Gerard F. OHanlon the Immutability of God in the Theology of Hans Urs Von Balthasar 1990

7/28/2019 Gerard F. OHanlon the Immutability of God in the Theology of Hans Urs Von Balthasar 1990

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3 6 The immutability ofGod

the richness of dialogue between God and us, of which the this-worldly reality of sin is but an aspect. The thought remains

undeveloped here, but Balthasar has said enough to indicate his beliefthat the inherently dramatic nature of divine life - and ourparticipation in it - can embrace negativity without itself beingconstitutedby it. This would suggest an important counter-balance atleast to any tendency to conceive of the divine essence in essentiallykenotic terms.

(3) There follows an historical account of soteriology,94 beginningwith the NT and continuing up to present times, which repeats muchof the information already to hand in our soteriological outline.However it also includes some clarifications, and itis to these that wenow address ourselves.

First, in a discussion of the soteriology of St Thomas Aquinas,95

Balthasar notes with approval the way in which Thomas understandsthe cross as mysteriously effecting, and not just expressing, God'sreconciliation w ith sinners. Balthasar speaks ofa mysterious circle inAquinas' thought which appears also in his theology ofthe prayer ofpetition. In this God has always reckoned with our free requests

within his eternal and immutable plan of salvation, but this means aswell that he lets himself be 'moved' to something through theseprayers. Inner-worldly events, then (sin, the cross), touch God, andyet they do not (sinceall is already contained within the eternal divineplan). Aquinas brings the two poles of this paradox closer together bysaying that itis God's eternal love which determines the loving eventof reconciliation accomplished intime. Once again, from a somewhatsurprising source, since Aquinas is so clearly in favour of the divineimmutability, thereis support for the view that thislove allows itself tobe affected, and by inner-worldly causes.

Next, in an excursus on the soteriology of Karl Rahner,96

Balthasar's own position becomes clearer by contrast to that ofRahner. Central for Rahner, as we have already seen, is the assertiontha t the absolutely immutable God cannotbe changed from an angryto a reconciled God through the inner-worldly event of Christ's cross.Balthasar points out that both the Scriptures and Anselm (whomRahner opposes) knew this in the sense that they asserted that thewhole economy of salvation derived from the love of the Father.Nonetheless Balthasar insists that the reality of God's anger andjustice must be preserved within the over-riding divine love.97 Thiswill mean allowing some kind of willed mutability within God'seternal love - as indeed Aquinas seems to do in his theology of


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Christ and God's immutability 37

petitionary prayer. In fact Rahner himself has formulated thetheologoumenon that God who is immutable in himself can himself

change in what is other than himself, and has spoken of the self-emptying, the kenosis and genesis ofGod - does this not affectGod? Itis quite clear here that Balthasar's criticism of Rahner's soteriologydoes indeed ultimately lead back to their respective positions on thedivine immutability. And while in several works98 Balthasar ex-presses himself in agreement with Rahner's formulation on this issue,it is clear that his own understanding of the Rahnerian formulation,in allowing for change within God, goes further than Rahner wouldwish to go.

(4) Balthasar now presents his own position" - again we willadvert only to clarifications or new elements. In order to integrate thevarious scriptural motifs used to describe Christ's saving work on thecross, we are directed towards an image of a God who is neither animmutable spectator nor a patient being operated on in a passive wayto remove the cancer of sin. Andso Balthasar, as before, focuses on thecentral trinitarian dimension of the cross. On the cross (with thedescent into hell of Christ) the full distance between the Father and

Son is visible as never before. The Holy Spirit who continues to unitethem does so in a way which appears precisely as this distance. In thiswe are given an insight into the full seriousness of the inner-divinedrama. This drama of the immanent Trinity, revealed in theeconomic, canbe appreciated properly only if one avoids an incorrectnotion of the relationship between the immanent and economicTrinity.100 It will not do, like Rahner, to identify too closely the two,emphasising the economic Trinity excessively and formalising theimmanent.10 1 Nor may one, like Moltmann,102 propose a Hegelian-type identification in which the cross is seen as the fulfilment of theTrinity in a Process Theology-like way which has no difficulty indirectly ascribing change and suffering to God, and which ends upwith a mythological, tragic image ofGod. Balthasar relies once moreon Bulgakov to help him strike the correct balance in this matter. TheFather's generation of the Son within the Trinity canbe characterisedas the first divine 'kenosis' which underpins everything else. In it isseen the utter self-giving of the Father to the Son, a renunciation ofbeing divineby himself, a letting go of the divinity and, in thatsense, adivine 'godlessness', prompted by love. To it corresponds the eternalthanksgiving of the Son, as total and uncalculating as the giving ofthe Father, and so absolutely complete that the Son's mission to thepoint of the cross is already contained within his procession from the


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Father and what it involves, andis a modality of that procession. Theabsolute, infinite distance between Father and Son, product of this

divine kenosis, the infinite otherness of the Son from the Father, iseternally held open and yet united and bridged by their commonSpirit, their subsistent 'we'. This inner-divine distance is then whatfreely allows and contains all other inner-worldly distances: it canembrace and overcome even the reality and consequences of sin.Within this context there is no simple identification, as in ProcessTheology, between the world process (including the cross) and theeternal, timeless 'process' of the divine hypostases.The economic doesnot constitute the immanent Trinity. Rather, we must tentativelyapproach the mystery of the inner-trinitarian event by means of anegative theology which rules out any inner-worldly experience andsuffering in God, and yet which establishes that the conditions for thepossibility of such realities outside God are in fact to be found withinGod. But these realities of pain outside God have christological andtrinitarian implications,so that one is then forced to conclude that thetrinitarian event must also allowGod to participate in suffering, mustjustify in fact the full soteriological reality that we have described.

But does this mean that thereis suffering inGod? Balthasargives nosimple answer to this. He speaks of a razor's edge type of theologicalapproach which rejects all fashionable talk of'God's pain', and whichyet must take into account that the economic revelation of the Trinityin Christ seems to demand the very thing which negative ('philosoph-ical') theology forbids - the participation ofGod in suffering.103 Thuswhile Balthasar distances himself from Moltmann's direct talk aboutsuffering in God, nonetheless he vindicates the thrust of Moltmann,and Protestant theology in general, in taking serious account of theBiblical 'pathos ' ofGod in a way which is lacking in an image ofGodbased on the classically understood divine'apatheia'.10* There is inGod, in the careless105 self-forgetfulness of the divine event, thestarting-point for that which can become suffering whenit comes intocontact with our careful selfishness. And yet Balthasar does notactually say that God suffers. He refrains from doing so because hebelieves tha t the demands of negative theology are just and that onemay not reduce God to a mythological figure necessarily involved in

the world process. But ifone accepts all these just demands may onenot still, in response to the requirements of the revelation in Christ,speak of God's suffering? Itis clear that Balthasar wants to posit somereality in God that at least corresponds to suffering. We will return tothis point. Balthasar does go on to contend that the philosophical


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rejection of all emotions inGod has only a limited justification, and hedraws on the treatise by Lactantius De Ira D ei to show this.106

Lactantius is attacking the attribution toGod by many of the ChurchFathers of the notion of impassability,apatheia. He maintains tha t aGod who is happy and involved in our world, but who only loves anddoes not also hate what is evil, would be self-contradictory anddeserving of norespect. Anger is an integral aspect of the grace of Godin dealing with hum an beings who reject the divine law. God's angeris intimately connected with the OT notions of God's zeal for thecovenant, his jealousy with regard to Israel, his chosen one. Thisdivine anger - mentioned about 1,000 times in theOT107 - is real andyet always contained within God's love and mercy, and this is true ofthe NT as well. The anger of Jesus in the NT is not just somethinghuman but is rather an expression of the divine attitude. Andultimately of course it is Jesus himself who, on the cross, bears theburden of this divine anger at sin and disarms it in his representationof us.108

