Holmes - God's Attributes As God's Clarities

International Journal of Systematic Theology Volume 10 Number 1 January 2008
doi:10.1111/j.1468-2400.2007.00254.x
Gods Attributes as Gods Clarities: Wolf

Krtkes Doctrine of the Divine Attributes
CHRISTOPHER R.J. HOLMES*
Abstract: For the Berlin systematic theologian Wolf Krtke, the doctrine of the
divine attributes presents God as, first, one who is clear and luminous in himself,
and, second, as one who communicates his clarity in the eventfulness of Jesus
Christ. Krtke modifies the traditional approach to the doctrine by redescribing
Gods attributes in terms of clarities which, in turn, are indicative of the glory
of God. In this article, I expound and analyse Krtkes understanding of the
clarities of truth, love, power and eternity as proper to God in his relationally
rich reality shining forth, with an eye to the character of the renewal of human
life thereby effected. Critical comments are also raised in relation to Krtkes
proposal, particularly with respect to his lack of a robust doctrine of the
immanent Trinity and the necessity of maintaining such.
Introduction
It would not be a stretch to say that the doctrine of the divine attributes is enjoying
something of a renewal in current theology. In English-speaking theological circles,
for example, Colin Gunton and John Webster have offered substantive works on the
doctrine which assiduously seek to treat the attributes of God in relationship to
the doctrine of the Trinity.1 So, too, in Germany Eberhard Jngel has recently
produced essays of weight, especially concerning Gods eternity.2 But it is the Berlin
* Providence Theological Seminary, 10 College Crescent, Otterburne, MB, R0A 1G0,

Canada.
1 Colin Gunton, Act and Being: Towards a Theology of the Divine Attributes (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); John Webster, Holiness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003);
The Holiness and Love of God, Scottish Journal of Theology 57 (2004), pp. 24968.
2 Eberhard Jngel, Theses on the Relation of the Existence, Essence and Attributes of
God, trans. Philip G. Ziegler, Toronto Journal of Theology 17 (2001), pp. 5574; and
Theses on the Eternality of Eternal Life, trans. Christopher R.J. Holmes, Toronto
Journal of Theology 22 (2006), pp. 1639.
The author 2007. Journal compilation Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Gods Attributes as Gods Clarities 55
systematic theologian Wolf Krtke who has attempted the most in-depth theological
interpretation of the attributes of the God of the gospel since Barths own magisterial
treatment in CD II/1.3 Although Krtke, for the most part, remains unknown in
English-speaking circles, he is perhaps the most probing and incisive theological
voice to have emerged from the former GDR. Born in 1938, Krtke a Lutheran,
and, for a period of time in the early 1960s, a student of Jngels at Berlin
has published numerous essays and texts on a wide range of doctrinal loci, and
important commentary on Barth, Bonhoeffer and the Barmen Declaration.4 In
fact, his published works add up to two thousand pages or more. His recent text
on the attributes of God Gottes Klarheiten: Eine Neuinterpretation der Gottes
Eigenschaften is the welcome fruit of many decades of theological thinking in
accordance with the God of the gospel.5
What characterizes Krtkes theology as a whole, and especially his doctrine of
God, is a concern for concreteness. For example, Christian teaching on God, if it is
to approximate the gains revelation affords, must attend to the place wherein God has
disclosed himself to humanity in an unambiguous turning, that is, to the history of
Jesus Christ in fulfillment of the promises made to Israel. In like manner, the concrete
character of Gods self-disclosure enables one to speak clearly of the human being as
well, as one with whom God partners in order to clarify the shape of her existence
anew. Throughout his body of theological writing, Krtke is at pains to account for
the manifold actualities in which human beings exist in light of the clear and
unambiguous reality of Gods coming.6 Only in relation to this One who is indeed
reality himself are the church and the Christian, for Krtke, able to attend to the
various actualities in which they find themselves as actualities subject to Gods
salutary address in Jesus Christ. Such a concern is, in general, indicative of the
political and existential thrust of so much of Krtkes theology: political in so far as
the concreteness of God in Jesus Christ casts down all structural idols which prevent
human beings from existing in an open manner in relation to God and to one another
and caring for one another in a manner that attests Gods own care for the creature
in Jesus Christ; existential in so far as God is One whose clarity or luminosity bursts
3 See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (hereafter: CD), trans. ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F.
Torrance (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 195775), II/1, pp. 322ff.
4 Further biographical information about Krtke can found in his theological self-portrait
in Christoph Henning and Karsten Lehmkhler, eds., Systematische Theologie der
Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen (Tbingen: UTB fr Wissenschaft, 1998), pp. 25974;
Eberhard Jngel, Laudatio: D. Dr. Wolf Krtke, Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift 8
(1991), pp. 14753; and Philip G. Ziegler, Doing Theology When God is Forgotten: The
Theological Achievement of Wolf Krtke (Issues in Systemstic Theology 14; New York:
Peter Lang, 2007).
5 Wolf Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten: Eine Neuinterpretation der Gottes Eigenschaften
(Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 2001). All translations of Krtkes text are my
own.
6 Hence the prominence of the motif of partnership. See Krtkes essay Gott und
Mensch als Partner. Zur Bedeutung einer zentralen Kategorie in Karl Barths
Kirchlicher Dogmatik , Zeitschrift fr Theologie und Kirche 6 (1986), pp. 15875.
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Journal compilation Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007
56 Christopher R.J. Holmes
forth into creaturely opacity, creating light where only darkness and ambiguity
hitherto flourished.
As a theologian from the former GDR, Krtkes emphasis on Gods clarity is
fitting in light of the larger cultural and societal landscape of todays Germany and
of the West in general. It is a landscape marked not so much by an active opposition
to God as was the case with the reigning ideologies of the former GDR as by a
simple forgetfulness of God. If human beings are not capable of articulating any
reality with the word God, a reality which moves and forms their lives, God for
them amounts to nothing a reality no longer recognizable in the living out of life,
Krtke writes.7 The doctrine of the divine attributes is undertaken with an eye to
providing people with a language which enables them to speak of God and, in turn,
themselves anew. But the gains which accrue to human beings via Gods coming
namely, that of a language to speak of God and a new way of being are always
ultimately derived from the concreteness of Gods self-bestowal in Jesus. Gods
reality is indeed luminous, and it is on account of the perspicuity proper to
Gods self-communication that human beings are clarified in accordance with it.
Krtkes contention is that the doctrine of the divine attributes ought to occupy
the centre of the Christian doctrine of God, precisely because the doctrine
presents the attributes of God as agreeing with the very concretions of Gods triune
life in his encounter with humanity in the man Jesus. In this article, I expound and
analyse Krtkes account of the theological work peculiar to the doctrine of the
divine attributes, with a view to critically engaging his proposal via Barth and Paul
Molnars recent work on the theological function of the doctrine of the immanent
Trinity.8 The work undertaken by the doctrine is description of the dxa of God as
a speakable reality whose concrete self-disclosure includes within itself clarities
which form the basis for discourse on God in a time of Gottesvergessenheit.9
Significantly, Krtke equates Gods glory with Gods clarity as shown forth in the
exemplary clarities of truth, love, power and eternity clarities which license speech
and, in turn, human action, which is shaped by Gods self-articulation.
The theological task of the doctrine of the divine attributes
For Krtke, the starting and end point of the doctrine is God. God is a communicative
reality who does not hold anything back from humanity in the particular history in
which he encounters human beings. The sayings, miracles and works of Jesus in
7 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 286.

