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Space, Time and Incarnation
When the Nicene Creed affirms that the eternal Son of God 'for us and for our salvation came down from heaven', it asserts that God Himself is actively present within the space and time of our world. The philosophical problems that this involves are bound up with Christian theology, and form the subject of this book. Professor Torrance begins with a critique of modern Protestant thinking, and proceeds to examine the place of spatial and temporal elements in basic theological concepts. He then offers a positive account of the relation of the incarnation to space and time. While related to the work of the great theologians of the past, this study is also supremely relevant to theological thinking in this age of science.
108 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1969
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About the author
Thomas F. Torrance
99 books76 followersThomas Forsyth Torrance, MBE FRSE (30 August 1913 – 2 December 2007), commonly referred to as T. F. Torrance, was a Scottish Protestant theologian. Torrance served for 27 years as Professor of Christian Dogmatics at New College, Edinburgh in the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his pioneering work in the study of science and theology, but he is equally respected for his work in systematic theology. While he wrote many books and articles advancing his own study of theology, he also edited the translation of several hundred theological writings into English from other languages, including the English translation of the thirteen-volume, six-million-word Church Dogmatics of Swiss theologian Karl Barth, as well as John Calvin's New Testament Commentaries. He was also a member of the famed Torrance family of theologians.
Torrance has been acknowledged as one of the most significant English-speaking theologians of the twentieth century, and in 1978, he received the prestigious Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion.[1] Torrance remained a dedicated churchman throughout his life, serving as an ordained minister in the Church of Scotland. He was instrumental in the development of the historic agreement between the Reformed and Eastern Orthodox Churches on the doctrine of the Trinity when a joint statement of agreement on that doctrine was issued between the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Orthodox Church on 13 March 1991.[2] He retired from the University of Edinburgh in 1979, but continued to lecture and to publish extensively. Several influential books on the Trinity were published after his retirement: The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (1988); Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement (1994); and The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (1996).
Torrance has been acknowledged as one of the most significant English-speaking theologians of the twentieth century, and in 1978, he received the prestigious Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion.[1] Torrance remained a dedicated churchman throughout his life, serving as an ordained minister in the Church of Scotland. He was instrumental in the development of the historic agreement between the Reformed and Eastern Orthodox Churches on the doctrine of the Trinity when a joint statement of agreement on that doctrine was issued between the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Orthodox Church on 13 March 1991.[2] He retired from the University of Edinburgh in 1979, but continued to lecture and to publish extensively. Several influential books on the Trinity were published after his retirement: The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (1988); Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement (1994); and The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (1996).
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November 12, 2018
At barely 90 pages of text, Thomas Torrance wrote a book on cosmology that shocked the theological world. If his arguments in this book obtain, then all of modern Protestant theology (and Catholic modernists like Schillebeeckx) are not only biblically wrong, but scientifically wrong (which compounds the irony, given that they gut the faith to make it scientifically relevant).
Instead of doing a formal review, I am going to give you a “sense” of the book, and then list my notes below. I do that because Torrance’s individual ideas, much like Wittgenstein’s prose, is worth pondering one by one.
Plato: Spoke of space as a receptacle, but only metaphorically. It is that in which events take place. A formless and passive medium (Torrance 4). The problem is that Plato had to use spatial terminology to refer to a world that was beyond space and time.
Aristotle: container notion of space (Physics, Book IV). He saw the Platonic separation (χωρισμός) as the stuff or substrate. It is associated with the category of quantity. It is a vessel (αγγειον). There is a “relation of interdependence between the container and its contents” (7). There is no void or empty space since the container is always in contact with that which it contains.
Problems: “in equating being in place with a particular volume, it also equated the volume with a spatial magnitude” (8).
Stoics: Space moves as the body or agent fills it. Much closer to the biblical view, yet ended up making God part of the world, or the active principle of the world. Degenerated.
Origen: accepted the Stoic contention that limit and comprehension go together. God’s comprehending all things limits them. He begins to form a relational notion of space.
Athanasius: doesn’t operate with the bifurcated worldview of Plato and Origen (the separation of cosmos aesthetos and cosmos noetos). Torrance writes, “for the linking together incarnation and creation in the manner of Nicea made that impossible” (15).
The mediator who is also homoousion fulfils the space relations between God and man. Mere creatures are unable to make room for God. Torrance writes, “The inter-relations of the Father and the Son must be thought in terms of ‘abiding’ and ‘dwelling’ in which each wholly rests in the other” (15).
The Son for us is the place (topos) where the Father is. Therefore “place” “is here stretched beyond its ordinary use and must be interpreted elastically” (16). Torrance then drops a cosmological hammer: “This forces theology into the construction of a sort of topological language in order to express the dispositional and dynamic inter-connection between topos and topos, or place and place” (16).
