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Modern Trinitarian Perspectives

John Thompson

Scottish Journal of Theology / Volume 44 / Issue 03 / August 1991, pp 349 - 366

DOI: 10.1017/S0036930600025667, Published online: 30 January 2009

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ScoLjoum. of Thai VoL 44. (1991) pp. 349-365

MODERN TRINITARIAN PERSPECTIVES

by T H E VERY REVEREND PROFESSOR J O H N THOMPSON

HE modern scene in Christian theology is characterised

T bya number ofvery diverse movementsfromfeminism and
liberation theology to radical views on christology and the
charismatic movement. For many to speak or write about the
Trinity is neither realistic nor helpful. In more recent writings,
however, there has been renewed interest in the doctrine of
the Trinity and in its application to the spheres of the church
and also of social and political concerns. Further, a variety of
groups as well as individuals have been turning their attention
to this central Christian doctrine which is basically attempting
to say what we believe about God: Barth1, Moltmann2,Jungel3,
the Torrances4, on the Protestant side and the Roman Catho-
lics, Von Balthasar5, Rahner6, and Congar7, as well as the
Orthodox Lossky8, Zraoulas9 and Meyendorff10. Groups like
C.E.C. the Conference of European Churches (The Reconcil-
ing Trinity) n , and the British Council of Churches B.C.C. (The

1
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (CD.), 1/1 pp. 295-489.
2
Jtirgen Moltmann, TheTrinity and the Kingdom ofGod, trs. Margaret Kohl, London:
S.C.M., 1981.
5
Ebcrhardjungel, Cod as the Mystery of the World, trs. Darrel L. Guder, Edinburgh:
T. & T. Clark, 1985, pp. 343 ff.
* T. F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, Edinburgh: T. &T. Clark, 1988.
James N. Torrance, 'The Vicarious Humanity of Christ', in The Incarnation, ed.T. F.
Torrance, Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1981, pp. 127-147.
5
Hans Urs Von Balthasar: See for a summary and evaluation of Von Balthasar's
position, Gerald O'Hanlon S. J. Does Cod Change? The Immutability of God in the
Theology of Hans Von Balthasar. Ch. 4. 1986. (Unpublished thesis).
6
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trs. Joseph Donceel, London: Burns and Oates, 1975.
' Yves Congar, / Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3 vols. trs. Daniel Smith, London: Geoffrey
Chapman, 1983.
8
Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Cambridge and
London: James Clarke, 1957.
4
John D. Zi/.ioulas, Being as Communion, New York: St Vladimir's Seminary Press,
1985.
10
John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, Oxford: A. R. Mowbray, 1975.
11
The Reconciling Power of the Trinity, Report of the Study Consultation of the
Conference of European Churches, 22nd to 26th November 1982, Geneva.

349
350 SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
Forgotten Trinity) 12 and the Irish Theological Association
(The Trinity and the Enlightenment) 1 * have all dealt in varied
ways with this subject.
Some of the issues raised are: the relation of worship to the
triune God; the relation of the Trinity to theism and natural
theology with the breakdown of the old synthesis between
reason and revelation; the question of the possibility of God
suffering or even changing in the light of the Son entering into
the nature and sufferings of mankind; the ecumenical dia-
logue with the Easterners who are strongly Trinitarian but
differ considerably from the Western, mainly Augustinian
tradition; and also the search for a theological paradigm for
social and political concerns which press in upon us today.