8 Paul D. Molnar, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity: In Dialogue
with Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology (London and New York: T. & T. Clark,
2002).
9 Krtkes preferred term for attributes is clarities. Gottesvergessenheit literally,
God-forgottenness is a term which originates with Schleiermacher. See Krtke, Gottes
Klarheiten, p. 7, n. 11.
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fulfillment of the promises made to Israel are described by Krtke as the concretions
in which God shares himself. In fact, the doctrine of the divine attributes
accomplishes its theological work to the extent that it shapes peoples faith in God in
accordance with this sharing, inasmuch as this history is evocative of a concrete
language for God by which people learn to speak of God. One already begins to espy,
then, that for Krtke one of the most important aspects of the doctrines theological
work is that of inviting [people] to a discourse on God [emphasis mine] that they
themselves are capable of carrying out.10 Thus, far from rendering the creature mute,
Gods movement to people capacitates language: [language] participates in the
reality of the God who himself became Word and in the Word encounters people in
a diversity of speakable concretions.11
It is at this point that one begins to note another crucial function of the doctrine,
namely, that discourse on God raises up foundational questions of being human,
precisely because Gods involvement in history aims at letting them [i.e., human
beings] come to life again in the most human way imaginable.12 Accordingly, Gods
movement to humanity in Jesus Christ can be said to be a humanizing movement.
Discourse on God as such is not funded at the expense of the creature. Rather, Gods
coming grants a language which enables people to ask and answer anew the question
of what it means to be human. To this extent, Gods movement establishes true
subjectivity as it effects openness in relation to God the acting subject of this
history and thereby the neighbour.13 True subjectivity is granted by the God who
gives the human a new language for himself and thus herself in relation to him.
Krtkes emphasis on the indissoluble relationship between the concretions
peculiar to Gods coming and the doctrine of the attributes is itself a response to
abstractions perceived in classical treatments of Gods attributes. More specifically,
Krtke is leery of prominent nineteenth-century accounts, for example, that of
Albrecht Ritschl, who describes the attributes as ways of Gods working in
love;14 and, in like manner, that of Wilhelm Herrmann, for whom the attributes gloss
ways of Gods working: concerning God we can only speak about what he does
towards us.15 As regards the former, Krtke explains that Gods divinity, in which
he is categorically differentiated from all that is of the world, cannot basically be
derived from love itself.16 That is to say, the content of Gods divinity or deity is

14 Taken from Albrecht Ritschls unpublished Lectures on Dogmatics, manuscripted by
Otto Ritschl, 18812; and R. Khler, Das Problem der Bestimmung des Wesens Gottes
untersucht bei Albrecht Ritschl und Ritschl-Schlern (PhD diss., Berlin, 1981), p. 257,
quoted in Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 79.
15 Wilhelm Herrmann, Die Wirklichkeit Gottes, vol. 1, Die christliche Religion in unserer
Zeit (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1914), p. 42, quoted in Krtke, Gottes
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established only in relationship to Gods identity as Father, Son and Spirit; for Gods
love is proper to who God is as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Love is not anterior to
God. As regards the latter, Krtke is suspicious of any attempt to isolate Gods act
from Gods being. Gods act is the externalization of Gods being Gods act is but
the reiteration or repetition of Gods triune life. It is here, then, that one begins to
obtain a sense of what an attribute denotes. An attribute of God, for Krtke, is not
a gloss upon Gods working or the manner of Gods loving, as if Gods work were
not the very expression of Gods essentia; rather, an attribute expresses an inner-
trinitarian relation.17 Said differently, the attributes are identical to who God is in the
co-inherence of his reality as Father, Son and Spirit.18 The attributes are ingredient in
and proper to their reality.
The attributes are proper to Gods own relationally rich reality as concretions of
a relation of God to himself and therefore to the world.19 As such, they bespeak
the manner of the relatedness of Father, Son and Spirit, a relatedness revealed in the
world for the sake of the life of the world. The holy fellowship of the three in one,
then, is not rent asunder in coming to the world but rather is present in its fullness and
in plenitude in the concretions of a particular history. In making such a point Krtke
unites the theological work particular to the doctrine of the Trinity with the doctrine
of the attributes in so far as the attributes are proper to the concretions of Gods
coming to the world as God, a coming identical with Gods own eternal becoming in
himself.20 The attributes as such are made known in the concretions of Gods glory
Gods essential triune relatedness which comes to the world in a manner befitting
the human.21
Throughout his account of the divine attributes Krtke takes particular care to
describe the freedom in which God bestows himself. The divinity of Gods love and
therewith Gods directedness to the creature is an event of complete relationality.
God is not somehow made more complete or more divine in revelation; God is not
subject to love or anything else for that matter as a kind of external necessity. The
love of God that is the devotedness and receptiveness of the persons one to another
freely overflows: Gods self-communication Gods revelation is always thus
reiterative of a prior relatedness. For Krtke, this is expressive of the dxa of God.
17 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 84. Such is Krtkes criticism of Schleiermacher, in so far

