Act and Being : God's Dynamism in the Theology of Thomas F. Torrance

Irving offers a critical analysis of T.F. Torrance’s doctrine of God. In particular, he focuses on the fundamental premise that the being of God inheres in the act of God and the act of God inheres in the being of God. Underlying Torrance’s equivocation in the relation of God in and for himself and God for us, are two theological emphases. This work evaluates how successful he is in so doing.

Torrance’s treatment of revelation as self-revelation whereby we share in God’s knowledge of God’s self entails that the world-relation of revelation is proper to the being of God. How the proposition that God’s being is eternally in act impacts Torrance’s treatment of trinitarian ontology, vis-à-vis the unity of the divine being, perichoresis, the divine Monarchia and the Filioque. How the proposition that God’s economic act is identical to the being of God shapes Torrance’s kerygmatic theology, particularly with reference to the doctrines of creation and redemption. A consideration of where Torrance can be situated amongst other “post-Barthians” in order to contend that Torrance’s position on the nature of divine freedom is not that of absolute ontological independence (as is frequently supposed).