Critical Questions
In the church and theology while the Trinity is generally
accepted in some vague form or even as basic orthodox
doctrine several reasons have put a question mark opposite it
and at the same time involved a rethinking of its nature and
significance. There is first the radical criticism of orthodox
christology, emphasising the humanity ofJesus with less stress
on the divinity. But historically and theologically the deity of
Christ and the Trinity belong indissolubly together. What kind
of Trinity (if any) can one have with a largely human Jesus?
James Mackey in his book on The Christian Experience of God as
Trinity1* has given us one possible answer a rejection of
traditional orthodoxy and its replacement by a philosophical
construct largely based on Neo-Platonism and Plotinus. This
radical critique does little or nothing to illumine our view of
God or why one still must retain a Trinity, nor has it much to
say about the practical issues outlined above.
A second problematic area has been indicated by Karl
Rahner, himself a strong supporter of the tradition, in his
book The Trinity.15 In traditional Catholicism and also some
12
The Forgotten Trinity, The Report of the B.C.C. Study Commission on Trinitarian
Doctrine Today, London: The British Council of Churches, 1989.
" Waller Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, trs. M. J. O'Connell, London: SCM Press,
1984, pp. 235 IT.
Ibid., 'Is Cod Obsolete?', The IrishTkeotogical Quarterly, Vol. 55. No. 2, pp. 85-98.
14
James 1'. Mackey, The Christian Experience of God as Trinity, London: SCM Press,
198S.
ls
Rahner, op. cit., p. 15f.
 MODERN TRINITARIAN PERSPECTIVES 351
Protestant thought a distinction was made between the two
theological loci DeDeo Uno and DeDeo Trino. Theology began
with a conception of God as one and went on to try (not
altogether successfully) to fit the trinitarian conception into
this, assuming thereby that one could properly speak of God
without mentioning the Trinity. Granted: the three-fold na-
ture of God as triune radically qualified and reinterpreted this
concept of unity. Nonetheless there was a conditioning of
trinitarian doctrine, to some degree at least, from other than
theological sources. Rahner points out that one consequence
of this is that even within a theoretically orthodox tradition
one ends up with an almost Unitarian view of God. 16 In fact it
was simply said that God became man, as Modalists of all ages
affirm and the Church of God does today, not that the Word
or Son became flesh quite a different view of the incarna-
tion and Lhe Trinity.
A consequence of this tendency is that strong criticisms of
Western statements of the Trinity have been made along
similar lines, namely that it gives so much place to the unity of
essence that the threeness of the persons is undermined. In
fact Augustinianism is very widely criticised in the modern
trinitarian debate, not altogether correctly in my view. One of
the main issues is that of the person and work of the Holy
Spirit. If, as Augustine said, the Holy Spirit is the unity or
relationship between Father and Son can we then envisage the
Spirit as having any distinct personal quality of his own, rather
than being, as seems to some, only arelationship? 17 This affects
the still debated question of the Filioque. The B.C.C. document
comes down strongly against what is seen to be the great
weakness of the West in this regard and opts for the omission
of the Filioque from the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed
(381 A.D.).18 In fact, as we shall see, the Eastern position is
more favourably viewed by this group and others than the
Western.
A final practical question arises in this respect. While the
doctrine of the Trinity is regarded by the mainline commun-

16
ibid.
17
The Forgotten Trimly, p. 8f.
352 SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
ions as o r t h o d o x it seems to be little used in worship or related
to practical affairs a n d for most c h u r c h m e m b e r s is r e m o t e a n d
largely meaningless a mysterious t h e o l o g o u m e n o n . Most
Christians centre their faith either in the Father, or in Christ
or in a general belief in God b u t d o n o t see the nature of God
as triune related to how they live, think or worship.
Despite all these questions a n d problem areas the c h u r c h
has rightly seen the Trinity as i n d e e d a mystery b u t nonetheless
as a basic article of faith. T h e New Testament d o e s n o t
explicitly teach the Trinity but implicitly does so. Reflection on
its testimony u n d e r the guidance of the Spirit, the experience
of Christ as R e d e e m e r , being a n d doing the work of God, a n d
the whole context of worship by the Holy Spirit led inevitably
to acceptance that t h e r e is but o n e , true a n d living God yet
known and manifest to us as Father, Son a n d Holy Spirit.

The Modern Debate

It is generally agreed that many older statements of the
Trinity, while true, failed to give more than astatic conception
of God and were not integrated in any real way either with
experience, worship or the whole context of theological
thought and action. This was changed dramatically by the
epoch-making work of Karl Barth as far back as the firstvolume
of the Church Dogmatics19 in 1932. He set the Trinity at the
forefront of his dogmatics showing how it should permeate
church life and theological thinking, in fact the whole form
and content of what we say and do in the world. The Trinity is
no isolated, even dubious piece of theology tagged on at the
end of any worthwhile speech about God as Schleiermacher
did in The Christian Faith. It is our thinking out the meaning of
who we know the living God to be in his revelation and what in
consequence we do in church and world. The Trinity is vitally
related to our salvation. This in turn brings us back to how we
reach all these important conclusions. We do so in fact by
speaking of the economicandimmanentTrinity. The economy
of salvation is the clue to the real life of God.