In this context Balthasar goes even further in describing how allthis affects God, and so, by implication, how one must speak of

suffering, or emotion of some kind, in God. He refers to the crediblepresentation by A. Heschel of God's passionate engagement in ourworld, God's 'pathos'.109 The divine pathos, according to Heschel, isnot an essential attribute or immutable quality of God. Rather itis anaspect of God's involvement in our world which expresses his'constant care and concern',so that God is 'moved and affected'by theprocess of our world; he is 'involved, even stirred by the conduct ofmen' to joy or sorrow, agreement or indignation, to communicate

love or anger as a form of 'suspended love'. This loving and just divinepathos is distinguished from the anthropomorphic representation ofemotion in mythological deities. Balthasar's approving references toHeschel on this theme are extremely significant. He rejectsMoltmann's attempt to integrate Heschel into a system which wouldinsist on the absolute identity of immanent and economic Trinity andthus tend towards a mythological notion of a sufferingGod. Heschel'sdivine pathos is not simply a passive affection: itis an ethical responseto human action which passionately summons us to a moreappropriate response.His way of insinuating thatwhile God is affectedby us, still he is so in a way which clearly demonstrates his ownmastery of the situation, harmonises well with Balthasar's ownattempt to locate the capacity of God to respond in this way to ustotally within the Trinityitself. 110 In other words, all the modalitiesof


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40 The immutability ofGod

responsible love are already co ntain ed a t leastvirtualiter within God -we are needed no t to m ake Godresponsive as such, but only to enable

him to respond to us. However, within this carefully determinedperspective it is clear th at Ba lthas ar is indeed a rgu ing for some kind ofsuffering and feeling within God. But what kind? Certainly not thekind which would attribute suffering to God as one of his essentialqualities - Balthasar makes this clear in refusing Moltmann's use ofHeschel and in draw ing a ttentio n to the latter's ow n rejection of anyattempt within the Western metaphysical perspective to interpretw ha t he m ea ns . But would it satisfy these criteria, an d the rejection oftheop aschism, to s tate th a t God freely decides ou t of love to suffer? Ormust we say that what freely takes place in God out of love isan alo gou s to w ha t we call suffering, a supra-suffering?111 Or, finally,might not one of the differentiating qualities in God's analogoussuffering - in so far as these may properly be identified - be preciselythe freedom of divine suffering? We await further clarification toestablish more clearly the truth of the reality Balthasar intends toconvey.

The assessment of B althasar'ssoteriology: a methodological note

The main concern of our enquiry is the issue of the divineimmutability; the methodological question now arises as to thebearing of an assessment of subsidiary issues (in this case Balthasar'scontroverted soteriology) on this main concern.

We note first th at a definitive assessm ent of B altha sar's soteriologylies beyon d t he brief of the prese nt enq uiry .112 What we have tried to

present is the inherent plausibility of the main lines of his approach,which has affinities with Anselm and Barth. This approach indicateswhy the loving God's forgiveness of our sins is such a costly business,and why atonement is appropriate to respond to the divine anger,wh ich in tu rn is a mark of the divine respect for ou r freedom. Of coursethis position on atonement is challenged by many contemporarytheologians: Schillebeeckx,113 for example, plays down the salvificvalue of the cross altogether, while Rahner,1 14 as we have seen, iscritical of the Anselmian approach. O'Collins in particular maintainsthat Balthasar's approach presents a monstrous view of God,influenced by 'dogma tic preconceptions' an d misinterpreting the NewTestament.115 How ever, this is too sweeping - it does seem to me th atBalthasar's position has the great advantage of pointing up theintrinsically costly dimension of God's forgiveness of sin. Thisadv anta ge w ould be better ma intain ed against his critics if Balthasar.


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as Schwager suggests,116 related the anger of the Father more to thedivine permissive th an to direct will, and if itwere also made clear that

in expressing this anger the Fatheris in solidarity with all the victimsof unjust oppression throughout human history.11 7

Secondly, a provisional plausible position on soteriology satisfiesthe methodological requirements of our study. This isso because firstof all Balthasar's position on the divine immutabilitywill be the resultof considerations derived from several different areas of theology, andso will not be dependent on the correctness of any one of theseareas.11 8 And secondly it will be possible to assess the validity of theposition on immutability on its own merits, and from its viewpoint, ifnecessary and desirable, to return to question and assess some of thesubsidiary issues which led to this position, including the soteriolog-ical issue that we have just been addressing.To a certain extent, then,there is a reciprocal relationship in our study between the severalsubsidiary issues and the main theme of divine immutability, with thelatter holding primacy both in terms of ultimate interest and in termsof evaluative function. This relationship does not constitute a viciouscircle, despite the fact tha t itis only through the subsidiary issues tha t

we can arrive at a position on our central issue, provided that ourposition on the subsidiary issues cannot be shown to be inherentlycontradictory, and provided that our position on the central issue isopen to an independent assessment. This kind of independentassessment would base itself on the intrinsic intelligibility ofBalthasar's final position on the divine immutability, prescindingfrom its derivation from the several subsidiary topics we will havetreated. If this intelligibility can be established, then, to an extent thatneeds to be specified, the judgement on the subsidiary issues will bemore definitely favourable. If this intelligibilityis lacking it maystill bepossible to distinguish strong and weak points, and so to trace backand identify the required modifications of theissues in question. But inany case enough has been saidto justify the procedure thatis adoptedhere, and throughout the foundational part of our enquiry, as wemove towards Balthasar's position on the divine immutability in ourfourth chapter.

Thirdly, having clarified the general lines of our procedure it maystill be useful at this point in our enquiry to anticipate a little how aparticular assessment of Balthasar's soteriology might influence hisposition on the divine immutability. The fact that Christ suffers on thecross and tha t this implies something aboutGod which requires somemodification of the traditional teaching on the divine immutability isa generally accepted theological position nowadays.119 Such is not the


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case when it comes to his explanation of the manner of Christ'ssubstitutionary representation of us on the cross, and the way in

which God's anger at sin is resolved through the loving but painfuldialogue to the point of abandonment between Father and Son.Balthasar's controverted120 position here means that a certainnegativity is inserted into the inner-trinitarian relationships - is thispossible? Our judgement on this will have to await the fullerpresentation of his theology of the trinitarian event in chapter 4.

The status quaestionis: does the cross change God?

Through the two related aspects of Balthasar's theology of the crosswe have verified the hypothesis, advanced in our discussion of theincarnation, tha t the key to his understanding ofthe divine immuta-bility is to be found in his notion of the trin itarianevent. We have alsoconfirmed the main lines of our previous description of this event. Wehave filled out this descriptionby adverting to how tha t whichis mostopposed to God may, in Balthasar's view, be contained within therelationship between the Father and the Son, as it is maintained by

the Holy Spirit. This has led to a most dramatic image ofGod, and tosome further unanswered queries aboutits kenotic character and theplace of negativity withinGod. Furthermore the question about God'ssuffering has been raised and developed in a very explicit way -Balthasar's final position on this issue will become clear only after aconsideration of his views on the nature and person of Christ (towhich we turn next), and of his definitive treatment of this wholequestion in the eschatological context ofTD, iv (to which we addressourselves in chapter 2). Other outstanding issues (the use ofparadoxical and imaginative language in interpreting thecross whichraises difficulties about theological discourse, the relationship be-tween time and eternity) have been noted and will be treated whereappropriate later on in our study. In a methodological note we haveindicated as well the way in which our final position on the divineimmutability may be assessed, without the need to offer a definitivejudgement on particular issues which form part of the approachtowards that central topic.

The person and nature of Christ

Traditionally theologians have spoken of the immutability andimpassibility of the divine nature, while allowing that Christ could


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change and suffer inhis human nature.121 Balthasar goes beyond thisChalcedonian framework in his Christology. We need now to

investigate this matter of the constitution of Christ (as distinct fromour account of the incarnation as event on p. 11 above) preciselybecause of its relevance in the tradition to the question of divineimmutability.

