Michel René Barnes

Michel René Barnes

Dr. Michel René Barnes is Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.^[1] He focuses on Latin and Greek Patristic Theology, in particular, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo, and pneumatological development in the early church.

Biography

Michel Barnes attended St. John’s College, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and earned his PhD under the direction of Joanne McWilliam and John Rist at the University of St. Michael's College, Toronto. He also holds an M. Div. and Th. M. from St. Michael's in Toronto.

Theological project

Dr. Barnes’s research first focused on fourth century Trinitarian theology on which he has published numerous articles and the monograph, The Power of God: A Study of Gregory of Nyssa's Trinitarian Theology. He has co-edited with Daniel H. Williams, a colleague and friend from St. Michael’s, Arianism After Arius: Essays on the Development of Fourth Century Trinitarian Conflicts. He is presently working on a study of Augustine's Trinitarian theology, as well as a monograph on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the early church.

Barnes achieved early acclaim for his correction of the narrative that developed from DeRégnon’s characterization of Eastern and Western Trinitarian theology as starting from distinction and unity, respectively.^[2] The nineteenth-century scholar Theodore DeRégnon had asserted that Western Trinitarian theology had historically emphasized God's oneness, while Eastern Trinitarian theology had emphasized God's threeness. This characterization was as pithy as it was inaccurate, and it became repeated in theological and historical circles up to the present day, until Barnes traced its origin and dismissed it, so that it could no longer distort Christian descriptions of God as Trinity. In the Harvard Theological Review Khaled Anatolios spoke of the impact of Barnes tearing down this long-standing structure of misunderstanding that had distorted Christian theologies of God, acknowledging that “The assertion of a substantive rift between Eastern and Western trinitarian theologies… is not found in either Hanson or Simonetti, for instance, and its genealogy, traced back to the figure of de Régnon, has been famously exposed by Michel Barnes.”^[3] Similarly, Matthew Drever noted Barnes's leading role in recasting this history of the Christian understanding of God, lauding the “recent attempt by Barnes, Ayres, and others to argue that many of the traditional categories for analyzing pre- and post-Nicene thought (especially the distinction between East and West on the starting points of de Deo Trino vs. de Deo Uno) are inadequate.”^[4]

Having overturned the previous approach governing fourth century Trinitarian theology, Barnes proceeded, along with Lewis Ayres in particular, to cast Pro-Nicene Trinitarian theologies (found in the East and West) as possessing a harmonious logic. This could be seen in the accounts of Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine of Hippo, who, it should be pointed out, were not familiar with each other’s work. He is presently focusing on two different, though connected, pursuits: the development of Latin Trinitarian theology in the third and early fourth centuries, and the development of pneumatology in the early church. His recent article, “Irenaeus’ Trinitarian Theology” (in press at Nova et Vetera, 2008), comes out of both of these research foci.

Collaboration with Lewis Ayres

Along with Lewis Ayres, holder of a chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Durham, and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Barnes is part of a rereading of Augustine's trinitarian theology that overturns the older, neoplatonic-centered account. This new reading is referred to as "New Canon" Augustine scholarship.^[5] Through this work, contemporary scholarship on Augustine has become aware that one of the greatest of Christian theologians has been read primarily through a non-theological lens, and is therefore peculiarly in need of a thoroughly theological or doctrinal re-reading.^[6] The basis of the New Canon reading of Augustine was worked out in the years 1995-2000, during which Ayres and Barnes conducted an almost daily common reading and discussion, via e-mail, of Augustine's trinitarian writings.

Collaboration with Fr. Alexander Golitzin

Barnes shares with his colleague Alexander Golitzin the understanding that early Christianity is best understood as a phenomenon within Jewish sectarianism of the late Second Temple. In classes and for dissertations, the approach to early Christian theology, especially of the first two centuries, is one that actively situates this theology within the context of trajectories in Judaism, such as those exemplified by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the OT Pseudepigrapha, and Philo. Doctoral students specializing in Patristics are expected to take seminars on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish Apocalyptic writings, or rabbinic texts. Patristics studies at Marquette University consequently has a strong link with the Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity area in the Theology Department.

References

1. ^ Marquette University Department of Theology Faculty Page
2. ^ Michel Barnes, “De Régnon Reconsidered,” Augustinian Studies 26 (1995): 51-79.
3. ^ Khaled Anatolios, “Yes and No: Reflections on Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy,” Harvard Theological Review 100 (2007): 153-58, here 153.
4. ^ Matthew Drever, “The Self Before God? Rethinking Augustine's Trinitarian Thought,” Harvard Theological Review 100 (2007): 233-42
5. ^ Keith Edward Johnson, A “Trinitarian” Theology of Religions? An Augustinian Assessment of Several Recent Proposals. Duke University, Doctoral Dissertation, 2007. "Rereading Augustine," pp. 63-110, is particularly dependent upon the new Barnes and Ayres insights.
6. ^ "It is to be hoped that the doctrinal revisionist scholarship of Ayres, Barnes, Williams and others will yield a new theological biography of Augustine in the future." Jason Byassee, Praise Seeking Understanding: Reading the Psalms with Augustine. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 61, n.15.

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