"CO., 1/1. pp. 293-489.

 MODERN TRINITARIAN PERSPECTIVES 353
A. Economic and Immanent
These are not two Trinities, two triune Gods, but the one
true God manifest in history as he is in himself. In the economy
of salvation we meet with God as he really and eternally is. Karl
Barth writes: 'We have consistently followed the rule, which we
regard as basic, that statements about the divine modes of
being antecedently in themselves cannot be different in con-
tent from those that are to be made about their reality in
revelation. All our statements concerning what is called the
immanent Trinity have been reached simply as confirmations
or underlinings or materially as the indispensable premises of
the economic Trinity... the reality of God which encounters
us in his revelation is his reality in all the depths of eternity.'20
This means that we do not, cannot and in fact should not
simply read off the Trinity from isolated texts of Holy Scripture
but from the whole context of its message as it is centred in
Jesus Christ. The B.C.C. document, after dealing at length with
the questions and problems of modern criticism and the fact
that various christologies may be found within the New Testa-
ment, nevertheless concludes: 'However much, therefore, we
may be prepared to agree that a doctrine of the Trinity cannot
simply be read off the text of Scripture or based directly upon
certain biblical texts, we can continue to affirm that the God
who is made known in the Old and New Testaments is the
triune God confessed in later worship and in the teaching of
the Church. Nothing in modern historical criticism forces us
to deny a true continuity between the way in which God is
known in the Old Testament, is named in three-fold form in
the New Testament and is defined in trinitarian terms through
the maturing of insights made possible by the ministry, death
and resurrection ofJesus as well as by life in the Spirit in the
Church. '*' In other words the nature of the revelation given us
in the Scriptures and worked out in the life and thinking of the
church yields the clue to the very nature of God as he was, is,
and will be to all eternity. There are no hidden depths in God

M
Ibid., p. 179.
11
Op. cil., p. 9; Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, p. 244.
354 SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
not revealed in Christ, no areas which might yield some other
conceptof the deity, though there are the depths of the riches
of the mystery of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus
always to be worshipped and everywhere adored.
If God is as he is revealed and if in the New Testament the
spirit comes from Jesus Christ this lends support to the West-
ern view that this is how God is eternally the Spirit coming
from the Father and the Son {Filioque). However, it has been
argued recently that in the New Testament the Spirit is also the
source from which Jesus himself comes so that one might even
speak of a reciprocity or mutuality between Jesus and the
Spirit.22 In this case an exact parallel between economic and
immanent Trinity cannot be affirmed without further ado.
This argument, however, can only be true of the humanity of
Jesus. To think of his deity as coming from the Spirit would be
to invert the New Testament order as a whole and the tradi-
tional order of the Trinity.

1. Cross and Resurrection

If then the knowledge of God as triune is christologically
conditioned, namely is learnt from its centre in Jesus Christ,
the centre and fulfilment of Christ's life and work is his death
and resurrection. For many modern theologians, Barth,2S
Jungel,24 Moltmann,25 and Klappert26 the nature of the true
God is manifest in Jesus Christ the crucified risen from the
dead. Asjungel puts it, we must learn to think of God from the
perspective of One who identifies himself with and is known in
the death of Jesus Christ.27 In this death the Son of God in
union with our humanity bears and affirms God's judgment
on sin yet also manifests the life and salvation of God. The
raising ofJesus Christ from the dead by the Father or by the
Holy Spirit shows that this death is, as Moltmann and Luther

a
Lukas Vischer ( e d ) , Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, London: S.P.GK., W.C.C. Faith
and Order Paper No. 105,1988, p. 8f.
" CD., IV/1, p. 199; CD., IV/2, p. 250.
" Eberhard Jungel, The Doctrine of the Trinity trs. Horton Harris, Edinburgh and
London: 1976, pp. 83 ff.
a
Jurgen Moltmann, TheCrudfied God, trs. R. A. Wilson andjohn Bowden, London:
S.C.M. Press, 1976, pp. 200 ff.
* Bertold Klappert, Die Auferweckung da Gekreuagten, Neukirchener Verlag, 1971,
pp. 85 ff.
17
Eberhard Jungel, God as the Mystery of the World, pp. 343 ff.
 MODERN TRINITARIAN PERSPECTIVES 355
before him put it, the death of 'the Crucified God', of one,
however, whom death could not hold a deep paradox but
truth and reality. The nature and structure of" death and
resurrection injesus Christ reveal the true nature of the deity
and the form of the Trinity. The cross paradoxically reveals the
true deity of Christ, Son of the Father, while the raising by the
Father of the Son confirms his divi ne nature and work. Klappert
interpreting Barth (and this would include the aforemen-
tioned theologians also) states that according to Barth, the
doctrine of the Trinity interprets the relationship between
cross and resurrection; 'it is the taking up of the differentiated
relationship of cross and resurrection into the conception of
God'. 28 1 n other words to sum up what is being advocated today
we speak of'a trinitarian theology of the cross'. The mystery of
the Trinity is, according tojungel, 'The mystery of salvation'. 28

