The Triune God: An Ecumenical Study by E.L. Mascall

by Eric Lionel Mascall, Dikran Hadidian (Editor)

This long-standing series provides the guild of religion scholars a venue for publishing aimed primarily at colleagues. It includes scholarly monographs, revised dissertations, Festschriften, conference papers, and translations of ancient and medieval documents. Works cover the sub-disciplines of biblical studies, history of Christianity, history of religion, theology, and ethics. Festschriften for Karl Barth, Donald W. Dayton, James Luther Mays, Margaret R. Miles, and Walter Wink are among the seventy-five volumes that have been published.
Contributors C. K. Barrett, Francois Bovon, Paul S. Chung, Marie-Helene Davies, Frederick Herzog, Ben F. Meyer, Pamela Ann Moeller, Rudolf Pesch, D. Z. Phillips, Rudolf Schnackenburgm Eduard Schweizer, John Vissers

86 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Jordan Coy · Rating 4 out of 5]

“And I know that to share in the life of the triune God is the end for which I am made and that I have already begun to enjoy it, since grace is nothing else than the beginning of glory in us.” Page 85

Anglican Theologian Eric Mascall engages in the academic debates about the Doctrine of the Trinity that developed in the 20th century. The “ecumenical study” references the dialogues between the East and the West on Trinitarian doctrinal debates. The friendly sparring partners in this ecumenical study are Lossky for the Eastern understanding of the Trinity and Rahner for the Western contributions in the debates. Mascall defends the Augustinian-Thomistic understanding of the Trinity.

Augustinian model:
According to Mascall, Augustine’s main contribution to Trinitarian doctrine is the development of “subsistent relations” 12
Augustine transformed Aristotle’s category of relation, one of his ten categories.
Substance is different from the other categories-- it cannot be predicated of any other category, but other categories are predicated of it. Substances are not inherent in attributes, but attributes are inherent in substances. 11
Augustine asks which of the categories to place the 3 Persons of the Trinity. We cannot say they have 3 substances (that would be heretical tritheism), but we cannot say they are accidents. That would be Sabellian heresy since the persons are immutable and permanent. The solution is relation, which has a different status from the other categories. Augustine locates the Persons in the category of relation and raises relation to the level of substance (not accident). The notion of person is subsistent relation or a relational being. 11-12

The two principles of the Church’s Trinitarian beliefs 15-16
1. The literal and unqualified deity of each of the three Persons: the Son was of the same order of being as the Father, the Spirit was Lord and life-giver co-glorifed with the Father and Son
2. There is an order among the three, in spite of their equality; or their equality is a consequence of their order. ie “because the Son is begotten by the Father that he is equal to the Father.”

The particularizing characteristics of the Persons are determined by the relations of the Persons with one another-- Paternity, Sonship, generation, mission-- than by any proper and unshared characteristics of each. It is the same sense that led Augustine to elaborate on subsistence relations/relational being. 18

Aquinas’ understanding of person applied to Father, Son, and Spirit-- “A relation in the manner of a substance which is a hypostasis subsisting in the divine nature.” 22

In their divine attributes-- Father, Son, and Spirit are indistinguishable; what distinguishes them from each other is their relations to one another. 25

Mascall describes his notion of derived equality 16
The reception by one person of his very existence from another does not necessarily involve inferiority. It might be said that it is especially in the reception of His very existence by the Son from the Father that dependence does not involve inferiority, since what the Father communicates to the Son in eternally begetting Him is nothing less than the fullness of His own being 33
Relatedness is a metaphysical and existential reality. 33

The Spirit

Paul’s epistles bear witness to the fact that times of great outpouring of the Spirit are also times when the discernment of the spirits is of supreme importance. 38
The natural pattern of Christian prayer is directed to the Father through the Son and in the Spirit. 38

4/5 Good discussions on the Doctrine of the Trinity in dialogue with East/West formulations during the 20th century

[Andrew Talbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, humble little book on the Trinity with an eye to reconciling East and West through an explanation of subsistent relations, holding to the fact that, behind every dyadic relation is the primal triadic relation

[Graham Shearer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, 86 pages, but full of insight. Well worth a read.