Yesterday, at Spurgeon’s College, Graham Watts presented a
paper entitled ‘Stephen Holmes on the Trinity: Is Modern Trinitarian Theology a
Revival or a Repudiation of Fourth Century Settlements?’
As is my custom when listening to papers, I latched onto a
number of particular things rather than the overall argument. First, says
Watts, apparently Holmes has indicated that he does not see – or no longer sees
– a necessary link between the Trinity and ecclesiology. This suggests to me
something very similar to the line of thought that sees no necessary link
between the relations within the Trinity and male/female relationships in the
Church or in families. Secondly, as part of his paper, Watts advocated the need
for greater attention to be paid to Reformation discussions of Christology, for
he suspects that the difference between Lutherans and the Reformed on the extra calvinisticum is behind many of
today’s social trinitarianism models. However, I’d need to read Watt’s paper to
appreciate this point fully (on the paper’s publication, see below). Thirdly,
following Torrance, Watts is convinced that Athanasius, etc., knew what they were doing when they
employed ‘Christianised’ Hellenistic terminology, and so we ought not to discard
fourth-century theology. And finally, focussing solely on God in relation to
the world risks connecting God only to created history, with the potential
entrapment of God in created structures this perhaps entails.
At the beginning of the session, Watts said that the paper
is part of a book planned for publication by Paternoster in 2014. He offered no
more details, but it sounded to me that the whole book was a response to
Holmes’s The Holy Trinity. As with so
many things, I could be wrong on this front! Regardless, if you’re able
eventually to read Watts’s paper, you won’t be wasting your time.
"Or, in other words, it’s not the Father alone that is the cause or the archē of the divine being, but the Trinity."
ReplyDeleteI disagree with any reference to "cause" in regards to the eternal relationships within the Trinity. The uncreated nature of God and the eternal relationships within the Trinity are uncaused.
Peace,
Jim
I believe the point is simply that the triune God is the cause or source of the triune God, rather than the Father being the cause or source of the Son and the Spirit. The language of causation may be unhelpful, but I don't think 'source' is.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the term "source" with careful definition is helpful. If I correctly understand this, I agree with Watts and Torrance that the Father is not the source of the Son and Holy Spirit, which I suppose is tantamount to rejecting the ancient doctrines of eternal generation and eternal procession.
ReplyDeleteOr I suppose somebody could try to say that eternal generation and eternal procession has nothing to do with the Father being the source of the Son and Holy Spirit. I better read the paper before getting carried away with this :-)
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't think Watts was arguing for anything new as such. He was more arguing that there's a lot in Torrance that needs to be appreciated. So if you can't wait to read Watts's paper, you could always get a head start and begin reading Torrance!
ReplyDeleteI quickly found a some of Torrance and he definitely supports the Nicene model of eternal generation. So if he says that the Father is not the source of the Trinity, then Torrance merely rejects models of eternal generation that say that the Father is the source of Son and Holy Spirit, which I think is a good idea.
ReplyDelete