Search Results (13)

Trinitarian ontology represents a dynamic and fast-evolving field of research in the scope of philosophical theology with a focus on the influence of Trinitarian doctrine on the development of the Western philosophical tradition. Within this framework, this article aims to make a probe into the specific question of freedom within the Christian tradition and Trinitarian teaching. For this purpose, it examines the notion of freedom as it is presented in the work of American philosopher and theologian David C. Schindler. It pursues two lines of argumentation. Firstly, it analyses Schindler’s notion of Christian freedom (as presented in Freedom from Reality and Retrieving Freedom) and brings them into dialogue with other authors grounded in Trinitarian ontology. The key concepts of this part of the paper are the metaphysics of the gift and the primacy of actuality over potency, which both acquire their true meaning in the context of the Trinitarian mystery. The final part of the essay analyses the implications of the Trinitarian ontology of freedom for the life of the political community (as presented in The Politics of the Real and in other texts) and shows how it calls us to the inner of transformation of thought not only at the personal but also at the social level. Here, the full Christian notion of freedom is contrasted with the reductive liberal approach. It analyses the limits of political life based on the autonomy and self-determination of the modern subject and also shows how Schindler’s more original and fuller notion of freedom might contribute to the further development of the project of a Trinitarian ontology and its social and political implications. Full article

The aim of this study is to identify the excellent goods that are required for the project of forming a moral community in a business firm. Trinitarian theology is used to reflect on these goods. Though there is a massive gap between the way the triune community expresses itself and the way human communities do, the Christian doctrine that humans are made in the image of God, and therefore imago trinitatis, suggests that Trinitarian theology offers a pattern for moral community in a firm. The Persons of the relational Trinity express love through an I–Thou–We modality. The work of Martin Buber and Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) on the I–Thou or interhuman relation is first discussed. It is then noted that Wojtyla goes further in contending that I–Thou alone does not in and of itself constitute a human community; it is only when a plurality of “I”s act together to advance the common good that we can speak of the “we” (the social dimension). It is argued that a correlational reading of social Trinitarian thought and Wojtyla’s personalist phenomenology indicates what is required in a firm aspiring to be a genuinely moral community—namely, both intersubjectivity (I–Thou relationality) and a social profile (the “we”). It is further argued that these modalities are actualized in a business firm through moral friendship, good will (I–Thou), and commitment to the common good (“we”). These are foundational stones of a moral community. Full article

This paper explores the nature of Cartesian persons in relation to contemporary Social Trinitarian doctrines. We critically engage with three prominent models of the Social Trinity—those of William Lane Craig, Keith Yandell, and William Hasker—and examine how each defines the concept of personhood. Our analysis identifies the presence of a Cartesian notion of personhood (broadly defined) across all three models, though we argue that each presents unique challenges. Building on these critiques, we advance an alternative understanding of the Social Trinity that incorporates a distinct interpretation of Cartesian persons. Our proposal seeks to resolve tensions within current models and offer a more coherent account of Trinitarian personhood. Full article

In this paper, I aim to defend a robust concept of “person” as it relates to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. I begin by situating the debate in the current context between Social Trinitarianism (ST) and Latin Trinitarianism (LT) and then zero in on Thomas Aquinas’s view of the divine Persons as subsistent relations. I will argue that such an understanding of divine Persons has two significant difficulties. First, Aquinas’s view of a strong doctrine of divine simplicity is susceptible to modal collapse. For on such a view, there are no real distinctions within God; such distinctions are conceptually only. If there are no real distinctions within God, then how can we make sense of the eternal relations within God? Second, I question whether a relation can be equated with a Person. After all, relations do not know things, perform actions, or love in the way Scripture portrays the divine Persons. I will then offer a constructive and more robust view of the divine Person—one that aligns with the control of Scripture. In doing so, I consider two objections, one centering on whether defenders of ST fall into tri-theism and the other on whether divine Persons can indeed work together. Full article

