Abstract:
Augustine speaks of the Holy Spirit as the
‘bond of love’ within the Trinity. First I evaluated the biblical and
theological legitimacy of this approach. Augustine argues from the filioque rather
than from Scripture. Coffey successfully demonstrates the biblical legitimacy
of Augustine’s approach using a systemic theological methodology. Critics accuses
Augustine of a tendency towards modalism and Platonism, and the term ‘bond of
love’ depersonalises the Holy Spirit. Barth’s theology is essentially
‘Augustinian’, with an unhelpful change in terminology from ‘Person’ to ‘mode
of being’, attracting further criticisms. Here we see that the human language
is too limited to describe God. Then I examined the implications of Augustine’s
approach on our doctrine of the Trinity. While God’s love becomes a self-love
in modalism, social Trinitarians may lose sight of the ontological distinction
between God and humans. Heresies can easily develop if we do not have clear
definitions. How we view this ‘bond’ also influences our views of ecclesiology
and missiology.
Augustine speaks of the Holy Spirit as the
‘bond of love’ within the Trinity. In this essay, I will first examine what
Augustine has said, look at evaluations by various theologians on the Biblical
and theological legitimacy Augustine’s approach to the Holy Spirit, especially
Barth’s appraisal, then make my own appraisal and discuss the implications of my
answer for our doctrine of the Trinity.
In De Trinitate BookV, Augustine writes, “According
to the Holy Scriptures this Holy Spirit is not just the Father’s alone nor the
Son’s alone, but the Spirit of them both, thus he suggests to us the common
charity by which the Father and the Son love each other…”[1]
He further warns that the Trinity should not be read “in such a way that the
Father is taken as the memory of all three, and the Son as the understanding of
all three, and the Holy Spirit as the charity of all three; as though the
Father did not do his own understanding or loving, but the Son did his
understanding for him and the Holy Spirit his loving, while he only did the
remembering for himself and for them…The Father is God and the Son is God and
the Holy Spirit is God and they are all together one God.”[2]
We see Augustine knew what he was looking for because he formulated his
doctrine of the Trinity from his understanding of the Catholic faith in such a
way that both the unity of God and the
distinction of the persons would be preserved. Furthermore, he believes that since the Trinity is a doctrine of the
Catholic faith, believing in it is more important than understanding it.[3] Up until
the 20th century, the writings of Augustine dominated the Western
Catholic tradition, withstanding the arguments of every opponent.[4]
In De Trinitate, Augustine
names the Holy Spirit as ‘love’ and ‘gift’ but also points out that Scripture
did not say “The Holy Spirit is charity”.[5]
Levering[6]
also observes that the Scripture does not explicitly name the Holy Spirit
‘love’ or ‘gift’, and the Holy Spirit does not seem to have any closer
associations with ‘love’ than the Father or Son.[7]
Levering goes on to explain that Augustine does not interpret each text of the
Scripture individually, but instead believes that God inspired Scripture to teach us about himself.[8] However,
the central Scriptural verses Augustine uses for the name ‘love’ (1John4 and
Romans5:5)[9] are
concerned with economic Trinity, as they speak of God’s love for us, and not
the mutual love of the Father and the Son.[10] The
same holds for the Holy Spirit as ‘gift’. This leads him to conclude that the
Holy Spirit is given, as the greatest gift, love.[11] Ayers[12] observes
that Augustine does not indicate how the title of ‘love’ helps us understand
the Spirit’s relationship to the Father and Son.
Coffey[13] believes
Augustine argues from the filioque[14]
rather than from Scripture and was unable to demonstrate successfully that the
Holy Spirit is divine love from the Scriptures. Coffey attempts to show the
Holy Spirit is the ‘bond of love’ through a more systemic theological
methodology.[15] As
previously noted, Augustine shows awareness of the economic Trinity[16]
because he understands that the Holy Spirit is the common gift of the Father
and the Son to humanity in the economy of salvation[17].