This requires, to use another Athanasian term, different paradeigma under the impact of divine revelation. Space “is here a differential concept that is essentially open-ended” (18). Torrance continues with the mathematical language: “It is treated as a sort of coordinate system (to use a later expression) between two horizontal dimensions, space and time, and one vertical dimension, relation to God” (18).
Modern and Reformation Conceptions
What is the “receptacle” mode of thought? It is when we think of x being in y. This works well on some level in classical physics.
For the ancient Greeks “finite,” “comprehensible,” and “limit” were all bound together. An actual infinite was inconceivable. This had to give once Christian revelation came on the scene, since God is infinite and maker of heaven and earth. This “meant that God does not stand in a spatial or temporal relation to the universe” (23).
The receptacle notion of space was applied to the sacraments. Grace operates as though it is in a vessel.
Patristic notion of space: seat of relations or meeting place between God’s activity and the world. It is a differential or open concept of space, as opposed to the closed Aristotelian system of limited bodies (24-25).
Duns Scotus began to correct the medieval problems by focusing on God’s creative will (29).
Extra Calvinisticum
One of the Lutherans’ problems with Calvinist Christology arose due to the former’s “container” notion of space (30ff). The Reformed were able to speak of Christ’s ascending to heaven or leaving heaven without abandoning his governance of the universe because they saw space in relational, and not quantitative terms.
Eternal Simultaneity in Luther
For God’s presence all spatial relations are reduced to a mathematical point (34). To his credit Luther recovered the biblical idea of the living and active God, yet Luther never escaped from the dualism embedded in a receptacle notion of space.
The problem: “If we posit any kind of spatial relation without extension in time we make it impossible to discern any real difference between the real presence of Christ in the days of his flesh, in the Eucharist, and at the Last Day” (35).
Newton
He held to the receptacle view but made it infinite. Space and time are in God as in a container (38). And since space and time are now infinite, they are now attributes of God. This further mean that if God is the container, he can’t really become Incarnate. A box cannot become one of the several objects it contains” (39). This is partly why Newton was always suspected of being an Arian.
Incarnation and Space and Time
Receptacle notion: finite receptacle (Aristotle) and infinite (Newton).
Relational notion: Maybe Plato and the Stoics. Nicene and Reformers.
God’s relation to the world is an infinite differential, but the world’s relation to God is a created necessity (66). This means God is free from any spatio-temporal or causal necessity in relation to his creation.
Back to Einstein: the flow of time and the extent of material bodies depends on the velocity at which those bodies move. The geometrical structures change according to the accumulation of mass within the field. If Einstein (or James Clerk Maxwell) is even remotely correct, then the old dualisms are necessarily false.
Theological Geometry: The Incarnation must create for us the field of organic connections “within which we are to develop our thought and language about it” (70-71). “The interaction of God with us in the space and time of this world sets up, as it were, a coordinate system between two horizontal dimensions (space and time) and one vertical dimension (relation of God through his Spirit)” (72).
Economy: the orderly purpose and control of God as introduced by the Incarnation (79).
The analogy of topological language: we have to connect the different ways in which we must speak about topos and place in accordance witht he human and divine natures of Christ (81).
Instead of doing a formal review, I am going to give you a “sense” of the book, and then list my notes below. I do that because Torrance’s individual ideas, much like Wittgenstein’s prose, is worth pondering one by one.
Plato: Spoke of space as a receptacle, but only metaphorically. It is that in which events take place. A formless and passive medium (Torrance 4). The problem is that Plato had to use spatial terminology to refer to a world that was beyond space and time.
Aristotle: container notion of space (Physics, Book IV). He saw the Platonic separation (χωρισμός) as the stuff or substrate. It is associated with the category of quantity. It is a vessel (αγγειον). There is a “relation of interdependence between the container and its contents” (7). There is no void or empty space since the container is always in contact with that which it contains.
Problems: “in equating being in place with a particular volume, it also equated the volume with a spatial magnitude” (8).
Stoics: Space moves as the body or agent fills it. Much closer to the biblical view, yet ended up making God part of the world, or the active principle of the world. Degenerated.
Origen: accepted the Stoic contention that limit and comprehension go together. God’s comprehending all things limits them. He begins to form a relational notion of space.
Athanasius: doesn’t operate with the bifurcated worldview of Plato and Origen (the separation of cosmos aesthetos and cosmos noetos). Torrance writes, “for the linking together incarnation and creation in the manner of Nicea made that impossible” (15).
The mediator who is also homoousion fulfils the space relations between God and man. Mere creatures are unable to make room for God. Torrance writes, “The inter-relations of the Father and the Son must be thought in terms of ‘abiding’ and ‘dwelling’ in which each wholly rests in the other” (15).
The Son for us is the place (topos) where the Father is. Therefore “place” “is here stretched beyond its ordinary use and must be interpreted elastically” (16). Torrance then drops a cosmological hammer: “This forces theology into the construction of a sort of topological language in order to express the dispositional and dynamic inter-connection between topos and topos, or place and place” (16).