as Schleiermacher does not adequately show what actually constitutes the divinity of
[Gods] love precisely because piety gains expression in Schleiermachers doctrine
of the attributes, with the result that God is made dependent on the consciousness of
absolute dependence and is conditioned by it. See Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, pp. 66, 67.
18 Cf. Jngel, Theses, 3.7.1.
20 This is, for John Webster, one of the most distinctive features of Gottes Klarheiten. See
Webster, Holiness and Love of God, pp. 24950.
21 Krtke thinks highly of Heinrich Vogels description of attributes as Gods
Wesenherrlichkeiten. See Gott in Christo: Ein Erkenntnisgang durch die
Grundprobleme der Dogmatik (Berlin: Lettner, 1951), p. 404, quoted in Krtke, Gottes
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In fact, Krtkes account can be rightly described as nothing but an extended and
sophisticated theological meditation on the glory of God shining forth in the fact of
Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).
What is Gods glory, then, but the sum of all that God is and does? As such, it
is the very concentration of what the three persons of the Trinity are in themselves
and thus what shines forth in the concretions peculiar to their reality as revealed in
the economy of salvation. And so, Gods divinity is not preserved or secured via
isolating Gods act or operations from Gods being but rather is true of God as the
one who exists in a threefold manner. Krtke explains:
What is distinctly divine with regard to the triune God consists in the fact
that in his dxa unity and differentiatedness are perfectly mediated without
contradiction. A trinitarian person is, in this sense, a person entirely open to the
other persons and completely permeated by Gods dxa . . . Gods doxological
personal being shows forth the contours of love, in which God refers to himself
as radiating and receiving love and proceeding beyond himself.22
To restate this: God is glorious in that in his being or inner life unity and difference
co-exist in perfectly concentrated harmony. This is Gods glory and therefore Gods
love: the harmony that is the three persons openness to and permeation by one
another.
In order better to describe the character of Gods relationally rich reality that
is, Gods glory Krtke introduces the term Klarheit. An important passage runs,
This agreement of Gods concentrated and relationally rich dxa with the
contours or concretions which, in its eventuatedness [Ereignen], is shown forth
according to revelation, should be interpreted in what follows as Gods clarity.
Gods clarity is an event in clarities which are communicated when God relates
himself to a reality outside of himself. These clarities make possible both the
experience of God as well as discourse on God.23
Gods clarity bespeaks the agreement of Gods glory with the concretions in
which God is revealed as God. The term attribute, then, is superseded by the term
clarity, for the latter better indicates the extent to which Gods glory Gods
relationally rich reality is communicated in Gods concretions. Gods glory
Gods clarity is present in clarities. Krtkes equating of clarity with glory is
indicative of an important motif in his text. Gods glory is not honoured by silence;
Gods glory is not representative of a horizon of attribution that can only be attested
negatively. Rather, Gods glory as Gods clarity is living and active, radiating forth
in events generative of human speech and action.

Commenting on the dxa to qeo or dxa to cristo as encountered
in the biblical witness, Krtke writes that it expresses quite well the preciseness in

23 Krkte, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 103.
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which God through Christ encounters people.24 Gods salutary bestowal in Christ is
not ambiguous; rather, God communicates himself as he is. The metaphor of light
(2 Cor. 4:6), for example, does not declare a relationless excess of Gods divinity
which, as was thought in the ancient church tradition, must ultimately be, in its
burning, a darkness unto people.25 Instead, not the distance of Gods dxa to
human reality but rather its salutary making clear of the world rooted in its shining
forth is what distinguishes it in the reflection of the reality of Jesus Christ.26 Gods
glory or communicative clarity is not an ineffable horizon of attribution, then, but
rather that which comes near to creaturely reality in Jesus Christ most concretely
in his resurrection as a klarmachendes Doxa-Geschehen.27 The splendour of Gods
glory lies in its communicative character: Gods glory is an event of complete
clarity, that is, of full transparency in itself which is therefore able to give a clarifying
share in itself.28 God as a relationally rich reality shares himself with people. The
clarities of God are but Gods glory shining forth: In his [Jesus] human existence,
that means in his appearance, proclamation, act and mission, the clarities of God
become humanly visible.29
But an all too important question remains unanswered, namely, which clarities,
on the basis of holy scripture, are to be afforded prominence? Krtke identifies four
exemplary clarities, namely the clarities of truth, love, power and eternity. These
four include, in turn, other clarities within themselves which function as further
specifications of these four. The clarities are proper to the perichoresis of the divine
persons, and the unity and differentiation of the persons in relation to one another.30
In what follows, I offer a very brief sketch of the theological content which Krtke
ascribes to each clarity.
The clarity of Gods truth
As with the other exemplary clarities, truth is not to be interpreted as an attribute

which illuminates or glosses a particular way of Gods working; nor is truth attributed
to God on the basis of an act of human predication. Truth, rather, concerns one with
the triune God, with an essential description of this God. Accordingly, truth is alive;

