Trinity and Revelation: A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World, volume 2 (A Constructive Chr Theol Plur World

A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World #2

by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen

In this book Pentecostal theologian Veli-Matti Karkkainen develops a constructive theology of triune revelation and the triune God in dialogue with Christian tradition, with contemporary theology in its global and contextual diversity, and with other major living faiths.

Karkkainen's Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World is a five-volume project that aims to develop a new approach to and method of doing Christian theology in a pluralistic world at the beginning of the third millennium. With the metaphor of hospitality serving as the framework for his discussion, Karkkainen engages Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism in sympathetic and critical mutual dialogue while remaining robustly Christian in his convictions. Never before has a fullscale doctrinal theology been attempted in such a wide and deep dialogical mode.

Genres: Theology

487 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 18, 2014

About the author

Veli-Matti Käkkäinen is professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He has published numerous articles in international journals of theology.

Reviews

[Zach Brandt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revelation: Revelation shouldn’t be viewed as an abstract philosophical concept, but as a concrete historical reality performed by a specific God. This, Christian revelation is inescapably trinitarian and tied to God’s liberating and salvific purposes. Revelation is progressive.

Scripture: Scripture is the word of God and a human testimony of God’s revelation. The human aspect of scripture justifies critical readings of various traditions, but the divine aspect guarantees a basic trustworthiness in the Bible’s ability to speak truthfully to all people. Attempts to separate the message of the Bible from the text of the Bible are significant, but ultimately misguided. The message may not be identical to the text, but it is integrally bound to it. I’m not sure that this means exactly, but I think he’s trying to force us to thing of the biblical revelation as a more organic and interconnected whole, and less of a conglomeration of divinely revealed details.

Doctrine of God: He softly rejects classical theism because he views it as making several philosophical mistakes due to the antiquated philosophy which developed the doctrine. One example would be the substance ontology it is based on. Instead, he argues for classical panentheism. This is inspired by classical theism, but also Eastern Orthodox theologies and 20th century rethinkings of the doctrine of God, as well as the scriptures of course. This expression seeks to honor the impulses behind classical theism without constructing odd notions like divine simplicity. The trinity teaches us that relationality and personalism is central to the essence of God.

This is a great theological project that widely engaged human knowledge in light of Christian theology. I do feel like some points need to be further clarified and more questions need to be answered, especially with regard to his doctrine of scripture. I can’t say I support or even understand everything he’s talking about, but I’m deeply intrigued by it.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really appreciated the variety perspective's of volume 1. I had an education that, rightfully or wrongfully, was very rooted in European theologies of a certain bent, with limited exposure to global perspectives. This volume seemed to lack some of that breadth (save for some exploration of interfaith perspectives on revelation and the nature of God). Also, the discussion on Panenthism threw me for a loop. Nevertheless, I look forward to volume 3.

Edit: In the weeks since finishing this book, I've come back in my mind to the section on inter-faith dialogue and hospitality. I've been wondering what agendas or motivations underlay our own inter-faith endeavors, and whether or not they live into a spirit of meeting others as they and where they are. For that ongoing challenge to my own practice, I am thankful.

[Reinhardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, excellent, excellent (which is more than five stars).

So glad I tripped over this series by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, surely his magnum opus.

it’s a brilliant work of systematic theology. Rather than doing theology in the cloister he is doing it in public. This means he engages what he calls contextual theologies (feminist, black, liberationist, etc) as well as other religions. This public practice of theology takes into account all knowledge, philosophy, science, humanities and attempts to produce a work that can engage in these spheres. He engages in this while recognizing the ultimate authority of scripture in any theological enterprise as well as the necessity of engaging with 2,000 years of Christian Tradition, albeit, sometimes critically. His main dialog partners are Moltmann and Pannenberg with Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology being the most cited work.

Doing theology in the public square is risky. Public skating rink may be a better metaphor. It is very easy to slip and fall and bumping into the wrong partner can leaving you spinning off the sidelines. One needs solid support in this endeavor and I have come across no better guide than Kärkkäinen.

