Obediential Potency...aka Heady Stuff

Yesterday while teaching a class at Spring Hill, I came across a thought or idea that I hadn't really pondered before. While discussing Karl Rahner's ideas on the trinity (Rahner's grund-axiom: the economic trinity as trinity manifest in salvation history is THE SAME as the immanent trinity or the subsistence of the god-head apart from revelation.) While Rahner's axiom is a discussion in and of itself, I found it interesting that Rahner made a point of asserting that only the LOGOS, that is the second person of the trinity, was the only candidate for the Incarnation because of the Logos' obediential potency. Granted, this is heady stuff. Basically what I find is Rahner saying that only the Logos could have been incarnated as human and only the Logos could have been the vehicle for salvation.

I've never considered the pre-existent Logos from this stand point. Of course, it raises the question as to why the Spirit lacks the obediential potency (a term taken from scholastic philosophy and specifically from Aquinas). Perhaps, as my students suggested, it is the unruly nature of the Spirit, very consistent with the Old Testament understanding of the RUAH or wind. I find this delightfully comforting.

I wonder how Luther would interepret obediential potency in terms of our existence and relationship with God? Do we have, as Karl Rahner suggests, a spark of divinity within us that drives us to transcendence and obediential actualization? Or, are we fundamentally broken and only by grace do we achieve any kind of obedience to God's will? As my students suggested, sometimes it is a question of which comes first--chicken-or-egg. For Rahner, grace is a part of our existence by virtue of having been created by God (semi-Pelagian); for Luther, grace is a wholly free gift given by God subsequently, yet it is the same grace which allows us to receive grace in the first place. For Rahner, we are oriented in our very being towards God. For Luther, so it seems, we are only oriented to God by grace and faith, both gifts, umerited. I'm not so sure the two differ except in terms of ontological understanding and the timing of the grace/nature relationship.

I like the way Robin Ryan summarized it "God has already given the gift, the uncreated grace, of an obediential potency to all, a gift which remains within, awaiting response. It is that response in grace which completes the circle, which provides the ultimate unity of faith and revelation." (See http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/theology/ejournal/Issue3/Ryan.htm)

So, does the LOGOS and the incarnation provide the bridge of response, the "New Creation" of humanity in Jesus of Nazareth? Is this the obediential potency which resides with the LOGOS specifically? I'd love to hear your thoughts...

More on transcendent anthropologies in another post....