The Marginalisation and the Resurgence of

the Trinity: A Rahnerian Perspective and its

Applicability to Christian Life and Mission
 For You my Lord, my love, my all, for only through
You can I continue to be in myself with You, when I go
out of myself to be with the things of the world.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I thank my Father in heaven for making me everything that I am, by granting me His

grace to believe in and hold on to His Son Jesus, my Lord through whom all blessings

and mercy have been showered upon me, in being constantly led by His sweet Holy Spirit

to be where I’m intended to be, doing His will, to bring glory to His name.

I thank my pastor Rev. Gavin Cunningham, who discerning God’s call on my life

encouraged me, corrected me and even goaded me as he saw fit, to enable me to grow

more into His likeness, even by constantly providing me with an example through his

own life. I thank my mentor, Rev. Pravin Kumar Israel for shaping my thought processes

and moulding them; also guiding this research to be what it is. I thank the faculty and

staff for pouring out of their lives into me.

I thank my friends Nigel and Selena, Sam and Sonia, Chitra and Cecilia whom God

graciously kept around me to cushion me, feed me, guide me, advise me, provide for me

in the form of a home and a loving family, constantly praying for me; I would not have

made it without you guys.

I thank Toshi and Kenei for always being there, especially through all my health

challenges; you guys are the best friends anybody can ever have. I thank Blesson and

Reshma for opening their home to me and for all the time of discussion and debate,

helping me clarify my thoughts. Also my class for all their care, concern and help when I

was unable to help myself.

 CONTENTS

Introduction 1

1. Trinitarian Theology and its Significance 2

1.1 The Historical Development of the Trinity 2
1.2 The Marginalisation of the Doctrine 5
1.3 The Resurgence of the Trinity 6

2. The Rahnerian Model of the Trinity 9

2.1 The Economic Trinity as a Preliminary Point 13
2.2 The Immanent Trinity as an Expression of the Economic 15
2.3 The Economic Trinity Grounded in the Immanent 16
2.4 The Axiomatic Unity of the Economic and Immanent Trinities 17
2.5 A Summary of the Rahnerian Model in Untrained Language 18

3. Implications of the Rahnerian Model on Christian Life and Mission 20

3.1 A Critique of the Rahnerian Model 20
3.2 Application of the Rahnerian Model to Christian Life and Mission 22

Conclusion 27

Bibliography 28
Introduction

The most common reactions towards the doctrine of the Trinity are on one of hostility, dismissal

or indifference.1 This is true in the church today primarily because, for many this doctrine seems

so abstract and unrelated to real life.2 This situation is not surprising as Christian doctrine uses

the terms ‘hypostasis’, ‘person’, ‘essence’ and nature to express the divine Trinity, it is not

employing concepts which are clear and unambiguous in themselves and which are applied here

in all their clarity.3 Yet, the Christian society is to be educative and missionary; a great part of its

work is to bring others within range of a spiritual experience, which, they confessedly do not

possess. This would then necessarily mandate the intellectual presentation of the doctrine; which

must consequently be patient of such presentation; it must be reasonable, and in many cases,

reasonable before its value can be tested.4 It is therefore the task of the church today to make

such a presentation. This paper therefore aims at being able to present the Trinitarian dogma in a

manner that is understandable to the theologically untrained mind. This is important as the

persons of the Trinity, it seems, bring it about that we have true beliefs sufficient to grasp their

identities, and not only their actions toward us.5 This would then warrant us to respond to each

person in a unique manner corresponding to the way they work. This would require an

understanding of the nature of the Trinity, which has been a topic of much debate between

theologians for aeons now. However, Karl Rahner stands as an eminent figure in this regard as

He initiated a renewed interest in the doctrine by his theological propositions in his Magnum

Opus ‘The Trinity’. This paper attempts to understand his model of the Trinity as presented in

the book and see how it might apply to the church today.

1
Colin E. Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology: Second Edition (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997), p2.
2
Douglas S. Huffman and Eric L. Johnson, God under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents God (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan, 2002), p254.
3
Karl Rahner, trans. William V. Dych, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity
(New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1984), p134.
4
J. R. Illingworth, The Doctrine of the Trinity: Apologetically Considered (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd, 1907),
p171.
5
Bruce D. Marshall, Trinity and Truth (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p265.

1
1. Trinitarian Theology and its Significance

The doctrine of the Trinity signifies the culmination of biblical and apostolic reflection on the

nature of our living God;6 it was the first major theological issue that the church paid attention to,

and though a formal statement was made about it as early as 150 AD, the doctrine continues to

present strange paradoxes even today.7 The best of these is that it is not explicitly taught

anywhere in scripture, yet widely regarded by many as a central doctrine, indispensable to the

Christian faith; but these same people are unsure about the exact meaning of their belief.8 Added

to this, is the fact that the Christian piety today constantly reminds people based on the doctrine

of incarnation that God has become man, without deriving from this truth any clear message

about the Trinity.9 Thus, one attitude leading to another, we seem to have reached a state where

we as the church have nothing to do with the mystery of the Holy Trinity, except to know

something about it through revelation.10 Yet, we were not meant to deduce the doctrine of the

Trinity from a general concept of God but draw out the idea of the Trinity from the whole

Biblical and apostolic witness concerning God.11 In this regard, studying the development of the

doctrine will help us understand better how the doctrine got marginalized to this extent.

1.1 The Historical Development of the Trinity

The first source to which Christian theology looks for its teachings is the New Testament.12

However, where the New Testament will help in understanding Christian Trinitarianism, it needs

to be understood that the doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible; however

6
Donald G. Bloesch, God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness, Love (Carlisle, Illinois: The Paternoster Press,
1995), p166.
7
Millard J. Erickson, God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Baker Books, 1995), p11.
8
Ibid, p11-12.
9
Karl Rahner, trans. Joseph Donceel, The Trinity (Tunbridge Wells, Kent: Burns & Oates, 1986), p12.
10
Ibid, p14.
11
Donald G. Bloesch, God the Almighty, p166-167.
12
E. Calvin Beisner, God in Three Persons (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1984), p23.

