a compelling trinitarian taxonomy: hans urs von balthasar's theology of the trinitarian...

A Compelling Trinitarian Taxonomy: HansUrs von Balthasar’s Theology of theTrinitarian Inversion and Reversionijst_601 161..176

MATTHEW LEWIS SUTTON*

Abstract: In trinitarian theology, the problematic place of the Holy Spirit in thetaxonomy of the immanent Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) does not seemto correspond to what is revealed in the economy (Father, Holy Spirit and Son).Because of this pneumatological problem, some theologians have abandoned thetraditional trinitarian taxonomy. This approach, however, does not provide afinally convincing answer that is consistent with both the biblical witness andthe theological tradition. In this article, I argue that Hans Urs von Balthasar’stheology of the trinitarian inversion and reversion does provide a convincinganswer to the trinitarian taxonomy problem. After supporting my thesis byfirst referencing the traditional trinitarian taxonomy offered in Augustine’s deTrinitate and then examining the possibility of abandoning the taxonomy givenby Jürgen Moltmann and Leonardo Boff, I will offer von Balthasar’s solution asthe most compelling trinitarian taxonomy, especially in light of the ecumenicaldialogue between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

In this article, I will be discussing the taxonomy problem within Western trinitariantheology that has ecumenical implications for the dialogue between Western andEastern Christianity. But first, let us discuss the taxonomy problem of the fruit fly.According to The Economist, the biological world is buzzing about the fruit fly’sproper taxonomy (the science of appropriate classification of species by order oforigin).1 This animal – most thoroughly studied second only to the human being –has traditionally been known as Drosophilia melanogaster, ‘but for more than threedecades taxonomists have struggled with an irksome little annoyance about thisgroup: all the species named Drosophilia do not in fact descend from a commonancestor’.2 If taxonomists are to follow the laws of neatly naming animals such that

* St. John’s University, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Queens, NY 11439, USA.

1 ‘Fly in the Ointment’, The Economist, 1 May 2010, pp. 81–2.2 ‘Fly in the Ointment’, p. 81.

International Journal of Systematic Theology Volume 14 Number 2 April 2012doi:10.1111/j.1468-2400.2011.00601.x

© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

the species’ name must reflect evolutionary origins, the fruit fly should have its namechanged to Sophophora melanogaster. Name changes have occurred before. Thewell-known Brontosaurus should now officially be called Apotosaurus because ofits probable evolutionary origin. The International Commission on ZoologicalNomenclature has not yet determined what it will do. From outside, this namingissue looks very silly without any real consequences. From inside the Biologyacademy, however, it is a major issue. To change the Latin name of the fruit flynecessitates confirming absolutely the still debatable evolutionary origin of the fruitfly. A changed taxonomy designates a changed statement of origin. The taxonomyproblem of the Trinity seems just as irrelevant, if not more so, to those outside theTheology academy. From inside, however, changing the traditional taxonomy ofthe Trinity would necessitate confirming a new, controversial belief about the originsof the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity.

Here is the issue. In trinitarian theology, the taxonomy problem is with theordered placing of the Holy Spirit, that is, the traditional taxonomy of the immanentTrinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) does not seem to correspond to what we seerevealed in the economy (Father, Holy Spirit and Son). Some theologians haveabandoned the traditional ordering altogether (e.g. Jürgen Moltmann and LeonardoBoff). The reasons for abandoning the traditional ordering are many, including anecumenical desire to reunite with Eastern Christianity by withdrawing the filioquewording from the Latin version of the Creed. This approach, in my view, does notprovide a finally convincing answer that is consistent with both the biblical witnessand the tradition of trinitarian theology.

In this article, I argue that Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–88) in his theology ofthe trinitarian inversion and reversion does provide a convincing answer to thetrinitarian taxonomy problem. To argue this, I first discuss the problem byreferencing the trinitarian theology offered in Augustine’s de Trinitate and generatethree problematic issues with it. I then briefly examine two theologians (JürgenMoltmann and Leonardo Boff) who abandon the traditional taxonomy. Finally, Ioffer von Balthasar’s solution, consisting of his theology of the trinitarian inversionand reversion, as a significant advance in answering this taxonomy problem.

What is at stake is that if Western and Eastern Christianity desire concrete unionwith each other, doctrine of God issues including the taxonomy problem of theHoly Spirit must be resolved authentically. While in the West, theologians areexperimenting with alternative taxonomies in order to account for new readingsof the economic taxonomy, in the East, this experimentation is interpreted asfurther evidence of the need for formal separation theologically and not justecclesiologically. The significant agreement on the filioque wording of the Creedbetween some Catholic and some Orthodox officials in the Agreed Statement ofthe North American Orthodox–Catholic Theological Consultation (‘AgreedStatement’) of 25 October 2003, and another important document written by thePontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity called ‘The Greek and LatinTraditions Regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit’ (‘Roman Clarification’)from 20 September 1995 have helped to minimize the doctrine of God as a


162 Matthew Lewis Sutton

church-dividing issue.3 Additionally, the Pro Oriente foundation meetings andagreements have furthered the goal for minimizing this issue’s divisive impact.4 Inmy view, we exacerbate the problem through taxonomical experimentation with thefaith of Nicaea. Nevertheless, we need to deal with the taxonomical inversion that wesee in the economy as the ‘Agreed Statement’ recommends, but not in contradictionto the Greek text of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. Thus, this article ispart defensive against Western experimentation with the traditional taxonomyand part constructive through interpreting von Balthasar’s theology of trinitarianinversion and reversion as an answer to the Western concern with the traditionaltaxonomy, which I think will have positive implications for the ecumenical dialoguewith the Eastern Orthodox churches.5

