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John Owen as proto-social trinitarian? Reinterpreting Owen and resisting a recent trend

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2021

Ty Kieser
Ty Kieser*
Affiliation:
Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: ty.kieser@wheaton.edu
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Abstract

Contrary to much of the recent literature on the trinitarian theology of John Owen, which often ascribes radical personal distinction to his account of triune relations and actions, this paper argues that Owen's account of distinct divine persons and trinitarian actions ought not to be contrasted with his theological forebears: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Calvin. Instead, his account of trinitarian ontology and operation is thoroughly consistent with (and dependent upon) the Augustinian principles that these interpreters suspect Owen is rejecting. The argument unfolds by presenting four putative points of strong personal distinction in John Owen's trinitarian theology and then reinterpreting each of the themes and passages that these four points are supposedly rooted in, evidencing his Augustinian account of trinitarian unity and distinction.

Keywords

appropriationscovenant of redemptionindivisible operationsJohn Owensocial trinitarianismTrinity
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 74 , Issue 3 , August 2021 , pp. 222 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 This is vol. 2 of The Works of John Owen [hereafter WJO], 24 vols, ed. William H. Goold (Edinburgh: Johnston & Hunter 1850–5). Gribben, Crawford, John Owen and English Puritanism: Experiences of Defeat (New York: OUP, 2016), pp. 172–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kapic, Kelly M., Communion with God: The Divine and the Human in the Theology of John Owen (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), p. 159Google Scholar. There is, admittedly, an obvious, superficial linguistic connection between Owen's work in texts like Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the modern accounts of ‘persons in communion’ by social trinitarians like Catherine Mowry LaCugna and John Zizioulas.

2 Letham, Robert, ‘John Owen's Doctrine of the Trinity in its Catholic Context’, in Kapic, Kelly and Jones, Mark (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen's Theology (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012), p. 191Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Trinity between East and West’, Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009), p. 52; idem, The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2004), p. 409; Gunton, Colin E., The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, 2nd edn (New York: T&T Clark, 2006), p. 76Google Scholar. See also Hastings, W. Ross, ‘“Honouring the Spirit”: Analysis and Evaluation of Jonathan Edwards' Pneumatological Doctrine of the Incarnation’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 7 (2005), p. 295CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spence, Alan J., Incarnation and Inspiration: John Owen and the Coherence of Christology (New York: T&T Clark, 2007), p. 127Google Scholar; Gunton, Colin E., Theology through the Theologians: Selected Essays 1972–1995 (New York: T&T Clark, 2003), p. 192Google Scholar; McGraw, Ryan M., ‘Seeing Things Owen's Way: John Owen's Trinitarian Theology and Piety in its Early-Modern Context’, in van Vlastuin, Willem and Kapic, Kelly M. (eds), John Owen between Orthodoxy and Modernity (Boston: Brill, 2019), p. 192Google Scholar.

3 Brian K. Kay, Trinitarian Spirituality: John Owen and the Doctrine of God in Western Devotion (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008), pp. 2–3.

4 See n. 2 above and Ryan L. Rippee, ‘John Owen on the Work of God the Father’, Puritan Reformed Journal 8 (2016), p. 7.

5 Letham, The Holy Trinity, p. 409; Kay, Trinitarian Spirituality, p. 105.

6 Cornelius Plantinga Jr., ‘Social Trinity and Tritheism’, in Ronald J. Feenstra and Cornelius Plantinga Jr (eds), Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement: Philosophical and Theological Essays (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), p. 22. ‘Relational Trinity’ seems to be the more recent designation for this position and likely carries less connotative baggage; see Jason S. Sexton (ed.), Two Views on the Doctrine of the Trinity (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014). However, I will use ‘social’ for the purposes of this article because (1) ‘social’ is the designation that advocates of this view use for Owen, (2) ‘social’ is more widely recognised as designating the position under discussion and (3) ‘social’ better names the distinction and uniqueness of the position – i.e. all parties involved are committed to some kind of ‘relational trinitarianism’ (e.g. persons as subsistent relations in Thomistic thought).

7 While I have no desire to resurrect the de Régnon thesis (see Michel R. Barnes, ‘De Régnon Reconsidered’, Augustinian Studies 26 (1995), pp. 51–79), I am willing to engage the distinction because the contrast between eastern v. western (or Cappadocian v. Augustinian) paradigm is characteristic of social trinitarianism (e.g. Karen Kilby, ‘Perichoresis and Projection’, New Blackfriars 81 (2000), p. 434, lists this narrative as one of the three key distinctives of social models of the Trinity). So, while I am not suggesting that Owen is western and Augustinian in contrast to eastern and Cappadocian, I am suggesting Owen ought not to be contrasted with ‘western/Augustinian’ trinitarian theology.