Coffey believes that from this, we can infer that in the immanent Trinity, the
Holy Spirit must proceed from them both, justifying Augustine's conclusion that
the Holy Spirit is the communion of the Father and the Son.[18]
However, Coffey observes that Augustine uses the terms ‘communion’ and ‘mutual
love’ interchangeably and sees no great difference between them.[19]
Coffey explains the difference between the mutual-love
theory and the filioque[20],
and that identifying the Holy Spirit as the communion between the Father and
the Son still does not tell us the nature of the interpersonal relationship
between the Father and Son. So he proceeds to demonstrate how the Holy Spirit is both the Father's love for
Jesus and Jesus' answering love for the Father.[21] Firstly, regarding the Father’s love for Jesus, both the Son of the New Testament and the Servant of the
Old Testament are endowed with the Spirit and loved by God.[22] God had
given the Holy Spirit to many others, such as the prophets, but Jesus was given
the Spirit in a unique way. From the baptismal text we see only Jesus was made
God's ‘beloved’ Son[23], and only
he could impart the Spirit to others.[24] Christians
also ‘receive’ the Holy Spirit and ‘sonship’, but are only by ‘adoption’
(Romans8:15, Galatians4:5).[25]
Secondly, Coffey proposes that Christ's
love of God is the missing link between God's love of his people and Christ's
love for them. Giving of oneself to others is love[26],
and Romans5:5 demonstrates how God’s love for us is given to us through the
Holy Spirit.[27] We
could see Jesus’ love for God through the events of his life where in an utmost
act of obedience and love he surrendered his life to the Father on the cross[28]
so we get the economy of salvation for the whole humanity. Jesus' loving
self-giving to the Church also illuminates his self-giving to God[29]
because we know from Matthew22:37-39; 25:40 the inseparability of loving God
and loving our neighbours.[30]
I am in agreement with Coffey’s methodology for coming at the conclusion that
the Holy Spirit is a mutual love between the Father and the Son. While Augustine’s
conclusion is correct, he did not come to this conclusion by correct
methodology.[31]
There are many critics of Augustine in the
20th century, with Gunton being the most representative.[32] And on the “hot topic” of substance and persons in
Trinitarian theology[33], many criticise
that Augustine emphasised the Father-Son relationship at the expense of the
personhood of the Spirit, who appears as depersonalised or subordinated[34], and
the term ‘bond of love’ creates the impression of a binity.[35] The
Western Trinitarian theology begins with the unity and moves to Trinity while
the East does the opposite.[36] So
tritheism tends to be the danger in Eastern theology while modalism[37] tends
to the danger in Western theology.[38] Gunton
accuses Augustine of prioritising a unity of substance over divine persons[39], with a
“tendency toward modalism” because “the persons in Augustine’s approach lack
distinguishable identity”[40]
However, equality of substance does not conflict with distinction of roles. For
instance, parental authority does not make parents superior to their children because
both parents and children are human, made in the image of God, all deserving to
be treated with the same dignity.[41]
Likewise, the submission required of wives is itself reflective of the
submission eternally given by the Son to his Father, and by the Spirit to the
Father and the Son[42],
where the differences in roles does not imply subordination or lack of identity.
But we also need to take note that Augustine himself was quite cautious in
speculating about the immanent Trinity[43],[44].
In De Trinitate, Augustine attempts
to tell us that what is meant by ‘Person’ with reference to three divine
persons means something very different from that of three human persons, and
that no human tongue can ever describe God properly[45],[46],[47]
as “like a puzzling reflection in a mirror… no words of ours are capable of
expressing him.”[48]
Gunton[49] further
criticises that Augustine is more interested in the divinity of Jesus than his
humanity and suspects an ‘anti-incarnational Platonism’. However, anyone who
has read Confessions Book7 will be
aware of the central place of the incarnation in Augustine’s thought.[50] Gunton
also criticises Augustine’s use of ‘psychological’ analogy[51] as
being neo-Platonic because this ontological foundation is based on a knowledge
derived from the structures of the human mind rather than from the economy of
salvation.[52]
But Augustine repeatedly stress that our knowledge of the Trinity is derived
solely from Scripture and mediated through Church tradition.[53] So we
see that there are many factors for contemporary misreadings of Augustine, such
as a tendency to read Augustine’s theology in isolated pieces, a failure to
contextualise his thought, and a failure to distinguish between the teachings
of Augustine and later developments.[54] I
believe the Gunton had misread Augustine. Augustine himself thought that his
teachings would only be “understood by a few”.[55]
Barth,
one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, believes the economic and immanent Trinity are inseparable
as history is part of God's self-revelation. Since church tradition is part of
God's self-revelation, Barth uses the filioque
as the starting point of his theological exposition the Trinity.[56] Numerous theologians suggests that Barth’s theology is ‘Augustinian’[57],[58],[59]
in that Barth holds to the filioque,
to the Sprit as the ‘bond of love’, to unity of operation, and to the
terminological misgivings Augustine voices over ‘Person’. Barth argues in favour
of the filioque because it recognises
“the communion between the Father and the Son.”[60]
Eastern denials of the filioque
represent for Barth a speculative method[61]
“which interprets individual verses of the Bible in isolation, because it bears
no relation to the reality of God in revelation and faith.”[62]
He further warns that rejecting the filioque
will endanger “the unity of the Trinity”, as “Tritheism was always the special
danger in Eastern theology.”[63]
However,
Ovey[64]
believes the simple label ‘Augustinian’ is inadequate, because while Augustine
finally retained the term ‘Person’, Barth substitutes for it ‘mode of being’[65].