Realizing an inconsistent taxonomy

Trinitarian theology throughout the centuries has a consistent taxonomy of thePersons of the Trinity. The Father is first as the unoriginated origin who brings fortheternally the Son and the Spirit. The Son is second as the begotten one from theFather. The Holy Spirit is the third who proceeds from the Father with differentpneumatological interpretations of the Son’s role. The traditional taxonomy is seenin the New Testament with the baptismal words of the risen Christ: ‘in the name ofthe Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Mt. 28:19). This orderingdominated our interpreting of biblical passages. The taxonomy becomes morecomplex, however, when we reread events in the New Testament that seem to attestto a different ordering. Take, for example, the incarnation story in the Gospel ofLuke. Here we seem to have the Father sending the Holy Spirit to overshadow Maryin order to bring about the incarnation of the Son. Take, for example, the Baptismstory in which we see Jesus proclaimed Son only after the Father speaks and theSpirit descends. From these texts, it seems that the taxonomy should be Father, HolySpirit and Son.

3 ‘The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue? An Agreed Statement of the North AmericanOrthodox–Catholic Theological Consultation’, St Paul’s College, Washington, DC,25 October 2003; published on USCCB (United States Conference of CatholicBishops) website http://www.usccb.org/seia/filioque.shtml (accessed 1 December 2010)(henceforth ‘Agreed Statement’). ‘The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding theProcession of the Holy Spirit’, L’Osservatore Romano (weekly English-languageversion) N. 38 (1408) (20 September 1995), pp. 3, 6 (henceforth ‘Roman Clarification’).See also David Coffey, ‘The Roman “Clarification” of the Doctrine of the Filioque’,International Journal of Systematic Theology 5 (2003), pp. 3–21.

4 See the agreements at the Stiftung Pro Oriente website http://www.pro-oriente.at/(accessed 1 December 2010).

5 The article also builds upon Matthew Baker, ‘The Eternal “Spirit of the Son”: Barth,Florovsky and Torrance on the Filioque’, International Journal of Systematic Theology12 (2010), pp. 382–403.

Balthasar’s Trinitarian Taxonomy 163


To put the question forcefully, is the traditional taxonomy truly consistentwith the economic taxonomy revealed in some of the Gospel passages? Does thetraditional taxonomy need to be abandoned in favor of the new economic andimmanent model consistent with our reinterpretation of the biblical witness?

In the early history of Christian trinitarian theology, trinitarian theologiansneeded to travel the via media between accepting a soft-taxonomy of modalism or ahyper-taxonomy of subordinationism. At least for the West, Augustine in his deTrinitate provided the middle path through the thickets of the fourth-centurytrinitarian controversies.

Augustine’s de Trinitate stands at the end of the line in his intellectualdevelopment on the Trinity, which began with Epistle 11 (ad 388–91).6 However,what comes across in his early works on trinitarian theology, and remains true forde Trinitate, is that Augustine’s basic frame of reference is the Council of Nicaea(325). As Michel Barnes has argued persuasively, Augustine is more Latin‘catholic’ than ‘neoplatonic’ and we need to interpret his thought accordingly.7

Written from 399 to 422/426, de Trinitate does not come out of an explicitpolemical context. Although he engages Arius, Arians (Homoians) and Eunomius,it is a work of speculation and scriptural exegesis contemplating ‘how the Father,Son, and Spirit, who existed together from eternity and also work together outsidethe divinity since the beginning of creation, are one in the divinity, and how theirequality manifests their unity’.8 Here we see that Augustine’s concern focuses onarguing against subordinationism. At the same time but in a less central manner,Augustine attempts to show how the Persons are distinguished in their specialindividuality.

The early books of de Trinitate (I–IV) constantly revolve around the theme ofthe equality of the Persons of the Trinity.9 And yet, already in Book I, Augustinequestions how we can account for the hypostatic distinction of the Son and the

6 Although fascinating points can be found in Augustine’s early and middle works on theTrinity, with his book de Trinitate we have his most mature thought on the Trinityparticularly with regard to the person of the Holy Spirit.

7 Michel René Barnes, ‘Rereading Augustine’s Theology of the Trinity’, in Stephen T.Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins, eds., Trinity: An InterdisciplinarySymposium on the Trinity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 147–8, 154,174.

8 Allan D. Fitzgerald, ed., Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1999), p. ii; see Barnes, ‘Rereading Augustine’s Theology of the Trinity’, p.170; Michel Barnes, ‘The Arians of Book V and the Genre of de Trinitate’, Journal ofTheological Studies 44 (1993), pp. 185–95; Basil Studer, Trinity and Incarnation: TheFaith of the Early Church, trans. Matthias Westerhoff, ed. Andrew Louth (Collegeville,MN: Liturgical Press, 1993), p. 169; see also his The Grace of Christ and the Graceof God in Augustine of Hippo: Christocentrism or Theocentrism?, trans. Matthew J.O’Connell (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1997), p. 104.

