What do you think?
Rate this book
The Trinity: The Central Mystery of Christianity
In the last thirty years, books on the Trinity have abounded. There seems to be a fascination with this mysterious topic, especially among systematic theologians. The topic has been mined for many different interests, from liberation theology to feminist interpretations of the Christian heritage and from neo-Reformation theology to interreligious dialogue. This book has no intention of adding to the plethora of treatises on the Trinity. The main question with which it is concerned is what is really scripturally tenable with regard to the Trinity and what is unwarranted theological construction or even speculation. Through this question, Schwarz tries to discern whether the theological assertions made about the Trinity are in line with the biblical base from which they are derived, or whether they have veered off in a more or less questionable direction. What takes shape here is a how the doctrine of the Trinity developed over the subsequent centuries from the traces in Scripture to a centralized dogma at the heart of Christian teaching. We witness in this an evolution from proclamation to controversy to speculation. What are we to make of this doctrine? How do we articulate the biblical faith today?
233 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 1, 2017
2 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Hans Schwarz
126 books2 followersHans Schwarz (DrTheol, Erlangen University), the author or editor of over fifty books, is professor of systematic theology and contemporary theological issues at the University of Regensburg in Regensburg, Germany. He previously taught at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Ohio.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 3, 2021
I just finished "The Trinity: The Central Mystery of Christianity, " by Hans Schwarz.
Ch. 1, Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Old Testament:
This was a basic run-through of the OT data dealing with the Spirit and the Son. The quite interesting part was when he gets into the apocrypha.
This was a slim 15 pages so nothing major.
Ch. 2, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament:
Right off the bat Schwarz pulls out one powerful observations: by Jesus' time they would have been reading the scriptures in the septuagint (Greek). In light of this Jesus accepts and wears the title of Kyrios (Lord) which when looking backwards into the Hebrew scripture is how Yahweh was translated. To say Kyrios (Lord) to a Jew was to say Yahweh. Jesus wore "The Name." (Some will argue that "Jesus" was The Name; but since Jesus means "Yahweh Saves" we can have our cake and eat it too).
Working off of a Kyrios framework Schwarz moves into Ph 2 and goes directly to the end of the hymn where it is stated that "every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Kyrios [Yahweh] to the glory of Theos [God] the Father." (See also 1 Cor 8:6 for more Pauline Kyrios/Theos mixing.) Further, from Rm 10:9 "if you confess that Jesus is Kyrios and believe in your heart that Theos raised Him from the dead you will be saved."
Moving off of the "three" aspect of the discussion he speaks about a couple of the "unity" aspects. The one I found interesting was that Jesus allowed prostration before Him. From the Septuagint [Ex. 20:5] this was disallowed to any but Yahweh. Thus in Mt. 14:33 we see the disciples prostrating themselves before Him after He calms the sea (though I believe this is only half the story and a bit of a disenchanted view which misses some really great stuff; Jesus tamed the sea god again).
Schwarz moves on to the "I Am" (ego eimi) statements, such as the one which got Jesus crucified for blasphemy ("I Am" is what Yahweh told Moses His name was).
In the section called Jesus and the Paraclete Schwarz seems to go a bit out of his way to stab a finger in the eye of the Filioque clause: "But both Jesus and the Spirit are sent by God and proceed from Him," p 30. It seems all kinds of people in the west are a bit cognizant and even maybe repentant of the writing of the Nicene creed in respect to the eastern church (I have no creedal axe to grind though I do love "God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God").
Ch. 3, the early church and the emerging trinitarian reflections:
The above biblical data Schwarz lists is good but it is not revelatory. This chapter is boots on the ground: Salvation is by Jesus but who is He? If he saves then what does that make Him?
It seems that the Hellenistic polytheism was ripe with demigods. So the Church can say "Jesus wasnt a demigod," but that begs the question "so what exactly was He?" And so the early Christological questions begin. And the doctrine of the Trinity was founded because of and upon the person of Jesus. This wasn't academics sitting around and contemplating, this was the Church being challenged by people who, for instance, said that Jesus only appeared to have a body. The best thing we can do is ask these same questions and reflect on the answers they came to through the lens of the crucified Christ and scripture. Then formulate our own questions.
Speaking of Irenaeus' questions and thought: "If the Son did not fully participate in the being of the Father, how could He provide salvation? As in the pagan environment, demigods had only limited salvific potential," p 39. This is good thought because it leads to the question "who died for you? Who took your sin? If the answer is not 'All God' then it is all nothing."
