Pre-existence, and the Freedom of the Son in Creation and Redemption: An Exposition in Dialogue with Robert Jenson

Abstract

Abstract: In the New Testament, the Son is personally pre-existent in a real (as opposed to ideal) sense, and the incarnation is a free, gracious act on the part of the Son. The present article engages critically with the arguments of Robert Jenson that the Son is pre-existent principally (a) in and as the nation of Israel, and (b) in that the Son's eternal birth from the Father precedes his birth from Mary; this ‘precedes’ is not linear, or temporal, however. It is concluded that Jenson's account fails on two counts: first, it does not do justice to the canonical witness; secondly, it is incoherent in introducing an atemporal element into Jenson's avowedly temporal construal of the divine identity. The Son's gracious freedom should be seen both in creation and incarnation in a much stronger sense than Jenson allows.