Notes

Introduction

1. Dale M. Schlitt, “German Idealism’s Trinitarian Legacy: The Nineteenth Century,” “German Idealism’s Trinitarian Legacy: The Twentieth Century,” in The Impact of Idealism: The Legacy of Post-Kantian German Thought, ed. Nicholas Boyle and Liz Disley, vol. 4, Religion, ed. Nicholas Adams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), respectively 48–68 and 69–90.

2. Here, given the subject matter involved, focus is on the German Idealists Hegel and Schelling, with initial reference to Fichte. Nicholas Boyle works with a more inclusive listing of Idealists: “The term ‘German Idealism,’ in short, means, for present purposes, the philosophical work of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, and—more controversially, perhaps—some components of the work of such major literary contemporaries of these as Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, and Friedrich Schlegel.” “General Introduction: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in The Impact of Idealism: The Legacy of Post-Kantian German Thought, ed. Nicholas Boyle and Liz Disley, vol. 1, Philosophy and Natural Sciences, ed. Karl Ameriks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 3.

3. Rev. William P. Clark kindly pointed out this reference to William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), who, to put it very briefly and inadequately, stressed the value of parsimony with regard to assumptions in evaluating a multiplicity of hypotheses.

4. Usually “Trinity” without the definite article refers more to the notion of a triune God and “the Trinity” with the definite article refers more to the reality of the triune God.

5. Difficult as decisions regarding whom to include in the study may be, if three or so thinkers provided sufficient witness to the ongoing Idealist trinitarian legacy in a particular place and period of time it did not seem necessary to add further examples.

That being said, the cases of Jürgen Moltmann and Paul Tillich called for added consideration. These twentieth-century German, and for present purposes I would include Tillich here, theological giants have clearly been influenced in their trinitarian thinking by the German Idealists. The question became one of whether or not including them would contribute further in a significant way to understanding the Idealist trinitarian legacy beyond what was exemplified by Barth, Rahner, and Pannenberg.

John W. Cooper remarks that “Jürgen Moltmann is probably the most widely known and popular contemporary Protestant theologian.” Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers, from Plato to the Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 237. Moltmann has been very well received and studied at length especially in the United States. His book, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981), has been widely read. In addition to various earlier studies, also to be noted among his later studies: Experiences in Trinity: Ways and Forms of Christian Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2000), 303–33; History and the Trinitarian God: Contributions to Trinitarian Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1992), with comment on 181 concerning The Trinity and the Kingdom of God. And important as well, among others Moltmann’s earlier volume, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology (New York: Harper and Row, 1974).

Cooper, Panentheism, 237–58, provides a helpful discussion of the influence of Idealist thought, both that of Hegel and of Schelling, on Moltmann and especially in relation to Moltmann on Trinity. Samuel M. Powell has provided an easily accessible and very helpful overview of aspects of Moltmann’s thought on Trinity. The Trinity in German Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), esp. 193–202, 226–33, 248–53, with various references made here and there to and insightful comments on Hegelian and Idealist influences on Moltmann’s trinitarian thought. Powell does not make reference to Schelling’s possible influence on Moltmann. In the area of Trinity studies Moltmann has surely been influenced by Hegel despite the fact that he criticizes Hegel and especially Barth on Trinity. Moltmann disagrees particularly with regard to what he considers their monosubjectival approach to Trinity. Especially in The Crucified God, 246 with 253–54, he has creatively spoken of the notion of a suffering God, linking this notion with Hegel’s idea of the trinitarian history of God inclusive of the crucifixion. In proceeding this way, Moltmann works with an idea at least in a structural way possibly traceable back to Hegel’s idea of including a moment of negativity in the movement of dialectically developing logical or pure thought, which is for Hegel a philosophical reformulation of “immanent” Trinity. It is this dialectically developing movement of logical thought which provides the depth-structure underlying Hegel’s representationally expressed reading of the crucifixion in Hegel’s philosophy of religion. In a sense, then, the form, so to speak, of crucifixion would already be present in Hegel’s philosophical reformulation of “immanent” Trinity. So far I have not been able to document such a possible reference to Hegel’s logical thought in this regard either in Moltmann’s work or in commentaries on it. In somewhat parallel fashion to his referring to Hegel’s philosophy of religion in relation to his position that each person of the Trinity suffers in the crucifixion, Moltmann also speaks, in the preface to The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, xvi, of Andrei Rublev’s trinitarian icon: “Through their tenderly intimate inclination towards one another, the three Persons show the profound unity joining them, in which they are one. The chalice on the table points to the surrender of the Son on Golgotha. Just as the chalice stands at the centre of the table round which the three Persons are sitting, so the cross of the Son stands from eternity in the centre of the Trinity.” In “The Hegelian Element in von Balthasar’s and Moltmann’s Understanding of the Suffering of God,” Toronto Journal of Theology 14 (1998): 45–60, Brian J. Spence perhaps opens a way of referring to God’s suffering as a somewhat more technical way in which Moltmann has worked with Hegel’s thought. Spence proposes that the key to Moltmann’s and von Balthasar’s thought is “the notion [in Hegel’s philosophy of religion] that the Incarnation has implications both for human history and the inner life of God” (p. 46). Spence then moves from Hegel’s idea of the death of God to Moltmann’s notion in which Moltmann speaks of the three divine persons rather than of “God,” as Hegel does. In so doing, according to Spence Moltmann transfers the Hegelian idea of the death of God to his own notion of the cross as a window into the life of God who, as three divine persons, suffers in various ways. One could explore this approach further, but I would suggest that the here-proposed Hegelian idea of person as relation and self-othering underlying Moltmann’s move is already discussed in our review of the thought of Barth, Rahner, and Pannenberg. It may well be that the specific notion of a suffering triune God, especially as applied in a particular way to each of the three divine persons, is more original with Moltmann than some commentators would suggest.

For remarks on the way in which Moltmann’s Göttingen professor, Hans Joachim Iwand, mediated Hegel’s thought to Moltmann, see M. Douglas Meeks, Origins of the Theology of Hope (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 30–41, esp. 34–39. Concerning Moltmann on Trinity, one could also note Randall E. Otto, The God of Hope: The Trinitarian Vision of Jürgen Moltmann (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991), 175–98. And see the important study mentioning at times Moltmann in relation to German Idealism, Hegel, and, briefly, Schelling: Joy Ann McDougall, Pilgrimage of Love: Moltmann on the Trinity and Christian Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), on Hegel, 49–50, where on the latter page I was happy to see she refers to “strong family resemblances [emphasis mine] between Moltmann’s dialectic and German Idealism” as well as 95–97 concerning Moltmann and Hegel on the notion of “person”; on Schelling, 44.

In his often more generally proclamatory manner of presentation, especially in his later work, Moltmann shows in his trinitarian thought a good number of what we can identify as Idealist influences, whether of Hegel or Schelling or perhaps Schelling through various Eastern Christian thinkers. In regard to “proclamatory manner,” one might note Powell’s references to Moltmann’s “assertions.” Trinity in German Thought, for example 199. But perhaps a better way to refer to Moltmann’s theological approach, especially in his later years, is to speak of it as “prophetic.” For an excellent, appreciative reading especially of the later Moltmann, see M. Douglas Meeks, “Jürgen Moltmann’s Systematic Contributions to Theology,” Religious Studies Review 22 (1996): 95–102, where he speaks of “two primary movements” in Moltmann’s thought, namely, “the experience of God in all things and the experience of all things in God” (98, italics in the original).

A number of elements of Idealist influence noticeable in Moltmann’s trinitarian thought will be referred to in our dealing with the trinitarian thought of Barth, Rahner, and Pannenberg. Such influences include, for example: stress upon divine revelation as divine self-communication (an influence exemplified in Rahner); stress upon revelation as such (Barth and Pannenberg); stress upon revelation and history (Pannenberg); stress on the history of Jesus as starting point for trinitarian reflection (Pannenberg); the Hegelian notion of person as relational (Pannenberg); the idea that the unity of the Trinity arises out of the interaction of the three divine Persons, already spoken of by Schelling (Pannenberg); the focus on mutual interrelations among the three divine Persons with, however, this interaction taking on the form of suffering in Moltmann (Pannenberg); the axiom that the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity and vice versa (Rahner); divine self-differentiation (Pannenberg). For a somewhat comparative presentation of Moltmann and Pannenberg on Trinity, see Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “The Trinitarian Doctrines of Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg in the Context of Contemporary Discussion,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 223–42, esp. 235 on.

Tillich is, to say the least, a complex thinker. And it is true that he speaks openly of his working in theology with the thought of Schelling. One could review his explicit presentation on Trinity, “The Trinitarian Symbols,” in his monumental Systematic Theology, vol. 3: Life and the Spirit, History and the Kingdom of God (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1975), 283–94. There he treats of Trinity under the theme of “life,” working with what is arguably a basically Hegelian structure but giving it a Schellingian cast. Powell, Trinity in German Thought, provides an easily accessible overview of Tillich on Trinity (180–83, 211–16, 240–43), with insightful comments on Hegel’s and Schelling’s influence on Tillich’s trinitarian thinking (esp. 211–16 and 243). On Idealist influence on Tillich’s thinking, see also Cooper, Panentheism, 194–212, with helpful bibliographic references on 195n7. On 206n60 Cooper cites Adrian Thatcher, The Ontology of Paul Tillich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 52–62 specifically concerning Idealist influence on Tillich’s trinitarian thought.

Though Powell and others provide excellent insight into Idealist influences on Tillich’s trinitarian thought, it would still not be easy to pin down further, so to speak, just what Tillich means by Trinity. He works with Father, Son, and Spirit as symbols and with somewhat complex distinctions such as the one between experiential revelation and doctrinal expression. It may well be that coming to terms with his trinitarian thought would require a wide-ranging and more constructive review of all three volumes. In addition then to a certain ambiguity in Tillich’s thought on Trinity as such, there are as well seeming ambiguities as to how he relates Logos and Jesus and how he can move from different experiences of the divine to a united divinity. Pan-Chiu Lai, Towards a Trinitarian Theology of Religions: A Study of Paul Tillich’s Thought (Kampen, The Netherlands: Pharos, 1994), 154–59, notes several such aspects of Tillich’s trinitarian thought which could be considered ambiguous. While it is not the purpose of the present study to provide a critical review of possible ambiguities in various thinkers, it would seem to be necessary, in treating of Tillich, to come to terms with them in some way. Ultimately, it would seem that Tillich’s trinitarian thought remains underdeveloped and prolegomenic at least as regards the new form trinitarian doctrine (the more organized, reasoned presentation) should take today.

Powell writes in a somewhat similar vein: “The content of the doctrine is the vital matter and that which must be recovered; the doctrinal form, which is the product of human rationality and symbolic expression, may be amended or cast away if the historical form of the doctrine impedes its principal function. … Tillich, in the Systematic Theology, no more than adumbrated the direction such revision might take.” Trinity in German Thought, 242. In a later study, Powell remarks as well that “a better account [than what Tillich has provided] of the Trinity is needed.” Powell makes this remark in the context of his discussion of Tillich within the context of Powell’s constructive reflection on “Creation and Trinity.” See Participation in God: Creation and Trinity (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003), 51–55, with the quote on 54. In the third part of Tillich’s discussion of “The Trinitarian Symbols,” entitled “Reopening the Trinitarian Problem” (Systematic Theology, 3:291–94), Tillich writes: “Will it ever again be possible to say without theological embarrassment or mere conformity to tradition the great words, ‘In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit’? … I believe it is possible, but it requires a radical revision of the trinitarian doctrine and a new understanding of the Divine Life and the Spiritual Presence” (292). We should note the more programmatic character of this third and last part of the section, “The Trinitarian Symbols.” In a sense Tillich seems to be appealing to his whole systematic theology as a resource for further developing trinitarian doctrine for today. It might be of interest to point out that Leroy T. Howe, “Tillich on Trinity,” The Christian Scholar 49 (1966): 206–13, proposes that Tillich’s systematic theology is “essentially an exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity, a systematic interpretation of Christian faith whose indispensable foundation and structure is the Trinitarian formula, ‘ecstatic’ reason’s most fitting response to the divine self-manifestation” (206). If this is the case, which it may be with certain further qualifications, we would in a sense have to do the work of bringing Tillich’s constructive reflection on divine self-manifestation (in some sense Christ) and “ecstatic” reason (in some sense concerning Spirit) to more explicit expression in trinitarian terms. These remarks are of course in no way meant to deny, for example, the great value of looking further, in another context than the present one, at Tillich’s notion of “revelatory experiences” in relation to the notion of Trinity. For considerable further reflection on Tillich on Trinity, see Trinität und/oder Quaternität—Tillichs Neuerschließung der trinitarishcen Problematik/Trinity and/or Quaternity—Tillich’s Reopening of the Trinitarian Problem, ed. Gert Hummel and Doris Lax (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004).

There are various elements of Idealist influence noticeable in Tillich’s trinitarian thought which we will refer to in our dealing with the trinitarian thought of Barth, Rahner, and Pannenberg. We might, for example, note: the Hegelian movement of separation and return (Barth, Rahner, and Pannenberg, though Tillich works with this movement as a threefold dialectic of life rather than spirit, perhaps a nod, but also more than a nod, to Schelling); the role of revelation (self-revelation in fact) in relation to trinitarian thought, with the latter grounded in the former (Barth, Pannenberg), though Tillich limits revelation to “content”; and, the connection between God’s selfhood and Trinity (Barth, Rahner, and Pannenberg). Powell says Tillich’s notion of symbol may stand in relation to Hegel’s notion of representational thinking while the linkage of Father with darkness and power would seem to reflect a more Schellingian than Hegelian approach.

Introduction to Part 1

1. For a contextualizing overview of German Idealism, see Nicholas Boyle, “General Introduction: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in The Impact of Idealism: The Legacy of Post-Kantian German Thought, ed. Nicholas Boyle and Liz Disley, vol. 1, Philosophy and Natural Sciences, ed. Karl Ameriks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 1–16.

On the more general question of the relationship between Trinity and philosophy, see, for example, the literature-oriented discussion: [Erwin Schadel], “Epilog/Epilogue. Das trinitarische Problem und die Philosophie. Überlegungen zum Forschungsstand und Literaturbericht anläßlich des Erscheinens einer Trinitäts-Enzyklopädie,” in Bibliotheca Trinitariorum: International Bibliography of Trinitarian Literature, ed. Erwin Schadel with Leonore Bazinek and Peter Müller, vol. 2, Indices and Supplementary List (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1988), 576–94. For primary and secondary bibliography on a number of the trinitarian thinkers referred to in this and the following chapters, see the various indexes in this volume 2 as well as the alphabetical listing in the first volume, Bibliotheca Trinitariorum: International Bibliography of Trinitarian Literature, ed. Erwin Schadel with Dieter Brünn and Peter Müller, vol. 1, Author Index (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1984).

2. Samuel M. Powell, The Trinity in German Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 7; Cyril O’Regan, “The Trinity in Kant, Hegel, and Schelling,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery, O.P., and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 256.

3. See, in general, Günter Rohrmoser, Subjektivität und Verdinglichung: Theologie und Gesellschaft im Denken des jungen Hegel (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1961).

4. The 1794–95 German text of the critical edition of Fichte’s Science of Knowledge, Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre, is available in J. G. Fichte—Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 1/2, Werke 1793–1795, ed. Reinhard Lauth and Hans Jacob with collaboration by Manfred Zahn (Stuttgart: F. Frommann, 1965). However, references here are to Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s sämmtliche Werke, ed. J. H. Fichte, erste Abteilung, Zur theoretischen Philosophie, erster Band (Berlin: Veit und Comp., 1845; Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1971, reprint of the nineteenth-century edition of Fichte’s writings), 83–328. The 1845 edition was accessed February 21, 2012, http://books.google.com/books?id=sgJKAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=twopage&q&f=true. English translation: Science of Knowledge, ed. and trans. Peter Heath and John Lachs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 89–286. The pages of the German edition of 1845 are helpfully provided in the left-hand margins of the English translation.

5. On this first principle, see Fichte, Grundlage, in Zur theoretischen Philosophie, § 1, pp. 91–101/Science, § 1, pp. 93–102.

6. On this second principle, see Fichte, Grundlage, in Zur theoretischen Philosophie, § 2, pp. 101–05/Science, § 2, pp. 102–05.

7. On this third principle, see Fichte, Grundlage, in Zur theoretischen Philosophie, § 3, pp. 105–23/Science, § 3, pp. 105–19.

8. See O’Regan, “The Trinity,” 256. In regard to this trinitarian expression, O’Regan refers especially to Fichte’s 1806 Die Anweisung zum seligen Leben oder auch die Religionslehre, the critical edition of which can be found in J. G. Fichte—Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 1/9, Werke 1806–1807, ed. Reinhard Lauth and Hans Gliwitzky (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, frommann-holzboog, 1995)/The Way towards the Blessed Life; or, the Doctrine of Religion, trans. Willima Smith (London: John Chapman, 1849), accessed April 28, 2014, http://books.google.com/books?id=s08EAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

9. For a brief summary of Hegel’s presentation and evaluation of Fichte’s philosophy, see Dale M. Schlitt, Experience and Spirit: A Post-Hegelian Philosophical Theology (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 36–37. In the present reference to Fichte I have taken several phrases from these pages.

Chapter 1

1. On Hegel’s interpretation of Fichte’s philosophy, see Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen: Ausgewählte Nachschriften und Manuskripte, vol. 9, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, Teil 4, Philosophie des Mittelalters und der neuren Zeit, ed. Pierre Garniron and Walter Jaeschke (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1986), p. 156 line 576 to p. 162 line 741 with endnotes pp. 392–96/Lectures on the History of Philosophy: The Lectures of 1825–1826, vol. 3, Medieval and Modern Philosophy, ed. Robert F. Brown, trans. Robert F. Brown and J. M. Stewart with the assistance of H. S. Harris (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). The pages of the German edition are helpfully provided in the outer margins of the English translation.

2. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 9, Phänomenologie des Geistes, ed. Wolfgang Bonsiepen and Reinhard Heede (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1980), p. 409 line 37 to p. 421 end, hereafter referred to as Phänomenologie des Geistes and cited by page and line/Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (New York: Oxford, 1977), p. 464 line 37 to p. 478 end, hereafter referred to as Phenomenology of Spirit.

