent God in the order of creation, a God accessible, reachable, indeed touchable in the Sacrament of the altar and in our fellow Christian.
Rahner's Trinitarian theology does not shy away from looking to both Protestant and Eastern Church thinkers. Is a renewal of Trinitarian theology also a door to Christian reconciliation? Is there the possibility of 'unity in diversity' across Christian Traditions? Catholicism in fact comprises 23 sui iuris[iv] Churches that are in full communion with one another, the Latin (Roman) Rite being the largest of the Catholic communities. Presently the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches are in dialogue regarding the role of the papacy in Christian history and how formal ecclesial reconciliation will be able to be established in the future in light of the pope's role as it has been understood over two millennia. There are obstacles to unity in this area, but there is willingness to move ahead because there is now a perceived need. Can formal reconciliation be established between the Roman Catholic Church and the various Protestant Churches / communities?
In light of God as Trinity, in light of the prayer of Jesus that His followers 'be one' as He is in the Father and the Father is in Him (Jn.17:21), and in facing the fact that Jesus is One with the Father and the Holy Spirit – a unity in diversity of expression – we MUST find a way to be reconciled as Catholics and Protestants because that is the will of Jesus written explicitly in Scripture! However, when I consider the fear, distrust, and at times obvious hatred that can be shared between Catholics and Protestants (not to mention Orthodox) I see we have a long road to travel.
The Triune God who is with us, whose will is known to us through having revealed His heart to us in both Word (Scripture) and action (the Crucifixion and Resurrection) is THE prototype of our Unity as the One Body of Christ. There already exists a unity of love amongst Christians of diverse Traditions, now our ecclesial communities need to establish full visible communion. Our present divisions, especially in the areas of orthodox Scriptural interpretation and Christian moral teaching are heart rending, and are profoundly damaging the fruitfulness of our witness – arguably at the cost of souls and lives – in a world that so deeply needs to know the Truth of God's Love and Redemption.
[1] Rahner, Karl. The Trinity. Trans. Joseph Donceel. New York: Seabury Press, 1974.
[2] Mystery, or 'inexplicability', as an aspect of apophatic knowledge or experience of God is not problematic in light of the Christian experience of God in prayer, worship, and silence. That the Christian knows God in ways beyond explaining or defining is a normal aspect of the experience of believers throughout the history of the Church. This fact is well attested in the teaching of the Eastern Churches as well as, for example, the writings of such Western doctors of the Church as Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Ávila, and John of the Cross.
[3] Rahner, 98-99. "… The divine self-communication possesses two basic modalities; self-communication as truth and as love. This… statement implies that this self-communication, insofar as it occurs as 'truth', happens in history; and that insofar as it happens as love, it opens this history in transcendence towards the absolute future, [eternal life with God]. This is not evident at once. History as concrete, in which the irrevocability of the divine self-communication is made apparent, and transcendence towards the absolute future are opposites, and as such they keep the one divine self-communication separated in their modalities. But this historic manifestation as truth can be perceived only in the horizon of transcendence toward God's absolute future; this absolute future is irrevocably promised as love by the fact that this promise is established in concrete history (of the 'absolute bringer of salvation'). Insofar as these two statements are true, the two modalities of divine self-communication are not separated, nor are they tied together simply by divine decree. They constitute the one divine self-communication which assumes the form of truth in history, or origin and offer, of love in transcendence toward the freely accepted absolute future.
Suppose we wish to put these two basic modalities under one short formula… the divine self-communication occurs in unity and distinction in history (of the truth) and in the spirit (of love).
Both basic modalities condition one another. They derive from the nature of the self-communication of the unoriginate God who remains incomprehensible, whose self-communication remains a mystery both as possible and as actual. But the two modalities are not simply the same thing.
[4] Blessed Andrew of Phu Yen, 17th century catechist, proto-martyr of Vietnam.
[5] Rahner, 103. An 'apologetics' of the 'immanent' Trinity should not start from the false assumption that a lifeless self-identity without any mediation is the most perfect way of being of the absolute existent. Afterwards it will then claim that in God the distinction is 'only' relative, and thus try to remove the difficulty brought about by an assumption which amounted to a false initial conception of God's 'simplicity'.
[i] Grenz, J. Stanley. Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology. Fortress Press: Minneapolois, MN. 2004.
[ii] Jesus' death in such a case may merely have been God's means of reestablishing order in the spiritual and earthly realms while at the same time meeting the demands of His justice.
[iii] Not unlike the Eastern Christian theology of iconography:
The word "icon" (εικονα) etymologically derives from the verb "ico" (εικω) or "eica" (εοικα) which means "likeness" (or image), namely an imprint of the characteristics of the prototype. This means that an icon does not have its own hypostasis (being) but its value exists in the likeness with the prototype. "For what is imprinted is different from that which is being imprinted" says Saint John Damascene. The icon therefore is the perceptible means between the faithful and the prototype which is invisible to them. Great Basil refers to a distinction between a "natural" and "artificial" icon. Both types of icons have a common known, the likeness of the prototype that they depict. They differ though in this: The likeness of the natural icon to the prototype refers to the essence of the depicted prototype, maintaining the difference in its hypostasis. A characteristic example of a natural icon is the Son and Word of God in relation to God the Father. The Apostle Paul says that "Christ is the icon of the invisible God" (Col 1:15). Namely, the Son is "the identical icon of the Being" as Saint John Damascene mentions, and referred to God the Father as being identical in essence. What makes the Son different to the Father is His hypostasis and specifically the characteristic of being born. On the other side, the artificial icon likens the depicted person in his appearance but differs as of his essence. Since the artificial icon refers only to the appearance of the one depicted, therefore what is depicted is not his nature but the hypostasis of the prototype as mentioned by Saint Theodore Studite: "What is depicted on an icon is not its nature but its hypostasis". This likeness between the icon and the one depicted constitutes the condition of existence of the artificial picture. That is why the Orthodox icons are not a product of the fantasy of every artist but the prototypes (the Lord, the Theotokos, the Saints) are historic personalities with their own individual characteristics. Clearly the Fathers of the 7th Ecumenical Synod observe, "Having seen the Lord, as they saw, so they depicted Him, and having seen James, the brother of the Lord, as they saw him, so they depicted him". – "Theological approaches to the Hagiographic art" cited 12 Oct. 2010 from the website of the Holy Monastery of the Pantocrator: http://www.impantokratoros.gr/751A636C.en.aspx
[iv] 'Sui iuris' Churches are those which have their own autonomy or self-jurisdiction in terms of tradition and organization while being in full communion with the Church of Rome and accepting papal authority in the areas of Church teaching on faith and morality.