이 정석 교수의 신학 문답 Q&A

The revival of evangelical Christianity around the world in the last two decades has contributed to the purification of the Church from Neo-Liberalism which arose in the 1960s and vigorously attempted to secularize the historic Christian faith. However, the modern idea of God more or less polluted evangelical theologies, including the doctrine of the Trinity. Even among the evangelicals, there is a confusion in the threeness/oneness problem. Though it is a traditional problem, modern resurgence of modalistic trinitarianism has caused this confusion.

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However, it is fortunate that social trinitarianism appeared with a strong emphasis upon the threeness of the triune God and an ontological concept of the "person", as a counterforce theology to modalistic trinitarianism of Karl Barth and economic trinitarianism of Karl Rahner, for example. In this recovery of the Nicene trinitarianism, the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son is crucial because without its proper recognition it could fall into the pitfall of tritheism.

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On the other hand, the rise of metaphoricalism in the modern biblical scholarship including evangelical and most radically in the feminist theology threatens the traditional doctrine of the Son's eternal generation. While those biblical theologians are eager to delete the word "begotten" from "the only-begotten Son" in John 3. 16, the feminist theologians even attempt to delete the revealed divine titles of the Trinity, that is, the "Father" and the " Son" out of the Scripture and Christian dictionary. This fact that the object of their attack is focused on this doctrine of the Son's generation is a strong proof of its crucial importance in keeping the orthodox Christian faith.

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In this discussion, I will concentrate on the role and significance of the doctrine of the Son's eternal generation in the contemporary trinitarian tension between Barthianism and social trinitarianism, and the destructive emergence of contemporary metaphoricalism. 
 

Barthian Modalism and Social Trinitarianism 

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Karl Barth, the greatest theologian of our century, is often regarded as a trinitarian modalist. Jurgen Moltmann referred to him as "a late triumph for Sabellianism which the early church condemned."1 However, there is some ambiguity in his doctrine of the Trinity. Moreover, Barth and his followers strongly deny this charge. The translator of Barth's Dogmatics, Geoffrey W. Bromiley contends that "where the Dogmatics is read carelessly or superficially, or known only at second hand, the term["mode of being"] is even cited in favor of the absurd idea that Barth advocated modalism."2 Karl Barth himself repeatedly criticised modalism and made a special request of his translator to be very careful in rendering this term in the English translation so that the readers would not get the wrong-impression that Barth was a modalist.3

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His own strong denial of modalism embarasses his critics. In some sense, he is quite different from the traditional modalism. Fred H. Klooster correctly pointed out that "Barth's view of God has some resemblance to the monarchianism of the ancients, although his modalistic view of the Trinity is more complex than the earlier forms of modalism."4 First, he rejected the older modalistic idea of successive temporary appearances of the three modes of one God one by one. Against this idea, he insisted that three modes of being are eternal.5 Second, he rejected the modalistic idea of "the hidden Fourth", which necessarily "entails a denial of god."6 Barth believed in a God who encounters man in the event of revelation. Third, he rejected a modalistic idea of the Trinity as three different experiential modes of God. This modern immanentism was developed by Schleiermacher who rejected the personal idea of God.7 This was one of the main targets of Karl Barth who asserted that God is "the real person and not merely the ideal."8 He clearly rejected the liberal understanding of God, in which "the divine subjectivity is sucked up into the human subjectivity which inquires about a God who does not exist."9 He wrote a pneumatology entitled The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life(1938), to "refute the modern Liberal Protestant doctrine of Divine immanence, which assumes that 'the Holy Spirit is man's own spirit'."10 R. S. Franks pointed out that "although Barth thus speaks of the Mode of the Divine Being, he says that his doctrine is not Modalism, by which he here means not historical Sabellianism, but the 'Sabellianism' of Schleiermacher."11 Fourth, he rejected a modalistic idea of Jesus' docetic divinity. "The main point of Modalism", Barth contends, "is to try to keep the true deity of the humiliated and lowly and obedient Christ, but to interpret the being of this Christ as a mere mode of appearance or revelation or activity of the one true Godhead, beside which there are the other three modes of the ruling Father and also of the Holy Spirit."12If so, Barth insisted, Jesus could not reconcile this world with God as the real representative of the world.