Interesting, I didnt know that dynamic monarchism or adoptionism can be traced back to around 200 ad via Theodotus.
Schwarz spends quite time dealing with the early Patristic (Post Apostolic) Fathers. It can be seen that these thinkers were all fighting for the full divinity and humanity of the Son, and some went as far as including the Spirit in this thought, but with the early emphasis on protecting what would become the hypostatic union from attack the Spirit had to wait another hundred years.
In the Arian controversy I find it very interesting that in Arius trying to preserve simple monotheism he created Arian polytheism. His model has the Son as a created, rather than preexistant being so that worship of the Father alone would be monotheistic. But this begs the questions above listed and more: did a demigod die for your sin? Do you worship a demigod arisen? With the Jewish dregs in Christianity of abstaining from physical representations in worship (Idols), what is/what do you do with Jesus? If He is not the preexistant Son, true God, who experienced death (something to keep in mind when we are using analogical words between us and God: God as Father is usually wrongly perceive because we were were originally constrained by a good or bad earthly father rather than letting God define to our earthly Father what "Father" really looks lik--we wrongly approace God as Father on our grounds rather than His; death likewise is a word that has to be defined and understood via Christ, true God, dying and hallowing hell before arising, rather than the human spin put on it with thoughts of "ceasing to be") then what's ones atonement worth? Is death really defeated and sin conquered? All of this was what the battle with Arius brought out.
Ch. 4, the struggle over the decision of Nicea:
Not mentioned in the last chapter, the first one on the scene in this chapter is Athanasius. I find the history and historical theology involved in this time period fascinating. It is sad to see that it was during this time when the state bedded the Church. It also seems that Arius got even more traction than I previously thought.
I just hit the Augustinian period so dont expect any wonderful words for him.
After a bit of reading I believe that the reason the Church has always made the Holy Spirit out to be the forgotten God is because of Augustine. He just didnt have a good "personable" way to articulate the Spirit. He seems to make the Spirit [Her] out to be the Holy residue left over by the Holy Father and the Holy Son. Or, as I have heard elsewhere, Augustine believed that as the Father kissed the Son the Spirit was the kiss. The Father is the lover, the Son the beloved and the Spirit the love. Charming but very "unpersonal" for the Holy Spirit.
Ch. 5, developments in the middle ages and in the reformation period:
Covering Anselm Schwarz shows how in his trying to get to brass tracks on the trinity he totally missed the boat by making the Spirit "unpersonal."
Aquinas is even more miserable than the preceding. What exacerbated this has to be the recent (to Aquinas) find of much of Aristotle's work, unknown to previous theologians.
Joachim of Fiore was straight smoking crack with his Darby-esque, mathematical derived, dispensationalism representing X years and Y epochs. I back out when ones eschatological exegesis includes "...now carry the 1 and add 7 years...." I dont see why Joachim was brought up except for his concept of three periods of history (which I see leading to modalism), but he lead to Lombard. Lombard thought that the trinity had three persons in addition to a fourth as a common essence: if i may paraphrase, he saw Father, Son, Holy Spirit and God.
In the section covering Calvin it is mentioned that while the west used "Person" the east used "Aspect." Interesting. I'm still digesting that. I think there is much to be learned from the east.
Ch. 6, post reformation developments:
This chapter was a rehashing of the historical theology that happened just before Luther to Tillich. Roughly from 1500 to 1950. It was interesting to see how different theologians articulated the trinity during this vast period of time. One can see the different approaches they took; as many know, Schleiermacher placed the trinity at the end of his systematic theology whereas Barth began his Church Dogmatics with the trinity. This reflects how they formulated their theology. Barth believed that the trinity was the epitome of revelation and therefore revelation in general should be seen in light of the Triunity of God and the God who reveals Himself in this fashon.
Ch. 7, perspectives of the present scene:
This was a good modern day rundown. Why I think this is good was because it included liberation and feminist theologians. Seeking what God is like ontologically or economically is great but the liberation presses the question further and asks in light of that answer how should we be in the Church and to fellow man; what does reflecting the trinity mean in praxis. The feminists theologians sought ways to verbalize the sexual metaphors in a way that may be appealing to people who do not respond positively to masculine metaphors. I fully agree with both of these.
So from Moltmann to Boff and Torrance and Johnson (to name a few) this chapter was packed with modern trinitarian theologians.
Ch. 9, a systematic discernment:
"For Karl Barth, 'God, the revealer, is identical with his act in revelation, identical also with its effect,'" p. 175.
