RBL 03/12/2001 Davis, Stephen T., Daniel Kendall, and Gerald OCollins, eds.

The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xxviii + 393, Cloth, $39.95, ISBN 0198269935.

Augustine Casiday University of Durham Durham DH1 4EW, UK

The collection of essays here published results from the Trinity Summit, convened in Dunwoodie, Yonkers, New York, at St. Josephs Seminary during Eastertide, 1998. Both the summit and the book are younger siblings of an earlier project on resurrection. Characteristic of both is an effort to address some primary aspect of Christian theology from a variety of perspectives and with a range of methodologies. Thus, there were North American, European and Asian participants, Jewish, Catholic and Protestant scholars, engaging aspects of triadology on aesthetic, historical, philological, philosophical and (of course) theological bases. Because the quality and length of the contributions are not uniform, it would be best to list and describe each before offering a few general remarks on the book as a whole. This will be done in the order the essays appear and the space devoted to each will be proportional to its length. In the first chapter, OCollins offers a comprehensive and extremely useful overview of the status quaestionum that concisely relates the essays here presented to the broader scholarly discussion. He does this by identifying twelve issues that recur in the literature, while making some penetrating observations along the way (see esp. pp. 13-18). The next chapter introduces a discussion of the Biblical Witness that includes three essays. The first of these essays is Craig Evanss Jesus Self-Designation The Son of Man. Evans begins with epigraphic evidence ascribing godhood to ancient kings and emperors. Then he quickly moves to a standard rehearsal of scriptural evidence about the epithet Son of Man. Because Evans does not integrate these two parts very tightly, the essay as a whole

This review was published by RBL 2001 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp.

seems quite disconnected. In the next essay (Paul and the Trinity), Gordon Fee argues for a reading of Paul that is sensitive to an emergent trinitarian theology in the form of tacit Pauline christology and pneumatology. This is a controversial claim for which Fee mounts a lucid and impressive case. Alan Segals Two Powers in Heaven is the third essay in this section. His discussion of binitarian heresy ranges from Paul and Philo to Midrashic literature and beyond. He concludes with a tantalizing suggestion that philosophical and hermetic speculation about the second god are at back of the Christian and Jewish controversies. The second major section of the book is devoted to the Patristic Witness. The first essay is Joseph Lienhards assessment of The Cappadocian Settlement. Against the standard glosses in the patrologies that overstate the uniformity of the Cappadocians position and underemphasize opposition to it, he argues for the vitality of a counter perspective he calls miahypostatic theology and associates with Marcellus of Ancyra. Lienhard has since published a full-length book on Marcellus, so further remarks on this essay would be redundant. Next is Sarah Coakleys breathtakingly ambitious Social Doctrine of the Trinity, in which she address a host of philosophical, patristic and feminist theological concerns in reference to Nyssas triadology, especially his overemphasized three man analogy. Her deft command of the array of material is astounding. In the end, she leaves us well poised to further the reassessment of Nyssa. The last of these essays is Michel Ren Barness brilliant Rereading Augustine on the Trinity. By tending to Augustines responsiveness to Nicene triadology, Barnes offers a persuasive counter-narrative to the endlessly rehashed arguments about the influence of Neoplatonism in Augustinian triadology. These essays share in the current trend in patristics of returning to the sources, and their surprising results (it may be hoped) will encourage further efforts along these lines. The fourth part of the book addresses Systematic Issues. In Substance and the Trinity, William Alston returns to Aristotles Categories and Metaphysics to demonstrate how groundless a host of modern objections to substance metaphysics (and hence to classical trinitarian formulae) actually are. The nub of Alstons case is that Aristotle regularly and happily applied his notion of substance to living, finite, interactive organisms. Neither Aristotle on the one hand, nor Basil, Nyssa, Damascene or Aquinas on the other are obliged to regard substances as necessarily static and inert which is precisely the claim often lodged against the substance metaphysics of classical trinitarian theology. Brian Leftows Anti Social Trinitarianism attempts to adjudicate between the claims of social trinitarianism, which starts with the threeness of the Trinity, and those of Latin trinitarianism, which starts with the oneness of the Trinity. It comes as no surprise that Leftow argues against social trinitarianism (he claims it fails to offer a coherent account of the Trinity that is both monotheist and orthodox). What comes as a great surprise, however, is how tendentiously Leftow argues his caseparticularly in light of the fact that he never argues for or even properly describes Latin trinitarianism. Intermittent remarks, such as the right concept of deity being the one that embodies

