Writing Review of Pages 249-256 & 267-278 in Jurgen Moltmann's The Crucified God

Writing Review of Pages 249-256 & 267-278 in Jurgen Moltmann's The Crucified God

1A: How does Moltmann's Trinitarian Theology of the Cross Both Corroborate and Criticize Feuerbach's Claims

First of all let me clear that three key attributes of trinitarian fellowship have now come into our view, none of which can be missed when grasping Moltmann's vision of the Christian life. First and foremost, trinitarian fellowship signifies the communion shared among the three divine persons. Trinitarian fellowship is neither the attribute of one single divine person nor a reality distinct from their personal relations. Rather, it signifies the "social unity" (1) that is constituted by the reciprocal self-giving love among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Moltmann borrows the ancient term perichoresis, drawn from the Eastern Church Father, John the Damascene, to describe the nature of this communion among the divine persons. Perichoresis signifies the circling movements of mutual indwelling that arise from the three persons' eternal acts of self-donation. This mutual indwelling creates a dynamic unity or at-oneness that constitutes their fellowship. In this circling movement of love, the divine persons do not simply exist in relationship with one another, but they live in and through one another. As Moltmann describes it, "By virtue of the love they have for one another they ex-ist totally in the other. ... Each Person finds his existence and his joy in the other Person. Each Person receives the fullness of eternal life from the other" (1). The divine persons realize not only their unity but also their personal distinctions through these acts of mutual indwelling. Self-differentiation and self-donation do not oppose one another in this fellowship but come into existence together.

Radical equality is the second key feature of trinitarian fellowship. This may not seem a terribly unique claim, since trinitarian orthodoxy has always affirmed that all three persons are "of one being" and, therefore, of equal rank. However, in Moltmann's view, Western trinitarian theology has compromised the equality of the divine persons, by developing the doctrine in terms of a descending order of processions from God the Father. Indeed Moltmann charges that the West has always preserved a "monarchial concept of the Trinity," in which the Father serves as the source of all divine activity, the Son as mediator between the Father and humankind, and the Holy Spirit as the power of the other two. The addition of the filioque clause (the dual procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son) to the Nicene creed cemented this monarchial order in place in the West, since this clause eclipsed further the Holy Spirit's personal agency in the sending and the raising of the Son.

In contrast to this monarchial concept of the Trinity, Moltmann dramatically defends the equality of the divine persons. The dynamic patterns of giving and receiving among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the economy of salvation witness to the equal rank and mutual interdependence of all three persons in ...