A Biblical Path To The Triune God

This short volume, finished just before Denis Farkasfalvy’s death in 2020, serves effectively as his last theological testament. Throughout his scholarly career, Farkasfalvy aimed to reconcile and unite theological disciplines that had increasingly become isolated from each other, most notably the biblical, patristic, and systematic. In A Biblical Path to the Triune God, the Cistercian abbot identifies the earliest biblical witnesses to the Church’s teaching about God, formulated at the Council of Nicaea, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus’ famous praise of the Father, found almost word-for-word in Matthew 11:25-27 and Luke 10:21-22, is Farkasfalvy’s point of departure for his bold assertion that in the earliest sources, we find abundant evidence that “it was not Jesus who revealed his own divine sonship; rather, the Father revealed it to those whom Jesus had chosen and were open to respond in faith.” Farkasfalvy demonstrates that Jesus reveals his relationship to the Father in terms of intimate and experiential knowledge, transforming the procreative metaphor of filiation from the physical (as in the Psalms and 2 Samuel 7) to the epistemological realm of knowledge, what he calls “love within cognitive dimensions.” Just decades after Jesus’ ministry, numerous independent apostolic witnesses, from the Synoptic Gospels and John to Paul (especially Romans 1:1-4 and Galatians 1:15-16), indicate a robust and widespread understanding of the Father’s self-disclosure in Jesus the Son. Farkasfalvy concludes his brief but intense reflection by outlining how a single organic process of revelation binds together the Father and the Son, and then extends that loving communion to believers in the Spirit, a communion made possible only by the incarnate Son’s crucifixion and subsequent glorification. This book accomplishes the admirable feat of showing that far from being the invention of later centuries, the Trinitarian doctrine of the Church is firmly rooted in the very first reflections on Jesus’ ministry and mystery by the biblical authors.

Under the broad umbrella of the Christian religion, there exists a great divide between two fundamentally different ways of thinking about key aspects of the Christian faith. Eugene Webb explores the sources of that divide, looking at how the Eastern and Western Christian worlds drifted apart due both to the different ways they interpreted their symbols and to the different roles political power played in their histories. Previous studies have focused on historical events or on the history of theological ideas. In Search of the Triune God delves deeper by exploring how the Christian East and the Christian West have conceived the relation between symbol and experience. Webb demonstrates that whereas for Western Christianity discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity has tended toward speculation about the internal structure of the Godhead, in the Eastern tradition the symbolism of the Triune God has always been closely connected to religious experience. In their approaches to theology, Western Christianity has tended toward a speculative theology, and Eastern Christianity toward a mystical theology. This difference of focus has led to a large range of fundamental differences in many areas not only of theology but also of religious life. Webb traces the history of the pertinent symbols (God as Father, Son of God, Spirit of God, Messiah, King, etc.) from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament through patristic thinkers and the councils that eventually defined orthodoxy. In addition, he shows how the symbols, interpreted through the different cultural lenses of the East and the West, gradually took on meanings that became the material of very different worldviews, especially as the respective histories of the Eastern and Western Christian worlds led them into different kinds of entanglement with ambition and power. Through this incisive exploration, Webb offers a dramatic and provocative new picture of the history of Christianity.

A constructive study of Trinitarian theology that aims to clarify our knowledge of the triune God by rightly ordering the theological language we use to praise him. The Triune God reaches its conclusions about how this doctrine should be handled on the basis of the way the Trinity was revealed. As such, theologian Fred Sanders: Invites a doxological invitation to the reader to contemplate the mystery of the Trinity. Establishes the biblical exposition and draws the doctrinal implications from it. Offers dogmatic principles for Trinitarian exegesis. Though Sanders does interact with major voices from the history of doctrine—and his arguments are indebted to and informed by the great tradition of Trinitarianism—he is clear throughout that Trinitarianism is a gift of revelation before it is an achievement of the church. The most patristic way to proceed toward a well-ordered doctrine of the Trinity is, after all, to study Scripture. -ABOUT THE SERIES- New Studies in Dogmatics seeks to retrieve the riches of Christian doctrine for the sake of contemporary theological renewal. Following in the tradition of G. C. Berkouwer's Studies in Dogmatics, this series provides thoughtful, concise, and readable treatments of major theological topics, expressing the biblical, creedal, and confessional shape of Christian doctrine for a contemporary evangelical audience. The editors and contributors share a common conviction that the way forward in constructive systematic theology lies in building upon the foundations laid in the church's historic understanding of the Word of God as professed in its creeds, councils, and confessions, and by its most trusted teachers.

The triunity of the Christian God is not just one isolated doctrine among others. Allan Coppedge draws out the implications for our understanding of God's nature, attributes, roles, relationship to creation and providence.