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However, the concept of modalism from which Barth disassociated himself is neither traditionally understood nor universally accepted. Though he did his best to escape from the swamp of modalism, he was enslaved to his own idea of modalism. His choice of the term "mode of being" instead of the traditional "person" proves his stubborn insensitivity. According to him, "What is called 'personality' in the conceptual vocabulary of the 19th century is distinguished from the patristic and medieval persona by the addition of the attribute of self-consciousness."13 Because this traditional term "person" is critically spoiled now, Barth preferred to use the term "mode of being"(Seinsweise) rather than "person."14 He is very confident of his understanding that the orthodox concept of "person" is not that of "personality."15 It was because he thought that the concept of three personalities necessarily results in an heretical tritheism.16

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However, Barth fails to convince on this crucial point. For in the history of trinitarian doctrine a discussion of modalism has been concerned with the choice of the terms "person" or "mode." If there was no decisive difference between the terms "person" and mode," the early Church would not have made it a matter for excommunication as heresy. If "person" had meant simply "mask," with no significant difference from the term "mode," as Barth insists,17 the early Church would not have been insisted on the term "person." If "person" of the early Church is equivalent to "mode of being" in today's world, what then is the corresponding concept today for the term "mode," to which the early church so strenuously object? J. N. D. Kelly, in his solid Patristic study entitled Early Christian Doctrines, absolutely declares Barth's understanding of "person" as "errorneous".18

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Accordingly, everyone who believes in the Triune God as "one" Person, individual, subject, or personality is a Sabellian modalist in its traditional sense. And, Karl Barth exactly fits in this category, for he believes in "Yahweh-kyrios which embraces both the Old Testament and the New...the name of a single being, of the one and only Willer and Doer."19 Only whom he believes in is one triune God of one personality, "the One who lives and loves, and therefore One, the One, and therefore, if we want to call it so, personality."20 After excellently making "the definition of a person, that is, a knowing, willing, acting I,"21 Barth clarifies his belief that there exists no "three divine I's", but "the one divine I."22

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Indeed, it is regrettable that Karl Barth, "the major trinitarian theorist of the twentieth century,"23 happens to be a modalist.24 However, he has significantly stimulated the contemporary trinitarian scholars to re-examine the meaning of the Nicene term "person" and the inner-trinitarian relationship of the ontological Trinity, as embodied in the orthodox formula, "three persons in one substance."

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As a counteraction to the modalistic trinitarianism of Karl Barth and his followers, there arose a group of theologians, the so-called "social trinitarians." Leonard Hodgson, the late professor of theology at Oxford University, initiated this new movement in the 1940s,25 and the scholars like Jurgen Moltmann, William Hasker, Joseph A. Bracken, Daniel L. Migliore, and recently Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. have participated in this social trinitarian movement.26

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The social Trinity theory is an attempt to explain the doctrine of the Trinity by the analogy of "society" . It is well defined by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.: "The holy Trinity is a divine society or community of three fully personal and fully divine beings: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit or Paraclete."27 Indeed, the social trinity theory strikes a deadly blow to the modern resurgence of the Sabellian modalism by clearly stating that the Trinity is the divine society of three distinct individual persons. It is reaffirmation of the orthodox formulation "three persons in one substance" with a clarification that the orthodox term "person" is not "mode" but same "person" or even "personality" in the modern connotation. Thus, the social trinity theory safeguards the Christian Church from the Hegelian Christology and Pneumatology of the modern liberal theology. In this sense, it is evangelical, biblical, and orthodox. In this analogy, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three members of the divine society, among whom dynamic social relations are supposed. Also, the biblical records and the ecclesiastical creeds of the Trinity can be literally and really accepted without any modernistic modification.

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However, the social trinitarianism has a possible defect behind it. According to the social analogy, the three divine Persons share unity only because they are living in the same society and belonging to the same "sort" or "species".28 If that's all, it is no more than our human unity in its ideal state. Here is a serious problem. Strikingly, it does not like to talk about the birth of the Trinity. Essentially, the social trinity theory presupposes the equal membership of the Trinity as its starting-point. Anything which might endanger the perfect equality of the three persons is avoided, discarded, and criticized. In this there is a great danger of subordinationism and the resurgence of the medieval tritheism of the condemned Roscellinus and Joachim of Fiore: the social and moral unity of three persons of divinity without ontological relationships. Therefore, "chief" among its criticism is the issue of tritheism. Though social trinitarian theorists complain that the charge serves "to disguise the writer's own modalism,"29 or that "even if within some classically accepted boundary, is often called a tritheist,"30 the tritheism charge is not without reason.