2. Abandonment
A second area of discussion in modern trinitarian debate
arising from the linkingof the triune nature of God to the cross
and resurrection is the apparent abandonment of the Son by
the Father on the cross. Traditional theology in the patristic
and later periods dealt with the problem by saying that the
man Jesus suffered death and abandonment caused by God's
judgment on human sin.50 It is inconceivable that this should
touch his deity since God cannot die as Son. The danger of this
way of thinking, for all its partial truth, is an incipient
Nestorianism, dividing the natures which God has forever
joined as one. Modern theology emphasises more the unity of
God and man injesus Christ. It is he in this unity who suffered
and died, as we have seen, as 'The Crucified God'. But if the key
phrase in this connection is the cry of dereliction of the Son in
relation to the Father on the cross51 how are we to interpret this
abandonment? Does it mean a separation of Father and Son
and how do we then conceive of God? What does that do for

88
Klappen, op. cit., p. 187.
"Jungel, 'Das Vernaltnis von "okonomischer" and "immanenter" Trinitat',
Enlsprtchungerv GoU Wahrhat Mensch, Munich, Ch. Kaiser, 1980, p. 270.
50
Torrance, op. cit., p. 295 f.
" Moltmann, op. cit., pp. 200 ff.
356 SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
the Trinity? Does it mean, as has been said that, God is against
God (Golt gegen Goti)? Barth 52 and Jungel s s deal with this issue
but begin by emphasising the unity of God's act and being on
the cross. The Son, as Barth puts it, gives himself up to death,
to the Father's will, suffers but does not give himself away, does
not give up being God. Any separation or judgment borne can
only be seen in the unity of Father and Son and their work of
reconciliation.* 4
For Jiingel the same idea surfaces in his view that God is life
and love. The separation of death as curse and judgment
experienced between Father and Son is overcome by the life
and love of God. In the cross of Christ God is 'the union of life
and deaih in favour of life'. S5 Jesus Christ as Son of the Father
experiences death but one which is subordinate to the eternal
life and love of God. In these views clearly the Spirit has his role
as the one who is the bond of union between Father and Son.
Moltmann, on the other hand, goes further by seeing the
cross as the actual trinitarian history of god.*6 There is a unity
in separation so that the negativity of abandonment is an
aspect of the being of God. By a unity in contradiction and by
the Holy Spirit this is taken up, as is all human history, into the
being of god, and thereby overcome in what is called a form of
panentheism. In this way but not until the end of history, in a
dialectic analogous to Hegel's, God realises himself in an
eschatological trinity. This view has rightly led to the charge of
Hegelianism: that God is and becomes God through the
process of history centred on the cross but only completed at
the eschaton. It has similarities to Process Theology and leads
to the conception of God in two forms of trinity the original
Trinity and the eschatological one. God's beingis in becoming
more than he was at the beginning. 87