3. For Hegel’s presentation of Trinity in the 1830 Encyclopedia, see Gesammelte Werke, vol. 20, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830), ed. Wolfgang Bonsiepen and Hans-Christian Lucas, with Udo Rameil (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1992), §§ 564–71, explicitly on trinitarian syllogisms §§ 567–71, hereafter referred to as Enzyklopädie/Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind, trans. William Wallace (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), §§ 564–71, explicitly on trinitarian syllogisms §§ 567–71, hereafter referred to as Philosophy of Mind. For a convenient parallel presentation of the English translations of Hegel’s presentation of the revealed religion in the three original editions of the Encyclopedia, see John W. Burbidge, “The Syllogisms of Revealed Religion, or the Reasonableness of Christianity,” The Owl of Minerva 18 (1986): 29–42.

4. Hegel’s various lecture series texts are clearly identified in Vorlesungen: Ausgewählte Nachschriften und Manuskripte, vol. 5, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, Teil 3, Die vollendete Religion, ed. Walter Jaeschke (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1984), hereafter referred to as Vorlesungen, 5 and cited by page and text line/Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, vol. 3, The Consummate Religion, ed. Peter C. Hodgson, trans. R. F. Brown, P. C. Hodgson, and J. M. Stewart with the assistance of H. S. Harris (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), hereafter referred to as Lectures, 3. The German edition pagination is conveniently indicated in the outer margin of the text of this English translation. Therefore, unless the English translation of Hegel’s texts and lecture transcripts is quoted, generally reference is made only to the German edition. The corresponding English translation can easily be found by following the indication of the German pagination in the English edition. For bibliography by and on Hegel on Trinity, noting especially the by now classic works on Hegel’s philosophy of religion by Walter Jaeschke and Peter C. Hodgson (for example, Walter Jaeschke, Reason in Religion: The Foundations of Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990; Peter C. Hodgson, Hegel and Christian Theology: A Reading of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005]), see Dale M. Schlitt, Hegel’s Trinitarian Claim: A Critical Reflection (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2012), 349–70; Dale M. Schlitt, Divine Subjectivity: Understanding Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion (Scranton, PA: Scranton University Press, 2009), 177–83 in notes, and more generally 315–27. See also Kurt Steinhauer, Hegel Bibliography: Background Material on the International Reception of Hegel within the Context of the History of Philosophy, 2 vols. (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1980, 1998), under the appropriate Keywords. For a brief, excellent overall presentation of Hegel on Trinity, see Powell, Trinity in German Thought, 104–41.

5. The distinction here is between the realphilosophical spheres of nature and spirit, on the one hand, and the sphere of logic as the movement of pure thought, on the other. “Realphilosophical” refers to all the spheres of Hegel’s systematically developed philosophy other than that of logic.

6. We can, in a sort of shorthand form and with important qualifications, speak of Hegel’s reconceptualization of Trinity in terms commonly used in contemporary trinitarian theology, namely, the distinction between “immanent” and “economic” Trinity. “Immanent” Trinity refers to distinction or difference within the divine itself. “Economic” Trinity refers to the externalization of this distinction in human history. Hegel regularly enough discussed what has thus come to be identified as “immanent” and “economic” Trinity.

Unless otherwise indicated, in the present chapter when we speak of “Trinity” we are referring in an inclusive sense to both “immanent” and “economic” Trinity. For a most helpful overview of Hegel’s discussions on Trinity see Jörg Splett, Die Trinitätslehre G. W. F. Hegels (Munich: Karl Alber, 1965), and esp. 78 on “immanent” and “economic” Trinity. Note that “immanent” Trinity will be used to refer not only to the first moment in the development of revealed religion but as well to Hegel’s logic as reformulation of the structure and movement of Trinity. For an example of the use of “immanent” and “economic” Trinity in theology, see Karl Rahner, The Trinity (London: Burns and Oates, 1970), esp. 21–24, 99–103.

7. Though the exact description, as here presented, of Hegel’s trinitarian thought as syllogistic is somewhat disputed, Hegel himself is cited in his lectures on the history of philosophy as saying, “Aber das Konkrete ist, daß Gott ein Schluß ist, der sich mit sich selbst zusammenschließt.” Sämtliche Werke: Jubiläumsausgabe in zwanzig Bänden, ed. Hermann Glockner, vol. 18, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Frommann, 1928), 253/“But the concrete is, that God is a syllogism, which brings itself together with itself,” Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. E. S. Haldane and F. H. Simson, vol. 2 (New York: Humanities, 1955) 76, but translated here from the second Friends edition of 1840. The present translation is my own. The German text is cited by Hermann Schmitz in Hegel als Denker der Individualität (Meisenheim/Glan: Hain, 1957), 99.

Hegel stated explicitly though parenthetically in an 1829 book review that his thought on Trinity (Dreieinigkeitslehre, as the author of the book in question had referred to Hegel’s thought) was a “Schluß der absoluten Vermittlung mit sich, den drei Schlüsse ausmachen.” Review of “Über die hegelsche Lehre oder: absolutes Wissen und moderner Pantheismus,” 2. “Über Philosophie überhaupt und Hegels Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften insbesondere. Ein Beitrag zur Beurteilung der Letzteren. Von Dr. K. E. Schubarth und Dr. L. Carganico,” in Berliner Schriften 1818–1831, Philosophische Bibliothek, vol. 240, ed. Johannes Hoffmeister (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1956), 352/“syllogism of absolute self-mediation, which [syllogism] is made up of three syllogisms” (my translation), with the German text being cited by Schmitz in Hegel als Denker, 99.

8. On philosophy, see Enzyklopädie, §§ 572–77/Philosophy of Mind, §§ 572–77.

9. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 11, Wissenschaft der Logik, erster Band, Die objektive Logik (1812–1813), ed. Friedrich Hogemann and Walter Jaeschke (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1978), p. 21 lines 16–21/Hegel’s Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (New York: Humanities, 1969), 50, hereafter referred to as Science of Logic.

10. In the 1830 Encyclopedia text the quote from Aristotle is found at Enzyklopädie, § 577/Philosophy of Mind, § 577. The English translation of the quote is that of Walter Jaeschke, “Philosophical Theology and Philosophy of Religion,” in New Perspectives on Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion, ed. David Kolb (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992), 7.

11. In this presentation of Hegel’s philosophy of religion I have chosen to emphasize somewhat more the speculative formulation of Hegel’s movement of spirit as a generally triadically structured movement of thought. This approach seems to me to reflect what Hegel actually did in his philosophy of religion, and especially his philosophy of the revelatory or consummate religion. Certainly Hegel’s thought is not that of a simple or mechanical exit and return. It is, however, in its overall fundamental speculative formulation, which undergirds his other formulations, one of ordered advance through posited otherness to enriched resultant and grounding return. For a brief and clear statement by Hegel, see his remarks on religion, on determinate religion, on the consummate religion, and concerning his generalization of this dynamic to the whole of scientific knowing (Wissenschaft) in Vorlesungen, 5:177.3–21 (1827 Lasson text).

12. For example, Vorlesungen, 5:254.80–89. See also the text following, Vorlesungen 5:254.90–105 and 255.136–256.141. Note that in view of Vorlesungen, 5:198.660–62 the third element, community, is to be identified as individuality or the individual. These three texts are from the 1827 lectures.

13. Vorlesungen, 5:199.690–215.73 with the overviews in 197.608–17 and 198.669–70. In the 1831 lectures Hegel will refer to this first element as the kingdom of the Father and to the second and third elements respectively as kingdom of the Son and kingdom of the Spirit. See: Vorlesungen, 5:280.67–281.96; 199–200 note to line 688.

14. On the categorical syllogism, see Gesammelte Werke, vol. 12, Wissenschaft der Logik, zweiter Band, Die subjektive Logik (1816), ed. Friedrich Hogemann and Walter Jaeschke (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1981), p. 119 line 13 to p. 121 line 15 (hereafter abbreviated Die subjektive Logik (1816) and cited by page and text line)/Science of Logic, 696–98. On syllogism in Hegel’s thought in general, see Dale M. Schlitt, Hegel’s Trinitarian Claim (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984/Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2012), 100–06, (1984), 60–63 (2012).

15. Vorlesungen, 5:215.74–251.24 with the overviews in 197.618–198.645 and 198.671–199.678.

16. On the hypothetical syllogism, see Die subjektive Logik (1816), 121.16–123.31/Science of Logic, 698–701.

17. Vorlesungen, 5:251.25–270.520 with the overviews on 198.646–51 and 199.679–81.

18. Vorlesungen, 5:196.601–197.607.

19. We should note that Hegel values religiously expressed reconciliation in its representational form as the truth for all humanity. For example, Enzyklopädie, § 573 R, § 1/Philosophy of Mind, § 573 R, § 1. And already in the Logic, Die subjektive Logik (1816), 236.27–29/Science of Logic, 824–25.

20. On the disjunctive syllogism, see Die subjektive Logik (1816), 123.32–126.11/Science of Logic, 701–4.

21. Logic so italicized refers to the published text of the Science of Logic. “Logic” not italicized refers to the dialectical movement of thought determinations as Hegel proposes them in the Logic. At times the Logic will be cited according to Hegel’s 1832 revision of the first part of the Science of Logic, the logic of being: Gesammelte Werke, vol. 21, Wissenschaft der Logik. erster Band, Die objective Logik (1832), ed. Friedrich Hogemann and Walter Jaeschke (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1985) (hereafter abbreviated Die objective Logik (1832) and cited by page and text line). Unless otherwise noted, the translation in Science of Logic will be cited for both the original and revised editions of the logic of being.

22. Die subjektive Logik (1816), 25.29–33/Science of Logic, 592.

23. See Jaeschke, Die Religionsphilosophie Hegels, 89–90.

24. Here we will not discuss the question whether Hegel’s reconceptualization of Trinity is more or less compatible either with the general Christian trinitarian dogma or with one or more specific Christian trinitarian theologies.

25. See especially at the end of the Logic, Die subjektive Logik (1816), 252.25–253.34/Science of Logic, 842–44.

26. Karl Heinz Haag, “Die Seinsdialektik bei Hegel und in der scholastischen Philosophie,” PhD diss., Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, 1951, 20–22.

27. On the questions of “tri-personal” and dyadic versus triadic interpretations of Hegel’s trinitarian thought, see the helpful review and reflections with further references in Jaeschke, Die Religionsphilosophie Hegels, 87–91. See also Splett, Trinitätslehre, 145–48.

28. E.g., Die subjektive Logik (1816), 236.3–20, 246.23–27, 248.14–16, 251.8–13/Science of Logic, 824, 835–36, 837, 841.

29. “Gott ist Geist d.i. das, was wir dreieinigen Gott heißen.” Vorlesungen, 5:16.419/Lectures, 3:78.

30. Vorlesungen, 5:150.667–69 (1824 lecture transcript). Hereafter the philosophy of religion lecture series will be identified by date.

31. Vorlesungen, 3:43.292–310 (1824).

32. See Hegel’s hand-written marginal note to § 35 in Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Philosophische Bibliothek, vol. 124a, ed. Johannes Hoffmeister (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1967), 324. There Hegel wrote, “Hohes der Person, Höchstes Persönlichkeit—Gottes Persönlichkeit—Mag man an Gott glauben,—bestimmen, wie man will, fehlt Persönlichkeit, so nicht genügend”/“Sublimity of the person—highest personality of [is ascribed to] God—one may believe in or define the personality of God as one chooses—but lack of personality [is] not satisfying.” Translation of this difficult fragment has kindly been provided by Prof. Peter C. Hodgson, with as well my consultation of Prof. Robert F. Brown as suggested by Hodgson.

33. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Auf Grund der Handschriften herausgegeben, Philosophische Bibliothek, vol. 171b–d, ed. Georg Lasson (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1976), 722. See also Hegel’s remarks, within the context of his philosophy of world history, on the importance of Spirit as Trinity in Vorlesungen: Ausgewählte Nachschriften und Manuskripte, vol. 12, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Berlin 1822/1823, ed. Karl-Heinz Ilting, Karl Brehmer, and Hoo Nam Seelmann (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1996), p. 421 lines 444 to 464, and see early pp. 31–32/Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, vol. 1, ed. and trans. Robert F. Brown and Peter C. Hodgson with the assistance of William G. Geuss (Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 2011), 448, and see 151.

34. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Auf Grund der Handschriften herausgegeben, Philosophische Bibliothek, vol. 171a, ed. Johannes Hoffmeister (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1970) 74. See also Hegel’s observation, namely, that Spirit can free itself only in history and in the present and that “what is happening, and has happened [in history] does not just come from God but is God’s work” (“das, was geschehen ist und geschieht, nicht nur von Gott kommt, sondern Gottes Werk ist”) in Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte 1822/1823, p. 521 lines 381 to 385/Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, vol. 1, 521. As Brown and Hodgson succinctly put it, “Historical events are objectifications of spirit in interaction with nature, yielding the history of the consciousness of freedom. The latter … also constitutes a theodicy, for the progress of freedom is the work of God in history,” Editorial Introduction to Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, vol. 1, p. 6.

35. E.g., Vorlesungen, 5:265.390–266.424 (1827).

36. Note the variously stated dialectical interrelationship between spirit and community, Enzyklopädie, § 554 with Remark/Philosophy of Mind, § 554 with Remark; and, for example, Vorlesungen, 5:78.142–48 (1821).

37. Vorlesungen, 5:265.406–266.424 (1827).

38. For example, Vorlesungen, 5:79.178–87 (1821).

39. Vorlesungen, 5:193.496–513 (1827).

40. For example: Vorlesungen, 5:5.106–10 (1821); Vorlesungen, 5:106.228–107.266 (1824).

41. Phänomenologie des Geistes, 405.16–25/Phenomenology of Spirit, 459; Enzyklopädie, § 564/Philosophy of Mind, § 564.

42. Vorlesungen, 5:250.995–251.9 (1827).

43. God as totality is spirit, Vorlesungen, 5:281.97–282.109 (1831?). More philosophically formulated, Enzyklopädie, §§ 8, 74/Philosophy of Mind, §§ 8, 74.

44. Phänomenologie des Geistes, 427.28–31/Phenomenology of Spirit, 485; Encyklopädie, § 571 with Remark/Philosophy of Mind, § 571 with Remark.

45. Phänomenologie des Geistes, 18.3–5/Phenomenology of Spirit, 10. In his critical review of previous thinkers Hegel often incorporates into and situates in his own thought, that is, into his conception of the movement of spirit, insights developed by those thinkers. He has here, then, incorporated substance into and as moment, so to speak, in the development of spirit as subject. It is to this that reference will be made later on when it is said that Hegel thinks of Trinity in terms of subject and not in terms of a perduring, underlying substance.

46. Enzyklopädie, § 74/Philosophy of Mind, § 74.

47. On finite and infinite as thought determinations in the movement of pure thought, see Die objective Logik (1832), 104.19–137.15/Science of Logic, 116–50, and for a summary, see Schlitt, Hegel’s Trinitarian Claim, 252–67 (1984), 162–74 (2012).

48. Die objective Logik (1832), 135.35–136.2/Science of Logic, 148.

49. As Cyril O’Regan has put it recently, “Hegel is convinced that it [the trinitarian meta-narrative] provides the religious form of apprehending the unification of a reality marked by history, difference and contradiction.” “Aesthetic Idealism and Its Relation to Theological Formation,” in The Impact of Idealism: The Legacy of Post-Kantian German Thought, ed. Nicholas Boyle and Liz Disley, vol. 4, Religion, ed. Nicholas Adams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 148.

Chapter 2

1. On Schelling’s critique of Hegel, see, for example, the discussion somewhat more favorable to Hegel in Walter Jaeschke, Reason in Religion: The Foundations of Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion, trans. J. Michael Stewart and Peter C. Hodgson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 415–21.

2. Malte Dominik Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit: Die Trinitätslehre in Schellings Spätphilosophie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 146n91. Krüger locates Schelling’s critique of Hegel more precisely in the transition Schelling makes from negative philosophy to positive philosophy.

3. See, for example, briefly in Douglas Hedley, Review of Göttliche Freiheit: Die Trinitätslehre in Schellings Spätphilosophie by Malte Dominik Krueger, in Modern Theology 27 (2011): 193–94 and in more detail in Saitya Brata Das, “Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775–1854),” in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed March 2, 2012, http://www.iep.utm.edu/schellin/#SH2d. In presenting an overview of Schelling’s later trinitarian thought I have, in reading Schelling, followed the steps indicated in the development of that thought by, and taken guidance first and foremost from, Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit. Krüger’s study includes full bibliography and extended discussion of relevant historical, textual, and systematic studies. A particularly insightful work is that of Walter Kasper, Das Absolute in der Geschichte: Philosophie und Theologie der Geschichte in der Spätphilosophie Schellings (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewalt, 1965), with a longer review of Schelling’s thought, over the course of Schelling’s career, on time, 241–65, and on Trinity, 266–84, along with helpful remarks on 266–69 situating Schelling in relation to the context of discussion on Trinity, or lack thereof, around the beginning of Schelling’s career. In the course of this brief presentation, Kasper insightfully proposes that Schelling will have transformed Kant’s consideration of Trinity in “moral” terms as the last condition of the possibility of ethical activity (“die letzte Bedingung der Möglichkeit sittlichen Handelns,” 267) into the process of world history (“Was bei Kant der Prozeß des moralischen Selbstbewußtseins war, wird hier zum Prozeß der Weltgeschichte” [268]). Also most helpful: Émile-Alfred Weber, Examen critique de la philosophie religieuse de Schelling (Strasburg: Truttel et Wurtz, 1860), 36–73, accessed March 4, 2012, http://books.google.com/books?id=ncwGAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false; Emilio Brito, “Trinité et création: l’approche de Schelling,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 62 (1986): 66–88, who provides reference to several classic studies on Schelling on God; Cyril O’Regan, “The Trinity in Kant, Hegel, and Schelling,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery, O.P., and Mathew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 262–65. For further studies on Schelling on Trinity, see Bibliotheca Trinitariorum: International Bibliography of Trinitarian Literature, ed. Erwin Schadel with Leonore Bazinek and Peter Müller, vol. 2, Indices and Supplementary List (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1988), 256. On Schelling on Trinity, see also the succinct discussion in Sisto J. Garcia, “Seminar on Trinitarian Theology,” in Catholic Theological Society of America: Proceedings 48 (1993): 137–42, with discussion on Schelling on 139–42. And note Peter Tawny, Die Zeit der Dreieinigkeit: Untersuchungen zur Trinität bei Hegel und Schelling (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2002), 111–83; a more general, contextualizing consideration of Trinity in Schelling: Malte Dominik Krüger, “Rationality and Freedom: Schelling’s Later Philosophy,” Sic et Non 12 (2010): 1–13, accessed April 25, 2013, http://journ.sicetnon.org/index.php/sic/article/view/24.