30 But what about other pivotal clarities crucial to the biblical witnesss description of God
such as Gods holiness? Why should such a clarity be occluded? Krtkes response:
Gods holiness is so adjoined to the event of his dxa, indeed, it is immanent in such a
way that it is to be understood as a characteristic of dxa itself in all its concretions. The
clarities of truth, of love, of power and of eternity can all be interpreted in the sense of
holy clarities. Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 116.
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truth is not inert. Truth is what has continuance and is valid and, therefore, that
upon which one can depend .31 The inseparability of reliability or constancy and
truth is crucial for Krtkes account of the clarity of the truth of God because of their
indissoluble unity in the biblical witness. What is truth then? In short, truth is the
living Gods constancy and dependability as enacted in Jesus Christ.
Gods truth Gods dependability is thus truth which grounds human beings.
In this sense, one can say that Gods constant truth establishes . . . human beings
who actually deserve to be called real.32 Truth as a clarity of God expresses its
clarifying character precisely by sanctifying human beings in accordance with the
truth. Truth as such possesses an interruptive character. But it only interrupts, as with
the other clarities, for the sake of creaturely clarification. By establishing humans
anew in correspondence to Gods truth and light as disclosed in the eventfulness of
Jesus Christ, the truth of God thereby renews human existence in accordance with the
coherence and truthfulness of Gods reality. This being so, one begins to notice
an important characteristic of Krtkes account: the clarities of God are both gift
and task gift, in so far as truth places sinful people in a new relation to God and
others; task, in so far as people are invited to participate in the renewal of
human existence in accordance with this new relation by speaking and acting in
correspondence to Gods truth and light. Krtke writes:
Revelation as the appearance of truth, therefore, has in its essence a
soteriological quality because it sets in motion a history of the making true of
our lives. If human beings begin to participate in this history, then, they
experience their lives as becoming more real in truth, that is, more lasting and
more palpable than all their efforts to give themselves constancy and to establish
the truth of reality.33
Krtkes account of the clarity of Gods truth is, of course, indissolubly bound
to the doctrine of the Trinity. Truth happens itself on the basis of the relation of
Father and Son. Truth can be experienced and understood only in this relation, in
the Father and Sons unity of constancy and openness and with reference to the
Spirit who takes people into the movement of this relationship.34 The emphasis on
truth as arising in relation to the co-inherence of the persons is, however, not treated
as an end in itself. By becoming the moving ground of the existence of human being,
Gods truth frees [human beings] for a clear and objective seeing and acknowledging
of what in our human ways of being effects the destruction of relationships in which
we are earthly creatures.35 The truthfulness of God as Father, Son and Spirit is a
31 Gerhard Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,

trans. and ed. Geoffrey
W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 196476), vol. 1, l qeia, pp. 242f., quoted in
Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 123.
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truthfulness which takes place, then, for the benefit of the creature. Gods truth as
such differentiates human existence from untrue realizations of its very existence.
Although Krtke does not make use of the language of sanctification per se, one
could say, in faithfulness to Krtkes basic point, that Gods truth sanctifies inasmuch
as it differentiates relations [to God, ourselves, other people, nature, etc.] and the
true possibilities of human existence given with them [in the event of Gods truth]
from the untrue use which people in sin make of them.36 In sum, Gods truth makes
possible true human existence by differentiating it from sin.
The clarity of Gods love
Just as truth is proper to God as the three in one, so, too, is love.37 As such, love is
not to be described as a way of Gods working; neither is God to be equated with
love, as if love is prior to God. Rather, to bespeak Gods love is to say something
especially true of the self-movement of Father, Son and Spirit to one another and thus
to the world. In that God is revealed in the clarity of love he concerns people in an
unambiguous turning, and brings his love near to them as the basis of their life.38
God communicates himself unambiguously in his turning to people. This is Gods
glory and as such the clarity of Gods love. Krtkes emphasis on the unambiguous
character of Gods turning as crucial for the theological concept of clarity is in
service of attesting that God turns to the world, that sinful people are indeed
recipients of Gods gracious self-bestowal. For just this reason, God is said to be the
acting subject who determines and defines what love is. Love, then, is neither a
principle of existence, nor a phenomenon that can be derived out of the structure(s)
of the world. Rather, God is divine in his love because the love that encounters the
creature is the love that God in his threefold life is. And this love is indeed his glory
shining forth.
Thus, to speak of Gods love as simply an event of accomplished love in Jesus
Christ in and of itself is inadequate because Gods love is a partnering love. Gods
love as a fellowship-creating love awakens and summons the recipients of his
covenant love, unworthy as they are, to partnership with himself. God is not God for
us without the partner of his love whom he has chosen.39 Here, too, one must
recognize that, for Krtke, the clarity of Gods love its partnering character would
be wholly undercut if God cannot be said to be present in the love God is. Hence
Krtke repeatedly emphasizes the divinity of this love. The triune God meets us out
of the immanence of his Godhead in unreserved loving, turning and welcoming.40

37 This love is, of course, holy love. Commenting on Titus 2:13f., Webster writes, that is
Gods holiness operative as love. Webster, Holiness and Love of God, p. 265.
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Specifically, God meets us in unreserved loving and turning in the cross and
resurrection of Jesus. Therein God manifests the complementary character of his
judgement and love. Just as the God who resurrects Jesus must be understood as
judge, he corresponds in this to the God of love proclaimed by Jesus.41 That is to say,
Gods judgement of sin in the crucified One is concomitant with that very same
Ones proclamation of the Kingdom of his love. And the resurrection of Jesus
announces that Gods judgement of sin in him is lastingly important . . . a lasting
event in which Gods dxa concerns all the world in the way of love.42 It is in the
judgement that the rejected one takes upon himself and indeed becomes that Gods
glory is lastingly manifest so as to be present among us in the Spirit as loving
concern. This action is of particular importance to observe as one notes that Gods
justice is but a further specification or concretization of Gods love. In effect, the
cross and resurrection of Jesus demonstrate Gods love to be just, indeed, to be
justifying. On Krtkes view, then, Gods love Gods fidelity to his errant covenant
people is a love which gets involved: Gods love is his being-for sinful people.43
But Gods love is always, for Krtke, Gods directedness, too. His directedness is his
judgement wherein God, in love, frees humanity from sin.
Human beings are powerless before sin, unable to recognize the orientation to
which they are bound. Gods love, precisely because it is clarifying love rooted as
it is in Gods justifying act which differentiates the creature from false possibilities
attests sin as a judgement of God which enables us . . . to perceive the extent of
the groundlessness of sin.44 The knowledge of sin exists, then, only in so far as the
judgement of God upon sin is attested, which shows forth the falsity of sin. And it is
statements such as this which give credence to Krtkes contention that the doctrine
of the divine attributes stands at the centre of Christian doctrine.45 For in the
exposition of the clarity of Gods love, Krtke takes account not only of other
clarities like that of justice, but also of other central doctrines such as justification
and, in this case, sin.
The clarity of Gods power
An account of the evangelical clarity of Gods power ought to be sensitive to the

concerns and questions surrounding the nature of Gods omnipotence as expressed
in the theodicy question. That is, if God is omnipotent, then why does he permit
unceasing suffering which not only descends upon people through natures power
but above all inflicts itself upon people?46 Attending to the theodicy question and the