2
as Barth put it, is understood as the immediate implication of the fact, form and content of the

biblical revelation.13 The roots of the Trinitarian doctrine can be traced to plural titles used for

God in the Old Testament (Gen 3:22; 11:7; Psa 102:25; 104:30; Ecc 12:1; Isa 6:8; 48:16; 63:7-

10, etc.) by the usage of the word Elohim, a plural name used of God which most scholars call a

plural of majesty to indicate the diversity within oneness.14 The New Testament is more explicit.

The New Testament associates three persons with deity: the Father is called God
(Mt 11:25-27; Jn 6:27; Rom 1:7); the Son is referred to in this way (Jn 1:1, 14;
Tit 2:13; Heb 1:8) and also the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3-9; cf. Isa 63:7-14). Each of
these persons is depicted as omniscient – the Father (Rom 11:33), the Son (Rev
2:23) and the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 2:11). Each is presented as being equal to the
others (Mt 28:19; Jn 10:30; 2 Cor 13:14; Eph 4:4-6). The Son’s being seated at
the right hand of God the Father (Acts 2:33; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3; 8:1) connotes
equality.15

The New Testament is thus rich with references to point towards the Trinitarian Godhead, yet

their equality and other aspects of the doctrine is only implied in the Bible and discussing these

is beyond the scope of this paper. However according to Barth, though the church went beyond

the Bible in positing the equality of the three persons and other aspects in formulating the

doctrine, it was fully in accord with the intention of the Bible.16 These first anticipations of the

doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament, characterised by authority, reason and experience,

led to its definitive formation in the patristic period.17 In the light of the crisis created by the

upsurge of Gnostic heresy in the second century, the New Testament came to be regarded as an

authoritative standard of doctrine in addition to the Old Testament, alongside which stood the

creed and Episcopal tradition.18 In an attempt to establish ramparts against Gnostic infiltration,

the ancient Catholic Church was founded and in 150 AD, the recognition of the baptismal

13
Barth as cited by Leo Scheffczyk, “God: The Divine,” ed. Karl Rahner, Encyclopedia of Theology: The Concise
Sacramentum Mundi (New York: Seabury, 1975), p564.
14
Donald G. Bloesch, God the Almighty, p168.
15
Donald G. Bloesch, God the Almighty, p168-169.
16
Karl Barth, trans. G.W. Bromiley, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T & T
Clark, 1975), p304-305
17
R.S. Franks, The Doctrine of the Trinity (London: Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd., 1953), p60.
18
Ibid, p61.

3
confession as the Rule of Faith was agreed upon. These statements recovered from the writings

of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian is better known today as the Apostles’ Creed.19 This

rule of faith was expounded upon and further explained by Hermas and Ignatius; these writings

then became the basis for Patristic Trinitarianism.20 By 180 AD we see the advent of the

apologists defending the faith in Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras and Theophilus, who used

rationale to argue a case for the faith; but in them we see the first definite theological mention of

a Trinity.21 Around 200 AD, Irenaeus presented a case for the Trinity based upon the Scriptures

alone, which was built upon by Tertullian around 210 AD and he espoused that the Trinity

consists of the Father, Son and Spirit, who were three not in status, but in degree, thus bringing

out the thought of the economic view of the Trinity.22 Then around 250 AD, Origen who was a

student of Ammonius Saccas, the originator of Neoplatonism, laid foundations for the strong

Christological theme in the doctrine of the Trinity.23 But the first real development of any

accepted doctrinal statement regarding the Trinity came about as a result of the Arian

controversy in 325 AD, leading to the formulation of the Nicene creed. But this led to further

trouble in the form of the Eastern Church branching out with a theology of it own, in response to

which some of the Patristic fathers like Athanasius devoted their life in defending the Nicene

Creed;24 it is here that we see the beginnings of Orthodox Trinitarianism.25 Here the

Cappadocian fathers, Basil and the two Gregories brought out the famous notion of perichoresis

and by 381, this Cappadocian Trinitarianism was affirmed in the Council of Constantinople.26

Following the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, very little work was done on this doctrine other

than what had already been said in the form of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed, as a result

19
R.S. Franks, The Doctrine of the Trinity, p62.
20
Ibid, p67-68.
21
Ibid, p69-72.
22
Ibid, p75-84.
23
Ibid, p87-100.
24
Ibid, p109.
25
Ibid, p114.
26
Ibid, p118.

4
of no major controversies coming up, except for a danger of sounding trithiestic, which was

corrected by John of Damascus in 754 AD by stressing on the unity of God.27 In 1274 AD,

Thomas Aquinas suggested in his Summa Theologica the additional dimension of the immanent

view of the Trinity, thus setting the stage for the future development of the doctrine.28

1.2 The Marginalisation of the Doctrine

Following the Renaissance in the late 15th century, a potent antagonism to the subtleties of

scholastic theology developed, leading to the Reformation. This led to a drive towards God being

sought in the humanity of Christ, the movement being led by Luther. At this point, Melanchthon

is known to have said in his Loci Theologica in 1521 AD that there is no reason for us to labour

over the supreme topics of God, His Unity and Trinity, etc. Calvin also gave little space for the

Trinity in his Institutio in 1536 AD.29 Their focus was on knowing Christ and the benefits in

Him.30 In the mean time, the Anglican Church made a spectacular statement in the form of

Hooker’s treatise Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, by affirming that the doctrine of the

Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God, and comfortable dependence upon

Him.31 Following this landmark in Trinitarianism, the church saw the second phase of its battle

with the doctrine in the form of a resurgent movement questioning all that had been said so far in

the history of the church in the form of orthodox doctrines, and the Trinity took a hard hit too.