9 Rowan Williams, ‘Trinitate, De’, in Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages: AnEncyclopedia, p. 847.



Spirit.10 Like many fourth-century trinitarian theologians, he first establishes theequality of the Persons by using the Nicene language of x from x (light from light)but then he interprets it with the additional principle that ‘He who was sent is not,therefore, less than He who sends.’11 The Father is the begetter and the Son is thebegotten, but still, they are equal because the divine nature (the divine light) isthe same. The distinction of Persons comes only from their relation of origin. TheFather is ‘from no one’, the Son is from no one but the Father, and the Spirit is fromno one but the Father and the Son.12 The nature is the same, but the origin of relationis different. For Augustine, then, the difference between the origination of the Sonand the Spirit resides in the difference between their relations of origin.13 To put itanother way, the distinction for Augustine comes from the Son’s participation in theprocession of the Holy Spirit. This participation is revealed in the glorified risenJesus Christ who gives the Holy Spirit to the Apostles.

With this move, we can now discuss a central issue that is decisive for hisposition on the taxonomy of the Trinity – the distinct processions of the Son and theHoly Spirit are revealed and reflected in the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit.14

In a sense, we could say, the economic Trinity reveals the immanent Trinity.A problematic issue follows, and this is the first. If, following Augustine, theprocessions are revealed by the missions, why do we see Gospel passages that reveala different taxonomy than the traditional one in which he believed? We will need todiscuss this issue in the analysis of von Balthasar’s trinitarian theology.

Continuing to examine de Trinitate, we find that other issues emerge, especiallywhen we look more closely at what Augustine understands about the differencebetween the two originations of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The middle books of deTrinitate (5–7) deal with a different aspect of the Arian controversies by providing adense examination of the logical structures and terms of trinitarian theology thathe concludes by stating that the Trinity is ‘one essence or substance and threepersons’.15 After this extensive discussion and importantly for the Christian tradition,

10 Augustine, The Trinity [de Trinitate], vol. 45 of The Fathers of the Church, trans. StephenMcKenna (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 1.5.8:

The question about the manner in which the Holy Spirit is in the Trinity also disturbsthem [Homoians?], since neither the Father nor the Son, nor both of them havebegotten Him, although He is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Since people, then,ask such questions and weary us by doing so, if through the gift of God our weaknessknows anything about these subjects, we shall explain them as best we can, nor shallwe proceed on our journey with consuming envy.

11 Augustine, The Trinity, 15.3.5.12 Augustine, The Trinity, 4.20.28.13 For a discussion of the difference of originations in Augustine, see, for example, Studer,

Trinity and Incarnation, p. 176.14 For this fundamental principle in Augustine’s trinitarian theology, see his The Trinity,

2.5.7–2.7.13; 3.Preface.1–3.Preface.3, 3.4.10, 3.10.21–3.11.27; 4.7.11–4.9.12, 4.20.27–4.21.32.

15 Augustine, The Trinity, 5.9.10.



Augustine examines the topic of the Father and the Son as one principle of the HolySpirit. He first defines principium, principle. Whatever remains in itself while yetaffecting another is a principium of that effect. For example, the Father is theprinciple of the Son and of creation. Similarly, the Son and the Spirit are also oneprincipium relative to creation. This relation of principium to creation does not meanthat there are three principles involved in creation. Since creation is ad extra to theTrinity, there is but one principle because they are the one God. But, what about adintra? Given the definition of principle, if the Father is the principle of the Son, thenhow can the Son be a principle of the Holy Spirit? Additionally, if the Father is theprinciple of the Spirit, then how is it that the Spirit is not the same as the Son?Augustine uses several biblical passages to answer these questions and concludesthat in the Bible we see that the Son as well as the Father gives the Spirit. The Fatherand the Son are not two principles originating the Holy Spirit. With an analogy to theone principle of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in relation to creation, Augustinesays that the Father and the Son are one principle in spirating relation to the HolySpirit.16

A second question emerges from Augustine’s view that we will need to addressin trinitarian theology. If for Western trinitarian theology the Father and Son are oneprinciple spirating the Holy Spirit, why does it seem that the incarnation is a work ofthe Father and the Holy Spirit acting as one principle sending the Son? But this issuewill be discussed in the von Balthasar analysis.

The third issue that we will need to address will emerge from what we could callAugustine’s mutual-love model of the Trinity. Augustine discusses in Book 6 the‘ineffable communion between the Father and the Son’ and the Holy Spirit as theirmutual love.17 Using his understanding of the Holy Spirit as the mutual love,Augustine writes: ‘through Him [the Holy Spirit] the begotten [the Son] is loved bythe begetter [the Father], and in turn loves Him [the Father] who begot Him [theSon]’.18 The Holy Spirit is common to both the Father and the Son as their mutuallove. Moreover, the Spirit is the one ‘between the Father and the Son’ and the onethrough whom they each love the other.19 In the one as loving and the other as loved,there emerges a third: the love by which the lover loves the beloved and the belovedloves the lover. The Holy Spirit is this third as the mutual love of the lover for thebeloved and the beloved for the lover. For Augustine, this mutual-love model

16 Augustine, The Trinity, 5.13.14–5.13.15. See also Mary Ann Fatula, ‘A ProblematicWestern Formula’, One in Christ 17 (1981), p. 327: ‘since whatever is given has for aprincipium the one by whom it is given, it must be confessed that Father and Son areone principium of the Spirit, not two’. It seems that the only argument that Augustine usesin this case is the analogy from the one principle of the Father, Son and Holy Spirittoward creation. In his argument, Augustine is defending against the ‘Arians’, but morelikely the Homoians, about the equality and consubstantiality of the Son concerning theFather and the hypostatic distinction between the Son and the Spirit.