45 Cf. Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 290.
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understanding of omnipotence which funds it is, for Krtke, salutary in its

demonstration of the extent to which the evangelical clarity of Gods power is ganz
anders. In other words, the God whose omnipotence is questioned via the theodicy
question is more akin to the God of classical metaphysics than the God of the gospel.
Gods omnipotence, as presupposed by the theodicy question, is essentially human
power writ large, or more specifically, the hypostatization of power humanly
understood via human reason. If such is the case, an enormous dilemma arises for the
theodicy question. Namely, if Gods power is, as the theodicy question suggests,
entirely efficacious the absolute power of one who determines and orders all
according to his will then God is ultimately a dark reality. An account of the
evangelical clarity of Gods power, on the other hand, attends to the place wherein
God exercises his power, the place where God turns historically towards the existing
world of the human under the conditions of the natural world.47 Here, Gods power
is exercised in a careful manner, that is, in the concrete turning of God to humanity
in the lowliness of Jesus.
As such, Gods power is a clear-making power: it contradicts the creaturely
misuse of power that characterizes so much of human existence. Gods power does
not act in human history according to the ideal of absolute success and violent
coercion but rather in powerlessness, in the crucified Jesus who is the parable of
Gods power.48 Moreover, it is in Christs resurrection that his powerlessness
is ultimately vindicated and shown to be demonstrative of Gods power. The
resurrection, as the eschatological demonstration of Gods glory, makes it possible
for the creature to participate effectively in the possibilities of Gods power.49 This
is its clarifying character. As with Gods love, Gods power makes possible
creaturely participation in the possibilities particular to it in this case, service. Thus
it does not render the creature inert in relation to the suffering of others, but
empowers her. In the eschatological triumph of Gods power in the resurrection,
Gods power is effectively revealed to be empowering
, power which in the Holy Spirit
carefully confronts and empowers people. n dunmei fulfills basically everything
that Christians do in the world on the basis of the empowerment by Gods power:
apostolic service (cf. Acts 4:22; 2 Cor. 6:7), proclamation (cf. Rom. 1:16), love for
the neighbour (cf. Titus 1:7), the awareness of the gifts of the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor.
12:411).50
Gods empowering power, then, does not answer the theodicy question on its
own terms. Instead of trying to account for why a so-called supreme being allows
for so much suffering and death, the clarity of Gods empowering power is clear in
so far as it points humanity to the place where power has been truly enacted and
demands that human beings, too, take seriously that redefinition by appropriating
the possibilities for genuine creaturely freedom granted there.

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The clarity of Gods eternity
Eternity, as with the clarities of truth, love and power, is a shared or communicated
clarity characteristic of the glory of God shining forth in the face of Jesus Christ. As
such, eternity is neither the abolition of creaturely time nor timelessness. Rather,
Gods eternity is revealed in action to exist in a non-competitive relationship to time.
Eternity, for Krtke, is indeed timely precisely because it is the concentration of all
times: eternity is intensified temporality in so far as in it past, present and future
[time] is gathered into one.51 Past, present and future time cohere in God in
accordance with the Father, Son and Spirit in an altogether intensified way what
Krtke refers to as the original concentration of time.52 Gods time for the creature,
then, is but the reiteration of the time peculiar to the three modes of being God who
are each eternal in a manner different from the other as a consequence of their
relatedness to and processions from the other. In the case of the Father, for example,
Gods eternity is disclosed in the fact that the Father is capable of taking time for the
creation and preservation of the world.53
Moreover, the concentration of earthly time by the eternity of the kingdom of
God is not the negation of the time of earthly existence but rather its intensification
as acceptable time.54 The very communication of Gods eternity in the eventfulness
of Jesus establishes and grounds creaturely time. It concentrates the creatures gaze
on this time in fact, human existence marked by eternity will thus engender a
profoundly humane existence as people are called to care for what is necessary
today, that is, for the dignity of Gods creatures in this world whose creaturely
existence should correspond to its marking for eternity.55 The clarity of Gods
eternity aims, then, at the effecting of what is truly human in the world of the human
and society. As such, it contradicts and pronounces a definite No upon all that would
oppose and obscure such a determination.
In short, the clarity of Gods eternity and all Gods clarities for that matter
are present with and for the benefit of this life.56 Gods eternity invokes
concentration upon life in this world and, in turn, disrupts all political and social
ideologies which claim absoluteness for themselves in relation to this life. As such,
the benefits granted to this life are indissolubly bound to the determination of God
disclosed in the history of Jesus and the working of the Spirit. God determines
human existence for participation in his eternally intensive clarity . . . Gods
complete history with humanity and with each person has its true splendour in the
fact that God does not reserve his eternity only for himself. It really makes eternal

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dxa the future and meaning of earthly existence.57 Shining forth in the clarity of his
eternity, God shares his glory with humanity for the sake of effecting a more humane
life in the world for all unto eternity. In so doing, God does not hold anything back:
God shares himself.
Critical assessments
Having provided a report of Krtkes doctrine of the divine attributes in Gottes

Klarheiten, it would now seem appropriate to offer a series of critical comments in
relation to it. What Krtkes text is lacking, I would argue, is a robust doctrine of the
immanent Trinity. Indeed, there is in his text a paucity of language about God in se.
The lack of a doctrine of the immanent Trinity in Krtkes account is problematic
precisely because an emphasis on the perspicuity of the divine self-disclosure
which Krtke expounds in an altogether sophisticated manner ought not to exclude
an equally robust emphasis on or description of the immanent life of God. Put again,
Krtke rightly emphasizes Gods clarities as agreeing with Gods triune reality, but
in doing so he does not adequately account for the character of those self-same
clarities in terms of their belonging to the holy fellowship of the triune One in and of
himself. Such a deficit indicates, according to Paul Molnars recent account of the
theological function of the doctrine of the immanent Trinity in the doctrine of God,
a less than adequate treatment of Gods freedom.58 An account of Gods immanent
freedom is crucial in any work on the doctrine of God, because such an account
underwrites the theological truth that God can be said to be God in himself, that is,
God can be said to be who he is apart from his revelation.59 One would think that such
an emphasis would be very amenable to Krtkes overall concern to point to the
divinity and uncatchableness of God in his revelation, to the notion that God is never
to be regarded as a prisoner of his revelation. And yet, a dogmatic depiction of the
triune Gods antecedent existence, and therewith Gods ontological self-sufficiency,
is overwhelmed, in Krtkes text, by his treatment of what the triune God has done
in relation to us.
In pointing out this weakness, I am suggesting that in the doctrine of God the
immanent Trinity must not only be regarded as always preceding the economic, but
that also an asymmetrical relationship be posited between the two. Commenting on
Barth, Molnar writes that God exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and would so
exist even if there had been no creation, reconciliation or redemption.60 It is not that
Krtke would disagree with this statement per se: indeed, to disagree with it would
be tantamount to suggesting that God needs history in order to be who he is, that God

