Alister McGrath,
Christian Theology: An Introduction
Chapter 10
The Doctrine of the Trinity
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The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity
• The apparent illogicality of the doctrine
– Limits of human language
– Si comprehendis non est Deus (Augustine)
– Charles Gore
• The Trinity as a statement about Jesus Christ
– Link to the development of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ
• The Trinity as a statement about the Christian God
– Transcendence and incarnation
– A personal God
– Irenaeus: the economy of salvation
• Islamic critiques of the doctrine of the Trinity
– Monotheism or worship of three gods?
– Jesus as a prophet, or God incarnate
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The Biblical Foundations of the Doctrine of the Trinity
• Specific verses
– Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy
Spirit”
– 2 Corinthians 3:13 “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of
God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you”
• Trinitarian structure or pattern in the New Testament
• Trinitarian structure in the Old Testament
– Wisdom
– The Word of God
– The Spirit of God
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The Historical Development of the Doctrine
• The emergence of the trinitarian vocabulary (Tertullian)
– Trinitas (Trinity)
– Persona (person)
– Substantia (substance)
• The emergence of trinitarian concepts
– Perichoresis (“mutual interpenetration”)
– Appropriation
• Rationalist critiques of trinitarianism: the eclipse of the Trinity,
1700-1900
– Radical Reformation, 16th century
– Rationalism and English Deism
• The problem of visualization: analogies of the Trinity
– Gregory of Nyssa: water, chain, rainbow
• “Economic” and “essential” approaches to the Trinity
– Karl Rahner, The Trinity (1970)
– Essential or immanent Trinity: God’s inner life and essential nature
– Economic Trinity: God in history;
economy of salvation
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Two Trinitarian Heresies
• Modalism: chronological and functional
– General features:
• The aspect of the one God revealed as creator and lawgiver is the
Father
• The aspect of the one God revealed as savior is the Son
• The aspect of the one God revealed as the one who sanctifies and
gives eternal life is the Spirit
– Chronological modalism
• Sabellianism
– Functional modalism
• Tritheism
– Gregory of Nyssa
– Eleventh Council of Toledo (675)
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The Filioque Controversy
• The Nicene creed: proceeding from the Father and the Son
• Eastern (Greek) church: the Spirit proceeds from the Father
– The Father as the sole origin and source of divinity
– Son and Spirit having distinct (yet complementary) roles
• Western (Latin) church: the Spirit proceeds from the Father
and from the Son
– Augustine, On the Trinity
– Son and Spirit distinguished from one another, but mutually related to
one another
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The Trinity: Six Classic and Contemporary Approaches
• The Cappadocian fathers
– “one substance (ousia) in three persons (hypostaseis)”
– Priority of the Father as the source of the Trinity
• Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
– Rejection of subordinationism
– The Spirit as the love that unites the Father and the Son
– Psychological analogies
• Traces of the Trinity in creation - in the human mind
• Karl Barth (1886-1968)
– Doctrine of the Trinity as an exegesis of revelation
– “The Doctrine of the Word of God”
– Jesus recognized as the self-revelation of God, through the work of
the Spirit
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• Karl Rahner (1904-84)
– “The ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity”
– Salvation history as the starting-point
• John Macquarrie (1919-2007)
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–
–
–
Foundation in existentalism
The Father as “primordial Being”
The Son as “expressive Being”
The Holy Spirit as “unitive Being”
• Robert Jenson (b.1930)
– “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” as God’s proper name
– Consistent with the biblical witness
– Distinction from Hellenism
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Some Discussions of the Trinity in Recent Theology
• F.D.E. Schleiermacher on the dogmatic location of the Trinity
– At the end of The Christian Faith
• Jürgen Moltmann on the social Trinity
– “The Trinity is our social program”
• Eberhard Jüngel on the Trinity and metaphysics
– Trinitarian “theology of the cross”: differentiation between Father
and Son
– Recover distinctive Christian vision of God, free from secular
metaphysics
• Catherine Mowry LaCugna on the Trinity and salvation
– “Theology is inseparable from soteriology, and vice versa”
• Sarah Coakley on feminism and the Trinity
– The Trinity and notions of power
– The role of the Spirit in Christian prayer and prophecy
– Church’s historical resistance to priority of the Spirit: rationalism
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over relationality
The Trinitarian Renaissance: Some Examples
• A trinitarian theology of mission
– Lesslie Newbigin (1909-98)
• A trinitarian theology of worship
– Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology (1984)
– James Torrance (1923-2003)
• A trinitarian theology of atonement
– Colin Gunton, Actuality of Atonement (1989)
• A trinitarian ecclesiology
– Miroslav Volf, After our Likeness: The Church in the Image of the
Trinity (1998)
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