Barth[66]
describes his rationale as follows: “the so-called ‘persons’ in God are in no
sense three gods… ‘Person’ as used in the Church doctrine of the Trinity bears
no direct relation to personality. The meaning of the doctrine is not, then,
that there are three personalities in God. This would be the worst and most
extreme expression of tritheism.” Barth finds it “a relief that a man of
Augustine’s standing openly declared that to call what is meant ‘Person’ is
very different from a juxtaposition like that have three human persons”.[67]
However, this change in terminology attracted
many criticisms, especially from the social Trinitarians, who accuse Barth of
being a modalist.[68]
The central idea of “Social Trinity” is that there are three Persons who are
subjects of the divine experiences, with the emphasis that God is an inherently
social being.[69] Social
theologians such as Volf appeals to Gregory in support of social Trinitarianism,
“Gregory of Nyssa is well-known for employing social images for the Trinity.”[70]
However, Husbands[71]
asserts that neither is Gregory responsible for the social analogy of the
Trinity, or does he propose that we adopt its use, and that some theologians
such as Grenz and Franke misinterpret the Cappadocian understanding of hypostases as being that which denotes
three “independent realities.”[72]
In fact, Barth[73]
draws a correspondence between the Latin term subsistentia and the Greek term hypostasis
employed by the Cappadocians in order to convey the notion of three “modes of
being”. Husbands[74]
points out Barth’s language is entirely consistent with the Trinitarian
theology of the Cappadocians while standing in quite profound opposition to the
Sabellian claim that Father, Son and Spirit are three modes of appearance. I
agree with Husbands that Barth’s Trinitarian theology has a closer resemblance
to the Cappadocians than the social Trinitarians do.[75]
However, I think Barth’s wording does not really add that much more information
to Augustine’s wording because, as previously noted, God cannot be described by
any human wording.
Next, I
will examine the implications of the discussion above for our doctrine of the
Trinity. First is on the linkage between immanent Trinity and economic Trinity.
Johnson[76]
points out that in De Trinitate
BookIV, Augustine explains the goal of the “sendings” of the Son and Spirit is
to restore fallen humans into a relationship of communion with God. Johnson
proposes that missions is the central link between the divine persons (immanent
Trinity) and the economy of salvation (economic Trinity). Franke[77] refers
to Richard of St. Victor’s discussion of the
necessary plurality of persons in the Godhead: “Because self-love cannot be
true charity, supreme love requires another, equal to the lover, who is the
recipient of that love. In addition, because supreme love is received as well
as given, such love must be a shared love, one in which each person loves and
is loved by the other.” Ovey warns that if one tends toward the modalist
extreme, God’s intra-trinitarian life is reflexive, rather than being reciprocal
and mutual as between three correlative subjects[78], and
God’s love becomes a ‘private love of himself’.[79]
However,
some social Trinitarians take things too far. For instance, LaCugna says “the
life of God is not something that belongs to God alone. Trinitarian life is
also our lives… To conceive Trinitarian life as something belonging only to
God, or belonging to God apart from the creature, is to miss the point
entirely… It is the life of communion and indwelling, God in us, we in God, all
of us in each other.”[80]
Husbands[81]
critiques that tying God this closely to the human community makes it difficult
to maintain an ontological distinction between the nature of God and humans and
perceive God as our Lord. Molnar[82]
further warns that LaCugna’s thinking can invite pantheism and dualism, where
God becomes little more than our experiences of love and communion.[83]
While the social Trinitarians are correct in that “ecclesial communion should
correspond to Trinitarian communion”, if we go too much on the social
Trinitarian spectrum, we may lose sight of
the ontological distinction between God and humans.[84]
Another
implication is that depending how way we see the ‘bond of love’, substance and persons, there can be dangers of binity, quaternity or quintinity,
which are heretical. As we have seen earlier,
modalism, or even Augustine’s term ‘bond of love’, can create the impression of
