Time&Eternity

Aspects of a Theology of Time 193
theories owing more to Greek than to Christian influences to a dynamism reflecting
the more eschatological emphasis of a doctrine that pays due attention to the role of
the Holy Spirit. 38
Even if the development from statics to dynamics is scientifically
verifiable, as chapter 3 shows, one cannot automatically draw a line from
here all the way to eschatology. If, in spite of this fact, such is the case in
Gunton, then this points less to a good understanding of scientific theories
than to theological appropriation or overestimation of such theories. Gunton’s
manner of argumentation is reminiscent of Newton. Thus, as in Newton,
absolute God and absolute space and absolute time corresponded to
one another, in Gunton dynamic Trinity and a universe that is understood
as “a perichoresis of interrelated dynamic systems” 39 belong together. It even
seems to him that the development of modern field theories have led “inexorably
to the conceptual echo of trinitarian theology in relativity theory and
its developments.” 40 Despite enthusiasm for dynamics and relationality, one
must still expressly emphasize the distinction between scientific and theological
theory formation because this distinction is important for guaranteeing
the understanding of theories in their respective contexts and protecting
each from mutual appropriation. Gunton’s assumption, that Trinitarian
theology could have contributed to the development of the concepts that
aided modern science in discovering the relationality, contingency, and dynamism
of the universe, 41 appears rather naïve to me, in view of chapter 3. I
do share his viewpoint, however, that it is a task of theology to ask questions
that go beyond science.
The mutually constituting persons of the Trinity, dynamics and relationality
in the universe and in God—to be sure, these notions are inspiring.
Nevertheless, something essential has been omitted. If the essence of
the Trinitarian God is love, then how can relation be conceived without autonomy?
If God is transcendent, then how can God’s identity be used as a
model for interreligious dialogue or for a theology of nature? Is it not precisely
God’s alterity that is again violated in such a project? Is not the appropriate
frui of the relationship with God replaced by an uti that is subject to
human categories? Regardless of how stimulating Trinitarian reflections
may appear to be within the context of the weaknesses of modernism and
postmodernism and in view of the formulation of modern physical theories,
it should always remain clear that we are dealing here with an inspiring
analogy in the broadest sense and not with an identification of one with the
other.