RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Torrance, James B. Worship, Community, & The Triune God of Grace. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996.
James Torrance identifies Trinitarian worship as “our participation through the Spirit in the Son’s communion with the Father, in his vicarious life of worship and intercession” (Torrance 15). He also clarifies what his brother meant by Christ’s “vicarious humanity.” In his humanity Jesus brings our worship to the Father. (This echoes Thomas Torrance's article on Liturgical Apolllinarianism).
The first bad model is unitarianism, aka Protestant liberalism. What matters is my soul’s relationship with God. The second bad model is functional unitarianism, aka the Experience model. This can be seen in both Bultmann and modern evangelicalism. It looks good on the outside: God addresses man and man responds. What is missing is Christ. There is no place for Christ to lead our worship and present our prayers before the Father (29). As Torrance notes, “It ignores the fact that God has already provided that response which is alone acceptable to him.”
Finally is the Trinitarian model. It begins with God and the humanity “vicariously realized in Jesus Christ” and a relationship between Jesus and the Church (31). This understanding of worship allows us to perceive “a double movement of grace–(a) a God-humanward movement, from (ek) the Father, through (dia) the Son, in (en) the Spirit and (b) a human-Godward movement to the Father, through the Son in the Spirit” (32).
Some Criticisms
Torrance uses the language of perichoresis with regard to the Trinity. That’s not wrong, but it isn’t exactly how it was used in the early church. Perichoresis applied to the two natures.
Torrance never adequately developed his definition of person as a relational being. I agree with him. I also agree with him that Boethius’s definition is problematic. But Boethius’s definition has tremendous explanatory power. To overturn it your definition has to be just as persuasive.
Conclusion
Torrance has a fine appendix on names and metaphors for God. Granted that God is beyond sexuality and isn’t physically male, then why is “Mother” not acceptable? Doesn’t the Bible use motherly metaphors for God in the prophets? Torrance points out that the Bible uses similes for mother in the Bible, not metaphors. A simile is a weaker concept. Furthermore, Father isn’t a metaphor for God. It is God’s naming himself, which is a stronger reality.
James Torrance identifies Trinitarian worship as “our participation through the Spirit in the Son’s communion with the Father, in his vicarious life of worship and intercession” (Torrance 15). He also clarifies what his brother meant by Christ’s “vicarious humanity.” In his humanity Jesus brings our worship to the Father. (This echoes Thomas Torrance's article on Liturgical Apolllinarianism).
The first bad model is unitarianism, aka Protestant liberalism. What matters is my soul’s relationship with God. The second bad model is functional unitarianism, aka the Experience model. This can be seen in both Bultmann and modern evangelicalism. It looks good on the outside: God addresses man and man responds. What is missing is Christ. There is no place for Christ to lead our worship and present our prayers before the Father (29). As Torrance notes, “It ignores the fact that God has already provided that response which is alone acceptable to him.”
Finally is the Trinitarian model. It begins with God and the humanity “vicariously realized in Jesus Christ” and a relationship between Jesus and the Church (31). This understanding of worship allows us to perceive “a double movement of grace–(a) a God-humanward movement, from (ek) the Father, through (dia) the Son, in (en) the Spirit and (b) a human-Godward movement to the Father, through the Son in the Spirit” (32).
Some Criticisms
Torrance uses the language of perichoresis with regard to the Trinity. That’s not wrong, but it isn’t exactly how it was used in the early church. Perichoresis applied to the two natures.
Torrance never adequately developed his definition of person as a relational being. I agree with him. I also agree with him that Boethius’s definition is problematic. But Boethius’s definition has tremendous explanatory power. To overturn it your definition has to be just as persuasive.
Conclusion
Torrance has a fine appendix on names and metaphors for God. Granted that God is beyond sexuality and isn’t physically male, then why is “Mother” not acceptable? Doesn’t the Bible use motherly metaphors for God in the prophets? Torrance points out that the Bible uses similes for mother in the Bible, not metaphors. A simile is a weaker concept. Furthermore, Father isn’t a metaphor for God. It is God’s naming himself, which is a stronger reality.