The Trinity

Standing Order 524 in the Constitutional Practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church in Britain states: ‘There is urgent need that the main doctrines of the Christian faith should be more plainly and systematically set forth in public preaching, so that the Methodist people may be established in the faith and better defended against error and uncertainty.’ Few readers of this journal would disagree. Nevertheless, it is not always easy to find material that bridges the gap between academic monographs on doctrinal theology (for example, the recent The Trinitarian Dimension of John Wesley's Theology by Elmer Colyer) and the preaching and conversation that needs to take place within a congregation.This book, part of The Wesleyan Theology Series, aims to fill this gap. It has the laudable goal of making a fundamental Christian doctrine accessible and credible for enquiring Christians, especially those who belong to the Wesleyan family of churches. Published by the Church of the Nazarene publishing house, it sets out the doctrine of the Trinity as central to the biblical account of the economy of salvation and essential for a proper understanding of Christian life and worship. The author is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Point Loma Nazarene University, California, and has himself written a doctrinal monograph on creation and the Trinity.The bulk of this book is an exposition of a series of Christian doctrines (including revelation, creation, salvation, church, and eschatology) that, for Powell, are taught in a trinitarian way through the biblical narrative. This is followed by a much shorter section on the historical development of the doctrine of the Trinity (largely a summary account of the Nicene and Chalcedonian controversies) and then by an even shorter set of reflections under the title, ‘Thinking about the Trinity Today’.Clarity is a key theological virtue for Powell. He believes that the divine Trinity is no incomprehensible mystery; instead, the triune God is clearly revealed in the person of Christ and in the Bible as a whole. Of course, doctrine still uses fallible human words and is therefore limited. But God is, by God's very nature, knowable. The result is a book that would be helpful to preachers, teachers, and enquiring Christians, especially those who share the author's moderately conservative perspective. There are limited references to the works of John Wesley and to the place of the Trinity within the Wesleyan tradition. The final section, rather puzzlingly, focuses on the challenge of Pentecostalism and gifts of the Spirit.Clarity, though, comes at a cost. Powell's approach to doctrine comes close to what George Lindbeck has described as ‘cognitive propositionalism’, so in each section we are given a series of bullet points with proof texts from the Bible. This is not done in a sectarian or fundamentalist spirit, but it does ignore the multivocal and polysemic nature of scripture—something that would be helpful to acknowledge even in an introductory text. Second, while Powell is right that ‘mystery’ is a term capable of abuse as an excuse for not speaking clearly, he gives no hint of the apophatic tradition of Christian thought, with its insistence on the unknowable mystery at the heart of God. And, finally, although there are helpful sections on the Trinity in relation to worship and prayer, there is too little sense of how the human imagination has engaged with the doctrine in music, art, and literature. The result is a rather dry text that does not quite manage to convey the passion that its author obviously feels.In summary, here is a useful but limited book that illustrates both the need for accessible doctrinal theology, and why it is so difficult to produce it.

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