Many theologians prefer to speak of 'Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer,' rather than the traditional 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit.' What is gained by this approach? What difficulties does it raise?

There are two main reasons for the shift in description of the Trinity from 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit' to 'Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer'. The first is an attempt to move away from gender-biased language that equates patriarchy with a model of the Trinity and encourages, tacitly or explicitly, male hierarchy in church forms and social structures such as marriage. There is a place for this criticism (see chapter 9, question 1) but it need not become the leitmotif in Trinitarian understanding. The second reason for the shift is theological, having a residue in liturgical life and practice, in attempting to articulate how the Trinity is active in the economy of salvation. As it is likely that the Trinity developed from the worship of Christ, or as a result of reflection on the identity of Jesus Christ by the early church, it follows that understanding the Trinity is an understanding of how each member is active in the process of salvation. By referring to the 'roles' of each member in creation, redemption and sustaining presence theologians are able to articulate one aspect of the unity of the will-to-salvation of the Christian God.

As John Illingsworth neatly summed the major yield in referring to the 'roles' of the Trinity was, for the early church, a way of self-description working from the identity of Christ against other ancient near Eastern conceptions of God or cosmology. The Christian Redeemer God, Jesus Christ, was also the Creator and Sustainer of the World. There is a unity and distinctiveness in the Christian worship of the Triune God. However, to avoid either modalism (pp 327-329) or Tritheism (pp 329-330) the church fathers found it necessary to introduce two limiting concepts to the Trinitarian vocabulary in the doctrines of perichoresis and appropriation. Perichoresis emphasized that although each member can be thought of in an individual manner in role, this must be tempered with the truth that each member of the Trinity is involved (penetrating) in the act of the Others. Person, as in Tertullian, may distinguish the Trinity in actions but through the doctrine of perichoresis the substance of God is a unity of being in each action (or 'community of being'). Appropriation is the flipside of the doctrine of perichoresis. In it one considers the appropriate nature of reflecting on the work of each member in the economy of salvation. To speak of 'Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer' is to emphasize the appropriateness of reflection on the experience of God's Triune action in the economy of salvation.

The danger of such a formula such as 'Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer' lies in three areas. The first is the unmooring of the concept of 'appropriation' from the doctrine of perichoresis. Either modalism or tritheism is the natural egress for such a sustained understanding. Modalism emphasizes the pattern of divine interaction either in terms of chronology or function. Both can be understood in the formula of 'Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer'. Tritheism tends towards the emphasis on function, three 'gods' who each have a specific caretaker role or purview in the economy of salvation. However, it must be clearly stated that it is not at all that the usage of 'Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer' must lead to the two heresies, but that the danger of this is a trajectory which must be guarded against.

The second danger is the danger of splitting our understanding of God into two realms, effectively creating the possibility that the God we know and experience as 'Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer' in the history of salvation might be different from God as 'God is before creation' or in se. The critique of Rahner is especially important to grasp here (derived from Barth). Rahner is clear to argue that in the Christian identification of the Trinity, one is encountering the true identity of God - God's substance, essence and will. Or put in terms he uses, the economic Trinity (what we experience in the history of salvation) is a true reflection or the immanent Trinity (God's own eternal being). Because God is Triune, the revelation of God in Christ is the revelation of God. Christology becomes the proper location of investigation of God's identity, and as we saw, the Trinity is naught but a reflection on the Christian worship of Jesus Christ. However, and crucially, if we fail to stress this co-equality of 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit' by looking to their roles exclusively, then subtlety introduced is the possibility that roles in salvation do not necessarily equate to identity but merely to function. For example, the Father might assume a monarchial role (subordinationism) over the other two members of the Trinity as in the Jehovah's Witnesses. In this instance, one does not have a Trinity but some form of hierarchical divinity in se.

The third danger is the subtlest and deals with the semantics of 'names'. For some theologians, such as R Jenson (influenced by Barth), the Trinitarian naming of 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit' functions as a proper name (p 337). As a proper name it is not a name that we construct (thereby idolatry) but a name 'chosen' for us by the self-revelation of God (here is Barth's influence (pp 334-336)). Theology, and most particularly prayer and worship, is an attempt to unpack the meaning of this self-naming of God as the One who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is our way of identifying ourselves with the One who has identified with us by invoking the true name of God. Jenson's point is influenced by the central Old Testament theme that YHWH gives to Moses YHWH's true name, a motif in ancient religions which speak of the special relationship of a god to a community. By knowing the deity's name, one can address the divine being. Likewise the identity of God in the New Testament is as the Father who raised the Son from the dead. There is a semantic pattern that cannot be denied. The stress here is that God in Christ has given the divine name not by function (Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer) but as "Father, Son and Holy Spirit'. To use another name is to mis-name God, running perilously close to idolatry or the construction of divine identity based on human perceptions alone.

