Evangelical Calvinist, par excellence, Thomas F. Torrance; provides some very insightful words on how he understood John Knox’s doctrine of God and His triune nature. What Torrance says articulates some of the basic 
premises about God’s life and His relation to creation, that ‘EC’ pivots upon. Let me quote, at length, and then provide a little reflection behind the quote:
(a) It is as a Trinity that the majesty and sublimity of God are made known. As Holy Trinity God is revealed to be intrinsically personal. God is Person precisely as he is triune, so that intimate personal relationship is involved in acknowledgment of the one only God, cleaving to him, serving him, worshipping and trusting personally in him as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The majesty of the one only God and the transcendent mystery of the eternal God as such do not produce the personal communication between God and man — that belongs to the personal self-revelation of God as Holy Trinity. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and remains what he is in his eternal Self even when he gives himself to be known by us in such personal ways.
(b) It is the triune God who is known as Father, Maker, Pastor and Redeemer. It is the Trinity who creates, appoints, governs all things in heaven and earth, visible as well as invisible. God the Father Almighty can be known only through the Son, as the Incarnation of God and of his work for our redemption. Fatherhood is defined in terms of redeeming grace toward us and free adoption of us as his children. ‘We call him Father not so much because he has created us, but by reason of his free adoption by which he has chosen us in Jesus Christ.’
(c) It is as the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that God relates himself to all creation, visible and invisible. His relation to creation is supremely as personal will — but the purpose and glory of that relation is Jesus Christ. There are here distinct elements of cosmic redemption, in God’s concern for all creation and of all his handiwork, but what all that means will be revealed only at the last day. This strictly trinitarian theology means that Knox regarded God’s relations will all creation exclusively in terms of personal will, and exclusively in the light of Christ’s redemption and saving purpose. (Thomas F. Torrance, “Scottish Theology,” 7).
Just a few things. God is first and always already triune before he becomes Creator. He created because He is love in Himself, and thus this becomes the ground through which He always relates to His creation; in personal, loving ways — and thus “Law” must be framed through this, versus the classical way which has God relating by Law, then Grace/Love etc. Second, the method for knowing God (as Church father, Athanasius made clear in his argument contra Arius) is to ground this revelation in the eternal Son; it is through this self-Revelation of God that we by the Holy Spirit are made “alive” “reconciled” and thereby have the capacity to know who God is in Christ’s redeemed humanity — this is the point being made in point (b) above on adoption. Third, just to reiterate, Evangelical Calvinists, along with two historic ones (Torrance and Knox), believe that because God is triune (that’s who He is), that his relations to humanity will be shaped by what can be called God’s antecedent life of eternal love; thus an implication of this, is that God does not relate to creation through a matrix of impersonal decrees (that other and most Western theological frameworks think of God through).
Just picked up Scottish Theology from the library today. Looking forward to digging in.
We have to have a trinitarian theism. I was looking at a comparison of classical theism vs the newer statements of trinitarian theism. I am excited that trinitarian theism is reformulating some of the doctrine of God to reflect the testimony of scripture. I see this emphasis in Torrance’s trinitarian perspective and it is more satisfying than the classical doctrines with the Greek philosophical categories controlling the understanding of God.
Definitely, Jon! Glad to hear that you got your hands on Scottish Theology; I’ll look forward to hearing what you think about it! Absolutely, Trinitarian theology is where its at; TFT was on top of this with assualt on dualistic forms of thinking not grounded in the analogy of Incarnation itself. But this has been around for centuries, even amongst someone like Athanasius etc.
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While I was at the library I noticed that John MacLeod had also written a book on Scottish theology. His book came as a result of lectures he delivered at Westminster Theological Seminary and was published in 1943. A quick check revealed that his take on John McLeod Campbell was quite different than Torrance’s. Coming from a Federalist Calvinist perspective, he obviously saw Campbell as deviating from the Westminster Confession of Faith and understanding of the atonement. MacLeod derides Campbell, the Erskines, and the Marrow controversy, whereas Torrance appreciates the struggle to retain a biblical understanding of the atonement that came out of that. I’m looking forward to reading more about the Marrow controversy.
What I find exciting about John Knox and the early Scottish Reformation was their emphasis on evangelism. Compare that to Beza and his influence on the Westminster divines and you see a different emphasis. Torrance himself grew up as the son of missionary parents to China and no doubt their evangelistic orientation helped influence and shape his early thinking about the Gospel. It seems to me that if we try to do theology without consideration of the mission of the Church to preach the gospel to all the world than we are going to go off track.
