The Possibilities of Theology - §1 The Being and Attributes of God. Eberhard Jüngel's dispute with the Classical Philosophical Tradition

Colin Gunton

Jüngel as Philosophical Theologian?

The opening essay in the collection of essays edited by John Webster on the event of the sixtieth birthday of Eberhard Jüngel explores the extent of the philosophical interaction of Jüngel, but Jüngel as one who fits into the post-Barth theological milieu. Ultimately, the question is this: to what extent can Jüngel be considered a philosophical theologian? (or, in wording which Jüngel himself would prefer - a theologian who utilised philosophy as a means)

The first obstacle which must be faced is this - if the line is traced through Barth to Jüngel, and if Barth is 'widely believed, certainly in the Anglo-Saxon world, not to have a philosophical theology at all'(7), then the purpose of the essay is doomed from the outset. To this Gunton offers two arguments 1 - Barth interacts with philosophy (i.e. in arguing against natural theology) and, thus, it can be argued that Barth exhibited what is in some way a negative philosophical theology. However, secondly, Gunton suggests that Barth was more of a philosopher than is sometimes posited - thus, Jüngel can be seen as being a development of Barth in his more succesful approach to philosophy.

The area in which Gunton highlights Barth as philosopher is in his doctrine of divine attributes. Via the argumentation of Christoph Scwoebel (in God: Action and Revelation), he posits 'two apparently conflicting sources' for the divine attributes. Firstly, you have a complex of attributes which are drawn up in the idea that God is bound up in talk of God as 'necessary, immutable, uncaused, omnipotent, etc., etc.' (8) i.e. the language of Plato and Aristotle which forms the framework of Christian theology. On the other hand, there is the so-called 'moral' or 'personal' attributes of God, viz. the concept of divine action which is present in the biblical witness - love, freedom, mercy, righteousness, etc.

How are these two conflicting approaches brought together? Schwoebel argues that one cannot make an absolute choice between the two without an 'intellectual revolution'. Thus, for Gunton, by merit of his discussion of the attributes of God, Barth must be involving himself in some form of philosophical theology. "That is to say, in so far as he is concerned, in his treatment of the divine perfections, to interpret such language as he accepts from the philosophical tradition in the light of action-led theory of the attributes, he is involved in philosophical theology." (9)

Gunton moves on to talk about the doctrine of impassibility which is approached by Barth. I will not make any comments here as to the full discussion but will say:

1 - Impassibility is serious - it prevents a view that God 'can be pushed around'.
2 - However, the tradition does require critique - it is always a danger that Christian doctrine can become limited by a priori metaphyical commitments.
3 - Barth's revision of the tradition was made in the light of i) trinitarian (i.e. in the light of the triune revelation) ii) but also Christological pressures. This can be seen in the development of Jüngel as we see the crucifixion become linked strongly with the divinity of God.

Ontology without Metaphysics

As it is, Jüngel is not a repristination of Barth but offers a far more sophisticated philosophy than Barth ever did. (I am reminded here of Jüngel's work 'Meine Theologie' where he exclaims, "I believe, therefore I think. Faith gives itself to be thought. One cannot believe in God without thinking about him. (Theological Essays II, 9) Jüngel claims that, "Christian theology must, in working through the concept of God, carry through its business of thinking its concept of God far more seriously far more rigourously than philosphy has done." (Gott als Geheimnis der Welt, 269) In many ways Gottes Sein ist im Werden is Jüngel's attempt to show the philosophical roots of Barth's opposition to the anologia entis and the resulting categories of revelation conceived as trinity. Thus, Jüngel can point out that Barth's idea that revelation must commandeer language rather than vice-versa (Jüngel calls this Signifikationshermeneutik, (the meaning of words prescribes the meaning of things)GSW 18f) is touched on in Parmenides.

But more than this, Jüngel shows Barth to be in conflict with the ontology of classical thought as well as the approach to meaning. For Barth, God's being is to be understood relationally by means of the trinity. Furthermore, Christian theology is concerned to present the independent being of God. However, the problem is present in this: that if the concept of God is to be bound up with the traditional concepts of ousia then the metaphysical framework presented collapses. Aristotlean first substances are by definition non-relational. On the other hand, relational beings require some reciprocity and therefore cannot be first substances. What is the result - that God cannot be God without the existence of humanity. Jüngel is concerned to show how this dilemma can be thought through and explained by Barth's trinitarianism and that God's relation to the world can be real and unnecessitated. "Gracious personal action presupposes and requires a preceeding inner (immanent) freedom of God." (12)

