# Torrance vs. The Reformed



## py3ak (Mar 7, 2010)

I have some simple questions, but I think they require a little background, so please bear with the quotation.

Richard Muller, _Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics_, I, 229



> Thus the theology of the Reformation recognized not only that God is distinct from his revelation and that the one who reveals cannot be fully comprehended in the revelation[24], but also that the revelation, given in a finite and understandable form, must truly rest on the eternal truth of God: this is the fundamental message and intention of the distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology.
> 
> [24]This is certainly the point at which the Reformed tradition parts company with the Barthian reading of Calvin, particularly as popularized by Torrance -- which declares that the "Being" of God and the revelatory "Act" of God are identical or argues "the identity of God's self-revelation with God himself"; see T.F. Torrance, "Karl Barth and the Latin Heresy," in _Scottish Journal of Theology,_ 39 (1986), pp. 462-463, 472, 478; idem, "The Legacy of Karl Barth (1886-1986)," in _Scottish Journal of Theology_, 39 (1986), pp. 294, 299, 301, 303-304; idem, "The Distinctive Character of the Reformed Tradition," in _Reformed Review_, 54/1 (Autumn 2000), p. 6. Torrance's approach, whatever its dogmatic merits, entirely lacks historical foundation: his reading of the materials is inimical to the thought-world of Calvin and of the Reformed tradition of the 16th and 17th centuries in general; cf. my comments in "The Barth Legacy: New Athanasius or Origen Redivivus? A Response to T.F. Torrance," in _The Thomist_, 54/4 (October 1990), pp. 673-704.



Now in Letham's book on the Trinity, one of the things that crops up more than once is the idea that certain relations between the persons being covenantal in nature would be a form of modalism, inasmuch as God would then be different in essence from what He is in His revelation. I do not have the book at hand, but one such statement can be found in the preface, the first time he mentions B.B. Warfield. 

So it seems to me that Letham (who professes admiration for Torrance on the Trinity) has accepted an idea which, according to Muller, is not in keeping with Calvin or Reformed Orthodoxy.

Am I drawing a connection where none exists, or drawing the wrong connection?

Is Muller right?

If Muller is right, then does Calvin's view or Torrance's have greater dogmatic merit?


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## MW (Mar 7, 2010)

Letham criticises Torrance for hints of modalism (see p. 373).


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## py3ak (Mar 7, 2010)

If I recall correctly, Letham criticizes almost every Westerner for hints of modalism - except Calvin who gets bashed for Nestorianism.


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## MW (Mar 7, 2010)

py3ak said:


> If I recall correctly, Letham criticizes almost every Westerner for hints of modalism - except Calvin who gets bashed for Nestorianism.


 
Yes, and in his work on the Westminster Assembly we all get bashed for being Nestorians. Apparently anyone who doesn't believe God now feels and thinks like a man is a Nestorian. But so far as the question at hand is concerned, it would be difficult to pinpoint an epistemic affinity when he cannot agree ontologically with Torrance. One senses there are eastern forces at work here.


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## py3ak (Mar 7, 2010)

I haven't read that one. I thought I recollected there also being praise for Torrance. I received the overall impression that in his view the East is further from modalism than the West precisely because of the concern presented in the quotation from Muller, about God not being fully comprehended in His revelation. I've wondered for some time how he would square that with Calvin's diffidence about God _in se_. Do you think that Eastern theology tends to make one ignore the archetypal/ectypal distinction?


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## MW (Mar 7, 2010)

py3ak said:


> I haven't read that one. I thought I recollected there also being praise for Torrance. I received the overall impression that in his view the East is further from modalism than the West precisely because of the concern presented in the quotation from Muller, about God not being fully comprehended in His revelation. I've wondered for some time how he would square that with Calvin's diffidence about God _in se_. Do you think that Eastern theology tends to make one ignore the archetypal/ectypal distinction?


 
EO's concern is fundamentally different from Western theology. The issue of salvation is one of ontology rather than morality in a strict sense. God became man so that man could become God. In Christ the ontological divide is bridged and humanity participates in the divine nature. It is obvious that the kinds of questions which have plagued Western theology are irrelevant to the eastern POV. There would not be any need for archetypal and ectypal theology because we are removed from the atmosphere of the rational and have been transported to a place where everyone breathes mystical air. That is a brief appraisal, and would be stated with a little more complexity in a more scholastic medium.


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