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Leonard Hodgson, the pioneer of contemporary social trinitarianism,31 cannot escape from being called a tritheist. For, out of the fear of subordinationism, he rejected the doctrine of eternal generation of the Son: 

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Subordinationism, as I have indicated earlier, attempts to preserve the unity by making one Person ultimately the real God and the other divine because of their relation to Him.32 

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The main thesis of these lectures, I have said, is that the act of faith required for acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity is faith that the Divine unity is a dynamic unity actively unifying in the one Divine life the lives of three Divine persons. I now wish to add that in this unity there is no room for any trace of subordinationism, and that the thought of the Father as the Source or Fount of Godhead is a relic of pre-Christian theology which has not fully assimilated the Christian revelation.33 

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Furthermore, praising the Quicunque Vult as "the only one which explicitly and unequivocally states the full Christian doctrine of God," he depreciated the Nicene Creed, for it seems "to assert that the Son and the Spirit only share in the Divine substance by derivation from the Father."34 It is interesting for him to wish that Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin would discard the neo-Platonic doctrine of eternal generation, if they were still alive.35 His idea of a social unity of three divine persons without any ontological relationship made him a tritheist. this deviation is not followed by Jurgen Moltmann and Plantinga, Jr. Moltmann vigorously defends the doctrine of eternal generation with the conviction that only this doctrine could defend the Trinity "against any danger of monotheism" and "Sabellian" modalism.36 His perception of generation also follows the orthodox conception of derivation: "But if the Son proceeded from the Father alone, then this has to be conceived of both as a begetting and as a birth."37 Here, we see a plausible form of social trinitarianism, which does justice both to the "threeness" and "oneness." Beyond a simple mechanical and socialistic equalitarianism, Plantinga too includes the "mysterious" origin in his social theory of the Trinity: "He[the Son] is related to the Father not only by being equally divine; he is also 'from' him, or 'of' him, in some mysterious way: 'begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God."38 Therefore, it is totally right for him to "deny that the social analogy of the Trinity is tritheist."39 
 

Resurgence of Metaphoricalism

In Feminist Theology and Biblical Scholarship 

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Leonard Boff, a Liberation theologian favors this social trinitarianism, because it promotes social egalitarianism for the liberation of society.40 Mixing his Liberation Theology with Karl Rahner's economic trinitarianism and evolutionistic Christology, Boff lays claim to a new kind of social trinitarianism. But, he cannot be a genuine social trinitarian, though he may be a socialist, because he accepts neither real distinction of three persons, nor real generation of the Son. Following the Roman Catholic tradition of psychological trinitarianism, he conceives the Son's generation as follows: "The Father knows himself absolutely and the expression of this(Logos, Word) is the Son. This is the first procession, and has the character of a begetting. This begetting is described in the same terminology as that used of human cognitive processes(conceiving, concept, reproduction)."41 Also, he follows Karl Barth and Karl Rahner in exhibiting discomfort with the traditional term "person."42

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In fact, his favor on social trinitarianism is not because of its strong ontological nature but because of its social implications. The most aggressive form of Liberation Theology in this aspect is Feminist Theology. As Rosemary Radford Ruether, a leading feminist theologian summed up, the three major directions in contemporary feminism is liberalism, socialism, and romanticism.43 It has a vision of a new society and "societal egalitarianism."44 Inspired by the biblical idea of redemptive liberation from sexism, a group of feminist theologians are engaged in the improvement of women's social status and the realization of sexual equality. Sexism is a great and deep sin, and the recoveryy of human dignity in the redemptive history includes abrogation of sexual discrimination.

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However, they are climbing up beyond equality to claim feminine superiority. When they attempt this project within the Christianity, the fundamental problem they are facing is the trinitarian designations in the Scripture, especially the Father and the Son. Accordingly, they are very aggressive in attacking those titles and denigrating the Scripture which uses those terms as culturally-biased. Therefore, as Donald G. Bloesch correctly pointed out in The Battle for the Trinity, two essential problem with this feminist theology is "the viability of the doctrine of the Trinity as well as the authority of the Scripture."45 Feminist theologians agree with him. To liberate the Scripture "from its patriarchal bondage," the revision of the orthodox view of the Scripture is inevitable.46 Even more radical is Ruether's proposal to construct "a new canon,"47 because "feminist theology cannot be done from the existing base of the Christian Bible."48 Among them, it is agreed that the crucial issue is the nature of the God-language,49 and that it is metaphorical in nature.