4. Brito, “Trinité et création,” 67–69, provides a helpful summary of Schelling’s trinitarian thought as found in Die Weltalter: Fragmente; In den Urfassungen von 1811 und 1813, ed. Manfred Schröter (Munich: Beck, 1946). Kasper, Das Absolute in der Geschichte, 269–71, 272, discusses Trinity in Die Weltalter with special interest in what he refers to as Schelling’s “many surprising insights” (“manche überraschende Einsicht”), including reference to the nature of divine unity achieved through Trinity and the characterizing of Father, Son, and Spirit in relationship to time as past, present, and future.

An English translation, Schelling: The Ages of the World, trans. with Introduction and Notes by Frederick de Wolfe Balman, Jr. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), accessed March 7, 2012, http://www.archive.org/stream/agesoftheworld032250mbp#page/n7/mode/2up. John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers; From Plato to the Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 103n53, cites these further translations: The Ages of the World (3rd version, 1815), trans. Jason M. Wirth (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000) and The Ages of the World (2nd draft, 1813), trans. Judith Norman, in Slavoj Zizek, The Abyss of Freedom/Ages of the World (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997).

For a wider presentation of Schelling on God, see Rowland Gray-Smith, “God in the Philosophy of Schelling: A Dissertation in Philosophy Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania” (Philadelphia, PA, 1933); and more specifically on God in Schelling’s later thought, Klaus Hemmerle, Gott und das Denken nach Schellings Spätphilosophie (Freiburg: Herder, 1968). Hemmerle’s volume follows a method of “thinking with” (Mitdenken, 5, 323), but does not focus on Trinity as such (228), which theme is really only mentioned more directly on 278–87. For an almost meditative recounting of the development of the notion of God in Schelling’s thought from the early Schelling through the later Schelling, in which Walter Kasper brings together questions of pantheism, monotheism, and the three potencies as he reviews Schelling moving to an understanding of God as free Lord of being, creation, and history, see Das Absolute in der Geschichte, 187–215.

5. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, Urfassung der Philosophie der Offenbarung, ed. Walter E. Ehrhardt (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1992), published in the Philosophische Bibliothek, vols. 445a and 445b with continuous pagination, hereafter usually cited by page and text line in the text and regularly referred to as Urfassung.

6. On the importance and reliability of this text, see Walter E. Ehrhardt, Nachwort des Herausgebers in Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Urfassung der Philosophie der Offenbarung, Teilband 2, Philosophische Bibliothek, Band 445b, ed. Walter E. Ehrhardt (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1992), 729–42; Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit, 25–29.

7. Following the lead of Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit, 16–29, 97–98, I will work with Schelling’s lectures on the philosophy of revelation as found in Urfassung. Though trinitarian thinkers before 1992 would normally have been more familiar with the 1841–42 text and not with the Urfassung text, the latter is a more reliable text of reference. The two versions are sufficiently coherent to permit moving from the Urfassung to a consideration of possible Schellingian influences on later trinitarian thinkers who generally have worked with later lecture versions. Xavier Tilliette witnesses to the continuity in Schelling’s philosophy of revelation: “Le cours a été professé sous ce titre [philosophie de la révélation] à partir de 1831. Il n’a subi ensuite que de remaniements mineurs … Les thèses principales étaient fixes et formulées dès la première presentation, comme le confirme le témoignage de Hamberger.” Schelling: Une philosophie en devenir, vol. 2, La dernière philosophie 1821–1854 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1970), 435, and see 447, 449. Tilliette cites Schelling himself, who affirms the continuity in his presentations of the philosophy of revelation from 1831 on: “Je declare que je n’ai rien enseigné [concernant la philosophie de la révélation] qui ne l’ait été également dans les années 1831, 1832 et suivantes.” Tilliette, La dernière philosophie, 435–36/“I declare that I have not taught anything [concerning the philosophy of revelation] that was not equally [taught] in the years 1831, 1832 and following.” My translation, based on Tilliette’s French text and the German original: “Ich erkläre deßhalb daß ich nichts vorgetragen, was nicht in den Jahren 1831, 1832 und des folgenden ebenso vorgetragen worden.” Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, Sämmtliche Werke, Teil 2, Band 4, Philosophie der Offenbarung (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta’schen Verlag, 1858), 232, accessed November 3, 2013, http://books.google.de/books?id=V_MGAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. In his introduction in Schelling: Une philosophie en devenir, vol. 1, Le système vivant 1794–1821 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1970), 11–17, Tilliette provides a helpful overview of the shifting evaluation of Schelling from someone seen as zigzagging, so to speak, from one position to another on to the more recent emphasis on continuity in his thought, followed by an extensive review of “Schellingian Research” (21–55). He remarks more specifically (13–14) concerning the importance of giving due weight to Schelling’s own evaluations of continuity and development in his thought.

8. The Paulus text is available in Philosophie der Offenbarung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, [1993] 1977). Among the various printings of this volume, that whose ISBN is 978-3-518-27781-2, includes Kierkegaard’s notes on Schelling’s lectures. These notes provide an interesting reading of the lectures that is relatively easy to follow: “Kierkegaards Nachschrift der Schelling-Vorlesung von 1841,” 391–467. There is also the earlier, collected-works text of these lectures in Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schellings sämmtliche Werke, zweite Abtheilung, dritter Band and vierter Band, Philosophie der Offenbarung (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1858). They are often referred to respectively as vols. 13 and 14, accessed March 14, 2012, vol. 13, http://books.google.com/books?id=CVIPAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, and vol. 14, http://books.google.com/books?id=Fc2FqJALccgC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Schelling’s philosophy of revelation lectures will also be included in the Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, 40 Bände (Reihe 1, Werke; Reihe 2, Nachlass; Reihe 3, Briefe), hrsg. im Auftrag der Schelling-Kommission der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaftern v. Thomas Buchheim, Jochem Hennigfeld, Wilhelm G. Jacobs, Jörg Jantzen, and Siegbert Peetz (Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt: Fromman-Holzboog, 1976ff).

9. Here and in the following analyses of the structure and development of the 1831–32 lectures we are, as previously mentioned, following Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit, 157–61 and 200–18.

10. Indications of pages and text lines of each of the seven steps in Schelling’s presentation on Trinity follow those of Krüger. The delineation of texts indicating the parameters within which a specific step in Schelling’s presentation is to be found do not necessarily coincide with the full texts of the chapters concerned.

11. In a wide-ranging and imaginative article referring to Schelling in a more general way, Bradley A. Johnson speaks of Schelling’s “unthought subjectivity.” “Original Voice, Original Sin: Friedrich Schelling, Self-Becoming, and the Implications for Aesthetic Theology,” The Journal of Religion 89 (2009): 165–86, with reference on 174.

12. Earlier on in these lectures Schelling had worked out a specific understanding of these potencies. See, for example, lecture 14, Urfassung, 82.3–88.32. He refers to the three potencies respectively as “sein Könnendes,” “sein Müssendes,” and “sein Sollendes,” Urfassung, 86.18–20. These three terms are translated respectively as “potential existence,” “necessary existence,” and “proposed existence” by Alfred Cave in his translation of Isaak August Dorner’s A System of Christian Doctrine, revised edition in 4 vols., trans. Alfred Cave and J. S. Banks (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1888–1891; vol. 1, 1888). For fuller discussion on potencies, see Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit, 123–54. Philip Clayton, however, claims that Schelling’s presentations of the potencies has varied, and refers to further extensive secondary studies in his book, The Problem of God in Modern Thought (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 487n35.

13. Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit, 159.

14. Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit, 207.

15. For a fuller listing of Scripture texts cited by Schelling, see Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit, 209n59.

16. Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit, 212n71 recognizes that Schelling does not explicitly draw this conclusion.

17. This summary of the first part of the fifth step is taken from Urfassung, 181.30–186.4.

18. “Der Vater … ist auch jetzt im gewordenen Selbst der ganze Gott, wo er in sein Ansich zurückgebracht den Sohn und Geist besitzt. Der Sohn ist nicht mehr Potenz des Sohnes, … er ist der ganze Gott. Dies muß vom Geiste ebenfalls der Fall sein. Also … ist der actus purissimus, das wirkliche Selbst wieder hergestellt, nur mit dem Unterschiede, … daß die drei Gestalten jetzt drei Persönlichkeiten sind … drei verschiedene Namen derselben absoluten Persönlichkeit. Die drei Persönlichkeiten sind nicht verschiedene Götter; denn das Wesen, die Substanz, ist immer dieselbe. … Und doch sind sie nicht bloß 3 verschiedene Bezeichnungen oder drei verschiedene subjektive Ansichten eines und desselben Gottes, sondern sie sind drei objektive Unterscheidungen. … Während des Prozesses jeder, jede Potenz, für sich selbständig war. Diese Selbständigkeit geht in der Einheit nicht verloren. Jeder tritt mit dem subjektiven Charakter in die Einheit zurück. Dies ist die höchste Steigerung der Dreieinigkeits = Idee.” This and other translations from Schelling’s rather elegant German in the Urfassung are my own.

More specifically on Schelling’s understanding of person in relation to Trinity, see Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit, 275–83, where he focuses on Schelling’s notion of the Father as person, with the Father then taking on the role of what we would call “immanent” Trinity. In this way for Schelling, according to Krüger, “immanent” Trinity becomes the “economic” Trinity (281).

19. “Er muß gedacht werden in der Potenz des Vaters als der im ausschließlichen Sein Hervortretende—in der Potenz des Sohnes als der das ausschließliche Sein Überwindende—in der Potenz des Geistes als der das Sein Bekräftigende und Vollendende.”

20. “Aus ihm und durch ihm und zu [ihm] sind alle Dinge.” Urfassung, 207.9–10 with note at line 35.

21. On Schelling’s complex, and not merely linear, linkage of the three divine potencies respectively with past, present, and future, see, for example, Walter Schöpsdau, “Zeitlichkeit und Trinität: Theologische Anmerkungen zur Zeittheorie Schellings,” Evangelische Theologie 38 (1978): 37–61, esp. from 1811 on, 45–61; Tawny, Die Zeit der Dreieinigkeit, esp. 120–28; also briefly, Krüger, Göttliche Freiheit, 196–97, 217–18, and 219. On the question of time more generally in Schelling, see Kasper, Das Absolute in der Geschichte, 241–65, and in particular concerning Schelling’s later philosophy, 259–65. See also, Drew M. Dalton, “Being and Time for Schelling: An Exploration of Schelling’s Theory of Temporality and Existence,” Idealistic Studies 38 (2008): 175–84.

22. “Der Tag der Herrlichkeit ist der Tag der gemeinschaftlichen Verherrlichung.”

23. “Der Strahl der Gottheit, der in allen andern Geschöpfen schief einfällt, fällt im Menschen senkrecht ein, so daß er Mensch das vergottete Geschöpf ist.”

24. More especially on “ground” throughout Schelling’s thought, see Miklós Vetö, Le fondement selon Schelling (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977). And note Vetö’s reflection on Schelling’s notion of “ground” as critiqued by Schelling’s contemporaries and in relation to the thought of Kant and Fichte, “Le fondement selon Schelling: une interpretation partielle,” Revue philosophique de Louvain 70 (1972): 393–403, accessed February 9, 2014, http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/phlou_0035-3841_1972_num_70_7_5683. Joseph A. Bracken provides an extensive review and analysis of Schelling’s thought on freedom and causality from 1809 on, in which he concludes that Schelling’s varied “double presentations” such as, for example, the “philosophy of mythology” and the “philosophy of revelation” in Schelling’s later philosophy of religion are respectively characterized as “ground” (Grund) and “result” (Folge), a pattern Schelling follows regularly in his reflection from 1809 on. In each case so characterized, it would seem the result arises out of a free decision which cannot be deduced from the ground by reason as such; otherwise it would not be free. Bracken provides a final summary of this insight as follows: “Denn der erste Teil seines jeweiligen Denksystems wird regelmäßig als der notwendige ‘Grund’ einer freien Handlung Gottes oder des Menschen dargestellt, aber die Tat selbst muß nach Schellings Ansicht von diesem ‘Grund’ unabhängig sein, um ihre Wirklichkeit als seine freie Handling aufrechtzuerhalten. Ebenso wird der zweite Teil desselben Denksystems von Schelling doppeldeutig aufgefaßt: einerseits als die notwendige ‘Folge’ des ersten Teils des Denksystems und andererseits als die freie ‘Folge’ der jeweiligen Handlung Gottes oder des Menschen in der Geschichte.” Freiheit und Kausalität bei Schelling (Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1972), 122.

25. See Dale M. Schlitt, Experience and Spirit: A Post-Hegelian Philosophical Theology (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 29–40 and 53–55, with references to Hegel’s lectures on the history of philosophy.

26. O’Regan, “The Trinity,” 265.

27. Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1973), 421.

28. Brito, “Trinité et création,” 87.

Introduction to Part 2

1. For a contextualizing overview of German Idealism’s impact especially on nineteenth-century central European intellectual development, see Nicholas Boyle, “General Introduction: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in The Impact of Idealism: The Legacy of Post-Kantian German Thought, ed. Nicholas Boyle and Liz Disley, vol. 1, Philosophy and Natural Sciences, ed. Karl Ameriks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), particularly 16–21.

2. Samuel M. Powell, “Nineteenth-Century Protestant Doctrines of the Trinity,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery, O.P., and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 267–80, with the quote on 269. In addition to this essay, see the following studies focusing on Trinity in nineteenth-century thought: Samuel M. Powell, “The Doctrine of the Trinity in Nineteenth-Century German Protestant Theology: Philipp Marheineke, Isaak Dorner, Johann von Hofmann, and Alexander Schweizer,” PhD diss., Claremont Graduate School, 1987; Samuel M. Powell, The Trinity in German Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), esp. 104–72; Christine Helmer, “Between History and Speculation: Christian Trinitarian Thinking after the Reformation,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity, ed. Peter C. Phan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 149–69; Aidan Nichols, O.P., “Catholic Theology of the Trinity in the Nineteenth Century,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, 281–93.

Cyril O’Regan recalls as well the important nineteenth-century figures who reflected at length and widely on Hegel’s thought: “Ferdinand Christian Bauer (1772–1869), a Protestant, and Franz Anton Staudenmaier (1800–56), a Catholic … Bauer’s [final verdict] is overwhelmingly positive, and Staudenmaier’s negative.” “Aesthetic Idealism and Its Relation to Theological Formation,” in The Impact of Idealism: The Legacy of Post-Kantian German Thought, ed. Nicholas Boyle and Liz Disley, vol. 4, Religion, ed. Nicholas Adams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 158. Though Trinity is not a topic of direct focus in Thomas F. O’Meara’s two major studies on the impact of Romantic Idealism and Schelling in particular on Roman Catholic theologians, one would be remiss in not noting them since they provide a fine, contextualizing historical context for appreciation of the impact of Idealism on Catholic thought in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Romantic Iealism and Roman Catholicism: Schelling and the Theologians (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982); Church and Culture: German Catholic Theology, 1860–1914 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991).

Chapter 3

1. In this presentation on Marheineke, I am following especially Samuel M. Powell, “The Doctrine of the Trinity in Nineteenth-Century German Protestant Theology: Philipp Marheineke, Isaak Dorner, Johann von Hofmann, and Alexander Schweizer,” PhD diss., Claremont Graduate School, 1987, 62–104, esp. 88–104; Samuel M. Powell, “Nineteenth-Century Protestant Doctrines of the Trinity,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery, O.P., and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 272–74. Martin Wendte says “Marheineke stands at the beginning of Hegel’s historical reception.” “The Impact of Idealism on Christology: From Hegel to Tillich,” in The Impact of Idealism: The Legacy of Post-Kantian German Thought, ed. Nicholas Boyle and Liz Disley, vol. 4, Religion, ed. Nicholas Adams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 27. For further biographical information, Wendte refers on 44n9 to Eva-Maria Rupprecht, Kritikvergessene Spekulation: Das Religions- und Theologieverständnis der spekulativen Theologie Ph. K. Marheinekes (Beiträge zur rationale Theologie, vol. 3) (Frankfurt a.M. and Berlin: Peter Lang, 1993), 12–34.

2. Philipp Marheineke, Die Grundlehren der christlichen Dogmatik (Berlin: Ferdinand Dümmler, 1819), accessed August 6, 2014, http://books.google.com/books?id=hH4rAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

3. Philipp Marheineke, Die Grundlehren der christlichen Dogmatik als Wissenschaft (Berlin: Duncker und Humbolt, 1827), accessed April 6, 2012, http://books.google.com/books?id=BCpAAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, hereafter referred to as Grundlehren (1827).

4. “In view of its temporal priority, the question arises whether it was not the first of these works [Die Grundlehren der christlichen Dogmatik, 2019] that induced Hegel to adopt a trinitarian schema for the ‘Consummate Religion.’ ” Observation by Walter Jaeschke, Reason in Religion: The Foundations of Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 296n45.

5. “Mediating theologian” is a term being used here in a more general sense as compared with the more traditional sense in which it is applied to theologians like Isaak August Dorner, to whom we will refer below. See Powell, “The Doctrine of the Trinity,” 63, 65–66.

6. Grundlehren (1827), §§ 413–36, esp. §§ 413, 422–36. Given that the sections are relatively short and have surely been numbered by Marheineke himself, reference will generally be made to them directly in the text.

7. Grundlehren (1827), with part title on 253.

8. Powell, “The Doctrine of the Trinity,” 98–101.

9. As Powell judges, “I believe that the central direction of Marheineke’s thought indicates that at least he intended to be a Hegelian, whether or not he was a rigorous practitioner of the dialectic.” “The Doctrine of the Trinity,” 104.