He interestingly states a position I have yet heard a trinitarian take: the triadic baptismal formula seems to have been preceded by a baptismal formula of Jesus' and/or Christ's name, and where many of us today have landed with the triadic formula was established by the revelation of the Holy Spirit through the early years of the apostolic church. That's some positive movement to "cant we all just get along?"
This last chapter is humble compared to others I've read. Though there is a place where he says the NT Christology was an unfolding whereas the Trinity was an evolution. While this may be correct, a high Christology which affirms that ours is a incarnated, crucified God for our sin, when unfolded looks and smells like "Trinity," even if that involves evolution.
Good book. A bit academic though approachable.
Ch. 1, Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Old Testament:
This was a basic run-through of the OT data dealing with the Spirit and the Son. The quite interesting part was when he gets into the apocrypha.
This was a slim 15 pages so nothing major.
Ch. 2, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament:
Right off the bat Schwarz pulls out one powerful observations: by Jesus' time they would have been reading the scriptures in the septuagint (Greek). In light of this Jesus accepts and wears the title of Kyrios (Lord) which when looking backwards into the Hebrew scripture is how Yahweh was translated. To say Kyrios (Lord) to a Jew was to say Yahweh. Jesus wore "The Name." (Some will argue that "Jesus" was The Name; but since Jesus means "Yahweh Saves" we can have our cake and eat it too).
Working off of a Kyrios framework Schwarz moves into Ph 2 and goes directly to the end of the hymn where it is stated that "every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Kyrios [Yahweh] to the glory of Theos [God] the Father." (See also 1 Cor 8:6 for more Pauline Kyrios/Theos mixing.) Further, from Rm 10:9 "if you confess that Jesus is Kyrios and believe in your heart that Theos raised Him from the dead you will be saved."
Moving off of the "three" aspect of the discussion he speaks about a couple of the "unity" aspects. The one I found interesting was that Jesus allowed prostration before Him. From the Septuagint [Ex. 20:5] this was disallowed to any but Yahweh. Thus in Mt. 14:33 we see the disciples prostrating themselves before Him after He calms the sea (though I believe this is only half the story and a bit of a disenchanted view which misses some really great stuff; Jesus tamed the sea god again).
Schwarz moves on to the "I Am" (ego eimi) statements, such as the one which got Jesus crucified for blasphemy ("I Am" is what Yahweh told Moses His name was).
In the section called Jesus and the Paraclete Schwarz seems to go a bit out of his way to stab a finger in the eye of the Filioque clause: "But both Jesus and the Spirit are sent by God and proceed from Him," p 30. It seems all kinds of people in the west are a bit cognizant and even maybe repentant of the writing of the Nicene creed in respect to the eastern church (I have no creedal axe to grind though I do love "God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God").
Ch. 3, the early church and the emerging trinitarian reflections:
The above biblical data Schwarz lists is good but it is not revelatory. This chapter is boots on the ground: Salvation is by Jesus but who is He? If he saves then what does that make Him?
It seems that the Hellenistic polytheism was ripe with demigods. So the Church can say "Jesus wasnt a demigod," but that begs the question "so what exactly was He?" And so the early Christological questions begin. And the doctrine of the Trinity was founded because of and upon the person of Jesus. This wasn't academics sitting around and contemplating, this was the Church being challenged by people who, for instance, said that Jesus only appeared to have a body. The best thing we can do is ask these same questions and reflect on the answers they came to through the lens of the crucified Christ and scripture. Then formulate our own questions.
Speaking of Irenaeus' questions and thought: "If the Son did not fully participate in the being of the Father, how could He provide salvation? As in the pagan environment, demigods had only limited salvific potential," p 39. This is good thought because it leads to the question "who died for you? Who took your sin? If the answer is not 'All God' then it is all nothing."
Interesting, I didnt know that dynamic monarchism or adoptionism can be traced back to around 200 ad via Theodotus.
Schwarz spends quite time dealing with the early Patristic (Post Apostolic) Fathers. It can be seen that these thinkers were all fighting for the full divinity and humanity of the Son, and some went as far as including the Spirit in this thought, but with the early emphasis on protecting what would become the hypostatic union from attack the Spirit had to wait another hundred years.
In the Arian controversy I find it very interesting that in Arius trying to preserve simple monotheism he created Arian polytheism. His model has the Son as a created, rather than preexistant being so that worship of the Father alone would be monotheistic. But this begs the questions above listed and more: did a demigod die for your sin? Do you worship a demigod arisen? With the Jewish dregs in Christianity of abstaining from physical representations in worship (Idols), what is/what do you do with Jesus? If He is not the preexistant Son, true God, who experienced death (something to keep in mind when we are using analogical words between us and God: God as Father is usually wrongly perceive because we were were originally constrained by a good or bad earthly father rather than letting God define to our earthly Father what "Father" really looks lik--we wrongly approace God as Father on our grounds rather than His; death likewise is a word that has to be defined and understood via Christ, true God, dying and hallowing hell before arising, rather than the human spin put on it with thoughts of "ceasing to be") then what's ones atonement worth? Is death really defeated and sin conquered? All of this was what the battle with Arius brought out.
Ch. 4, the struggle over the decision of Nicea:
Not mentioned in the last chapter, the first one on the scene in this chapter is Athanasius. I find the history and historical theology involved in this time period fascinating. It is sad to see that it was during this time when the state bedded the Church. It also seems that Arius got even more traction than I previously thought.
I just hit the Augustinian period so dont expect any wonderful words for him.
After a bit of reading I believe that the reason the Church has always made the Holy Spirit out to be the forgotten God is because of Augustine. He just didnt have a good "personable" way to articulate the Spirit. He seems to make the Spirit [Her] out to be the Holy residue left over by the Holy Father and the Holy Son. Or, as I have heard elsewhere, Augustine believed that as the Father kissed the Son the Spirit was the kiss. The Father is the lover, the Son the beloved and the Spirit the love. Charming but very "unpersonal" for the Holy Spirit.
Ch. 5, developments in the middle ages and in the reformation period:
Covering Anselm Schwarz shows how in his trying to get to brass tracks on the trinity he totally missed the boat by making the Spirit "unpersonal."
Aquinas is even more miserable than the preceding. What exacerbated this has to be the recent (to Aquinas) find of much of Aristotle's work, unknown to previous theologians.
Joachim of Fiore was straight smoking crack with his Darby-esque, mathematical derived, dispensationalism representing X years and Y epochs. I back out when ones eschatological exegesis includes "...now carry the 1 and add 7 years...." I dont see why Joachim was brought up except for his concept of three periods of history (which I see leading to modalism), but he lead to Lombard. Lombard thought that the trinity had three persons in addition to a fourth as a common essence: if i may paraphrase, he saw Father, Son, Holy Spirit and God.
In the section covering Calvin it is mentioned that while the west used "Person" the east used "Aspect." Interesting. I'm still digesting that. I think there is much to be learned from the east.
Ch. 6, post reformation developments:
This chapter was a rehashing of the historical theology that happened just before Luther to Tillich. Roughly from 1500 to 1950. It was interesting to see how different theologians articulated the trinity during this vast period of time. One can see the different approaches they took; as many know, Schleiermacher placed the trinity at the end of his systematic theology whereas Barth began his Church Dogmatics with the trinity. This reflects how they formulated their theology. Barth believed that the trinity was the epitome of revelation and therefore revelation in general should be seen in light of the Triunity of God and the God who reveals Himself in this fashon.
Ch. 7, perspectives of the present scene:
This was a good modern day rundown. Why I think this is good was because it included liberation and feminist theologians. Seeking what God is like ontologically or economically is great but the liberation presses the question further and asks in light of that answer how should we be in the Church and to fellow man; what does reflecting the trinity mean in praxis. The feminists theologians sought ways to verbalize the sexual metaphors in a way that may be appealing to people who do not respond positively to masculine metaphors. I fully agree with both of these.
So from Moltmann to Boff and Torrance and Johnson (to name a few) this chapter was packed with modern trinitarian theologians.
Ch. 9, a systematic discernment:
"For Karl Barth, 'God, the revealer, is identical with his act in revelation, identical also with its effect,'" p. 175.
He interestingly states a position I have yet heard a trinitarian take: the triadic baptismal formula seems to have been preceded by a baptismal formula of Jesus' and/or Christ's name, and where many of us today have landed with the triadic formula was established by the revelation of the Holy Spirit through the early years of the apostolic church. That's some positive movement to "cant we all just get along?"
This last chapter is humble compared to others I've read. Though there is a place where he says the NT Christology was an unfolding whereas the Trinity was an evolution. While this may be correct, a high Christology which affirms that ours is a incarnated, crucified God for our sin, when unfolded looks and smells like "Trinity," even if that involves evolution.
Good book. A bit academic though approachable.
Displaying 1 of 1 review