8 My goal in this list is not to name the necessary and sufficient conditions by which we might identify ‘social trinitarianism’ in general. Instead, this list names elements of social trinitarianism that are seemingly most prominent in Owen's thought and most unique to the position.

9 Keith Ward, Christ and the Cosmos (New York: CUP, 2015), pp. 219–21.

10 Letham, ‘John Owen's Doctrine of the Trinity’, p. 191.

11 Oliver D. Crisp, Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered (New York: CUP, 2007), p. 1. Gilles Emery, The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas (New York: OUP, 2010), pp. 300–6. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1.42.5.

12 Kilby, ‘Perichoresis and Projection’, p. 435. On the history of the theme see Charles C. Twombly, Perichoresis and Personhood: God, Christ, and Salvation in John of Damascus (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015).

13 Ryan M. McGraw, A Heavenly Directory: Trinitarian Piety, Public Worship and a Reassessment of John Owen's Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), pp. 54, 68, 73.

14 Tyler R. Wittman, ‘The End of the Incarnation: John Owen, Trinitarian Agency and Christology’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 15 (2013), p. 292.

15 For Owen's treatment of the covenant see Vindiciæ Evangelicæ, in WJO 12: 496–508. For the history of this doctrine and the various phrases used to label it, see J. V. Fesko, The Covenant of Redemption: Origins, Development, and Reception (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015); for its history in relationship to Owen see Carl R. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man (Burlington, VT: Routledge, 2007), p. 82; and B. Hoon Woo, The Promise of the Trinity: The Covenant of Redemption in the Theologies of Witsius, Owen, Dickson, Goodwin, and Cocceius (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018); and for an extended treatment of the doctrine in Owen see Kendall Cleveland, ‘The Covenant of Redemption in the Trinitarian Theology of John Owen’ (Ph.D. diss, University of St Andrews, 2016).

16 Ryan L. Rippee, ‘John Owen on the Work of God the Father’, Puritan Reformed Journal 8 (2016), pp. 91–3; Laurence R. O'Donnell III, ‘The Holy Spirit's Role in John Owen's “Covenant of the Mediator” Formulation: A Case Study in Reformed Orthodox Formulations of the Pactum Salutis’, Puritan Reformed Journal 4 (2012), pp. 91–115.

17 This criticism is seen poignantly in Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), p. 65.

18 McCall, Whose Trinity, pp. 14, 58–9, 57.

19 E.g. Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism, p. 172; Kay, Trinitarian Spirituality, pp. 2–3; Hastings, ‘Honouring the Spirit’, pp. 294–5, n. 53.

20 Alan J. Spence, ‘John Owen and Trinitarian Agency’, Scottish Journal of Theology 43 (1990), p. 166; idem, Incarnation and Inspiration, pp. 131–7; Kay, Trinitarian Spirituality, pp. 103–4, 188–9.

21 Kay, Trinitarian Spirituality, 35.

22 Ibid., p. 103.

23 Ibid., p. 104.

24 WJO, Communion, 2: 11.

25 Dale A. Stover, ‘The Pneumatology of John Owen: A Study of the Role of the Holy Spirit in Relation to the Shape of Theology’ (Ph.D. diss., McGill University, Montreal, 1967), p. 304.

26 Letham, ‘John Owen's Doctrine of the Trinity’, p. 191.

27 WJO, Vindication, 2:407.

28 Ibid. See WJO, Vindiciæ Evangelicæ, 12: 203, 73–4.

29 Augustine, The Trinity, ed. John E. Rotelle, trans. Edmund Hill (Hyde Park, NY: New City, 1991), 5.3–8.9; Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (New York: CUP, 2010), pp. 211–20.

30 WJO, Divine Original, 16: 340.

31 WJO, Vindication, 2: 407, emphasis mine; see also Vindiciæ Evangelicæ, 12: 73; Pneumatologia, 3: 77–80.

32 WJO, Vindiciæ Evangelicæ, 12: 73.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., 12: 70–3.

35 Ibid., 12: 175 (emphasis added).

36 WJO, Exposition of Hebrews, 3: 30.

37 WJO, Sacerdotal Office of Christ, 19: 77 (emphasis added).

38 Ibid. He also makes a fascinating appeal to christological dyothelitism that deserves attention, but is too complex to be covered here, see WJO, Christologia, 1: 56; and WJO, Sacerdotal Office of Christ, 19: 77–8.

39 See his articulation of God's ‘simple intelligence or understanding’ (WJO, Perseverance, 11: 142); see also T. Robert Baylor, ‘“He Humbled Himself”: Trinity, Covenant, and the Gracious Condescension of the Son in John Owen’, in Michael F. Bird and Scott Harrower (eds), Trinity without Hierarchy: Reclaiming Nicene Orthodoxy in Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019), p. 173.