58 See, further, Molnars preface to Divine Freedom.
59 See Molnar, Divine Freedom, p. 31. Molnar asserts this in relation to another German
Lutheran theologian, namely Jrgen Moltmann.
60 Molnar, Divine Freedom, p. 63.
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is realized in relation to history. But the point of Molnars statement is to say that
God, for Barth, is not altogether identical with the instrument namely the humanity
of Jesus in which he reveals himself. To suggest such would be to confuse Jesus
human nature and his divine nature, to collapse the one into the other and thereby to
compromise the Creator/creature distinction. After all, Jesus humanity serves as a fit
and indeed sanctified witness in the power of the Spirit, for it is as the man Jesus that
the Son has determined himself to be who he is in relation to us. Stated somewhat
differently, the incarnation is, as Molnar states, a fact grounded in Gods primal
decision to be God for us.61
It is also important to note Krtkes repudiation of Luthers teaching on the
Deus absconditus and the Deus revelatus, if we are to fully appreciate why the
doctrine of the Trinity is underdeveloped in his thought.62 He dislikes the distinction
some would argue separation which exists in Luthers doctrine of God between
the two, and concomitantly the distinction between the works of Gods left and right
hands, because it compromises the clarity of God and the unambiguity of Gods
turning to us. It suggests not only a noetic but also possibly an ontic gap between the
identity of the Revealer and the One revealed. For this reason, Krtke is, as a
theologian working in the existential German Lutheran tradition, allergic to the
doctrine of the immanent Trinity because, in his mind, it alludes to or hints at a Deus
absconditus residing behind Gods works and the horizon of attribution disclosed in
those works.63 As a result, Krtke so emphasizes the unity of the two that he eclipses
the necessary distinction between them. The distinction between the immanent
Trinity and the economic Trinity is necessary in order preserve Gods freedom. In
preserving Gods freedom, the theological point of the doctrine of the immanent
Trinity is not to isolate Gods being from his activity, but to simply indicate that the
Trinity exists in its own right.64 As Molnar puts it in relation to Rahner, robust
emphasis on God as one who exists antecedently in himself is not untheological
speculation, for the reason that such an admission simply points to God as one
whose clarity is ingredient in or proper to himself prior to his own bestowal of
himself.65
Affirmation of the independence of God with respect to his workings in the
economy of salvation, moreover, strengthens an account of Gods clarity, I would
argue, because it points to its sovereign character. Sovereignty is a classical identity
description of God which receives little attention in Krtkes account, again because
such a description seems at odds with his characteristically heavy emphasis on Gods
turning toward the human. But an account of the clarity proper to Gods turn toward
the human would be strengthened if one would recognize that the One who turns

62 See Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, pp. 42ff.
63 Exemplars of the existential German Luther tradition would be E. Fuchs, G. Ebeling and,
of course, E. Jngel.
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does so freely. To describe Gods clarities, then, is not to describe merely the event
wherein they are disclosed; it is also to describe God as the eternal one who is clear
in and of himself and has his clarity in such a way that earthly events which would
obscure it namely the Son of Gods crucifixion and death are commandeered by
his own sovereign self-command in such a way that they too are revelatory of Gods
inner life and being. Stated somewhat differently, God in his triune life is clear unto
himself; he does not have his clarity only in so far as he partners with us and thereby
effects it among us. Although Krtke would grant this, what remains underdeveloped
is his account of the transcendent character of Gods clarity. Yes, the clarities of God
are clearly enunciated in relation to the triune life of God. But an account of their
transcendent character as clarities of the triune God is absent. In so emphasizing the
relatedness of God to the creature in his self-sharing, Krtke eclipses the equally
important sense of the independence of God even in this relatedness.
Why does Barth (and Molnar, following after Barth) want to safeguard the
independence of God in his revelation? And why is this a motif which is
conspicuously absent in Krtkes treatment? As a Reformed theologian, Barth has a
stronger and more sophisticated sense of the aseity of God. Lutheran theology tends
to concentrate on who God is pro nobis, whereas the Reformed tradition, as Barth
represents it, attends more thoroughly to the God who is pro nobis. Barth, as a
lifelong student of Reformed theology, has a stronger sense of the a se, that is, of the
theological necessity of describing who God eternally is as Father, Son and Spirit.
This is in order to safeguard Gods activity in relation to this sphere as free, and to
ensure as well that God is never immediately identified with the created realm.
Indeed, God comes as a creature among us, but in so doing he does not lose his deity.
It is precisely because God exists in himself that he can be and in fact is for us. And
so, although Krtke describes at length how Gods clarity is a clarity proper to the
coinherence of the three persons, he does not take the next and necessary step of
explaining why an account of the clarity of God in se funds the account of the clarity
God shows forth in relation to us. Molnar puts it well: We must speak first
about God as God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and then, on that basis, about our
relations with God, other creatures and the world in light of revelation and faith.66 It
is the speaking first which is eclipsed in Krtkes account. In other words, from a
classical Reformed perspective, Krtke moves too quickly from God to us.
But why must we speak first about God and only then about our relations with
God which are, of course, subject to his clarifying clarity? The eternal generation of
the Son by the Father tells us first and supremely that God is not at all lonely even
without the world and us.67 Precisely because God is full and complete in himself,
apart from his own self-concretion, he can and indeed does clarify human existence
anew through raising up covenant partners who correspond to and live in accordance
with his self-disclosure and the clarities ingredient in that self-disclosure which
shape life accordingly. Perhaps the difference between Barth and Krtke can be