52
CD., IV/1, p. 185.
"Jungel, God as the Mystery of the World, p. 371 f.
M
C D . , I V / l l P . 185f.
"Jflngcl, Entsprechungen, p. 265.
"Moltmann, The Crucified God, p. 274 f.
" Ibid.; TheTrinityand the Kingdom of God, trs., M. Kohl, London: S.C.M. Press, 1981,
p. 126 f.
 MODERN TRINITARIAN PERSPECTIVES 357
3. The Suffering God
Much modern trinitarian theology has been taken up with
the question of the suffering of God. If God is one andyet three
in one how do Father and Holy Spirit relate to the suffering of
Jesus Christ? The older idea was that God could not suffer
since he was perfect in blessedness, life and joy. This concep-
tion was called apatheia. The only suffering was that ofjesus in
his humanity. But this cannot be seen as a satisfactory answer
since it was the one Lordjesus Christ in the totality of his being
and work who suffered and died on the cross. But if he is one
with the Father and the Holy Spirit one cannot isolate them
from the life and work of Christ. Barth,M Jungel59 and
Moltmann40 have taken up this question in a positive way
though with varied emphases. Patripassianism, that the Father
comes and suffers as man, is excluded. Because the Son comes,
suffers and dies there must be that in God, in his eternal being
and life, which makes it possible for this to take place on the
cross. It is not something impossible to God or alien to his
nature, however (in some measure) opposed to him. There is
a humility, a lowliness, a self-giving in the triune nature of God
in the relationship of the persons, which is the basis of and
makes possible incarnation, cross and suffering. Jungel states
that there is in God a giving and a receiving, a positive as well
as a passive, obedient aspect the Father giving and the Son
receiving. The Father gives the Son to death consistent with his
eternal relationship to him, and the Son willingly accepts and
carries out this role.41
The Father is not absent from the Son's suffering and death
nor is the Holy Spirit. Barth writes, 'It is not at all the case that
God has no part in the suffering ofjesus Christ in his mode of
being as the Father. No, there is a particula veriin the teachings
of the early patripassians. That is that it is God the Father who
suffers in the offering and sending of his Son in his abasement
... this fatherly fellow-suffering of God is the mystery, the basis
of the humiliation of his Son, the truth of that which takes
place historically in his crucifixion.'42
There is, therefore, that in God's relationships in his eternal
CD., rV/2, pp. 225, S57.
"Jungel, God as the Mystery of the World, p. 206.
"Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, pp. 21 ff.
41
Jungel, Entspnchungen, p. 270.
48
CD., IV/2, p. S57.
358 SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
life which has a cruciform shape and makes Calvary possible,
yet it must also have the shape of resurrection, the risen one
victorious from the dead, transcending suffering in joy and
blessedness. The pattern is that of cross and resurrection,
reflecting the life of God, of Son to Father in self-giving, yet
also of Father to Son in victorious power by the Holy Spirit.

B. The Triune God, Church and Society

1. The Church
One of the aspects that has been strongly emphasised in
Eastern and Anglican trinitarian writing is the social nature of
the Trinity.45 God is not lonely or singular but has fellowship,
life and love within himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He
did not need to create the world or man but since he has done
so and redeemed us in Christ by the Holy Spirit this action of
his adexlrais analogous to his inner, divine being. The church
as the community of his people will show in some measure
both the unity and the community of the divine life. But what
is the nature of that divine life? T. F. Torrance speaks of this as
onto-relational exhibiting the being of God in the form of
personal relationship.44 The Orthodox theologian Zizioulas
speaks of God as 'Being as Communion'.45 As God is a unity in
fellowship so those called by Christ into unity with himself will
reflect that divine community, being drawn upwards to partici-
pate in ihc fellowship of God within himself as Father, Son and
Holy Spirit.
This aspect has been enthusiastically taken up by Moltmann
in particular.46 He sees theological ecclesiologies in the West
as largely related to ministry and authority, for example in the
monarchical episcopate, Ubi Episcopus, ibi ecclesia, and the
papal universal episcopate, Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia. This may
guarantee some form of unity but the church is here conceived