This requires, to use another Athanasian term, different paradeigma under the impact of divine revelation. Space “is here a differential concept that is essentially open-ended” (18). Torrance continues with the mathematical language: “It is treated as a sort of coordinate system (to use a later expression) between two horizontal dimensions, space and time, and one vertical dimension, relation to God” (18).
Modern and Reformation Conceptions
What is the “receptacle” mode of thought? It is when we think of x being in y. This works well on some level in classical physics.
For the ancient Greeks “finite,” “comprehensible,” and “limit” were all bound together. An actual infinite was inconceivable. This had to give once Christian revelation came on the scene, since God is infinite and maker of heaven and earth. This “meant that God does not stand in a spatial or temporal relation to the universe” (23).
The receptacle notion of space was applied to the sacraments. Grace operates as though it is in a vessel.
Patristic notion of space: seat of relations or meeting place between God’s activity and the world. It is a differential or open concept of space, as opposed to the closed Aristotelian system of limited bodies (24-25).
Duns Scotus began to correct the medieval problems by focusing on God’s creative will (29).
Extra Calvinisticum
One of the Lutherans’ problems with Calvinist Christology arose due to the former’s “container” notion of space (30ff). The Reformed were able to speak of Christ’s ascending to heaven or leaving heaven without abandoning his governance of the universe because they saw space in relational, and not quantitative terms.
Eternal Simultaneity in Luther
For God’s presence all spatial relations are reduced to a mathematical point (34). To his credit Luther recovered the biblical idea of the living and active God, yet Luther never escaped from the dualism embedded in a receptacle notion of space.
The problem: “If we posit any kind of spatial relation without extension in time we make it impossible to discern any real difference between the real presence of Christ in the days of his flesh, in the Eucharist, and at the Last Day” (35).
Newton
He held to the receptacle view but made it infinite. Space and time are in God as in a container (38). And since space and time are now infinite, they are now attributes of God. This further mean that if God is the container, he can’t really become Incarnate. A box cannot become one of the several objects it contains” (39). This is partly why Newton was always suspected of being an Arian.
Incarnation and Space and Time
Receptacle notion: finite receptacle (Aristotle) and infinite (Newton).
Relational notion: Maybe Plato and the Stoics. Nicene and Reformers.
God’s relation to the world is an infinite differential, but the world’s relation to God is a created necessity (66). This means God is free from any spatio-temporal or causal necessity in relation to his creation.
Back to Einstein: the flow of time and the extent of material bodies depends on the velocity at which those bodies move. The geometrical structures change according to the accumulation of mass within the field. If Einstein (or James Clerk Maxwell) is even remotely correct, then the old dualisms are necessarily false.
Theological Geometry: The Incarnation must create for us the field of organic connections “within which we are to develop our thought and language about it” (70-71). “The interaction of God with us in the space and time of this world sets up, as it were, a coordinate system between two horizontal dimensions (space and time) and one vertical dimension (relation of God through his Spirit)” (72).
Economy: the orderly purpose and control of God as introduced by the Incarnation (79).
The analogy of topological language: we have to connect the different ways in which we must speak about topos and place in accordance witht he human and divine natures of Christ (81).
April 25, 2014
T.F. Torrance takes a whirlwind tour through the differing ways that "space" has been conceptualized throughout human history, making a case for an agent-relational conception that sees space, time, and conceptual content as inseparable. This better purports with contemporary physical theories about the structure of the created universe and better provides a base vocabulary - which is yet striving for fuller articulation - with which to describe the reality of the Incarnation, God's entrance into space-and-time. In doing so, he critiques the various systems of thought - Aristotelian/Stoic, Atomist/Newtonian, and Lutheran/German - which have tended towards conceiving of space in terms of "containers" and end up tied up in circles when trying to conceive of how God can be present with us in time and space (i.e. debates over the "real presence", over the meaning of history, and the relation between Creator and creation).
January 9, 2014
Fantastic critique of dualistic "container" theories of reality ala Aristotle and Kant. He spends a lot of time explaining Einsteinian relativity and how this scientific model destroys "container" theories. Space isn't a container we move through - yet that is the outmoded theory much philosophy is built upon, especially atheistic materialism in the form of Dawkins, et al.
I do wonder if he reintroduces the duality he tries to avoid when it comes to human language; and this is directly related to his weakness when it comes to Scriptural revelation (his view is neo-orthodox, but in fairness, he doesn't spend much time fleshing it out in this book).
Like Barth, he identifies revelation with God; and Christ is God's revelation. Torrance proposes formulating a new language that is "open" on God's end but relatively "closed" on our end in order to accomodate fuller signification. Even if we formulate language that is more "accomodating" to God, in what sense does that expand our understanding since the openness is on God's end? Seems this is just a different way of re-stating the Kantian noumenal/phenomenal duality. Perhaps more "open" language gives freedom for concepts to roam, but that divorces the concept from word, which means language functions as an "imprisonment" of sorts obstructing the relationship between signifier and the signified.