10. See criticism of Marheineke’s trinitarian thought by Falk Wagner in his article, “Der Gedanke der Persönlichkeit Gottes bei Ph. Marheineke: Repristination eines vorkritischen Theismus,” Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie 10 (1968): 44–88. Powell describes Wagner’s criticism as “focusing on Marheineke’s failure fully to adopt the standpoint of the Hegelian system.” “The Doctrine of the Trinity,” 64–65.

11. Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1973), 491–98, esp. 497–98.

12. Powell, “Nineteenth-Century Protestant Doctrines of the Trinity,” 272, writes: “Marheineke’s main categories for understanding God are being, thought, identity, and difference.”

Chapter 4

1. Isaak A. Dorner, System der christlichen Glaubenslehre, vol. 1, Grundlegung oder Apologetik, vol. 2, Specielle Glaubenslehre (Berlin: Wilhelm Hertz, 1879–81, 1st ed.; 1886, 2nd ed.), with the 1879 edition available online, accessed January 19, 2013, http://books.google.com/books?id=1bkHAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false; A System of Christian Doctrine, revised edition in 4 vols., trans. Alfred Cave and J. S. Banks (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1888–91, vol. 1: 1888). Reference will be to this revised, 1888 version of vol. 1 of the English text, translated by Alfred Cave, abbreviated System, 1 and cited by page number when referenced in footnotes. Usually this volume will be cited directly in the text only by page number. There will be occasional references in the text simply to numbered section. The 1880 printing of vol. 1, with the same pagination as the 1888 printing, is available online, accessed January 19, 2013, http://books.google.com/books?id=zOZJAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

In this presentation on Dorner, I am working especially with Samuel M. Powell, “The Doctrine of the Trinity in Nineteenth-Century German Protestant Theology: Philipp Marheineke, Isaak Dorner, Johann von Hofmann, and Alexander Schweizer,” PhD diss., Claremont Graduate School, 1987, 105–50, esp. 126–50; John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers; From Plato to the Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 122–24; and Jonathan Norgate, Isaak A. Dorner: The Triune God and the Gospel of Salvation (London: T & T Clark, 2009), esp. 1–47, with a very helpful overview of System, 1 on 1–9; Samuel M. Powell, “Nineteenth-Century Protestant Doctrines of the Trinity,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery, O.P., and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 274–75. These studies provide further bibliographic references, and especially Norgate discusses important previous works on Dorner on Trinity. For a more critical consideration of Dorner on Trinity in the context of discussion with various trinitarian thinkers especially in the nineteenth century, see Christine Axt-Piscalar, Der Grund des Glaubens: Eine theologiegeschichtliche Untersuchung zum Verhältnis von Trinität und Glaube in der Theologie Isaak August Dorners (Tübingen: Mohr, 1990). In this study, her doctoral dissertation directed by Wolfhart Pannenberg, she focuses, on 178–94, more directly on Dorner’s constructive reflection on Trinity as found in System, 1, §§ 31, 31b, and 32.

2. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1991), 295.

3. See Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1973), 577–78. See also Emanuel Hirsch, Geschichte der neuern evangelischen Theologie (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1951), 211, cited by Norgate, Isaak A. Dorner, 5n23.

4. In the Contents, the title reads “The Doctrine of the Holy Triunity, or of God, as the Essentially Triune,” System, 1:vii. The variation in the English translations of the titles reflects the German original.

5. In the Contents, the title reads “Positive Statement of the Doctrine of God as the Essentially Triune.” System, 1:viii. The variation in the English translations of the titles reflects the German original.

6. For his extended treatment of faith, see Dorner’s long introduction in System, 1:33–168.

7. This affirmation of the closest relationship between Dorner’s trinitarian thought and Dorner’s further theological reflection is the thrust of Norgate’s overall argument in Isaak A. Dorner, 5–6, 8.

8. See Isaak Dorner, “Dogmatic Discussion of the Doctrine of the Immutability of God” (1856), trans. Claude Welch, in God and Incarnation in Mid-Nineteenth Century German Theology, ed. Claude Welch (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 115–80, cited by Cooper, Panentheism, 122n5. On Dorner’s view of ethical immutability as compared with ontological immutability, see Norgate, Dorner, 45–46, with relevant English-language bibliography in 45n184.

9. Cooper, Panentheism, 123.

10. In a rather telling phrase we can sense Dorner’s rejection of Schelling’s notion of potencies: “Because of the Christian consciousness (§ 31, 2), and in accordance with Scripture, it is requisite to know that these three modes of the divine Being do not become extinct in their product, the divine Personality, but that they eternally endure, in such a way indeed that God can reveal Himself in the world according to each of the three modes of Being, and that in each of them God knows Himself and wills Himself according to its distinction from the other modes, that in each of them He exists as a person and not merely as a power” (System, 1:448–49).

11. For Dorner’s wonderfully clear and succinct presentation of Schelling’s understanding of divine potencies in relation to Trinity, see System, 1:406–07.

12. Each thinker of course has his own particular understanding of these “moments.”

13. Powell, “Mediating Theologians,” 275.

14. Powell, “The Doctrine of the Trinity,” 109, citing Robert F. Brown, “Schelling and Dorner on Divine Immutability,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 53 (1985): 237–49. However, perhaps Schelling’s idea of freedom, at least in relation to Trinity, was less describable as one of a choice among alternatives than one might conclude. For a brief remark on the nature of freedom in Schelling, see Cooper, Panentheism, 119. Axt-Piscalar, Grund des Glaubens, 183–84n83, agrees with Brown that Dorner’s notion of freedom is closer to that of Hegel since Dorner wishes to exclude freedom of choice. However, we should also note the Dorner wanted ultimately to avoid the type of logical necessity inevitably characteristic of Hegel’s movement of thought.

15. Cooper, Panentheism, 123, citing Brown, “Schelling and Dorner,” esp. 245–48.

16. See, for example, System, 1:464. In his article, “Schelling and Dorner on Divine Immutability,” Brown presents a very careful and nuanced, succinct reading of Dorner in relation to Schelling and Hegel, with reference to his own further studies on Dorner. We should also note that there may well have been some further shifts in stress and phrasing in Schelling’s thought even throughout his later years, though Schelling claims and indeed seems to maintain a fundamental continuity in that thought throughout that period of time.

17. Isaak Dorner, “Über Schellings neues System, besonders seine Potenzenlehre” (1860), reprinted in Isaak Dorner, in Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin: Wilhelm Hertz, 1883), 378–431, accessed April 30, 2012, http://books.google.com/books?id=H_FJAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false; Isaak Dorner, “Schelling: Zur Erinnerung an seinen hundertjährigen Geburtstag,” Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie, 20 (1875): 1–82, accessed November 3, 2013, http://www.digizeitschriften.de/fileadmin/scripts/pdf.php?-UklQPTc0LjYwLjExNy43OCZQUE49dXJuOm5ibjpkZTpic3o6MjEtZHQtNTExMyZsb2dJRD1sb2cwMDAwNCZmZXM9JkFDTD1ZVG96T250cE9qQTdjem80T2lKeVpXeHBaMmx2YmlJN2FUb3hPM002TkRvaVpuSmxaU0k3YVRveU8zTTZNVEU2SW5WaWRIVmxZbWx1WjJWdUlqdDkmdGFyZ2V0RmlsZU5hbWU9dXJuOm5ibjpkZTpic3o6MjEtZHQtNTExM19sb2cwMDAwNC5wZGY=. For a brief but helpful discussion of these two articles, see Xavier Tilliette, Schelling: une philosophie en devenir, vol. 1, Le système vivant 1794–1821 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1970), 28–29.

Chapter 5

1. Among the many helpful introductions to and presentations of the life and work of Solovyov see, for example, the following, each with further bibliography: Peter Peter Zouboff, introduction in Vladimir Solovyov, Lectures on Godmanhood, trans. Peter Peter Zouboff (San Rafael, CA: Dennis Dobson Limited, first edition 1948; Semantron, second, facsimile edition, 2007), 9–66; Vasily Vasilevich Zenkovsky, A History of Russian Philosophy, trans. George L. Kline, vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1953), 469–531; Dimitri Strémooukohff, Vladimir Soloviev and His Messianic Work, ed. Phillip Guilbeau and Heather Elise MacGregor, trans. Elizabethe Meyendorff (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1980), outstanding on life and influences: 23–74 with notes 339–49; George L. Kline, “Russian Religious Thought,” in Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West, ed. Ninian Smart and others (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), vol. 2, esp. 208–17, 223–25, 228–29, where on 229 Kline refers to Hans Urs von Balthasar’s presentation in Herrlichkeit: Eine theologische Aesthetik (Einsideln: Johannes Verlag, 1962), vol. 2, part 2, pp. 645–716/The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. 3, Studies in Theological Style: Lay Styles (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 279–352, as “an appreciative and philosophically penetrating discussion”; a particularly readable and sympathetic presentation by Fredrick C. Copleston, “Chapter 9. Religion and Philosophy: Vladimir Solovyov,” in Philosophy in Russia: From Herzen to Lenin and Berdyaev (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), 201–40; Maxime Herman, Vie et œuvre de Vladimir Soloviev: essai (Friburg, Switzerland: Éditions Universitaires, 1995); Judith Deutsch Kornblatt and Richard F. Gustafson, introduction in Russian Religious Thought, ed. Judith Deutsch Kornblatt and Richard F. Gustafson (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 3–30, esp. 9–13, and in the same volume “Solovyov: Background,” 27–30.

2. Zouboff, introduction in Solovyov, Lectures on Godmanhood, 15; Kline, “Russian Religious Thought,” 215; Copleston, Philosophy in Russia, 206–07, 209–10, 218, 239; Boris Jakim, editor’s introduction in Vladimir Solovyov, Lectures on Divine Humanity, ed. Boris Jakim (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne, 1995), viii; David Bentley Hart, foreword to Vladimir Solovyov, The Justification of the Good: An Essay on Moral Philosophy, trans. Nathalie A. Duddington, ed. and annotated Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2005), xxxvii–xxxviii.

3. Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov, The Crisis of Western Philosophy: Against the Positivists, trans. and ed. Boris Jakim (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1996). Hereafter referred to as Crisis.

4. Copleston, Philosophy in Russia, 212, where he says that Solovyov’s philosophy “can be outlined without reference to visions.” Kornblatt and Gustafson in turn write that “we can understand his [Solovyov’s] subsequent life’s work as an attempt to reconcile the mystical with the rational, the modern secular with the traditional and sacred.” “Solovyov. Background,” 27. It would seem both are right, each in his own way, Copleston referring to content and argument, Kornblatt and Gustafson to motivation and intent.

In 1898, two years before his death, Solovyov wrote a biographical poem entitled “Three Meetings,” in which he spoke at greater length of his three visions. A partial text is available in Jakim, editor’s introduction in Lectures on Divine Humanity, xiii–xiv, with a full translation by Ivan M. Granger, accessed January 27, 2013, http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/S/SolovyovVlad/ThreeMeeting.htm. A more recent translation is available in The Religious Poetry of Vladimir Solovyov, selected, edited, and introduced by Boris Jakim, trans. Boris Jakim and Laury Magnus (San Rafael, CA: Semantron, 2008), 99–107.

5. Copleston, Philosophy in Russia, 208.

6. Balthasar, Glory of the Lord, 3:295.

7. Balthasar, Glory of the Lord, 3:295, cites multiple sources for this information concerning Solovyov’s radical sense of practical Christian life. See also Zouboff, introduction in Lectures on Godmanhood, 14.

8. Copleston, Philosophy in Russia, 207.

9. On Solovyov’s varied understandings of Sophia, see: Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 507–10; briefly in Copleston, Philosophy in Russia, 224–25; Jakim, editor’s introduction in Religious Poetry of Vladimir Solovyov, 3–7; Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, Divine Sophia: The Wisdom Writings of Vladimir Solovyov (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009), a wide-ranging discussion of Sophia in relation to Solovyov’s life and writing on 3–97, and in presentations, throughout the book, of various works by Solovyov with extensive bibliography on Solovyov in general and on his varied notion of Sophia, 273–87. Zenkovsky, however, considers Sophia only a secondary theme in Solovyov’s thought, Russian Philosophy, 2:479–80. He will hold a similar reserve with regard to considering positive total-unity as a single central idea in Solovyov’s thought. Zenkovsky seems to fear that citing such a unifying element will detract from a better recognition that Solovyov integrated insights from various sources and that his role was, more importantly, one of working out an organic synthesis of such insights (again, 2:479–80). Yet a few pages later he will write, “The idea of ‘total-unity’ gradually became the central idea and guiding principle of his philosophy” (482). But on 483n1 he notes: “In fact, this concept [positive total-unity] merely crowns his system, but is not central for him. The concept of Godmanhood, on the contrary, unites Solovyov’s cosmology, anthropology, and historiosophy.” Unfortunately, working with Zenkovsky in translation does not permit deciding whether total-unity and positive total-unity refer, in English, to the same Russian term and idea.

10. On the role of divine humanity or, as Zouboff translated the Russian term, Godmanhood, in Solovyov’s philosophy, see Zouboff, introduction in Lectures on Godmanhood, 39–66. On difficulties in translating well the Russian word, see the brief discussion in Kornblatt, Divine Sophia, 9n12.

11. David Bakhurst, “Idealism in Russia,” in Cambridge History of Philosophy 1870–1945, ed. Thomas Baldwin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 63. See also Balthasar, Glory of the Lord, 3:351.

12. Balthasar, Glory of the Lord, 3:281. See Aidan Nichols, The Word Has Been Abroad: A Guide through Balthasar’s Aesthetics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 114.

13. Balthasar, Glory of the Lord, 3:284.

14. Copleston, Philosophy in Russia, 207–08; Boris Jakim, “Editor’s Introduction” in Lectures on Divine Humanity, vii.

15. Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov, Lectures on Divine Humanity, translation revised and edited by Boris Jakim (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1995), referred to as Lectures and cited in notes by lecture in Roman numerals and by page in Arabic numerals but in the text simply by page number. It is quite difficult to condense further Solovyov’s thought beyond his own concise presentations. In referring to the Lectures, I will paraphrase somewhat more closely, and quote somewhat more liberally from, Solovyov’s text to allow for a better appreciation of, and Solovyov might say a better feeling for, the simple elegance of this text which is somewhat less known in Western circles. This paraphrasing and quoting will as well help us see better the ways in which Solovyov was influenced by German Idealism and in which he significantly adapted that thought to his own purposes.

For brief presentations of Solovyov’s overall thought in the Lectures, see: Zouboff, introduction in Lectures on Godmanhood, 39–66; Jakim, editor’s introduction in Lectures on Divine Humanity, ix–xv, where on xii he draws attention to the summary in Maxime Herman, Vladimir Soloviev: Sa vie et son œuvre (Paris, n.p., 1947), 47–52. For dates when the various lectures were delivered, see Kornblatt, Divine Sophia, 274. In a longer study, it would be fascinating to read the Lectures in relation to Solovyov’s French manuscript written over a couple years before he delivered the Lectures and unpublished in his own day, “The Sophia,” which he described as “a kind of work of mystical-theosophical-philosophical-theurgic-political content in a dialogic form,” quoted in Kornblatt, Divine Sophia, 109, where much of the text can be found on 115–63.

16. Michael Aksionov Meerson points out that Solovyov “presented his understanding of the trinitarian doctrine three times: in his unfinished work, Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge (1877); in his Lectures on Divine Humanity (1877–81) which contained the most detailed exposition of his trinitarian thought; and in his treatise, Russia and the Universal Church (1889).” The Trinity of Love in Modern Russian Theology: The Love Paradigm and the Retrieval of Western Medieval Love Mysticism in Modern Russian Trinitarian Thought (from Solovyov to Bulgakov) (Quincy, IL: Franciscan Press, 1998), 28.

17. This announcement appeared in the Pravoslvnoye Obozrenie (Orthodox Review) in 1878, cited by Jakim, editor’s introduction in Lectures on Divine Humanity, ix.

18. Lectures, II, 13–15, with quote on 14.

19. See further succinct remarks on Hindu-Buddhist consciousness in Lectures, X, 147–48.

20. Solovyov seems here to be distinguishing between the confirmation of the existence of external entities by faith and the subsequent recognition of them as causes.

21. In passing, we might already here note a certain parallel between what Solovyov says concerning the relation of the untrue to the true and what Hegel says about the bad infinite and the true infinite.

22. Also Lectures, V, 57.

23. See further remarks on this world of ideas or the ideal world in Lectures, V, 62–63; X, 148–51.

24. Emphasis in this and other quotes from the translated text of the Lectures is found in the translated text.

25. Solovyov makes further remarks on Jewish monotheism and the personhood of God in Lectures, X, 151–53.

26. On Solovyov’s presentation of Trinity, especially in the sixth lecture, see: Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 497–502; Strémooukhoff, Vladimir Soloviev and His Messianic Work, especially 80–100; Copleston, Philosophy in Russia, 221–27; Balthasar, Glory of the Lord, 3:305–10, where he refers to one or the other later work in which Solovyov softens some of his positions taken in Divine Humanity, one example of which would be Solovyov’s speaking earlier on more of a necessary linkage between eternal begetting and creation (306–07); David Brown, “Solovyov, the Trinity and Christian Unity,” Dialogue and Alliance 4 (1990): 41–54; Meerson, Trinity of Love, 23–47, 211–16; Zouboff, introduction in Lectures on Godmanhood, in effect 39–66. These works often indicate further bibliography.

27. And Meerson remarks: “Thus, for Solovyov, the distinction between the three hypostases is logically contingent on the necessary threefold relation of the existent (Sushchii) to his substance. Solovyov defines the manners of this relation in the general logical form as being-inside-itself (v-sebe-bytie), being-for-itself (dlia-sebia-bytie) and being-at-home-with-itself (u-sebia-bytie). In the concreteness of revelation, these three manners of subsistence are called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Trinity of Love, 32.

28. This reminds us, in its own way, of Hegel’s distinction between, generally stated, “understanding” (Verstand) which distinguishes and “reason” (Vernunft) which unites.

29. Perhaps here we can recall that Schelling’s first moment was in fact that of act of will, but in Schelling’s case more radically asserted than Solovyov does here.

30. Solovyov mediates this free acting on the part of particular human beings through what he calls the world soul, a rather complex notion whose presentation we cannot pursue further here.