Faustus Socinus (ca. 1604) became the supreme proponent of anti-Trinitarianism,32 Socinianism

produced an immense ferment within Protestant Churches and produced the Arminians and the

Latitudinarians.33 At the peak of this heated debate, Chubb proposed that the Trinity is an

27
R.S. Franks, The Doctrine of the Trinity, p119-120.
28
Ibid, p132-136.
29
Ibid, p138-139.
30
Ibid, p140.
31
Ibid, p141-142.
32
Ibid, p142.
33
Ibid, p142-146.

5
impossible idea and propounded that Christ was only human, came to earth to instruct men on

moral laws and awaken them to the fact that there are rewards and punishments after death.34 By

now, the age of Illumination was catching on the world over and rational theology was used as

driving force by those who maintained the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, in an attempt to

defend it against all the onslaught it received in the seventeenth century.35 One such attempt was

by Wallis a Cambridge Mathematician, who advocated in 1690 that the Trinity was rationally

explicable as it doesn’t have the same sense as when it is applied to man. Here Pietism, vexed

with Protestant Scholasticism launched out again on a move to reclaim that what mattered most

was a spiritual experience. It was a nearly a decade later that Kant’s writings created an uproar

amongst sceptics and the church alike and made clear the fact that the need of the hour was to

unify the new Christological doctrine that he had propounded in the context of religion and

Christianity in particular, in order to make theology complete and erect a defense against the

continuous onslaught from sceptics.36

1.3 The Resurgence of the Trinity

Hegelian terminology sought to explain the anthropomorphisms of religion and translate them

into their philosophical meaning; this promoted the idea of a philosophical triad, which seemed

so close to the Christian idea of the Trinity and laid the foundation for the revival of the doctrine

in rational thought patterns.37 Soon after, Schleiermacher, the great ‘Father of Modern Theology’

identified the being of God in Christ and in the Christian Church as the main pivot point for the

ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity.38 For him, the doctrine of the Trinity is not an immediate

34
R.S. Franks, The Doctrine of the Trinity, p147-148.
35
Ibid, p148-149.
36
Ibid, p151-160.
37
Ibid, p161.
38
Schleiermacher as cited by Ralph Del Colle, “The Triune God”, ed. Colin E. Gunton, The Cambridge Companion
to Christian Doctrine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p121.

6
utterance concerning Christian experience; rather it is a combination of several such utterances

so as to express their coherence in the whole of Christianity.39 Around 1850, Claude Welch

posited three distinct expressions of Trinitarian assertions: the economic, the essential and the

immanent Trinities40, thus opening a way for Barth to reconstruct the doctrine in a modern

theological pattern. The theological world stood in a state of shock as a result of the First World

War and there was a need for hope. Here Barth stood in the gap and espoused that the Trinitarian

conception of God follows from the fact that God is known to us, as He reveals Himself; The

Father, Son and Holy Spirit are thus interpreted as God’s freedom in revelation, in the form of

revelation and in the historical contingency of revelation.41 Thus the Trinitarian doctrine not only

becomes the essential confession of the Christian faith, but also the basis on which all of

theology would have to be constructed. However, the argument had hardly culminated;

theologians such as Bultmann and Brunner raised questions, but the definition of the doctrine as

until then was able to withstand the onslaught, the argument becoming more about the exact

nature of the Trinity rather than about the essentiality of the doctrine itself.

Here Karl Rahner reinvigorated the catholic tradition by suggesting that Christians are in their

practical life almost mere monotheists.42 Further since, no adequate distinction can be made

between the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the economy of salvation,43 the whole of

our theology and our faith should hinge around this fundamental doctrine of Christianity. By

espousing the axiomatic union between the economic and the immanent Trinities, he became the

groundswell for Trinitarian theological thought pattern. Built upon this basic framework, are the

theologies of Moltmann, Volf, etc, who continue to emphasise that there is much for us to learn

39
R.S. Franks, The Doctrine of the Trinity, p168.
40
Ralph Del Colle, “The Triune God”, The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine, p135.
41
Ibid, p180.
42
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p10.
43
Ibid, p24.

7
from Trinitarian thought and pattern our lives by. This principle is essential to us as it implies

that what God is in His saving activity is what God is in the divine being.44 Further that there is

essential dialogical relationship between the three persons of the Godhead and therefore the

nature of relationship and personhood which are so important for a Christian understanding of

the nature of the divine being, can be best understood in the being and operation of the Trinity

alone.45 This calls for us to carefully study the lessons the Trinity has to teach us, in order to

understand better the abundant life that Jesus talked about, which we as Christians are expected

to live. As Illingworth says, due to having the doctrine of the Trinity, Christianity holds within

itself a power that can educate our personality to what reason shall recognise to be its true

perfection, and also secure for it the actual attainment, fulfillment, realisation of all that such

perfection implies.46 Because God is triune, we must respond to Him in a particular way, or

rather a set of ways, corresponding to the richness of His being.47 Yet in all this, it needs to be in

a manner understandable by the person seated in the pew and the minister alike, so as to apply it

to their daily Christian lives and mission as the assertions about the Trinity in their catechetical

formulations are almost unintelligible to people today, and that they almost inevitably occasion

misunderstandings.48

44
Ralph Del Colle, “The Triune God”, The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine, p137.
45
Ibid, p138.
46
J. R. Illingworth, The Doctrine of the Trinity: Apologetically Considered, p187.
47
Colin E. Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology: Second Edition, p4.
48
Karl Rahner, tr. William V. Dych, Foundations Of Christian Faith: An Introduction To The Idea Of Christianity,
p134.

