proposal. However, he is vulnerable on this point, for he does not carefully
enough distinguish his perspective from panentheism. I do not have space
to develop this criticism.
- Oliver Davies, A Theology of Compassion: The Metaphysics of Difference and
the Renewal of Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 262, 264.
Subsequent references to this work appear parenthetically in the text using
the following formula: ( TC , page #).
- I employ the traditional language of transcendence/immanence while
attempting concurrently to circumvent it. The terms are spatial metaphors
aiming to understand God whose being and presence knows no spatial
boundaries. Thus, when we say that as transcendent God is above and
beyond the above, we really have not described any positive features of his
nature. And when we say that as immanent, God is near us, again, we have
not said anything substantial, for God is always already greater than us
(i.e., above and beyond the above) and near us as omnipresent Lord. The
binary language transcendent/immanent has fostered an unnecessary
divide with respect to the divine being. As Creator and covenant Lord of
all things, God is always present with all creation and simultaneously sov-
ereign ruler over it. The traditional terms, then, do not describe aspects of
God’s being that exist in tension but depict the constant simultaneous
character of God whose covenantal care and presence is the expression of
his sovereignty. See further Tillich, Systematic Theology , 1:237, 263; Alan
E. Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 185: “The assumption, old and mod-
ern, that it is not possible for transcendence to be immanent while retain-
ing otherness has been overtaken by the actuality and thus possibility of
incarnation”; and Sallie McFague, “Is God in Charge? Creation and
Providence,” in Essentials of Evangelical Theology , ed. William C. Placher
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 113: “Because God is
always incarnational, always embodied, we can see God’s transcendence
immanentally ” (italics original).
- Davies, “Soundings,” 203.
- It is important to stress that this chapter is not a new, alternative, or sup-
plemental method for interpretation. Rather, it considers hermeneutics to
be a practice, a way of life, the mode of human-being-in-the-world.
- Gerhard Ebeling, Word and Faith , trans. James W. Leitch (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1963), 318 (italics original, altered).
- Ebeling, Word and Faith , 319.
- Cf. John Cassian, The Conferences , trans. Boniface Ramsey (New York:
Newman Press, 1997), 384: “When we have the same disposition in our
heart with which each psalm was sung or written down, then we shall
become like its author, grasping its signifi cance beforehand rather than
CONVERSATION, BEING, AND TRINITY: TOWARD A TRINITARIAN... 49