17 Augustine, The Trinity, 5.11.12; 6.5.7.18 Augustine, The Trinity, 6.5.7. For clarity, I add my parenthetic comments.19 Augustine, The Trinity, 6.5.7.



accounts for how the Son and the Holy Spirit are hypostatically distinct. The HolySpirit as love comes about in procession from the love the Father has for the Son andfrom the love the Son has for the Father.20 Augustine thought that the doctrine behindthe filioque phrase accounts for this hypostatic distinction in that the Holy Spiritproceeds from the love of the beloved for the lover and likewise from the love of thelover for the beloved.

The third question emerges from the mutual-love model. If the immanentrelations must be revealed in the economy and if the mutual-love model is correct,then why does it seem that the Son in the economy never gives the Holy Spirit backto the Father? In other words, why does the Holy Spirit never return back to theFather from the love of the Son? If the mutual-love model is correct, then the Sonwould manifest in the economy the Holy Spirit as love from himself to the Father,which does not seem at first glance to be in the Gospels, not even the importantpassages of the Lukan Pentecost of Acts 2 and the Johannine Pentecost of John 20.

Augustine’s de Trinitate became decisive for Western trinitarian theology and itsuse of the traditional taxonomy of the Trinity, especially his theological defense ofthe filioque wording. But the three issues that I generated from his work force us toquestion the adequacy of this traditional taxonomy. These forceful issues lead somecontemporary Western systematic theologians to abandon the traditional taxonomyaltogether.

Abandoning the traditional taxonomy

A very significant theologian, Jürgen Moltmann, chooses this option.21 In hisimportant work The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation he argues that thetraditional taxonomy, and by implication the doctrine of the filioque, must simply goits way into history as a superfluous addition that has hindered the pneumatologyof the Bible and the reunion of Eastern and Western Christianity.22 Moltmannmaintains that several different taxonomies of the Trinity are possible. He offersfour alternatives, including perhaps most controversially Holy Spirit, Father and

20 Augustine tied his mutual-love model of the Trinity with his theology of perichoresis orcircumincession. The three Persons endlessly interpenetrate one another: ‘each is in each,all are in each, each is in all, all are in all, and all are one’ (Augustine, The Trinity,6.10.12). Augustine used this theology to insist not only upon the equality of the Personsof the Trinity but also upon the eternal and dynamic activity of the processions.

21 Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), pp. 5–8.

22 ‘The ecumenical deliberations on the subject at the Klingenthal conferences in 1978 and1979 showed, in my view, that the addition to the Nicene Creed which maintains that theHoly Spirit proceeded from the Father and from the Son is superfluous’ (Moltmann, TheSpirit of Life, p. 306). Karl Barth argues for the filioque, see his The Doctrine of the Wordof God, vol. 1, pt. 1, of Church Dogmatics, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans.G.W. Bromiley, 2nd edn (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975), pp. 473–87.



Son.23 For Moltmann, the alternative models more correctly correspond to what isrevealed in the economy and, therefore, Christians ought to do away with thetraditional taxonomy, especially to help the reunion of the Eastern and Westernchurches.24

A major event for trinitarian theology has occurred for such an influentialtheologian of Moltmann’s stature to accept alternative taxonomies of the Trinity. Ifsuch a theologian makes such a bold proposal with such important consequences,should trinitarian theology not follow?

In my opinion, no. Moltmann, at least in this book, is much too quick to thinkthat the East will accept anything other than the traditional taxonomy minus thefilioque phrase. Though Moltmann tries to use Eastern terms to describe hisunderstanding of the Trinity, I think it is safe to say that the East will not includeanything but the traditional ordering of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Fatherthrough the Son. In my view, Moltmann’s differing models of the Trinity will providea further obstacle, especially with his alternative taxonomy of Holy Spirit, Father andSon. Moltmann’s abandoning the traditional taxonomy I do not think to be a seriousoption for the tradition.

Another significant theologian, Leonardo Boff, also chooses to abandon thetraditional taxonomy. In his book, Holy Trinity, Perfect Community, Boff advocatesreplacing the traditional taxonomy with a hyper-perichoresis.25 Each Person of theTrinity so interpenetrates the other two that there can be no real ordering of first,second and third. Indeed, such conceptions have arisen out of a hierarchical age andhave no place in a world in need of liberation from hierarchical oppression.26 As akind of reverse of the theology of Marcellus, the Trinity begins as a reciprocalcommunion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and afterward becomes a unity, that is,‘the three comes first’.27 The perfect community of the Trinity is the ‘liberationprogram’ for the church and the world to be a perfect community.28 For Boff, themissions reveal several kinds of processions such as the Son and the Holy Spiritoriginating the Father or the Holy Spirit coming only from the Father and then

23 The first alternative is the Holy Spirit ‘shining his eternal light from and through the Sonupon the mutual relations of the Father and Son; thus, the Father and Son proceed fromthe Holy Spirit’ (Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, pp. 307–8). The second is that the HolySpirit proceeds from the Father of the Son (Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, p. 306). Thethird is that the Holy Spirit so intensely accompanies the begetting of the Son that theFather begets the Son through the Holy Spirit just as the Father proceeds from the Spiritthrough the Son (Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, pp. 306–7). The fourth is that the HolySpirit proceeds from the Father in order to rest in the Son (Moltmann, The Spirit of Life,p. 307).

24 It should be noted that his use of procession is in the Western sense of origin, which canbe multiple, but not in the Eastern sense of ultimate origin, which must be singular.

