Thomas Aquinas’ Trinitarian Theology: a Zizioulan response

The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery and Matthew Levering (Oxford: University Press, 2011), pp. 600-605, 2011

This is the conclusion of the volume. The prospects highlight the following themes: (1) Christian faith as a monotheism; (2) the incomprehensibility of God who reveals himself and gives himself as he is; (3) the continuity between holy Scripture and the dogma of the Church; (4) the importance of the patristic and medieval heritage; (5) the unity of Christian theology in light of faith in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; (6) the intrinsic link between Trinitarian doctrine and spiritual life; (7) The importance of philosophy and especially metaphysics.

Religious studies, 2003

In recent years, many resourceful thinkers have brought a new clarity to the issues surrounding the doctrine of the Trinity. Two incompatible families of Trinitarian doctrine have been clearly distinguished : Social Trinitarianism and Latin Trinitarianism. I argue here that no theory in either camp has yet evaded the triune pitfalls of inconsistency, unintelligibility, and poor fit with the Bible. These two main approaches appear to be hopeless, and I argue that appeals to 'mystery' are no way to avoid the difficulties at hand. Thus, the Trinitarian project is as yet unfinished.

Society for the Study of Theology Conference on Theology and Grace, 2019

Since the publication of Zizioulas' seminal text, Being as Communion (1985), succesive theologians have turned to his work to postulate a social-trinity. The past decade has witnessed a significant repudiation of social-trinitarianism, but such criticism has an implicit tendency to identify Zizioulas as a social-trintiarian. My paper shall consider Zizioulas' ecclesiology in relation to its reception by social-trinitarianism, and ask whether both his social-trinitarian advocates, and their critics, do justice to the problems considered by Zizioulas. Whilst acknowledging that there are significant similarities in their initial engagement, and recognising the limitations of Zizioulas' project, this paper shall maintain that Zizioulas is not ultimately a social-trinitarian because his social-trinitarian advocates are posing different questions to the relationship between the Trinity and the Church than posed by Zizioulas. Although the social-trinitarians draw from Zizioulas' work they do so to answer their own questions, which they resolve by projecting a revised trinitarian schesis, rooted in perichoresis, onto ecclesial and social structures. By attending to the nature of Zizioulas' ecclesiological questions, I shall make the case that Zizioulas exhibits a logic of question and answer that belongs to the neopatristic synthesis which emerged in Orthodox theology in the twentieth century. Zizioulas relates the Trinity to the Church on the basis of theosis as Christification. Consequently, Zizioulas and the social-trinitarians operate within different logical complexes.

Gregorianum 98/2, 2017

The Trinitarian theology of Thomas Aquinas goes beyond the universally accepted definition of theology from fides quaerens intellectum to fides comunicans intelletum. The methods, literary techniques and pedagogical skills used by Aquinas to present the Trinitarian doctrine display the fundamental intention of Aquinas’ Trinitarian theology as comunicans encompassing the activity of quaerens. Trinitarian theology already functions within the dogmatic «horizon» of the Trinity. An understanding, therefore, guides the Trinitarian theology of Aquinas right from the start directing him to understand not in the sense of comprehending the Trinity but in the sense of communicating the Trinity. A theologian who seeks understanding of the faith without communicating it does not do theology in the full sense of the term. Quaerens, therefore, must overflow into comunicans in the act of theologizing. It is this aspect that is highlighted in the Trinitarian theology of Aquinas.

The Trinitarian Christology of St Thomas Aquinas brings to light the Trinitarian riches in Thomas Aquinas's Christology. Dominic Legge, O.P, disproves Karl Rahner's assertion that Aquinas divorces the study of Christ from the Trinity, by offering a stimulating re-reading of Aquinas on his own terms, as a profound theologian of the Trinitarian mystery of God as manifested in and through Christ. Legge highlights that, for Aquinas, Christology is intrinsically Trinitarian, in its origin and its principles, its structure, and its role in the dispensation of salvation. He investigates the Trinitarian shape of the incarnation itself: the visible mission of the Son, sent by the Father, implicating the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit to his assumed human nature. For Aquinas, Christ's humanity, at its deepest foundations, incarnates the very personal being of the divine Son and Word of the Father, and hence every action of Christ reveals the Father, is from the Father, and leads back to the Father. This study also uncovers a remarkable Spirit Christology in Aquinas: Christ as man stands in need of the Spirit's anointing to carry out his saving work; his supernatural human knowledge is dependent on the Spirit's gift; and it is the Spirit who moves and guides him in every action, from Nazareth to Golgotha.