67 CD I/1, p. 319.
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stated like this: because of the self-bestowal of God and the clarities proper to it we
can speak, for Krtke, of Gods immanent life; whereas, for Barth, one must speak
of God in se by virtue of his revelation. Only by doing so can one thwart the
immanentizing tendencies present in much modern Protestant thought, the attempt to
identify God in a straightforward way with the material realm, and to argue that
Gods activity is somehow constitutive of Gods Godhead.
It is not accidental, then, that Krtke has a large section on the clarity of Gods
love but says little about the evangelical clarity of Gods freedom. He even rejects
Barths dialectical pairing of the perfections of love and freedom because of its
perceived abstractness. But that is to miss Barths point. Barth treats the perfections
of Gods love in advance of Gods freedom in CD II/1 precisely because only in so
doing is it guaranteed that the love or the mercy shown forth in Gods act of
revelation is indeed proper to the God who not only has but is glory. God is and
remains the free Lord of both his inner life and his works ad extra.68 The strange
absence of what is a very significant motif for Barths doctrine of the divine
perfections also bespeaks the presence of a subtle apologetic intent on Krtkes part.
Could it be that the existential Lutheran tradition does not necessarily know what to
do with the motif of divine freedom? The political and existential thrust of so much
of Krtkes doctrine of God, as edifying as it is, can and indeed does make little
use of a tract of dogmatic teaching which is very important to the classical Reformed
tradition as Barth represents it.69 The delight made available in describing the extent
to which the otherness God has in himself funds his creation of another for
fellowship with himself is lost when the concern is almost exclusively with
describing the horizontal clarity evoked by God. And so, it is my contention that
Krtkes very creative reinhabitation of the doctrine would be strengthened by more
vigorous attention to a doctrine of the freedom of God, and to how Barths sense of
the freedom of God is critical if the gratuitous character of revelation is to be
safeguarded and honoured.
To sum up, an account of the immanent Trinity arises exclusively in relation to
the concreteness of Gods self-enactment a concreteness which Krtke repeatedly
presses to the fore as its very correlate. The concreteness of Gods economic reality
licenses and indeed demands speech about God in se. Thus, a dogmatics of the divine
attributes ought not to speak grudgingly about God in se; for an account of God in se
honours the asymmetrical and differentiated relationship of the immanent and
economic Trinity in so far as Gods immanent reality always precedes his economic
reality, and, while there is perfect mutual correspondence, the latter does not exhaust
the former. And so, a question arises as to whether the unity of the immanent and
economic Trinity need be understood, as seems to be the case in Krtke, in such a
way as to truly exclude their differentiatedness as well. Put again, must an emphasis

69 Cf. Barth: All our statements concerning what is called the immanent Trinity have been
reached simply as confirmations or underlinings or, materially, as the indispensable
premises of the economic Trinity. CD I/1, p. 479.
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on Gods concreteness necessarily dissolve the distinctness of Gods immanent and

economic reality or render such conceptual categories as being of little use? Not
necessarily: I would argue that an account of Gods immensity would be the place to
begin in accounting for the nature of their distinctness.
Gods aseity is inclusive of his clarity. A robust account of the immanent Trinity
delineates Gods self-sufficiency in relation to himself in such a way that it attests
God to be an utterly fulfilled, self-sufficient being who remains other in relation
to the creature. This otherness is indicative of the immensity of God. Immensity
is at one and the same time the otherness of God over against created space
and the divine capacity to stand in relation to space without compromise to
the divine freedom, Webster writes.70 Note that Websters depiction of immensity
compromises neither the profound intimacy of Gods relation to time and space nor
his freedom. So, too, an account of Gods clarity must emphasize Gods otherness
over against created space, that is, his freedom, and the extent to which that freedom
points to Gods capacity and his willingness to stand and act in space and time as the
one who possesses such clarity without thereby compromising his freedom in
relation to space and time. As Webster states, The integrity and reciprocally
determinative character of Gods aseity and Gods works ad extra must not be
compromised either by their separation or by the exposition of one at the expense of
the other.71 Krtkes account of the clarities would thus benefit from a more
effective integration of aseity and economic presence which would enable a
more thorough articulation of the sheer liberty and originality of Gods saving
clarity.72 If God is clear precisely in his concrete self-bestowal, such a description is
also equally appropriate, then, in reference to God in se. In sum, an account of God
in se, Gods aseity, ought not to take second place in relation to an account of God
pro nobis, for the in se and the pro nobis exist in a non-competitive albeit
asymmetrical relation to one another.
Conclusions
Krtke does not map, account for, or seek to overcome the current pervasive silence
about God in todays Germany or that in the West in general via an apologetic
rooted in a general or departicularized doctrine of God. The silence engendered by a
widespread sense of God-forgottenness is overcome, instead, in relation to a doctrine
of the clarities of the triune God which function as a gain to people in such a
situation of silence, for these clarities offer a language by which people can learn to
speak of God and of themselves anew. In fact, the clarities of God instruct or better,
catechize the creature in the ways and works of the God of the Bible. The
70 John Webster, The Immensity and Ubiquity of God, in Confessing God: Essays in
Christian Dogmatics II (London and New York: T. & T. Clark International, 2005), p. 96.
71 Webster, Immensity and Ubiquity, p. 97.
72 Webster, Immensity and Ubiquity, p. 97, n. 19.
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theological work peculiar to Wolf Krtkes doctrine of the attributes, then, is that it
seeks to give the creature a language for God in accordance with the clarities
ingredient in Gods self-articulation.73 The concretions of God in which the
clarities of the glory of God are disclosed are just the centre of such a beginning.
The uniqueness of Krtkes account lies in his equating Gods glory with Gods
clarity. That is, clarity, as a theological term, is Krtkes way of honouring the fact
that God agrees with the very revelation of Gods own glory, that God is luminous
and radiant in relationship to himself, and that the trinitarian persons exist in a
relationship of complete reciprocity and mutuality in relation to one another and
thereby in relation to the creature. The equating of Gods glory with Gods clarity is
a step licensed by the Bible: the God whom holy scripture attests presents himself
without ambiguity, without reserve, in a concrete human existence undergoing death
for the sake of lifes renewal. Krtkes invocation of the term clarity is also his way
of pointing to the fact that the what of God Gods attributes or clarities agrees
with the who of God, that is, God as Father, Son and Spirit. Gods clarities are
indeed none other than the clarities of Father, Son and Spirit.74
Moreover, clarity for Krtke bespeaks not only the reality of God but also what
God intends for the human covenant partner. Because God is clear in relation to
himself and because Gods glory is the glory of a relationally rich and
communicative reality, Gods glory proceeds forth, effecting clarity in relation to
his fallen creation in so far as God in Christ calls the human to correspond to the
disclosure of his clarity and to be transformed in accordance with it. Indeed,
the creature is honoured by Gods call to partnership, that is, to speak and act
according to the clarity of God shining forth in the concretions of his reality.75 This
being so, there is indeed a robust anthropological payoff present in Krtkes account
inasmuch as the clarities of God effect creaturely clarity and thereby distinguish
human beings from false possibilities concerning their humanity. In Krtkes mind,
true human existence is effected for the human by the true human who is himself the
very eventuatedness of Gods clarity among human beings. And so, Krtkes account
of Gods glory does not arise at the expense of the creature, but rather in relation to
the clarity of the God who is present to and for humanity in the history of Israel and
Jesus so as to judge, pardon and raise humanity anew.
73 To be sure, discourse on God is not limited to these clarities. Rather, these (four) clarities
function as normative criteria, as a kind of rule of faith, enabling one to deal responsibly
with the diversity of clarities present in scripture. Each individual clarity is an invitation
to further specify and to deepen actual discourse on God, Krtke writes. Krtke, Gottes
Klarheiten, p. 292.
74 The who and the what of God is Barths nomenclature. See, for example, Barth, CD
II/1, p. 299.
75 Note that Krtke does not emphasize the communication of Gods clarities in the event
of justification in a somewhat undifferentiated manner as does Jngel, but rather
emphasizes the clarities as that to which people are called to actively correspond in word
and deed which is precisely what it means to be a partner in Gods clarity. Cf. Jngel,
Theses, 7.5, 8.5, 9.5, 10.5, 11.5, 12.5, 13.5.
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But what is of utmost importance in Krtkes doctrine is his concern for