First, by way of establishing the param eters ofhis thought, it shouldbe made clear that Balthasar's attitude to the Chalcedonian dogmaitself is much closer to that of Barth than to tha t of Moltmann.122 Farfrom dismissing the two-natures distinction, Balthasar sees thisdogma as protecting the mystery which Scripture proposes to us.12 3

In going beyond Chalcedon, then, heis not claiming that its teachingis incorrect. Rather he sees himself as being faithful to the scripturalwitness in retaining the truth of Chalcedon and yet going beyond thatCouncil's particular, historically limited content and function in orderto come to a more adequate presentation of the mystery for our times.Thus from his discussion inMP of the text in Philippians 2, 5-11 , inwhich he arrives at the necessity of positing a real kenosis inGod, andfrom his repeated emphasis on the ontological, personal identity of the

Logos as the subject who unites the two distinct natures in Christ, hewill refuse to limit the change and suffering which Christ experiencesto his hum an nature alone.12 4 This is the advance on Chalcedon andits traditional interpretation which Balthasar proposes. The tendencyto consider the human nature of Christ as aninstrumentum conjunc-tum125 which does not affect the divine person he sees as Nestorian incharacter. Andso he is anxious to insist ona more than merely logicalcommunicatio idiomatum,12 6 to accept that the formula 'one of theTrinity has suffered' does indeed mean that God has 'suffered', albeitmysteriously. But why 'mysteriously'; why not say univocally thatGod suffers? Because - and here we find Balthasar's respect forChalcedon - there is an enduring and incommensurable differencebetween God and the world, between the divine and human'unmixed' natures of Christ. Any facile attribution of change andsuffering to God, based on the fact that the person of Christis affectedby his hum an nature , represents a failure to maintain the distinctionbetween the natures; itis a relapse into monophysitism and results ina mythical notion of God.

Secondly, we must attempt to indicate how Balthasar developsfurther this razor's edge approach.12 7 By refusing to limit the humanexperience of Christ to his human nature alone, is he not in factabandoning what Rahner describes as the 'pure Chalcedonian'


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position to take on a 'neo-Chalcedonian' one which is incompatiblewith Balthasar's own insistence on the enduring distinction between

the two natures?128

There is no clear-cut answer to this dilemma, butthe approaches towards an answer are instructive. One suchapproach is by way ofgoing beyond a philosophically-derived notionof the divine nature, with its attempt to specify essential divineattributes, to a consideration of the data of revelation which show usthat God's nature is in fact intrinsically inter-personal, is thestructured trinitarian eventto which we have so often referred.129 Thedivine attribute or prerogative now is love, so that the real kenosis inGod, invovled in Christ's incarnation and cross and the way in whichChrist 'deposits'(Hinterlegung) all he has and is with the Father duringhis earthly existence, is entirely consonant with this notion ofGod aspersonal trinitarian event.13 0 In other words there is the basis in Godfor what can become suffering. Within this perspective, while thephilosophically-based notion of the divine nature is retained - and soit is not said that God suffers in his divine nature - nonetheless moreemphasis is placed on the freedom of the divine persons to be as they,in love, decide to be, and hence to be affected personally in their

mutual relations by the suffering of Christ.131

But all this still leaves us with a certain disassociation between thehuman and divine natures of Christ that would seem difficult tosustain. It seems strange tha t the kind of influence which the earthlylife of Jesus has on the persons of the Trinity should have nofoundation at all in their ownnature. A second approach in Balthasaris more promising in this regard. In it, while maintaining the realdistinction between the divine and hum an natures, he time and again

refers to the way in which Christ's humanity is an appropriateexpression of the divinity.132 Within this perspective he will speak of a'christological analogy of Being' within which it becomes possible,without identifying the two natures, to speak of a certain likenesswithin the ever-greater dissimilarity between the human and div-ine.13 3 This way of speaking may be illustrated by what he has to sayon the obedience of Christ as being the supreme manifestation of thedivine being.13 4 When speaking thus Balthasar makes it crystal clearthat there is no creaturely obedience in any univocal sense withinGod. Yet because Christ is obedient, and is the Son of God andexpression of God, there must be some mysterious way in whichobedience is not foreign to God, or in which hum an obedience pointsto something real in the nature of God. Can this 'something real',analogous to human obedience, be specified any further? It seems it


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can be. Balthasar claims tha twhile the use of the concept of obedienceto describe the Son's relationship to the Father in the Trinity is an

anthropomorphism, nonetheless, since all speech about God is insome sense anthropomorphic and since this particular concept has abasis in scriptural texts such as Philippians 2, 7, it does point to areality which one may not simply think away.13 5 This reality isdifferent from that of human obedience, which is based ultimately onour ontological status as creatures who come from nothing and areradically dependent. However, one may identify a positive aspect ofhuman obedience which can serve as an image of whatis in God, as arevelation ofthe divine being. This aspect may be described as a filialattitude. When applied toGod it points to the way in which the wholebeing of the Son is there to express and represent the Father, withoutany trace of subordination. Furthermore it points to the perfectselflessness and self-sacrificing nature of love in God, in all itstrinitarian dimensions. In other words, whereas human obedience,even when freely rendered, is rooted in the natural necessity whichbinds the creature to his creator, there is an essential freedom in thisreality when itis applied to God, a freedom whichis proper to that love

which is inherent in the divine natu re. This type of specification of theway human realities of Christ may be applied to God involves arejection of those aspects of the realities which are proper to thedependent, contingent nature of creatures. It involves instead anacceptance of those aspects which point to a mode of love thatembraces a self-givingto the point ofbeing freely affected by the other,and a divine enrichment that is neither necessary, nor temporal, norcaused by anything externalto God (since the whole of creation,as weshall see in the next section and more fully in chapter 2, is In ' Christand God).

It is within this second approach, and within a contemporarycontext which can evaluate suffering and receptivity in a morepositive light than was possible within a cosmologically-groundednatural theology lacking in developed personalist categories,136 thatBalthasar moves to posit an analogous suffering in the divine natu re.It is this tendency in his thought which explains why he draws onwriters like Lactantius and Heschel to support the contention thatthere is something like suffering in God, a supra-kenosis or supra-suffering. And the use of the analogy between human suffering andthe reality which corresponds to it in God will be regulated along thelines already described with reference to the notion of obedience.However, in all such cases itis useful to recall that the small progress


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in specifying how the analogy works does not by any means dissolvethe mystery. In particular it is worth noting that analogous attri-

bution cannot simply be divided up into aspects that are identicallysimilar between God and us and others which are totally different,137

rather as if one were to describe a centaur as being similar anddissimilar to a man and were able then togo on to identify in a preciseway the similarity and dissimilarity. The gap between creator andcreature is so great that even after one has eliminated those aspectsofthe created analogue which quite simply do not apply to God - forexample the ontological necessity inherent in human obedience - onemust still respect the fact that the positive aspects - for example thefilial attitude expressing the selflessness oflove - are present in God ina way that is very different from its presence in us. Nonetheless,granted some similarity - without which all talk about God isequivocal - can one from scriptural, theological considerations positan analogous suffering, anger, pathos and so on in the divine nature,just as traditionally one spoke in philosophical terms of God'sanalogous love, knowledge, power and so on?