A note on the writing. The language is wonderfully lucid and perspicacious. One wonders if being a non-native English speaker has made his writing clearer than most native speakers. (Of course he admits to help polishing the writing). This work doesn’t have the language shoe pebbles that tend to annoy one in many theological works. One could say the language here is a clear sheet of glass. There is no barrier between you and the ideas he is trying to explain. A joy to read. It’s nor poetry, but the writing is wonderfully clear.

What follows is some notes I made following each chapter to give a sense of the content. A human summary if you will. Much quirkier and idiosyncratic than an AI summary.

He begins this volume with a look at the triune nature of revelation. God speaks in his Son through the Spirit. The Spirit is essential for inspiration and illumination. All major religions have some concept of revelation. The Abrahamic religions have a historical frame in contrast to the ahistorical cosmic frame of the Asian religions. The historical nature of revelation is particularly evident in Christianity. Christian revelation takes place in secular history but also needs the historical word to reveal the acts of God in history. The act and word are both elements of revelation.

He continues on with a discussion of revelation and liberation. Revelation is a dynamic historical process always engaging culture. There is no abstract timeless revelation. He engages the feminist, Black, and liberation theologians who inquire about praxis. Revelation should not be about theory but also practice. Revelation should liberate the oppressed. He looks briefly at the missionary practice that is so often subsumed under cultural imperialism, but more often, the translation of the Bible into local vernaculars was anti-colonial and liberating. The Bible has no preferred translation language. This contrasts, of course, with Islam and the idea that the Quran only truly exists in Arabic. Hindus, while allowing translation for mass devotional use, keep the Sanskrit originals as sacred. Buddhism, on the other hand, is and has always been open to vernacular translation.

He develops the idea of revelation further, specifically with reference to the Bible. It is not a ‘dropped from heaven’ set of propositions. That is more akin to Islamic idea of revelation than the Christian one. Scripture is inspired, but not dictated. It is also finite as compared to the infinite Word, hence it cannot contain the infinite. It is not less than propositional, as, for example, even a promise has a propositional component, but it is more than purely a proposition. Revelation must also be personal if it is to be relational; the function of language in a relationship is much different than purely propositional. The opposing idea that revelation is any insight, which relegates scripture to the status of all writing, cannot be maintained in Christian theology. It would cease to be Christian. Kärkkäinen here references Barth’s formulation of the marriage of propositional and personal with the Bible as witness. Pannenberg’s formulation of historicity in a way bypasses some of these problems. But in summary, the Biblical revelation is historical, existential, diverse, conventional, demanding, symbolic, and mystical.

In the chapter, ‘Scripture, Community, and Tradition’, he looks at the relationship between the text of Scripture and authority. Is it the Yale School theory, espoused by Hans Frei and Lindbeck, where authority is set in the praxis of the community without any reference to anything outside the text. Or the canonical approach promoted by Brevard Childs - we cannot see or look behind the canon itself? This in effect shifts the normative community from the contemporary one of the Yale School to the ancient one. Kärkkäinen then turns to Vanhoozer’s Drama of Doctrine and his canonical-linguistic approach. This approach recognizes the authority is set in Scripture, but takes account of the community linguistic element of interpretation. This then brings up the question of the relationship between the text and the message. The message is linked to the text, but is not identical with the text. Then the question of tradition needs to be examined. How do Scripture and tradition relate? Only a naive outlook suggests we can access Scripture without tradition.

After this discussion of what can be called special revelation, he turns to natural theology or what can be called general revelation. He takes a historical look at the concept of natural theology. In the patristic age, natural theology had more to do with the nature of God. The nature of God was as the philosophers expounded. Later through the Middle Ages and Aquinas, the concept shifted. Eventually, the Enlightenment ideals espoused a search for God with pure rationality without revelation. This is the ‘natural theology’ so strongly rejected by Barth, a perversion of natural theology. Both Moltmann and Pannenberg embrace a form of natural theology. This is necessary if theology is to be a public theology. One must engage with science and the understanding of the world. But always with the understanding that it is revelation, not human searching that reveals truths about God. But like all revelation, it needs to be interpreted. He ends with a discussion of wisdom, a form of natural revelation.

