Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2011
Summary
The subject matter of this book is the Trinity, now widely acknowledged to be a mystery of salvation and the central Christian belief. That the Triune God is so now may be a commonplace, but that has not always been the case. One of the pleasant surprises in contemporary theology is the widespread revival of the doctrine of the Trinity. Long shunted to the wings, the Trinity is now occupying center stage. Karl Rahner's oft-quoted bon mot that Christians are, theologically speaking, “mere monotheists” (that is, unitarians) may have been true in the 1960s and earlier. Fortunately, it is no longer so. Recently, a spate of books and articles on the Trinity by Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant theologians has restored this neglected Christian doctrine to its rightful place. These works have not only retrieved the classical teachings on the Trinity through serious historical research, but have also given the lie to the claim that the trinitarian dogma is nothing more than abstruse metaphysics and a conundrum of “higher mathematics” of one-equals-three and vice versa. They have shown how trinitarian theology is necessary for a full understanding of such burning issues as the nature of the human person, suffering, sexism, ecology, social and economic justice, interreligious dialogue, and so on.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity , pp. xiii - xivPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011