trinity pp - rough draft

8/3/2019 Trinity PP - Rough Draft

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Prayer to the Blessed Tr The Father is my hope. The Son is my refuge. The Holy Spirit isto the holy and undivided Trinity, now and forever.

Let us praise the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; let us blessabove all forever!

Almighty and everlasting God, to whom we owe the grace of profaith, grant that whileac knowledging the glory of the eternal Trinity its unity, we may through Your majestic power be conrmed in tdefended against all adversities; through Jesus Christ our Lord, w

reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever



Trinitarian Persand ActionsBy: Crystal Ramirez

Erica FultonHolly Schulte

Kristine MortolaShannon McGawtha



“The three subjects are

aware of each otherthrough oneconsciousness which is

possessed in a differentway by three of them.”Bernard Lonergan,

A Second Collection



“When it is asked ‘Three what?’great poverty from which our lansuffers becomes apparent.”

St. Augustine of Hippo, De Trinitate



Outline

Three Persons(a) Challenges

(b) Trinitarian Persons

The Trinity’s Actions



“Problems can be solved, but divine (and humare to be pondered. When we ponder a mysterto dismiss it as either an irrational contradictioproblem, it inevitably deepens. Nowhere else deepening happen more dramatically than in tmystery of the divine Trinity.”

Introduction



Three Persons



Challenges



ChallengesHow does our nite language of personhood fare when app

St Augustine, De Trinitate:

For in truth, because the Father is not the Son, and the SFather, and the Holy Spirit, who is also called the Gift othe Father nor the Son, then certainly there are three. Thsaid in plural number: “I and my Father are One. (Jn 10is asked “Three what?” then the great poverty from whisuffers becomes apparent. But the formula “three persocoined, not in order to give complete explanation by meorder that we might not be obliged to remain silent.”



Challenges (cont.)

Applying to our God is not a straightforward a

If, however, we refuse to describe God in perswe run the risk of understanding God to be lesmore personal.

Personal language for God makes our prayer arelationship to God possible.



Challenges (cont.)

In the Old Testament, the nature of tripersonal

foreshadowed with the demonstration of God which expressed his deep involvement in the s The name conveyed the steadfast commitmen

compassionate love of God in protecting, chernourishing a people whose indelity could alsdiscipline.



Challenges (cont.)

Naming God as Father, Son (Word or Wisdom), and Spirit the OT.

Both in the history of Israel and beyond, the OT understooand Spirit to serve as personied agents of divine activity. that were not yet formally recognized as persons, they oper

characteristics.God is utterly beyond our world. The creation and conservas well as the divine activity within the history of salvationthrough the agency of Wisdom or the Logos.



Challenges (cont.)

Like Lady Wisdom, the Word is with God and is powerfull

beginning. (Gn 1:1-2:4).At times, the OT scriptures setword in parallelism withspirit orbreath as instruments of creation. Spirit shows up frequently as a third warticulating the creative, revelatory, and redemptive activity

In their creative, revelatory, and redemptive involvement, WSpirit took on divine roles, while staying clearly within Go



Challenges (cont.)

The most valuable feature of Wisdom, Word,

expressive of the divine activity toward the huthe whole world) lay in their being not abstracvivid personications- something that was par

the case of Wisdom. Wisdom called on men anlisten to its message and to follow it, thus prepground for the visible coming of Jesus and his



Challenges (cont.) The vivid personications of Wisdom/Word ainasmuch as they were both identied with Godivine activity and distinguished from God, opway toward recognizing God to be tripersonalOT personications (and the Father/Son languGod), the acknowledgement of the Trinity woso well and providentially prepared- by foreshby an already existing terminology.



Challenges (cont.)

In order to know a personal langthe Trinity an account for the meaperson is necessary.



Challenges (cont.)

A trajectory of development thatled from Boethius (480-524 or 525AD) to the Middle Ages arrived atSt. Thomas Aquinas’s (1225-1274AD) classical description of aperson in his Summa Theologiae asa “distinct subsistent in a rationalnature (subsistens distinctum innatura rationali).”



Challenges (cont.)

The philosophical input from Rene Descartes,Immanuel Kant, and John Locke in the 17th centuryleading into the Enlightenment led to the emergenceof a (but not the) typically modern notion of personas the subject of self-awareness and freedom-personas a conscious and autonomous self.

The notion of personhood when applied to thedoctrine of the Trinity produces what looks liketritheism: three autonomous subjects living andworking together in quasi social unity.



Challenges (cont.)

The rational worldview and method of Enligh

thinkers reversed the Augustinian axiom of “bto understand (crede ut intelligas),” and made you believe, you will not understand.”

Belief in the tripersonal God revealed denitivdeath and resurrection was put aside as an obshonest though and true understanding.



Challenges (cont.)

German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich(1770-1831) identication of an Absolute Spironeness while simultaneously full of contradic

dialectical progression of history was at the timtreatment of the Spirit ever found in Western p



Challenges (cont.) The centrality of history in Hegelianismthrows into question the redemptive andcommunal reality of the Spirit. If God isthe world itself, then God cannot bringsalvation to the world through theintratrinitarian dialogue and the life whichhumans share with it.

