“The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity
and the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity”. Explain the theological
context of Karl Rahner’s statement.
The Stated Purposes of the
Essay
Rahner is concerned that, as
at the time of writing his essay, there was a theologically unsound and
pastorally destructive divergence between Christian doctrine on the one hand,
at least as it relates to key Trinitarian and Christological teachings, and
Christian piety on the other hand. This is none other than a dissonance between
‘faith and life’. Despite outstanding exceptions to the contrary, including
such figures as Bonaventure, Ignatius of Loyola, and Elizabeth of the Holy
Trinity, he is critical of the poor understanding of key Trinitarian and
Christological doctrines by contemporary Christians , Indeed, for all intents
and purposes most Christians are practically ‘mere “monotheists”’ . The key
doctrinal confusion is that Christians have some vague notion of the
incarnation as meaning God becoming man but cannot with much confidence
identify the second divine hypostasis as the identity of the God-Man, and even
less can they say that this divine person can tell us something about the
divinity itself.
Rahner largely lays the blame
at ‘textbook theology’ (i.e., neo-Scholasticism), which, in his view, did not
make it clear who it is that is incarnated. This ‘textbook theology’ was
responsible for the church’s cultic practice of ‘indifferently’ offering the
Mass to the three divine persons, addressing the ‘Our Father’ to the Trinity
generally, and suggesting that any of the divine persons could have become our
incarnate saviour. Immediately, one of Rahner’s key Christological and
Trinitarian themes emerges – that only the Logos (Λόγος), the Son
of God, the second divine person of the Blessed Trinity, could have been
incarnated. This position is different to that of Thomas, but consonant with
that of Bonaventure. He adds that this second divine hypostasis can tell us
something about this person within the divinity, a second key
theme. A third key theme is also suggested in the early pages of his essay –
that God’s communication must somehow be a communication of God Himself
and not merely the ‘created’ effects of grace; something implied by the concept
of the ‘real relation’ of God to humanity. For Rahner, the result of this
impoverished ‘textbook theology’ is that ‘the Trinity occupies a rather
isolated position in the total dogmatic system’, thus questioning its relevance
to theology. Motivated by the perceived disconnection between the Trinity and
salvation history, Rahner states that he wishes to link every dogmatic
treatise, especially the mystery of our salvation, to the Trinity itself. In
this way, rather than the Trinity existing in ‘splendid isolation’, Rahner
hopes that it instead resumes its place as a unifying doctrinal bridge for the
entire Christian faith.
With these early dogmatic
signposts, Rahner’s method is being made clear from the outset. He is critical
of what he sees as an unfortunate Thomistic distinction between treatises that
first deal with God’s unity, essence, attributes and names, and then with the
tri-personal God as such (i.e., processions, relations, persons, proper roles,
missions). He says that this is a distinction introduced by Thomas in his Summa
theologiæ and is absent in the earlier works of Peter the Lombard. This
regrettable distinction was carried through to the works of the
neo-Scholastics, who would then argue that the existence and oneness of God was
discernible by reason but that the divine persons could be asserted by
revelation alone, a position since canonized by church teaching. Rahner instead
prefers the theology of Bonaventure.
Rahner seeks to limit the doctrine of appropriations not only because he wishes
to assert ‘proper roles’ for the Son and Spirit, but also because it
effectively undermines the classical Augustinian notion of the vestigia
Trinitatis in creation. Finding
vestiges of the Trinity in creation allows us to learn about the inner life of
God by observation of His works and from reflection of humanity in all its
diversity. He says he is appealing to
‘the older tradition’ (i.e., before Augustine), to recover some earlier (and
presumably more universal) theologies of the Trinity. Indeed, Rahner boldly
asserts that he is relying on fresh interpretations of the Bible and on what he
sees as the Greek Trinitarian tradition, both of which, in his view, undertake
Trinitarian theology by first considering God who is ‘Father’, before
considering the unicity of the divine essence.
