Autor: Murray, John

Buch: The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today

Titel: The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today

Stichwort: Das Problem Gottes im Neuen Testament; Trinität

Kurzinhalt: ... "the Father." This is now God's proper Name; "We shall be there as who we are shall we be there."

Textausschnitt: 27b First, God still remains the one God of the Old Testament. Only now, the Name God has a new supposition, in the technical sense. It stands for the Father. He is now the God. Everywhere in St. Paul and St. John that one encounters the word God, one should read, as its sense and as the direction of its address, "the Father." This is now God's proper Name. He is "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" in whose manifestation as Son the Name of God was newly revealed. Second, Jesus Christ, the Son who was sent down into our midst by the Father, himself bears the divine Name. He is the Lord-of-us, empowered to exercise the divine functions that the Name implies, that is, to be Savior and Judge. Third, the Father who is the one God and the Son who is the Lord-of-us are present in us through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, who is sent by them to be the Lord-with-us, the life-giving Lord, the indwelling Spirit of our adoption, by whom we are empowered to address God by his proper Name, "Abba, that is, Father" (Romans 8:15). (Fs)

28a This is the New Testament answer to Moses' ancient request, which is forever the human request, to know God's Name. But now the answer is to be cast in the mysterious plural of John's text (14:23) in which Christ makes the promise that "we will come" and "we will make our abode" with the new people of God. Hence, the ancient text must now read: "We shall be there as who we are shall we be there." The Son is here with us. With him the Father, who sent him, inseparably comes to us. Here with us, Father and Son breathe into us the Holy Spirit who is their Gift, now given to us. The Three are here as who they are, mysteriously the one God, the triunely Holy One. As triune, God is more hidden than ever, more unknown, his Name more mysterious. Yet his Name has been revealed. As Father he is more intimately known, and he is more than ever truly named by all the many names that had long been used but are now laden with new meaning because they are read by men from the new works of God in our midst, more wonderful than ever-the Son's ransoming deed of love, and the Spirit's ceaseless energizing in the Church. Thus stated in triadic terms, the New Testament problematic of the presence of God exhibits a substance that transcends the Old Testament substance. At the same time, the Old Testament structure of the problem remains unchanged; the four questions return, with new meaning. (Fs)

29a Moreover, the Old Testament alternative modes of resolution reappear. They are, still, knowledge of God or ignorance of God. The knowledge is again a recognition; what matters is to recognize the living God in "the moment of visitation" (Luke 19:42, 44) when the Word speaks, when the Spirit leads (Romans 8:13). The recognition is practical; as in the Old Testament, it takes the form of a "going with" the Spirit who is the Lord-with-us. The doctrine is developed by St. Paul, with whom the term epignosis becomes a technical theological term. This "knowledge (epignosis) of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4) is both affirmation and choice, a knowledge and an acknowledgment, at once an assent and a consent, an affair of both mind and heart. It is a finding of the living God and also an endless search for him, precisely because he is the living God, present in the moment, most faithfully becoming with each fleeting moment the Lord-with-us. This Pauline epignosis is the New Testament affirmative resolution of the problem of God. (Fs)