Ultimately, Jüngel posits that a true understanding of Barth offers a view of the God-World relation through trinitarian revelation which, in turn, offers not only a critique to but also an alternative to a 'philosophical theology that appears to imprison God in eternity'.(12) Ontology can be talked about apart from metaphysics. Theological ontology must be driven by the second set of divine attributes viz. God must be understood via a concept of divine agent. However, it must be construed in terms which can be in continuity with classical metaphysics and the historical consequences therein. (This must be the case in Jüngel's work - the place given to classical metaphysical discussion is great)

Christology, Hegel and Divine Attributes

From here, Gunton has to approach the subject of the relation between God and the World. For Jüngel, we have seen how he would interpret Barth's conceptualisation between God and and the World, but for the majority of the critics who would broach this topic would work from the claim that Barth is too reliant upon Hegel. Ultimately, the Christology posited by the Hegelian view finds its roots in the Lutheran understanding of the communicatio idiomatum so that by the time it reaches Hegel, the distinction between divine and human natures is fudged, "the divine nature is the same as the human" (Hegel, Phenomenology of the Mind, 760). "The divine involvement in Christ becomes in different ways generalised, so that the locus of divine being as well as of action comes to be centred on forms of divine presence to and in the world" (14) In other words, the nuanced distinction that Jüngel made between the divine being and divine action is collapsed and so God's being is bound up not only in becoming but also in the other to which it becomes. Thus, the tendency of Hegelian philosophical theology is to bind too closely the being of God to the being of the world, viz. necessitarianism.

From here, Gunton can talk of the attempt of Jüngel (himself a Lutheran) to utilise Hegel so as to build an alternate doctrine of God to that posited by the classical tradition. This is best seen in Gott als Geheimnis der Welt (which bears the subtitle - On the Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One in the Dispute between Theism and Atheism) where Jüngel begins by tracing the problem of atheism as being primarily a response to the Cartesian positing the necessity of God for the being of the world. Also, the philosophical tendency to place the omnipotence of God prior to his love led to an atheistic demand to deny God in the name of freedom.

What is it that underlies this tendency of philosophical theology? Gunton suggests that it is not merely the stressing of the necessity of God but the superceding of the contingent by the necessity. What then is needed is, "a kind of necessity which calls the being of the world into question; that is an idea of God as something mehr als notwendig" (17) Thus, God can be construed in terms where he is not metaphysically necessary to the world, viz. God is the one who is revealed through the miracle of revelation and recognised as the one who rescues from nothingness. It is in these terms that God's necessity and aseity are to be explored. Thus, Jüngel grounds his doctrines of necessity and aseity NOT in temrs of gracious and free action but in terms of the being of God as love. "Thus the traditional attributes of self-determination, omnipotence and transcendance are now construed on the basis of a theology of gracious personal action rather than on metaphysical necessity, and are accordingly transformed in their meaning." (17)

Herein lies Jüngel's development of Barth - he develops his postion via Luther. For Luther, although he falls foul of the metaphysical tendencies to necessity, his doctrine of communicatio idiomatum allows him to appreciate the real involvement of God in the death of Christ. This links back to Hegel and the modern positing of the 'death of God' theology cf. Moltmann etc. However, Jüngel is careful that this idea of the 'death of God' isn't seen as a cultural experience but that it is given real theological content. "Christianly understood, the theology of the death of God frees theology from metaphysics." (18) But how can this general identification of God with the world be understood in terms of the distinction between God and the world (cf. 'Meine Theologie' - I believe, therefore I differentiate)?

It is at this juncture that Jüngel utilises the notion of God as the mystery (musterion, Geheimnis) as he comes to the world. "In place of the God who is in heaven because he cannot be on earth there comes the Father who is in heaven in such a way that his heavenly kingdom can come into the world, that is, a God who is in heaven in such a way that he can identify himself with the poverty of the man Jesus, with the existence of one brought from life to death on the cross" (GGW, 284) Here we see Jüngel's radical critique of tradition and the idea that the cross of Jesus entails a major revision of the classical doctrine. However, he doesn't want to go down the same route as, say, Moltmann - "God is the one who can and does bear, can and does suffer, in his being the annihilating power of nothingness... without being annihilated by it." (GGW, 295)

Thus, God's being is not determined by his becoming, rather God's being is revealed by his coming and, in this revelation, is shown to be a mystery. Not in as much a mystery as we cannot know him (here Jüngel inserts a critique of the via negativa of John of D and Thomas) but because he is a mystery in his being.

Gunton goes on to ask a number of questions of this but the questions approach Jüngel's pneumatology (i.e. Augustinian 'bond of love' which is no doubt not good enough for Gunton)