Journal of Reformed Theology, 2009

During the fi nal decades, there has hardly been a doctrinal topic that aroused so much theological refl ection and discussion as the doctrine of the Trinity. Numerous articles, books, and collections of essays have been published by theologians from all major Christian denominations in which the continuing meaning and relevance of this doctrine is explored and substantiated. Since in the 20th century Karl Barth and Karl Rahner put the theme on top of the theological agenda after ages of trinitarian oblivion, we seem to have collectively moved towards an era of what has come to be known as the 'trinitarian renaissance.' Th is renaissance-or revival, as it is also sometimes called-is not restricted to the doctrine of the Trinity as such, but tends to aff ect the overall scheme of how Christian theology is being done. When the doctrine of the Trinity is what binds most Christians together, then how should it infl uence Christian faith and theology as a whole? How should it infl uence, for example, the way in which we conceive of the church, or our anthropology, or even our understanding of the sacraments? Such questions are far from idiosyncratic by now. All in all, the rebirth of trinitarian theology is generally seen as "one of the most far-reaching theological developments of the [20th] century" (Stanley J. Grenz).

The doctrine of the Trinity—one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is a cornerstone of orthodox Christian theology. This paper examines the historical development of Trinitarian doctrine, focusing on the contributions of early Church Fathers and the ecumenical councils of Nicaea (AD 325) and Constantinople (AD 381). It explores the theological controversies that necessitated clearer definitions of Christ's divinity and the Holy Spirit's personhood, culminating in the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds. By analyzing the writings of figures such as Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, and Tertullian, the paper traces the evolution of Trinitarian thought from its early scriptural foundations to its formalization in the councils. The significance of these developments lies not only in the defense of orthodoxy but also in their lasting influence on Christian theological reflection. This study aims to highlight how the early Church's articulation of the Trinity addressed pressing doctrinal challenges and provided a unified understanding of the nature of God, which remains foundational for Christian belief today.

Verbum et Ecclesia, 2022

The Trinity both as a Christian concept and doctrine is a complex whole or better still a “mystery.” Even the great bishop of Hippo, St Augustine at the end of his monumental opus, De Trinitate, prayed God the Trinity to pardon him if he had written anything that was untrue about the Trinity. The Catholic Church, to say the least, is a trinitarian church in the sense that the belief in the Trinity is one of the cornerstones of its constitution and belief system. The church baptises and receives people with the Trinitarian formula. It begins and ends prayers in ‘the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’. Catholic Theological discourse accepts as given, the existence of Three Persons in One God, and only afterwards, proceeds to investigate and elaborate upon the ‘how’ of the Trinity. This article takes a historical excursus into the historical evolution of Catholic trinitarian thought. It will argue that while there is a diversity of theological opinions on the subject, there remains in the final analysis, a unanimity in the belief that the Christian understanding and experience of God are unreservedly and indisputably trinitarian

Modern Theology 15:4 (October 1999): 387–415

Neoplatonism and Trinitarian Difference in Aquinas, John Milbank, Jean-Luc Marion and John Zizioulas The position of Postmodern Christian theology vis a vis philosophy is strikingly ironic. The totality with which it asserts its right and need to proceed independently of philosophy is, in fact, philosophically situated and determined. Heidegger above all defines the problem and the project for theology and sets the terms within which it proceeds. The problematic is set up by his narration of Western Fate as a history of Being, or rather, of its progressive hiding. In this story of ontological closure, he gives the leading role to onto-theology. Jean-Luc Marion, John Milbank and others now define this category more strictly than Heidegger did, and efforts are made to limit those theological positions to which it is supposed to apply. Their enthusiasm for ancient and medieval Christian Neoplatonism lies in its subordination of being and its limitation or elimination of ontology or metaphysics autonomous in respect to theology. However, despite the limitations and exceptions, the use of this category by contemporary Christian theology to describe and judge its own history is determinative. So far as the primary trinitarian difference requires the passage of divinity into infinite indeterminacy, into an endless finitude, which as a principle of divinity prevents theoretical completion, Aquinas’ self-differentiating Trinity and a postmodern one are incompatible. However, if trinitarian difference requires only that difference is essential to divinity and not just once but twice, then Thomas’ trinitarian theology is fuller and richer than an antiphilosophical and anti-Greek polemic can think. If, however, its rich logic be set in opposition to the Aristotelian actus purus, and if an opposition to onto-theology be also required, we are in a bad way. For this would exclude from view the continuity between Aristotle’s ontological theology and the systematic henological theology in which it was conveyed to Thomas. It is just these which make difference fundamental, all pervasive, and understandable in Thomas’ trinitarian theology.