Deep intratrinitarian kenosis

We will finish the rest of Chapter 4 of Southgate’s The Groaning of Creation.

Please answer one of the questions below:

1. In Section 4.4, provide Southgate’s definition of deep intratrinitarian kenosis. Where does he use this concept in his overall argument? Do you agree or disagree?  And how does dwelling “within the triune love” (Section 4.5, page 73) jive with “total self-renunciation, at dying to all self-will” (Section 4.5, endnote 95)?
2. In Section 4.5, what does Southgate say that the Incarnation allows human beings to achieve? Do you agree or disagree that this allows for possibilities that evolution couldn’t?
3. “With our emergent faculties comes a greater and greater need of God – a need not just to receive from God but to dwell within the life of the Trinity, to live within and from the patterns of the Triune love” (p. 72).  Explain what it is that Southgate cites that necessitates humans’ need for God. Do you agree or disagree with his argument? Why or why not?
4. “Again we see the connection between what it is to be an authentic human being and the relationships  of freely given mutual love and response that are attributed to God as Trinity” (p. 73).  Is this an example of selving or self-transcendence? Are selving and self-transcendence divergent from each other, or does one build on top of the other?
5. In Section 4.6, explain Robert J. Russell’s argument on God’s intervention. Do you agree or disagree with it and why?
6. What are the two categories of atonement theories that Southgate mentions in Section 4.7? Which category does he argue for, and how does Southgate explain the atonement? Does his concept of God taking responsibility (p. 76) and experiencing suffering as a human thereby gaining moral authority (endnote 115) hold water for you or not?  Explain.

We will go over our responses this Sunday.