This is probably a small criticism given the relatively brief amount of time he dedicated to human language; but it is relevant given Torrance's attempt at "scientific" theology and eradicating heretical notions of duality.
I do wonder if he reintroduces the duality he tries to avoid when it comes to human language; and this is directly related to his weakness when it comes to Scriptural revelation (his view is neo-orthodox, but in fairness, he doesn't spend much time fleshing it out in this book).
Like Barth, he identifies revelation with God; and Christ is God's revelation. Torrance proposes formulating a new language that is "open" on God's end but relatively "closed" on our end in order to accomodate fuller signification. Even if we formulate language that is more "accomodating" to God, in what sense does that expand our understanding since the openness is on God's end? Seems this is just a different way of re-stating the Kantian noumenal/phenomenal duality. Perhaps more "open" language gives freedom for concepts to roam, but that divorces the concept from word, which means language functions as an "imprisonment" of sorts obstructing the relationship between signifier and the signified.
This is probably a small criticism given the relatively brief amount of time he dedicated to human language; but it is relevant given Torrance's attempt at "scientific" theology and eradicating heretical notions of duality.
March 17, 2015
TFT is consistently top notch.
February 12, 2021
Still dancing around my exquisitely difficult read of William Gaddis' The Recognitions (my most recent detour was William Gass' who wrote the introduction, and wrote Middle C, a much more approachable book) I somehow had the intuition to pull this book off my shelves and (try to) read it again. What a surprise and a shock that it does provide much of the vocabulary that I had been lacking in my read of Gaddis!
I was given the book by the minister of the church I grew up in, and around the corner from which I now live. It's also possible that it was lent to me and I failed to give it back. It was a long time ago. Now I recognize some origin, perhaps, for much of my own thinking. I also recognize that there are several Michael Polanyi books now missing from my ever shifting and moving and growing and reducing personal lending library. Those would have been helpful as well.
I must say that just because Torrance is so much more erudite than I could ever be doesn't quite mean that I shall follow him into the Christian faith. I do believe that this may remain the best Christian apologia that I have ever and likely shall ever read. It is truly a beautiful book, packing unwieldy knowledge into the size of a pamphlet. If it doesn't quite make a believer out of me, it most certainly pulls the rug out from under disbelief. (I don't feel quite compelled to stipulate belief in what, though I won't take the cop-out of "spirituality.")
Together with atheist Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, perversely enough, this book nudges me away from atheism. In Dawkins' case, because he opens up a view of life which is as breathtaking in the realm of biology as Einstein's was in the realm of physics. Indeed Torrance was calling for just such a shift for Biology, crediting Polanyi with the insight. (I hadn't known, or remembered, that Polanyi and Turing were friends. Too bad we've (I've) mostly lost the one who should have been the more influential).
Our current state of philosophical (and theological, for that matter) understanding remains in the thrall of technology; which is to say that we are more amazed by the potential of our own creations than we are by God's (religion being one of those creations).
Now Torrance uses the term 'creation' in relation to God as if there were nothing problematical about that usage. But he does so in a truly glorious way, not by rehearsing the miracle of ex nihilo but by focusing on the impingement of the divine, by way of Christ's incarnation, on the "rational" (knowable) world in which we exist. We exist in a world (not the world) created by God.
I think he should have moved beyond any need for the term creation, since God. as he writes about Him, exists outside of our rational cosmos, which means outside of time and space. No beginnings, no ends. By Christ, we become not creator of our own world, but rather "transformer" in the more worldly usage that we should stick to. Not owner. Not mere life-form. But rather transformative agent. In Torrance's own usage, to say that God created the world rather delimits God, just as does saying that God is the world.
But we need beginnings and endings. Our minds are narrative creators; they depend on narrative meaning to bind the conceptual with the perceptual in some meaningful fashion. Torrance is pretty convincing that there can be no meaning without actual apprehension of something beyond our rational cosmos. Christ, in history, provides that. He invokes Gödel's incompleteness in his argument.
There is far too much specious editorialising, not drawing on someone like Torrance, as it should, which surrounds - shall always surround - the Christian religion for me to become an adherent. But I must say that in this age where we waffle about the importance of seeking for 'other' intelligent life in the cosmos, Torrance does make it clear that we're missing the obvious. The obvious being God, of course.
The vast reaches of space that we catalog may, in fact, be restricted only to our particular cosmos. If God does exist, then there is no reason that all worlds must be the same kind of rational that this one is. The Einsteinian barrier of time and distance is still weaker than the likelihood that 'cosmos' incorporates more than our small version of rationality. Without God, we may indeed be consigned to emptiness.