Torrance, in his chapter on Campbell, emphasizes again the unity of God the Father and the Son in loving mankind and in the whole plan of salvation. Jesus did not offer Himself to appease the wrath of an angry God, but that in Christ the love of God is revealed and there is no disunity between the love manifested in Christ and the love of the Father. I find in my own conversations with Federal Calvinists that they have a hard time understanding the love of God. With such an emphasis on God’s wrath toward sin and sinners that for God to love all that He has made in spite of the fall into sin is a conceptual hurdle too high to jump. So God ends up only loving the elect. It is interesting how these controversies can put certain theological issues into sharp relief, and thus enable us to better understand the trajectories of certain doctrines and movements. I’m reading the last chapter on Campbell first, then I will go back to the beginning of the book!
Jon,
Yes, I was aware that Federal guys (even current ones I’ve spoken with, like R. Scott Clark at WTScalifornia) believe that Campbell, Erskines, James Fraser et al were heretics because they didn’t bow the knee to the Westminster Standards.
Yes, that’s right (your last paragraph); Evangelical Calvinism eschews the Federal schema by starting with a proper Christian doctrine of God. According to Federal Theology God was not free to love the elect until the conditions set up by the Covenant of Works were met. Once that payment was made (to speak crudely), God then was Free to love the elect whom Christ penally purchased with His blood (thus their emphasis on the forensic only framing of the atonement).
I’m glad you’re reading this, Jon; the rest is a real blessing too. Once you finish you’re going to have an even better idea on what has motivated “Evangelical Calvinism” in the first place!
“His relation to creation is supremely as personal will β but the purpose and glory of that relation is Jesus Christ.” and “This strictly trinitarian theology means that Knox regarded Godβs relations will all creation exclusively in terms of personal will, and exclusively in the light of Christβs redemption and saving purpose. (Thomas F. Torrance, βScottish Theology,β 7).”
These two statements from Torrance have reference to Gods will, and I was wondering why you didn’t say anything about them in your post. Could you explain how you read them in the context of what Torrance is saying. I read it as WILL being supreme (relation) and Christ making it so, as the one which revealed it ( god’s will). Christ the mediator of God’s Will. Is this voluntarism?
Kenny,
I think for Knox it may well have been voluntaristic; so I think TFT is trying to give Knox a fair read. I know that TFT, and his own constructive paradigm would not follow voluntarism, given what TFT calls the onto-relations that co-inhere between the persons of the monarchia or God-head (and thus the God-head itself is shaped by the interpenetrating relating of the persons). The way TFT then would talk about WILL and how that relates to the Economy of God’s self-Revelation would be to see WILL as God’s antecedent life (inner-life) made visible in Christ (so an “actualism” vs. “voluntarism”).
Good stuff, Bobby
Thanks, Jacob.
WoW, Bobby–
“…revelation in the eternal Son; it is through this self-Revelation of God that we by the Holy Spirit are made βaliveβ βreconciledβ and thereby have the capacity to know who God is in Christβs redeemed humanity…”
–especially
–“CHRIST’s REDEEMED HUMANITY”
–has me pondering [a question wh I hope is not blasphemy]: Has the triune God, in Jesus of Nazareth, So identified with us–even us in sin–that he [dare I ask] redeemed HimSELF?…that we are are not “only” Christ’s because he predestined and created and bought us—but that we are joined to God in his becoming human–in his body?
–Specifically–that we are Inside Christ (and He is we and, therefore, we [minus the God thing] are He?) as God turns back (yikes) His OWN rebellion, His blindness–cures His Own desperate illness?
I’d appreciate your thoughts.
Christ’s redeemed humanity…Wow.
-t
Toad,
No, I wouldn’t say Christ needed to be redeemed, but the humanity He assumed did. But the greater point is that his PERSON is divinely shaped, and thus his relation to the Father as Son is by nature while ours is by adoption and grace (so there is the Creator/creature distinction still). Unless we want to posit that Christ’s humanity is not “real” humanity (per II Cor 5.21) — and thus not “sinful” (bearing in mind that he never sinned, this is what the “ontological atonement” is about, why Incarnation starts the process of atonement) — we must hold that Christ assumed sinful humanity (i.e. “the unassumed is the unhealed” per Gregory Nazianzus and St. Paul). This is a quick response.
If we don’t think this way we end up with the docetic heresy.