Reforming the Doctrine of God By F. LeRon Shults Review

Ars Disputandi
Volume 6 (2006)
ISSN: 1566–5399
Gijsbert van den Brink
LEYDEN UNIVERSITY, THE
NETHERLANDS
Reforming the Doctrine of God
By F. LeRon Shults
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005; 326 pp.; pb. $ 35.00 (£ 19.99); ISBN:
0–8028–2988–0.
[1] Having published some remarkable studies during the past couple of
years, F. Leron Shults (born 1965) is regarded as a ‘rising star’ in contemporary
Protestant systematic theology. His Reforming the Doctrine of God is a sequel to his
earlier Reforming Theological Anthropology (2003). Whereas the latter book spelt out
the implications of the ‘turn to relationality’ for the Christian understanding of
human being, in this newer study the concept of relationality is made central to the
interpretation of the Christian understanding of God. In this way, Shults attempts
‘to conserve the intuitions of the living biblical tradition by liberating them for
illuminative and transformative dialogue’ (1) within our present-day cultural
setting. Such liberation is necessary, he argues, since much of our theological
language has been emprisoned in early modern categories that constrain the
proclamation of the Christian message.
[2] In part I of the book, Shults devotes separate chapters to three of these
modern categories which shaped significant streams of subsequent theology: the
(mutually connected) ideas of God as immaterial substance, single subject, and
first cause. The early modern emphasis on substance dualism, autonomous subjectivity
and past-oriented causality forced the Protestant scholastics (among other
theologians) to adopt these ideas, since, clearly, their alternatives – God as material
being, as impersonal, and as an immanent part of the cause-effect nexus
– ran counter to the biblical Scriptures. Structuring the doctrine of God in this
way, however, led to many intractable conceptual problems concerning God’s
foreknowledge, predestination, timelessness, etc. Therefore, the underlying dichotomies
(material versus immaterial being etc.) should be questioned. Shults
attempts to show that, given recent developments in philosophy, science and biblical
scholarship that contributed to the turn to relationality, we are now no longer
compelled to structure the doctrine of God in terms of these either-or dichotomies
(11). The philosophical, scientific and biblical-scholarship developments neatly
converge in the denial of the appropriateness of each of the three early modern
categories in question. Biblical scholarship, for example, has pointed out that
the Bible depicts God as a dynamic presence rather than an abstract divine ‘substance’,
as a unity of Father, Son and Spirit rather than a single subject, and as
a future-oriented God who realizes his Kingdom rather than as the first cause of
the world.
c
July 10, 2006, Ars Disputandi. If you would like to cite this article, please do so as follows:
Gijsbert van den Brink, ‘Review of Reforming the Doctrine of God,’ Ars Disputandi [http://www.ArsDisputandi.
org] 6 (2006), paragraph number.
Gijsbert van den Brink: Review of Reforming the Doctrine of God
[3] In part II the ‘late modern theological trajectories’ which led to the
retrieval of these biblical intuitions (and, therefore, to the demise of the early
modern categories) are discussed in more detail. Its three chapters are respectively
devoted to the recovery of the notion of ‘intensive Infinity’, the revival of
Trinitarian doctrine, and the renewing of eschatological ontology. In each chapter
a similar route is followed. First, Shults tries to show how these three notions functioned
in patristic, medieval and Reformation theology. Next, he discusses their
twenty-century reconstructions, by exploring the contributions of three leading
Reformed (Barth, Moltmann, Gunton) and Lutheran (Jenson, Jüngel, Pannenberg)
theologians, followed by a short survey of some representatives of the broader
ecumenical spectrum (Rahner, Zizioulas, feminist, liberation and Pentecostal theologians).