This review was published by RBL 2001 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp.

the standards by which one would judge correctly what things are divine (p. 245), leave the reader with the apprehension that Leftows preferred understanding of the Trinity is replete with unexamined idealizations. In the end, this essay inspires no confidence at all in his claims. This is followed by Stephen Daviss John Hick on Incarnation and Trinity. This essay offers sober and searching criticisms of Hicks sometimes ostentatious claims about Christian theology in a pluralistic world. Next, in Trinitarian Speculation, David Tracy discusses the importance of form in theology, notes the christological cast of trinitarian monotheism and concludes with observations about the trinitarian speculation of Meister Eckhart and Jan van Ruuesbroec. The chief drawback of this essay is that after some sweeping statement Tracy periodically inserts a reference like (B. Lonergan) (p. 286), which is no help for the reader who only knows that Lonergan wrote a number of massive great books. The fifth and final contribution in this part is Frans Jozef van Beecks Trinitarian Theology as Participation, a tremendously engaging essay that is chiefly indebted to Lvinas (but also to Newman, Chaucer, Dante, Evagrius) and, surprisingly, written in a rhythmic style very much like Don DeLillos. The books final part, The Trinity Depicted and Proclaimed, features only two essays. The first is David Browns The Trinity in Art. Brown skillfully traces three major versions of visual depictions of the Trinity, which he calls triadic, societal and incarnational. His constant concern throughout is to note how careful attention to the painters medium regularly neutralizes anxiety about perceived conflicts with doctrinal (that is, verbal) propositions. He provides a fine instance in discussing the depiction of the Father in the medieval Gnadenstuhl image (pp. 342-350). The final essay, Marguerite Shusters Preaching the Trinity, reports her analysis of trinitarian theology in modern Protestant sermons contained in some 45 volumes. Shuster found only twenty sermons, many of which contain blunders of the sort that would make for easy comedy if the situation were not as bleak as it is. Her incisive judgement that the Trinity ought to be preached more regularly and more correctly is complimented by a number of concrete suggestions to that end. Now some general remarks about the book are in order. One commendable feature of the whole is how successfully the essays, representing a great range of methodologies, perspectives and subjects, are integrated. Part of this is no doubt attributable to the fact that participants were encouraged to communicate beforehand. In fact, a website was provided to facilitate this. Far from producing a homogenized collection, this means that on the whole the arguments here advanced have been refined by comments and criticism from other participants. Moreover, as the editors are quick to point out, the collaboration that resulted in this book is far more ecumenical in scope than any comparable project to date has been (p. vi). But this brings me to my only source of real dissatisfaction with the book. Despite appreciative remarks from Brown (p. 338), van Beeck (p. 314), Tracy (p. 278) and especially OCollins (pp. 11-13) on various aspects of the Christian East, the

This review was published by RBL 2001 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp.

book contains no contribution from a representative of eastern theology. This can only be regarded as a serious deficiency, particularly since most of the discussions take place completely within the framework of western Christian thought. In the preface, the editors mention that we invited some other scholars who, for a variety of good reasons, could not come to contribute and participate (p. xii). It is worth just noting that Easter week, 1998, when the summit was held, coincided with Orthodox Holy Week, the most solemn and sacred week on the ecclesiastical calendar. This may well have been one of the good reasons for not attending, had any Orthodox participants been invited. In any case, it is to be hoped that any future summits of this sort will be arranged at such a time that Orthodox contributions are possible. This could only further enrich what can only be considered an enormously stimulating forum.

This review was published by RBL 2001 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp.