The Trinity: Global Perspectives

• The doctrine of the Trinity is significant for theology and Christian life.
• Many Christians are only "monotheists" in their experience and practice of faith.
• The importance of studying the Trinity is not self-evident to all.
• The Trinity has established itself as a viable and vibrant topic.
• Trinitarian theology has profound existential consequences.
• Everything depends on how the doctrine of the Trinity is articulated.
• The doctrine presents strange paradoxes and is widely disputed.
• The Trinity is the guilt-producing doctrine that is hard to understand.
• The Trinity has been reduced to a curiosity rather than being a reality that matters to us.
• Mystery is different from contradiction.
• The Trinity is an indispensable doctrine among all Christian churches.
• The doctrine of the Trinity is less a homogeneous body of propositions than it is a task.
• Theology is the church's enterprise of thought.
• Scripture shapes theology.
• Theologians' continuing struggle with the formulation of the doctrine is a way of responding to the call of the church.
• Dialogue shapes the doctrine of the Trinity.
• Difficulty with the doctrine of the Trinity has to do with the limitations and scarcity of human language.
• The formula "three persons" has been coined in order that we might not be obliged to remain silent.
• It is crucial to learn the grammar of the Trinity.
• Technical terms in theology establish the consensus reached after many trials, errors, and insights.
• The Trinity has everything to do with Christian life and piety.
• We need to go beyond the understanding of the Trinity as a logical mystery and see it as a saving mystery.
• Knowing about the doctrine of the Trinity is not the same as knowing the Triune God.
• The early Jewish definition of God could include the person of the Son without a violation of monotheism.
• Distinctions within one Godhead were not necessarily understood as compromising divine unity.
• Plurality as such was not necessarily considered a threat in the Jewish faith.
• When New Testament writers encountered the risen Christ and the Holy Spirit, they developed a theology that could account for the plurality in unity.
• The Trinity is a distinguishing mark of the Christian religion.
• The Old Testament contains categories used to express and elaborate the doctrine of the Trinity.
• A theology of the Trinity that ignores or plays down the Old Testament can be radically deficient.
• Strict monotheism reconciled with the emerging Christian view of God as triune.
• Contemporary scholarship does not find "evidence" of Trinity well-taken.
• These proof texts may give an indication of the idea of plurality in God.
• Foundational ways of pointing to both plurality and relationality in the one God.
• Early Christian theology conceived of God in plural terms.
• Incipient plurality in one God is expressed in terms of Wisdom, Word, and Spirit.
• Existence of personified agents that Pointing to the idea of plurality in the one God not seen as a threat to monotheism.
• The early Jewish definition of God could include the person of the Son without a violation of monotheism.

- Distinctions within one Godhead, such as between God's Spirit and God's Word, were not necessarily understood as compromising divine unity.

New Testament

• The God of the Old Testament is the Father of Jesus Christ.
• The doctrine of the Trinity distinguishes the Christian doctrine of God.
• The New Testament has a view of God as triune.
• The roots of the New Testament doctrine of God are to be looked for in the Old Testament.
• The early church's confession of the lordship of Jesus and the experience of the indwelling Holy Spirit emerged with the commitment to the one God of the Old Testament.
• Development took centuries and was a matter of much debate.
• The doctrine can be justified as legitimate by viewing the first Christians' understanding of salvation history
• Salvation history is what the God of Israel was doing through his Son in the power of the Spirit.
• The focus clearly on Jesus, the Son.
• The distinction and unity between Father and Son.
• There is a trinitarian face to the history of Jesus.
• The conception of Jesus was an act of God in the power of the Spirit.
• Jesus, the Son, the presence of God, the Yahweh of Israel, with his people.
• The Word, Logos, deity.
• The coming of Jesus from the beginning was linked to God and his Spirit.
• Indications of the fact that the coming of Jesus.
• Jesus sent by God.
  I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
• Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.
• Divine confirmation of the resurrection.
• Early Christian theology as suggesting that the Son of God was also at the side of God from all eternity.
• New Testament witness.
• Blasphemy.

- Applying of the title Kyrios to the risen and exalted Son.