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Key Writing on the Trinity

26th March 2014

Church of the Triune God.

Edited by Michael Jensen, Aquilla Press, Sydney First published 2013 pp.224. ISBN 978-1-922000-85-9. Price $19.95

This book is written by a group of students of Dr Robert Doyle, who taught at the Anglican Moore Theological College in Sydney from 1982-2012. Their essays are intended to celebrate his ministry. It is thus in the form of the traditional Festschrift (book in someone's honour), which focuses on two of the main themes of Dr Doyle's teaching. They are the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity from the Church Fathers Athanasius, Augustine to Karl Barth and T.F. & J.B. Torrance, and the implication of the Trinity for the church's life and mission. Dr Doyle prepared his doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor J.B. Torrance of Aberdeen, Scotland. Members of the ACC will recall a number of visits to Australia by Professor J.B. Torrance, through his close friendship and fellow teacher at Aberdeen, Professor George Yule. Many will have appreciated the lectures he gave on these visits.
There are 12 contributors and the papers cover the two themes of the Festschrift. One may be tempted to describe the contents as something like the curate's egg, ‘something that is at least partly bad, but has some arguably redeeming features'. This would be somewhat churlish as there is some excellent material in some of these essays. In particular, though lacking reference to Athanasius' major works against Nestorius and the Arians, which furnish the basis of his Trinitarian and Christological teaching, the writer, though concentrating on his Festal Letters, expounds some key aspects of Athanasius' understanding of the Trinity and the relationship of the church and the Trinity. One important conclusion he draws from Athanasius' teaching relates to the contemporary church's preoccupation with ‘ministry structures' in fulfilling its mission.
"So much of church life is niche-oriented rather than common - student ministries, men's ministries, women's ministries, children's, youth, seniors, marrieds ... (Athanasius') observation of the infinitely sufficient grace that we have in common in the life of the church ... suggests (that) by our practices, the grace of salvation is insufficient to meet the diverse needs of our congregation."
This observation follows an analysis of Athanasius' understanding of God's ‘accommodation' of himself to our needs, manifest above all in the incarnation of God in Christ for our salvation.
The essay on T.F. Torrance shows an appreciation of the depths of Torrance's teaching on the Christian doctrine of God as holy Trinity whilst providing some important information about his spiritual formation and motivation as a Christian teacher. It should be noted that Torrance did not teach courses on the Trinity, although the writer observes the oxymoron involved in the situation because Torrance was Professor of Christian Dogmatics at Edinburgh University.,. It was not until he retired that his magnum opus on the Trinity (The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons) was published. This strange state of affairs came about because the laws of the Faculty of Divinity reserved teaching of the Trinity to the faculty of Divinity not Dogmatics! This was and is a prime example of the contradiction to which Karl Rahner draws attention, that in western theology the doctrine of the one God, as distinct from the Trinity, assumed primary importance. The Trinity in the West has become locked in splendid isolation. He observes that Western theologians speak,
"of the necessary metaphysical properties of God, but not of God as experienced in salvation history in his free relations to his creatures. For should one make use of salvation history, it would soon become apparent that one speaks of him whom Scripture and Jesus calls Father, Jesus' Father, who sends the Son and who gives himself to us in the Spirit." (Rahner, K. The Trinity. London: Burns & Oates, 1970, p.18.)
It is precisely this malaise in Western theology, beginning with Augustine that this book, The Church of the Triune God, seeks to address. Though it does not do so directly, the book does it by means of the practical orientation of the theological teaching of the one it seeks to honour. This endeavour, though concentrating on the experience of the Anglican Church of Australia and in particular the Sydney Diocese, is the critical task confronting the theological traditions of all Christian churches. It is obvious that the Sydney Anglicans at least know what the real problems are that confront the church in contemporary culture and attempt to offer an important clue as to where answers may be found. This is of no little importance and the authors are to be thanked for the offerings they have made.
Dr W. Gordon Watson, Port Macquarie NSW

 

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