There is no direct answer to this question in Balthasar.He does not

explicitly say that there is an analogous suffering in God's divinenature . The two approaches presented here are not related in such away that the tendency to posit an analogous suffering in the divinenature is actually realised and affirmed in those terms.13 8 Thelanguage is altered slightly, and many careful formulations - forexample, that the obedience of Christis a human revelation both of hisdivine person an d of hisdivine being (seines gottlichen Wesens)13 9 - areused which avoid a direct statement about an analogous suffering inthe divine natu re. Perhaps these two approaches can and ought to befurther related and, while remaining respectful of the mystery, weshould give a more definitive answer to our question in the terms it isposed here; this is something we will return to later. Certainly therefusal to go this far has probably obviated the need for a moresystematic philosophical engagement with both Process thinkers andtraditional Thomists. What we get instead is a transposition of thediscussion into the terminology of thedivine trinitarian event, with itsfocus on the nature of God as inter-personal and on an analogybetween human and divine nature which is regulated by thedifference between divine and human love. We may expect furtherenlightenment in this particular area from our discussion of the divineattributes in chapter 2.


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The God/Christ relationship as model for the God/usrelationship

The relationship between God and Christ is one ofexpression and ofdialogue. First, then, as expression of God, Christ tells us about theFather, himself, the Spirit, and the one trinitarian divine being ofGod.140 As word of the Father he is the archetype of everyself-expression of God ad extra.14 1 By 'expression', a term developed insome detail by Balthasar in his treatment of Bonaventure,142 he doesnot mean that Christis a mere reduplication of the Father.14 3 Rather -and this takes us on to the second aspect of the relationship - Christ ispersonally other than the Father, so that God is revealed as atrinitarian event in which there is mutual interaction and dialoguebetween the personalpoles.144 In being so clear about the tri-personalnature of the mysteriously one, identical, absolute, divine being,Balthasar is affirming the reality ofa real I/Thou14 5 exchange withinGod who is love.

This trinitarian relationship between God and Christ is the modelfor the relationship between God and us. In particular the reality of

Christ as personal expression and dialogue partner of the Fatherbecomes the exemplar of our relationship with God.146 Thus, whilecreation in general is an expression of God, andis taken into the inner-trinitarian relationship by existing 'in* Christ, this is particularly trueof the human being, made in God's image and likeness, and sharingthe same nature as Christhimself. 147 Of course this is not to say thatcreated being ever sheds its creaturely status; created being in itsvarious hierarchial grades, including humankind, is a deficient,

analogical expression of God, whereas Christ, who uniquelyisGod,

isthe perfect divine expressionad extra.14 8 Nonetheless this generalframework indicates the likelihood that, within the careful para-meters already outlined, Balthasar's theology of creation and itshistory will allow for some interaction with God ofa kind which willsupport the positions noted so far on the issues ofGod's immutabilityand impassibility. This framework will have to accomodate in itsdetail the objection that nothing can be added to God - that, in thewords of the old Scholastic adage, while creation m eans tha t there aremore beings, it does not mean that there is more ofbeing {plus entia,nonplus entis).149 These details will emerge in our second chapter; fornow it is enough to have indicated how the notion of Christ asexpression and dialogue partner ofGod is used by Balthasar to suggestan analogous relationship between us and God.


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Summing up

This christological account has shown us how Balthasar, blendingdifferent themes together in an internally consistent and complemen-tary way, can answer both 'yes' and 'no' to the question about changein God. His careful approach firmly rejects any direct speech about themutability of God, just as it also insists on the need to qualify thetraditional understanding of divine immutability. A middle way issought by appealing to the trinitarian presuppositions of Christology,and in particular to an understanding ofthe Trinity in terms of whatmay be referred to analogously as an event of inter-personal divinelove. A more precise description and explanation ofthis event, alongwith its significance for the issue at hand, willbe presented in chapter4. It will involve, as has become obvious on many occasions in thecourse of our christological discussion, some account of the relation-ship between time and eternity (chapter 3) and of the whole natureoftheological discourse (chapter4). In the meantime, in orderto presentan adequate descriptive account of the data used by Balthasar as asource ofhis explanatory theology of thedivine immutability,we need

in chapter 2 to examine the bearing which created reality and itshistory have on our issue.

Within this formal framework it is worth highlighting someparticular aspects which have emerged and are crucial for ourcontinuing enquiry. One such aspect is the identification, in varyingdegrees of detail, of the divine freedom as being an importantregulatory principle in differentiating the analogous attribution toGod of created properties such as suffering. Balthasar's thought in this

area, presented most fully in our section on theperson and nature ofChrist, needs the further development itwill receive in chapter2 in thesection on the attributes of God in order to become at leastdescriptively clear, although its ultimate grounding must lie in histheology of the trinitarian event. Related to this aspect are severalquestions which are inter-related and also demand a trinitariananswer. These concern the precise description of negativity withinGod, the extent to which Godis pan-kenotic, the varying suggestionswhich imply tha t thereis a 'wound ' inGod always, or that in factGodis touched only in his 'outer' and not in his 'inner' being. In theseBalthasar's concern seems to be to preserve the divine freedom andsovereignty while allowing for the power oflove to be vulnerable - butonce again we need to develop his thought further before we can


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assess the validity ofhis attempt. A final aspect worth highlighting isthe way in which our methodological note (seep. 40 above) spelled

out in some detail the relationship between subsidiary and mainissues and thus facilitated our procedure throughout the enquiry.


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Creation and God's immutability

God created our world and entered into a covenant with men and

women. This covenant involves the gradual, free, historical insertionof humankind into the life of God, a process that culminatesdefinitively at some end-point. Itis not our concern to offer a theologyof creation, the history of salvation and eschatologysimpliciter, butrather to present Balthasar's thought on how these areas affect ourtheology ofGod. In other words, do the act of creation, the historicalinteraction with creatures and the end result of that interaction affectGod, matter to him, change him? This relational way of putting thequestion indicates that, within the rich multiplicity and variety ofcreated kind, our focus will be mainly on humankind, so that alongwith the metaphysical question concerning the possibility of the veryexistence of created reality we will be addressing the more existentialpoint, so important to Christian spirituality, concerning the sig-nificance of men and women for God, the sense in which theirrelationship with him is one of reciprocity. Can such a non-Deisticrelationship be conceived without lapsing into the other extreme ofamythological God?1 It is one thing to concede the possibility, within

the framework outlined in chapter i of Christ (who is God) affectingGod; it is quite another matter, worthy of distinct and more detailedconsideration, to ask whether we (who are not God, and not Christ)can also in some way affect God.

The act of creation: its presuppositions and effects

(i) We may beginby laying down the parameters of the discussionwith a set of basic statements.

First, the act of creation does not change God.2 Nor does thecreation of hum an freedom, with all that this involves, change God.3

These bald assertions are intended to convey Balthasar's rejection ofany mythological change in God which might so easily be suggestedby a common-sense, picture-thinking approach to this question


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Creation and God's immutability 51

which immerses God in our spatio-temporal world. The decision tocreate is not taken in time, and the space occupied by creation is not

outside God but is rather within the divine, eternal life.4

And so ifBalthasar goes beyond Aquinas and is willing to speak of a realrelationship between God and creation,5 he does so within a contextwhich - as in the case of our discussion of the incarnation - seescreation as one of the infinite possibilities which lie within God'seternal life.6 This means that, once again, it is the divine, trinitarian'event' itself which, in its eternal liveliness, is the locus for anythingwhich may remotely resemble change in God.