25 Leonardo Boff, Holy Trinity, Perfect Community, trans. Phillip Berryman (Maryknoll,New York: Orbis Books, 2000).

26 Boff, Holy Trinity, pp. 41–4, 53–55.27 Boff, Holy Trinity, p. xvi.28 Boff, Holy Trinity, p. xv.



reposing on the Son. He would also say, ‘the Spirit is of the Father through theSon (a Patre Filioque) as the Son is recognized in the Father through the love ofthe Spirit (a Patre Spirituque)’.29 All three reveal one another and all three aregenerated by one another. Instead of speaking of cause, principle or processions, ‘wewould do better to speak of mutual revelation and acknowledgment’, thus we avoidany hierarchical rendering of God and affirm the Trinity as the perfect non-hierarchical, non-oppressive community.30

Boff’s model of the Trinity is thoroughly influenced by a hermeneutics ofsuspicion of the traditional taxonomy of the Trinity and I would question him onwhether his models of the Trinity come after his conception of a utopian communityor from divine revelation through Scripture and tradition. We can full-heartedlyaffirm his desire to advocate the three in God in eternal perichoretic unity astransformative for society, but God has revealed more of himself than his threeness.He has also revealed each Person’s relation of origin, as the beautiful passages ofJohn 14–17 make clear.

In my view, abandoning or revising the Nicene taxonomy of the Trinity is not anoption for Christian theologians, especially if the West desires union with the East.As the Agreed Statement of 2003 makes clear, the faith of Nicaea is the non-negotiable, hard landscape for any remodeling projects of our trinitarian theology.For Moltmann and Boff, however, their theological reasoning of the traditionnecessitates abandoning the traditional taxonomy of the Trinity.31

Encountering a compelling taxonomy

In the second part of his trilogy, specifically in two sections in Theo-Drama, volume3, the significant twentieth-century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar addressed theproblem of the traditional taxonomy of the Trinity and its inconsistency with certainbiblical texts by developing what he called his theology of trinitarian inversion and

29 Boff, Holy Trinity, p. 60.30 Boff, Holy Trinity, p. 91.31 Rather than abandoning it, some theologians construct a Spirit-Christology to revise the

traditional taxonomy. There are several different kinds of Spirit-Christologies that spanthe theological spectrum from Walter Kaspar to Roger Haight. Ralph Del Colleand David Coffey provide the most compelling constructions. See Ralph Del Colle,Christ and the Spirit: Spirit-Christology in Trinitarian Perspective (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1994). For David Coffey’s Spirit-Christology, see several sourcesincluding Deus Trinitas: The Doctrine of God (New York: University Press, 1999);Grace: The Gift of the Holy Spirit (Sydney, Australia: Catholic Institute of Sydney, 1979);‘The Holy Spirit as the Mutual Love of the Father and the Son’, Theological Studies 51(1990), pp. 193–229; ‘A Proper Mission of the Holy Spirit’, Theological Studies 47(1986), pp. 227–50; ‘The Spirit of Christ as Entelechy’, Philosophy & Theology 13(2001), pp. 363–98. While I value Spirit-Christology, I think that von Balthasar’stheology of the trinitarian inversion and reversion provides the more compelling answer.



reversion.32 We will see that this theology of trinitarian inversion and reversion refersto the perceived changing place of the Holy Spirit in the taxonomy – first inverted(Father, Holy Spirit, Son) and then reverted (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). I offer adetailed interpretation of this theology and then evaluate it in light of the three issuesgenerated from the first part of this article, intending to persuade that this theologycompellingly accounts for the New Testament revelation of the relations of thePersons of the Trinity.

In order to write about von Balthasar’s theology of trinitarian inversion andreversion I would like to write first about his theory of the twofold face of the HolySpirit presented in Scripture. The first aspect of the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spiritbreathed forth from the Father and the Son. The second aspect is the period of hidingof the joint spiration of the Holy Spirit in which the Holy Spirit appears as spiratedfrom the Father alone and as presenting the Father’s will to the Son.

The first aspect of the joint spiration of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Sonpoints to a mysterious supra-temporal event of unanimous salvific decision of thePersons of the Trinity.33 In the Gospel of John, we see this in the constant insistencethat the Son has been sent on a mission and his role is one of acceptance of andobedience to this mission. In the central discourse after the washing of the disciples’feet, the Son promises that the Paraclete will be sent ‘who will not speak on his ownauthority, but whatever he hears he will speak’ (Jn 16:13). The Spirit ‘will take whatis mine and declare it to you’ (Jn 16:14). The Holy Spirit will speak what he hasreceived from the Son who has sent him.

The second aspect of the Spirit is the Spirit’s position of presenting the Father’swill to the obedient Son in which the Son’s role of jointly spiriting the Holy Spirit istemporarily hidden for the sake of redemption. In Balthasar’s theology, influencedhere by Adrienne von Speyr (1902–67), the Holy Spirit takes the function ofpresenting the will of the Father as a form of religious rule that demandsunconditional assent no matter the cost. Even though the Spirit appears at onceloving and merciful and also at other times exacting and pitiless, the Son mustfollow.34 In the Synoptic Gospels, after the baptism the Spirit pushes him into thedesert temptations. In the Gospel of John, we see this Spirit as the rule in the Son’sspeech about the Father’s mandatum (Jn 10:18; 12:49–50; 14:31) and his desire to

32 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Dramatis Personae: The Person in Christ, vol. 3 ofTheo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco:Ignatius Press, 1992), pp. 183–91, 515–23.