Somehow I am comforted by that insight. Without question, I find Torrance to be a more compelling philosopher than many I've read, and I find his read of science to be quite reliable as well. What he sets out to do, and to my read succeeds with, is to diminish to the point of non-existence any incongruence between the truths of science and those of theology, as well as to establish that each requires the other. Theology (or whatever broader term might be fitted here) must be part of science, as well as vice versa, perhaps.
So, while I may quibble with terms like 'God' and 'creation,' I can't quibble with his main argument: that we can never know everything about our own rational cosmos, and that there is something beyond it which belongs in the category of everything that we humans must hold dear. Call it God, call it universal love, call it a life force, there is indeed no doubt that it impinges on the cosmos that we increasingly apprehend by human science.
Now, if I can only manage to read William Gaddis on fakery and authenticity. If only I can find it amusing. Well, I will certainly find it amusing - I already have. Perhaps I'll find it literary. I don't expect it to be a religious experience. Reading Dawkins and Torrance have each been religious experiences for me, in the vulgar usage of that term.
I was given the book by the minister of the church I grew up in, and around the corner from which I now live. It's also possible that it was lent to me and I failed to give it back. It was a long time ago. Now I recognize some origin, perhaps, for much of my own thinking. I also recognize that there are several Michael Polanyi books now missing from my ever shifting and moving and growing and reducing personal lending library. Those would have been helpful as well.
I must say that just because Torrance is so much more erudite than I could ever be doesn't quite mean that I shall follow him into the Christian faith. I do believe that this may remain the best Christian apologia that I have ever and likely shall ever read. It is truly a beautiful book, packing unwieldy knowledge into the size of a pamphlet. If it doesn't quite make a believer out of me, it most certainly pulls the rug out from under disbelief. (I don't feel quite compelled to stipulate belief in what, though I won't take the cop-out of "spirituality.")
Together with atheist Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, perversely enough, this book nudges me away from atheism. In Dawkins' case, because he opens up a view of life which is as breathtaking in the realm of biology as Einstein's was in the realm of physics. Indeed Torrance was calling for just such a shift for Biology, crediting Polanyi with the insight. (I hadn't known, or remembered, that Polanyi and Turing were friends. Too bad we've (I've) mostly lost the one who should have been the more influential).
Our current state of philosophical (and theological, for that matter) understanding remains in the thrall of technology; which is to say that we are more amazed by the potential of our own creations than we are by God's (religion being one of those creations).
Now Torrance uses the term 'creation' in relation to God as if there were nothing problematical about that usage. But he does so in a truly glorious way, not by rehearsing the miracle of ex nihilo but by focusing on the impingement of the divine, by way of Christ's incarnation, on the "rational" (knowable) world in which we exist. We exist in a world (not the world) created by God.
I think he should have moved beyond any need for the term creation, since God. as he writes about Him, exists outside of our rational cosmos, which means outside of time and space. No beginnings, no ends. By Christ, we become not creator of our own world, but rather "transformer" in the more worldly usage that we should stick to. Not owner. Not mere life-form. But rather transformative agent. In Torrance's own usage, to say that God created the world rather delimits God, just as does saying that God is the world.
But we need beginnings and endings. Our minds are narrative creators; they depend on narrative meaning to bind the conceptual with the perceptual in some meaningful fashion. Torrance is pretty convincing that there can be no meaning without actual apprehension of something beyond our rational cosmos. Christ, in history, provides that. He invokes Gödel's incompleteness in his argument.
There is far too much specious editorialising, not drawing on someone like Torrance, as it should, which surrounds - shall always surround - the Christian religion for me to become an adherent. But I must say that in this age where we waffle about the importance of seeking for 'other' intelligent life in the cosmos, Torrance does make it clear that we're missing the obvious. The obvious being God, of course.
The vast reaches of space that we catalog may, in fact, be restricted only to our particular cosmos. If God does exist, then there is no reason that all worlds must be the same kind of rational that this one is. The Einsteinian barrier of time and distance is still weaker than the likelihood that 'cosmos' incorporates more than our small version of rationality. Without God, we may indeed be consigned to emptiness.
Somehow I am comforted by that insight. Without question, I find Torrance to be a more compelling philosopher than many I've read, and I find his read of science to be quite reliable as well. What he sets out to do, and to my read succeeds with, is to diminish to the point of non-existence any incongruence between the truths of science and those of theology, as well as to establish that each requires the other. Theology (or whatever broader term might be fitted here) must be part of science, as well as vice versa, perhaps.
So, while I may quibble with terms like 'God' and 'creation,' I can't quibble with his main argument: that we can never know everything about our own rational cosmos, and that there is something beyond it which belongs in the category of everything that we humans must hold dear. Call it God, call it universal love, call it a life force, there is indeed no doubt that it impinges on the cosmos that we increasingly apprehend by human science.