" For a summary and critique of the 'social' interpretation ofthe Trinity see D.M.
Baillie, God was in Christ, An Essay on Incarnation and Atonement, London: Faber and
Faber, 1968, p. 137f.
44
T. F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, Exeter: The Paternoster Press, 1983, p. 59.
" J o h n D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, Studies in Personhood and the Church,
London:
46
Danon, Longman and Todd, 1985.
Moltmann, 'The Reconciling Power ofthe Trinity in the life ofthe Church and
the World', in The Reconciling Power of the Trinity, Conference of European Churches,
Occasional Paper No. 15, Geneva, 1983, pp. 47-60.
 MODERN TRINITARIAN PERSPECTIVES 359
as a passive recipient of the actions of the church's ministry.
This could indeed be applied with truth today to most of our
denominations. By contrast Moltmann almost excludes minis-
try of the traditional type and opts for an open charismatic
fellowship based on and in some measure expressing 'the very
fellowship of the Son with the Father into which the Holy Spirit
takes us as John 17, 20 implies'. 47 We are brought into this
fellowship of equals by the Holy Spirit.
This Moltmann sees as a maternal ministry of the Spirit
leading to a brotherly and sisterly community. The Holy Spirit
by whom we become children of God is thus our mother and
God is our Father; we are brothers of the Son. The idea of the
Holy Spirit as the maternal integer in the deity is an old Syrian
concept revived by Count Zinzendorf and by Feminists today.
Moltmann supports it and sees it as combining the two aspects,
male and female, in God and in the community of the Church
as the family of God.
This conception is open to the criticism that it takes a rather
simplistic view of the church and indeed of the Trinity. A more
serious balanced view is to be found in the B.C.C. document. 48
It also believes that past ecclesiologies have been too heavily
institution-orientated, emphasising a legal unity. Moreover
certain images of God have predominated and one person of
the trinity rather than the whole trinitarian perspective has
taken over.
As far as the feminist debate is concerned the B.C.C. report
rejects bringing either male or female ideas into the deity
though certain kinds of language must be used. It accepts also
that certain masculine ideas, language and attitudes had and
still do have oppressive consequences. The document believes
itwrong to treat the word Father simply as ageneral notion or
image that we project upon God'. 49 Moreover bible language
speaks relationally of God. Jesus took upon himself our hu-
manity in male form but shared it simply as a person. The
eternal Son was not male nor should we speak of the Holy

" Ibid., p. 51.

" The Forgotten Trinity, p. 57 f.
"/feUilS
360 SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
Spirit as feminine. We must learn to think of God as trinity, as
being in personal terms, as being in relation or as relation.
Not only has the Church a trinitarian basis, it has also a
trinitarian mission and goal. This is the theme of Lesslie
Newbigin's book, The Open Secret,50 where he shows that, as in
the early centuries, our conception of whojesus is determines
the nature of God and his purposes with mankind. We do not
follow his arguments here but state briefly howwe conceive the
mission of God. The ultimate source of mission is the Father
who sent the Son, the proximate basis is the saving work of
Christ the Son, and the immediate power of mission is the Holy
Spirit. The old idea of God as static must yield, as so much
modern theology.rightly states, to seeing and thinking of God
in terms of movement, life and dynamic. God moves, lives and
loves within himself, moves down and out to us and goes with
his messengers, to use Newbigin's words, 'hastening to the
ends of ihe earth to beseech all men to be reconciled to God,
and hastening to the end of time to meet its Lord who will
gather all into one'. 51 T h e goal of mission is the praise and
glory of the triune God through the ministry of reconciliation.
It is to create a missionary church that the world may believe
in the Son whom the Father has sent and in the Spirit sent in
the name of both. God's being is in becoming (someone
different but not changed) what he eternally is and does in
moving within himself and out to us while remaining the
living, loving God.

2. Society
The argument to date has been that since God's nature is
triune, a society of mutual relationships, true life in human
nature and the Church is analagous to this. The same analogy
holds good for society. Moltmann quotes the phrase of the
19th century theologian Nicolas Fedorov and F. D. Maurice
the last century Anglican divine, 'The Holy Trinity is our social
programme'.52 The social trinity is the paradigm not only for
the church but for human society. A monotheistic conception

50
J. U-sslie Newbigin, The Open Secret, Grand Rapids: W. G. Eerdmans, 1978.
sl
Newbigin, The Household of God, Lectureson iheNatureoftheChurch, London: S.C.M.
Press, 195S, p. 25.
a
Moltmann, Op. cit, p. 56.
 MODERN TRINITARIAN PERSPECTIVES 361
of God leads to individualism the view of liberal theologians
in line with Harnack. Moltmann also believes that even strong
trinitarians like Barth and Rahner also tend in this direction
since they so emphasise the oneness or subject nature of God
that both persons and communion are minimised. 5 * This is
hard to accept in both cases, especially for Barth, as he sees the
church as Gemeinde, as community, and humankind as radi-
cally co-humanity with and for one another. 54
Moltmann is however right in his perception that social and
political views follow from particular conceptions of God and
especially of the Trinity. This can scarcely be seen very clearly
in the short term but, as P. T. Forsyth said, over the longer view
of history philosophical and theological views do have consid-
erable effect on how society sees itself and acts.55 Neither
private enterprise individualism (say of the Thatcher model)
where social concerns are secondary nor collectivism (as in
marxism and communism where personal and individual
concerns are subordinate to the State) reflect the social nature
of the Trinity. Moltmann opts for some social form that would
embody the best of these two views. He writes, 'Social person-
alism (individualism) and personalistic socialism (collectiv-
ism), could, with the help of the social trinitarian doctrine, be
brought theologically to converge'. 56 He does not, however,
opt for any particular political or present social programme
but sees each being judged by how, in a way analogous to the
trinity, the personal and social, the individual and relational
are co-ordinated.