8
2. The Rahnerian Model of the Trinity

The isolation of the treatise of the Trinity has to be wrong. There must be a
connection between Trinity and man. The Trinity is a mystery of salvation,
otherwise it would never have been revealed. We must point out in every dogmatic
treatise that what it says about salvation does not make sense without referring to
this primordial mystery of Christianity.49

The whole of the Trinitarian doctrine can be approached in two ways. It can be seen as sub

specie aeternitatis or in terms of its intrinsic being, which would explain for us the Trinitarian

structure of Christian Dogmatics from the perspective of the being of God and the divinely

initiated events of creation, incarnation and Pentecost.50 This is the base on which dogmatic

enterprise is ordered fundamentally in terms of the God who is triune, and who in His triune

identity creates, reconciles and sanctifies. However, the other way to approach the doctrine is to

view it from below or sub specie temporis; viewed from this angle, the doctrine is developed as

the principle that orders the spiritual life, rather than being concerned about the divine approach

to us. More fundamentally speaking, this approach is concerned with our approach to God.51

Though the second approach will at some stage act as a function of the former view, it is possible

for a Trinitarian theology to be primarily a theology of the spiritual life rather than the divine

life, thus being more concerned with our approach to God, than God’s approach to us.52 Rahner’s

entire theological enterprise, which seeks to sustain the priority of grace should be conceived as

an instance of the from below theological approach.53 For this reason, theological anthropology

lies at the heart of Rahner’s theology as a whole, for it is in our theological anthropology that

we conceive ourselves as human, precisely and supremely in relation to God.54

49
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p21.
50
Gary Badcock, “Karl Rahner, The Trinity and Religious Pluralism”, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Trinity in a
Pluralistic Age: Theological Essays on Culture and Religion (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1997), p143.
51
Ibid, p146.
52
Ibid, p146.
53
Ibid, p146.
54
Ibid, p146.

9
In an attempt to define the Trinity, Rahner admits that the dogma of the Trinity is an absolute

mystery that we do not understand even after it has been revealed.55 In this lies the fact that God

is not merely an object within some neutral horizon of knowledge, that He Himself opens this

horizon of knowledge; therefore the Trinity and mystery belong essentially together, in complete

tension of each other, as the Trinity is not just a case of this mystery, rather deepens the concept

of mystery itself and in this, brings us to the inner proximity of the mystery of the Trinity.56 An

essential definition of the Trinity tells us that each of the three persons in the Godhead is of the

same essence. These concepts have been established in such a manner because

We are first told that the Father is God; that the Son is God and comes to meet us
as such; and that the Holy Spirit is God and meets us as such; yet that in these
three beings who are God, only one God is given. To express this concept we are
told that one and the same divinity is given to us in three persons.57

Yet the words person, substance and essence only assures us in another form the same thing that

we already know from the experience of the incomprehensible God as only possibly being really

as He is in Himself, given to us (for us) in the twofold reality of Christ and His Spirit in order for

the event of the divine self-communication to be true (to us).58 From this limited data, we can

infer the fact that the economic Trinity is for us first known and first revealed, that it is the

immanent Trinity.59 But before delving into the doctrine itself, Rahner finds its essential to talk

about the nature of each person of the Trinity, by building upon the concepts of ‘person’ and

‘essence.’

God as the Father: The God of the old covenant is known and confessed in the experience of

salvation as the unoriginate, free, Father, who acts and can act and will act only in unity with the

55
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p50.
56
Ibid, p51.
57
Ibid, p52.
58
Ibid, p55.
59
Ibid, p55.

10
Son and Spirit. For Rahner, He is the concrete God of the Old Testament, with whom the history

of pre-trinitarian revelation is concerned.60 Further,

Through the encounter in faith with Jesus Christ, the Son, as such and with the
Holy Spirit, as the innermost principle of our sonship and of our absolute
proximity to God, this unoriginate God is experienced as the Father of the Son, as
generating principle, therefore as source, origin and principle of the whole
Godhead.61

Jesus the Son: The Son is begotten by the Father and therefore not created ex-nihilio. He is

through the communication, deriving of the Father’s own divine and total essence and

substance.62 This makes Him consubstantial with the Father and therefore shares of the Father’s

eternity.63 The relation of the Son to the Father is to be understood as the Father’s Logos, who

expresses Himself in the salvation history through this Logos, therefore immanently.64 Further,

in His incarnation, Jesus knew Himself first as the concrete One, who stands before the Father

and meets us as the Son.65 Though this then projects Him as the absolute bringer of salvation, He

is first the self-communication of the Father to the world in such a way that in this Son, He is

radically there and that His self-communication entails, as an effect produced by itself, its

radical acceptance.66 The Son is then the expression of the economic self-communication of the

Father, but the origin of whose utterance exists from all eternity as the Word of such a possible

free self-expression to the world. Thus, the immanent self-communication becomes perceptible,

and its meaning although remaining mysterious, becomes intelligible in the economic self-

communication.67 It becomes clear that the immanent Trinity must stem from the economic.68

60
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p59-60.
61
Ibid, p60-61.
62
Ibid, p61.
63
Ibid, p61.
64
Ibid, p61.
65
Ibid, p62.
66
Ibid, p63.
67
Ibid, p64.
68
Ibid, p66.

11
God as the Spirit: The gift of the Father through the Son, in which He communicates Himself to

us in immediate proximity and through which He causes us to accept this self-communication is

the Spirit of the Father and the Son.69 As God’s self-communication therefore, He is God as

given in love and therefore powerful in us as love.70 Being of one essence as the Father, He is

still distinct from both Father and Son and proceeds from the Father and the Son through an

eternal communication of the divine essence as an act of the Father and Son.71 The Spirit thus

proceeds from the Father through the Son and is therefore not begotten.72

The question that arises here however is how there can be three really distinct persons in God, if

each of them is really identical with the one same essence of God. Rahner explains this relation

as the persons in the Godhead being distinct only through their being relative to each other to

start with.73 The relationship between Father, Son and Spirit exists in the event that the relations

are not distinct by what they posit absolutely, each for itself, rather in through their opposition as

such.74 The Trinitarian relationship therefore can be explained in terms of an absolute, who is

really identical with two opposed relatives, thus making the Father, Son and Spirit identical with

the one Godhead and therefore relatively distinct from one another.75 These three are then

constituted as distinct only in their relatedness to each other.76 Hence these opposed relativities

are also concretely identical with both communications as seen from both sides, through which

the Father communicates the divine essence to the Son and through the Son to the Spirit.77 Thus

according to Rahner, economically speaking, the Father Himself gives Himself in the Son and

69
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p66.
70
Ibid, p66.
71
Ibid, p66.
72
Ibid, p66.
73
Ibid, p70-71.
74
Ibid, p71.
75
Ibid, p72.
76
Ibid, p72.
77
Ibid, p72.