33 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 187.34 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 188. The rule by the Holy Spirit originates from an

analogy to religious life. The religious rule analogy comes from Adrienne von Speyr. VonBalthasar says of her, ‘Adrienne liked to think of the Holy Spirit as the “Rule” of theFather which accompanied the Son on earth; he looks towards the Spirit as the religiousdoes towards the rule of his order and fills this rule with an inner readiness – inspired bythe Spirit – which likewise corresponds to the “spirit of the Rule”, indeed is itself thisspirit’ (Hans Urs von Balthasar, First Glance at Adrienne von Speyr, trans. Antje Lawryand Sergia Englund (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1981), p. 60).



obey. For von Balthasar, the mandatum is one of many Johannine images for theHoly Spirit. The Son also says that this rule is not his own (Jn 6:38; 4:34; 5:30;12:27). The benefit of the second aspect is that it provides a view in the economy ofthe distinction between the Son and the Spirit.35 The second aspect of the Spirit asover the Son provides a means to distinguish between the generation and thespiration revealed by the economic missions of the Son and the Spirit, and alsoprovides a much needed view of the Spirit’s full divinity.

Having appreciated briefly the two aspects of the Holy Spirit, von Balthasar nexthighlights the distinction between the two economic states of the Son to apprehendbetter the immanent relations of the Persons of the Trinity. When we read theGospels, and particularly the ancient Christian hymns (for example, Phil. 2:1–11 andCol. 1:15–20), we discern the two states of the Son – the first is the kenotic state orthe status exinanitionis and the second is the exalted state or the status exaltationis.36

In the kenotic state, the Son has emptied himself in carrying out his mission and hassubmitted himself in complete obedience to the will of the Father presented to himby the Holy Spirit. In the exalted state, the Son has been exalted to the right hand ofthe Father and has the manifest power to breathe forth the Holy Spirit on the churchand the world.

In the state of having emptied himself, the Son has a position that correspondsto the second aspect of the Holy Spirit who is over and above the Son presenting theFather’s rule and guiding the Son. The kenotic state during the Son’s missionnecessitates a relationship with the Spirit that expresses his mission of beingpossessed by the Spirit who though above him is also in him.37

For von Balthasar, the kenotic state of the Son is the economic view of the Son’sreception in the immanent Trinity of the power to spirate the Holy Spirit jointly withthe Father.38 Von Balthasar writes that ‘just as the Son eternally receives his entiredivine being from the Father, he also eternally receives from him the ability to sendthe Spirit forth in conjunction with the Father.’39 Of course, Balthasar implies noelement of chronology in the generation and spiration within the Trinity. Logicallyand taxonomically, he discerns a space between the two eternal sequences. The firstis the Father generating the Son and giving with this generation the Son’s ability toshare in the spiration of Holy Spirit. The second is the Son’s actual spiration of theHoly Spirit with the Father. The kenotic state corresponds to the first sequence withinwhich the Spirit has been given to him in the events of the incarnation and hisbaptism, having emptied himself to the point of surrendering the position or at least

35 Some early Eastern Christian trinitarian theologies have difficulty with the distinctionbetween the generation of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit as revealed in theeconomy, but some Eastern theologians looked for ways to express it, such as Gregory ofNyssa, the Council of Blachernae (1285) and even Gregory Palamas. See ‘AgreedStatement’, section 2.

36 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 189.37 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 189.38 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 190.39 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 190.



the appearance of jointly spirating the Holy Spirit. Throughout the kenotic state,Jesus has the Spirit in him ‘without measure’ and yet he declares that the Spirit isabove him as an expression of his humiliation.40 Because of the second aspect of theSpirit and the kenotic state of the Son, the taxonomic view of the Trinity appears attimes to be inverted (Father, Holy Spirit, Son).

In the second state of the Son, that of exaltation, the taxonomic view becomesdifferent as it appears to revert to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the resurrectionand ascension of the Son, the Father has ‘highly exalted him’ (Phil. 2:9) and nowwe can see his power to breathe the Spirit (Jn 20:22), but this power will alsobe discerned previously on the cross, which I will discuss below.41 After theaccomplishment of the redemption (Jn 19:30; Acts 1:1–11), the exalted Sonmanifests his power to breathe the Holy Spirit as depicted in the Gospels of Lukeand John. The exalted state then appears to be a reversion ‘to a point where he canreceive the power of (participating in) breathing forth the Spirit’.42 Because ofthe exaltation, the trinitarian taxonomy reverts back from the inversion of thetrinitarian taxonomy during the Son’s kenotic state. In the exalted state of the Son,the joint spiration from the single principle of the Father and the Son can bediscerned more clearly.43

Balthasar concludes his reflection on the trinitarian inversion and reversion,stating in an important sentence that ‘What we have termed “inversion” is ultimatelyonly the projection of the immanent Trinity onto the “economic plane,” wherebythe Son’s “correspondence” to the Father is articulated as “obedience.” ’44 In otherwords, the inversion image of the Trinity (Father, Holy Spirit, Son) corresponds inthe economy to the kenotic state where the Son’s relation to the Father and HolySpirit is one of obedience but the reversion image of the Trinity (Father, Son,Holy Spirit) corresponds to the exalted state where he jointly spirates the Holy Spiritwith the Father. Thus, what appears as an ‘inverted’ taxonomy in the Son’s kenoticstate becomes clearly ‘reverted’ in the Son’s exalted state.45

As a final point in this section, von Balthasar’s theology of inversion andreversion does not imply change in God. Any authentic Christian theology mustavoid false views of God in which God either changes mythically or is abstractedphilosophically. Von Balthasar is clear that what we see in the inversion and reversionwith the taxonomy of the Trinity is not change in God, but rather ‘a new look to hisinternal relations’.46 Now that the redemption has been accomplished, manifoldviews of God that occurred during the Son’s period of ‘God-forsakenness’ highlightthe infinite, ever-greater views of God’s tri-personhood.