Now, if I can only manage to read William Gaddis on fakery and authenticity. If only I can find it amusing. Well, I will certainly find it amusing - I already have. Perhaps I'll find it literary. I don't expect it to be a religious experience. Reading Dawkins and Torrance have each been religious experiences for me, in the vulgar usage of that term.
January 27, 2009
Stupendous.
July 4, 2023
"Space, Time and Incarnation" by Thomas F. Torrance
I. Introduction
Thomas F. Torrance's "Space, Time and Incarnation" explores the intersection of theology and science, focusing on the concept of incarnation within the context of space and time. This critical review aims to provide an overview of the book's main arguments, analyze its strengths and weaknesses, evaluate its contribution to the field of theology, and assess its relevance in contemporary discourse.
II. Summary of "Space, Time and Incarnation"
Torrance's central argument revolves around the incarnation of Christ and its implications for understanding the nature of reality. He explores the significance of the event of Christ's birth in relation to space and time, drawing on scientific and philosophical concepts to support his theological framework. Torrance delves into topics such as relativity theory, quantum physics, and the nature of God's interaction with the world. He highlights the importance of a comprehensive understanding of space and time for a coherent theology.
III. Analysis
A. Strengths of the Book
Thorough exploration of the intersection of theology and science:
Torrance's ability to integrate scientific concepts into theological discourse is commendable. His engagement with relativity theory and quantum physics demonstrates a comprehensive approach to understanding the nature of reality, and his exploration of how these scientific theories intersect with theological concepts is thought-provoking.
Clear and accessible writing style:
Torrance presents complex ideas in a clear and accessible manner, making the book suitable for both scholars and general readers. His use of examples and illustrations helps readers grasp the intricate connections between theology, science, and the incarnation.
Thought-provoking insights on the incarnation of Christ:
Torrance's analysis of the significance of the incarnation offers fresh insights into the theological understanding of Christ's presence in space and time. His exploration of the relational nature of God's interaction with the world challenges traditional theological frameworks and prompts readers to reconsider their understanding of the divine-human relationship.
B. Weaknesses of the Book
Limited engagement with alternative viewpoints:
While Torrance offers a compelling argument, the book falls short in engaging with alternative viewpoints. The lack of critical engagement with contrasting theological perspectives weakens the overall impact of his argument, leaving the reader with a somewhat one-sided exploration of the topic.
Lack of practical application or implications:
"Space, Time and Incarnation" primarily focuses on theoretical discussions, neglecting to address practical implications or applications of its theological claims. Readers may find themselves yearning for a more robust connection between the ideas presented and their relevance to daily life and contemporary issues.
Overemphasis on scientific terminology and concepts:
While Torrance's integration of science into theology is a strength, some readers may feel overwhelmed by the heavy reliance on scientific terminology and concepts. The book could benefit from providing clearer explanations and context for these scientific ideas to ensure that readers without a scientific background can fully comprehend the arguments.
IV. Evaluation
A. Overall assessment of "Space, Time and Incarnation":
"Space, Time and Incarnation" is a valuable contribution to the field of theology, particularly in its exploration of the intersection between science and faith. Torrance's ability to bridge these two disciplines is commendable, and his thought-provoking insights on the incarnation challenge traditional theological frameworks.
B. Discussion of the book's contribution to the field of theology:
Torrance's work expands the theological discourse by incorporating scientific concepts and theories into the understanding of space, time, and incarnation. By emphasizing the relational nature of God's presence in the world, he encourages readers to reexamine their theological perspectives and engage in interdisciplinary dialogue.
C. Reflection on the book's relevance and impact in contemporary discourse:
"Space, Time and Incarnation" remains relevant in contemporary discourse as it tackles questions surrounding the compatibility of science and theology. The book invites further exploration and discussion on the nature of reality and the relationship between God and creation, offering a framework for theological engagement with scientific advancements.
V. Conclusion
In "Space, Time and Incarnation," Torrance presents a compelling exploration of the intersection between theology, science, and the incarnation of Christ. While the book has several strengths, such as its thoroughness, accessibility, and thought-provoking insights, it also has weaknesses, including limited engagement with alternative viewpoints, a lack of practical application, and an overemphasis on scientific terminology. Nevertheless, the book makes a valuable contribution to the field of theology, prompting readers to reconsider traditional theological frameworks and engage in interdisciplinary dialogue on the nature of reality and the relationship between God and creation.
Comment:
This little volume was most helpful in the formation of thinking about God and space. Classical philosophers have thought of space as some sort of container and then tried to locate God, the Trinity, and figure out the incarnation in relation to that. This is backward. All that exists is created in natural relation to the Trinity, a relationship He defines, which we cannot define. He transcends time and space and also remains able to act upon time and space. The question is not one of position or containment, but of domain.
Comment:
One of the key ideas Torrance explores is the notion of time as a dynamic, relational concept rather than a static and linear progression. He suggests that time is not merely an abstract and independent framework, but is deeply intertwined with the presence and action of God in the world. Torrance emphasizes the relationality of time, highlighting how it is intimately connected to God's interaction with creation and the incarnation of Christ.