He then turns to an extensive discussion of revelation and authority in other religions. He explores the idea of the matrix of revelation. The Protestant view of written, inspired, propositional revelation is not normative in other religions. Oral traditions, for example, take a much larger role. Hinduism has the dual-layer revelation with the Vedas being considered as inspired and authoritative, but generally inaccessible to any except the Brahmins. The Vedas contain among many others the Rig Veda and the Upanishads. The popular-level revelation is the devotional literature, expemplified in the Bhagavad Gita. Although Hinduism contains its own divisions, there being 6 major strands, they do share many common ideas. One idea that is a particular point of contact is the idea that language and words especially are divine (Hence the focus on mantras). Words themselves are divinities. This has obvious points of contact with the Christian idea of The Word as God.

Buddhism, having some similarities to Hinduism, but differs in the ideas of revelation. Being a non-theistic (but not atheistic) religion, it doesn’t have the concept of revelation and it has no authoritative canon per se. Ironically or perhaps as a result, it has the largest number of sacred writings. These writings act only as human pointers to the ‘salvation’ or release that must be worked out by oneself.

Islam has a very closed and comparatively small canon which is directly dictated, but also has the Hadiths which function as oral traditions. Judaism shares many obvious points of contact with Christian revelation, sharing a testament. Judaism also has a strong oral tradition of Mishnah and Talmud built upon the canon or Torah and scripture. The unique Judeo-Christian aspect of revelation is its historical embeddedness. All revelation takes place within specific historical events. This contrasts to the other big 5 religions. The close ties to ethical behavior is a direct result of this historical nature. Humans are called to act in righteousness within the bounds of history.

PART II

He begins his section on the Trinity with a discussion of God talk in the modern age. He addresses atheism both modern and historical, tracing through Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx as well as the New Atheist. He engages the postmodern critique that there is no truth behind language as well as the language games of Wittgenstein and the analytical philosophers. He then traces through the ontological, cosmological, anthropological, and moral argument for God. He pulls what is useful from these, which of course, fall short of any kind of Biblical idea of God.

He then moves to theology proper and analysis of classical theism. Although widely seen as inadequate today for its emphasis solely on God’s transcendence, he demonstrates that many of the formulations are still valuable. To this, he would expand the ideas to what he called classical panentheism (as opposed to pantheism) . This brings together God’s absolute transcendence and infinitude with his immanence in all creation. Paul in Acts 17 brings these two together beautifully. This view also aligns better with the relational aspect of God, especially as seen in the Old Testament. We learn of God through his acts.

He transitions to the doctrine of the Trinity, which for a long period centered on the Middle Ages, was almost an afterthought to the basic unity of God. God is not one at the bottom and three at the ‘top.’ He is completely three persons, yet an absolute unity. The idea of “perichoresis” plays a big role in his Trinitarian theology. It is the mutually indwelling of each person of the Trinity by the other. This is a key idea of both Moltmann and Pannenberg, who Kärkkäinen interacts with a lot in this chapter. He also engages Karl Rahner’s statement that the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity and vice versa. This is fundamentally correct in his view with some added nuance.

In his discussion on divine attributes, he notes that the abstract philosophical attributes of much of traditional theology leave God as an unmoved mover rather than the covenant God of the Bible. God must be understood primarily by his actions and relations. The Bible defines God’s essence as Spirit and Love. Spirit is not primarily immaterial, but more fundamentally the source of all life and all power in the universe. God is also eternal, but not only in the sense of outside of time, in the sense of being present in all time. The presence of God is an important characteristic. Present also in all space(s). Kärkkäinen also provides a good look at some of the attributes such as holiness, faithfulness, omniscience, omnipotence as well as loving, merciful, patient, just, righteous. In these he makes the case, along with Moltmann, that God must suffer, particularly on the Cross. The Father suffers together with the Son. This conflicts with the tradition’s impassibility of God, which seems more a philosophical attribute than the biblical covenant God.

