Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh, The: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology by Amos Yong

Author:Amos Yong [Yong, Amos]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781441206732
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2005-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

5.2 CONTEMPORARY TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY

We will now explore the issues by enlarging the ecumenical conversation to include various tributaries to the contemporary discussion on the doctrine of God. Given the renaissance in trinitarian theological reflection during the last generation (is it surprising that it coincides with the explosion of pneumatological reflection during almost the same period of time?), our dialogue partners will be trinitarian thinkers: the Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky; Karl Barth; and a trio of two-thirds-world theologians. Given the specific problematic at hand and space constraints, the exposition of each theologian’s thinking will be necessarily brief and focused. The goal is threefold: to get a broad sense of the contemporary thinking on the doctrine of God in general and on trinitarian theology in particular; to assess the role of pneumatology in reflection on God and Trinity; and to glean resources from the contemporary scene that might help in overcoming the Oneness-trinitarian impasse.

5.2.1 Retrieving the Tradition: Lossky. Perhaps the most outstanding of Eastern theologians in the first half of the twentieth century, Vladimir Lossky (1904–1958) and his contributions to displaying the ecumenical significance of Orthodox theology are inestimable. True to his tradition, Lossky’s theological vision was characterized by the centrality of the church fathers and Orthodox themes such as deification, the essence-energy distinction, and mystical spirituality. Yet also in tune with Orthodoxy was his trinitarian vision, featuring central patristic emphases.

First, without apology, Lossky retrieved especially the Greek patristic trinitarian terminology, seeking only to make it intelligible to the contemporary world.[29] God was thus one ousia (“essence”) in three hypostases (“subsistences”). The latter term was preferred to prosōpon (colloquially, “person”; literally, “face” or “mask”), equivalent to the Latin persona (“person”), since prosōpon points only to the apparent, and thereby not essential, character of the individual face. This leads Lossky to argue that the church fathers did not uncritically articulate their theological ideas in Greek linguistic categories, as the older Harnackian thesis or the Anabaptist and Oneness critiques would have it. Rather, the fathers accomplished a fundamental transformation of the available vocabulary so as to allow a truly new synthesis of ideas to emerge.[30] Thus Lossky notes the repeated denials of especially the Cappadocian fathers that the triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are simply the mathematical addition of individual persons. Further, the Plotinian trinity of the One, the Intelligence, and the World Soul was not adopted by the early church because of its emanationism and descending hierarchy. Against this backdrop, given the virtual synonymy of ousia and hypostasis in fourth-century usage, the trinitarian idea that emerged was truly novel. The triune “persons” are not “individuals” that are part of and divide their species (as denoted by prosōpon); in fact, following Saint Basil, Lossky saw that an uncritical adoption of prosōpon would lead to the Sabellian error of seeing Father, Son, and Spirit as merely successively appearing modalities (masks) of the hidden divine substance. Against these conclusions, each hypostasis “assumes in its fullness divine nature. . . . [They] are infinitely united and

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