31. For comparative remarks on the thought of Solovyov and that of Teilhard de Chardin, see, for example, Balthasar, Glory of the Lord, 3:290, 296. I have not been able to consult Karl Vladimir Truhlar, Teilhard e Soloviev (Rome: Edizioni Paoline, 1967).

32. Balthasar suggests that it may well have been Solovyov who applied “the three temptations of Jesus to the Church and to Catholicism in particular” before his close friend, Dostoyevsky, did. Glory of the Lord, 3:295.

33. In citing Vladimir Solovyov, Sobranie Sochinenii (The Works) (St. Petersburg, 1901–03, reprinted Bruxelles: Foyer Oriental Chrétien, 1966), 3:65, Meerson remarks that “Solovyov responded to Kant’s epistemological criticism with his religious-philosophical synthesis which he called a system of concrete (or real) idealism.” Trinity of Love, xv with 207n2 and see 27.

34. Balthasar, Glory of the Lord, 3:293. See further on Solovyov on the complex relationship between philosophy, on the one hand, and theology, religious consciousness, and faith, on the other hand, in Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:487–93.

35. For example, Lectures, IX, 129–30 with V, 59–62, and X, 135.

36. Zenkovsky’s identification of influences on Solovyov’s thought or, perhaps in a sense better here, sources with which Solovyov worked, gains in importance because that identification is based on his extended work in the history of philosophy, his keen sense of affinity between what Solovyov writes and what various philosophers have said, statements made by those who knew Solovyov, and indeed on remarks made by Solovyov himself. N. O. Lossky also helpfully summarizes various influences on Solovyov: “The main influences under which Solovyov’s philosophy took shape were the Christian Platonism of his master, Professor Yurkevich (of the University of Moscow), Schelling’s doctrine of the relationship between the absolute and the world stated in his Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation as well as Schelling’s natural-philosophical doctrine of the evaluation of nature toward the creation of an absolute organism.” History of Russian Philosophy (New York: International Universities Press, 1951), 127, with discussion of Solovyov on 81–133.

37. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:469, 479.

38. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:485–86 on Russian thinkers.

39. Kornblatt, Divine Sophia, 12.

40. In a sense, however, Meerson reverses the comparison by speaking first of Trinity and then of creation as “the vestige of the Trinity.” Trinity of Love, 22. See also, Judith Deutsch Kornblatt and Richard F. Gustafson, introduction in Russian Religious Thought, 11.

41. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:504.

42. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:473–74, with 484. It may be that Solovyov not only knew of Spinoza more directly but also took certain information concerning Spinoza’s thought from Hegel’s reassessment of Spinoza. See, for example, concerning Omnis determination est negatio (Every determination is a negation), Kornblatt, Divine Sophia, 126 with n. 29.

43. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:485.

44. Copleston, Philosophy in Russia, 207.

45. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:482–83.

46. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:525.

47. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:485.

48. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:497. Solovyov speaks more generally here of “logical order” and not of Hegel’s specific understanding of logic as a movement of conceptual thought giving rise in Hegel’s encyclopedic system to existent or realphilosophical realms of nature and spirit.

49. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:493.

50. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:285.

51. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:495–96.

52. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:489–90, 519.

53. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:521.

54. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:528.

55. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:505–06.

56. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:519.

57. Zenkovsky notes Solovyov’s working with the subject as consciousness rather than as substance, but does not explicitly trace this back to an Idealist influence. Russian Philosophy, 2:512. To round out these remarks, especially regarding Schelling, we can cite a note jotted down by Solovyov around 1875 concerning his mystical side: “Kabbalah and Neoplatonism: Boehme and Swedenborg. Schelling and Me,” cited by Kornblatt, Divine Sophia, 82.

58. Meerson, Trinity of Love, 24–25. Piama P. Gaidenko also stresses, in some detail, points at which Solovyov is influenced by Schelling. “Russian Philosophy in the Context of European Thinking: The Case of Vladimir Solovyov,” Diogenes 56 (2009): 24–36.

59. George L. Kline, “Hegel and Solovyov,” in Hegel and the History of Philosophy, ed. Joseph J. O’Malley, K. W. Algozin, and Frederick G. Weiss (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), 159–70. For an appreciation of Kline’s great expertise in this and other areas, see Philip T. Grier, “In Memoriam: George Louis Kline, March 3, 1921–October 21, 2014,” The Owl of Minerva 46 (2014–15): 85–100.

60. Kline, “Hegel and Solovyov,” 159.

61. Kline, “Hegel and Solovyov,” 161.

62. Kline, “Hegel and Solovyov,” 162.

63. Kline, “Hegel and Solovyov,” 165.

64. See Kline, “Hegel and Solovyov,” 166, and “Russian Religious Thought,” 210.

65. Kline, “Hegel and Solovyov,” 166.

66. This formulation is a variant on what Kline says in “Hegel and Solovyov,” 166.

67. Kline, “Hegel and Solovyov,” 169–70. In a later study, Kline cites several Schellingian expressions borrowed by Solovyov: “The expression teogonicheskii protsess is one of many which Solovyov borrowed from Schelling (theogonischer Prozess). Others include mifologicheskii protsess (mythologischer Prozess), umstvennoe sozertsanie (intellektuelle Anschauung), and the key term vseyedinstvo (‘total-unity’ or ‘all-unity’) modelled on Schelling’s All-Einheit and All-Einigkeit. Schelling’s mystischer Empirismus is the model for Solovyov’s mistitsizm.” “Russian Religious Thought,” 223n14.

In his foreword to Solovyov, Justification of the Good, xxxvii, Hart speaks briefly of Solovyov’s philosophical journey and on p. xlii says “Solovyov is always engaged in a subtle struggle with the ghost of Hegel.”

For further remarks concerning Solovyov’s moves in his critical reworking of Hegel’s thought on the absolute, see Meerson, Trinity of Love, 25, 35. And Zouboff writes: “Solovyev was a most forthright pupil of Hegel; yet he somehow transcended his master’s dialectic and Protestant concept of the Idée as the ultimate being—transcended it, and filled it with the great riches of the Orthodox trinitarian God.” Introduction in Lectures on Godmanhood, 39.

Frederick Copleston, in turn, sees Schelling as appealing to Russian pan-Slavist groups and Hegel to “westernizers.” He writes regarding Solovyov: “It would certainly not be accurate to call Soloviev a disciple of Schelling. … He was in any case an original philosopher and not the ‘disciple’ of anyone. But in his tendency to theosophical speculation he showed a marked affinity of spirit with Schelling, and certain aspects of his profoundly religious thought are very similar to positions adopted by the German philosopher.” History of Philosophy, vol. 7, Fichte to Nietzsche, bound in three vols. 7 through 9 (New York: Doubleday, 1985), 147. In Philosophy in Russia, 237–38, Copleston gives some idea of the wide-ranging influences on Solovyov’s thought: “For example, [the influences] of Plato, Neoplatonism, Nicholas of Cusa, Jakob Boehme, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, Franz Baader, Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann, Ivan Kireevsky and Khomyakov, Indian thought, the Greek Fathers, theological and spiritual writers.” We should add Auguste Comte, as Copleston in effect does on 227, as well as a number of others.

In “Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900),” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed March 3, 2013, http://www.iep.utm.edu/solovyov/, Thomas Nemeth brings up the question of various influences, perhaps one or the other being principal, on Solovyov: “Historically, another central concern among interpreters has been the extent of Solovyov’s indebtedness to various other figures. Whereas several have stressed the influence of, if not an outright borrowing from, the late Schelling [Mueller, Shein], at least one prominent scholar has sought to accentuate Solovyov’s independence and creativity [Losev]. Still others have argued for Solovyov’s indebtedness to Hegel [Navickas], Kant [Vvedenskij], Boehme [David], the Russian Slavophiles and the philosophically-minded theologians Jurkevich and Kudryavtsev.” Nemeth is referring, respectively, to: Ludolf Mueller, Solovjev und der Protestantismus (Freiburg: Herder, 1951); Louis J. Shein, “V. S. Solov’ev’s Epistemology: A Re-examination,” Canadian Slavic Studies 4/1 (1970): 1–16; Aleksej Losev, Vladimir Solov’ev (Moscow: Mysl’, 1983); Joseph L. Navickas, “Hegel and the Doctrine of Historicity of Vladimir Solovyov,” in Frederick J. Adelmann, ed., The Quest for the Absolute (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1966), 135–54; Aleksandr I. Vvedenskij, “O misticizme i kriticizme v teorii poznanija V. S. Solov’eva,” in Filosofskie ocherki (Prague: Plamja, 1924), 45–71; Zdenek V. David, “The Influence of Jacob Boehme on Russian Religious Thought,” Slavic Review 21/1 (1962): 43–64.

68. Crisis, 34–69.

69. See, for example, Crisis, 38–40, 48.

70. Crisis, 40–41.

71. On Solovyov’s reading of Hegel’s philosophy see, for example, Crisis, 44–58 and 104–17. He explicitly calls it one-sided on 50, 56. As Copleston remarks, “Solovyev, however, while admiring Hegel, regarded absolute idealism as a one-sided rationalist system.” Philosophy in Russia, 214. We might note that this was also Schelling’s criticism of Hegel.

72. For example, Crisis, 109. Again, Schelling’s criticism of Hegel.

73. Crisis, 92.

74. Crisis, 110. On 176n88, Solovyov further quotes E. von Hartman appreciatively in the latter’s affirmation that “this (real) principle posits that (quod) something is (dass etwas ist), whereas the ideal or logical principle determines what (quid) it is (was es ist),” and notes that Hartmann took this from Schelling’s positive philosophy.

75. For examples of further direct references to Hegel and Schelling, from whom Solovyov says he learned a great deal, see Kornblatt, Divine Sophia, 128, 136, 167, 171, 228.

76. Note, for example, the brief remark, “Until the seventeenth century, then, except for some heterodox Jewish and Roman Catholic tendencies, Russian thinking tended to continue the ascetical, theological, and philosophical tradition of Byzantium, but with a Russian emphasis on the world’s unity, wholeness, and transfiguration,” in “Esalen Institute/Lindisfarne Press, Library of Russian Philosophy,” in Solovyov, Lectures on Divine Humanity, 187, no author indicated. And see: Nicolas Berdyaev, The Origin of Russian Communism (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor Paperbacks, 1960), 21, 23, 27–28; Kline, “Russian Religious Thought,” 180, 183, 199; Kenneth Michael Stokes, Paradigm Lost: A Cultural and Systems Theoretical Critique of Political Economy (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1995), 141–42; Bakhurst, “Idealism in Russia,” 66: “Russian metaphysical idealism is important not because of its truth, but because of what it reveals about the characteristic quest of Russian thinkers (a quest found equally within the Russian Marxism that displaced idealism): the search for an all-embracing vision to facilitate the renewal, even deification of humanity through apocalyptic transformation, and a burning desire for all-encompassing unity, equality, and the transcendence of the commonplace.”

77. See, more generally, Copleston’s remarks in Philosophy in Russia, 222.

78. See, for example, Balthasar, Glory of the Lord, 3:282–83, 288.

79. Remarks taken from my study, Experience and Spirit: A Post-Hegelian Philosophical Theology (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 250.

80. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:469 with 479.

81. Zenkovsky, Russian Philosophy, 2:528–31.

82. Copleston, History of Philosophy, vol. 7, Fichte to Nietzsche, 147; Copleston, Philosophy in Russia, 207, where Copleston refers to the later Schelling as providing “stimulus for his [Solovyov’s] theological ideas”; Balthasar, Glory of the Lord, 3:281.

83. Richard F. Gustafson and others mention a number of these themes but do not link them to Idealism and its influence on Solovyov. “Soloviev’s Doctrine of Salvation,” in Russian Religious Thought, ed. Judith Deutsch Kornblatt and Richard F. Gustafson (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 41.

84. Meerson phrases Solovyov’s working with Hegel and Schelling as follows: “Solovyov constructed his Trinitarian love paradigm within the framework of idealist philosophy.” Trinity of Love, 47.

85. Concerning Schelling’s influence, more generally considered, on Slavic and especially Russian thinking, see Xavier Tilliette’s brief but important review of several commentators on that influence, in Schelling: Une philosophie en devenir, vol. 2, La dernière philosophie 1821–1854 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1970), 496–97n23.

Introduction to Part 3

1. “Witness” was used in a more technical sense in the previous chapter to refer to those who gave explicit testimonial to Idealist influence especially through direct and often appreciative dialogue with Idealist philosophers. Here and later on the word will often serve in a wider sense to describe a more general relationship between their trinitarian thought and that of these Idealist philosophers.

2. For a philosophically astute understanding of family resemblances we might recall Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notion of Familienänlichkeit. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1958, 2nd ed.) where, for example, at the end of § 66 and beginning of § 67, he writes: “And the result of this examination [of games] is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and crisscrossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail. [§ 67] I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than family resemblances; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, color of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and crisscross in the same way.—And I shall say: ‘games’ form a family.” Accessed August 23, 2014, http://gormendizer.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Ludwig.Wittgenstein.-.Philosophical.Investigations.pdf.

Chapter 6

1. Alan Torrance, “The Trinity,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed. John Webster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 75.

2. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. from the sixth edition by Edwyn C. Hoskyns (London: Oxford University Press, 1933, reprint 1975).

3. See, however, Bruce L. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909–1936 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), who proposes that after 1915 Barth was “a critically realistic dialectical theologian—and that is what he remained throughout his life” (vii).

4. Karl Barth, Die kirchliche Dogmatik, vol. 1, Die Lehre vom Wort Gottes, part 1, Prolegomena zur kirchlichen Dogmatik (Zollikon: Verlag der Evangelischen Buchhandlung, 1932), “Vorwort” on 6–12 (Auflage 1955), cited as Die kirchliche Dogmatik, 1/1/Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, The Doctrine of the Word of God, part 1, Prolegomena to Church Dogmatics, 2nd ed., trans. G. W. Bromiley, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975), preface on xi–xvii. With one or the other exception reference will be to the English translation of Church Dogmatics, 1/1 so referred to and cited in the text by page number.

5. There have been several recent review studies, in English, of Barth on Trinity. For a summary of Barth’s thought on Trinity, following the order in which Barth presents it in vol. 1, pt. 1 of the Church Dogmatics, see George Hunsingen, “Karl Barth’s Doctrine of the Trinity, and Some Protestant Doctrines after Barth,” in The Oxford Handbook of The Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery, O.P., and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 294–313, esp. 294–309. For a presentation referring to a wider range of citations from the various volumes of the Church Dogmatics, see Peter Goodwin Heltzel and Christian T. Collins Winn, “Karl Barth, Reconciliation, and the Triune God,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity, ed. Peter C. Phan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 173–91; Scott R. Swain, The God of the Gospel: Robert Jenson’s Trinitarian Theology (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Academic, Intervarsity Press, 2013), 32–66, who reviews elements of Barth’s trinitarian thought in both vol. 1 and vols. 2 and 4, with a special focus on what he refers to as Barth’s “historicizing lead” and “Hegeling/historicizing Interpretation of God” (62). Again, R. D. Williams, “Barth on the Triune God,” in Karl Barth: Studies of His Theological Method, ed. Stephen W. Sykes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 147–93; Torrance, “The Trinity,” 72–91; Samuel M. Powell, The Trinity in German Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2001), 183–93, 216–26, 243–48; Stanley J. Grenz, Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2004), 34–55; Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, The Trinity: Global Perspectives (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 67–75; Trinitarian Theology after Barth, ed. Myk Habets and Phillip Tolliday, (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2011). For a favorable and quite developed consideration of Barth on Trinity, see Claude Welch, In His Name (New York: Scribner’s, 1952), 161–213. Bibliographies and references in these studies open on to what we quickly discover to be seemingly innumerable further studies on Barth on Trinity.

6. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 1:328.

7. Showing the importance of Barth’s later writing in his Church Dogmatics on Trinity for a fuller understanding and appreciation of his overall trinitarian thought is a major overall thrust of Hetzel and Winn in “Karl Barth, Reconciliation, and the Triune God,” 173–74.

8. Hunsinger, “Karl Barth’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 294. We should, however, note Powell’s remark: “It is evident, then, that in addition to the view of God’s selfhood found in the first volume of Church Dogmatics there is another view in the fourth volume. According to the former, God is a simple personality, an individual subject of action. According to the latter, God exists as the in-between of the Father and the Son.” Trinity in German Thought, 224. For entry into the argument in favor of a “second” trinitarian theology in Barth, see Benjamin Myers, “Election, Trinity, and the History of Jesus: Reading Barth with Rowan Williams,” in Trinitarian Theology after Barth, ed. Myk Habets and Phillip Tolliday, (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2011), 121–37. On the other hand, Bruce McCormack stresses continuity with further development in Barth’s trinitarian thought: “Still, the structure of Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity remains unchanged. It is still the case that what we have before us is a single Subject in three modes of being. What has changed is simply the fact that we can now do a much better job of distinguishing these modes one from another.” “The Lord and Giver of Life: A ‘Barthian’ Defense of the Filioque,” in Rethinking Trinitarian Theology: Disputed Questions and Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology, ed. Giulio Maspero and Robert J. Woźniak (London: T & T Clark International, 2012), see 244–48, with the quote on 247–48. Iain Taylor argues especially on the basis of ways in which Barth works with “person” and “mode of being” to a basic continuity in Barth’s trinitarian thought throughout the various volumes of Church Dogmatics. “In Defence of Karl Barth’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 5 (2003): 33–46, esp. 41–45.

9. By way of example, see further references to later volumes in Powell, Trinity in German Thought, 221–26.

10. “While in their criticism of Barth they [Moltmann and Pannenberg] focus on volume I of the Church Dogmatics, their positive formulations of the doctrine [of the Trinity] are unthinkable apart from volume IV.” Powell, Trinity in German Thought, 222n152.

11. Since many of Barth’s basic trinitarian expressions are included in this succinct quote, it will be helpful to include the German original here: “Gottes Wort ist Gott selbst in seiner Offenbarung. Denn Gott offenbart sich als der Herr und das bedeutet nach der Schrift für den Begriff der Offenbarung, daß Gott selbst in unzerstörter Einheit, aber auch in unzerstörter Verschiedenheit der Offenbarer, die Offenbarung und das Offenbarsein ist.” Die kirchliche Dogmatik, l/1:311.

