Here’s a brief comment on Marc A. Pugliese’s “Is Karl Rahner a Modalist?“, Irish Theological Quarterly 68 (2003), 229-49.
Basically, Pugliese argues “no, he isn’t” if we understand “modalism” to mean “Sabellianism”, as historically denounced by the Catholic church. What’s supposed to get Rahner off the hook, basically, is that he isn’t what I call a phenomenal modalist; he instead holds that the three “persons” are so many ways that God eternally lives, or in Rahner’s jargon, three “distinct manners of [God’s] subsisting”. (quote on p. 239) God is one person “in the modern sense”, that is, a one thinking thing/substance, but God contains three persons in the ancient sense, as Pugliese says, “more [the idea of] a role acted, or mask used, in a play.” (p. 239) In Rahner’s words, “the Father, Son, and Spirit are the one God each in a different manner of subsisting…” (quoted on p. 243) Yeah, that sounds like modalism, just not the Sabellian kind – neither serial nor phenomenal, but rather noumenal, maxmimally overlapping FSH modalism – type 4 on my chart here. And he also holds that each of the modes is essential to God.
My favorite quote from the paper:
If Rahner is a modalist then the Western Trinitarian theology is modalistic… (p. 249)
Well, there are two different conclusions one can draw from that!
Technorati Tags: Trinity, Rahner, economic Trinity, immanent Trinity, Sabellianism, modalism
I recall having a (good-natured) argument with Colin Gunton regarding consciousness and the Trinity. To be as non-controversial as possible I asked him whether he would admit that the Son has a different point of view (Thomas Nagel’s minimal definition of consciousness) than the Father. He refused. I pleaded: how could he not? After all, he had glory in the Father’s presence (Jn. 17:5). Surely that is different from the Father having glory in his own presence. And Jesus had to shake a rock out of his sandal on the dusty roads of Galilee while the Father, never having become incarnate, did not. Surely that entails a different point of view than the Father? Again he refused, and I finally gave up utterly mystified.
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