Relationality and the Concept of God

by Henry Jansen

Classical theism, the dominant tradition in Christian theology, has stressed the metaphysical concept of God, i.e., God's ontological transcendence and independence from the world. In this century, however, this concept of God has increasingly met with criticism. On the basis of the Bible and new philosophical considerations, it is argued that a relational concept of God better answers the fundamental concerns of the Christian faith. In this book the author investigates the questions of whether one can conceive of God apart from the metaphysical attributes and whether reflection on the biblical depiction of God leads necessarily to a relational concept of God. The author explores the questions by examining the relational concepts of God found in two contemporary German theologians, Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg, and uses the divine attribute of immutability as a focus for the discussion. He argues that the relational concept of God presupposes another metaphysical conception of God, which raises problems as serious as those in classical theism, and that the Bible itself, because of its nature as a narrative text, is ambiguous in many respects as far as God is concerned. A truly Christian doctrine of God must take both the metaphysical and relational aspects of God into account.

269 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm pretty much done with this. Good book. Gets into the issues regarding an ontology of relatios (Trinity, God-human relations, etc.). Good stuff. He uses Moltmann and Pannenberg as case studies to work out the contrast between the classical, philosophical view of God and the relational (biblical view). But in the end, he bails out and basically says there's no solving the differences. So he doesn't really add anything new to the conversation.