November 1, 2024
If I had a book hall of fame, this one would go straight into it. Whenever I read Torrance, I am always in awe of Christ and the possibility of knowledge of God through Jesus. This book produces that feeling within me in the first 10 pages. Torrance’s theological science is on firm display in this volume—his notion that our method for learning about and knowing God is determined by the Object of our study. Yet, Torrance demonstrates such an incredible knowledge of ancient and modern philosophy, as well as the scientific developments of his own day and how these developments impacted the Christian view of Christ’s incarnation as the transcendent God’s relationship to the world. It is interesting to me that a man so well-versed in theology, philosophy, and science had such a low view of the discipline of Christian apologetics.
Here is an excerpt of one of my favorite passages from the book. It is long and dense, but that about summarizes Torrance:
“This is not contradicted by the doctrine of the Incarnation according to which God Himself has entered into our world in Jesus Christ through the assumption of a physical body in space and time, but is confirmed and illumi-nated, for, while it does not discount the absolute priority of God over all space and time, it asserts the reality of space and time for God in His relations with us and binds us to space and time in all our relations with Him. Thus the miraculous activity of God in the Incarnation is not to be thought of as an intrusion into the creation or as an abrogation of its space-time structure, but as the chosen form of God's interaction with nature in which He establishes an intimate relation between creaturely human being and Himself.”
Read that again and again. That’s how you have to approach this entire book. Torrance confronts an ancient view of space known as the receptacle/container view of space that had also reemerged in the Lutheran theology of his day. This is a popular notion of space, but he shows how this view generates problems for the Christian view of space. He also examines the relational view of space and how the Church Fathers seemed to work with this view of space as they articulated their view of Christ in the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds. This book is honestly so dense and so profound and my favorite. I will for sure be rereading this again in the future. Even though it is only 90 pages long, it took me 3 days to read through!
Here is an excerpt of one of my favorite passages from the book. It is long and dense, but that about summarizes Torrance:
“This is not contradicted by the doctrine of the Incarnation according to which God Himself has entered into our world in Jesus Christ through the assumption of a physical body in space and time, but is confirmed and illumi-nated, for, while it does not discount the absolute priority of God over all space and time, it asserts the reality of space and time for God in His relations with us and binds us to space and time in all our relations with Him. Thus the miraculous activity of God in the Incarnation is not to be thought of as an intrusion into the creation or as an abrogation of its space-time structure, but as the chosen form of God's interaction with nature in which He establishes an intimate relation between creaturely human being and Himself.”
Read that again and again. That’s how you have to approach this entire book. Torrance confronts an ancient view of space known as the receptacle/container view of space that had also reemerged in the Lutheran theology of his day. This is a popular notion of space, but he shows how this view generates problems for the Christian view of space. He also examines the relational view of space and how the Church Fathers seemed to work with this view of space as they articulated their view of Christ in the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds. This book is honestly so dense and so profound and my favorite. I will for sure be rereading this again in the future. Even though it is only 90 pages long, it took me 3 days to read through!
October 29, 2017
I really did enjoy this book by Torrance. Quick but deep, insightful and incisive, he cuts to the heart of the issue and delves deeply into the issues therein. Specifically, he seems most concerned in this book on how the discussion surrounding and intersecting with the Incarnation has gone astray. He considers how scholars from the patristics all the way through the reformation and even into modernity have articulated the incarnation, specifically in regards to how this articulation relates to God's relationship with space and time.
Yes, it's deep and I think it would be wise to caution anyone setting their sights on this book to realize that it will probably not be completely digested in your first read. I most definitely plan on picking it up again in the future. I would not recommend this for passive reading or to your average lay person. In fact, most pastors would not find this book helpful...and that's ok. But if you are thinking deeply about the Incarnation and God's relationship with space and time, then this would be one book I would highly recommend. Not the easiest read, but definitely worthwhile if you can handle the digestion of it.
Yes, it's deep and I think it would be wise to caution anyone setting their sights on this book to realize that it will probably not be completely digested in your first read. I most definitely plan on picking it up again in the future. I would not recommend this for passive reading or to your average lay person. In fact, most pastors would not find this book helpful...and that's ok. But if you are thinking deeply about the Incarnation and God's relationship with space and time, then this would be one book I would highly recommend. Not the easiest read, but definitely worthwhile if you can handle the digestion of it.
December 30, 2022
As an academic, I often read texts that are dense and difficult. This one is clearly both of those. However, I appreciate Dr. Torrance's work and am happy I struggled through this.