40 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 521.41 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 189.42 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 190.43 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 191.44 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 191.45 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, pp. 520–3.46 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 523.



Having overviewed Balthasar’s theology of the trinitarian inversion andreversion, let us engage this theology with the questions that arose from the first partof the article. The first question had to do with the outlying biblical texts thatseemed to present a different taxonomic view of the Trinity than the traditional one.Balthasar’s distinction between the first and second aspects of the Holy Spirit cananswer this question. The first aspect of the Holy Spirit, that is, the Spirit’s jointspiration from the Father and Son, is not revealed completely in the economy untilafter the exaltation. The crucial priority of the mission before the exalted state ofJesus is the sinner’s situation of God-forsakenness that the Son takes upon himself insuch a way that the fullness of the immanent relations, which always remains true, ‘isveiled to the highest degree’.47 The Son enters fully our state of God-forsakenness butnevertheless remains obedient to the Father, so ‘he must allow the Father’s Spirit totake an active leading role, while at the same time letting the Spirit who proceedsfrom him, the Son, be in complete harmony with the Father’s will’.48 In the majorevents of incarnation and baptism, the Holy Spirit appears as the Second Person ofthe Trinity only because of the period of the Son’s letting himself be emptied.

Our second question was on how we are able to understand the incarnation as awork of the Son as well as of the Father and Holy Spirit. In Spirit-Christology, thetheology of anointing is used to highlight the Spirit’s role in the incarnation in orderto augment robustly the more dominant Logos-Christology of the incarnation. In vonBalthasar’s theology of trinitarian inversion and reversion, we acknowledge thepassivity of the Son in the incarnation, which is the second aspect of the Holy Spirit,but this idea is preceded by the first aspect of the Holy Spirit, namely the Trinity’sdecision to send the Spirit to bring about the incarnation of the Son. The passivity ofthe Son in the incarnation is the manifestation of his active giving himself overobediently to the Father.49

The creeds include this concept of the passivity of the Son; for example, theApostles’ Creed states: ‘conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born ofthe Virgin Mary [qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine]’.All the early creedal forms follow in emphasizing the activity of the Spirit andthe passivity of the Son.50 The creedal text corresponds to Luke’s choice of activeverbs applied to the Spirit as the ‘Power of the Most High’ who ‘will come uponyou’ and ‘will overshadow you’ (Lk. 1:35).51 The text corresponds even to activeverbs applied to Mary’s role: ‘will conceive in your womb’ and ‘will bear a son’ (Lk.1:31), and passive verbs applied to the Son who ‘will be called holy’ (Lk. 1:35).

47 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 522.48 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 522.49 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 183.50 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, pp. 183–4.51 Some Orthodox theology tends to interpret the ‘power of the Most High’ as referring to

the Logos so the Second Person could be active in the incarnation, yet the Lukan theologyof the Holy Spirit as God’s power (e.g. Acts 1:8) seems to interpret better the poeticparallelism in Lk. 1:35.



Nevertheless, we must emphasize that for von Balthasar – and I think we can say thatthe theologies behind these creeds would agree – the passivity of the Son expressedin the incarnation is proceeded by an active handing himself over. The theology ofthe enhypostasia of the neo-Chalcedonian position (Second and Third Councilsof Constantinople) or even that of Thomas Aquinas could also be invoked here.52 ForThomas, the Person of the Son is the principle of the hypostatic union as the Sonadopts or assumes human nature.53 In Thomistic terms, we can speak of a certainactive involvement of the Son in his incarnation. Yet, the passivity of the Son in theincarnation cannot be missed. This passivity must not be interpreted as an alternativeordering of the Trinity. Instead, the passivity of the Son in the incarnation is alreadya manifestation of his redemptive obedience.54 Rather than the paschal mystery alonebeing interpreted with a soteriology of obedience, the incarnation is already an act ofthe Son’s letting himself be led by the Father’s will through the Holy Spirit in orderto redeem all of humanity.55 The incarnation with its view of the Son’s passivityunder the Holy Spirit’s discretion begins the masterful work of redemption in whichthe Son overcomes through weakness.

In answer to this second question, we must remember that for von Balthasar, theincarnation reveals economically the immanent view of the Father’s generatingthe Son and with this generation the Father gives the Son the ability to spiratejointly the Holy Spirit. The incarnation reveals the first sequence of the joint spirationof the Holy Spirit. On this point, I think that von Balthasar’s theology of trinitarianinversion and reversion is able to interpret better than Spirit-Christology.

Let us address the third issue. If the immanent relations must be revealed in theeconomy and if the mutual-love model and theology of perichoresis are correct, thenwhy does it seem that the Son in the economy never gives the Holy Spirit back to theFather? In other words, why does the Son never return the Holy Spirit as answeringlove back to the Father?

Like other mutual-love models of the Trinity, von Balthasar’s model of theTrinity portrays the Father as Lover eternally generating the Son as the Beloved whothen gives his love back to the Father, within which the Holy Spirit fills the relationalspace between the Father and Son as their shared, jointly spirated love.56 The firstsequence of the Father giving love as Spirit to the Son is seen in the economy with

52 For a discussion of the enhypostasia as I am interpreting it here, see my article‘Mysterium Christi: The Christologies of Karl Rahner and Maurice de la Taille’,International Journal of Systematic Theology 10 (2008), pp. 416–30.

