Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity [Hardcover]

Paul D. Molnar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2002

Paul Molnar argues that human freedom can be properly understood only in the light of God's freedom, and any understanding of the immanent Trinity that is not fashioned from the economic Trinitarian self-revelation will lead toward a dualistic, monistic or agnostic view of divine/human relations. Therefore any method that starts with experience and not explicitly with the word of God revealed will be seen to threaten a proper perception of both divine and human freedom. Molnar argues that a properly conceived contemporary doctrine of the immanent Trinity will enable theologians to say something positive about God and God's relations with us in history without in any way making God dependent on history. In this book he analyses and compares Karl Barth's view of the relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity with the views of other contemporary theologians in order to explore what a proper understanding of divine freedom should look like today and how that view should develop in light of contemporary feminist and historicist approaches to the Trinity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Masterful, fully documented and trenchant...the most important work on the Trinity to appear in the last 20 years." -- George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary

"an essay of a high order, learned, intellectually powerful and spiritually engaged; it deserves to be widely read and discussed." -- John Webster, Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford

About the Author

Paul Molnar is Professor of Systematic Theology at St John's University, New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 380 pages
• Publisher: T. & T. Clark Publishers (May 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0567088650
• ISBN-13: 978-0567088659
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,564,043 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear thinking on Christian Revelation!, October 24, 2003

By 

Richard C. Woodhouse "woodhouse43" (Bradford, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity (Hardcover)

This book by Professor Paul Molnar, is a real gem. The subject matter is very deep and difficult, yet he makes it understandable to the interested laymen. Throughout he show where a lot of contemporary Theologians go off track in their thinking on the Christian Revelation of the Incarnation and its Trinitarian implications. He documents the influence of "Relational" views of God's being and how Hegelian being constituted through historical process, trumps the ontological priority of God's being a Self reliant reality, outside of the World/Creation. God would have still been the Triune God, even if God had not Created the Universe. This ties in with Karl Barth's emphasis on God's Freedom. The World does not constitute God's being. God is free in Relation to the Created World. This is just some of what this book touches upon. It helped me a lot and pointed out a lot of what I had sensed for myself, thats wrong in much current Christological writing.

0 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Insufferable, December 27, 2010

By 

Joe Torrino - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity (Paperback)

Cryptic, dogmatic and polluted with long-winded footnotes. This is not a good book of theology by any standard. It displays an alarming single-mindedness (centering around the thinking of Karl Barth); blatantly ignoring valid points of the opposing views and, in the end, teaching nothing.

***STAY AWAY***