God the Holy Trinity: Reflections on Christian Faith and Practice

Timothy George, ed. God the Holy Trinity: Reflections on Christian Faith and Practice. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.175 pp. $19.99.

This volume's essayists originally delivered their papers at Beeson Divinity School during the symposium "God the Holy Trinity: A Conference on Faith and Christian Life." Importantly, they represent diverse traditions-Anglican (Gerald Bray, J. I. Packer, Alister McGrath), Roman Catholic (Avery Dulles), Orthodox (Frederica Mathewes-Green), Presbyterian (Ellen Charry), Reformed (Cornelius Plantinga Jr.), Baptist (Timothy George), and Holiness (James Massey).

McGrath opens, calling for appropriately restrained reflection on the Trinity since God is a mystery to be adored. Specifically this means exercising caution with unbiblical terminology and refraining from using the doctrine to justify ideological goals. Bray argues that "the Christian doctrine of the Trinity did not emerge from some kind of philosophical speculation about God, but from the realities of the Christian spiritual experience of him" (p. 55). He reconnoiters the NT, showing how the advent of the gospel draws Christians into a deeper relationship with Israel's God where daily communion with Father, Son, and Spirit engenders Trinitarian theology.

Massey likewise surveys Trinitarian experience manifest in AfricanAmerican spirituals. Dulles discusses the implications of the Trinity for Christian unity. He challenges recent attempts to ground ecumenical ecclesiologies in the Trinity, defending the primacy of Rome on the basis of the monarchy of the Father and the magisterium on the basis of the Son's economic mission. Mathewes-Green expounds Andrei Rublev's "The Old Testament Trinity," explaining how each detail illumines our hearts with Trinitarian knowledge. Trinitarian theology, like this icon, should facilitate our devotion, she exhorts. Packer pens a paper on Puritan piety. He finds that John Owen was a Trinitarian theologian and that spiritual communion for him was with the Father through the Son by the Spirit. Underdetermined monotheism, often appealed to in interreligious dialogues, is insufficient, says George. Considering Muslim complaints, he contends that Trinitarian monotheism alone makes sense of the Christian understanding of God as a loving, relational being who personally engages his people. With echoes of her earlier work (By the Renewing of Your Minds), Charry invalidates the trend of conceiving God's actions as preceding and constituting his being since soteriology and spirituality are only truly secured by appeal to the divine attributes. Plantinga's provocative homily portrays real glory not as excellence mixed with fame, but as the Trinity's holy love poured out in Christ's cross and shared through sacrament.

The book is best understood as pastoral counsel since its contributions lie in the domain of practical theology. Accordingly, I recommend it to all audiences with the hope that theorists will duly heed its guidance.

James R. A. Merrick

King's College, University of Aberdeen

Aberdeen, Scotland

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