Paul M. Collins

Although the doctrine of the Trinity is a core Christian belief, it remains contested in terms of how it is conceptualized and expressed. This essential guide expounds different conceptual models and the technical language used to express these models. Providing a complete overview, as well as new insights into the area, The Trinity: A Guide for the Perplexed is an essential read for students of Christian Theology. Trinity is a core area of Christian belief. This Guide For The Perplexed offers a complete overview of the theological history of the concept of the trinity as well as new insights.

Editorial Reviews

'If you want to know why this understanding of the Trinity has come to dominate certain parts of English systematic theology [...] then read this excellent book ... It is both scholarly and comprehensive ... This provides an invaluable introduction to this most central, distinctive and perplexing doctrine of the Christian faith.' Baptist Times, March 2009

"The book presents a wide range of the theological positions that have been taken over the centuries in talking about God as Trinity. It charts answers to the central questions of Trinitarian theology, such as what personhood might mean in God, how those Persons are related, and what communion in God might say about communion in the Church ...With an extensive bibliography and suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, this is a useful, if not indispensable, guide. It is not for the perplexed, however, but rather for the already reasonably well-instructed reader who wants to take things further."

Church Times, April 2009

"Unlike other books in the series of 'guides', this introduction assumes an already developed knowledge but it can also function as a textbook for beginners. It is highly recommended for anyone who wishes to deepen their approach to Trinitarian theology." — Lucien J. Richard, Catholic Library World (Lucien J. Richard, OMI Catholic Library World)

"Unlike other books in the series of 'guides', this introduction assumes an already developed knowledge but it can also function as a textbook for beginners. It is highly recommended for anyone who wishes to deepen their approach to Trinitarian theology." — Lucien J. Richard, Catholic Library World (Sanford Lakoff Catholic Library World)… (mehr)

This is an extremely thorough exploration of the conceptual similarities between the Trinitarian theology developed by Karl Barth after the First World War, drawing on modern (and psychological) anthropology, and the ontological articulation of the Holy Trinity by the Cappadocian Fathers, relating both of these understandings to the Being-as-Communion theology which has become well known as a result of the work, in particular, of John Zizioulas. It is easy to see conflict between the psychological preconceptions of the modern world and the philosophical preconceptions of the Patristic world - but what is extremely interesting in this book is the way in which Paul Collins derives what we have all learnt to call the 'relational Trinity' of Greek theology from a specific reaction against monism; and Barth's appropriation of a degree of relationalism into his understanding of God as a response to the 'static' concept of divinity which had characterised conventional Protestantism (and arguably western theology altogether since the time when Augustine claimed not to understand a difference between ousia and hypostasis) - particularly as a consequence of that Protestant establishment's acquiescence in the face of war.
This book contains very thorough examination of the similarities and differences between these different versions of Trinitarianism: it does not claim that Barthian language of 'event-conceptuality', for instance, is precisely the same as Patristic understanding of 'essence-and-substance' (very clearly they are not the same - they come from entirely different conceptual worlds) - but it is an extremely interesting account of the way in which some kind of relationalism seemed to Barth to be the only adequate theological response to war: although it goes way beyond the subject of Paul Collins' book, this groping towards relationalism and away from static abstraction is echoed time and again in postmodern (and, indeed, post-Auschwitz) Christianity. I think it is still legitimate to ask whether (as, for example, David Bradshaw implicitly does in his book, 'Aristotle East & West') the whole enterprise of western Christianity has a conceptual failing within it - but it is intriguing how many people are finding the ideas (albeit modified and messed around with) of Eastern Christianity to be a sensible source of insight and of help - not least in addressing the issues thrown up by our experiences of conflict and mutual antagonism.… (mehr)