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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
The dispute between two of Princeton Theological Seminary's leading Barth scholars concerning theological ontology invites engagement from the contemporary Thomistic tradition. On the one hand, McCormack argues that, in a fully Barthian theological ontology, divine triunity is constituted by the pretemporal election of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, Hunsinger contends that this election is expressive of an antecedent trinity. In the light of scholastic disputes between Dominican and Franciscan theologians, McCormack's proposal is seen to resemble aspects of the Bonaventurean account of triune relationality, particularly the account of procession as constitutive of personal distinction and the affirmation of a primordial ‘primity’ adhering to the Father's innascibility. Whilst McCormack seeks to avoid an undetermined originary plenitude, his treatment of the divine attributes as logically consequent to election risks attributing to pretemporality a status akin to originary primity. Affirming, with Hunsinger, an eternal trinity antecedent to election, the Thomistic tradition nonetheless contains the resources necessary to prevent this antecedence becoming a dissociative antecedence. As such, Thomism preserves divine aseity whilst equally safeguarding against the disconnection of logos asarkos from logos incarnandus that McCormack regards as an unwarranted metaphysical speculation that bypasses the particularity of revelation in Jesus Christ.
1 Kaltwasser, Cambria Janae, ““Transforming Encounters”: The Friendship of Karl Barth and John Mackay, in Karl Barth and the Making of Evangelical Theology, ed. Anderson, Clifford B. and McCormack, Bruce L. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 178–93 at p. 183Google Scholar.
2 ‘See: Noll, Mark A., The Princeton Theology 1812‐1921(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001)Google Scholar.
3 Moorhead's magisterial historical study of the Princeton Seminary explores the germination of this distinctive theological vision, and the tensions emerging from contested Presbyterian identities, in considerable detail: Moorhead, James H., Princeton Seminary in American Religion and Culture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012)Google Scholar.
4 See, for instace, the collection of essays exploring the Hunsinger‐McCormack dispute, edited by Dempsey, Michael: Trinity and Election in Contemporary Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011)Google Scholar.
5 McCormack, Bruce L., “Grace and Being: the role of God's gracious election in Karl Barth's theological ontology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed. Webster, John Bainbridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 92–110 at 92CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hereafter cited as “GB”.
6 Hunsinger, George, Reading Barth with Charity: A Hermeneutical Proposal (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015), 16Google Scholar.
7 Heppe, Heinrich, Reformed Dogmatics, trans. Thompson, G. T. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1950), 146–47Google Scholar.
8 ST I, qq 22 and 23. See, in particular: ST I, q23, a 1, respondeo.
9 CD II/2, 3‐93; CD III/3, 3‐57.
10 Brouwer, Rinse H. Reeling, “Election, in Cambridge Companion to Reformed Theology, ed. Nimmo, Paul T. and Fergusson, David A.S. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 44–59 at 45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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12 CD II/2, 149ff.
13 CD II/2, 115ff.
14 CD II/2, 99‐106.
15 CD II/2, 125‐135.
16 Gockel, Matthias, Barth and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 1–15, passimCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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18 Ibid., 2‐3.
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21 McCormack, Bruce L., Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 460Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as ‘CRDT’.
22 On the impact of Maury, see: CRDT, 456‐463.
23 See: McDowell, John, “Karl Barth, Emil Brunner and the Subjectivity of the Object of Christian Hope,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 8, no. 1 (2006): 25–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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25 CD II/2, 3.
26 McCormack, Bruce L., Orthodox and Modern (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 9–18Google Scholar.
27 Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, 387.
28 McCormack, “Seek God Where He May Be Found: A Response to Edwin Chr. van Driel,” 67.
29 CD IV/1, 181‐183. See also: Jones, Paul Dafydd, The Humanity of Christ: Christology in Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 90Google Scholar; McGinnis, Andrew M., The Son of God Beyond the Flesh (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 150–55Google Scholar.
30 See, for instance: CD IV/1, p. 181ff.
31 McCormack, “Grace and Being: the role of God's gracious election in Karl Barth's theological ontology,” 92‐110 (103). Hereafter cited as ‘GB’.
32 See CRDT, passim.
33 CRDT, p. 421.
34 In addition to works cited elsewhere in this essay, see: Molnar, Paul D., “Can the Electring God be God Without Us?,” in Trinity and Election in Contemporary Theology, ed. Dempsey, Michael T. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 63–90Google Scholar at; Hunsinger, George, “Election and the Trinity,” in Election and Trinity in Contemporary Theology, ed. Dempsey, Michael T. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 91–114Google Scholar at; See also McCormack's response to Hunsinger: McCormack, Bruce L., “Election and the Trinity: Theses in Response to George Hunsinger,” in Election and Trinity in Contemporary Theology, ed. Dempsey, Michael T. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 115–37Google Scholar at.
35 CD II/2, p. 107.
36 CD IV/2, p. 345.
37 GB, 102.
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39 See: Reading Barth with Charity: A Hermeneutical Proposal, 103.
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44 ST I q42, a2. See also: ST I q4, a2.
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60 “God's glory is God himself in the truth and capacity and act in which he makes himself known as God.”, see: CD II/1, p. 641.
61 CD II/1, p. 610.
62 CD II/1, p. 460‐468.
63 CD II/1, p. 613.
64 CD II/1, p. 612.
65 CD II/1, p. 618.
66 “Time itself is in eternity. Its whole extension from beginning to end, each single part of it, every epoch, every lifetime, every new and closing year, ever passing hour: they are all in eternity like a child in the arms of its mother.”, see: CD II/1, p. 623.
67 Richard H. Roberts, “Karl Barth's Doctrine of Time,” in Karl Barth: Studies of His Theological Methods, ed. Stephen Sykes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 88‐146 at 20.
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70 ST I, q. 43, a. 2, ad 3.
71 ST I, q. 34, a. 3.
72 Hunsinger argues that this Trinitarian ontology is presupposed by the treatment of the temporal mission of the logos ensarkos in CD IV/1, 192‐210. See: Hunsinger, Reading Barth with Charity: A Hermeneutical Proposal, 75‐115.
73 CD I/1, 430‐436.
74 The original uses the Latin, Deus vult se esse Deum. See: CD II/1, 435.
75 CD I/1, 435.
76 CD I/1, 435.
77 CD I/1, 435.
78 CD I/1, 435.
79 See my “Theological Epistemology in Eckhart's First Parisian Question,” Medieval Mystical Theology 22, no. 1 (2013): 27–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
80 I am indebted to my friend Emily S. Kempson for, among a great many other things, enjoyable conversations about ‘truth’ as a divine name.
81 Milbank, John and Pickstock, Catherine, Truth in Aquinas (London: Routledge, 2001), 12Google Scholar.
82 CD II/1, 559.
83 CD II/1, 559.
84 CD II/1, 551.
85 See, for instance, Fr Dominic Legge OP's recently published monography expounding the Trinitarian structure of Aquinas's Christology: The Trinitarian Christology of St Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017Google Scholar).
86 The skeleton of this paper was drafted during a day's respite at the Barth Center at Princeton Theological Seminary, where the curator Ms Kaitlyn Dugan welcomed me warmly. Dr Peter Zocher offered an equally warm welcome on my subsequent research trip (or was it pilgrimage?) to the Barth Archive in Basel. Stimulating conversations with both Peter and Kait renewed my conviction of the importance of a renewed engagement with Barth for contemporary Catholic theology. My thanks to them, and to Fr Simon Francis Gaine OP, for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