3. Philosophical Critique
It is argued by Walter Kasper57 that two concepts and
motivating forces in the western tradition which have lost
much of their original dynamic and need a radical replace-

" Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, on Barth pp. 129 ff. and Rahner,
p. 144 ff.
M
CD., !V/1, pp. 650 ff. for the Church as community and CD., IV/2, pp. 222 ff. for
'The Basic Form of Humanity'.
55
P. T. Forsyth, "A Holy Church, The Moral Guide to Society' in The Church, The
Gospel and Society, London: Independent Press (Reprint), 1962, p. 25.
Moltmann, The Reconciling Power of the Trinity, p. 56.
" Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, pp. 16 ff.
S62 SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
ment are atheism and theism. Large tracts of Western thought
are still influenced by the Enlightenment and are agnostic if
not wholly atheistic. Kasper argues that the Enlightenment in
rejecting God was robbed of all direction and has nowin reality
lost its impetus and raison d'etre. In a peculiar but not
incomprehensible way unbelief fed upon roots deeply embed-
ded in the Christian culture of the West. Hence when God was
not believed any more the nature of unbelief was deeply
affected. Kasper quotes Kolakowski as saying, 'the absence of
God became the increasingly open wound of the European
mind', 58 and with it unbelief lost its confidence. So we have not
only a crisis of belief today but a crisis of unbelief as well.
In the same way theism came increasingly under attack
though it has still a strong following in the Anglo-Saxon world
if not on the European mainland. Kant and many since have
queried the equating of the god of the philosophers with the
Christian God. 59 Reason is no longer seen as providing a
foundation for faith or at least an auxiliary to it. It has resigned
itself in despair 'of the possibility of beingable to acknowledge
an absolute reality or absolute standards of value'. 60 Barth, 61
Jungel, 62 and Moltmann 65 all say the same, both of atheism and
theism and see the Christian revelation as the answer.
Kasper asks the question where do we go from here? For him
as a Roman Catholic theologian, Vatican I with its central place
given to reason is not set aside but in a sense transcended by
Vatican II. Vatican II abandoned abstract proofs of God and
his existence and followed the way long before charted by
Barth. It proceeded 'from the concrete historical reality of
revealed faith'. 64 But the faith has its own rationality we
believe in order to understand (Augustine and Anselm). We
need to define anewthe beingof God given inrevelation. 'God
is not then a "highest being" in the sense of Western metaphys-
ics but the living, liberating God of love.' 65 He continues,
'When such statements are not simply left hanging in the air,

H
Ibid., Is God Obsolete? I.T.Q., p. 92.
M
Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, p p . 4 7 ff.
60
Kasper, 'Is God Obsolete?1 7.7.4. p- 92.
61
Barth's whole theological enterprise is based on the affirmation of revelation as
the only way of knowledge of God. Hence the denial of all 'natural' knowledge.
^Jiingcl, God as the Mystery of the World, Passim.
a
Moltmann, The Crucified God, pp. 2S5 ff.
M
Kasper, op. cit., p. 93.
 MODERN TRINITARIAN PERSPECTIVES 363

but are thought rigorously through to the end, they lead to a

renewal of the doctrine of the trinity.'66 That is to say that
reason and unbelief have failed to give a rational basis for life;
only God who is love can, and in the economy of salvation and
revelation we know him in his life of love, as triune, Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. This is the only fully valid answer to modern
or indeed any other versions of atheism and theism.

