Paul, the Trinity, and Contemporary Trinitarian Debates

Abstract

The twentieth century" so write Christophe Chalamet and Marc Vial, "can be seen as the century of a rediscovery of trinitarian thought". 1 As they point out, this had led to a number of controversies, including the definition of "personhood" and the relationship between the "economic" and the "immanent" Trinity. But perhaps most importantly, the latest debates concern the claim that this rediscovery presents nothing other than "thoroughgoing departures from the older tradition, rather than revivals of it". This, at least, is the judgment of Stephen Holmes. 2 It is a damning assessment of so-called "social" or "relational" models of the Trinity, which speak of divine ontology in terms of relationality, movement, dance etc., i.e., those that resist "static" notions of Being parsed in terms of a doctrine of divine simplicity. Hence, the recent Counterpoints book, Two Views on the Doctrine of the Trinity, which gave space for representatives in this debate to discuss matters head on, is an important service to the wider ecclesial and theological community. 3 In this volume, Paul Fiddes presents a defence of the "relational" model of the Trinity, precisely that which Holmes claims is an illegitimate development away from the tradition. 4 In the following I will reflect on a