Why did the twentieth century witness a renewal of interest in the doctrine of the Trinity?

Karl Barth's work, as reactive and proactive, is the usual reason given for the renaissance of Trinitarian theology in the twentieth century. As a reaction, Barth responded to the marginalizing of the Trinity in German theology as exemplified by Schleiermacher. Like Jenson, the keynote for Barth is that in the revelation that God is Triune in Christology one deals with the revelation of God. Or in Jesus Christ one sees the Triune being Whereas Schleiermacher and liberal Protestantism started to do theology from antecedent conceptions such as 'absolute dependence' and then worked to the Trinity, Barth's method of Nach-Denken (thinking afterwards) argued that theology must begin with what God has revealed, specifically in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Since Jesus Christ is truly God and therein God's being is found to be Triune, one must begin with the Trinity in order to understand God and do theology. Theology is properly Trinitarian. Underscoring this reactive starting point is a proactive method.

Barth's proactive method is to cut across the post-Enlightenment preoccupation with the grounds or warrants for revelation. Barth reverses the question 'how are humans able to relate to God?' in favour of the question 'how does God speak to humans?' For Barth the answer is found in the doctrine of the Trinity. In the doctrine of the Trinity, and specifically in Christ, lies the ground for human reception to the revelation of God. Because God has annexed (or more specifically assumed) humanity in the Trinity as the Son, then the intrinsic impossibility of hearing God, due to sinfulness, is overcome by God's action towards us. Or since God is sovereign and Lord, God comes to us and thereby guarantees our hearing within the divine Being, not as a function of human identity or essence as in Schleiermacher. Therefore, when God is revealed as Lord in the life-death-resurrection-ascension (all are important for Barth) of Jesus Christ, one has the revelation of God in se, grounded in God and God's action towards fallen humanity.

The formulaic 'God reveals himself. He reveals himself through himself. He reveals himself' is nothing more than an exploration of how God actually revealed the divine Being in Christ given the great ontological chasm between humanity and God, exacerbated by sin. Revelation, because of the Trinity, is the revelation of God in Christ (God), established by God's assumption of human flesh (through Himself) and the sending of the Spirit (although this is weak in Barth). Revelation as revelation is dependent on the election of God to be the One who chooses to be the self-revealing God in the work of Christ. Because of that election (notice how Barth shifts the doctrine of election away from predestination), based in God's sovereignty, 'revealedness' (Offenbarsein) as such, a profession that 'Jesus is Lord' is possible. Revelation is based on the work of God as Triune, guaranteed by the work of the Triune God seen in the incarnation and history of salvation as the manifestation of the Triune God in se. The hearing and responding to God are all dependent on the coming of God. All humanity can do is to repeat the 'great Yes' of God for humanity in Christ. In this manner, Barth has shifted the preoccupation of modern theology from a preoccupation with human knowing of, or ground for, revelation, prone to Feuerbach's assertion of projectionism (pp 195-195), to an exploration of the Trinity. This initial groundwork laid out by Barth, that all Christian theology is an explication of the God who is Triune, has been expanded by other theologians such as Karl Rahner (pp 336-337) and Robert Jenson (p 337-338).

Some charge Barth's Trinitarianism with the taint of an epistemological justification for revelation that seems not too different from his liberal combatants. It is argued that Barth is using the Trinity merely to sidestep Feuerbach, a polemical device to avoid asking the hard question of how revelation comes about. Barth's argument, it is argued, is circular. Revelation as revelation is guaranteed by revelation or 'in the Son' one sees the 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit'. This, some point out, never answers how one sees the Son. However, Barth's work is not merely concerned with the epistemology of revelation but rather stands as an exegetical piece of theology. Barth's centrality of the Trinity is an exegesis of the reflection of the Bible on the identity of Jesus Christ as Lord. In this, Barth reintroduces the earliest themes of Trinitarian theology as the 'manifest radiance of Jesus Christ the Lord.'