concreteness.76 Whereas Gods glory, for Barth, is the sum of the attributes of Gods
freedom (and therewith Gods love) and is indicative of the sovereignty and freedom
of Gods self-giving love, Krtke appeals to the concreteness of Gods self-bestowal
as the place which funds the agreement of God with his glory.77 As a result, Krtke
is leery of Barths dialectical pairing of the attributes of love and freedom because he
thinks this ultimately detracts from the concreteness of their shining forth.78 Though
I have argued that such a criticism is misplaced, the instincts funding it are
nonetheless valid, in so far as Krtke is concerned to undertake such description for
the sake of pointing to God as one who is perspicuous in his triune life and thus also
in his self-bestowal unto the world. And so, instead of ending his account of the
attributes with Gods glory as the ultimate horizon of attribution as does Barth
Krtke begins with the divine glory which is an event itself in the concretions
peculiar to the history of Israel and Jesus. This is ultimately what constitutes the
newness of his doctrine. Gods glory as Gods clarity does not just bespeak
the divinity of God in Gods act; it is also the centre from which all of the clarities
proper to Gods holy fellowship proceed. In fact, Krtke is compelled to speak of the
clarities of God as but closer specifications of Gods glory because they agree with
the concrete unity and differentiatedness of God himself as Father, Son and Spirit.
To conclude, although Krtke does not deem the perfections to be perfections in
accordance with Gods love or Gods freedom as does Barth he does account for
them as clarities expressive of the glory that is Gods relationally rich reality shining
forth. The benefit of such a move is that it indicates, in a heightened manner, the
perspicuity of the divine identity; however, it does so at the expense of an account
of Gods aseity and immanent freedom. A doctrine of the divine attributes must not
only move with Krtkes proposals but also beyond them by integrating aseity
and economic presence as two motifs necessary for a fully robust depiction and
description of the enacted identity of the triune God.
76 What is also unique about Krtkes new interpretation in Gottes Klarheiten is its value
as a piece of historical theology. Krtkes engagement with Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo-
Dionysius, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, Feuerbach, and Cremers doctrine of the
divine attributes is instructive, albeit it is not without its weaknesses, precisely because
the mistakes he perceives therein are mistakes he sets out to overcome. For example, with
regard to Schleiermacher, Krtke argues that God does not just simply love but rather is
love. Love is not simply something God does but rather is what God is. And yet, God is
love only because God exists in the glory of his relationally rich reality: in other words,
God loves because of who God is. Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, pp. 60ff. If one were to do
further work in the history of the doctrine of the divine attributes, one of the first things
that needs to be done would be to synthesize the historical insights won by Krtke and,
indeed, Barth, especially as concerns his engagement with Protestant orthodoxy in the
small print of CD II/1, 31.3.
77 For Barths account of the divine glory see CD II/1, pp. 640ff.
78 See Barth, CD II/1, 30 and 31.
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International Journal of Systematic Theology Volume 10 Number 1 January 2008

Gods Attributes as Gods Clarities: Wolf

* Providence Theological Seminary, 10 College Crescent, Otterburne, MB, R0A 1G0,

The theological task of the doctrine of the divine attributes

7 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 286.

10 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 8.

17 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 84. Such is Krtkes criticism of Schleiermacher, in so far

22 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 102.

The clarity of Gods truth

As with the other exemplary clarities, truth is not to be interpreted as an attribute

24 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 106.

31 Gerhard Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,

The clarity of Gods love

36 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 145.

The clarity of Gods power

An account of the evangelical clarity of Gods power ought to be sensitive to the

41 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 185.

understanding of omnipotence which funds it is, for Krtke, salutary in its

47 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 206.

The clarity of Gods eternity

51 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 250.

Having provided a report of Krtkes doctrine of the divine attributes in Gottes

57 Krtke, Gottes Klarheiten, p. 276.

61 Molnar, Divine Freedom, p. 64.

66 Molnar, Divine Freedom, p. 163.

68 Molnar, Divine Freedom, p. 306.

on Gods concreteness necessarily dissolve the distinctness of Gods immanent and

But what is of utmost importance in Krtkes doctrine is his concern for

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