12. See Hunsinger, “Karl Barth’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 297–99.

13. Hunsinger helpfully notes the potentially misleading translation of Einheit by unity, since Barth himself is concerned here with God’s oneness. “Karl Barth’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 299.

14. “Karl Barth’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 299.

15. Hunsinger, “Karl Barth’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 299.

16. Hunsinger, “Karl Barth’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 300.

17. In their editor’s preface in Church Dogmatics, 1/1:viii, Bromiley and Torrance recall that Barth once agreed “way of being” might be a better translation of Seinsweise than “mode of being.” Though this would help avoid misunderstanding Barth as a modalist, according to the editors Barth’s various arguments in support of his understanding of Seinsweise led them, generally speaking, to retain the translation “mode of being.”

18. See Hunsinger, “Karl Barth’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 301–02.

19. Kerygma und Dogma 23 (1977): 25–40. Jürgen Moltmann, in The Trinity and the Kingdom of God: The Doctrine of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 241n22, draws attention to the similarity of Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity with Hegel’s, as indicated as well by L. Oeing-Hanhoff, “Hegels Trinitätslehre,” Theologische Quartalschrift 159 (1979): 287–303. I have not been able to consult J. Hanvey, S.J., “Hegel, Rahner and Barth: A Study in the Possibility of a Trinitarian Theology,” doctoral thesis, Oxford University, 1989/1990.

20. Pannenberg, “Subjektivität Gottes,” 25. Concerning the importance of the “Hegelian category” of divine subjectivity for Barth’s trinitarian doctrine in Church Dogmatics, 1/1, Myers refers to Michael Menke-Peitzmeyer, Subjektivität und Selbstinterpretation des dreifaltigen Gottes: Eine Studie zur Genese und Explikation des Paradigmas “Selbstoffenbarung Gottes” in der Theologie Karl Barths (Münster: Aschendorff, 2002). “Election, Trinity, and the History of Jesus,” 125n20.

21. In his brief history of the notion of self-revelation, Pannenberg proposes that Barth may well have taken over from Marheineke the idea of linking God’s self-revelation with its uniqueness. Wolfhart Pannenberg and others, Revelation as History, trans. David Granskou (London: The Macmillan Company, 1968), 3–6, and Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1:223.

22. Pannenberg, “Subjektivität Gottes,” 27.

23. Pannenberg, “Subjektivität Gottes,” 28.

24. Pannenberg, “Subjektivität Gottes,” 28.

25. Pannenberg, “Subjektivität Gottes,” 29.

26. Pannenberg, “Subjektivität Gottes,” 30, 36.

27. Pannenberg, “Subjektivität Gottes,” 31. In noting this reflexive structure of subjectivity or here, in Barth, personality, Moltmann, Trinity and the Kingdom, 142 with 242n37, refers as far back as Fichte, who “talked about ‘being,’ about ‘the existence of being’ and about ‘the bond of love’ or of reflection, which permits the two to be one.” Moltmann cites J. G. Fichte, Die Anweisung zum seligen Leben oder auch Die Religionslehre (1812) (Stuttgart: Freies Geistesleben, 1962), 10th lecture, 155ff.

28. Pannenberg, “Subjektivität Gottes,” 30–31.

29. Powell, “Nineteenth-Century Protestant Doctrines of the Trinity,” 279.

30. Ebehard Jüngel, God’s Being Is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth, rev. trans. John Webster (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001).

31. In addition, Torrance, “The Trinity,” 89–90n7, cites R. D. Williams, “Barth on the Triune God,” in Karl Barth: Studies of His Theological Method, ed. Stephen W. Sykes (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), 188, as referring to a “similarity of pattern between Barth’s concept of the Word and Hegel’s pan-unity of ‘Absolute Spirit, the one and universal self-thinking thought.’ ” Torrance also refers to strong parallelisms between Barth’s actualism and Hegel’s dynamic conception of “Being,” spoken of by Horst George Pöhlmann in Analogia entis oder Analogia fidei? Die Frage der Analogie bei Karl Barth (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965), 117. See also Alan Torrance, Persons in Communion: An Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996), 244ff.

32. Barth, Protestant Theology, 396.

33. Williams speaks, interestingly, of “Barth’s kinship with Hegel.” “Barth on the Triune God,” 188.

34. Barth, Protestant Theology, 421.

35. To follow up on further possible family resemblances between Barth’s trinitarian thought and that of Hegel and possibly Schelling, especially regarding their understandings of time and the history of God, one would need to review in greater detail what Barth has said in later volumes of the Church Dogmatics.

Chapter 7

1. Among the many so esteeming Rahner and his influence, see John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers; From Plato to the Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 224; more specifically regarding his influence on Catholic trinitarian theology, Peter C. Phan, “Mystery of Grace and Salvation: Karl Rahner’s Theology of the Trinity,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity, ed. Peter C. Phan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 192. Concerning Rahner’s more indirect influence in Protestant Theology, see Nicholas Adams, “Rahner’s Reception in Twentieth-century Protestant Theology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Rahner, ed. Declan Marmion and Mary E. Hines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 211–24.

2. On the impact of Idealism on Heidegger, with Idealism widely understood and including the modern Idealism of Kant, Schelling, and Hegel, see Daniel O. Dahlstrom, “Heidegger and the Impact of Idealism,” in The Impact of Idealism: The Legacy of Post-Kantian German Thought, ed. Nicholas Boyle and Liz Disley, vol. 1, Philosophy and Natural Sciences, ed. Karl Ameriks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 225–45. Dahlstrom draws particular attention to Heidegger’s 1936–38 Contributions to Philosophy, in which Heidegger “reads the entire history of philosophy in terms of the impact of idealism” (230). See Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 65, Beiträge zur Philosophie (vom Ereignis), ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1989)/Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), trans. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999).

3. Later in life Rahner said, “I think that the spirituality of Ignatius himself which one learned through the practice of prayer and religious formation was more significant for me than all learned philosophy and theology inside and outside the order … I do think that in comparison with other philosophy and theology that influenced me, Ignatian spirituality was indeed more significant and important.” In Karl Rahner in Dialogue: Conversations and Interviews, 1965–1982, ed. Paul Imhof and Hubert Biallowons, trans. Harvey D. Egan (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 191. For a greatly nuanced but somewhat hesitant evaluation of the strength of the relationship between Rahner and his thought, on the one hand, and Ignatius and his Spiritual Exercises, on the other, see Philip Endean, Karl Rahner and Ignatian Spirituality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), esp. 239–46, with valuable, relevant bibliography 258–86. Prof. Philip Sheldrake kindly brought Endean’s study to my attention.

For a helpful listing of “Significant Dates in the Life of Karl Rahner,” see Imhof and Biallowons, eds., Karl Rahner in Dialogue, 362–65.

4. For Karl Rahner on the question of efficient causality and quasi-formal causality, see briefly The Trinity, trans. Joseph Donceel (London: Burns and Oates, 1970), 36, hereafter referred to as Trinity; “Trinity, Divine; Trinity in Theology,” in Sacramentum Mundi, ed. Karl Rahner and others, vol. 6 (New York: Herder, 1970), 295–308, explicitly 298, 306–07; Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. William V. Dych (New York: Crossroad, 1978), 120–22. At greater length on the scholastic concept of uncreated grace, see Karl Rahner, “Some Implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated Grace,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 1 (Baltimore, MD: Helicon Press, 1961), 319–46. In Trinity, 22n17, Rahner himself cites other writings by him on grace.

5. This and the following two paragraphs are a somewhat shorter paraphrase of remarks in my book, Theology and the Experience of God (New York: Peter Lang, 2001), 37–39. We can obtain a good sense of Rahner’s interpretation of the notion “experience of God” from two of his texts: “The Experience of God Today,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 11 (New York: Seabury, 1974), 149–65, esp. 152–60; and, Foundations of Christian Faith, 14–23, 26–39, 51–71, 131, but especially the marvelous and dense summary of his theory of revelation, 170–75.

On Rahner on the experience of God see, among many studies: J. Norman King, “The Experience of God in the Theology of Karl Rahner,” Thought 53 (1978): 164–202; Edward L. Krasevac, “Revelation and Experience: An Analysis of the Theology of George Tyrrell, Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx, and Thomas Aquinas,” PhD diss., Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, 1986, 34–69, with bibliography of works by Rahner, 224–26; Annice Callahan, Spiritual Guides for Today (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 61–78. For an elegant discussion of Rahner on experience of God in the context of further reference to other writers, see Nicholas Lash, Easter in Ordinary: Reflections on Human Experience and the Knowledge of God (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1988; reprinted, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 219–53, esp. 242–51. On Rahner on theology and experience in relation to his theological method and anthropology, see Anne Carr, “Theology and Experience in the Thought of Karl Rahner,” The Journal of Religion 53 (1973): 359–76, esp. 371. For further primary and secondary bibliography, in addition to the standard Rahner bibliographies and the notes in the article by King, see Callahan, Spiritual Guides, 152–53n2. We should note that for Rahner grace, revelation, and experience of God are essentially co-extensive terms, although as theological concepts I would think the last of these should be seen as undergirding the previous two in the sense of providing a point of departure for further reflection on the previous two.

6. On Rahner on the experience of God at this transcendental level, see his remarks in “Experience of God,” 150–56, along with remarks in Foundations of Christian Faith, 171–73.

7. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 172–73. See Rahner, “Experience of God,” 156.

8. Rahner, “Experience of God,” 153 and 155 with 164–65.

9. Rahner, “Experience of God,” 161–62.

10. This shift allows us to see, for example, the way in which Rahner handles the more Kantian concern to show how the social, institutional, and moral elements of a religious tradition can be considered important without seeing them as imposing illegitimate demands upon human autonomy. For a helpful critical reading of Rahner’s emphasis on the transcendental, a critique elaborated in terms of the relationship between experience and language, see Derek Simon, “Rahner and Ricœur on Religious Experience and Language,” Église et Théologie 28 (1997): 77–99. For a defense of Rahner’s understanding of the human experience of God as an understanding rooted in the experience of Jesus, see Mary V. Maher, “Rahner on the Human Experience of God: Idealist Tautology or Christian Theology?” Philosophy and Theology 7 (1992): 127–64.

11. Already now we can, with regard to Rahner’s thought on the doubled trinitarian mediation, note for example Rahner’s text, Trinity, 82–99.

12. Comparing his various more important presentations of his thought on Trinity, the experience of God, and his more general anthropology would surely make an interesting topic for further study.

13. Rahner’s study on the Trinity: “Der dreifaltige Gott als transzendenter Urgrund der Heilsgeschichte,” in Mysterium Salutis: Grundriß heilsgeschichtlicher Dogmatik, ed. Johannes Feiner and Mognus Löher, vol. 2, Die Heilsgeschichte vor Christus (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1967), 317–401, with the third part on 369–97/The Trinity, trans. Joseph Donceel (London: Burns and Oates, 1970), with the third part on 80–120, with the English translation referred to as Trinity and usually cited in the text simply by page number.

Several helpful recent English-language presentations of Rahner on Trinity: Stanley J. Grenz, Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2004), 55–71; David Coffey, “Trinity,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Rahner, ed. Declan Marmion and Mary E. Hines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 98–111; on certain aspects of Rahner’s thought, Cooper, Panentheism, 224–26; Käkkäinen, Trinity in Global Perspective, 76–87. Vincent Holzer, “Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Twentieth-Century Catholic Currents on the Trinity,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery, O.P., an Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 318–23; Phan, “Mystery of Grace and Salvation,” 192–207. An earlier study: Thomas F. Torrance, “Toward an Ecumenical Consensus on the Trinity,” Theologische Zeitschrift 6/31 (1975): 337–50. Also, Michael Schulz, Sein und Trinität: Systematische Erörterungen zur Religionsphilosophie G. W. F. Hegels im ontologiegeschichtlichen Rückblick auf J. Duns Scotus and I. Kant und die Hegel-Rezeption in der Seinsauslegung und Trinitätslehre bei W. Pannenberg, E. Jüngel, K. Rahner und H. U. v. Balthasar (Erzabtei St. Ottilien, Germany: EOS Verlag Abtei St. Ottilien Erza, 1997), on Rahner 581–685.

14. Rahner’s two articles: “Trinity, Divine; Trinity in Theology,” in Sacramentum Mundi, ed. Karl Rahner and others, vol. 6 (New York: Herder, 1970), 295–308, esp. 298–303, hereafter referred to as Sacramentum Mundi, 6.

15. Phan, “Mystery of Grace and Salvation,” 197–201.

16. Italics in the translated text. Italics in quotes from Rahner are in the translated texts from which the quotations are taken.

17. Rahner’s earlier study on God in the New Testament, in which he identifies God without further reference as the Father, certainly lies behind his more systematic formulation here. See Karl Rahner, “Theos in the New Testament,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 1 (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961), 79–148. See also his older study, “ ‘Gott’ als erste trinitarische Person im NT,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 66 (1942): 71–88.

18. It would be good to recall that behind Rahner’s various references to God as Father and the one who is the source of divine self-communication there lays his longer study, “Theos in the New Testament.”

19. For example, Trinity, 105; Sacramentum Mundi, 6:301–02.

20. See Coffey, “Trinity,” 103–04.

21. Karl Rahner in Dialogue: Conversations and Interviews 1965–1982, ed. Paul Imhof and Hubert Biallowons (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 18. Note also Rahner’s remark in a lecture delivered in Chicago in 1966: “Anthropocentricity and theocentricity in theology are not contradictories but strictly one and the same thing seen from two different aspects, and each aspect is unintelligible without the other.” Quoted by Johannes B. Metz, foreword to Spirit in the World, by Karl Rahner, trans. William Dych, S.J. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), xxx.

22. Sacramentum Mundi, 6:299.

23. Sacramentum Mundi, 6:300–01.

24. Sacramentum Mundi, 6:301.

25. Sacramentum Mundi, 6:302.

26. Sacramentum Mundi, 6:303.

27. Nicholas Adams speaks more generally of Rahner’s working with a German understanding of ground as being mediated to Rahner from Schelling by contact with Heidegger. Adams writes, “The main point is that the ‘ground’ of thinking is itself unthinkable, yet must be presupposed if one acknowledges that thinking nonetheless happens.” “Rahner’s Reception in Protestant Theology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Rahner, ed. Declan Marmion and Mary E. Hines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 217.

28. See, for example, Winfried Corduan, “Elements of the Philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel in the Transcendental Method of Karl Rahner,” PhD diss., Rice University, 1977; Winfried Corduan, “Hegelian Themes in Contemporary Theology,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 22 (1979): 351–61, esp. 357–58. I have so far not been able to consult the following two studies: H. Striewe, “Reditio subjecti in seipsum: Der Einfluss Hegels, Kants und Fichtes auf die Religionsphilosophie Karl Rahners,” Doctoral diss., Faculty of Philosophy, Freiburg-im-Bresgau University, 1979; James W. Hanvey, “Hegel, Rahner and Karl Barth: A Study in the Possibilities of a Trinitarian Theology,” DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. Milton Michael Kobus explores more especially the influence of Heidegger and Maréchal on Rahner’s trinitarian thought, but without reference to Hegel, in “The Doctrine of the Trinity according to Karl Rahner,” DTh diss., Graduate Theological Foundation, 2007. Anne Carr speaks of Hegelian ideas as only occasionally present in Rahner’s thought, though she does point out several: “Chief among these are Hegel’s use of the transcendental method to show the grounding of contingent experience in the absolute; his criticism of Kant in showing the ability of the human intellect not only to establish its own limits but simultaneously to transcend those limits in doing so; the dialectical unity of knowing and being; and the turn to history as the realm of the realization of transcendent spirit.” The Theological Method of Karl Rahner (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977), 11 with n. 1. In speaking more generally of Hegel’s influence on contemporary theology and on Rahner, Stanley J. Grenz and Roger E. Olson have left us with the rather colorful remark: “The specter that haunts Rahner’s theology begins to look more and more like the ghost of Hegel, whose panentheistic philosophy of the ‘true infinite’ that includes the finite in itself blurred the distinction between God and humanity. The house of contemporary theology has been haunted by Hegel’s ghost ever since the great German philosopher lectured at Berlin, and Rahner’s theology has not been completely exorcised of it.” 20th Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age (IVP Academic, Intervarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL, 1991), 254.

29. Karl Rahner, “Aquinas: The Nature of Truth,” Continuum 2 (1964) 62, cited by Corduan, “Elements of the Philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel,” 122–23 with 144n8. As Corduan indicates on 144n2, “This is a translation by Andrew Tallon from the Portuguese. The German original is lost.” For further reflection on this remark by Rahner, see Winfried Corduan, “Hegel in Rahner: A Study in Philosophical Hermeneutics,” The Harvard Theological Review 71 (1978): 285–98. We should note as well that Rahner occasionally tried to distance himself from Hegel and his thought. It is interesting to see that Rahner attributes Prof. Honecker’s rejection of his philosophical dissertation to the fact that “he felt that I had incorrectly interpreted the doctrine of Saint Thomas too much according to modern philosophy (Heidegger’s ideas in particular) and the fundamental tenets of German idealism.” Karl Rahner in Dialogue, 12 and see 337.

30. On what follows, see Corduan, “Elements of the Philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel,” 119–48; Corduan, “Hegelian Themes,” 357–58. While Corduan speaks of “similarities,” it will be good to recall that we are here working not just with similarities as such but in the context of our present discussion similarities that we are referring to as family resemblances between Hegel and Schelling, on the one hand, and Rahner in the present case, on the other hand—with the implication here that such similarities reflect a certain influence on the part of Hegel and Schelling.

31. On the relationship between being and knowing in Rahner, see the helpful presentation by George Vass, A Theologian in Search of a Philosophy: Understanding Karl Rahner, vol. 1 (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1985), 35–37; and succinctly with explicit reference to the identity of pure being and pure knowing as what we call God, Louis Roberts, The Achievement of Karl Rahner (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), 48n19. Francis P. Fiorenza has early on noted this resemblance between Hegel and Rahner in their starting points, a resemblance evidenced already throughout Rahner’s argument in Spirit in the World: “Hegel proposes … an absolute starting point which is immediate and indetermined and therefore does not contain an opposition between thinking and being. The philosopher then proceeds from his starting point via negationis to develop categories of thought. These observations of Hegel have strongly influenced Martin Heidegger and are also implicitly considered by Karl Rahner in his dialogue with Kant.” Introduction in Spirit in the World, by Karl Rahner, trans. William Dych, S.J. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), xxx/German original, Geist in Welt (Munich: Kösel, 1957).

