Premium
Pre‐existence, and the Freedom of the Son in Creation and Redemption: An Exposition in Dialogue with Robert Jenson
Author(s) -
GATHERCOLE SIMON
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
international journal of systematic theology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.149
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1468-2400
pISSN - 1463-1652
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2400.2005.00150.x
Subject(s) - incarnation , witness , exposition (narrative) , philosophy , identity (music) , ideal (ethics) , economic justice , theology , epistemology , law , aesthetics , art , literature , political science , linguistics
In the New Testament, the Son is personally pre‐existent in a real (as opposed to ideal) sense, and the incarnation is a free, gracious act on the part of the Son. The present article engages critically with the arguments of Robert Jenson that the Son is pre‐existent principally (a) in and as the nation of Israel, and (b) in that the Son's eternal birth from the Father precedes his birth from Mary; this ‘precedes’ is not linear, or temporal, however. It is concluded that Jenson's account fails on two counts: first, it does not do justice to the canonical witness; secondly, it is incoherent in introducing an atemporal element into Jenson's avowedly temporal construal of the divine identity. The Son's gracious freedom should be seen both in creation and incarnation in a much stronger sense than Jenson allows.