While the workings of the Trinity challenge our understanding, Bible-believing Christians cannot let themselves downplay the Trinity or ignore it. We find the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each present throughout the pages of Scripture-and each equally deserving of our love and reverence. This book, while not attempting to define or explain the Trinity, dedicates equal space to examining the qualities and roles of each member as we find them in the Bible, to help us grow in our knowledge and understanding. To do so, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals has gathered essays from leading pastors and preachers on: These addresses will make us more familiar with each person of the Trinity and will show us how to rightly respond to each one. The more we know how to relate to the Trinity, the more we can enrich our love for our triune God. Book jacket.

“A sound introduction to a crucial doctrine. Emery’s prose is scholarly yet widely accessible, at once traditional and constructive” (Themelios). Representing the highest quality of scholarship, Gilles Emery offers a much-anticipated exploration to Catholic doctrine on the Trinity. His extensive research combined with lucid prose provides readers a resource to better understand the foundations of Trinitarian reflection and addresses all who wish to benefit from an initiation to Trinitarian doctrine. The path proposed by this introductory work comprises six steps—from liturgical and biblical ways for entering into Trinitarian faith to the creative and saving action of the Trinity. The book concludes with a doctrinal exposition of the “missions” of the Son and Holy Spirit, that is, the salvific sending of the Son and Holy Spirit that leads humankind to the contemplation of the Father. “Trinitarian doctrine is not easy, but Emery (with his translator) has rendered it intelligible and attractive . . . Exegetes, theologians, historians, and liturgists alike will find the Trinity related to their discipline. Most importantly, The Trinity will prepare its readers to enter higher levels of discussion about the Trinity.” —Sacra Pagina

Who is the God of the Bible? From both within the church and outside her walls the orthodox doctrine of the Holy Trinity, declared in Scripture and passed down in ecumenical creeds and local confessions of faith, is under attack. The emerging absence of a Trinitarian mind-set so prevalent in the church today has enormous implications for the future of the Christian faith. Concerned to counter contemporary attacks on the doctrine of God, Peter Toon here demonstrates the existence and priority of a Trinitarian pattern in Scripture and defends the essential role of the Trinity in Christian belief, faith, and practice. ?

Relating to God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can have a deep impact on one's faith. Ryken and LeFebvre outline the saving, mysterious, practical, and glorious Trinity in this theologically rich resource.

The study of Christian theology in the last half century has seen a major renaissance in Trinitarian thought which has attempted to connect Trinitarian theology to all aspects of Christian faith and practice. This revival has often addressed the unfortunate split which has haunted much modern theological endeavour between theology and both prayer and practice, the disjunction between thought about God and the movement of the heart toward God in transformed lives. Drawn from papers given at a Pusey House conference in 2015, the contributors to this collection explore what it means to know and love the Triune God, and how the knowledge of God can be a transforming and saving knowledge. Table of Contents: Preface vii Acknowledgements xv John Webster – A Tribute Andrew Moore xvii Part 1: Surveying the Mystery Sermon: Trinitarian Communion - Jonathan Goodall 1 Eucharistic Priority in Trinitarian Theology: Retrieving a Patristic Idea - Jarred Mercer 2 ‘A Semblance more Lucid’? An Exploration of Trinitarian Space - Jeremy Begbie Part 2: Foundations 3 Theophany as Divine Hospitality in Origen and Chrysostom - Hans Boersma 4 The Gospels on Knowing God as Triune - Markus Bockmuehl 5 Knowing and Loving the Triune God: The Pauline Epistles - Jennifer Strawbridge 6 The Trinity in the Mystical Theology of the Christian East - Kallistos Ware 7 Wisdom as True Worship: From Augustine’s De Vera Religione to De Trinitate - Paige E. Hochschild Part 3: Explorations Sermon: Caught in the Divine Net Jonathan Goodall 8 Humanity Created for Communion with the Trinity in Aquinas - Richard Conrad 9 Cranmer’s Gnadenstuhl: Continuity and Change in the Liturgy - Gavin Dunbar 10 Hooker’s Trinitarian Theology and the Everyday - Gary Thorne 11 The Gothic Revival, Pre-Raphaelitism and Trinitarian Art in Britain - Ayla Lepine Part 4: The Trinity in Prayer, in Life and in the Church Sermon: Transformed by Encounter - Jonathan Goodall 12 Father Sergii Bulgakov on the Doctrine of the Trinity - Andrew Louth 13 Hans Urs Von Balthasar: The Trinity and Prayer - Lucy Gardner 14 Participation in God: An Experiment in Trinitarian Philosophy - Lydia Schumacher 15 The Trinity and the Moral Life: In memoriam John Webster - Oliver O’Donovan 16 Sermon: Foretaste of the New Creation - Jonathan Goodall Conclusion: Knowing and Loving the Triune God - Rowan Williams