Teaching Theology

Being Trinity

The nature of God should determine the way we live, act as church and serve God. Colin Gunton has lamented that, whereas Christianity developed a special Christian ontology for talking about God and Christ, it never did for talking about the Church. His strategy then (after Moltmann) is to borrow Christian ontology about God in Trinity to talk about the church.

If there is something we need in theological education today (certainly part of the Church), it is a specifically Christian ontology to avoid us being so pushed around in our practice and our thinking by secular cultural and higher education patterns that we lose our soul. What then of the Trinitarian nature of theological education? This is surely much more than a happy analogy but an attempt to be distinctly Christian and reflect the very nature of God in what we do. Where would this apply? Let me state three propositions;

God is fundamentally relational. Our theological education is therefore most Christian when it is the same.

Of course, relations between the three persons of the trinity, even in their most eastern form are different from ours. They are absolute, of same nature, and exhibit a perfect unity of will, thought and intention. But they do declare that relationships are at the very heart of God’s nature. Anyone who has been in a college or seminary where theological education is not practiced through fundamentally a relational approach between teachers and students, teachers and teachers; management and staff, knows how ungodly that becomes.

God – wholly one and yet three – provides a specifically Christian pattern for understanding holistic theological education.

We are asked to practice holistic theological education but are presented with at least a tripartite taxonomy of educational objectives in the spiritual, academic and practical ministerial realms. Somehow they need to become one. The Trinitarian doctrine of perichoresis or dynamic co-inherence is a help here. It talks of the circulation of the divine life between the three, bringing each to fullness of divinity, so that when you encounter one you encounter God, in all his threeness.  The idea that spiritual objectives could bring to life academic teaching, academics could bring to life Christian service and so on, is a delightful picture of good theological education. And to ensure that when our students encounter one, they encounter in some way all three objectives is a beautiful aim.

Trinity says that mission is at the heart of the nature of God. It must therefore be at the heart of our theological education.

As Barth has pointed out, mission is at the heart of the very nature of God because the father sends the son. The mission of God comes first and we participate. To be Trinitarian is to be missional in intent and practice. We see ourselves not doing many things but one thing, participating in the great mission of God to this needy world. It is this that determines our relationship with Church, society and our students.

I know. The experience of most of us in theological education would cause us to shy away from regarding it as divine. But, to the extent that we work for it to be relational, holistic and to have fundamental mission intent, we can honestly say that it partakes of the nature of God. And to the extent that we do not, it is less than it should be.

This entry was posted on August 1, 2012 at 9:33 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.