The
Basic Thesis: The Axiomatic Unity of the ‘Economic’ and ‘Immanent’ Trinity
Rahner’s ‘basic thesis’ which
he says establishes the connection between various dogmatic treatises and
‘which presents the Trinity as a mystery of salvation’ is, ‘The “economic” Trinity
is the “immanent” Trinity and the “immanent” Trinity is the “economic”
Trinity’. The economic Trinity refers to God’s action and presence in the
economy of salvation (‘oikonomia’, οίκονομία), or God ad nos
(‘God-for-us’), whilst the immanent Trinity refers to the mysterious existence
together of the three divine persons in their eternal life, or God’s life in
se (‘theologia’, θεολογία). Rahner has ‘identified’ the
economic and immanent Trinity, and this identification is, for him,
‘axiomatic’, his basic axiom (‘Grundaxiom’).
Rather than commencing from a
position of considering God’s life in se, which for Rahner can only lead
to the split between the treatises De Deo Uno and De Deo Trino,
Rahner starts with the economic Trinity and says that we can know the immanent
Trinity from considering the economic Trinity. To prove this assertion, Rahner
needs to show that the ‘missions’ of the Son and the Spirit ad extra are
not mere ‘appropriations’ but are revelatory of the inner life of God. To do
this Rahner holds that the incarnation belongs to the second divine person
alone, and is not merely appropriated to Him even if we say that the
incarnation is the work of the whole Trinity. In addition, Rahner holds that
grace is not to be understood as merely a ‘created’ effect in us caused by God
in an efficient manner, or that grace is merely to be appropriated to a divine
person (the Holy Spirit) even though it is the work of the Three, but rather
grace is to be understood as God’s ‘self-communication’ (selbst-Mitteilen).
Rahner explains that this self-communication occurs not because of a mere
efficient causality, a consequence of created grace (as the Scholastics
argue), but rather on account of a ‘quasi-formal causality’, a term Rahner
coins to explain that grace is not extrinsic to nature but is none other than
the indwelling of the triune God in the human soul, a bestowal of God Himself.
The positions Rahner takes on the incarnation and grace are an attempt by him
to limit (but not deny) the operation of two traditional rules, ‘omnia opera
Trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt’ (‘all works of the Trinity “outward” are
indivisible’), and ‘in Deo omnia sunt unum, ubi non obviat relationis
oppositio’ (‘in God all is one, wherever the opposition of relations does
not stand in the way’), attributed, respectively, in the West, to Augustine and
to Anselm.
Arguments Supporting the
Basic Thesis
Rahner also
argues that the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity by arguing from
the experience of grace. He states that as God’s communication is a self-communication
then it is the whole Trinity that must be communicated, and this communication
occurs in a threefold manner with each person communicating the three relative
ways in which the one God subsists. As this communication is a threefold, free,
and gratuitous self-bestowal then our experience of grace in the economy ‘is
not merely a copy or an analogy of the inner Trinity, but this Trinity itself’.
Within the triune God there is a ‘double mediation by Word and Spirit’
and this is reflected in God’s self-communication in salvation history;;
indeed, the ‘testimony of faith’ and the ‘witness of scripture’ demonstrate
this double mediation. This mediation ‘is not a created kind of mediation’, but
a ‘real’ communication of God in salvation history; it is an ‘uncreated grace’
whereby God gives Himself to us in a ‘quasi-formal’ manner. ‘Created grace’, as
an effect in the creature, is merely a consequence of this prior
self-communication.
What is Trinity?
Trinity is the
specifically Christian way of speaking of God. The doctrine of the Trinity
stands at the center of Christian faith summarizes the basic truth of
Christianity: that people are saved by God through Jesus Christ by the power of
the Holy Spirit. This understanding refers to the notion of one God in three
persons or three persons in one God. However, it has been stated that because
three persons exist in God as one unity, “the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit” are not three different names for different parts of God but one name
of God, because the Father cannot be divided from the Son or the Holy Spirit
from the Son. God has always loved, and there has always existed perfectly
harmonious communion between the three persons of the Trinity. These three
persons of the Trinity are said to be co-equal and co-eternal, one in essence,
nature, power, action, and will. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated,
and the Holy Spirit is uncreated, and all three are eternal with no beginning.
