Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Trinität: Personen - Seinsweisen (Karl Barth); Kappadokische Väter, Kappadokier: tropoi tes hyparxeos; Seinsweise: nicht Subsistenz, sondern wodurch etwas subsistiert; Anrede der göttlichen Personen; Wahrheit - Erfahrung

Kurzinhalt: QUESTION 19 - Are the Father, the Son, and the Spirit more appropriately called modes of being (Seinsweisen) than persons? ... Therefore, there are in God three who can be addressed as 'you.'

Textausschnitt: QUESTION 19 - Are the Father, the Son, and the Spirit more appropriately called modes of being (Seinsweisen) than persons?

391b Karl Barth, having judged the definition of person that is ancient to be also obsolete, prefers to call the Father, the Son, and the Spirit Seinsweisen, 'modes of being.'1 (Fs)

In doing so, he thinks he is being faithful to what the early Protestant theologians and also contemporary Catholic theologians really understand by the term 'divine person.' (Fs)
391c But there is reason to doubt this fidelity, since he asserts that there are not three who subsist in God but only one: '... was proprie subsistit, ist ja nicht die Person als solche, sondern Gott in den drei Personen, aber eben: Gott als dreifach proprie subsistens.'2 (Fs) (notabene)

393a This opinion is rejected by J. Brinktrine.3 Claude Welch admits that it contradicts the Augsburg Confession.4 On the contrary, Hermann Volk has interpreted Seinsweise as making 'person' equal to 'Existenz,' and considers that there is only a difference of emphasis between this conception and the traditional notion of person.5 In my uncertainty on this point, I consulted Fr Witte,6 who remarked how clearly Barth taught that Christ was one subject of two natures. (Fs)

393b But whatever may be said about the interpretation of Barth, Welch not only holds that the divine persons are modes of being or of existing but also recognizes in God only one who can be addressed as 'Thou.'7

Hence it seems worth while to determine (1) whether a divine person can truly be said to be a mode of being, (2) whether there are three in God who can each be addressed as 'you,' (3) whether the divine persons among themselves say 'I' and 'you,' and (4) how the existential conception of person is admissible in God.8 In all this our intention is not to pass judgment on authors but to investigate the matter itself. (Fs) (notabene)

393c First, then, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit subsist as properly as God subsists. For since God subsists, and the Father is God, clearly the Father equally subsists; and by the same reasoning we conclude that the Son and the Spirit equally subsist. (Fs)
393d Second, if one asks whether the Father as such (die Person als solche) subsists, the answer is the same. For the Father is a subsistent relation, and obviously a subsistent, as subsistent, subsists. (Fs)

393e Third, if one asks whether paternity as such subsists, the question is either about our concepts or about the reality itself. If the question is about our concepts, the answer is that it is customary to draw a conceptual distinction between the relation as relation and the relation as subsistent; and therefore the concept of paternity as such is conceptually distinct from the concept of Father as such. But if the question is about the reality, since there is no real distinction between divine paternity and God the Father, it must by all means be said that divine paternity subsists. (Fs)

395a Fourth, a mode of being is contradistinguished from a subsistent, since 'subsistent' denotes that which is, but 'mode of being' denotes the mode by which something is. Therefore, since from the point of view of what is meant the Father subsists, and the Father as such subsists, and divine paternity subsists, then from the point of view of what is meant neither the Father, nor the Father as such, nor divine paternity is a mode of being. (Fs) (notabene)

395b Fifth, what is true in the contrary opinion regards not the divine reality but our concepts. Inasmuch as we conceive relations as relations, relations can be said to be conceived as modes of being. Thus one who states that the Father is distinguished from the Son through paternity conceives paternity as paternity, and this concept does not include the concept of subsistent; for a distinct divine subsistent is distinguished from another distinct divine subsistent neither by 'divine' nor by 'subsistent' but by 'distinct.' (Fs) (notabene)

395c Sixth, as to the arguments that Barth adduces to show that his opinion is traditional, a distinction is needed. The Fourth Lateran Council very clearly teaches that 'there is one supreme reality ... which truly is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; three persons taken together, and each one of them taken singly; ... each of the three persons is that reality ...' (DB 432, DS 804, ND 318). As for the Cappadocian Fathers, who conceived the persons as tropoi tes hyparxeos, 'modes of being,' one must keep in mind the difference between revealed truth, the understanding of which is sought by theology, and this understanding itself, which develops in the course of time. Besides, it is clear that the revealed truth is that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God; and furthermore it is clear that the Cappadocian Fathers acknowledged this revealed truth; and finally, it is clear that the Cappadocian Fathers spoke of tropoi tes hyparxeos by way of explaining this truth. Nor is a simply regressive opinion truly traditional; otherwise there would be eliminated that 'growth in understanding, knowledge, and wisdom,' in the words of Vincent of Lerins, which are quoted with approval by the First Vatican Council. (Fs) (notabene)

395d Seventh, we are fully aware that the syllogisms and distinctions we are presenting have little in common with the method of dialectical theology, which aims at reaching up to the divine Subject in such a way as to avoid an erroneous objectivity. But if this method does not clearly arrive at three divine Subjects, it reveals its own insufficiency. (Fs)

395e Eighth, if in God there is only one subsistent, certainly in God there is only one who can be addressed as 'you.' For we do not usually converse with modes of being. But from what we have shown, it is clear that in God there are three who subsist; and therefore following this reasoning we do not conclude to a single divine 'you.' (Fs) (notabene)

397a Ninth, it is quite clear from scripture that God the Father is one who can be addressed as 'you.' We pray, 'Our Father ...' And our Lord himself prays, '... that all may be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us' (John 17.21). But if the Son himself says 'I' and the disciples address him as 'you,' there is another divine person to whom, according to scripture, one can say 'you.' Finally, since the Holy Spirit is consubstantial and coequal with the Father and the Son, there cannot be denied to the Spirit what is granted to the Father and the Son. Therefore, there are in God three who can be addressed as 'you.' (Fs)

397b Tenth, if the further question is asked whether our interpersonal relations with the three divine persons are such that we can say 'you' to each of them, again a distinction is needed. For if there are included those interpersonal relations which we enter into insofar as we know the real through the true, then certainly, since through the truth revealed by God and accepted by faith we acknowledge three divine persons, we can thereby converse with the Three, addressing each one as 'you.' But if the only interpersonal relations recognized as such are those that are known to the subject through the experience of his or her own intersubjectivity, there arises a whole new and quite complex series of questions that we think best to omit here. For this question1 is really rather abstract and unreal and complex, both because no one knows the Holy Trinity except through revealed truth (DB 1795, DS 3015, ND 131) and because no one is of such feeble intelligence as never to have known the real through the true. (Fs)

1.Kommentar (31/10/09): wichtig; letzter Satz oben; wir erkennen die Realität nur durch die Wahrheit.