Time&Eternity

Biblical and Theological Conceptions of Time 103
then the discussion quickly turns to the eternal Spirit and, even more quickly,
to the eternal Son. The latter is probably connected to the fact that the
difference between the Son and the Father seems clearer than the difference
between the Spirit and the Father. While either the Father or the Spirit alone
seems to be able to represent divinity as a whole, the Son participates in the
eternal Godhead only through his relationship to the Father and, thus,
through his differentiation from this Father. 315
The Eternal Son
The question of the eternal Son is twofold. It involves the question of
the eternal future of the Son and the question of the Son’s eternal past. The
first question concerns the post-existence of the eternally Exalted One, and
it also includes the question of the presence of this Exalted One. The second
question leads to reflections on preexistence, which is formulated in the
Nicene Creed with the words “eternally begotten of the Father.”
In his extensive work entitled Geboren vor aller Zeit?, 316 Karl-Josef
Kuschel examines the topos of the preexistence of Christ. He traces the treatment
of this topic—from Adolf von Harnack to Karl Barth, Rudolf
Bultmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Karl Rahner, Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen
Moltmann, among others, and, finally, to Walter Kasper and Edward
Schillebeeckx—and gives an account and an interpretation of christological
statements in the Bible having to do with preexistence. Kuschel then tries to
provide starting points for a fruitful interreligious dialogue on this topic,
and for the dialogue with scientific cosmology, with art and literature, and
also—within theology itself—with liberation theology and feminist theology.
317 Unfortunately, Kuschel’s perspectives for dialogue, especially with regard
to the natural sciences, are basically limited to text references and to
admonitions “to think situationally and contextually”; 318 apart from that,
however, he presents a wealth of valuable material.
Kuschel initially notes: “The New Testament does not know of pre-existence
[of Jesus Christ] as a speculative theme.” 319 Rather, in light of the
New Testament texts, a preexistence Christology would have to be relativized.
Jesus himself never spoke of his own preexistence. In twenty New
Testament writings, Jesus as the Son of God is mentioned without this being
tied to notions of preexistence. In the places where statements about
preexistence appear, for example, in Colossians and Hebrews, as well as in
the Johannine writings, they are relativized by statements rooted in a theology
of the cross and a theology of the Incarnation. 320 Above all, however,
one should remember that statements on preexistence have a retrospective
character. They are eschatological statements that originated in the Easter
experience and are therefore secondary in relation to resurrection Christol-