In this article, I explore the significance of the protological and eschatological dimensions of the Trinity, critiquing and building upon the Trinitarian doctrines of Karl Barth and Robert Jenson. The traditional doctrine of the Trinity tends to separate the Triune God’s saving economy, which Barth attempts to reconcile via reclaiming their inseparability in his Church Dogmatics. However, Jenson critiques Barth for continuing to abstract the eternal life of God from God’s act in history and instead proposes an eschatological view of the immanent Trinity as the temporal fulfillment of God’s economic actions. By placing Barth and Jenson in mutual dialogue, I argue for a balanced integration of Barth’s and Jenson’s perspectives, asserting that both the primordial existence and the eschatological fulfillment of the Trinity are critical to understanding the Triune God as the Creator and Redeemer. At the end of the article, I propose a soteriological panentheism that aims to reconcile these dimensions. This scheme highlights the continuous, dynamic interaction between God’s eternal nature and temporal creation. Full article

The Gospel of John, without having its own liturgical year, is typically assumed to have a supplemental homiletical role in the Revised Common Lectionary, and yet the Fourth Gospel is the designated Gospel reading for the festival Sundays of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and Easter season. As a result, the theological themes of the Fourth Gospel anchor the church’s Trinitarian confessions and doctrinal imagination when it comes to preaching. In particular, as the assigned Gospel for the Sundays of Easter, the Gospel of John shapes resurrection proclamation. Resurrection proclamation, therefore, is animated by Jesus’ final words to his disciples found in the Farewell Discourse (John 14–17), where Jesus interprets his own ministry, commissions his disciples, testifies to the Paraclete, and prays for his followers. This essay will explore how the viewpoint of Jesus’ departing declarations makes a difference for preaching the resurrection. Through the lens of the Farewell Discourse, the promise of the resurrection takes on thematic issues that give important meaning to Jesus’ own revelation, “I am the resurrection and the life”. Full article

In this essay, I argue that modern science can function as a source of “sacred reminders” for aspects of Christian theology, like the doctrine of the Trinity, that are not normally engaged with in the empirical world. This approach is an alternative to the usual ways of relating scientific and theological endeavors in terms of conflict, separation, or consonance. I demonstrate this by beginning with the thoughts of two representative physicists (John Archibald Wheeler and Steven Hawking), particularly focusing on a fundamental distinction they make about the underlying ideal of the physical sciences. Noting a striking similarity of this distinction with some of the biblical imagery of God’s Word and Spirit, I review biblical texts along these lines to show partial continuity with the groundbreaking ideas of our physicists, and to show how they can be generalized to include (a) levels of organization beyond those of physics; (b) intensive, localized agencies of Word and Spirit as well as the more extensive agencies suggested their ideas; and (c) the commissioning agency of God the Father. A review of the theology of Irenaeus shows that these distinctions in biblical imagery were developed in the early Church and played an important role in early Trinitarian theology. Full article

Receptive ecumenism is one of the most important contemporary methodologies of inter-Christian dialogue. The theological vision behind the concept of receptive ecumenism is a valuable source of inspiration for the revitalization of the culture of dialogue within and between our churches and societies. Receptive ecumenism has the potential to transform closed and exclusivist identities into open and mutually constitutive realities, which value highly the theological and spiritual riches of the Christian other and learn from them. This article argues that, even though the notion of receptive ecumenism has been elaborated by a Western Catholic theologian (Paul Murray), its implementation by Eastern Christianity should not be seen as the adoption of a methodology foreign to the ethos and spirituality of Orthodox faith. The article shows that the vision and practice of receptive ecumenism resonate with the main doctrinal formulations of Orthodox Christianity (Trinitarian theology, Christology, and eschatology). Full article

After his conversion in 1263, and following a vision on Mount Randa in 1273, Ramon Llull adopted a trinitarian view of the world. At the same time, he found his purpose in missionary activity, seeking to convert Christians, Muslims, and Jews to the Catholic faith. He also wanted to serve this purpose through his books. The trinitarian ontology that these books presuppose can be seen in his understanding of relations. Llull’s trinitarianism begins with the Augustinian tradition’s trinitarian understanding of the world. The basis of his trinitarian ontology lies in his understanding of correlatives, one of his most original contributions to the thought. Together with relative principles and the doctrine of God’s Dignities as absolute principles, these form the basis of his doctrine of Art, the art of combining elements. Trinitarian ontology also appears in his analysis of human’s relationship with God, in his dynamic definition of human being, and in the structure of the composition of human being. This article will show that trinitarian ontology is a presupposition of Ramon Llull’s vision of the world. Full article