a binity where there is just the Father and Son plus a bond.[85] On the
other hand, if Trinitarian unity is based on an indivisible and common essence
and this divine essence is seen as a fourth ‘something’ hiding behind the three
persons, this can create the impression of a quaternity. Augustine recognises this problem
himself, and tries to make clear that this is not his understanding of divine
unity: “the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are the Trinity, but they are
only one God; not that the divinity, which they have in common, is a sort of
fourth person, but that the Godhead is ineffably and inseparably a Trinity.”[86] Furthermore, the Spirit cannot be the
personal object of love in order to avoid quintinity, because if Father and Son
were to love the Spirit as a personal object, and if the Spirit were to act in
mutuality returning this love to the Father and Son, we get two additional
abiding relationships in God and, therefore, two additional persons.[87]
Finally, how we view the love relationship
among the Trinitarian Persons also have important implications on our view of ecclesiology
and missiology. Augustine sees an inseparability in the operations of the
Trinity[88],
where the Father, Son and Spirit are joined in a harmonic and inseparable unity
that exhibits many of the features that we would normally attribute to a
unified agent. Augustine envisages this unity of action as an ordered unity
initiated by the Father.[89]
So, each Person is equal in essence possessing the identical eternal divine
nature, yet each Person is also a distinct expression of the one undivided
divine nature[90],
with different roles and positions. Nevertheless, there is full harmony in
their work, with no bitterness, jealousy, or strife. We see a “unity of purpose
and harmony of mission”, with “differentiation in lines of authority and
submission within the Godhead”.[91]
Reinhard[92] thinks
it is possible to understand the Spirit as the projection of the relationship
between Father and Son in the economy of salvation because, as Augustine[93] notes, “the
Holy Spirit is called the gift of God… he was God, co-eternal with the Father
and the Son… He is given as God’s gift in such a way that as God he also gives
himself.” Therefore, we should apply this same type of
love ecclesiologically, where the harmony expressed amidst the Trinity despite
differing roles and responsibilities sets example of the harmony we should seek
as we acknowledge the diversity within the body of Christ.[94]
Secular peacemaking commonly involves the imposition of homogeneity in order to
remove friction, often done through oppression, while Christian peacemaking
involves the recognition of difference, but harmony between them, enabled by
the Spirit.[95] It
is like a song where each “voice” sings the same song, yet each voice sings a
different part of the harmony, creating a richness that no one voice alone
could accomplish.[96]
In conclusion, I agree with Augustine’s
thinking that Holy Spirit is the ‘bond of love’ within the Trinity. However,
while Augustine’s conclusion is correct, I do not think he came to this
conclusion by correct theological methodology. I am satisfied with Coffey’s
methodology for coming to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is a mutual love between
the Father and the Son. There are also many critics of Augustine in the 20th
century. Most of the criticism is centred on the topic of substance and persons in Trinitarian theology, where Augustine is accused of having
a tendency towards modalism and Platonism, and the term ‘bond of love’ is
criticised as making the Holy Spirit appear depersonalised or subordinated. However,
a lot of criticisms are based on contemporary misreadings of Augustine.
Augustine himself thought that his teachings would only be “understood by a
few”, and “no words of ours are capable of expressing” God. Numerous
theologians suggest that Barth’s theology is ‘Augustinian’ in that Barth holds
to the filioque, to the Sprit as the
‘bond of love’, to unity of operation, and to the terminological misgivings
Augustine voices over ‘Person’. The greatest difference is that while Augustine
finally retained the term ‘Person’, whereas Barth substitutes for it ‘mode of
being’. However, this still attracts many criticisms and I think Barth’s
wording does not really add that much more information to Augustine’s wording
because no human language can fully describe God.