The Roman Catholic teaches that, the Spirit ‘proceeds’ from the Father and the
Son.
Rahner’s
understanding of Trinity
Rahner
sets aside the coming to terms with mystery of God on the basis of what emerges
in our own spirituel self-presence and seeks to develop a language for speaking
about Trinity on the basis of the economic missions of the Trinity, their
presence in the world. His axiom: “The imminent Trinity is the economic Trinity
and vice versa” enables him to structure the imminent Trinity from each
person’s mission in the world. Rahner’s point is not a question of distinction
of individuals but of subsistence and completion which is in relation to the
other.
His
axiom comes from a context of theological anthropology and a context of our human
existence where we experience God as Trine. For him, through revelation we
encounter God or we experience God led by our faith. But this experience does
not exhaust the reality of God; our experience of God is not adequate to what
God is in his ownself. Something bigger than what we encounter, than what we
experience is still in God.
There is
an axiomatic unity between economic Trinity and imminent Trinity in the sense
that the self revelation of God is truly the revelation of Godself or God is
truly revealed in the revelation of Godself (Imminent Trinity). And what we
experience of God in our daily life, though it does not exhaust what God is, it
is God himself as Economic Trinity. The thing is that when you experience
something, this something is still bigger than the experience you can only try
to explain.
A
point to make here is that anthropology leads to theology, and that one cannot
do theology without a link to human being. Rahner believes that the Trinity must
be related to all the other aspects of theology. His intention will be to show
that such an approach takes into account what is taught as binding by the
Magisterium, along with the biblical
statements on the three fold structure of the economy of salvation and the
explicit mentions of Father, son and Spirit, as well as the Christian’s faith
in the saving power of the Trinity present.
Rahner affirms that
our faith already recognizes that the economic Trinity is the imminent Trinity
in the sense that Jesus is not just God in general but is the Son, whose
mission is appropriated or proper to Him alone. It is not correct to say that
everything in salvation history can be attributed to the Trinity as a whole or
that we can only speak of a Trinity in general in terms of an imminent Trinity.
He insists, “…no adequate distinction can be made between the doctrine of the
Trinity and the doctrine of the economy of salvation”[1].
Here he links the mystery of Trinity with the mystery of salvation in the sense
that the mystery of our salvation is experienced in our lives as the
intervention of the Trine God in our history. Rahner appeals to the ancient
tradition that the Father, Who is “Unoriginate” and by nature invisible,
reveals Himself by sending His Word into the world. Rahner asserts: “A
revelation of the Father without the Logos and His incarnation would be like
speaking without words.”[2]
What Jesus is and does as man reveals
the Logos Himself; it is the reality of the Logos as our salvation amidst us.
The human nature of Jesus is not a mask. Therefore, we can asset, in the full
meaning of the words: here the Logos was with God and the Logos was with us,
the immanent and the economic logos, are strictly the same.
Rahner reminds us
that even when we identify the immanent Trinity with the economic Trinity, the
trinity remains a mystery. He notes: “It
means rather that this mystery is essentially identical with the mystery of the
self-communication of God to us in Christ and in His Spirit. And man can only know
something about the Trinity because the father’s Word has entered our history
and has given us His Spirit.
Rahner claims that in
confessing on God the Church is referring to the Father, as in the Apostles
Creed: “I believe in one God, the Father
almighty”. Rahner charges that God who acts in the Old Testament is not the
Triune God but God as unoriginate, although He will only be known as Father
when the Son in known. Then, we know that He acts only in unity with the Son
and the Spirit (who spoke through the apostles).
According to the
Magisterium, the Spirit enables us to
accept the self-communication of the Father through the Son. He proceeds
from the Father and the Son through an eternal communication. He is the
procession of the mutual love of the Father and the Son. Rahner teaches: “The
starting point is the experience of faith, which makes us aware that, through
what we call ‘Holy Spirit’, God communicates Himself as love and forgiveness,
that He produces this self-communication in us and maintains it by Himself.”[3]
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