Secondly, this divine event is the presupposition of creation.7 Thisstatement is meant in two differentways. First it is intended to identifythe actual roles, and their appropriateness, of the three Persons of theTrinity in the act of creation and its subsequent history. While allthree Persons are responsible for creating, it is possible to specifyfurther their proper contribution.8 The role of the Son is of particularimportance andwe have already indicatedsome of its significance (seep. 47 above); the Son as word and expression ofthe Father is not justthe efficient but also the exemplary and final cause of creation.By this

it is meant tha t the world, and especially men and women, participatein a limited way in the Son's role and being as expression and idea ofGod, and are thus 'in' the Son.9 However the second meaning of thestatement concerning the divine presupposition of creation is moreimportant for present purposes.This meaning relates to whatwe havealready hinted at about the importance of establishing tha tGod is lovein himself, independently of any creation. The mystery of the Trinitydoes establish this, and in so doing clears the way for the specificallyChristian notion of a free creation, beyond all Gnostic-type theoriesofan impersonal emanationist and natural creation, or the moremodern, idealistic, Hegelian-type attempts to see creation as a way inwhich God becomes himself (thus confusing the realms of creator andcreation in a way which can lead either to pantheism or to atheismaccording to the way the basic thought is developed).10 If God is love'already' as Trinity, if this love is natural only in the sense that,beyond our notions of freedom and necessity, it constitutes the beingof God, without any hint of external exigency, then we can see the

sense in which creation can derive from and be an expression of thissame divinelove without at all losing its character as a free act of God.God is necessary, creation is not; and yet creationis due to what mostcentrally makes God divine - viz. his being as love, now expressedfreely ad extra. Balthasar speaks ofa caesura11 between God's eternal


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'yes' within the Trinity and the 'yes' which seals the free decision tocreate - the function of this caesura is not to introduce a temporal

factor into God's being, but rather to point out that, while God'seternal inner-divine liveliness does not naturally issue in creation,nonetheless the freedom with which he creates is in accordance withhis nature as love in the self-giving way tha tis revealed in the Trinity.Within this framework creation is affirmed as good in its own,dependent reality: it is not God, but neither is it a mere accident orappearance.

Thirdly, then, the statement that the worldis real and distinct from,if dependent on, God leads to a series of assertions which touchdirectly on the issue of the divine immutability and, furthermore,point to the need to deepen our present discussion. Thus Balthasarcan speak of the real and mutual relationship between God and theworld (in particular the world of human beings), which God freelyenters into but by which he is then in a certain sense bound andlimited.12 The language of kenosisis used to describe this situation, asit was to describe the original event within God, and realities such asthe incarnation and cross.13 By it Balthasar means to assert that this

kind of limitation is not something foreign to God, making him lessthan divine14 - rather, as indicated in our first chapter, it is preciselyhere that we find he central NT revelation ofthe power of God's lovewhich can remain itself while taking on the very real modality ofweakness. In other words, once again we are referred to thetrinitarian event for an explanation of the kind of effect whichcreation may have onGod. But this will only work if we can find someway to allow creation its distinctive reality while rooting it firmly nthe trinitarian life ofGod. How can this be done? If creation is simplydistinct from God, then it limits him in a way not adequately explainedby the divine event alone, while if creation exists simply within thedivine event then one must question whether itis really distinct fromGod and, in particular, from Christ. Whatis required then is a furtherreflection on the formal identity of the partners in the God/worldrelationship before we go on to consider the dynamics of therelationship itself.

(2) Christian revelation and spirituality are so imbued with thenotion of a mutual relationship betweenGod and the world that it cantake something of an effort to appreciate the philoso-phical-theological problem that this involves.15 The denial byAquinas of the existence of any real relation between God and theworld is but one form of the way in which ancient and modern


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Creation and God's immutability S3

thinkers have come to conclusions on this issue which are apparentlyat variance with the simple scriptural 'given'. Why does one speak of

the riddle of the participation of things in the divine ideas of them?16

The problem becomes apparent when one takes into account thereality of God's 'otherness', which is equally well grounded inChristian revelation and spirituality and also has philosophicalroots.17 God as creator is so totally other from us his creatures tha t hedoes not simply stand against us as the other in anI/Thourelationship, but, in being superiorto us, is in fact closer to us than weare to ourselves (St Augustine's interior intimo meo et superior summomeo), is in fact the 'not-other '.The creator is unique in existing simply,absolutely; we exist by participation in him, our very definition ascreatures implying a constant relation of dependency on ourcreator.18 This means that God is not constituted by any relation hemay have to the world, whereas we are constituted by our relation toGod.19 It is this basic truth, of course, which Aquinas intends toexpress by his rejection ofthe technically-understood notion ofa realrelation betweenGod and the world. And this 'otherness ' of God, withits strange mixture of transcendence and immanence, means that the

relationship between us and God is no ordinary one of mutuality andreciprocity as between two human equals.20 An equal relationshiplike this would make God mythological. In particular because God isfully, and we exist only 'in' him,(viz. by participation in his beingaccording to an image and likeness of him that develops throughhistory), then it is we and not God who are changed in thisrelationship as we become more fully like him. But before we candevelop this aspect of the relationship, and qualify this latter assertionin the way Balthasardoes, we must first ackle the more basic problemconcerning this 'otherness' of God. This may be formulated by askinghow, ifGod is the fullness of Being,is everything (Sir. 43, 2 7; 1 Cor 15,28), there can exist anything else atall?21 We have already identifiedthis problem in terms of how creation can be both distinct from Godand yet 'in' God. Its philosophical form is that of the questionconcerning the one and the many. One may ask how, ifone equatesthe Absolute with Being, and outsideBeing there is nothing, there canbe room for the many relative realities which are not God, not the

Absolute. The answer will be important of course, but so too is thequestion, for without the latterone fails to appreciate the problem andthus the careful language and distinctions which are required whenone speaks of the mutual relationship between God and the world.

We must now look more closely at Balthasar's trinitarian answer to


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this problem. The key insight here is that it is of the essence of God,who is absolute and thus dependent on nothing outsidehimself, to be

triune, which meansto be internally related inlove as Father, Son andHoly Spirit. This positive reality of distinction and difference withinthe one, absolute God is what makes possible the existence, throughfree creation, of the many distinct beings which are other than Godand intrinsically related to him in dependence.22 It makes it possiblebecause difference - the Father isnot the Son - is seen as somethingcentral to the divine omnipotence understood as love, and so the factthat creatures are different, are not God, in no way limits thisomnipotence.Of course this creaturely 'not' (the creature is not God)is not identical with the trinitarian 'not' (the Father is not the Son),otherwise once again we would be forced into saying that creation isnecessary. But given that creation is a free act of God'slove, its true ifanalogous reality must be understood to be grounded in thetrinitarian 'not' - the infinite distance between the world andGod hasits foundation in that original distance between God and God, withinGod.23 In particular, of course, the created world as expression andgift ofGod is to be understood accordingto the trin itarian reality of the

Son's existence as expression and gift of the Father. As image andlikeness ofGod creation participates in a limited and multiple way inthe unique, singular and full expression of the Father by the Son. Itsgoodness can be seen in the way in which creaturely becoming canboth express the inner liveliness of the eternal relationship betweenthe Father and the Son and be a sign of increasing faithfulness to theIdea of creation present in the Son as expression of the Father.24

What is being saidhere is tha t it is the fact thatGod is relational tha t

allows the world to exist, taken up as it is into that relation betweenthe Father and Son which is the Holy Spirit. A relational trinitarianGod is one in whom distinction does not abolish unity. Itis accordingto this model that the Hypostatic Union is correctly interpreted byChalcedon inits so-called two-natures teaching, which states that thedivine and human natures of Christ are unmixed and yet inseparable,while both the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union are models for acorrect understanding of the relationship between the world and Godin which the world's distinctionis maintained within its intrinsic andnecessary ordering to God. That the distinct reality of the world is infact constitutedby this relation to God - while the reality of God,as wehave seen, is in no way constituted by the existence of the world -means that one may speak of a real and m utual relationship of God tothe world only within the real relationship betweenGod and God, thatis between the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit.25


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Formulations like the above owe much to a relational ontologywhich goes beyond but includes the categories of substance meta-

physics more familiar to ancient philosophy. Balthasar himself alsouses a more explicitly pictorial approach to get the same pointsacross.26 The life of God involves an eternal, mutual exchange of lovebetween persons who are different - and thisis only possible if there issomething like an infinite space and duration within God. TheTrinitarian event, then, means that the Father's 'womb' is 'empty'once he has generated the Son, that the Son who is God in receivingrather than taking is 'poor' in all his richness, that the Holy Spirit asmere 'breath' of the Father and Son is in some sense also 'withoutbeing' - in other words the self-giving of the persons within thetrinitarian life of love, which includes the way in which each personallows the other two to be, involves this kind of freedom of space,without any implication tha tGod is less than God because ofthis. Andit is within this space that we find our home, so tha t just as in God theFather never absorbs the Son but all three Persons remain distinct, sotoo we are allowed to be and remain ourselves and free within theroom which God gives us in his own home.