How could you reconcile these two statements: 'God is a person'; 'God is three persons'?

The two statements are irreconcilable from the point of view of a logical statement. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons that the Trinity has been such a problematic doctrine throughout Christian history. The fact of the matter is that attempts, via analogy or metaphor, to get to an understanding of the Trinity, are inherently inadequate. Instead, our Trinitarian language that derive meaning from a wider context such as person or substance fall short in describing the true nature of the Trinity, while those terms invented (or applied) uniquely to the Trinity such as homousios seem to be occasioned by controversy rather than organic or even biblical terms. In the first instance, 'borrowed' language strains against its dominant usage. For example, Tertullian's usage of persona is dominated by a usage that stresses the plurality of roles (masks) used by a single actor. In this case, it is very appropriate to speak of the Trinity as 'persons' meaning that behind the three economies of God as 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit' lie a single actor or substance 'God'. However, in the modern understanding of 'person' the connotation of autonomous agents is stronger, tritheism is a very real outcome of our understanding of person. Similarly, even 'invented' words such as homoousios have originating meanings but more importantly they are articulated in the midst of need, usually overstressing the case at hand. Homoousios, for example, is not a biblical concept. Does this preclude its usage? Or, does it make the notion of the Godhead static? John Macquarrie's existential critique of the traditional Trinitarian understanding makes much of the fact that the Trinity is meant to reflect a 'dynamic' understanding of God (pp 338-339). To speak of a shared universal 'substance' amongst individual particulars can introduce the notion of a static unchanging deity, which, at the very least, seems contrary to the incarnation. Language is problematic when speaking of the Trinity. However, does this mean to speak of God as a 'person' must preclude the Trinity as three persons?

To answer this, language must be accommodated to theological constructs which help to stretch understanding. The notions of perichoresis and appropriation are two ways in which theological constructs guard the rigourous or logical outcome of language. Perichoresis tries to bridge between unity and distinctiveness of the action of each 'person' in the Trinity. However, the dominant stress is on the unity of will in act, derived out of divine substance (although this substance is differently located as love, freedom and so forth). Accommodation tries to stress the opposite pole that while each of the Trinity is manifest in the actions of the Others, there can be some appropriate distinctions made in considering roles. Both, however, affirm that one God lies behind the Trinitarian complexities of salvation history and our experience of God. In this sense, God is a 'person' unified in purpose derived out of a single substance 'Godness' (however defined) while acting as 'three persons' in the creation, salvation and sustenance of the world.

Finally, the exact nature of the persons of the Trinity has been a dialectical movement which serves as a corrective in addition. The Eastern tradition focuses on the individuality of the persons by arguing that the relation between persons is ontological, meaning that each has a different 'mode of beingness', derived from specific relations such as 'begotten' or 'breathed', within the Trinity. It is here that the notion of perichoresis is tantamount to avoid tritheism. The Western tradition focuses on the relational aspect of the fellowship of the Trinity. In this case, subordinationism or modalism is the dominant danger, with the mode or function of each member dictating the nature of the Trinity. This, we shall see, is important in the filioque controversy, which divided the church into East-West.

Is the Trinity a doctrine about God, or about Jesus Christ?

As often repeated in the above answers (see 1-2), the Trinity is a doctrine about God who is at the same time revealed in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. The Trinity as a doctrine is a reflection on the church's worship of Jesus Christ as the Lord.

Summarize the doctrine of the Trinity found in the writings of Augustine and Karl Barth.

A summary of Karl Barth's doctrine of the Trinity is found in the answer to question 2 above.

Augustine:
Augustine's doctrine of the Trinity is an often referred and renewed doctrine in contemporary theology. The dominant motif in his understanding is the stress of the relationality of the Trinity as a 'social-trinity' within that of human social structures, and even the human psyche itself. As such, we are all 'mini-Trinity's', or humanity created, at some level, in the image of the Triune God, and not just God. Augustine's understanding of the Trinity is that dominated by the notion of love (caritas), particularly attributed to the Holy Spirit who is the bond of love between the Father and the Son and between God and humanity. In essence, the relational love of the Father and the Son is the nature of God and that into which humanity is lifted. Humanity is destined to be in relation with God and with each other.

