Jüngel on Trinitarian Prayer

German theologian Eberhard Jüngel is professor of systematic theology and philosophy of religion at the University of Tübingen and is one of the most admired living theologians. Although not very well known in the US, he has achieved something like "cult-status" in the theological blogosphere.

I want to look at a brief article that he published in the journal Word & World in 1998 titled "Trinitarian Prayers for Christian Worship." In this article Jüngel gives a brief plea for filling in the "experiential deficiency" in the church today of the doctrine of the Trinity through praying in a trinitarian structure. He follows this by submitting 19 trinitarian prayers that he has used when asked to contribute to his congregation's liturgy.

Reflections on the doctrine of the Trinity have picked up theological steam in the past 30 years, with theologians and philosophers of religion publishing a flood of books and articles on various facets of the Trinity: feminist perspectives, postmodern perspectives, social and political perspectives...you get the picture. But for all this Trinity-talk among the theologians, are church members experiencing any kind of change or edification in their thinking in the Trinity?

Perhaps not. While we want to embrace the fact that we worship a Triune God, we may secretly share Immanuel Kant's famous complaint that the Trinity is practically irrelevant to our lives.

Jüngel's proposal to counter this tendency is to focus on a core practice in Christian worship: prayer. His claim is that "Trinitarian prayers call Christians to experience the life of the triune God." It so often happens that our prayers are offered to a monolithic conception of God, and this hinders our capability to experience the fullness of the Trinity. Jüngel emphasizes that "this God does not exist in splendid isolation, but is One who exists from eternity as a Being in community, indeed, who exists as a community of mutual otherness."

We are urged, then, to give a trinitarian structure to our prayers that does justice to this definition of the Godhead. The idea is that we are to address this trinitarian community of mutual otherness

in such a way that the respective particularity of each person of the Trinity is called to mind. This particularity is remembered so that those who are reminded of it begin to share in the life of the trinitarian God. And with that, Christians begin to experience the mystery of the divine Trinity - an experience which, then, has great practical value.

I heartily agree with Jüngel's thoughts here, that when we pray, we should do so in a way that allows us to recognize and experience the triune life of God.

The Eastern Orthodox Church, of course, has long emphasized the practical value of the Trinity in church life and in worship. Indeed, it is claimed within this stream of Christianity that the Trinity is the foundation for our own personhood. Bishop Kallistos Ware's writings have illuminated this facet of the Trinity in my own thinking. And so, with this in mind, Jüngel concludes his reflections with this stirring reminder: "For if the human is the image of God, then the human, too, is meant to turn the otherness that distinguishes among people toward community that does not level out such otherness."

One minor point of curiosity (and possible contention) that I have with Jüngel's article is in the way that he fleshes out, so to speak, his definition of the triune God and our faith in Him:

Faith in God the Father is faith in God as the origin of life; faith in God the Son is faith in the God who, for our benefit, died our death. But faith in God the Holy Spirit is faith in the God who, in himself, endures this contrast between life and death and who resolves the contrast to the benefit of life. 

 Maybe it's just me, but there seems to be something suspiciously Hegelian going on here. I am with Jüngel when he affirms faith in the Father as the origin of life. I am with him when he affirms the Son who dies in our place. But when it comes to the role of the Holy Spirit, is it really the case that we can say that He is the "Divine Synthesizer" who mediates the thesis of life in the Father and the antithesis of death in the Son? Is this the role that we affirm of the Holy Spirit? Is this our faith in Him, that He "resolves the contrast"?

Maybe there's nothing too objectionable in this. But I would be more inclined identify faith in the Holy Spirit more as faith in the One who restores and perfects creation through love.

Maybe Jüngel's phrasing can be considered equivalent to this idea. But I am a little supicious of the Hegelian language, which even seems to de-personalize the role of the Spirit, making it look less like personal agency and more like an impersonal principle of mediation.

Despite my hesitation here, I gladly embrace and endorse his proposals to correct the experiential deficiency of the doctrine of the Trinity through trinitarian prayers.