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Their metaphorical understanding centers on the trinitarian names "Father" and "Son", whose ontological denotations they absolutely reject. "The Father" or "the Son" has no meaning at all and therefore they are to be abrogated and replaced by inclusive language. So, they are condemning not only biblical but also confessional statements which include the divine names "the Father" and "the Son" as patriarchal.50 Therefore, it is a major departure from traditional trinitarianism, when they reject the triune God and create a "new god" and goddess religion.51 Though a few conservatives try to preserve the threeness with some feminization,52 the general attitude toward the threeness of the Trinity is very negative. The Trinity is understood, either as a culturally spoiled concept of God, or as three modes of one God. "Possessing many names and therefore no name," Judith Ochshorn contends, "he(God) is nominally nonsexual, nonfamilial, and thus neither the parent nor the offspring of other deities" but this monotheism was spoiled by the Near Eastern polytheism as to revise it into three-personed divinity.53 In a metaphorical theology, no sexual concept of God is accepted and therefore Jesus as the Son of God is denied.54 Also, the traditional term "person" is rejected, "because the stereotypic concept of a person is a physical, spiritual, and emotional being with traits of only one sex."55

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Here, the doctrine of the Son's generation is distorted by the feminist ideology. It seems that they religiously emphasize the significance of feminine fertility. However, the concept of metaphysical generation of the Son is denied due to their metaphoricalism.56 As a matter of fact, they are not satisfied with desexualization of God and the concept of sexually neutral or sex-transcendent God, which they could achieve with the means of metaphoricalism. Rather, a full-scale feminization of God is attempted by changing the patriarchal terms in the Scripture and Confessions into their feminist alternatives. Strictly speaking, God-language is metaphorical and three Persons of the Trinity including the Father and the Son are sexually transcendent. Therefore, Deborah M. Belonick's contention that the Fatherhood means not maleness but generation57 is fair. But, they are inconsistent and even dangerous when the change of metaphorical language is attempted for the so-called "literalized metaphor,"58: from "God the Father" to "God the Mother."

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This change of the biblical language is intolerable, because it changes the meaning and thus paganize the Christian concept of the triune God. For meaning is integrally bound up in language, "when foundational symbols are altered, the meaning also changes."59 For its violation of the fundamental literary principle, Roland M. Frye clearly states as follows: 

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The most dangerous kind of tampering changes biblical texts and language from what they say to what we prefer they should say....The assumption that we can alter the figurae is not only historically and theologically false but equally false linguistically and literarily. The fundamental literary principle is that figures cannot be abandoned, symbols cannot be substituted, images cannot be altered without changing the meaning they convey....Scripture relies on figurative language for God not because such language is stylistically inviting but because it is the most effective mode for conveying God's self-disclosure.60 

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It is a serious challenge to the authority and inspiration of the Scripture. They seem not to believe the verbal inspiration of the Scripture that every word of the Scripture, especially "the Father" and "the Son", is God-selected for the purpose of revelation.

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The modern rejection of the Scripture as the inspired Word of God originated from the Liberal and Bultmannian biblical scholarship. The doctrine of the Son's eternal generation is cynically ignored on the liberal assumption that it is a post-resurrection innovation of the early Christianity. In spite of the traditional belief of the Son's eternity and identification of Jesus with the eternal Son, they continue to ask about the pre-existence or self-consciousness of Jesus, as well as the cultural meaning of the title "Son of God." Therefore, real generation is regarded as a myth and the time of generation, which is a matter of faith only, not of reality, is negotiated among them: "In this earliest expression[Romans and Acts], the Messiah was begotten of God at the time of the resurrection. Later, the moment was pushed back to the time of Jesus' baptism experience--as reflected in the Codex Bezae. Finally, in the canonical versions of Matthew and Luke the moment was pushed back to the time of conception/birth."61 However, the evangelical scholars understand the happenings of such moments as a "honoring" or "affirming" of His Sonship rather than its beginning, i.e., generation.62

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The Christological debate in New Testament scholarship is mainly concerned to the christological titles, especially "the Son of Man" and "the Son of God." Though some contend that these two titles are antithetical, it is generally accepted that they are complementary.63 And, the title "the Son of God" has a great importance and significance, because it deals with the trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son. Therefore, "it is no coincidence that the most fully developed christology of the Gospel of John has particularly attracted thinkers like Schleiermacher and Bultmann who have been so strictly concerned with 'demythologizing'."64 Of all the Christological titles, "Son of God" is best fitted to express the idea of Jesus' divinity and "the Johannine writings contain a fuller discussion of the relationship between Father and Son than any other part of the New Testament."65 One of the most beloved designations of our Lord appears here, that is, "the only-begotten Son.'"

