Three in one around the world

"Theology,” according to K. K. Yeo, “is to speak well of God, with clarity, eloquence, and power.” Who is speaking, however, and in what language? The conversation, at least in the published literature, has been dominated by theologians from Europe and North America despite the fact that more Christians now live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This book offers a needed corrective. The authors of its essays are committed to doing theology in creative dialogue with Christian traditions of the Western church and scholars from the majority world.

This volume, the second in Eerd­mans’s Majority World Theology series, focuses on the doctrine of the Trinity. The authors all agree that this doctrine has important practical implications for how and why Christians ought to worship, proclaim the good news, and seek social justice. Simply put, the proper aim of theology is doxology. The intellectual challenge, however, is to understand and make sense of the claim that God is triune. How can we say more about the triune God without contradicting the scriptures and without falling into the error of tritheism (which posits the existence of three equal but distinct gods) or the error of modalism (which implies that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not distinct persons but mere modes or aspects of the one God)?

Gerald Bray, a British theologian who writes from an Anglican perspective, argues that the core of traditional teachings about the Trinity, which developed against “the backdrop of Greek philosophy and Roman law,” should not be lost or diminished in the current theological conversation between scholars in the Western church and in the majority world. This teaching has been preserved in the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds (325 CE and 451 CE). In God there are three distinct persons in one substance. Each person in the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is distinct from but shares the same being as (or is “consubstantial” with) the other persons. Samuel Waje Kunhiyop, writing from an African historical and cultural Christian perspective, agrees with Bray. He argues that these creeds “should be the universal teaching of the Christian church” and are correctly “considered orthodox (right doctrine) not only for past generations of believers but even for today.”