12
the Spirit that He is thus immanently speaking, Himself.78 Due to this, it needs to be understood

that as the Father is unoriginate, He Himself has a manner of being given and existing which

distinguishes Him from the Son and the Spirit, but does not precede his relation to either of

them.79 It is due to this reason that we have in God only one power, one will and one self-

presence, coupled with a unique activity.80 This activity is common to all three persons and

appropriated only to one, therefore possessed by each of the three persons in His own proper

way, which then implies for us that each divine person possesses His own proper relation to

some created reality.81 The real meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity therefore lies in the fact

that only through this doctrine that we can take with radical seriousness and
maintain without qualifications the simple statement which is at once so very
incomprehensible and so very self-evident, namely that God Himself as the
abiding and holy mystery, as the incomprehensible ground of man's transcendent
existence is not only the God of the infinite distance, but also wants to be the God
of absolute closeness in a true self-communication and He is present in this way
in the spiritual depths of our existence as well as in the concreteness of our
corporeal history.82

2.1 The Economic Trinity as a Preliminary Point

Our knowledge of salvation history, even as the Bible presents it, our own experience of the

triune God and biblical revelation compose our definition of the Economic Trinity. This same

knowledge is developed in detail in Christology and the doctrine of grace.83 In an attempt to give

further expression to this treatise, Rahner defines God as the Father or the simply unoriginate

God, who is also known as presupposed and who communicates Himself precisely when and

because His self-communication does not simply coincide with him in lifeless identity.84 In this

self-communication, He is merited free and incomprehensible, thus keeping His absolute

78
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p74.
79
Ibid, p74.
80
Ibid, p75.
81
Ibid, p77.
82
Karl Rahner, trans. William V. Dych, Foundations Of Christian Faith: An Introduction To The Idea Of
Christianity, p137.
83
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p82.
84
Ibid, p84.

13
integrity. The direct result of this self-communication is the Son who appears historically in the

flesh as man.85 The Spirit then becomes the One who brings about acceptance to the world in

faith, hope and love of this self-communication.86 In this lies the fact that the Logos who became

man and the Spirit who sanctifies is a free event because God’s self-communication is free. This

emphasis becomes necessary else the doctrine of the Trinity turns into a verbal accompaniment

of a salvation history which in itself would be absolutely unchanged if the Father of the Spirit

had become a man.87 In this context, God’s self-communication could be questioned as

mythological, but we need to keep in mind that it is theologically unquestionable as it includes

the mystery of His purpose of self-communication rather than hiding it.88 This mystery consists

of the fact that God really arrives at man, really enters into man’s situation, assumes it Himself,

and thus is what He is.89 All this becomes possible because of man being created in the image of

God (in the Trinitarian sense, cf. Gen. 1:27), as the entire creation can be considered as a

moment of God’s self-communication, thus containing within itself the possibility of constituting

the addressee – in this case man.90 To Rahner, this holds good in itself, even if creation might

have occurred without such a self-communication.91

However, Christ’s human nature is not something that which happens to be there, rather it is

precisely that which comes into being when God’s Logos utters Himself outwards.92 Further, this

self-communication of the free personal God who gives Himself as a person presupposes a

personal recipient who is because of the nature of the self-communication, of the very nature of

85
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p86.
86
Ibid, p86.
87
Ibid, p87.
88
Ibid, p87-88.
89
Ibid, p89.
90
Ibid, p89.
91
Ibid, p89.
92
Ibid, p89.

14
this self-communication.93 This would be possible then only in the event of the communicator

creating the addressee as a spiritual-personal being, who possesses a distinct obediential potency

for the reception of such a self-communication94 In this context it would have to therefore be

mentioned that considering the nature of the addressee, this communication would have to

originate, at which point the addressee was constituted by the will of this self-communication

and also have a future which stands opposed to the beginning as the moment of something

radically new.95 Therefore, since man is a being with the one duality of future and origin and

God is in history and in transcendence, the free being; God’s self-communication presents the

difference between offer and acceptance, thus validating the need for salvation of man.96 Further,

this self-communication has to be presented to man as a self-communication of absolute truth

and yet absolute love, since another duality present in man is that of knowledge and love.97 Thus

we are faced with the origin, history and offer constituting one unity and yet being held in

tension with the unity of the opposed moments of future, transcendence and acceptance.98 Yet

both these aspects of this communication constitute but one divine self-communication, which

assumes the form of truth in history and of origin, offer and love in transcendence towards the

freely accepted absolute future.99 Thus the divine self-communication occurs in unity and

distinction in history (of the truth) and in the spirit (of love).100

2.2 The Immanent Trinity as an Expression of the Economic

The differentiation of the self-communication of God in history (of truth) and spirit (of love)

belongs to God in Himself; else this difference would do away completely with God’s self-

93
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p89.
94
Ibid, p89-90.
95
Ibid, p91.
96
Ibid, p92.
97
Ibid, p94.
98
Ibid, p94-95.
99
Ibid, p98.
100
Ibid, p99.

