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The theme is, of course, more nuanced and sophisticated than this. A representative theologian to illustrate this is Arnold van Ruler, who called for a theological worldview informed by the full scope of divine activity, advocating a "more catholic, that is to say, purely Trinitarian way" of interpreting the divine economy, which would examine much more than God's actions in Christ. Van Ruler noted that "God did not, after all, only become man in Jesus Christ, he also created a world. And he is not only present in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ in a veiled way but will once again reveal himself definitively in the full and great theophany of the eschaton." Van Ruler concluded that "God's presence in Jesus Christ is only an element, albeit a decisive element, in his total activity in the world," and called for theology and spirituality that are aware of the full scope of the divine economy, from creation to eschatological fulfillment.47 Van Ruler was most concerned to re-emphasize the work of the Holy Spirit, the "absolute necessity" of a vibrant and full pneumatology, in order that "the imperative of a Trinitarian theology would become apparent anew." He was especially critical of Barth's christocentrism, and lamented that pneumatology "remains impoverished" in twentieth-century theology.48 Van Ruler stressed that a pneumatological framework makes two fundamental contributions to the structure of Christian theology. For one, it keeps our attention focused eschatologically, on the coming kingdom of God as the end or goal of creation and redemption. For another, it compels theologians to consider the full scope of the Spirit's work inside and outside of the church. An adequate pneumatic theology, he argued, points toward God's activity in all of creation. In this context "Trinitarian theology" means "a more comprehensive view than we otherwise might be tempted to take." Yet this call for comprehensiveness is only one half of the argument. Recent work has argued that a fully Trinitarian theology is not only comprehensive but is also unified and integrated. The Augustinian formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity not only confesses that "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God," but also that "there are not three gods, but one God"—a confession of divine unity. The central claim here is that the works of God, attributed as they are in scriptural narrative and the Christian tradition to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are not in any way disjointed or at cross purposes. The divine economy is not only unimaginably full, but wondrously interrelated. Thus, van Ruler argued that a fully Trinitarian theology should be characterized by two movements: first, "Trinitarian thought is typified by the movement of mutually inter-relating the various aspects of theology"; second, this is followed by "the movement of distinguishing these aspects." Van Ruler argued that the various topics in theological discourse, such as soteriology or missiology, should be approached from both a "christological" and "pneumatological" point of view,49 positing that a fully synthetic or complete theology "will be possible only within the framework of a Trinitarian perspective."50 This calls for theological discourse that considers apparently paradoxical attributes together—thus Daniel Migliore: "In a Trinitarian context, the attributes of God are held together as mutually qualifying descriptions of the living God."51 And it calls for the treatment of individual theological questions in terms of each person of the Trinity. Thus, following Moltmann, Paul Jewett argues that "the cross must be understood not only in terms of the person and work of Christ but in terms of the God who is revealed in Christ, namely, the God who is a Trinity-in-Unity. While it is essential to view what happened at Calvary in terms of the Son who became incarnate, it is also essential to understand what happened there in terms of all members of the Godhead."52 Typical markers of this Trinitarian integration are calls for a pneumatological christology and a christological pneumatology. A century ago Abraham Kuyper had already argued that "the Church has never sufficiently confessed the influence the Holy Spirit exerted upon the work of Christ."53 Kuyper's assertion could well be the thesis statement of the last generation of work on Christology in several traditions. Jürgen Moltmann for one, and Yves Congar for another, call for a complete integration of Christology and pneumatology. Other typical markers of this integration theme are calls to restore a creation and eschatology as the bookends of our theological and spiritual consciousness. Thus van Ruler calls for the interrelation of God's action of creation, redemption in Christ, and eschatological fulfillment, arguing that these are "the questions that arise in a Trinitarian theology," and that "it is only in a fully Trinitarian framework that one is able to determine the meaning of reason, history, the state, art, and what it is to be human. To accomplish this, the doctrines of the creation and eschatology need to provide their own accents."54 For van Ruler the pay-off is that redemption must be understood as the salvation for creation, not from it: "Regeneration is not a new creation (nova creatio) but a renewal of creation (recreatio)." Thus, every aspect of economy after creation refers back to it: "God does not create himself anew in Israel or in Jesus Christ. He [Jesus Christ] is not a new, strange God but the one who created the world. He is, thus, not estranged from the essence of things or from the depths of the human heart."55 A commitment to a comprehensive and integrated view of the divine economy has inevitable corollaries for liturgical practice. First, it calls for liturgical practices that depict the divine economy as a comprehensive and integrated whole. Thus, Otto Weber argued that a deficient appropriation of the doctrine of the Trinity and an incomplete or unintegrated view of the divine economy has inevitable repercussions in prayer and spirituality: "It is only when we constantly keep the unity of God in his work in view that we can avoid an isolated 'theology of the first article,' or an isolated 'Christocentrism,' or an isolated 'Spiritualization' of theology." In fact, said Weber, "It can be said that at this point the Doctrine of the Trinity gains its most direct relationship to 'piety'...when the Doctrine of the Trinity falls apart or retreats in the consciousness of the Community, then piety becomes one-sided and, measured by the liveliness and the wealth of the biblical witness, is impoverished."56 Weber's lament about "one-sided piety" easily translates into a central criterion for liturgical celebration: Christian worship and spirituality must rehearse the full scope and unity of God's actions. Many liturgical elements accomplish this: the grand hymns of the Christian tradition like the Gloria, the Te Deum, the liturgical creeds, the more comprehensive eucharistic and baptismal prayers, the (unabridged) Easter Vigil service, the Christian year. While most sermons, scripture readings, and anthems isolate one important narrative or theme, creeds, eucharistic prayers, and Easter Vigil services provide the entire context that helps us identify their significance. Second, this vision calls for looking at each part of the divine economy in light of the whole. Each element in the gospel drama can be viewed through a Trinitarian lens. Take the festival of Christmas as one example. Despite significant references to the Holy Spirit in several appointed readings for the Christmas season, the Holy Spirit is the forgotten participant in the Christmas drama. We see this omission not only in the Christmas card selection at Hallmark but also in music for the season. Yet the juxtaposition of "Christmas" and "Holy Spirit" challenges our understanding of each. First, it anchors our understanding of the Spirit's work in the person of Jesus Christ: the Holy Spirit is not just any spirit we feel, it is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Second, it makes our understanding of Christmas more dynamic and personal: the Spirit that came upon Mary is the same Spirit that anointed Jesus to preach good news to the poor and raised him from the dead, and that has now been poured into our hearts. The Spirit makes us participants in the Christmas drama. A fully Trinitarian approach to Christmas will work to highlight and probe these themes. Third and finally, an integrated view of the divine economy provides the logic that makes prayers of thanksgiving and intercession plausible. It commends prayer that explicitly confesses the unity of divine action. Intercessory prayer, for example, depends upon a confidence that God will act faithfully in the future, that God's past works are a clue or sign about the way God will act. The past actions of God, says Colin Gunton, provide "the ground for believing that there are further divine acts to come, or that the ascended Christ is a living and active advocate with the Father, or that the Spirit works to perfect the creation." These past actions not only teach that God will act, but also point to what kind of divine actions the future is likely to hold. Gunton continues, "If God is the one who creates and redeems through Christ and the Spirit, and is made known as such by the incarnate, crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus, then that is the one he always is. Any new action, therefore, can be expected within the framework of this eternal revelation."57 |
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