The author offers a thorough analysis of an ‘innovative’ (p. 4) theologian who is committed to ecclesial traditions ‘without gravitating towards mere doctrinal repristination’ (p. 223). His goal is to examine the effect of the doctrine of God on soteriology, especially in Dorner's System of Christian Doctrine, SCD (vol. 2, p. 1886). For this purpose, he asks if ‘the gospel of salvation’ is coherent with ‘the essential being of the triune Godhead’ and meets ‘the demands of divine justice without detriment to the divine compassion or love’ (p. 46). As an academic discipline, Dorner's theology strives for ‘scientific certitude [about] the object which is given in, though not determined by faith’ (p. 149). Here, Norgate sees a tension between the elaboration on the ‘soteriological content’ of the Christian faith and the demonstration of its ‘necessary truthfulness’ (p. 39).
Chapters 1–3 scrutinise the foundational doctrine (Fundamentallehre) in SCD, which develops the concept of God as absolute personality and as triune. The link between the two aspects is God's ethical being and reliability: as ‘God is in Himself, so He also reveals Himself’ (SCD, vol. 1, p. 446). Moreover, the reason for creation is God's spontaneous love for a possible but not yet actual other. Dorner uses the idea of divine self-existence, or aseity, in order to affirm the distinction between God and creation: God ‘has of Himself absolute fullness of life’, while human beings are ‘destined to godlike participation in the divine attributes’ and share a ‘receptiveness for God, which longs for His self-communication’ (SCD, vol. 3, p. 306). The act of creation ‘may be described’ as necessary in relation to ‘God's essential being as holy Love’ and in ‘full consistency with His ethical essence’ (p. 61). God can do as it pleases God, but what pleases God is not arbitrary.
The overall purpose of the world is ‘to attain perfection through a process of ethically free obedience’ (p. 72). This process will lead to communion between God and humankind (not: deification of human beings, as Karl Barth charged) as the ‘realization in history of the idea of the God-man’ (p. 86). Jesus is the culmination of divine revelation and the perfection of creation. Here, Norgate points to the gravity of sin and the need for redemption as the primary motivation of God's work of salvation. He criticises that, for Dorner, the incarnation is no longer a gracious gift contingent on God's plan for, or rather against, sin. At the same time, Dorner rejects the view that redemption is necessary, since this would imply the necessity of sin.
Chapters 4–6 tackle Dorner's ‘special doctrine of faith’ in SCD. Whereas free agency and moral necessity are coherent in God, who is the absolute ethical personality, their coherence in human beings is destroyed by sin and must be re-established through Christ. The nature of sin, understood in the light of redemption and the teleology of creation, is determined by the incarnation itself and comes to the fore in ‘definite unbelief or rejection of Christ’ (p. 141), not merely in the sum of human sins prior to the appearance of the Redeemer.
The Christ-event is part of God's nature, since it is rooted in an ‘eternal predisposition . . . which belonged to His purpose of love from the beginning’ (SCD, vol. 3, p. 289). The unity of Christ's person cannot be attributed to either the human or the divine side alone. ‘The distinctness of each nature is instantiated in their connectedness’ (p. 160). The human nature of Christ recognises its unity with the Logos gradually, which implies growth and development. There is no standpoint above, as it were, from where this unity could be observed.
Dorner's view of the atonement is closely linked to his Christology. Christ is both the atoning substitute and the representative of humankind. Furthermore, the ‘necessity of expiation refers not only to the world being reconciled to God but also [to] God being reconciled to the world’ (p. 186). Although the last point sounds odd, in the context of the contemporary debate, it is consistent with God's ethical being and an emphasis on holy love. Sin is not taken lightly by God, but does it occasion ‘a change even in God's disposition towards man’ (SCD, vol. 4, p. 85)? This is an important question. If the answer is positive, one may object with Norgate that ‘God's atoning purposes’ become necessary ‘for the maintenance of His own essential goodness’ (p. 190). Yet the atonement certainly is consistent with God's goodness. Hence, the proposition that God loves the world seems not necessarily necessary but contingently necessary. Is this a helpful distinction?
In general, Norgate appreciates Dorner's ‘non-competitive account of God and man’ (p. 166, cf. pp. 116, 219). Notwithstanding the correspondence between God's perfection and human perfection, ‘God does not need the Menschwerdung for Himself and for the sake of His self-realisation’ (SCD, vol. 3, p. 293, tr. altered). A further question would be whether God is affected by the life of God's creatures. Some propositions by Dorner point towards such a view.
Norgate notes a ‘key weakness’ in that ‘the Spirit appears as almost entirely dependent on and subsequent to the determinations of Christ's godhumanity’ (p. 220). I think, however, that such ‘dependence’ is unavoidable if the person of Christ is the centre of theology. The christological foundation of pneumatology is a sign of dogmatic strength, not weakness.