Consistently downplaying the many and serious differences between
all these voices, it is suggested that, basically, all of them point in the same direction,
which is finally described more fully in a fifth section. In this way, Shults
develops the notions of what he calls intensive Infinity, robust Trinity, and absolute
Futurity. As distinct from the mathematical concept of extensive infinity,
intensive Infinity indicates a qualitatively different way of being which transcends
– or, rather, encompasses – the dialectic of immanence and transcendence. It is experienced
as an intensive powerful redeeming presence wholly beyond our finite
control. Rather than from the concept of a single subject, a robust (doctrine of the)
Trinity starts from the perichoretic relationality of Father, Son and Holy Spirit to
which the New Testament testifies. Absolute futurity does not define God’s future
over against the past and the present (which would still represent God as a part of
the temporal process, and simply replace predeterminism by postdeterminism),
but in a way that embraces and enables all modes of time. It is the eternal life of
the trinitarian persons in which creatures are being called to share, and which is
the eschatological goal of creation.
[4] In part III, finally, Shults weaves together these three related themes in a
creative attempt to re-form the doctrine of God. He makes clear that the theological
trajectories of part II open up a conceptual space in which the doctrine of God,
far from coming through as a piece of outworn metaphysics, can be understood
as gospel. Focusing on the classical attributes of omniscience, omnipotence and
omnipresence, Shults tries to free these notions from what he sees as barren discussions
about foreknowledge, predestination and timelessness. He relates them
to divine faith(fulness), love and hope respectively, thus making combinations
of classical ‘transcendent’ and ‘consdescendent’ divine properties in a way that
reminds us of the Dutch theologian Hendrikus Berkhof (Christian Faith, 1990). In
highly original reflections, he tries to flesh out these combinations from a biblicaltheological
perspective, thus bringing the material concerns of Christology and
Pneumatology into his presentation of the doctrine of God. In this way, he makes
the most (even more than Pannenberg, in my opinion) of the recent rediscovery
of trinitarian doctrine as a structuring principle in Christian theology. The three
chapters in this part end with sections on the gospel-character of the doctrines of
divine knowing, acting and being respectively. Indeed, here we find moving passages
in which the author, rather than trying to establish compelling ‘arguments’
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Gijsbert van den Brink: Review of Reforming the Doctrine of God
for the existence of God, nicely elucidates from within how the Christian doctrine
of God means good news in connection with the sensibilities and anxieties of our
time.
[5] Reforming the Doctrine of God is a challenging and thought-provoking
book. It offers a fine example of what it is to do systematic theology, and to do it
in a fruitful way for our time. Its different strands are remarkably well-documented,
the author often giving first-hand quotations from his vast knowledge rather than
drawing upon secondary literature. Shults superbly masters the three disciplines
within which the systematic theologian should be well-versed, viz. biblical scholarship,
the history of doctrine, and philosophy; and he knows how to relate these
fields to each other in highly creative and enlightening ways. In so doing, he
fulfills what he rightly considers to be the theologian’s primary task: to articulate
the gospel of the biblical God within our own contemporary setting. Moreover,
there is a strong positive tenor in Shults’ expositions. Even where he has to
denounce certain strands of the theological tradition (as is the case with early
modern theology, especially in its scholastic brand) he is keen not to be overly
critical, or to scapegoat its representatives. Rather, he looks for resources in all
parts of the tradition which are helpful in developing a Christian doctrine of God
that is true to the biblical message and relates it in a viable and inviting way to
the plausibility structures of contemporaryWestern society.
[6] Having said all this, and passing over some small infelicities (such as
the misspelling of some Latin and Greek terms, 226, 261), I still have some major
concerns and questions. The first of these will perhaps be of special interest
to the readers of this journal, since it concerns Shults’ critical engagement with
present-day analytical philosophy of religion. Shults suggests that by taking
seriously the turn to relationality it becomes possible to dissolve the antinomies
in which standard discussions about God’s foreknowledge, predestination and
timelessness have become entangled. For example, Shults claims that, rather than
taking sides in the Calvinist-Arminian debate about divine foreknowledge and
creaturely freedom, he is able to escape this antinomy by developing a full-blown
trinitarian account of God’s knowledge. ‘We may think of God’s pro-gnosis, then,
as an acknowledging embrace of human creatures, calling them to a new life
of knowing and being known in the Spirit of Christ’ (224). However, if God’s
activity in this regard is restricted to calling (or ‘inviting’, as he puts it elsewhere),
then in fact Shults simply opts for the Arminian horn of the dilemma. There
may be nothing wrong with that, but clearly the author’s suggestion that he is
dissolving or overcoming the dilemma is simply false. It is not so easy to really
overcome the classical problems of theology! Although Shults has convinced me
that analytical philosophers of religion have to take the recent developments in
systematic theology more seriously, I don’t see how this might make their work
superfluous.
