Requiescat in pace: Thomas F. Torrance

By -
I have been watching this one for a few hours, and it has been slowly spreading through the blogosphere, but it seems that Thomas Torrance has died this morning at the age of 94. It was first reported here by a student at Edinburgh, who assures me that the news was broken through Prof Larry Hurtado of the Div School in an internal e-mail to the students and faculty. It has since been commented upon here, here and here. To the best of my knowledge, there has been no official, public announcement by any of the institutions in question. Such will likely be made both at Edinburgh and here at PTS sometime tomorrow.

My deepest condolences to the Torrance family.

Thomas F. Torrance was undoubtedly the greatest theologian working in the English language during the 20th century. Moreover, he was a major figure in Reformed-Orthodox ecumenical discussions, and make contributions to the interdisciplinary relationship between theology and science. Still, he is perhaps best known for spearheading the translation project of Barth’s Church Dogmatics with Geoffrey Bromily, and for his contributions to Reformed and Trinitarian dogmatic theology. On a more personal note, and as many readers of this blog know already, Torrance has been an important influence on my own theological thinking. I have spent this past semester on a research project dealing with aspects of his epistemology. This is the first time that a theologian to whom I have felt a real theological kinship has passed from the scene in my lifetime, and it is an odd feeling.

A biography of TF is available from the TF Torrance Theological Fellowship.

In honor of Torrance's passing, I will observe a week of posting silence here at DET. However, I will be updating this post below with links to other reactions - at least those which do not simply quote others - throughout the theological and theo-blogging community:

Comments

Unknown said…
This saddens me. It is like a light has gone out in the room.

*Raises his glass and thanks God for Rev. Torrance.
December 02, 2007 6:55 PM
Yam 飲者 said…
I've just put this up, brother:
http://yamje.blogspot.com/2007/12/tf-torrance-remembrance-from-asia.html
December 03, 2007 4:51 PM
Esteban Vázquez said…
I too had a little to say about the death of Torrance in this post.

May T. F. Torrance, the teacher of us all, rest in peace.
December 26, 2007 9:47 PM
Post a Comment

Popular Posts

So You Want to Read….Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

By -
Image
"I fear that Christians who stand with only one leg upon earth also stand with only one leg in heaven." "The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from everyday Christian life in community…may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; for in the poor sister or brother, Christ is knocking at the door." "Since ethical thinking in terms of realms is overcome by faith in the revelation of the ultimate reality in Jesus Christ . . . there is no real Christian existence outside the reality of the world." "People who reject their bodies reject their existence before God the Creator." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer Prelude Andreas Steinhoff [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons I envisioned having a lot of time for blogging this summer, but that simply has not been the case - the last month has been a crazy one, to say the least. For two weeks, I was working at a theology summer camp of sorts, the Duke Youth Academy, and s...
Keep reading

So, You Want To Read Karl Barth?

By -
Image
Every now and then I am asked for advice about studying Karl Barth. So, I thought that I would share some of my standard advice here. But, before I do that, let me just say that I am by no means a Barth expert as compared to the people whose books I will mention below. I would be thrilled to find myself in their league one day, but as of yet that remains a distant dream. Still, I have been reading Barth for long enough, and under the supervision of a number of the scholars that I will mention below, that I think I can provide a decent orientation. I have never read Karl Barth before. Which of his books should I read first? Barth’s most famous work is the monumental 13-volume Church Dogmatics . Reading the CD with understanding is not an easy thing, so you definitely do NOT want to start here. Luckily, there are two smaller works by Barth that serve as helpful introductions to his work. Evangelical Theology: An Introduction - Based on the lectures that Barth delivered duri...
Keep reading

Karl Barth on Hell, the Devil, Demons, and Universalism – A Florilegium

By -
Image
You know, all the most interesting topics. Although Barth often confessed that he didn’t find these questions particularly interesting. At best they might draw sideways glances, as it were, as one travels the theological road. But I found a number of places in the records of Barth’s later conversations that I thought folks might find interesting, so I’ve collected them here. And if you aren’t familiar with the term “florilegium,” here you go ! All these texts are from the first volume of Barth in Conversation , with pages numbers given in parentheses along the way. As usual, italics are in the text and bold is mine. Hell “Now we come to hell. You shouldn’t laugh! There is nothing to laugh at! What does hell mean? I think hell means to be in the place where you are once fore all damned and lost without ceasing to exist, without losing the image of God, being what you are but being damned and lost, separated from God, whose creature you are, separated also from your neighbor, from...
Keep reading

George Hunsinger’s gloss of the Christ Hymn in Philippians 2

By -
Image
I’ve been reading George Hunsinger’s (my doktorvater , for anyone who might be new around here) entry in the Brazos Theoloical Commentary on the Bible series on Philippians. Anyone who has studied with George will find this book to be a compendium and application of many of his most characteristic and beloved analytical tools and patterns, and I’ve been enjoying it immensely. But one of the things that really stood out to me was how he glossed the so-called “Christ hymn” of Philippians 2. George Hunsinger, Philippians , Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: BrazosPress, 2020). The gloss that Hunsinger provides is not a historical-critical interpretation. Rather, it is an ecclesial, ecumenical, and theological interpretation that attempts to fill in the blanks for how to understand this proto-liturgical formulation in light of the later formulations of the ecumenical creeds. In order to achieve this gloss, Hunsinger engages in “ecclesial hermeneutics” and makes “...
Keep reading

2010 KBBC: Week 3, Day 1

By -
On the Monstrosity of Christ : Karl Barth in Conversation with Slavoj Žižek & John Milbank By Paul Dafydd Jones For a while, I hoped to frame this conversation in terms of a dramatic interchange – something along the lines of “A Slovenian philosopher, a British theologian, and a Swiss dogmatician walk into a bar…” Alongside an eye-wateringly hip assemblage of cinematic references, literary allusions, and comedic scenes – my early favorites being when Barth imagines a young adult novel, entitled Are you there God? It’s me, Žižek , and when Milbank waxes poetic about the Twilight movies – I wanted to engage some topics that would likely receive attention, were the authors to meet for drinks. Primarily, I envisioned an intense discussion of the logos asarkos and the logos ensarkos , with Milbank talking up the former category, Barth emphasizing the latter, and Žižek asking whether recent debates are but symptoms of secret puzzle, embedded in the Church Dogmatics – a puzzle that...
Keep reading