Book Notice: Trinitarian Self and Salvation

Scott Harrower

Trinitarian Self and Salvation: An Evangelical Engagement with Rahner’s Rule
Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012.
Available at Amazon.com

This book by my Ridley colleague Scott Harrower engages Karl Rahner’s famous “rule that “The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and vice versa.”On a strictly realist application of the rule, the economic/functional relations between members of the Godhead in the incarnation and in redemption is a window into the nature of the Godhead and the interpersonal relationships therein from all eternity. Harrower evaluates Rahner’s rule against the Lucan corpus to test whether it is biblical.  According to Fred Sanders in the foreword, “Harrower’s overall message for trinitarian theology today sit hat the transcendental deduction of immanent trinitarian relations from the economy cannot be as direct as strict realists have suggested” (p. xi).  In a nutshell, Harrower argues that a strictly realistic identification of the economic and immanent Trinity fails because of (1) the nature of Jesus’ messianic vocation; (2) a fluidity in the trinitarian relations and works between God the Father rand God the Son; and (3) a fluidity in the trinitarian relations and works between God the Son and God the Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts. A key reason for Harrower’s doubting a strictly realist application of Rahner’s rule means “the conclusion that God the Son is eternally obedient to God the Father in the divine taxis was resisted by the fact that Scripture is very clear that Jesus’ messianic role determined his actions and relationships in the economy of salvation including his obedience to God the Father” (p. 156). A great read for anyone interested in contemporary debates in trinitarian theology.