Trinity and Church: Trinitarian Perspectives on the Identity of the Christian Community

Starting from practical problems with praying and living a Christian life, the author argues that God's relationship with the Christian community has primacy over God's relationship with individual believers. When we conceive of the Christian community as being the body of Christ, we can uphold the high Christian ideals of prayer and living a Christian life without making them unattainable: these ideals are ideals for the community rather than for individual persons within the community. Next, the author argues that being the body of Christ is given to the Christian community not as a possession but as a task to fulfil through the power of the Holy Spirit. Finally, he shows how, in becoming the body of Christ through the Spirit, the Christian community is drawn up into the trinitarian community. He concludes that the identity of the Christian church cannot be fully understood apart from the Trinity.     

内在三一和经世三一——论卡尔·巴特和T.F.托伦斯的三位一体神学

本文讨论了现代基督教三位一体神学的巴特和托伦斯的基本框架.从三个方面阐释了其上帝观的基本内容(1)自我启示的上帝与内在三一/经世三一的关系;(2)内在三一/经世三一和homoousia(本质同一)的关系;(3)现代基督教上帝观与古典基督教上帝观的视界融合.     

Trinity and Religious Pluralism: The Doctrine of the Trinity in Christian Theology of Religions

Books reviewed:
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Trinity and Religious Pluralism: The Doctrine of the Trinity in Christian Theology of Religions. Reviewed by John Flett Princeton Theological Seminary     

John Macmurray,Spirituality, Community and Real Schools

This paper suggests that the work of the Scottish philosopher John Macmurray provides a valuable contribution to debates on spirituality, education, and schools as communities. In particular by recognizing the nature of the spiritual in everyday activities of people in communities, by focusing on the overall aims of schooling, and by rejecting dualism, idealism and materialism, Macmurray was able to describe how schools might properly be organized. The paper aims to investigate some of Macmurray's insights, to see how they might help transform one's vision of schooling.     

Holy Scripture under the Auspices of the Holy Trinity: On John Webster’s Trinitarian Doctrine of Scripture

As he approached the monumental task of writing his own systematic theology, John Webster gave strategic attention to constructing a doctrine of Scripture that was adequate to support such a project. In contrast to some well‐respected modern systematic theologies that got by with less robust bibliologies (those of Pannenberg and Jenson), Webster saw the need to establish from the outset a more fully elaborated doctrine of Holy Scripture. He framed that doctrine of Scripture by appealing above all to his central dogmatic commitment, the doctrine of the Trinity. The trinitarian contours of Webster’s doctrine of Scripture are most conspicuous in his treatment of the missions of the Son and the Spirit. Webster understands the entire Bible as the self‐testimony of the risen Christ (mission of the Son), and explains its cognitive effectiveness in terms of the full range of the work of the Holy Spirit in inspiration and illumination (mission of the Spirit). The trinitarian grounding of his doctrine of Scripture enabled Webster to retrieve the Protestant orthodox doctrine of Scripture’s inspiration.     

Trinity and Creation

A theology of creation requires clarity about trinitarian doctrine, especially the relation of the one divine essence to the three persons, the distinction between immanent and transitive acts, and the indivisibility of God's outer works. The triune God is one undivided essence in an irreducible threefold personal modification. The persons of the godhead are distinguished from each other by mutual relations and by each person's proper characteristics; these relations constitute God's immanent perfection anterior to creation. The work of creation is a non-necessary, novel and voluntary work of the Trinity. As an outer work it demonstrates God's unity: the work of creation is not divisible into three distinct actions. But distinct and eminent appropriation of specific acts to specific persons is permissible if each person is understood as a mode of the one divine essence. Creation is thus a common work of the undivided three-in-one; there are not three creators, but three who create.