How we view the ‘bond of love’ has
important implications for our doctrine of the Trinity. First is on the linkage
between immanent Trinity and economic Trinity. If one is too modalist then God
is loving himself, intra-trinitarian life is reflexive, rather than being
reciprocal and mutual as between three correlative subjects. While “ecclesial communion
should correspond to Trinitarian communion”, if we go too much on the social
Trinitarian spectrum, we may lose sight of
the ontological distinction between God and humans. It is important to be clear
about our definition the ‘bond of love’ because it is easy to fall into the
trap of the heresy of binity, quaternity or quintinity. Finally, this has
important implications on our view of ecclesiology and missiology, where there
is recognition of difference, but also a unity of purpose and harmony of mission
enabled by the Spirit.
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[1]Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, The Trinity, Editor John E. Rotelle, (Brooklyn: New City Press,
1991), 418.
[2]Augustine, The Trinity, 419.
[3]Kathryn L. Reinhard, “Somebody to Love? The Proprium of the Holy
Spirit in Augustine’s Trinity,” Augustinian
Studies 41 (2010): 372.
[4]Neil Ormerod, The Trinity:
Retrieving the Western Tradition (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press,
2007), 11.
[5]Augustine, The Trinity, 418.
[6]Matthew Levering, “The Holy Spirit in
the Trinitarian Communion: 'Love' and 'Gift'?” International Journal of Systematic Theology 16 (2014): 126.
[7]Levering, “The Holy Spirit,” 127.
[8]Levering, “The Holy Spirit,” 141.
[9]Levering, “The Holy Spirit,” 140.
[10]David Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love of the Father and
the Son,” Theological Studies 51
(1990): 196.
[11]Levering, “The Holy Spirit,” 142.
[12]Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the
Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 57.
[13]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 196.
[14]Graham A. Cole, He Who Gives
Life: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 76. Filioque is a clause added to the
Western version of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed saying that the Holy
Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son.
[15]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 201.
[16]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 198.
[17]Reinhard, “Somebody to Love?,” 362.
[18]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 198.
[19]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 198-199. Augustine wrote, “And if the love by which the Father loves the Son and
the Son loves the Father ineffably demonstrates the communion of both, what is
more suitable than that He should properly be called love who is the Spirit
common to both?”
[20]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 220. The filioque is an outward-moving model of
the Trinity: the procession of the Son out of the Father, then the procession
of the Holy Spirit out of the Son and the Father. The mutual-love theory is an
inward-moving model, where the Son moved out of the Father and is reclaimed by
the Father's love and returns to Him in that love which he has now made his
own. The mutual-love theory affirms the filioque.
[21]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 201.
[22]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 204.
[23]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 204.
[24]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 212.
[25]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 213.
[26]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 214.
[27]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 215.
[28]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 208.
[29]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 218.
[30]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 217.
[31]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 219.
[32]Keith E. Johnson, Rethinking
the Trinity & Religious Pluralism (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2011),
257.
[33]John R. Franke, “God Is Love: The
Social Trinity and the Mission of God,” in Trinitarian
Theology for the Church, ed. Daniel J. Treier and David Lauber (Downers
Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 108. The creeds did not address how the three
comprise one God. The Cappadocian fathers appropriated two Greek terms, ousia and hypostasis, theorising that God is one ousia (essence) but three hypostases
(independent realities) who share the one essence. This opened the door for an ensuing
debate that eventually led to a schism of the Eastern and Western churches.
[34]Reinhard, “Somebody to Love?,” 351.
[35]Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of
Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press,
1996), 40. Binity=Father and Son plus a bond
[36]John Zizioulas, Communion and
Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church (New York: T&T
Clark, 2006), 157.
[37]Mark Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program: Volf, Gregory
of Nyssa and Barth,” in Trinitarian
Theology for the Church, ed. Daniel J. Treier and David Lauber (Downers
Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 139. Modalism=the Sabellian claim that
Father, Son and Spirit are three modes of appearance.
[38]Barth Karl Barth, Church
Dogmatics I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, ed. G. W.
Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 194.
[39]Johnson, Rethinking the
Trinity, 257.
[40]Ormerod, The Trinity, 39.