Nevertheless, Hegel encouraged notabletheologians to think of the Trinity inhistorical terms, and to examine theChristology in the Trinity.



Challenges (cont.)

In the twentieth century, variousforces, both beyond Christianity Christian scholarship and life, ha

exercised their impact on the latedevelopments in Trinitarian theol



Challenges (cont.)

With the emergence of personaliphilosophers, human beings wereas existing in and constituted by trelations to other self-aware obje



Challenges (cont.)

Martin Buber (1878-1965) and others have off

theologians the language of “I, Thou, and We”speaking about the relational reality of God.

When I relates to the Thou, another person wh

me and responds to me in love, a We emerges This experience hints as the I of the Father, thSon, and the We of the Spirit.



Challenges (cont.)

C.G. Jung (1875-1961) drew on the human exppsychological growth. Jung associated Trinitaa threefold account of human development: su

the Father, self- assertion (of the Son, and thensurrender (to the Spirit).



Challenges (cont.)

Karlfried Graf Durckheim’s (189studies the experiences and longipeople for Life, Meaning, and Lolikened to the tripersonal God.



Challenges (cont.)19th and 20th century emancipatorymovements have had their impact on

Trinitarian reection. Moral thinkers canpoint to Trinitarian faith as ultimateencouragement for those who cherish atrue unity in diversity. The lovinginterrelatedness of the divine persons can

vitalize human beings who seek thegrounds for respecting one another andthe natural world in a healing andwholesome way.



Trinitarian Person



Trinitarian Persons

What Denes a person?A person is:

ConsciousFree



The relational aspect of our humdispels the misunderstanding thatnature of personhood is autonom

self-sufcient centers of conscioufree activity, or self-absorbed.

Trinitarian Persons (cont.)



Trinitarian Persons (cont.)So what is personhood?

A personis not:someone who shuns serious relationships ointerdependence

one person being the ultimate law unto him

derived from one’s own private experience



Trinitarian Persons (cont.)Understanding rst what a person is not helpscomprehend what a person is. According to Operson:

contributes to his lasting human growth andthrough relationships

is an interpersonal subject, not self-containeshares and gives himself in love with others

becomes a true individual by existing in and




O’Collins points out that our beidened by our relationship with o

rather,relationships define our being.




The relational aspect is paramouunderstanding of the Trinity.Otherwise, we fall into the trap o

misunderstanding the indivisible exists between the Three Persons




In the case of the tripersonal Godistinctness of interrelated personconstituted by a separation of conand free subjectivities.




We must accept that the Trinity’sproperties- knowing, willing and identical and shared in common (178).



Trinitarian Persons (cont.)Relational Quality

Knowledge that three personsare persons in different ways:

God the FatherProvider, Protector

God the Son

Salvation, RedeemerGod the Holy Spirit

Comforter



Trinitarian Persons (cont.)Divine Life

Unity in

Koinonia

Greek root “eng” Fellowship

A loving Christian fellowship orcommunion with God or withfellow Christians; said inparticular of the early ChristianCommunity

A blissful communion of lovepresents itself as the ultimateground and goal



Trinitarian Persons (cont.)Divine Life

Koinonia in Action

The Koinonia mission: They are Christianscalled to live together in intentionalcommunity sharing a life of prayer, work,study, service and fellowship. They seek toembody peacemaking, sustainability, andradical sharing. While honoring people of allbackgrounds and faiths, they strive todemonstrate the way Jesus as an alternative

to materialism, militarism and racism.Founded in 1942 by Clarence Jordan

Koinonia Partners: 1324 GA Hwy 49 S,Americus, GA 31719



The Trinity’s Actio



The Trinity’s Actions

A person discloses himself inhis actions, and better weknow the person, the better

we understand his actions,so it is with the Trinity.



The Trinity’s Actions (conWe must understand the action of the Trinity aninseparable character of trinitarian operations rto personhood.

Athanasius & Cappadocians

J.N.D. Kelly Early Church DoctrinesCatechism of the Catholic Church

Fifth Lateran Council



The Trinity’s Actions (conO’Collins uses divine “action ad extra” and than action,” in understanding the actions of the

Johannine Themes in the Early Church CouArias

O’CollinsCatechism of the Catholic Church



The Trinity’s Actions (con

O’Collins reemphasizes the specicity of the Sfunctional mission and ontological presence.

“hypostatic or personal union”

The Mission of the Spirit and the Mission o Towards A Trinitarian Mission, Adam DodCatechism of the Catholic Church

Acts 10:38




O’Collins references signicance of the “thron

iconographyrepresentation of the Trinity

shows distinct actions of the TrinityCatechism of the Catholic Church




The divine persons

communicated each their own particulari

with a diversity that from and reveals themutual relations.



Various Depictions of the Throne of



Conclusion Text

trinity pp - rough draft

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