15
communication if they belong only to the realm of humans.101 In this we find the aspects of the

transcendence and immanence of God being held in complete tension with each other that, this

communication of God occurs precisely in creation so that what is created contains a

transcendental reference to the God who remains beyond this difference, thus at once giving Him

and withdrawing Him.102 Hence God himself is not there, rather is only represented by the

created and its transcendental reference to God.103 But if there has to be a real self-

communication and not mere creative activity referring to God, this creaturely reality becomes

the direct consequence of the self-communication. In this sense, God’s self-communication as

we concretely experience it implies this same creaturely condition as a consequence.104 God

therefore would be the giver of a gift of Himself only to the extent that he communicates a gift

distinct from Himself.105 Therefore the root and goal of all human existence is found in the

simple acceptance of the primordial grace of His presence and expressed in the manner of

reflecting on this allusive presence, with the only one natural response that He first initiated in

grace – love.106 Thus Jesus becomes the focal point of the divine self-communication in Rahner’s

theology.107

2.3 The Economic Trinity Grounded in the Immanent

With this basic premise, Rahner proceeds to draw the following conclusions:

a) The Father acts as the original self-communicator, the Son as the One who is uttered for

Himself and the Spirit as the One who is received.108

101
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p100.
102
Ibid, p100.
103
Ibid, p100.
104
Ibid, p101.
105
Ibid, p101.
106
Herbert Vorgrimler, trans. John Bowden, Understanding Karl Rahner (London: SCM Press, 1986), p33-44.
107
Gary Badcock, “Karl Rahner, The Trinity and Religious Pluralism”, The Trinity in a Pluralistic Age, p148.
108
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p101-102.

16
 b) The bond that binds the three of Them should be understood as relational, stemming from

the sameness of their essence.109 However, this relationality could not act as a good

starting point to solve the logical contradictions regarding the Trinity.110

c) Before moving on Rahner explains that the usage of the word person inevitably evokes

the misunderstanding that in God there are three different spiritualities, consciousnesses,

centres of activity and this needs to avoided. Therefore then the starting point to

understand the concept of person within the Trinity then is to look at it from an angle of

salvation history and our experience of each person as God.111 In God there is one

essence, hence one absolute self-presence, and only one self-utterance of the Father, the

Logos.112 Therefore what we are essentially talking about is one consciousness that

subsists in three ways,113 aware of the distinctness in one only real consciousness.114 This

translated in terms of the immanent Trinity means that we have one God who subsists in

three distinct manners of subsisting.115 The single person in God would then be God as

existing and meeting us in this determined distinct manner of subsisting.116

2.4 The Axiomatic Unity of the Economic and Immanent Trinities

Thus Rahner makes it clear that the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity and the immanent

Trinity is the economic Trinity,117 is a defined statement of the doctrine of the faith.118 This is

because no adequate distinction can be made between the doctrine of the economy of salvation

109
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p102-103.
110
Ibid, p103.
111
Ibid, p106.
112
Ibid, p106.
113
Ibid, p106.
114
Ibid, p107.
115
Ibid, p109.
116
Ibid, p110.
117
Ibid, p22.
118
Ibid, p23.

17
and the doctrine of the Trinity.119 Thus, the economy of salvation can be said equally of the

Triune God as a whole and yet of each person in particular, because in speaking so about God,

we are not speaking merely about what occurs within the divinity itself, but also about how

humanity should correspond in its actual intended image to this divine reality.120 This for Rahner,

explains the Trinity not in a systematic order, rather through the use of the treatises of the

economic and immanent Trinities, not with regards to its being itself, but more in terms of its

workings, in relation to itself and us, based on his axiom of the economic and immanent Trinities

being the same. Further, the model Rahner proposes is to be understood in a circular

hermeneutic, where what has been revealed of the Godhead and how it relates to us is to be held

in tension, each having its base in each other, so as to form a complete model together. In all this,

making application for the person in the church from this model would demand us to make brief

statements about the Trinity in lay terms, based on this model.

2.5 A Summary of the Rahnerian Model in Untrained Language

• The Trinity is one of the mysteries of God, which has been revealed to us only partially,

but out of what has been revealed there is much for us to learn for our daily Christian

lives and mission.

• This Trinitarian Godhead exists in the form of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Father is the source and the guiding principle of the Godhead and the Son and the

Spirit are dependent on Him, but are still God.

• The Son whom we know as Jesus was eternally existent, is begotten by the Father out of

Himself, thus sharing of the same being and nature (in terms of purpose). He was sent by

the Father as Jesus into this world in order to allow for the reconciliation of creation with

119
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p24.
120
Ibid, p23.

18
 God; mankind’s accepting Him becomes mandatory due to Him being the Father’s (the

originator of all) will and solution.

• The Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son (thus sharing the same being and nature),

a gift given to us by the Father, through His Son Jesus, in order to allow for us to accept

the Son and feel the divine presence of God (the Father) with us, in the form of His Son,

and thus guiding us back to Him.

• All of them together are one power, will and presence, as they are of the same being and

nature and involved in the creative activity. Yet, each person of the Godhead has His own

proper relation to some created reality as the creative activity is common to each person

in His being and nature, and is possessed by each person in His own proper form.

• Each usage of the word person in the Godhead however is not to be understood as we

generally use the word person, rather we are to understand God as one God residing in

three distinct manners of living and meeting us each in His distinct way.

• Man has been created as a spiritual-personal being, thus we can validate the need for

Christ to be 100% human and 100% divine. Further, this offer that is presented to us in

Christ is in a form so as to appeal to the aspects of knowledge and love within a man,

which allow for us to understand and respond to truth.

• From here stem all of the aspects of the grace of God and the whole of Christology, as He

is constantly prodding us to move on toward Him, by the power of His Spirit, as He

knows that we in ourselves are not entirely capable of taking these decisions.

19
3. Implications of the Rahnerian Model on Christian Life and Mission

Now that certain definitive statements have been made based on the Rahnerian model of the

Trinity, its only apt for to us understand it from its shortcomings before we can actually make it

applicable to the church today.