It will be useful now to summarise how what has been saidestablishes the formal framework of the God/world relationship in away which addressed the objections we have made and opens up anapproach to considering how the dynamics of this relationship mayaffect God. The trinitarian event means that there is difference withinthe unity ofGod and a personal exchange which involves an eternalliveliness and increase.2 7 The more exactdetails of this event, whetherin pictorial or in more technical form, will be presented in chapter 4;for now, the important assertionis tha t the worldis itself, and distinct,only as related to God, and hence that it adds to God not in anyquantitive sense but only as a further expression of the relationshipbetween the Father and the Son. In other words, the world in itselfis'from nothing'; its reality initself, which is true and distinct, is fromGod, in particular from the free expression of the Father in the Son,and so any 'adding' that is involved is to be understood only withinthe 'adding' that is part of the eternal event of Father, Son and HolySpirit.28 This means tha t the existence ofGod and the world togetheris not greater than the existence of God alone,29 except in the sensethat God himself as trinitarian event oflove is always 'ever-greater'.What it is vital to grasp hereis that any effect of the world onGod doesnot emanate from a reality external to God; the world on its own isnothing - its power tobe, to be distinct and to affect God comes fromGod. One might object that it is one thing to accept that differences


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exist within God of a personal kind which are shown in the 'ever-greater' of the trinitarian event, but that the widening of the term

'difference' to embrace distinct beings who are not God brings with itprecisely the unacceptable corollary that God is affected by external,created reality. However the brunt of Balthasar's argumentis tha t it isthe trinitarian difference that makes possible the one between creatorand creature; that within the infinite distance between Father andSon, and the infinite possibilities this contains, there lies theintelligibility of the free creation of our finite world. To put it crudely,then, that God can posit the world as real and distinct fromhimself,albeit united in dependent relationshipto him, is less miraculous thantha t within God himself there should existFather, Son and Holy Spirit,really distinct and yet one.30 The paradoxical fact that creationpossesses its 'of itselfness' from God and not apart from him is madepossible by the trinitarian mystery in which identity of nature andbeing is within personal opposition.31 And this means that when Godfreely actuates one of the infinite possibilities inherent in the divineevent by creating our world, what the world, which is not-God, givesto God is in fact its own but is so from God - it is, then, God's own gift to

me but also to himself within the life of the Trinity.32

Which means inturn , of course, tha t any change tha t occurs in God due to us does sofrom and within the trinitarian event.

It is worth stressing again that Balthasar is clear that the world isnot just some sort of appearance, lacking in a reality of its own, nor isits reality, distinct fromGod, provisionalas if it were its ultimate fate tobe absorbed in God. The world exists really, participating in theexistence of God; and human freedom in particular, analogous to

God's infinite freedom, is genuine even when it goes against itscharacter as image ofGod in issuing in a creaturely 'no' to God. Thismeans tha t there is a real sense in which - as was true of Christ - theworld is both the expression and the dialogue partner ofGod, so tha twe may indeed speak, with care, of a covenant and a mutualrelationship between God and the world.33 This needs to be stressedbecause phrases which speak of the worldas 'taken up into' the divinerelationship between Father and Son, as 'within' the trinitarian event,as 'in ' the Son, or of time and history as being 'contained' in eternity,and so on, convey linguistically the impression that the reality of theworld is downgraded. It should be clear by now that with the use ofsuch language Balthasar in fact intends to convey the exact opposite:in his view the only way to guarantee the distinct reality of the worldis to see it in dependent relation toGod. It is intrinsic toGod's power as


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trinitarian love to be able freely to create beings that are not-God, andwhich yet are such precisely as part of the relationship between

Father and Son.(3) We have been establishing in a formal way the identity ofcreation in order to prepare the ground for an understanding of howGod might be affected in the dynamics of his relationship with theworld. The absolutely dependent being of the world has beenpresented, according to the christological and trinitarian models andcauses, as distinct precisely in its relation to God, particularly in itsparticipation in the trinitarian relationship of the Son to the Fatherwhich involves the Holy Spirit. This is a different understanding frompositions which would say that the world is necessary, or a mereappearance, or is God, or is distinct from God in the sense of beingindependent or separate. Rather, the world is really but relativelyindependent. Creation is most itself and most free when it realises itsdependence on God, by analogy with the Son's utter receptivity andgratitude towards the Father. This means that Balthasar has indeedestablished a framework within which we, who are not God and notChrist, may in some way affect God. We may do so as one of the

modalities ofthe eternally enriching relationship between the Fatherand the Son: the mutuality of the I/Thou relationship between Godand the world is real, with a proper contribution from the side of theworld, but all within the relationship between God and God in theTrinity. And in this way of courseGod is no more limited - in the senseof being made less thanGod - by his relationship with the world thanhe is by the intra-divine relational life.

The historical aspect of the relationship between creationand God

Having established who the 'partners' are in the God/world relation-ship we now go on to investigate the sense in which this relationshipmay be said to develop or change th rough time. It is clear, of course,that human beings undergo change in their relationship with Godover time. However, given that Balthasar has established thepossiblity that creatures may affectGod as one of the modalities of therelationship between the Father and the Son, we will now examinehow this possibility is actualised in the course of hum an history. Wewill consider three themes through which Balthasar develops hisapproach to this issue.


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God's immutable providence and our free history

What does human temporal freedom imply for our understanding ofthe eternal immutability of the divine plan and of God himself? Thisquestion is addressed by Balthasar in a section ofTD, n/i.3 4 Here henotes that the exercise of human freedomis made possible because theomnipresent God assumes a certain latency(Latenz) or incognito vis-a-vis creation, in such a way that the hum an will is not forced by theone choice of the overwhelming and absolute good tha tis God himselfbut is faced with many choices about various partial goods. Of coursein these different choices thereis implied a decision aboutGod too; andin this senseGod accompanies us as well as being hidden fromus, andhis hidden revelation of himself makesit possible for us to choose himwithout making this necessary. This introductory framework isfollowed by an account of God's accompaniment of us in which ourquestion concerning the divine providence and immutability istackled more directly.

God's plan for the world(Rom. 8, 28-39 ;Eph. 1, 3-10) is one and itis universal. It involves the eternal presence ofGod in every possibleand actual created time. As such it always contains God's 'answ er' toevery exercise of hum an freedom, including of course tha t part of theanswer which is forgiveness of sin won through the blood of Christ. Inthis plan, then ,it is in the Son that we are both chosen andsaved: he isthe immutable image and idea of all creation, of all individuals andgroups, of whatever era. He is so, however, in a way that allows forgenuinely free human activity, thatdoes not impose a pre-determinedfate. Unlike the Stoic cosmic version of the Logos as idea of the world,

the Christian revelation proposes in this role the eternal Son of Godwhose eternal freedom as readiness towards the Father is always thesame, whatever particular modality(e.g. the incarnation, the cross) itassumes. In other words, because God's plan covers all - and inparticular because, as trinitarian and soteriological, in the Son itallows for the extremes of human freedom - then it can really allow usto be free and to change, withoutthis involving new decisions forGod.This means that there are no grounds, in considering the relationshipbetween God's providence and the exercise of our hum an freedom intime, to polemicise against the immutability of God. To predicateimmutability of God is not to falsify the lively and personalGod of theBible by attributing to him a 'sub-personal' attribute borrowed fromthe 'geometrical' thought of antiquity. Nor is it sufficient to interpretimmutability and the text inExodus 3,14 as simply a promise of God's