Augustine takes this even further by arguing that this intrinsic Trinitarian structure is actually ontologically imbued in human nature. We are imago Trinitatis, made in the image of God not only to be social beings via love but actually as 'fingerprints of God' (vestigia Trinitatis). To look at humanity is to look for the Trinity, usually dictated in terms of intellectualism rather than relations. It is ironic that Augustine has a foundation of relationality but fails to utilize it in his psychological explanation of humanity. Most commentators point this out as a failure of consistency and the unnecessary imposition of neo-Platonism into his theology.

Augustine thinks there is a triadic structure to human thought that is a reflection of the Trinity itself. Note the abandonment of Augustine's earlier insistence that love is the motif of the Trinitarian relationship. Instead, the human triad of 'mind-knowledge-love' and 'memory-understanding-will' reflects sub-themes of Augustine wherein the Father is 'mind', the Son 'wisdom' (or understanding) and the Spirit 'love', or the application of mind and wisdom. The analogy of the human mind, for Augustine, is a neat reflection of the Trinity. This, however, seems problematic on two accounts. First, the equivocation of the attributes of 'mind', 'wisdom' to the Father and Son, and the subsequent stress that 'love' is the outworking of these attributes, seems imposed onto the biblical structure of the economy of salvation. In particular, Jesus is more than the 'wisdom' or example of God, despite an Old Testament analogue (p 320); and the Holy Spirit as love is more than the action of mind and wisdom applied. The reintroduction of a substantive definition of the Trinity obscures the relational and more biblical understanding.

Augustine's Trinitarian legacy is likely not to be his 'psychological trinity', it appears to be his reading of the Johannine stress that God is love and therefore that the Trinity is a relation of love amongst its members extended to humanity as a result of that intrinsic unity.

Does it matter whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, or from both the Father and Son?

Apparently it does, with sufficient weight as to be the theological reason for a near irretrievable split of the East-West church in the eleventh century. The Eastern Church thought that the West's 'double-procession' was an affirmation of double divinity denying the principle that the Father is the sole origin and source of all divinity. In contrast, the West and specifically Augustine (proof texting from John 20:22), argued that Spirit proceeded from both the Father and Son as the common gift of love and being love (thereby divine). Augustine develops a relational understanding of the nature of the Trinity rather than the Eastern tradition's ontological understanding.

The Greek view stressed the ontological uniqueness of the Trinity, how the being of each is defined: Father as origin, Son as begotten and Spirit as breathed. One advantage in this is that each member retains a full 'personhood' in that none are marginalized in speaking of the work or being of the others. For example, the Western equation that the Spirit is the 'Spirit of Christ' can be thought of as a restriction of the personal aspect of the Spirit reducing it to a principle. As a result, the Spirit is not involved in bringing redemption, especially in creating a 'sacred space' of transformation (the redeemed person) as the result of grace in the world through the work of Christ (the redeemed nature). The end effect is a severance in the West of the importance of Spirit now in redemption allowing for unique and individual Christian holiness. The Spirit, as person, creates an unrepeatable (over and against the 'type' of the redeemed Jesus) relation in the ekstasis of faith, which in turn fulfils each individual as individual. For Lossky and G Florovsky the loss of this personalization of the Spirit in favour of a generic manifestation of an ideal (Christlikeness) is a miscarriage of understanding how the Incarnate Word transforms human nature in its infinite and unique varieties. In short, the depersonalized Spirit of the West produces 'Christs', not transformed individuals.

The Latin view does not, by definition, need to depersonalize the Spirit by depriving it of its ontological uniqueness but tries to emphasize the relation within the Trinity. While the filioque clause can be read as 'binitarian', wherein the Father-Son are divine and the Spirit a sub-entity, it is an attempt to move away from ontological or substantive accounts of the Trinity to a relational one, given biblical shaping. For the West, the Eastern notion that the unity of the Trinity was common origin from the Father (p 331) who is God came close to tritheism or subordinationism. In this instance, the accusation that the West is 'binitarian' is turned back on to the East with devastating result.

To answer the question of whether it matters whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father or from the Father and Son is largely a problem of definition and humility. The Eastern tradition is certainly right when it criticizes the West's reduction of the Spirit to an abstraction or echo of Christ. The West is certainly right when it wants to move away from substantive understandings or definitions of the Trinity in favour of a social or relational model. The Spirit is the means of humanity (and creation) enjoying the love of Father and Son achieved by the work of the Son. Both understandings need each other; both are limited in trying to work out the greatest mystery of faith.