32. Karl Rahner, “The Theology of the Symbol,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 4 (London: Darton, Longman & Todd), 236–37. See Corduan, “Elements of the Philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel,” 191.

33. Sacramentum Mundi, 6:300–01.

34. Karl Rahner, “Jesus Christus, Systematik der kirchl. Christologie,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 2nd edition, vol. 5, ed. Josef Höfer and Karl Rahner (Freiburg: Herder, 1960), cols. 955–56. See Corduan, “Hegelian Themes,” 357.

35. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 219–23, where, in a section entitled “Can the Immutable ‘Become’ Something?” Rahner discusses this point in some detail. See also Rahner, “Jesus Christus, Systematik der kirchl. Christologie,” cols. 957–58. Corduan, “Hegelian Themes” 357, cites this latter text of Rahner’s, but indicates as reference p. 956 and refers to Hans Küng’s analysis in Menschwerdung Gottes (Freiburg: Herder, 1970), 648–52. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen’s remarks in The Trinity: Global Perspectives (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 79–80 are quite helpful. In regard to this question of an immutable God changing, he also refers on 79n20 to Karl Rahner, “On the Theology of the Incarnation,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 4 (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 105–20.

36. It would be interesting to explore further in Rahner whether he sees any change in God at the Parousia, given this history of God rooted for Rahner in the Incarnation.

37. Regarding Rahner’s pneumatology, Coffey writes: “In general it has to be admitted that Rahner’s pneumatology was rather weak, even if it began to show signs of strengthening towards the end of his life. Inevitably, his trinitarian theology suffered as a result.” “Trinity,” 110. We might well wonder whether Rahner’s need in his earlier theological context to focus on quasi-formal causality as compared with efficient causality might not have contributed to his apparently focusing less on final causality, stressed so much by Hegel and Schelling, with as result his then somewhat more understandably concentrating on God the Father and God the Son. In his discussion of Trinity Rahner does refer to the Spirit when he speaks of grace. However, in his other writings on grace he tends to refer more generally to God as such.

38. Vincent Holzer, “Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Twentieth-Century Catholic Currents on the Trinity,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery, O.P., and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 323.

39. For example, for a careful consideration, from a theological perspective, of more positive as well as more problematic aspects of Rahner’s trinitarian thought, see Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 301–03. Even after mentioning his reservations regarding Rahner’s trinitarian thought, in the following pages (303–16) Kasper rather strikingly follows and incorporates a good number of Rahner’s insights into his own further reflections.

40. Sacramentum Mundi, 6:303.

41. Adams, “Rahner’s Reception in Protestant Theology,” 219–20 and 222.

42. Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, 23 vols. (New York: Crossroad, 1961–92). Carr suggests that Rahner’s working with essays on individual topics may have given him greater freedom in his writing. Theological Method, 59n1.

43. For a particularly insightful review of this question of the identity of immanent and economic Trinity, see Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1991), 328–36. For a recent, negatively critical presentation of the core of Rahner’s thought on Trinity, see Dennis W. Jowers, The Trinitarian Axiom of Karl Rahner: The Economic Trinity Is the Immanent Trinity and Vice Versa (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2006), esp. 85–111. For a positive and creative interpretation of Rahner’s assertion of this identity, see Eberhard Jüngel, “Das Verhältnis von ‘ökonomischer’ und ‘immanenter’ Trinität,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 72 (1975): 353–64. For an appreciative reading but with an intention to go beyond Rahner’s formulation, see the discussion in chapter 10 below on Catherine Mawry LaCugna’s trinitarian thought.

44. Prof. Dr. Ekkehard Mühlenberg raised the question in 1977 in the course of a class session on Trinity.

45. See, for example, Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1:307–08.

46. Adams, “Rahner’s Reception in Protestant Theology,” 219.

47. For an example of a critique of Rahner’s use of uncreated grace, see William J. Hill, “Uncreated Grace: A Critique of Karl Rahner,” Thomist 16/17 (1963): 333–56.

Coffey identifies several further possible weaknesses, as well as strengths, in Rahner’s trinitarian thought. Among the weaknesses, he refers especially to Rahner’s understandings of person and relation. “Trinity,” 108–10.

Chapter 8

1. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “An Autobiographical Sketch,” in The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, ed. Carl E. Braaten and Philip Clayton (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1988), 11–18.

2. Pannenberg, “An Autobiographical Sketch,” 12. In a sermon on Ex 3:1–12, entitled “Religious Experience—a Contemporary Possibility?” and preached in the Fall of 1975 at the School of Theology at Claremont, California, Pannenberg said a bit more about this experience: “Quite similar experiences [referring to that of Moses before the burning bush] can still happen today. To myself, at the age of sixteen, there occurred at a midwinter sunset early in 1945 what I never shall forget: There was not a dornbush, to be sure, but a flood of light suddenly all around me and penetrating my body in such a way that all gravity was forgotten. Nothing supernatural about that. Many people, in their years of adolescence at least, may have experiences like that. And yet it changed definitively my attitude toward reality for all my life, although at that time I did not yet know, as Moses did from his tradition, What God was speaking to me.” See also Wolfhart Pannenberg, “God’s Presence in History,” in Theologians in Transition: The Christian Century “How My Mind Has Changed” Series, ed. James M. Wall (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 93–99, where on 94 Pannenberg again describes his experience, this time noting that later he realized it occurred on the feast of the Epiphany. Stanley J. Grenz and Roger E. Olson affirm that “the theologian [Pannenberg] now sees in this experience Jesus Christ making claim to his life, even though he was not yet a Christian. Over the ensuing years this experience has become the basis for Pannenberg’s keen sense of calling.” 20th Century Theology: God & the World in a Transitional Age (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, InterVarsity Press, 1992), 186.

3. Pannenberg, “An Autobiographical Sketch,” 13.

4. Pannenberg, “An Autobiographical Sketch,” 13.

5. For further remarks on his open Lutheran stance, see Wolfhart Pannenberg, “A Response to My American Friends,” in The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, ed. Carl E. Braaten and Philip Clayton (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1988), 315.

6. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 3 vols. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), esp. 1:283–364 but also 365–483/Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1991), esp. 1:259–336 but also 337–448. Vol. 1 of the English translation will in this chapter be referenced in the text by page number and in the notes as Systematic Theology, 1. Pannenberg indicates several of his concerns in working out his own trinitarian theology, especially toward the end, in his article, “Die Subjektivität Gottes und die Trinitätslehre: Ein Beitrag zur Beziehung zwischen Karl Barth und der Philosophie Hegels.” Kerygma und Dogma 23 (1977): 25–40.

For more recent and quite comprehensive studies of Pannenberg on Trinity, see: Klaus Vechtel, Trinität und Zukunft: Zum Verhältnis von Philosophie und Trinitätstheologie im Denken Wolfhart Pannenbergs (Frankfurt am Main: Josef Knecht, 2001), with wide-ranging discussion of Pannenberg’s working with various philosophical resources in the first part, “Philosophie und Offenbarung” (9–95), direct treatment of Pannenberg on Trinity in the second part, “Trinität und Zukunft” (97–184), and critical discussion with Pannenberg in the third part, “Punkte zum Gespräch mit W. Pannenberg” (185–267), with bibliographic coverage especially of primary and secondary works in German (276–88); Iain Taylor, Pannenberg on the Triune God (London: T & T Clark, 2007), who treats of Trinity throughout Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology and provides abundant bibliography referencing major German and English studies on 9–10 and an indication, on 2nn3 and 4 (and also p. 6), of additional studies by Pannenberg on Trinity beyond his Systematic Theology; Theodore James Whapham, The Term “Person” in the Trinitarian Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, American University Studies, series 7, Theology and Religion, vol. 321 (New York: Peter Lang, 2012), with very helpful bibliography. These three studies provide easily locatable presentations of and commentaries on various aspects of Pannenberg’s trinitarian thought.

See also: the earlier study, a more critical as well as Hegelian reading of Pannenberg on Trinity, by Roger E. Olson, “Trinity and Eschatology: The Historical Being of God in the Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg,” PhD diss., Rice University, 1984, esp. 230–323; somewhat more broadly, Grenz and Olson, 20th Century Theology, 186–99; a particularly lucid study: Christiaan Mostert, “From Eschatology to Trinity: Pannenberg’s Doctrine of God,” Pacifica: Australasian Theological Studies 10 (1997): 70–83, accessed September 16, 2012, http://www.pacifica.org.au/volumes/volume10/issue01/; Samuel M. Powell, The Trinity in German Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2001), 202–10, 233–39, 243–45, 253–58; Stanley J. Grenz, Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2004), 88–106; John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers; From Plato to the Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 259–81, esp. 278–82; Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, The Trinity: Global Perspectives (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 123–50; Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “The Trinitarian Doctrines of Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg in the Context of Contemporary Discussion,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 223–42, esp. 229–42; Gunther Wenz, Introduction to Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology (Bristol, CT: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 66–104, with abundant primary and secondary bibliography.

7. Taylor, Pannenberg on the Triune God, 3–5.

8. “We shall be expressing the subject matter of dogmatics in all its variety as the unfolding of the Christian idea of God,” Pannenberg wrote at the beginning of his three-volume study. Systematic Theology, 1:x.

9. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “God’s Presence in History,” The Christian Century, March 11, 1981, 263, cited by Taylor, Pannenberg on the Triune God, 1. While greatly appreciative of Pannenberg’s contributions to trinitarian theology and artfully presenting the trinitarian character of most of Pannenberg’s thought in the three volumes of Systematic Theology, Taylor indicates several areas in which he finds that character lacking. See especially his conclusion, 182–207. He criticizes, in particular, what he considers as the non-trinitarian character of Pannenberg’s epistemology: “The importance of the Trinity in how one comes to understand God’s revelation is at best very much in the background” (198).

10. Systematic Theology, 1, for example 259, with references to Matthew and Luke.

11. In disagreeing with Pannenberg on this objection that Thomas seemingly rooted Trinity in a notion of causality, Taylor proposes that Thomas’s use of the notion of cause “is a matter of controlled metaphorical usage and not, as it were, a straightforward extension of the language of causality as we employ it to speak of things and processes in the world.” This quotation by Taylor is from Nicholas Lash, Easter in Ordinary: Reflections on Human Experience and the Knowledge of God (London: SCM, 1988), 228. Pannenberg on the Triune God, 32, and 48–49.

Pannenberg’s hesitation concerning the role of causation, even when causation is more metaphorically considered, would seem to form part of his wider rejection of analogy rooted in causality. See Wolfhart Ulrich Pannenberg, “Analogie und Offenbarung: Eine kritische Untersuchung der Geschichte des Analogie Begriffs in der Gottes-erkenntnis,” Habilitation Writing, Theologische Fakultät der Rupprecht-Karls Universität zu Heidelberg, 1955, on Aquinas 105–31. For Pannenberg’s most important other writings on analogy, see Elizabeth Ann Johnson, “The Right Way to Speak about God? Pannenberg on Analogy,” Theological Studies 43 (1982): 673–74n4. See also Elizabeth Ann Johnson, “Analogy/Doxology and Their Connection with Christology in the Thought of Wolfhart Pannenberg,” PhD dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 1981; Vechtel, Trinität und Zukunft, 257n263.

12. We might already now mention that Pannenberg’s critique would seem to apply more appropriately to the trinitarian thought of Hegel and less that of Schelling.

13. The original remark is found at the beginning of the chapter, Systematic Theology, 1:259–60.

14. The English translation of Ablesen, the word Pannenberg uses to describe his move from identification of temporally enacted relationships to eternal ones, for example, in Systematic Theology, 1:312.

15. Taylor recounts Pannenberg himself’s noting that John D. Zizioulas drew his attention to Athanasius’s speaking of the Father not being the Father without the Son: “This enabled Pannenberg to achieve a new emphasis on the mutuality in the personal relations within the Trinity.” Pannenberg on the Triune God, 7, where Taylor cites the fact that Pannenberg mentioned reciprocal triune relations already in Metaphysics and the Idea of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990, published in German in 1988), 40–41. More recently Pannenberg has confirmed that “many years ago, when I was wrestling with this problem [mutually self-distinguishing of the divine Persons],” Zizioulas had pointed out to him Athanasius’s insistence that the Father would not be Father without the Son. “Divine Economy and Eternal Trinity,” in The Theology of John Zizioulas: Personhood and the Church, ed. Douglas H. Knight (Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2007), 79–86 with reference to Zizioulas on 81. Pannenberg had been thinking about this idea of the mutual self-distinguishing of the three divine Persons for some time before he read the way in which Athanasius spoke of the relationship especially between Father and Son. In this essay Pannenberg succinctly recapitulates his argument in favor of mutually self-distinguishing divine Persons and responds to several critiques of this area of his thought.

16. Among the many further points Pannenberg makes concerning the role of the Logos and consequently of the Son is the idea that the “Logos is the generative principle of all the finite reality that involves the difference of one thing from another—a principle grounded in the self-distinction of the eternal Son from the Father.” And the Son “is the creative origin of the particularity of each creature and at the same time the concrete epitome of its varied manifestations.” Systematic Theology, vol. 2, trans. Geffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1994), quotes on 62 and 65. Taylor speaks of the Logos as “the eternal principle of difference and otherness,” sounding an interestingly Hegelian ring in relation to what Pannenberg is saying. Pannenberg on the Triune God, 73.

17. Pannenberg cites Athanasius, C. Arian. 3.6, and see 1.29.34. He refers as well to Jean Zizioulas, “Vérité et communion,” in L’être ecclesial (Paris: Labor et Fides, 1981), 73–74, where Zizioulas writes: “En ramenant l’être du Fils à la substance meme de Dieu, Athanase transformait aussi la notion de substance elle-même. … Dire que le Fils appartient à la substance de Dieu implique que la substance possède presque par definition un caractère relationnel. ‘Dieu a-t-il jamais existé sans ce qui Lui appartient?’ [Contra A. 1, 20] … Si par nature l’être de Dieu est relationnel et si on peut l’indiquer par le mot ‘substance,’ ne doit-on pas en conclure alors presque inévitablement que, étant donné le caractère dernier de l’être de Dieu pour toute ontologie, la substance, en tant qu’elle indique le caractère dernier de l’être, ne peut être conçue que comme communion?” (73, with references to and quotations from Athanasius on 73–74n59). The French text was first published as “Vérité et communion dans la perspective de la pensée grecque” in Irénikon 50 (1977): 451–510, from which the English translation reads: “By connecting the Son’s being with the very substance of God, Athanasius also transformed the idea of substance. … To say that the Son belongs to God’s substance implies that substance possesses almost by definition a relational character. [quoting Athanasius:] ‘Has God ever existed without his own (Son)?’ … If God’s being is by nature relational, and if it can be signified by the word ‘substance,’ can we not then conclude almost inevitably that, given the ultimate character of God’s being for all ontology, substance, inasmuch as it signifies the ultimate character of being, can be conceived only as communion?” “Truth and Communion” in Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985, 1993), 84, with references to and quotations from Athanasius on 84–85n60. Here Zizioulas is thinking more in terms of the notion of person, as relational, as being implied in the trinitarian thought of the Cappadocians.

18. “Panentheistic” is the rubric under which Cooper treats of Pannenberg’s thought, in Panentheism, 259–81. On Pannenberg’s rejection of panentheism as a word characterized by “vagueness and misleading implications,” see 259–60. It should be noted that Cooper himself does not agree with using the notion of panentheism to describe the relation between God and world (319–46).

19. The English text of Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology, 1:336, refers to the previous note 50, but should surely indicate, rather, note 68 on p. 279. It would seem that there is a certain consensus that this letter 38 attributed to Basil is the work of his brother, Gregory of Nyssa, as noted by Whapham, “Person” in the Trinitarian Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, 39n27. Whapham refers to Sarah Coakley’s “ ‘Persons’ in the Social Doctrine of the Trinity: Current Analytic Discussion and ‘Cappadocian’ Theology,” in Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy and Gender (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 109–29, see esp. 116–24 and therein 119–20. See the basic study by Reinhard Hübner, “Gregor von Nyssa als Verfasser der sog. Ep. 38 des Basilius: Zum unterschiedlichen Verständnis der ousia bei den kappodozischen Brüdern,” in Epektasis: Mélanges patristiques offerte au Cardinal Jean Daniélou, ed. Jacques Fontaine and Charles Kannengiesser (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972), 463–90. More important perhaps than authorship is the fact that the letter itself would seem to present an interpretation of Aristotelian concrete essence being realized in three instantiations in a more sophisticated way than simply that of specimens of a common genus. This more nuanced reading might well support, to some extent at least, Pannenberg’s own position concerning the concrete reality of the three divine hypostases, to use here the term found in the letter. See further very briefly in my study, Experience and Spirit: A Post-Hegelian Philosophical Theology (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 48.

20. Whapham, “Person” in the Trinitarian Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, 156–57 with n. 37 identifies two ways, namely, field theory and the self-giving nature of love, in which Pannenberg responds to the question as to how the three divine Persons can be “absolutely and perfectly united in the one divine essence.” In this n. 37 he quotes Pannenberg on love, in which quote Pannenberg himself refers to the infinite. Whapham renders a rather severe judgment on Pannenberg’s efforts to establish divine unity on the basis of a move from three divine Persons to one God: “In the end, both of Pannenberg’s arguments [field theory and nature of love] for the unity of the divine persons suffer from an imprecision which is unfitting for such a crucial element of the Christian notion of God,” 157, and see 156–58.

21. Cooper provides multiple references to various places in Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology where Pannenberg refers to or discusses the notion of field as well as to several secondary sources in which the notion is discussed. Panentheism, 266–78.

22. Regin Prenter, “Der Gott, der Liebe ist: Das Verhältnis der Gotteslehre zur Christologie,” Theologische Literaturzeitung 96 (1971): 403, with reference to this study on 424n182.