At first glance, Augustine did not combine his soteriology and his Trinitarian doctrine in his anti-Pelagian oeuvre. Therefore, this article pursues the more hidden and implicit connections between these topics. The starting point of this endeavour is an analysis of the Enchiridion, a catechetical work in which Augustine interpreted the Roman—later so-called Apostle’s—Creed. Simultaneously, Augustine directed his attention in the Enchiridion to questions and arguments which originate from the Pelagian controversy such as original sin, grace, baptism, remission of sin(s) and the theory of predestination. Thus, this article ponders the question of how Augustine reflected his Trinitarian doctrine within this anti-Pelagian soteriology. While Augustine seldom referred to his Trinitarian doctrine explicitly in the Enchiridion (and his anti-Pelagian oeuvre), he presented in these works a conception of how the triune God operates as creator and saviour. This anti-Pelagian concept of God seizes several aspects which also appear in Augustine’s De trinitate. Moreover, by emphasising the unity of God’s operation as creator and saviour against the Pelagians, Augustine argued in favour of a specific Trinitarian doctrine: opera trinitatis ad extra inseparabilia. Thus, this article finally tries to analyse how Augustine amalgamated his anti-Pelagian Christocentric soteriology with his Trinitarian doctrine. Full article

In this essay, we marshal resources from a range of biblical, trinitarian and soteriological commitments, set within a broadly Barthian framework, to offer a doctrinal proposal for the Spirit’s role in the triune God’s work of at-one-ment. We argue that the Spirit plays a vital role in the atoning work of the triune God, as the Spirit is the love of God directed toward the incarnate Son a two-fold manner: (1) in the mode of wrath against our sin born by Christ our representative, and (2) in its mode of blessing in the resurrected and ascended Christ, the exalted one in whom we receive the promised Holy Spirit. Seen in this light, Christ’s death and resurrection was God’s two-fold act of love in the Spirit: the two-fold means of making our representative, Jesus, a fit receptacle for the promised Holy Spirit, that in him all the peoples of the earth might be blessed through his recapitulation of Israel. Key to this thesis are two commitments: (1) seeing a changing economic relationship between Jesus and the Holy Spirit integral to Jesus’ recapitulation of Israel, and (2) viewing wrath as a mode of God’s love, and therefore a part of, rather than something alien to, the work of the Spirit. With these doctrinal resources in hand, we have the necessary conceptual tools to affirm that the Spirit, just as much as the Father and the Son, is the one who saves us in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Full article

Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine can be recollected as a fossilized image of the first digital computer. It is essentially distinguished from all prior and analog computers by the transcription of the ‘mechanical notation’, the separation of the mnemonic ‘store’ from the cybernetic ‘mill’, and the infinite miniaturization of its component parts. This substitution of finite space for an accelerating singularity of time creates the essential rupture of the digital, in which a singular calculation of mechanical force stands opposed to the universal totality of space. Babbage’s criticism of Christian doctrine to preserve the mathematical consistency of mechanics and computing would result in the collapse of the Christian Trinity into a digital theology. This Arian subordinate difference of the Son to the Father would then be infinitely transcribed in a technical contradiction that would threaten to annul the metaphysical ground of any machine. Against digital and postdigital theologies alike, this rupture can only be repaired by a dialectical analysis of the digital into a hyperdigital grammar, which is created by Christ the Logos in a trinitarian ontology of computers. Digital computers can thus be vindicated from theological suspicion as incarnationally accelerated calculators of the sacraments, or ‘sacramental engines’ of the digital age. Full article

Augustine famously summarizes all of ethics in the maxim, “Love and do what you want” in his Homilies on the First Epistle of John, but also describes sin as misdirected love and humanity as characterized by sin. This raises the question as to how Augustine can offer such a maxim given humanity’s tendency to love so poorly. Aimed at ethicists and theologians with only a general knowledge of Augustine, this paper examines Augustine’s approach to ethics and its relationship to his theology of the Holy Spirit. By exploring the ordo amoris, the uti/frui distinction, and the doctrine of the Spirit as the inner-Trinitarian Love of the Father and the Son, I attempt to show how Augustine’s maxim can fit with his hamartiology. Full article