40 WJO, Vindiciæ Evangelicæ, 12: 497; see also WJO, Sacerdotal Office of Christ, 19: 88; B. Hoon Woo, ‘The Pactum Salutis in the Theologies of Witsius, Owen, Dickson, Goodwin, and Cocceius’ (PhD diss., Calvin Theological Seminary, 2015), pp. 381–5.

41 WJO, Catechism, 1: 472.

42 WJO, Vindication, 2: 404–7.

43 WJO, Sacerdotal Office of Christ, 19: 87. For a further defence of the singularity of the divine will and the covenant of redemption in Owen see Cleveland, ‘The Covenant of Redemption in the Trinitarian Theology of John Owen’, pp. 72–4.

44 Wittman, ‘The End of the Incarnation’, p. 298; see also WJO, Christologia, 1: 225.

45 Adonis Vidu, ‘Trinitarian Inseparable Operations and the Incarnation’, Journal of Analytic Theology 4 (2016), p. 112.

46 While I believe that there are multiple ways to predicate divine actions to distinct divine persons (i.e. appropriations and proper predication), they will not be addressed here. For a full treatment see Gilles Emery, ‘The Personal Mode of Trinitarian Action in Saint Thomas Aquinas’, The Thomist 69 (2005), pp. 31–77.

47 WJO, Pneumatologia, 3: 94–5.

48 Adonis Vidu, ‘Ascension and Pentecost’, in Marc Cortez, Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton (eds), Being Saved: Explorations in Human Salvation (London: SCM, 2018), p. 107.

49 WJO, Pneumatologia, 3: 198.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid., 3: 198–9.

52 Ibid., 3: 199.

53 This point is often missed by more social-leaning interpretations of Owen. E.g. Brian Kay claims that ‘only loosely does Owen connect his observation of distinction in the economy with the distinctions in God's personal emanations. . . . There definitely exists some tension between Owen and this aspect of Western tradition’ (Trinitarian Spirituality, p. 36, see also pp. 115–16).

54 WJO, Sacerdotal Office of Christ, 19: 34; see also WJO, Pneumatologia, 3: 92; WJO, Vindication, 2: 407.

55 Quotes from Richard Daniels, The Christology of John Owen (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2004), p. 101; and Paul C. H. Lim, Mystery Unveiled: The Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England (Oxford: OUP, 2012), p. 202, respectively. See WJO, Vindication, 2: 407; Christologia, 1: 162, where Owen calls this the ‘generally admitted principle’ throughout the tradition up to his own day.

56 WJO, Pneumatologia, 3:93.

57 Ibid., 3: 93–4.

58 Spence, ‘Trinitarian Agency’, p. 172.

59 WJO, Communion, 2: 11.

60 Ibid., 2: 18.

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid., 2: 269.

63 WJO, Pneumatologia, 3: 93.

64 Ibid., 3: 93–4.

65 Ibid., 3: 94–5.

66 Ibid., 3: 94.

67 Ibid.

68 Ibid., 3: 190.

69 Basil, ‘On the Holy Spirit’, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, 8: 23–6; Gregory of Nyssa, ‘An Answer to Ablabius: That we Should Not Think of Saying there are Three Gods’, in Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. Hardy, Edward R. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1954), p. 262Google Scholar; Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols, ed. McNeil, John T., trans. Battles, Ford Lewis (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960)Google Scholar, I.xiii.18; Thomas Goodwin, The Work of the Holy Ghost in our Salvation, vol. 6 of Works of Thomas Goodwin (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1979), IX.i.405; Venema, Hermann, Translation of Hermann Venema's Inedited Institutes of Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1850)Google Scholar, X.222; van den Belt, Henk et al. (eds), Synopsis Puioris Theologiae; Synopsis of a Purer Theology: Latin Text and English Translation Volume 2 Disputations 24–42, trans. Faber, Riemer A. (Boston: Brill, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 2:71; Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics I/1, ed. Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1974), p. 375Google Scholar.

70 See especially Owen's treatment of Acts 2:24 and 1 Pet 3:18 in WJO, Pneumatologia, 3: 181–2.

71 WJO, Pneumatologia, 3: 94. See also WJO, Vindiciæ Evangelicæ, 12: 392.

72 WJO, Pneumatologia, 3: 209; see also 3: 27, 93, 157, 200; Christologia, 1: 182; Vindiciæ Evangelicæ, 12: 171; Communion, 2: 389; Pneumatologia, 3: 157.

73 WJO, Pneumatologia, 3: 93.

74 Ibid., 3: 162.

75 Trueman, John Owen, p. 46.

76 I would thank Daniel J. Treier, Kyle Strobel, David Moser, Kendall Cleveland and Thomas H. McCall for their comments and suggestions on this paper.