23. Pannenberg ends his three-volume Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1997), 3:646, in a similar but more explicit vein: “On the whole path from the beginning of creation by way of reconciliation to the eschatological future of salvation, the march of the divine economy of salvation is an expression of the incursion of the eternal future of God to the salvation of creatures and thus a manifestation of the divine love. Here is the eternal basis of God’s coming forth from the immanence of the divine life as the economic Trinity and of the incorporation of creatures, mediated thereby, into the unity of the trinitarian life. The distinction and unity of the immanent and economic Trinity constitute the heartbeat of the divine love, and with a single such heartbeat this love encompasses the whole world of creatures.” Pannenberg has in effect found a way to affirm not only real relations among the three divine Persons but also, on the basis of a free divine decision to create, real relations with created reality. See briefly in Whadham, “Person” in the Trinitarian Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, 134, in the context of his summary presentation of the notion of “divine person” in Pannenberg’s trinitarian thought, and see also 152.

24. For a brief but insightful negative critique of what is often understood as Pannenberg’s transformational reading of Hegel’s focus on the inclusive end-moment, see Nicholas Adams, “Eschatology Sacred and Profane: The Efforts of Philosophy on Theology in Pannenberg, Rahner and Moltmann,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 2 (2000): 283–306, with treatment of Hegel and Pannenberg on 286–92. In a memorable phrase, Adams writes: “For Hegel, eschatology is put in its place in the system. For Pannenberg, the system is put in its place by eschatology,” 291. For a more sweeping negative critique of Pannenberg’s “Hegelian Trinitarianism,” see Anselm K. Min, “The Dialectic of Divine Love: Pannenberg’s Hegelian Trinitarianism,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 6 (2004): 252–69.

25. Kärkkäinen provides a handy, compact list of themes Pannenberg (and Moltmann) have, to a large extent, developed following upon the thought especially of Barth and Rahner. It is easy to recognize the relationship of these themes to Idealist trinitarian thought. “The Trinitarian Doctrines,” 223. Käkkäinen here notes that Pannenberg (and Moltmann) “both echo and have shaped nearly all the key themes of the doctrine of the Trinity in contemporary theology.”

26. Taylor, Pannenberg on the Triune God, for example 14–21.

27. Taylor, Pannenberg on the Triune God, 17–19. Taylor refers to Jesus—God and Man (London: SCM, 1968), 197.

28. For a listing of further studies on the relationship between Pannenberg and Hegel, see Taylor, Pannenberg on the Triune God, 19–20n65.

29. Kärkkäinen, Trinity: Global Perspectives, 146–47.

30. The first part of Trinität und Zukunft is on 5–6, 9–95, and the presentation of Pannenberg’s critique of Hegel especially on 14–22.

31. Vechtel, Trinität und Zukunft, 6, 97–184.

32. One of the few who do allude to Schelling’s overall influence on Pannenberg is Sisto J. Garcia, “Seminar on Trinitarian Theology,” in Catholic Theological Society of America: Proceedings 48 (1993): 141, accessed April 25, 2013, http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ctsa/article/view/3859/3426.

33. Vechtel, Trinität und Zukunft, 97.

34. Vechtel, Trinität und Zukunft, 129, and see later 191–94 and 271. In the third part of Trinität und Zukunft, “Punkte zum Gespräch mit W. Pannenberg,” 6–7, 185–267, Vechtel examines various aspects of what he indicates as problematic points in Pannenberg’s trinitarian thought and Pannenberg’s understanding of the ways in which analogical divine predication works. In this third part, to put it somewhat crudely, as Vechtel had seen Pannenberg distance himself from Hegel’s notion of the need for God to create a world in order to come to inclusive divine fullness so now Vechtel, with some continuing critical reference to Hegel, proposes several modifications to Pannenberg’s thought on Trinity. He does this essentially by arguing to various ways in which Pannenberg’s trinitarian thought can be modified by working with other notions than the idea of God as the power of the future.

Vechtel (287) lists two further studies of Pannenberg in relation to Hegel: Michael Schulz, “Zur Hegelkritik Wolfhart Pannenbergs und zur Kritik am ‘Antizipationsgedanken’ Pannenbergs im Sinne Hegels,” Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift 43 (1992): 197–227, a study however which focuses less on Trinity and more on the question of Pannenberg’s reworking of Hegel’s “realized eschatology” in a form of eschatology involving “anticipation”; Sein und Trinität: Systematische Erörterungen zur Religionsphilosophie G. W. F. Hegels im ontologiegeschichtlichen Rückblick auf J. Duns Scotus and I. Kant und die Hegel-Rezeption in der Seinsauslegung und Trinitätslehre bei W. Pannenberg, E. Jüngel, K. Rahner und H.U. v. Balthasar (Erzabtei St. Ottilien, Germany: EOS Verlag Abtei St. Ottilien Erza, 1997), where Schulz after extensive treatment of Hegel on Trinity, 128–422, takes up the question of Pannenberg, in relation to Hegel, on Trinity, 423–505.

35. In Systematic Theology, 1:223, Pannenberg refers to Hegel and to the earlier Schelling in the course of his history of the notion of divine revelation but no longer to the later Schelling, as he had done in Revelation as History. And he continues to refer to Hegel over the course of his presentation on the history of the notion of the Trinity in his Systematic Theology but does not there refer explicitly to Schelling. Nor does he seem to refer explicitly to Schelling in developing his own theology of the Trinity other than to make a brief reference to the later Schelling in relation to Tillich in Systematic Theology, 1:356. But farther on in his Systematic Theology Pannenberg makes reference to Schelling’s 1845 lectures on the “Philosophy of Revelation.” Systematic Theology, 3:602.

Whapham, however, sees in the overall relationships among Father, Son, and Spirit a general Hegelian similarity in that for Pannenberg “the Father is best understood as the moment of original divine unity and completion … the Son is best seen as the divine principle of distinction and difference … The resulting tension and distinction within the intratrinitarian life of God can only be resolved by a third principle, which is the reconciling and consummating Spirit of God that resolves the divisions among the divine persons in a new unity.” “Person” in the Trinitarian Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, 23.

36. See again, for example, Systematic Theology, 1:307, 318–21.

37. And here and there throughout the three volumes of Systematic Theology.

38. It might be helpful to repeat, by way of example, an extract from our previous summary of some of what Schelling had said in his 24th lecture concerning Father and Son: “Schelling says that the Father is indeed free only in the Son for it is in willing the Son that the Father intends through the Son to will, in creation, that which is external to the Father. The Father loves the Son as the possibility of this creation. So, the glory of the Father, which is his freedom, is also the glory of the Son who will freely bring into being a world of which the Father will ultimately be Lord.”

39. See again Pannenberg’s particularly inspiring reference to “person” in Systematic Theology, 1:422–32, and especially 425–32, under the subtitle and rubric, “The Love of God.”

40. In an interesting, brief discussion of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century “turn” to the notion of a social Trinity, Grenz refers to “proponents of the turn-of-the-century reformulation of the social Trinity … who accepted Hegel’s focus on subjectivity, but applied the descriptor to the three trinitarian persons rather than to the one divine Subject, as Hegel had done.” He sees these Trinitarians as “anticipating the work of Moltmann, Pannenberg, and Jenson.” Rediscovering the Triune God, 132–33. And Grenz makes explicit reference to early twentieth-century British trinitarian thinkers when he speaks of an application of Hegel’s notion of person to each of the three divine Persons. The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 31–32, with special reference, regarding this development, to Claude Welch, In His Name: The Doctrine of the Trinity in Contemporary Theology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952), 29–34.

41. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1968), 181–82.

42. Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man, 182–83.

43. Olson had earlier on raised a question regarding Pannenberg’s understanding of Hegel’s view of person, at least as presented in the context of Hegel’s presentation of Trinity. “Trinity and Eschatology,” 168–71, 282.

For further remarks on Pannenberg’s reception of Hegel’s “personalistic model of Trinity,” to use Vechtel’s phrase, see Vechtel, Trinität und Zukunft, 104–9. Vechtel also sees a similarity between Hegel’s and Pannenberg’s ideas that the second moment or Person in the Trinity is the principle of otherness (123), a position reminiscent as well of Schelling’s idea of the second potency as potential for realization of diversity.

44. Hegel as well speaks of freedom as free self-release of the absolute idea in logic into the realm or sphere of nature. However, this self-release takes place, from the perspective of Hegel’s encyclopedic system as a whole, on the basis of a lack of concrete being on the part of the absolute idea in logic in relation to the realphilosophical spheres of nature and spirit.

45. See again, for example, Systematic Theology, 1:382–84.

46. Pannenberg, “A Response to My American Friends,” 327.

47. See, among many references concerning Pannenberg on God as love, Spirit, and the Infinite, Systematic Theology, 1:396. In Systematic Theology, 1:446, he speaks of Hegel’s inability to resolve the problem as to how to “combine the unity of the infinite and the finite in a single thought without expunging the difference between them and argues that this can only be accomplished in the thought of divine love. Robert Jenson draws attention to Pannenberg’s point: “Only love, he [Pannenberg] says, fulfills Hegel’s posit of a ‘true infinite.’ ” Systematic Theology, vol. 1, The Triune God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 220n64.

Kärkkäinen, Trinity: Global Perspectives, reminds us of the multiple background to Pannenberg’s notion of God as the infinite. He cites, for example, Gregory of Nyssa, Duns Scotus, and Descartes (131) and of course Hegel (146–47). Vechtel, Trinität und Zukunft, 25, remarks that Pannenberg, like Hegel, thought the world could not be fully understood without the idea of God. Again, Vechtel points out Pannenberg agrees with Hegel that the truth is the whole with, however, for Pannenberg the whole being established only at the end of the historical process (33). Vechtel then speaks further of Pannenberg’s reception of Hegel’s idea of the true infinite (for example, 46–49, 54, 75). For Pannenberg’s own appreciative presentation of Hegel on the true infinite and even spirited defense of Hegel in this regard, see, for example, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Father, Son, Spirit: Problems of a Trinitarian Doctrine of God.” Dialog 26 (1987): 256–57. In this article Pannenberg acknowledges the importance of Hegel and Schelling in the history of Trinity (250). He continues to refer to Hegel in the article but not to Schelling.

48. As Vechtel, Trinität und Zukunft, 85–86, notes, Pannenberg recalls that divine self-revelation understood, to quote Pannenberg, “im Sinne der strengen Identität von Subjekt und Inhalt des Offenbarens gedacht,” first came to the fore with German Idealism and especially Hegel. Vechtel cites Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 1:244, and refers overall to 234–44. The full sentence in English reads: “Only in the philosophy of German Idealism do we first find the thought of the self-revelation of God in the sense of the strict identity of subject and content.” Systematic Theology, 1:222–23. See also Pannenberg, Revelation as History, 4–5.

49. Wenz, Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology, 83.

50. English translation 1968, pp. 16–17 (German edition published in 1961).

51. The text of this important study is available in Ludger Oeing-Hanhoff, “Hegel’s Trinitätslehre: Zur Aufgabe ihrer Kritik und Rezeption,” in Metaphysik und Freiheit: Ausgewählte Abhandlungen, ed. Theo Kobusch and Walter Jaeschke (Munich: Erich Wewel, 1988), 91–120, with reference to Pannenberg’s invitation on 115.

52. In Wolfhart Pannenberg, The Idea of God and Human Freedom (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973), 144–77.

53. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “La Doctrina de la Trinidad en Hegel y su recepción en la teologia alemana,” Estudios trinitarios 30 (1996): 35–51.

54. Pannenberg, “La doctrina de la Trinidad,” 35–41 for the overview of Hegel on Trinity and 41–51 for the more historical review.

55. Robert Jenson, “Parting Ways?” First Things, Issue Archives, May 1995, accessed July 17, 2012, http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/09/001-parting-ways-22.

56. “Some Facts about Pannenberg,” Corduan’s blog online May 13, 2009, accessed July 17, 2012, http://win_corduan.tripod.com/theologians.html/# pannenberg. Philip Clayton also recounts a meeting with Pannenberg in which he spoke of Hegelian influence on Pannenberg’s thought, much to Clayton’s regret. “Anticipation and Theological Method,” in The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1988), 132–34. Here Clayton provides further helpful remarks concerning Pannenberg’s philosophical allegiances and refers to Pannenberg’s own brief review of modern philosophers, “Faith and Reason,” in Basic Questions in Theology, vol. 2, trans. George H. Kehm (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 59–62, where Pannenberg refers to Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, among others, but not to Schelling.

57. Pannenberg, “An Autobiographical Sketch,” 16. In a similar vein: “I am not a Hegelian. I just happen to think that Hegel was one of the outstanding minds in the history of modern thought, one whose work sets a high standard for us to follow. That is why I believe that theology after Hegel should strive to rise to his level of sophistication and rigor. But very few of my ideas did I actually get from Hegel—very few. I feel much more closely related and indebted to thinkers other than Hegel. His ideas, for example, are not as good as those of Wilhelm Dilthey, to whose assumptions in the area of hermeneutics I am indebted.” In M. Baumann, Roundtable: Conversations with European Theologians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1990), 48, quoted by Wenz, Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology, 247n9.

58. We may gain further insight into Pannenberg’s hesitation about being linked too closely with the Idealist tradition from his following remark: “I am not sure whether every claim to truth in the sense of correspondence of thought to reality must be ‘idealistic.’ If so, everyone who does not surrender the notion of truth has to be called an idealist, and in that case I shall not be ashamed to be counted among that company. But normally, the notion of idealism is used in a somewhat narrower sense. I certainly do not want to equate thought and being in general.” “A Response to My American Friends,” 321. And in an early remark, “We should also remember that to locate a theological thought in German idealism is not automatically to condemn it.” Wolfhart Pannenberg, introduction in Revelation as History, ed. Wolfhart Pannenberg and others, trans. David Granskou (London: The Macmillan Company, 1968), 5.

Wenz, Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology, 234–47, provides initial access to some of Pannenberg’s longer reflections on theology and philosophy in two studies by Pannenberg. The first of these is Theologie und Philosophie: Ihr Verhältnis im Lichte ihrer gemeinsamen Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), on German Idealism esp. 216–93. Pannenberg discusses Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel in relation to “early Idealism,” but then dedicates the whole of chapter 10, 257–93, to Hegel’s systematic thought. There, at the end, 285–93, he indicates Hegel’s continuing relevance (bleibende Bedeutung) as well as limits to Hegel’s thought. Among aspects of or elements in that thought which he appreciates as being of continuing importance, we could note Hegel’s overall contribution in opening to theology new ways of thought (285), his discovery in Hegel of the concept as anticipation (286), and his appreciation of Hegel’s notion of the true infinite although he criticizes the specific way in which Hegel linked his notion of the true infinite with the notion of Trinity (288). The second Pannenberg study Wenz notes is Problemgeschichte der neueren evangelischen Theologie in Deutschland: Von Schleiermacher bis zu Barth und Tillich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), on Schelling and Schleiermacher 62 to approximately 65, on Hegel on God, with occasional reference to Schelling, 276–89. Pannenberg underscores Hegel’s preeminent influence in theology, along with that of the later Schelling: “Von den bedeutenden Philosophen des deutschen Idealismus hat Hegel,—when man von der Spätphilosophie des alten Schellings absieht, … sich am entscheidensten dem Christentum zugewandt und bewußst und erklärtermaßen seine Philosophie auf dem Boden der christlichen Religion entwickelt” (276).

In a more specific but related point, Ronald D. Pasquariello suggests that Pannenberg may well have chosen his category of pre-grasp or anticipatory grasping (Vorgriff) in “conscious contrast to Hegel’s grasping or conceptual thought (Begriff) to stress the unity of history and its ultimate fulfillment only at the end whereas Hegel thought of it more in the present.” “Pannenberg’s Philosophical Foundations,” Journal of Religion 56 (1976): 341.

59. As Taylor remarks, “God’s Trinitarian fullness is the ground for affirming creation as an act of pure love, rather than as a necessity or a making good of a lack within God.” Pannenberg on the Triune God, 64.

60. Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 11 with 18n6, attributes this classic typology to Theodore de Régnon, Études de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité, 3 vols. (Paris: Retaux, 1892–98). LaCugna is right in seeing this typology as an oversimplification and one that has been increasingly challenged. See, for example, Philipp Gabriel Renczes, “The Scope of Rahner’s Fundamental Axiom in the Patristic Perspective: A Dialogue of Systematic and Historical Theology,” in Rethinking Trinitarian Theology: Disputed Questions and Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology, ed. Giulio Maspero and Robert J. Woźniak (New York: T & T Clark, 2012), 267 with references in nn. 36 and 37. Yet there is perhaps something to this typology. In reading one or the other of the earlier Greek Fathers, one has the impression that some of them argued so well for the threeness of God that they ended up unable to come back to a well-expressed divine unity.

61. Barth’s and Rahner’s writings on Trinity have been translated into many languages. Whapham notes that Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology has as well been translated into several languages and offers a brief initial assessment of the influence Pannenberg’s trinitarian thought has so far had, more in Protestant circles and less in Roman Catholic ones. “Person” in the Trinitarian Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, 144–46. The recent appearance of Whapham’s book (2012) and that of Taylor, Pannenberg on the Triune God (2007), witness to a continuing interest in Pannenberg’s trinitarian thought on the part of English-speaking theologians. On the German scene we should note again Vechtel, Trinität und Zukunft (2001). Kärkkäinen helpfully summarizes a series of themes, especially those developed by Pannenberg (with Moltmann), which he sees as major contributions to trinitarian thinking. He refers to these themes, and especially as found in Pannenberg, as a “prelude to American responses to and reflections on the Trinity.” Trinity: Global Perspectives, 148–50. We might well add that these themes often reflect an Idealist cast.

Toward the end of his book, The Trinity in German Thought, Powell proposes rather strongly, but quite correctly, that “the parameters of Trinitarian thinking in German thought were set in place by the end of the idealist period in nineteenth-century philosophy.” He continues: “It is fair to claim that Trinitarian thought would not have enjoyed its twentieth-century revival without Hegel’s prior setting of the stage” (258), and “it [Idealism] set in motion powerful ideas that, in altered and sometimes disguised forms, issued finally in the renewal of Trinitarian thinking that has been the subject of this chapter [the twentieth century]” (259). We would surely want to add, especially regarding Pannenberg, reference to Schelling as well.