4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Covenant Among the Trinity, January 21, 2009
This review is from: Paradox and Truth: Rethinking Van Til on the Trinity (Paperback)
A deceiving little paperback, at just 142 pages this book is short and gives the illusion that it will be a quick read. Not so! It is a book for careful reading and contemplation. Ralph Smith asserts that the Trinity is "the central and distinguishing Christian affirmation about God without which Christianity as such cannot exist."
Smith begins by introducing the three basic ideas of the Trinity, three persons in one, one person with three names (modalism), three persons who are all in a family (tritheist). He then introduces Barth, Plantinga, Leonard Hodgson, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and of course, Van Til and gives us an understanding of each one's view on the Trinity.
Van Til believes that since God Himself is incomprehensible any statement of doctrine that claims to be the ultimate answer for the Trinity will appear contradictory to man. It is however, perfectly and completely rational for it is God's perfect knowledge of Himself. "It demands no sacrifice of intellect but it does demand the surrender of intellectual autonomy." And ultimately, the answer to the Trinity can only come as a gift from God.
The missing piece in Van Til's approach is the crucial understanding that the Trinity is eternally united in a covenant bond of love. Though the idea of a covenant among the persons of the Trinity has neither been included in Reformed confessions nor was ever universally held, failing to link the two leads to abstract thinking. "The covenant among the persons of the Trinity must be the starting point for our theological and intellectual endeavor."
"The harmony of the one and the many is relative to worship and obedience, prayer to God, and loving our neighbor in short everything." In fact, "The doctrine of the Trinity is the very beating heart of the Christian system of truth."
Ralph Smith does an excellent job of tackling a monumental doctrine fleshing it out so that the Trinity is living and not just a doctrine of thoughts.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Helpful, but doesn't see the real issues, November 19, 2011
This review is from: Paradox and Truth: Rethinking Van Til on the Trinity (Paperback)
Smith's goal is to compare and contrast the recent arguments of "social Trinitarian" Cornelius Plantinga with the unique approach of Cornelius Van Til. Supposedly, traditional Trinitarianism is stagnant and the insights of these two can revive it.
The introduction is somewhat humorous because Smith (rightly) bemoans the fact that Evangelicals have ignored the Trinity for essentially of their history, and if you take away the doctrine of the Trinity for Evangelicals, nothing will change in their day-to-day lives. At this point Smith begins reviewing Plantinga's now-famous essay "The Threeness/Oneness Problem of the Trinity" along with a very brief survey of recent Evangelical developments of Trinitarianism. Smith wonders why none of these writers (Plantinga, Stanley Grenz, James Sire) discuss the work of Cornelius Van Til or even John Calvin. What Smith does not realize is nobody outside a microscopic subset of the Reformed world (which itself is already microscopic) has even heard of Van Til or let alone even cares. As for Calvin, contrary to what people might think, Calvin really didn't say all that much on the Trinity. He simply repeated some conclusions while thinking he meant what the Fathers have always meant (a dubious proposition). Smith does rightly note that Van Til "stands in utter contrast to this tendency" (Smith, 2002, 18). We shall see. One suspects the irony is that Van Til will offer a solid critique of this failure but inevitably commit the same mistakes.
Smith's first chapter deals with Plantinga's essay on the Trinity. Plantinga, following many recent moves in theology, suggests the West is fundamentally "modalist," or something similar. Smith then reviews Plantinga's charge by examining Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Karl Barth. In short: Augustine, due to his strong neo-Platonism and view of divine simplicity, said each person is synonymous with the divine essay. The conclusion is not hard to draw: if each person is identical with the divine essay, and the divine essay is absolutely simple and admitting of no distinctions, then each person is identical with the other. Ergo, modalism (24-26). Thomas Aquinas essentially hardens Augustine's position. Each person is identical with the whole divine essence, yet we distinguish them by "relations of opposition," with each person identical with his "relation." Plantinga remarks, "If the Father, Son, and Spirit are taken as mere names for the divine essence...then this is modalism. If the statement means the Father, Son, and Spirit are taken as names of Persons, then the statement reduces persons to essences, which are abstract. Each person would be a set of properties and the three sets of properties are identical. The persons themselves would disappear" (27).
In some ways chapter two is the heart of the book: what did Van Til really mean about the trinity? Many of his critics, and not a few of his followers, have charged him with being innovative about the Trinity, with some saying he denies Nicea. As is always the case in intra-Reformed polemics, there is more heat than light and nobody knows what anyone is talking about. In some ways the discussion of this chapter will go beyond the scope of the book, since it is Smith's most important chapter (his other chapters seek to avoid the absurdity of identifying all of God's attributes with one another and the book ends with a call to a practical Reformed worldview. More on that later.).
This book is both useful and frustrating. Smith has done an able job surveying and simply (no pun intended) explaining many difficulties in modern Trinitarianism. His discussion of Augustine's unique revision of divine simplicity is remarkably helpful and succinct (even if Smith is unaware of his own presupposition). The book's section on covenant has many helpful insights that detach "justification" from its forensic setting within Reformed theology (or better, to show that the forensic category is itself relational and covenantal). Smith utilizes humor where appropriate (the footnote response to Norman Geisler's (and evangelicalism in general) neutered view of God and Politics is almost worth the price of the book!).
The book is frustrating because Smith (1) fully realizes the difficulty Augustine's take on simplicity entails, but (2) never challenges it and assumes--without argumentation--that this is always what the Church has believed. With these two points he tries to resuscitate Van Til's Trinitarianism: in other words, he/Van Til identifies Augustine's problem, yet posit an equally problematic response and call the whole thing "a paradox."
So, can one call the divine essence "personal?" St John of Damascus said that every heresy deconstructed on the same point: they all identify person and nature. What would a personal essence look like? Would it be ascribing personal attributes to the essence? Or rather, would it simply be tha that the essence has some abstract notion of "personality?" If the former then Van Til has added another person to the Trinity. If the latter, then he is back at the very thing he set out to reject: abstract notions of the Trinity.
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