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However, it is the phrase that is hotly debated now: whether to newly render it into "the only Son" or to keep it.66 As Dale Moody notes, "the removal of the term 'only begotten' was prompted, not by theological interest, but by the plain demands of linguistic study."67 As a matter of fact, some Greek lexicons renders monogenes simply as "one of a kind," "only," or "unique," without mentioning "only begotten." Especially, Moulton and Milligan's The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (1930) contends that it needs another n to be rendered into "only begotten," that is, monogennetus(pp. 416f.). As early as 1883, B. F. Westcott insisted that the thought of monogenes "is centered in the Personal existence of the Son, and not in the Generation of the Son."68 This new rendering has an old history.69 However, it is certainly undergoing a resurgence in our time, as we see it in RSV, NEB, and NIV ("one and only"). Though its primary argument is linguistic by nature, its theological implication may not be denied because the real Sonship of Jesus is under a serious attack. Concerning the reason why such a new rendering does not disturb the Church, James M. Bulman has an excellent analysis: 

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The popular acceptance of the translation of monogenes as "only" instead of "only begotten" does not seem to have caused much concern theologically, probably because the ancient axiom of the Generation of the Son has come to have little meaning.70 

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With the omission of "begotten," the doctrine of the Son's eternal generation is relatively weakened in the consciousness of Christians. It has a theological impact. When "begotten" is omitted and separated from the Son, the concept of the Sonship could be questioned. What is the Sonship without "begottenness," or "generation"? Though they contend that "begottenness" is "remotely related" and therefore "only begotten Son" is a "mistranslation or over-translation,"71 the concepts of "begottenness" and "Sonship" cannot be separated if the Son is by nature, not by adoption. The former is implicit in the latter. Moreover, "each time monogenes is used in John and I John it is in a context in which it is preceded by a prominent occurence or occurences of gennao."72 However, it is true that "honest translation is according to truth, not tradition."73 When the majority of biblical theologians agree that monogenes should be translated without "begotten," this may be accepted. In fact, the doctrine of the eternal generation does not depend upon a mere word. What it depends upon is what cannot be omitted in the Scripture, that is, "the Son." While all the other Christological titles are functional, "the Son" is the ontological title which describes His relationship with the First Person of the Trinity. Therefore, the confession of Jesus as "the Son" is central in the Gospel. And, as far as "the Son" is confessed in the natural sense, the concept of "begottenness" is still alive whether it is additionally translated or not. However, it is true that the inclusion of "begottenness" will reinforce the doctrine of the Son's eternal generation. Therefore, it could be wise to retain the traditional rendering while it is disputed, because translation of the Scripture requires not only linguistic but also contextual consideration of the text as well as the contemporary theological situation. 
 

Toward Biblical Realism 

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Today, we are living in a world of theological confusion. Numerous humanistic theologies are flourishing and threathening the traditional orthodox understanding of the triune God. It seems that we are living in a Nicene or Reformation world where it is necessary once more to fight the battle against all the anti-trinitarianisms and pseudo-trinitarianisms. The modern resurgence of modalism in Neoorthodoxy as well as humanistic polytheism in Liberation Theology and Process Theology brings to mind a lesson from the Nicene and Reformation controversies, that we need to return to the biblical realism over philosophical or ideological distortions.

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In this movement, we have to revive the doctrine of eternal generation of the Son with its realistic belief. It safeguards the eternity and full divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as the orthodox belief in the Trinity from modalism, tritheism, and any other trinitarian heresies. In the Scripture, some apparent theological characteristics of Antichrist are revealed, and one of these is the denial of the Father and the Son: "Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son" (1 John 2.22b). What it means is the denial of the Sonship of Jesus and the Fatherhood of God, and essentially the denial of "the Father-Son relationship" (Simmon J. Kistemaker). To deny the Sonship of Jesus is to deny the Father. Because Jesus is the Only Begotten Son, God is not Father when Jesus' sonship is denied. Now, such a denial is flourishing before our eyes.

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Modern existentialism seeks meaning rather than being. However, meaning without ontological basis is meaningless. His incarnation, resurrection, ascension, and second coming as well as heaven and hell have not only meaning but also real being. We are losing biblical realism in these matters through modernistic reductionism. The recovery of a strong belief in the real generation of the Son in eternity will revive our faith biblically and realistically. Who is your Savior? Praise the Lord! He is the Only Begotten Son of God the Father. 

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-->(footnotes)