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eternal fidelity to his people without foundation in his being -immutability very correctly has an ontologicalbasis, and it will not do

to set up a false opposition between the scriptural revelationconcerning divine immutability and philosophical pre-understandings, however insufficient in themselves. This assertionofan ontological divine immutability means a t the very least that therecan be no creaturely change in God's being. However at this pointBalthasar does distance himself from the way immutability wasunderstood philosophically within the classical ontological horizonofunderstanding - such an understanding misleads in its attempt toexplain the immutability of the plan and being of the God of the Bible,which must include realities like the incarnation and the cross.35Instead we must, once again, lookto the trinitarian life fora revelationof what divine immutability involves. In that God's life and plan showa maximum of content - which eternally allows and responds to ourevery temporal exercise of human freedom - they canbe rightly calledimmutable. But neither the lifeitself, nor this 'maximum', can bepinned down by a full stop; eternal life is not the negation of time orspace but rather the unimaginable supra-fullness(Uberfu'Ue) of time

and space for freedom, which expresses the fullness of life thathappens eternally in God. God's eternal plan, then, has 'space' and'time' for all created space and time. Once again we have here inBalthasar a reference to that 'ever-greater' aspect of the trinitarianevent, to which we must return in more detail in chapter 4.

With this understanding in mind Balthasar goes on to explain theimpression that can derive from the Bible of a mutable God. Nohuman insight can grasp how the two sides of the cross, the justice

and mercy of God, are finally resolved in the last judgement: but whatis clear to faith is that this resolution is eternally present in God. Thismeans that the Bible, especially theOT, can speak many times ofGodchanging his attitude, of his regret(Reue), where it should be clearthat what is referred to is the confrontation between the partial,changing situation of the human being and the totality of the divineplan. In this context itis indeed suitable to speak of God's punishmentof us in response to sin, followed by his forgiveness. But the OT alsosays that God does not change his attitude - and this refers to the factthat in some mysterious way the real confrontation between ourhistorical exercise of freedom and God's willis always resolved withinGod's eternal plan anddoes not require any change onGod's part, as ifhe had to respond to some unforeseen eventuality. This treatment ofthe apparent mutability of God in the Bible is a restatement by


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Balthasar, in the context of this discussion on providence, of the basicposition we saw him adopting about the realities ofGod's anger and

mercy in his soteriology. He concludes this account of the universalityof God's plan by stating that talk in theology of the 'mutability of God'is to be avoided precisely because of God's absolute freedom. Thisfreedom, expressed in the ever-greater love ofGod which the Fatherreveals through the Holy Spirit in the obedient, self-sacrificing loveofthe Son, is the most constant thing thereis, and also, viewed from theworld, the most moving and flexible (Beweglichste).

Balthasar's basic position may now be stated in a number of briefpoints. First, our lives are truly in time but are present to God all atonce, eternally. We will be examining the relationship between timeand eternity at greater length in chapter 3; for now it suffices to notehow such an eternal divine presence in what is genuinely temporalcan mean that God's plan of us is indeed immutable. It is so becausethe eternal God can take into account all at once what in us goes onconsecutively, and thus can plan comprehensively and without needto adjust to unforeseen elements. Secondly, our changing livesthrough time are patterned after the relationship of the Son to the

Father, not according to some impersonal Idea which would lead to alife that was totally imposed on us. Because of this there is room inGod's plan for us tobe genuinely free; this personal aspect, with all itsattendant risks,is possible because of the different modalities (manyofwhich were indicated in our first chapter) which the relationshipbetween the Father and the Son can assume eternally. Thirdly, ourfree, changing, temporal lives affectGod in so far as they are taken upinto this relationship between Father and Son in the Trinity (seep. 52 above) and so, from within this relationshipitself, 'introduce'different modalities into the divine life. Of course the 'introduction' inquestion cannot be temporal, nor is its eternal natu re to be equatedsimply with the nature of God himself - we must still distinguishbetween God's necessary being and his free decision to create. ButGodis present eternally to his free creation and time, and this presencedoes entail various modalities within the trinitarian event whichwould not otherwise be there.

God's immutability and the prayer of petition

The same basic pattern is evident in Balthasar's treatment of theprayer of petition.36 With this topic we are dealing with an instanceofthe interaction between the concrete historical situation of the


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creature and his/her immutableGod, an instance of great importancefor the lives of Christian men and women.

The order of divine-human interaction is a personal one. Thismeans that freedom is respected, the relationshipis dialogical and notsimply automatic or 'natural'.37 It means that there can be such athing as divine anger in response to my sin, and that I may ask forforgiveness of thatsin. In particular this personal orderis one betweencreator and creature in which all that the creature has andis dependson the creator. Itis the existence of this kind of order betweenGod andus which makes petitionary prayer intelligible. But does this theninvolve a mutability ofGod in response to the concrete exigencies ofour historical situations? No, because God in his eternity can take allsecondary causes into account in his plan for us, and because he hasat his disposal an infinity of ways in whichto lead all to what is best, sothat, no matter what kind of free decisionswe take, there is no need forGod to improvise, as if he had to change his world plan in a wayunexpected to him 'after' and as a result of our activities. Theomnipotence of God, which includes his omniscience and theuniversality of his plan, is at the heart of this explanation - but so too

is the mysterious relationship between time and eternity which allowsGod to be always presentto what in us is experienced consecutively, intime, and thusto be always the samewhile permitting and respondingto our real, temporal freedom.

But once again, this time from the perspective of the prayer ofpetition, this 'sameness' of being in God has to be opened out beyondthe confines ofthe traditional notion ofdivine immutability. While itwould be incorrect to say that God is loving only in response to our

prayers, it would be equally wrong to suggest that he is loving in away which is indifferent to them . Instead we must find a way ofshowing how God really does deal with us in a personal mode so thathe allows himself tobe influenced by our prayers. Andso - analogousto his soteriological account of Christ's cross38 - Balthasar proposesthe paradoxical position that our prayers are both the effects and the'causes' of God's love, that God is both unmovable and movable byworldly events.By the latter he means to insist on the real secondarycausation of petitionary prayer.39 This occurs, of course, within theframework already outlined in whichGod freely wills that this shouldbe so, and in which we and our activity are 'in Christ' so that - onceagain as in the soteriological aspect of the relationship between theFather and the Son - we become part of the inner-divine event. Thismeans tha t the primacylies with the freedom ofGod's love, yet in such


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a way that the value of the created contribution is preserved. Thiscontribution becomes part of the 'process' by which, within the divine

event and its inner liveliness, different modalities or aspects of God'slove (e.g. anger and mercy in response to sin) are allowed to co-existand yet be eternally reconciled. We, then, are joined to the prayer ofJesus through theHoly Spirit, so tha t our prayeris, in a real sense,partof God's prayer to God40 - something which can only make sensewithin a trinitarian context. Similarly not just our prayers but alsoour lives are 'co-redemptive' when understood within this samecontext which maintains the unique, primary role of Christ inreconciling us to the Father while graciously offering us a secondary,participatory role.41