[41]Bruce A. Ware, Father, Son, &
Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, &Relevance (Wheaton: Crossway Books,
2005), 138.
[42]Ware, Father, Son, & Holy
Spirit, 145.
[43]Ormerod, The Trinity, 13.
Immanent Trinity is God in Godself, economic Trinity is God in relation to us.
[44]Johnson, Rethinking the
Trinity, 87.
[45]Augustine, The Trinity, 196,
228. Book V &VII.
[46]Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics
I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, ed. G. W. Bromiley and
T. F. Torrance (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 61.
[47]Kathryn L. Reinhard, “Somebody to Love?
The Proprium of the Holy Spirit in Augustine’s Trinity,” Augustinian Studies 41 (2010): 352.
[48]Augustine, The Trinity, 189.
“When we think about God the trinity we are aware that our thoughts are quite
inadequate to their object, and incapable of grasping him as he is.” 1 Corinthians 13:12
[49]Ormerod, The Trinity, 36. Gunton thinks Augustine “found it difficult to
believe that the material and sensible real could either truly real or the
object or the vehicle of knowledge.”
[50]Ormerod, The Trinity, 37.
[51]Johnson, Rethinking the
Trinity, 257.
[52]Ormerod, The Trinity, 43.
[53]Ormerod, The Trinity, 44.
[54]Johnson, Rethinking the
Trinity, 257.
[55]Ormerod, The Trinity, 55.
[56]Miyon Chung, “An Introduction to the Pneumatologies of Karl Barth
and Eberhard Jungel (Part 2),” Pneumatologies
of Barth and Jungel, accessed August 26, 2016,
http://www.ttgst.ac.kr/upload/ttgst_resources13/20124-197.pdf
[57]Johnson, Rethinking the
Trinity, 27.
[58]Robert W. Jenson, “Karl Barth,” in The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology in the
Twentieth Century, ed. David F. Ford (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997), 32.
[59]Michael J. Ovey, “A private love? Karl
Barth and the triune God,” in Engaging
with Barth: Contemporary evangelical critiques, ed. David Gibson and Daniel
Strange (Nottingham: Apollos, 2008), 213.
[60]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1
The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 192.
[61]Ovey, “A private love?” 207.
[62]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1
The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 192.
[63]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1
The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 194.
[64]Ovey, “A private love?” 213.
[65]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1
The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 66.
[66]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1
The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 54-56.
[67]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1
The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 61.
[68]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 120.
[69]Pinnock, Flame of Love, 35.
[70]Miroslav Volf, “Being as God Is: Trinity and Generosity,” in God’s Life in Trinity, edited by
Miroslav Volf and Michael Welker (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 5-6.
[71]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 127.
[72]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 134.
[73]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1
The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 66. “Mode of being”= Seinsweise in German.
[74]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 139.
[75]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 120.
[76]Johnson, Rethinking the
Trinity, 88.
[77]Franke, “God Is Love,” 110.
[78]Ovey, “A private love?” 230.
[79]Ovey, “A private love?” 231.
[80]Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God
for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco,
1991), 228.
[81]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 121.
[82]Paul D. Molnar, Divine Freedom
and the Doctrine of the Immanent trinity: In Dialogue with Karl Barth and
Contemporary Theology (New York: T&T Clark, 2002), 128.
[83]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 121.
[84]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 140-141.
[85]Pinnock, Flame of Love,
40.
[86]Reinhard, “Somebody to Love?,” 354.
[87]Reinhard, “Somebody to Love?,” 356, 373. divine simplicity means
that God’s attributes are
identical with God’s being.
Augustine’s Trinitarian “grammar” for maintaining the paradox of simultaneous
unity and multiplicity is that of divine simplicity.
[88]Ayres, Augustine and the
Trinity, 70.
[89]Ayres, Augustine and the
Trinity, 69.
[90]Ware, Father, Son, & Holy
Spirit, 103.
[91]Ware, Father, Son, & Holy
Spirit, 131.
[92]Reinhard, “Somebody to Love?,” 371.
[93]Augustine, The Trinity, 424.
[94]Ware, Father, Son, & Holy
Spirit, 133.
[95]D.T. Williams, ““Bond of Love”: The Action of the Spirit,” Acta Theologica 34 (2014), 196.
[96]Ware, Father, Son, & Holy
Spirit, 136.
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