What is the relationship between incarnation and resurrection? This is the systematic question which animates Paul Molnar's most recent constructive work. His thesis is that Christ's incarnation and resurrection are intimately related, so that one's view of the former determines one's view of the later, and vice versa. This thesis is both interpretative and constructive. Interpretatively, Molnar aims to demonstrate the link between these two doctrines in a host of recent theologians. Constructively, he aims to defend a traditional view of Christ's resurrection in its necessary connection with a high view of the incarnation. Molnar develops both aspects simultaneously throughout the book, along with various other sub-theses concerning the Trinity and soteriology.
The book consists of eight chapters and divides evenly into two halves. The first half of the book examines the relationship between incarnation and resurrection in Barth, Rahner and Torrance. It is clear from the outset that Barth and Torrance are the heroes of Molnar's narrative. His own constructive proposal emerges out of a particular reading of these two figures. According to Molnar, Barth and Torrance are united in their defence of a traditional view of Christ's resurrection, i.e. that the resurrection was an event in the life of Jesus distinct from the faith of the disciples. For both theologians, this view is rooted in a christological starting point which takes Jesus Christ to be none other than the incarnate Son of God. Molnar sets this view over against Rahner, whom he believes intends to uphold traditional doctrines of incarnation and resurrection but fails to do so because he allows christology and anthropology to be mutually determined.
In the second half of the book, Molnar examines the same relation in John Macquarrie, Paul Knitter, Gordon Kaufman, Sallie McFague, Roger Haight, John Hick and Wolfhart Pannenberg. With the exception of Pannenberg, the treatment of each of these figures is much briefer. The recurring theme in each case is that attempts to construct a christology from below necessarily fail to uphold a traditional view of Christ's resurrection as an objectively real event. Unlike Rahner, many of these theologians do not even intend to uphold traditional doctrines. Molnar affirms the good intentions of Macquarrie, the early Kaufman, and the later Pannenberg. But in the end each is found wanting when measured against Molnar's constructive commitments.
The greatest strength of this book is its systematic analysis of the connections between central doctrines. Molnar rightly sees that one's view of Christ's resurrection is intimately tied to one's view of Christ's incarnation. Docetism and/or adoptionism in one correlates with docetism and/or adoptionism in the other. However, there is ambiguity concerning the nature of this relation. Molnar sometimes asserts a bidirectional correlation: the doctrines of incarnation and resurrection are mutually determined. But he sometimes asserts a unidirectional causation: incarnation doctrine determines resurrection doctrine. He successfully defends the former claim, while his case for the latter is unconvincing.
The structure of this book is unfortunate. Pannenberg belongs in the first half of the book, both chronologically and theologically. Comparing him and Torrance as alternative developments of Barth's dialectical legacy would have been illuminating. This also could have helped highlight the significant differences between Barth and Torrance, which Molnar downplays. Finally, identifying these two as defenders of a ‘traditional’ view of Christ's resurrection, though in many ways accurate, obscures the unique contribution each makes to thinking Easter in the context of modernity. Barth's sublation of the modern problem of faith and history and Torrance's dialogue with modern science yield developments beyond the tradition. These are their greater contributions towards a contemporary understanding.
