Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
146abandonment by the Father, yet at the same time they are in the most intimate
sense united in this abandonment or “giving up.” T his is bec ause t his “giving up”
proceeds from the event of the cross that takes place between the Father who
abandons and the Son who is abandoned, and this giving up is none other than the
Holy Spirit.
Any attempt to interpret the event of Jesus’ crucifixion according to the
doctrine of the two natures would result in a paradox, bec ause of the c onc ept of the
one God and the one nature of God. On the cross, God calls to God and dies to
God. Only in this place is God “dead” and yet not dead. If all we have is the concept
of one God, we are inevitably inclined to apply it to the Father and to relate the
death exc lusively to the human person of Jesus, so that the c ross is “emptied” of its
divinit y. If, on the other hand, this c onc ept of God is left aside, we have at onc e to
speak of persons in t he spec ial relat ionship of t his part ic ular event , t he Fat her as
the one who abandons and “gives up” the Son, and the Son who is abandoned by
the Father and who gives himself up. What proceeds from this event is the Spirit of
abandonment and self-giving love who raises up abandoned men.
My interpretation of the death of Christ, then, is not as an event between God
and man, but primarily as an event within the Trinity between Jesus and his Father,
an event from whic h the Spirit proc eeds. T his int erpret at ion opens up a number of
perspectives. In t he first plac e, it is possible t o underst and t he c ruc ifixion of Christ
non-t heist ic ally. Sec ondly, the old dic hotomy between the universal nature of God
and the inner triune nature of God is overc ome and, thirdly, the dist inc t ion bet ween
the immane nt and the “ec onomic ” Trinity bec omes superfluous. It makes it
nec essary to speak about the Trinity in the c ontext of the c ross, and re-est ablishes
it as a t radit ional doc t rine. Seen in this light, this doc trine no longer has to be
regarded as a divine mystery which is better venerated with silent respect than
invest igat e t oo c losely. It can be seen as the tersest way of expressing the story of
Christ’s passion. It preserves faith from monotheism and from atheism, because it
keeps it c lose t o t he c ruc ified Christ. It reveals the cross in God’s being and God’s
being in the c ross. T he mat erial princ iple of t he t rinit arian doc t rine is t he c ross; t he
formal princ iple of t he t heology of t he c ross is t he t rinit arian doc t rine. The unity of
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit c an be designated as “God.” If we are to
speak as Christians about God, then, we have to tell the story of Jesus as the story
of God and t o proc laim it as t he hist oric al event whic h t ook plac e bet ween t he
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and whic h revealed who and what God is, not
only for man, but in his very existenc e. This also means that God’s being is
hist oric al and t hat he exist s in hist ory. The “story of God” then is the story of the
history of man.