[7] Secondly, the final part of Shults’ book suffers from a lack of systematic
rigor. Shults does not always make it completely clear why he makes the
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particular conceptual connections he does (e.g. between omniscience, the Name
of God and divine faithfulness; or between omnipotence, love, the cosmological
argument and creaturely moral desire). As a result, the reader wonders why alternative
options are not explored. For example, what would happen if we relate
omnipresence to faithfulness rather than to hope, or omniscience to love rather
than to faithfulness? Would this really make a serious difference? If not, then it
seems the choices Shults makes are to some extent arbitrary. If instead it does
make a difference, then this is not pointed out in a convincing way.
[8] Thirdly, by drawing rather coarse lines through the history of thought,
glossing over the many differences between contemporary developments and
thinkers, does not Shults create a one-sided picture which obscures serious tensions?
For example, developments in contemporary science, philosophy and
biblical scholarship are represented as pointing unambiguously into one and the
same direction – viz. the crucial importance of the concept of relationality –
whereas in fact these developments are much more diversified (science often
contradicting biblical theology etc.). Or, to give another example, early modern
Protestant theologians from the voluntarist tradition are said to make all kinds of
distinctions about the divine will (76); John Calvin, however, who was perhaps
more of a voluntarist than anyone else, consistently resisted each bifurcation of the
divine will, arguing that there is no point in differentiating between e.g. God’s
active will and passive permission. In order to tell his coherent overall story,
Shults ignores such specific characteristics that deviate from the general pattern.
[9] Fourthly and finally, although Shults wants to avoid the impression
that theology is developing in a linear progressive way, so that twentieth-century
theology is nearer to the truth than its seventeenth-century counterpart, he does
largely depict the story of modern theology as a success-story. This picture does
not, however, sit well with the declining influence of faith and theology on the
secularizing Western mind. We might ask whether all the ills of theology should
really be relegated to the seventeenth century, since perhaps some of them have
to be attributed precisely to late modern theology. For example, if we count
Shults’ own project as another example of late modern theology, we are struck
by the near-total absence of the doctrine of sin. Throughout the book Shults
directs some criticisms at his more conservative fellow-evangelicals, but it seems
to me that they have a point if they regret this deviation from classical Reformed
theology. The overall-picture which Shults presents includes nearly all classical
loci (from the doctrine of creation to eschatology), but by leaving out any serious
reflection on the impact of sin it just becomes too smooth and harmonious. Shults
rightly points out that philosophers of religion should also pay attention to ‘the
problem of good’ (‘The resistance to . . . the ministry of Jesus was strongest
among those who had the “goods” of earthly life’, 250) instead of exclusively
focusing on the problem of evil. However, he himself might have taken the
notions of evil and sin more seriously. By largely ignoring them, he conjures
up a rather superficial universalism which hardly takes into account the many
unsolved riddles of history. Sceptical European readers might even be tempted
to find in Shults’ book another demonstration of the proverbial optimism of the
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American mind. If the trinitarian God is continuously drawing his creatures into
his perfect communion by means of his omnipotent love, why is there so much
resistance and why does the process last so long?
[10] Nevertheless, these quarrels and questions only illustrate that Shults
has written a most challenging and thought-provoking book indeed, the reading
of which is without doubt very rewarding.
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