Stumbling around in my head

I'm currently reading Like Father Like Son: The Trinity Imaged in Our Humanity by Tom Smail. It is a good book, and I'm seeing the truth of Jason Goroncy's statement about Tom Smail that 'If only he didn't write so clearly then perhaps he might be taken more seriously as a theologian'.

I'm still trying to thrash over in my head what Tom Smail describes quite well:

'One of Karl Barth's central theological axioms was that when we are talking of God, it is the actuality that determines the possibility and not the other way round. We do not limit our openness to what God has done by prior notions of our own about what he could do; rather, our basis for recognizing what he can do is what he has already done' (p.27)

Karl Barth himself explains how this has massive implications for our understanding of the nature of God:

'If in faith in Jesus Christ we are ready to learn, to be told, what Godhead, or the divine nature is, we are confronted with what is and always will be to all other ways of thinking a mystery, and indeed a mystery that offends. The mystery reveals to us that for God it is just as natural to be lowly as it is to be high, to be near as it is to be far, to be little as it is to be great, to be abroad as it is to be at home.' (p. 152, CD IV:1 The Doctrine of Reconcilliation, 1956; quoted in p.77, Smail)

I keep on thinking over Philippians 2 and this idea. I am far from decided. My difficulty is that Jesus gave up what was naturally his in his incarnation ('though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor'). And also that though he was crucified, he was also resurrected. Although the NT is clear that Jesus' glory is his cruxifiction as well as his resurrection (e.g. John 12) and that he is glorified because of his cruxifiction (e.g. Phil 2:9 and Rev 5:12). It is difficult for me.

Also difficult for me is understand is precisely how the Son reveals the Trinity. Tom Smail describes how he has two icons of Jesus. One depicting him alone looking out, and one of Jesus with the other two members of the Trinity looking at the Father (he has Rublev's famous one).

Smail comments that 'It is impossible to make any sense of the Jesus of the gospels if we treat him as a solitary individual whose significance is in himself' (p. 67 - which begs the question why you have such an icon - I hate icons). My difficulty is understanding whether we should see the Trinity revealed in Jesus as that solitary individual dying on the cross and rising to new life, or in Jesus as he dies in broken relationship toward his Father, and whom the Father restored by the power of the Spirit. The second option would seem to be right, but does that alter Barth's conclusion that for God it is 'natural to be lowly', when our Father is, and always has been, in heaven. Having said that God the Father obviously suffered seeing his Son crucified, and has throughout human history endured his name being blasphemed. All very difficult for me to make my head around!

And as an aside, listenining to their podcast, Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo have both introduced me to the wonderful phrase 'pharisaic cadre', and to the fact that Richard Nixon was a Quaker.