Abstract
The goal of this dissertation is to explore how the theology proper of both John Owen and Thomas F. Torrance informs their respective accounts of Christ’s mediation. To this end, the primary question behind the entire investigation is how Owen and Torrance conceptualize God and all things in relation to God. I have chosen Owen and Torrance as dialogue partners because they offer us two different approaches to ‘God and all things in relation to God’ from within the same broadly Reformed tradition. Furthermore, both are also catholic theologians, engaging with, and appropriating sources throughout the ancient, medieval, Reformation, and modern Christian traditions, and in the case of Torrance, the traditions of both East and West. In addition, both give significant attention to Christ’s priesthood. This emphasis on Christ, combined with their preoccupation with God, allows us to see how both Owen and Torrance move from God in himself to God for us. Furthermore, Owen’s scholastic and broadly Thomistic theology is what Torrance seeks to avoid at every turn. Therefore, by placing Owen and Torrance in dialogue, I test the ‘Calvin versus the Calvinists’ thesis that is by and large disproven today by historians showing both the continuity and discontinuity of Calvin with his heirs. The Reformed shift to a soteriological reading of theology proper – as I will develop in this study – means, I argue, that the relationship of one Reformed generation to another is more complex than both sides suggest.
After investigating both thinkers’ understanding of theology proper, God as one and God as tripersonal, I then show how the doctrine of God informs Christ’s hypostatic union and Christ as mediator. The main body of the work consists of understanding each thinker on his own terms, though critiques, mainly related to conflations of God in se and God for us, are offered along the way. Throughout the study, I argue that in both Owen and Torrance various conflations arise that are all, in some way, related to their soteriological reading of God in se. By conflation, I simply mean that something outside of God in himself – anything other than God’s eternally perfect being – becomes the foundation for our understanding of God. I show that in both Owen and Torrance, soteriology, at least at points, becomes the foundation for theology proper as God’s saving works in Christ become determinative for our understanding of God. All of this builds toward a constructive conclusion that calls for a retrieval of God’s goodness as the solution to avoiding conflation in our theological systems. While less intentional and radical in Owen, and more purposely revisionary in Torrance, the turn toward a soteriological foundation is one that places theology proper on an insecure foundation.
In chapter 1, I investigate Owen’s understanding of God’s being and attributes. In chapter 2, I turn to Owen’s Trinitarian theology with particular attention to the divine processions and missions showing that Owen’s use of the covenant of redemption leads him to inadequately distinguish God ad intra and God ad extra. In chapter 3, I show that Owen’s understanding of the hypostatic union and Christ’s two natures follows Chalcedon and Aquinas and a Thomistic understanding of God in se and God for us, though his understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit upon Christ’s human nature reveals his continual struggle to relate God in se and God for us. Finally, in chapter 4, I show that Owen’s theology of Christ as mediator seeks to hold together Aquinas’s metaphysically motivated Christology and Calvin’s office Christology. In chapter 5, I show how Torrance’s understanding of God’s being is determined by the Son’s incarnation. The economic is the immanent because Jesus Christ is homoousios. In chapter 6, I investigate Torrance’s theology of the three divine persons, arguing that Torrance’s understanding of hypostasis and being pushes his Trinitarian theology in a somewhat modalist direction. In chapter 7, I show that Torrance understands the Son’s mission, not as a communication of God’s goodness, but as a self-communication – that is revelation – that demands a soteriological starting point. Lastly, in chapter 8, I turn to Torrance’s theology of election and Christ’s mediation as the vicarious human being. I argue that Torrance’s construction aligns Christ’s divinity too closely with Christ’s humanity. By concluding with a retrieval of God’s goodness, I advance our understanding of how Christ is predestined for his redemptive mission without letting soteriology slip into our foundation, theology proper.