53 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Provence(Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1981), 3.7.13. In the order of the divine processions thegeneration of the Son precedes the spiration of the Holy Spirit, therefore the economicmissions follow the same order in that the hypostatic union precedes habitual grace.

54 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 184.55 The Holy Spirit ‘in him and above him is the manifest presence of his divine mission’

(Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 521).56 Von Balthasar uses Augustine’s mutual-love model of the Trinity together with the

theology of Heribert Mühlen and the philosophy of Martin Buber among others.



the incarnation and baptism. But what about the second sequence of the Son’sanswering love toward the Father? For von Balthasar, we must look to the GoodFriday crucifixion and the Holy Saturday descent of the Son into the realm of thedead. The Son giving back his love to the Father as his participation in the jointspiration is revealed at the cross and can be seen in the words: ‘ “Father, into thyhands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last’ (Lk. 23:46). TheSon breathes his last human breath expelling love toward the Father. Artistically, weusually see this breath as given toward those at the foot of the cross, but the biblicaltext is ambiguous. In Mark 15:37 and Luke 23:46, we read in the RSV that he‘uttered a loud cry and breathed his last’, in Matthew 27:50 that he ‘cried again witha loud voice and yielded up his spirit’ and in John 19:29 that he ‘gave up his spirit’.On the cross, the Son does not breathe his Spirit on the disciples as a prequel to thePentecostal gift of the Spirit to the church and the world. The Son as he expels his lasthuman breath gives his answering love back to the Father. The expelling of hislast human breath is the economic revelation of the immanent relation of thereturning love of the Holy Spirit given by the Son back to the Father.

For von Balthasar, the breathing his last breath on the cross also revealseconomically the immanent implication of the filioque wording. Whereas severalWestern theologians would argue that the economic revelation of the filioque conceptwould be the scenes of the Lukan or Johannine Pentecost, von Balthasar believed thatit is on the cross that the Son, who has had the Spirit come down upon and withinhim, gives up his Spirit to the Father accomplishing the economic revelation of thesecond sequence of the spiration of the Holy Spirit.57 Thus, what we see completedon the Cross is the reverted view of the Trinity as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, wherethe Holy Spirit has the role of the mediation of love between the Father and Son asoriginating from them both.

Von Balthasar’s answer to this third question has implications for theecumenical dialogue between the Eastern Orthodox churches and Western churches,particularly the Roman Catholic Church. For von Balthasar, the view of the diá(‘through the Son’) applying to both the immanent and economic Trinity is a pointof agreement between the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox Christians: ‘For just asthe Son eternally receives his entire divine being from the Father, he also eternallyreceives the ability to send the Spirit forth in conjunction with the Father.’58 Wedo not need to revise the ordering but we must emphasize the possibility ofcomplementarity for both Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians in order toemphasize the richness of the trinitarian relations. Still, from von Balthasar’s pointof view, ‘All that is required is that the Son, in his eternal origin from the Father,should go back to a point when he can receive the power of (participating in)

57 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 521. See also, Anne Hunt, The Trinity and the PaschalMystery: A Development in Recent Catholic Theology (Collegeville, MN: LiturgicalPress, 1997), pp. 57–89.

58 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 190.



breathing forth the Spirit.’59 The ‘Agreed Statement’ recommends that when anOrthodox Christian hears a Western Christian say the Holy Spirit proceeds from theFather and Son the word ‘proceeds’ must not be interpreted in the narrowest,strongest sense of ‘ultimate origin’, which can only apply to the Father. Similarly, theWestern Christians must understand that when the Eastern Orthodox Christians saythat the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father, first they reserve ‘proceeds’ to thenarrowest definition of ‘ultimate origin’ and, second, they still believe the Son isjointly responsible for and participates in the spiration of the Holy Spirit.

In this article, I have attempted two things – defending the traditional taxonomywhile also constructing through von Balthasar’s theology a model of the Trinity thatincorporates the apparently inconsistent taxonomies in the biblical witness. Threecritical issues emerged from the analysis of the traditional taxonomy that pressedsome to abandon it such as Moltmann and Boff who presented alternativetaxonomies of the Trinity. However, abandoning the traditional taxonomy must beregarded as a non-option for Christians, especially in view of the ecumenicaldialogue. With the detailed study of von Balthasar’s theology of the trinitarianinversion and reversion we have encountered a taxonomy of the Trinity that isconsistent with the full witness of Scripture and tradition. As a last note, I wouldclaim that the God we speak of in theology is always greater. While the fruit fly is adifficult taxonomic problem that hopefully biologists will solve soon, we mustremember that Augustine’s important statement is not ‘si comprehendis, nonDrosophilia melangaster est [if you comprehend, it is not a fruit fly]’. It is ‘sicomprehendis, non Deus est [if you comprehend, it is not God].’ Von Balthasar hassaid, ‘as God unveils himself to us in truth, we begin to grasp how far he is beyondour understanding’.60 As God has revealed himself as Trinity in truth, we begin tograsp how far he is beyond our trinitarian taxonomies.Yet, even imperfect knowledgeof God is still knowledge of God.

59 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 190.60 Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, p. 530.



a compelling trinitarian taxonomy: hans urs von balthasar's theology of the trinitarian...

Documents