Gunton v. Karkainnen – rough 1.

Beyond the oddness of Gunton’s contexualization of the trinitarian conversation, placing it as he does as a thing bracketed between Plato and Hegel rather than between Adam, Christ, and Moltmann (and the history of the thought of all believers), there is also an emphasis on the basis for trinitarian community still being based on the otherness of God – on the distance being the foundation of the possibility of closing the distance. While there is certainly much to be gleaned from this, the picture of how this community looks in history remains vague. His closing comments on the church places the community of church at odds with the institutions (while admitting that the institutions are a “human” necessity, the disconnect reveals something possibly modern in the lack of consideration for how the ritual and hierarchy of institutional religion may be essential for creation of any community to overcome the insular individuation which he opposes) and so leaves what community might be to the imagination – left with only a community bounded by otherness. This is not something that is explicit in the text, and I’m sure that Gunton would not find this to be a fair characterization (neither do I) but in context of Karkaainen’s continual emphasis on real dialogue and the demands of discursus by which even I Ching trinitarianism has to relate to, the parallel presents itself unavoidably – Gunton’s trinitarian community is still in a theoretical stage and can have clean definitions – Karkainnen’s is here and now – a community of difference in dialogue, not a dogma or a doctrine to be proscribed, but several doctrines and dogmas – all surrendered to a single telos at every moment, and done in faith that they will resolve without being forever lost in each other.

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