3.1 A Critique of the Rahnerian Model

The section summarizing the Rahnerian model might seem to be in danger of firstly making the

concept of the Trinity sound too simplistic and secondly struggles with being able to present in

an apt manner the Rahnerian model of the Trinity in non-technical terms. However, this is

required as even Rahner starts with the same premise – We still have to admit that the assertions

about the Trinity in their catechetical formulations are almost unintelligible to people today, and

that they almost inevitably occasion misunderstandings.121 It is clear then that Rahner is not

entirely successful in achieving what he sets off to by using language that could be understood

only by the theologically trained mind; not to mention the vagueness associated with the manner

of explaining the workings of the Trinity. Further, in his whole theological presentation Rahner

never uses a Biblical base to support his case, whereas that should be considered the beginning

and the end of any discussion regarding God. Rahner needs to be understood however in the light

of the context that he addressed and the tradition of philosophical scholasticism that he came

from where philosophical thought is highlighted above all else.

This context doesn’t appeal to the Indian church in its entirety; yet in trying to explain the Trinity

in a logically acceptable manner, Rahner moves perilously close to challenging the evangelical

understanding of the Trinitarian doctrine by espousing that the Son and Spirit are related to the

Father as are two relatives to one absolute. This undermines the understanding of each person of
121
Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, p134.

20
the Godhead as being equal in status, which would posit that each person of the Godhead would

have to be absolute in Themselves. This viewed however in the light of some statements that

Jesus made (Mt. 24:36), might confirm a form of relativity of the Son and the Spirit to the

absolute Father. Yet in all this, it might be a form of relativity that might be incomprehensible to

the human cognisance. Further by trying to replace the word ‘person’, Rahner moves beyond

himself in that what he calls the secular use of the word ‘person’ has nothing in common with

modern thinking about the concept of person.122 Rahner seems to take this term to mean the

extreme individualism seen in some circles, yet theologians like Holderlin, Feuerbach, Buber,

Ebner and Rosenstock overcome this possessive individualism by positing that the ‘I’ can be

understood only in the light of ‘Thou’, a concept of relation; for without social relation there can

be no personality.123 As a direct result of this proposition is the fact that Rahner posits God as

one subsisting in three different modes of subsistence. This again suffers the same problem of

relationality as this means of explaining the Trinity doesn’t allow for any mutual ‘Thou’ within

the Godhead, as it makes them appear as a mode of actuality without subject, consciousness and

will.124 This makes it impossible to think of love within the Godhead and therefore we can no

longer assert that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the love of the Father and the Son. Further, in all

this, Rahner makes God the Father the focal point of the discussion.Due to these reasons,

Moltmann dialogs with the Rahnerian model of the Trinity saying that it can be viewed as the

mystical variant of the idealistic doctrine of the ‘trinitarian’ reflection structure of the absolute

subject,125 which makes it an approximately monotheistic presentation. Inspite of these

limitations, the Rahnerian model has much to say as a manner of implying, how the church can

benefit from preaching and living the Trinitarian life.

122
Jurgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), p145.
123
Ibid, p145.
124
Ibid, p146.
125
Ibid, p148.

21
3.2 Application of the Rahnerian Model to Christian Life and Mission

The Trinitarian logic just analysed is not an abstract possibility; it is the structure of the

church's historical existence, as authoritatively described in the New Testament.126 The Church

and all that it proclaims and does as scriptural, in each different church tradition therefore have a

base in the Trinitarian reality alone. It is sad however that western tradition has not always

enabled believers to rejoice in the triune being of God.127 The trinity has more often been

presented as a dogma to be believed in rather than as the living focus of life and thought.128 But

it would only be appropriate for us to respond to God in a particular set of ways corresponding to

the richness of His being in order to live the life of abundance that Jesus promised us.129 The

following is a brief description of some ways in which we can understand and respond to the

Trinitarian God in an appropriate way, even to clarify the need for some beliefs we hold, in the

light of the Trinity.

a) Our View of Life:

The theological declaration our origin lies in God the creator carries significance for our

human existence and human essence.130 Without understanding humanity from this essential

perspective and specifically in the context of the Triune Godhead, we have no real basis to

explain creation and our very being. Further,

as the creation of the love of God the world is not an impersonal process, a
machine or a self-developing organism - a cosmic collective into which the
particular simply disappears - but that which itself has a destiny along with the
human: it is that whose destiny is to be realized along with and by the agency of

126
Robert W. Jenson, The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock
Publishers, 1982), p28.
127
Colin E. Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, p3.
128
Ibid, p3.
129
Ibid, p4.
130
Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 2000), p139-140.

22
 the human creation, so that that which is not personal may come to be itself in
being offered back perfected to its creator through Christ and in the Spirit.131

This effectively means that humanity, which is the beloved other of God became His

enemy132 due to the onset of sin, can find redemption in Christ alone. This justifies our need

for works along with our faith, in order to be presented as perfect back to God stems from the

being of the Trinity and what it signifies in the life of each believer. Further, the need for

salvation for all of mankind is brought into perspective for us as each particular has its own

focus in the nature of the Trinity, yet in the context of the whole.

b) Our View of Salvation: God is named as the agent of salvation, which is accomplished in

an act described by such phrases as in Christ Jesus, the purpose of which act, both

eschatologically and penultimately, is a sending of the Spirit with gifts (1 Cor. 1:4-8).133

Because of our understanding of the Trinity therefore, the need for the salvation of mankind

in the doctrine of sin is clarified. Further, it becomes clear to us that our growth in the Lord,

to achieve the fullness of Christ depends directly on us responding to each person in the

Trinity in an appropriate way.

c) The Church as a Community: The church is therefore called to be a being of persons-in-

relation which receives its character as communion by virtue of its relation to God, and so is

enabled to reflect something of that being in the world.134 This is the basis of brotherly love

preached by Christ. It was on this concept that Volf wrote that every local church is to live

131
Colin E. Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, p14.
132
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), p128.
133
Robert W. Jenson, The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel, p44.
134
Colin E. Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, p12.

23
 the relationships within itself in correspondence to the Trinity.135 Since churches in the power

of the Spirit already form a communion with the Triune God, our ecclesial correspondence to

the same can become an object of hope for mankind in general and a task worth persevering

by each human.136 They act as the covenanting people due to which this loosely related group

of people is transformed into a community.137 And the task of this community is then to grow

in His grace and proclaim the Kingdom through thought, word and deed.