The text is three lectures given in the late 1960's in deeply academic settings. Dr. Torrance tries to explain the importance and difficulty of defining space and time. In particular, he wants to see how the Incarnation fits with various models. Part of my difficulty was that Dr. Torrance takes for granted that the audience understands how classical philosophers (think Plato and Aristotle), medieval thinkers (think Aquinas), and reformation thinkers (like Martin Luther) viewed space and time. My historical background just doesn't extend that far. The subtleties between various models and their implications for God entering time and space as the God-man Jesus Christ were hard for me to follow. However, diligence and hard work are satisfying, and I think I get most of his points. Dr. Torrance also ties his preferred model in with modern science, particular quantum mechanics and general relativity. That is an important point for Christians hoping to be taken seriously in our society.
The text is three lectures given in the late 1960's in deeply academic settings. Dr. Torrance tries to explain the importance and difficulty of defining space and time. In particular, he wants to see how the Incarnation fits with various models. Part of my difficulty was that Dr. Torrance takes for granted that the audience understands how classical philosophers (think Plato and Aristotle), medieval thinkers (think Aquinas), and reformation thinkers (like Martin Luther) viewed space and time. My historical background just doesn't extend that far. The subtleties between various models and their implications for God entering time and space as the God-man Jesus Christ were hard for me to follow. However, diligence and hard work are satisfying, and I think I get most of his points. Dr. Torrance also ties his preferred model in with modern science, particular quantum mechanics and general relativity. That is an important point for Christians hoping to be taken seriously in our society.
January 20, 2022
I don't like his writing style, quite boring,
but the content of this book is interesting, so make out of it what you like.
Luther, Isaac Newton and their followers - i.e. modern theologians, they've got time and space wrong, so their theology (especially Christology) is bound to be wrong - that's his thesis, and he's siding with Patristics, Reformed, and Anglican (as 39 articles go) side of things.
I would like to know why he thought what he thought about impassibility and immutability, and I am not persuaded that Nicea and Chalcedon are in need restating, which is what he suggested at the end of the book.
but the content of this book is interesting, so make out of it what you like.
Luther, Isaac Newton and their followers - i.e. modern theologians, they've got time and space wrong, so their theology (especially Christology) is bound to be wrong - that's his thesis, and he's siding with Patristics, Reformed, and Anglican (as 39 articles go) side of things.
I would like to know why he thought what he thought about impassibility and immutability, and I am not persuaded that Nicea and Chalcedon are in need restating, which is what he suggested at the end of the book.
January 19, 2023
Highly recommend for anyone interested in Christology and modern metaphysics. Clear in his arguments with thorough critiques — concluding that Post-Newtonian interpretations of “space” and “time” (i.e. Reformation theology and 20th century Ressourcement thinking) are recycled Platonic ‘receptacle’ metaphysics, which ultimately results in heresy. He advocates for Christians to explore relational/relative interpretations of time and space using Chalcedonian logic as support. Excellent.
My one wish is that he would have provided more extensive sections on La Nouvelle Théologie and Extra Calvinisticum.
My one wish is that he would have provided more extensive sections on La Nouvelle Théologie and Extra Calvinisticum.
June 7, 2025
A theoretical work on how the conception of space relates to ideas about the doctrine of Incarnation. Ya, never thought there was a connection - who knew!
In short (very short and simple), the idea of space can basically be divided into receptacle models and relational models, and receptacle models don’t work with Incarnation. I.E. how can finite space ‘contain’ the Godhead? OK. That is missing all the subtleties of the argument, most of which flew right over my head, but you get the gist. If you want the philosophical and theoretical arguments about how to think about the theological implications of conceptions of space, this is your book.
In short (very short and simple), the idea of space can basically be divided into receptacle models and relational models, and receptacle models don’t work with Incarnation. I.E. how can finite space ‘contain’ the Godhead? OK. That is missing all the subtleties of the argument, most of which flew right over my head, but you get the gist. If you want the philosophical and theoretical arguments about how to think about the theological implications of conceptions of space, this is your book.
October 9, 2021
“What I have done is rather to examine the problem of spatial concepts in Nicene Theology, with a view to determining how the Christian Church in its decisive and formative period presented the Gospel in the context of ancient culture and science, and developed its own specifically theological understanding of the relation of God to the world of space and time, on the ground of the doctrines of creation and incarnation” (vi).
September 30, 2017
I could maybe come up with three or four books that I genuinely believe could change the world. This is one of those books.
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January 2, 2018I would like to review this but I need to read it again. Half the stuff he references I’m not well versed on those topics. The big idea was clear and really provocative. Definitely a book to give some more thought to and reread.
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January 8, 2014Не мога да оценя книгата понеже не успях да я разбера в достаъчна степен. Ако някой все пак реши да се пробва нека да има в предвид, че стилът и езикът на Торенс никак не са лесни, а в добавка изискват и доста значимо количесто (в случая интердисциплинарни) знания от читателя - обикновено той просто не си дава труд да обяснява какво има в предвид под определен израз или концепция.
May 2, 2022
The title and concept of this book had me super excited. Unfortunately, it was written for big brain geniuses and I understood very little of it.
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