The widely-accepted Grundaxiom of Karl Rahner's doctrine of the Trinity functions in contemporary theology as a means of reconciling seemingly contradictory claims. The present study, by contrast, indirectly challenges the viability of such theologies by subjecting the Grundaxiom to a thoroughgoing, immanent critique. It argues that Rahner fails to supply a credible account of how human beings learn of the existence of the immanent Trinity.

Through close and sustained analysis of Augustine's exegesis of Scripture, Robinson argues that Augustine's Trinitarian exegesis offers significant-though not inexhaustible-support for Rahner's Trinitarian project and, particularly, his Grundaxiom. Firstly, he posits that Augustine provides weighty, biblically rich, support for Rahner's Trinitarian agenda at exactly those points where Rahner is explicitly critical of Augustine and the “Augustinian-Western tradition”, overcoming various weaknesses detected in the later tradition, and pre-empting many of Rahner's later solutions. Secondly and consequently, Robinson suggests that Augustine offers a scriptural reading strategy that addresses the major exegetical difficulties perceived to emerge from Rahner's Rule. Thus, in Augustine's exegesis of Scripture, the Augustinian-Western tradition has always had the resources at its disposal to avoid or address the most poignant criticisms levelled both by and at Rahner.

The book aims at showing the most important topics and paradigms in modern Trinitarian theology. It is supposed to be a comprehensive guide to the many traces of development of Trinitarian faith. As such it is thought to systematize the variety of contemporary approaches to the field of Trinitarian theology in the present philosophical-cultural context. The main goal of the publication is not only a description of what happened to Trinitarian theology in the modern age. It is rather to indicate the typically modern specificity of the Trinitarian debate and - first of all - to encourage development in the main areas and issues of this subject.

In 1967 Karl Rahner famously wrote: "The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and vice versa." From that time onwards, Rahner's Rule has become the norm for conceiving the relationship between the Trinity in the economy of salvation and God's eternal inner life. Evangelical theologians currently employ Rahner's Rule in a variety of ways. One of the most popular is the "Strict Realist Reading" whereby trinitarian relationships in salvation history are taken to mirror eternal relationships within God. This book brings this norm into conversation with the witness of Scripture in order to assess its viability. In doing so, it highlights troubling issues that arise from the application of the Strict Realist Reading of Rahner's Rule to the narrative of Luke-Acts. This book suggests that the Strict Realist Reading can be shown to be a questionable basis for our doctrine of God's inner life.

Dale M. Schlitt presents a study of trinitarian thought as it was understood and debated by the German Idealists broadly—engaging Schelling's philosophical interpretations of Trinity as well as Hegel's—and analyzing how these Idealist interpretations influenced later philosophers and theologians. Divided into different sections, one considers nineteenth-century central Europeans Philipp Marheineke, Isaak August Dorner, and Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov under the rubric "testimonials." Another section studies twentieth-century Germans Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, and Wolfhart Pannenberg, who share "family resemblances" with the Idealists, and a third addresses the work of twentieth- and twenty-first century Americans, Robert W. Jenson, Catherine Mowry LaCugna, Joseph A. Bracken, and Schlitt himself, whose work reverberates with what Schlitt terms "transatlantic Idealist echoes." The book concludes with reflection on the overall German Idealist trinitarian legacy, noting several challenges it offers to those who will pursue creative trinitarian reflection in the future.

Paul’s ways of speaking about God, Jesus, and the Spirit are intricately intertwined: talking about any one of the three, for Paul, implies reference to all of them together. However, much current Pauline scholarship discusses Paul’s God-, Christ-, and Spirit-language without reference to trinitarian theology. In contrast to that trend, Wesley Hill argues in this book that later, post-Pauline trinitarian theologies represent a better approach, opening a fresh angle on Paul’s earlier talk about God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Spirit. Hill looks critically at certain well-known discussions in the field of New Testament studies -- those by N. T. Wright, Richard Bauckham, Larry Hurtado, and others -- in light of patristic and contemporary trinitarian theologies, resulting in an innovative approach to an old set of questions. Adeptly integrating biblical exegesis and historical-systematic theology, Hill’s Paul and the Trinity shows how trinitarian theologies illumine interpretive difficulties in a way that more recent theological concepts have failed to do. Watch a 2015 interview with the author of this book here:

It has always been understood that the central claim of Christianity—that Jesus born of Mary is the Son of God—is as much a declaration of the mystery of the human as it is the mystery of God; just as the claim that in virtue of this identity he is the Christ who restores, and more, transforms, the created order, intensifies the mystery of the human even further. When the age of revolution was followed by the age of science, and the effort to shape the environment by technology was joined by an injunction to shape societies and economies, and class conflicts became part of world conflicts, the question about the human emerged as a crisis in the meaning of being human. Yet the Catholic mind, preoccupied like every other with the crisis, has conducted its reflection within a tradition of Christian humanism, insisting on the mystery and the tragedy, and still the dignity, of the human. This collection of essays by thirteen Catholic scholars of philosophy, theology, and political thought investigates a range of topics from human sexuality and marriage to moral freedom and responsibility in a pluralistic society, while demonstrating that the Gospel, passed on in an ecclesial tradition, entered into through a sacramental tradition, remains the one radical source of confidence in the quest for human truth.

Whether and in what sense the Son of God might eternally submit to his Father's will is a question that has ignited a firestorm of controversy in today's evangelical academy. On one side stand those who regard the affirmation of any inequality whatsoever in the Godhead as a revival of ancient subordinationism. On the other stand persons who consider the Son functionally subordinate to the Father even within the immanent Trinity, without respect to the Incarnation, and regard their belief as integral to historic orthodoxy. Many evangelicals, moreover, view the issue of subordination within the Trinity as pivotal to contemporary disputes about the role of women in church, home, and state. If the relations of the divine persons constitute a paradigm for human life, persons on all sides of the gender question argue, human relations ought to reflect either the divine persons' exceptionless equality or their orderly differentiation of roles. At the same time, others consider the issues of equality in the Trinity and gender relations irrelevant to each other and accuse both complementarians and evangelical feminists of degrading the doctrine of the Trinity into a partisan weapon. The New Evangelical Subordinationism? gathers commentary on evangelical debates about equality and subordination in the Trinity from representatives of the gamut of perspectives just mentioned. Here, evangelical theologians, biblical scholars, and church historians of widely differing theological orientations address themselves to the panoply of questions raised by these debates. This volume, unprecedented in the breadth and depth of its coverage of the controversy over subordination in the Trinity, should become a standard source for teaching and research on its subject.

A defense of equality among the persons of the Trinity In response to those complementarian theologians who assert that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father, the contributors to Trinity Without Hierarchy contend that this view misconstrues the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and reduces the Son to a lower level of glory and majesty than the Father. Surveying Scripture, church history, and theology, sixteen contributors present a defense of the full and equal authority of all three members of the Trinity while critiquing approaches that border on semi-Arianism. In particular, the creedal confessions of Nicaea are upheld as the historical standard by which any proposed Trinitarian doctrine should be judged. While some contributors hold complementarian and others egalitarian viewpoints, all agree that Trinitarian relations are not a proper basis for understanding gender roles. Trinity Without Hierarchy is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the current debate over the relationship between Trinitarian theology and the roles of men and women.