Our dialogue with God in freedom and through time and history

This theme, concerning the dialogue and often opposition betweenthe eternal, infinite freedom ofGod and the finite, emporal freedomofhuman beings, is clearly crucial to Balthasar's notion ofTheodrama-tik.* 2 In line with the framework set out on p.5 7 above concerning

the identity of the 'partners' in the God/world relationship, Balthasarsees a real mutuality existing between infinite and finite freedom. Thismutuality does not threaten the transcendence, sovereignty orinitiative of God. The human creature, although altogether unequalto God and thus 'in' God in the way described(p. 54 above), is none-theless truly free and does not merge with God in a way w hich woulddestroy the reciprocity of the relationship. Indeed, as already indica-ted, far from overwhelming or forcing us God gives us a freedomthat is our own to the point of permitting us to sin. Yet true innerfreedom is not to be had in a titanic exercise independent ofGod, butrather we are most free, and most ourselves, when we are mostintimately inserted into the divine life. Thus the analogy of Being isdeveloped by Balthasar into an analogy of freedom, or inter-personallove, in which the derived, dependent, graced freedom of the creaturemust be real and the creature 's own precisely if itis to be an expressionof the divine freedom.43 If this expression - whose dissimilarity will begreater than a nonetheless enduring similarity - is lacking then theanalogy fails. By establishing freely this kind of reciprocal relationshipbetween himself and the world God has chosen to be affected by ourfinite freedom. He has in this sense given us rights overhimself, andthis divine vulnerability is seen most dramatically in God's relation-ship to the sinner. In this context Balthasar speaks, with St Francis


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and Tauler, about 'one of the tenderest ofGod's qualities, which onemay describe as * 'divine poverty" \4 4 And elsewhere, in an attempt to

convey the same reality, he notes that God relates to the world notonly in a masculine way asDeusfaber but also in a receptive, feminineway, suffering the salvation of the entire universe.45

God's sovereignty is not threatened by this drama, in which hechooses to make himself vulnerable, because God is triune. Onceagain, then, itis the trinitarian event which grounds the possibilityofthis kind of dialogical relationship between God and us. Already astriune God is dialogical, and we are created in the Word and given aparticipation in the inner-trinitarian exchange. We are given thistruly, if dependently, and thus without any diminution of the divinepower as occurs in mythological accounts of God's relationship to theworld: 'However immeasurably the power of God is above allcreaturely power in its sovereign independence, God still seeks topreserve in the working of his grace the covenant mystery ofmutualness, as he laid down in his creation and as he reveals as hisinner trinitarian secret.'46 This inner trinitarian secret, this kenoticlove, with its inner liveliness, is what makes possible that kind of

'mutability' in God in response to the influence of creatures.The drama between infinite and finite freedom, then, shows that

there is a real mutuality, that God is affected, and that all this ispossible because of the natu re of the trinitarian event. A finalcomment is in order about the historico-temporal character of humanfreedom in its relationship to the eternal freedom of God (see p. 58above). In his concern to remove any impression that God out-manoeuvres us in a way which destroys our human freedom,Balthasar reminds us that God's eternal omniscience and providencecontain a differentiated awareness of human time with its past,present and future.47 Because of this itis more correct to speak of Godcreatively (through the Holy Spirit) responding to each humandecision and situation as they arise, than to imagine that God'sresponse is 'already' always decided.48 We may express this by usingthe image of drama which Balthasar so favours: not only does thedrama conceived by God require us to be actors in it, not only does itretain its own dramatic sense even when relatedto the interior dramaof God himself(like the play within the play inHamlet)*9 but also - aswas said of Christ's incarnation - it is a drama conceived, producedand acted all in one, 'not the nth performance of a tragedy alreadylying in the archives of eternity', but 'an event of total originality, asunique and untarnished as the eternally here-and-now birth of the


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Son from the Father'.50 We will take up this notion of the creativeoriginality involved in the mysterious relationship between time and

eternity in chapter 3 (see alsopp. 69-75 below).

Conclusion

The temporal, historical life of hum ankind, because of its character asexpression of God, already tells us something about the liveliness anddifference that are within the Trinity and that cause us to qualify thetraditional meaning of divine immutability. But men and women,through time and history, not only express God, they also interactwith him. Balthasaris clear that in this interaction history as historyhas meaning for God.51 It has it within the trinitarian event, asdescribed; but we must be careful to insist once more that its owncharacter as history, as created, and thus as different from God, ismaintained. It will not do, then, to reduce the mystery in anundifferentiated way to that ofthe inner divine life alone.52 We makeour own contribution to God within that life and because of it.

Critics53 have suggested that in fact (if not in principle) Balthasargives too little room in his theology to the material aspects of hum anhistory, tha t the Vertical' integration of whatis created intoGod leadshim to ignore a more evolutionary view of history which wouldattend more to the positive role of human development in a'horizontal' sense.I have argued elsewhere that thereis validity in thiscriticism.54 However it would still seem that Balthasar's framework -regardless of some of the details of his own use of it - does in principleallow human beings a true identity, history and role in their

relationship with each other and with God. And it is this framework,with its consequences forGod himself, which is of interest to us here. Itimplies, as we have indicated, qualifications to the traditional waythat the divine transcendence as immutability was understood. Butofcourse the framework itself depends for its ultimate intelligibilityprecisely on Balthasar's position on the trinitarian event, as on therelationship between eternity and time. Should his position on thesetwo issues prove to be satisfactory - a matter for our third and fourthchapters - it would seem that in this very mysterious relationshipbetween God and us, which is without an exact human analogy,55Balthasar has found a way to respect the human, historical contri-bution without threat to the divine transcendence.


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Creation and God's immutability 6s

Eschatology and God's immutability

Introduction: the question

We focus now on the end-point of the historical relationship betweencreation and God; how does this eschatological point of view affect theissue of the divine immutability?A major source for our account willbe Balthasar's Theodramatik, Bd iv, Das Endspiel (1983),56 in which ispresented the author's trinitarian-christological eschatology.

Our treatment, then, willbe shaped by the question concerning theultimate fate of hum ankind and the effect of this on God.57 Is this end-point of human history tragic for God, or an enrichment of him, or amixture of both, or does it not matter to him at all? Ifsome people arecondemned to hell, does this mean tha tGod as creator is tragic, that insome way his will tha tall be saved is so thwarted that heis defeated, afailure? In other words, in this theocentric eschatological approachBalthasar, instead of posing the traditional question about w hat manwould lose if he lostGod, is daring to ask whathe knows is the far fromunproblematic question about what God would lose if he lost man.

Rejecting an older approach, which with a certain amazingly coolindifference could assert tha t God's glory was served equally well byeither our eternal happiness or our eternal punishment, Balthasarnonetheless wishes to respect the NT texts concerning the twofoldissue ofdivine judgement, the increasing opposition to the love of Godafter the event of Christ, and also the freedom of man to make adefinitive choice with his life w ithout being forced or overwhelmed byGod.58 In doing so he must reject any simple apocatastasis solution.59

Obviously, in presenting the matter thus the question about universalsalvation is of key concern to us. But it is so because implicit inBalthasar's rejection of the older approach is an acknowledgementthat in some way the worlddoes affect God: this certainly is consistentwith all we have said so far in chapter 2, but the eschatological issue,as we willsee, is the real testing-ground to see if statements about oureffect on God, the way Christ savesus, and our continuing freedom tosay 'no' toGod can really hold together. We are, then, brought face toface in the ultimate way with the meaning of creation and salvation

for God: can the world really 'contribute' something to God, withinthe trinitarian event, can webe sure that this contributionis positive,and, if not, what does this imply about our image of God?60


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Steps towards a solution: the theology of hope and of the pain ofGod

The theology of hope

The contemporary theological interest in hope - and, in particular,for our purposes, the theology of Moltmann in this area, inspired byBloch - may be used as a first step towards establishing Balthasar'sposition.61 The issue may be stated thus: if the mission ofJesus is insome sense incomplete until the last ofus is saved, is there a sense inwhich not only we hope for this salvation but God hopes for it too?And what are the implications of this hope in God - for God?

The question is approached in the context of an attempt to statewhat is proper to Christian hope, in distinction from pagan or Jewishhope. In particular the enquiry focuses on the problem at the centreofmodern eschatology as to whether the primarily Vertical' thrust ofChristian hope can include a genuinely 'horizontal' dimension. Thediscussion with Moltmann addresses this problem;62 we are lessinterested in the detail of this discussion than in the position on the

the

Gerard F. OHanlon the Immutability of God in the Theology of Hans Urs Von Balthasar 1990

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