The Week of the Compass VII

I have had a good time reflecting with Rick Floyd on the theology of P.T. Forsyth this Holy Week. This final section resonates with me as Forsyth's anchor again comes to bare. Today rocked all of history, and I believe all the questions that have found (and will find) their way into our theological discussions have to start where Forsyth was "on rope." His anchor point gives us the bearings we've been looking for all week:

But this is not just any experience! Forsyth would have understood “experience” more along the lines of Jonathan Edwards' view of Christian experience than that of those today for whom autonomous personal or group experience is authoritative. He would have had little use for the idea of “re-imagining” God in light of our experience. “See to the Gospel,” he said, “and experience will take care of itself.” For Forsyth it is not human religiosity that matters. Rather, the primary actor in the drama of human redemption is always God in Christ, known chiefly by his great act on the cross. (See below)

Thanks again, Rick! And friends, enjoy the final section of Rick Floyd's “The Work of Christ in the Thought of P.T. Forsyth: Kenosis and Plerosis Revisited.” Christ is risen indeed!

In Conclusion

His hermenteutical daring. “Criticism is a good servant but a dangerous master.”

How would we assess Forsyth's kenosis/plerosis proposal? Its purpose is twofold: 1. to safeguard the full humanity of Christ against a docetic view, and 2. to assert against liberal theology the full participation of Christ in the Godhead. If doctrine is the conceptual redefinitions of the biblical narrative than Forsyth has tried to keep scripture clearly in view. He depicts Christ as one engaged in a mighty moral struggle, freely acting finally in obedience to the Father's will at the expense of his own life. The human struggle is not passed over lightly, yet the whole action is seen as an act of God.

Forsyth is right to insist that any theology that does justice to the New Testament must involve some sort of kenosis, for the Gospel is quite clear that God does enter our world to engage sin and evil. As Donald M. MacKinnon has rightly noted:

If the atonement shows God himself profoundly engaged with human evil, it is an engagement (even when its authenticity is affirmed by Jesus' resurrection) that leaves many questions unanswered. And this most certainly Forsyth acknowledged through his insistence on the reality of the divine kenosis. Jesus enters on the climactic stage of his via dolorosa, suddenly and traumatically unsure that this is the way for him. If, unlike the Anglican kenoticists, who were his contemporaries, Forsyth in an indifference to metaphysics interprets the divine self–emptying in dramatic terms, at this point he rejoins those for whom the incarnate's limited human knowledge was a central theological concern. For the most part, his Kantian metaphysical agnosticism enabled him to avert from ontological exploration, and emphasize the cruciality of dramatic action. But the realities of Gethsemene refuse to allow him to neglect the extent to which the passion was suffused by a kind of terrible uncertainty. (Hart, Justice the True and Only Mercy, 108)

Forsyth's captures this uncertainty and the powerful moral drama that is the passion. There is great rhetorical power to Forsyth's theology as he addresses issue after issue returning always to the cross as the center.

Forsyth speaks of the subordination of Christ to the Father, risking subordinationism, although his other statements make it clear he does not believe by this in the Son's generation from the Father. Again Forsyth is more concerned with the describing the flow of God's activity in the biblical narrative than with metaphysical assertions, and by the standards of Nicene orthodoxy, even the New Testament itself is subordinationist in tendency.

If “doctrine is the conceptual redefinition of the biblical narrative” (Frei) then has Forsyth done justice to the biblical narrative? Here, too, Forsyth has been successful for he has successfully kept Scripture clearly in view throughout. He deals with both the high Christology of John and the epistles and the human Jesus of the Synoptics, the one who went through the full experience of the passion. Donald MacKinnon wrote that “the realities of Gethsemane refuse to allow him (Forsyth) to neglect the extent to which the passion was suffused by a kind of terrible uncertainty” (Hart, Justice the True and Only Mercy, p. 108). Forsyth's captures that "terrible uncertainty" and the powerful moral drama that is the passion.

There is great rhetorical power to Forsyth's theology as he addresses issue after issue returning always to the cross as the center. In The Person and Place of Jesus Christ he offers a highly nuanced theological interpretation that tries to make sense of the meaning of the cross. His kenotic Christology attempts to explain the mystery of the incarna-tion and the inner workings of the atonement without using the metaphysical language of which he was so suspicious.

Both Donald MacKinnon and Colin Gunton have criticized Forsyth for eschewing metaphysical language, particularly ontological language, and for his too easy dismissal of the truths of Chalcedon. I have to agree in part with Colin Gunton's charge that Forsyth imported a metaphysic through the back door; after all, when you talk about “modes of being” you are pretty close to metaphysics if not already there. Gunton is right when he says: "Forsyth's kenotic the-ory of the incarnation . . . . is essentially an attempt to make logical sense of the incarnation conceived as something that really happened in human history. It thus belies his pro-claimed lack of interest in metaphysical theories" (see Gunton's critique of Forsyth in Yesterday and Today, pp. 168- 173).

Having acknowledged the charge, let me say that I think Forsyth's attempt to articulate a Christology outside the usual metaphysical framework is part of what gives his writings such rhetorical punch and dramatic power. He is a good theologian, but he never stops being a preacher, which may account for his continued popularity with preachers.

In some respects he anticipates the various canonical and narrative approaches that are associated with the "Yale theology" of Hans Frei, George Lindbeck, and their students. Like them (and like Karl Barth) Forsyth's theology is thoroughly exegetical and takes the final form of the canon as the decisive text. He doesn't eschew historical criticism, but recognizes that it is “a good servant but a dangerous master.”

Yet, unlike at least some interpretations of the Yale School, he insists that the Gospel is more than a cultural-linguistic narrative which sets norms for a community, the church. For Forsyth it is also God's truth for the whole world. In this he remains decidedly evangelical, and his hermeneutic has an important experiential dimension.

But this is not just any experience! Forsyth would have under-stood “experience” more along the lines of Jonathan Ed-wards' view of Christian experience than that of those to- day for whom autonomous personal or group experience is authoritative. He would have had little use for the idea of “re-imagining” God in light of our experience. “See to the Gospel,” he said, “and experience will take care of itself.” For Forsyth it is not human religiosity that matters. Rather, the primary actor in the drama of human redemption is al- ways God in Christ, known chiefly by his great act on the cross.

Let me conclude with a Forsythian doxology:

“And now may he who so emptied himself that he was filled with all the fullness of God dwell fully in us; may he raise, rule, and perfect us in all holiness; to the end that, bowing before him with every knee both in heaven and upon earth, and ever more calling Him Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, we may be, in Him, to the praise and glory of the Father's Grace Who made us acceptable in the Eternal Son, world without end. Amen.” (The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, p 357.)

Works Cited:

Trevor Hart, Editor, Justice the True and Only Mercy. Edinburgh: T&;T Clark, 1995

P. T. Forsyth:

   The Atonement in Modern Religious Thought. New York: Whittaker, 1901.

   The Cruciality of the Cross. London: Independant Press, 1948.

   God the Holy Father. London: Independent Press, 1957.

   The Person and Place of Jesus Christ. London: Independent Press, 1948.

   The Preaching of Jesus and the Gospel of Christ. Blackwood, South Australia: New Creation Publications, 1987.

   The Work of Christ. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910.

(This is the original paper that I presented at the United Reformed Church Centre at Windermere, England in May of 1998, at a conference: P.T. Forsyth: Theologian for a New Millennium. It was gathered with the other papers into a book by the same name edited by Alan P. F. Sell.  It later appeared also as a chapter in my book When I Survey the Wondrous Cross: Reflections on the Atonement.  Pickwick, 2000, Wipf and Stock, 2010.