A large task of this community might then be the task of truly reconciling to each other and

continue loving the way Christ did it. Volf argues that reconciliation with the other will

succeed only is the self, guided by the narrative of the triune God, is ready to receive the

other into itself and undertake a re-adjustment of its identity in the light of the other's

alterity.138 As it has been rightly pointed out over and over again that Christianity is all about

giving up your right, for the benefit of a brother; it is however possible only if the Christian

lives to forgive even as much as he breathes, without which the community would exclude

more than it would embrace; as hurt is not something that can be eradicated completely, even

as our egos form an essential part of our human personality. Volf writes that forgiveness is

the boundary line between exclusion and embrace139 as it heals the wounds that the power-

acts of exclusion inflict and breaks down the diving wall of hostility.140 However, Volf rightly

points out that true forgiveness is always two sided and therefore the parties involved must

not be satisfied in merely walking their separate ways in what is usually regarded as peace in

135
Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), p203.
136
Ibid, p195.
137
Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, p480.
138
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation,
p110.
139
Ibid, p125.
140
Ibid, p125-126.

24
 the world once forgiveness has been asked for and given, rather we are called to fall into each

other’s arms and restore broken communion.141

d) Mission and Strategy: The early church was actually a gathering of missionaries, to

whom mission was neither a matter of merely informing the people nor a search for converts

in the modern sense; it was itself an integral event of the Kingdom's advent.142 Mission,

which is one of the prime responsibilities of the Church at large and each individual

Christian, should then be carried out with this attitude. More primarily, since the theology of

the trinity has so much to teach about the nature of our world and life within it, it is or could

be the centre of Christianity's appeal to the unbeliever, as the good news of a God who enters

into free relations of creation and redemption with His created world.143 The Christian

missionary then lives in the Trinitarian time-pattern – blown onward by the Spirit, he serves

the Lord to carry out the promises of the Father.144

e) Thanksgiving: From the beginning of the church to this day, the congregation gathered at

the Lord’s Supper gives Trinitarian thanks to God. He is praised as the giver and doer of all

good, the good that He does being Christ and of that good will come the final good, present

and anticipated in the Spirit; thereby, the congregation shares the very triune life of God.145

We therefore praise the Father, in remembrance of the Son, with the invocation of the Holy

Spirit. So obtrusive is this structure that in the most ancient church the thanksgiving was

often understood as an act of the Trinity.146

141
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation,
p125-127.
142
Robert W. Jenson, The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel, p29.
143
Colin E. Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, p7.
144
Robert W. Jenson, The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel, p31.
145
Ibid, p33.
146
Ibid, p32.

25
 f) Preaching and Benediction: Pastors often suppose the Trinity to be too complicated to

explain the laity.147 But nothing else could be more misguided. Believers know how to pray

to the Father, daring to call Him Father because they pray with Jesus His Son, and so enter

into the future these two have for them, that is praying the Spirit.148 Most believers know

how to do this, and without realizing that just in the space defined by these coordinates, they

have understood the Trinity in a limited sense. What is required then is that the Pastors

provide further application to the doctrine and allow for the people to live the life of fullness

in the Trinity. Even concepts such as the immanent Trinity that might be considered as highly

theological can be preached from the pulpit even as John Henry Newman is known to have

done, by not allegorising the concept out of a text that doesn’t correspond to it even remotely,

rather by using the scriptural concept of God’s love for us to explain how it is merely an

extension of the love that is shared within the Godhead first.149 Further, inspite of the Trinity

being essentially without any analogy, it is not required to find a compelling illustration to

preach it, rather it can be explained why God has no need to manifest Himself in worthy

prophets time and again in different lands at different times because of His being as the

Trinity.150 The three members of this benediction then are not simply three repetitions of the

same nouns and verbs, but form three invocations of the same blessing in somewhat different

terms. They therefore contain the invocation of three distinct and different blessings; that is,

a distinct blessing is invoked in each member of the benediction.151 The benediction then

becomes no more a ritual that is to be followed with no meaning, rather a manner of

pronouncing blessing in the likeness of the Biblical model.

147
Ibid, p48.
148
Robert W. Jenson, The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel, p48.
149
Marguerite Shuster, “Preaching The Trinity,” eds. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall & Gerald O. Collins, The
Trinity (London: Oxford University Press, 2001), p369.
150
Ibid, p371-374.
151
Richard N. Davies, Doctrine of the Trinity: The Biblical Evidence (Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe, 1891), p24.

26
Conclusion

The Rahnerian model of the Trinity in its entirety cannot be made applicable to the church in

India today as a result of various limitations it posits to us in the form of its presentation. Yet

there is much that Rahner’s Trinitarian theology has contributed and a large portion of it can be

made applicable to our daily Christian lives and mission in order to achieve the life of abundance

that Christ promised us, some of which have been highlighted in this paper. Further, effort needs

to be made by the church today in order to look at various other truths that can be applied to our

daily Christian lives and mission, based upon the truth of our Trinitarian God. The need of the

hour is for religious educators who will, first, emphasize that the honest, sober performance of

the tasks and responsibilites of ordinary everyday life of itself constitutes a substantial part of

Christian experience and existence.152 Finally the church should endeavour a formulation of the

doctrine in lay terms that would not make the Trinitarian concept appear too simplistic, yet in

some sense while keeping the awe of this primordial mystery of Christianity,153 is able to explain

it in untrained terms to the person seated in the pew, striving hard to live a qualified good

Christian life. To this person must all our theological efforts be directed, so that they will be

enabled and empowered to become world class Christians,154 drawing from the abundance of

strength and grace offered to them in the form of the Trinitarian Godhead.

152
Karl Rahner, The Practice of Faith: A Handbook of Contemporary Spirituality (London: SCM Press, 1985),
p108.
153
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, p21.
154
Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth am I Here For? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan,
2002), p297.

27
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29