3. The Trinity, Worship and Doxology

James B. Torrance67 and T. F. Torrance68 have given a
comprehensive view of the Trinity and worship. J. B. Torrance
points out that there are basically two views of worship. Wor-
ship is what we dogo to church, sing, pray, intercede, listen.
We are kings and priests to God. This he regards as basically
Pelagian, contra the Reformers and not good New Testament
teaching.
The second view of worship is that it is the gift of participat-
ing through the Spirit in the Son's communion with the
Father. It is centred in Christ who is himself as man the one
true worshipperwho offers himself in communion with the
Father. He fulfils the role of Priest and High Priest. As Divine/
Human he represents God to man and man to God through
his vicarious humanity. Thus we are drawn by the Spirit into
the worship Christ offers to the Father. The Spirit gives what
he demands the worship of our hearts and lives. This view
is fundamentally of grace or gracious.
God does not accept us because of our worthy worship,
because of what we are or do but because of whatJesus Christ
in his vicarious humanity has done for us and all men. By his
Spirit he units us with Christ, adopts us as sons in the Son and
brings us to the Father. The nature and structure of all true
worship is thus trinitarian.incarnationalandpneumatological.
Some see a tendency here for an objectivism where all is
already done in Christ and the human aspect is minimised
though this is obviated by the work of the Spirit. Tom Smail69
" Ibid., p. 96.
"Ibid.
"James B. Torrance, 'The Vicarious Humanity of Christ', The Incarnation, Ecumeni-
cal Studies in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, T. F. Torrance (ed.) Edinburgh: The
Handsel Press, 1981, pp. 127-147.
08
T. F. Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation, London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1975, pp.
139-214.
364 SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
and the B.C.C. Report 70 underline both aspects which are by
no means exclusive. It is good to see this genuine attempt
being made to underline the fact that our worship is enabled
by the God who is our Father. It is centred in Christ as true man
and our Intercessor perpetually and also in the Holy Spirit who
creates our faith and sustains us in it. When we worship God we
are by grace made participants in his living self-giving life and
in his own self-knowledge as Father, Son and Holy Spirit to his
glory and our own eternal good and life.

Some brief comments on the foregoing

One can but welcome this renewed emphasis on the central-
ity of the Trinity as the content of the distinctive conception of
the Christian view of God. Its basis in the total scope of God's
activity i n revelation in Scripture is more adequate than a mere
proof texi approach, though to accuse the great divines of the
past of being so tied down would be quite unfair. The change
from a static to a dynamic view of God is also salutary. God is
a living, active being in movement, in love within himself
(eternally) and ad extra. The relevance of this to life in church
and society is also an advance over many past trinitarian
emphases where the doctrine had a kind of splendid isolation
in relation to other doctrines as well as to life in church and
society.
However, not all ofthe writers penetrate adequately to the
depths and complexities of this mystery of our salvation. There
is an almost too simplistic view of the Trinity as society and
communion which makes parallels too obvious or immediate
and borders on tritheism. That there is and must be an analogy
between who God is and what he does for us in the world is
clear as there should be corresponding action from us in
relation to his nature and work as triune. To say, however, as
Moltmann and others do, that the being of God as triune
consists solely in communion, like the blood-stream circulat-
ing through our veins and giving us life, does much less than
justice lo the nature of a union in which each person is divine

M
Thomas A. Small, TheForgottenFather, HodderandStoughton, 1980, pp. 174-190.
Op. cit.,p. 3.
 MODERN TRINITARIAN PERSPECTIVES 365

as well as all three in their relationships and where each also

indwells the other. These mind-boggling truths can be ob-
scured in a too easy reading of the Trinity as simply commun-
ion and can lead to a too simple application to church and
world. However Baillie states that these writers never suggest
that the unity of human social organism, the 'personality' of a
society or a state, is anything like an adequate analogy of the
divine unity. 'They regard the unity of the three persons in
God as a kind of higher unity than any other that we can
imagine.... And yet I find it difficult to go all the way with an
interpretation which is, as it seems to me, so one-sided in its
emphasis that it excludes certain familiar and traditional
principles of trinitarian doctrine.'71 Certain aspects of the
nature of God can scarcely be reflected in our humanity or at
best only very inadequately. The older theologians at least
remind us that while we must tackle this subject and its
practical implications if we are to speak of God at all, yet in the
end omnia exeunt in mysterium.

JOHN THOMPSON
Union Theological College
2b College Green
Belfast BT7 1LN

71
D. M. liaillie, op. cit., p. 141.
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