In a chapter titled Divine Hospitality, he brings out some of the implications of a triune God. Hospitality and its opposite, violence, are not often addressed in systematic theology. He begins the discussion on God’s hospitality in reference to his goodness and gift-giving. He moves to inclusion, where he brings in a discussion of names or language for God, particularly from a feminist perspective. Although the primacy of Father, Son, and Spirit is hard to ignore, he allows that these are ultimately metaphors, as calling God the Rock is a metaphor. They seem to be the guiding metaphor in naming God. This, of course, doesn’t imply that God is masculine.

The Trinitarian nature of God makes God into communion rather than a hierarchy. There is in some sense support for the idea that the Father is the ground of the Godhead, but there is diversity and mutuality within the Trinity. This becomes the model for humans who are created in God’s image. This hospitality counteracts violence. Tolerance alone is not sufficient to oppose violence. In this chapter, he also looks at claims that religions cause violence and that less religion means less violence. This is largely a rhetorical claim without any real analysis or evidence, as religion is difficult to define across cultures, and when you call secular nationalism religion, all basis for the claim are inverted. While violence has been linked to religion, whether it is the cause is historically unclear. He explores the claim that more religion and better religious understanding is the solution to violence rather than the unsupported and historically ridiculous claims that the elimination of religion would eliminate violence.

In the penultimate chapter, he looks at pluralism and how they have moved from Christology to theology to pneumatology, that is, from Christ to a universal God to a spirit-centered approach. Often, these pluralisms attempt to place all religions into one meta-framework, a meta-theology. They strive to water down the differences so that all religions are really the same. But in this continuum, as there is more agreement, there is less content. It also tends to be an Enlightenment project. Assuming that we have now figured out the rational God of which all religions are just flavors, flavors that are historically distinct, but in the final analysis of this pluralism, they are all false. This pseudo-tolerance is exactly the opposite of religious tolerance. The final analysis of the chapter is the Trinitarian aspect of any interfaith dialogue. As with Barth, the Trinity is the unique Christian picture of God, but also seems to be the key to interfaith dialogue. As in Panikkar’s bold but failed attempt to show, all reality is fundamentally Trinitarian.

The final long chapter engages Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism in relation to the Trinitarian God. Judaism was previously engaged with under Christology as that is the main point of difference. He brings in the idea of hospitality he discussed earlier as the one way to properly engage with other faiths.

The strong monotheism of Islam has some obvious points of contact with Jewish and Christian conceptions of God. Muslims themselves say we worship the same God. This difference, only being one of ignorance. Kärkkäinen examines this claim and concludes that without equivocation, it is hard to go that far, although Luther himself and most of Church history had the conception that Christians worship the same God as Muslims.

He turns to Hinduism, where there are seemingly more points of contact with the Trinitarian God. Hindu’s ground their belief in three main gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, all of whom reflect one underlying reality, which has certain touchpoints with Trinitarian belief. Hinduism also has some conception of incarnation in the form of avatars, but of course, multiple and many. A ground distinction is the Hindu tendency to monism or, on the other hand, polytheism. Monism essentially makes social criticism difficult as God is not separate from creation as he is in the Christian perspective. God is in creation, but it is separate from him.

With Buddhism, points of contact are more difficult to find as there is no conception of God or even metaphysics or reality. What is the ultimate reality or the analogue to God in Buddhism? He looks at a few options and concludes sunyata as the best option. Sunyata is the negation or the ultimate emptiness that forms the ground of being, at least in Western categories.

What the chapter really illustrates is how important Trinitarian theology is to the Christian understanding. It touches every aspect of theology. The Christian understanding of the world is based on both the eternal and economic Trinity.

So glad I came across this.

The highest possible recommendation.

[Vincent Tanzil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haven't read it to the end, but only the chapters on natural theology and its engagement with natural theology. Overall it is a great and fresh book. Unfortunately the writing style seems like a barrage of quotations. Karkkainen would do very well if he could paraphrase all the quotations he provided. Nevertheless, it is a wonderful book and needs to be read by anyone interested in contextual theology for the world today.