Customer Reviews

Trinity and Truth (Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine)

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In this important work, Bruce Marshall has brought a robust Trinitarian way of thinking about truth and the justification of belief into the wider human discussion of truth and knowledge as it is currently being engaged by analytic philosophers. The author follows George Lindbeck (see "Nature of Doctrine") and attempts to answer the difficult questions that arose as a result of his presentation of a "post-liberal" approach to theological claims which is really more of a return to classical Christian approaches to theology, especially as synthesized by Thomas Aquinas.

The concept of Trinity is one of the most profound and yet most complex ones in Christianity. It is oftentimes the stumbling block for non-Christians when they attempt to understand Christianity, and even most Christians have hard time properly understanding it or even articulating it. It could be argued that most of the early struggles in defining what Christians believe were in fact struggles to properly understand Trinity. It may be hard to understand why anyone would want to incorporate such on the surface strange and counterintuitive concept into their belief system. The reason, however, is rather simple: God has revealed Himself to us as Trinity. Trinity is not something that philosophers and theologians had conceived a priori, but rather who God really is in His own nature. The best we can then hope for is to use our limited human concepts and language to appreciate this utter transcendence of God. The good news, though, is that we are not completely left to grapple in the dark, trying to come up with our own clever and smart ways of understanding this awesome concept. For it is an integral part of the belief about Trinity that Trinity consists of Truth itself. Jesus often speaks of Himself as "Truth," and He refers to the Holy Spirit as "the spirit of Truth." It is then one of the great claims of Christianity, and one of the central themes of this book, that understanding Trinity truly requires a whole different set of epistemic considerations. These can never be completely reduced to ideas and concepts that are derived from other intellectual reflections.

In this book Bruce Marshall tries to bring up the understanding of Trinity in terms of modern philosophy, and analytic philosophy in particular. The analysis employed is very subtle and at times technical, so this is not a book for those who are discouraged by demanding philosophical reasoning. However, if you can appreciate that kind of thinking this book can be an extremely rewarding read. It is probably one of the most profound reflections on Trinity in modern Christian Theology.

Marshall begins by outlining the concept of truth and then developing a basic notion of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. He takes the liturgical route by analyzing the way we adress God by name as "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" in our worship. He then goes into a more philosophical engagement with epistemology in general. An earlier reviewer is correct to say that Marshall relies on the work of Davidson (without looking at MacIntyre's critiques) but I'm not sure that it's as devastating to his argument on a whole as the reviewer would imply. For one, he doesn't neglect Wittgenstein, though Wittgenstein is clearly not as central for Marshall as many current theologians place him - especially in contrast to the post-liberal "Yale" school and Lindbeckian's. Second, he is not uncritical of Davidson's coherence theory.

It is at this point that Marshall's Trinitarian epistemology is central. Marshall argues that Christian's don't posit their 'own' truth or their 'own form' of truth. Rather, we take Jesus as 'the way, the truth, and the life' as a central epistemic claim. The Father is the creator of truth (the truth-maker), Christ (the Son) is the truth, and the Spirit is the way into all truth. Here Marshall explains the pairing of truth and love as the way that love, by the Spirit, guides us to be formed by God into Christ-likeness, thereby being formed into the truth and into true knowledge. Thus, epistemology is theo-formity, being formed into the image of God.

One major weakness of this otherwise helpful book is the way in which the author practically ignores the epoch-making work of Wittgenstein. This oversight is tragic and inexplicable becuase Wittgenstein's work offers another way of avoiding the realist and anti-realist views on truth that Marshall admirably wants to avoid. One may disagree with Wittgenstein, but certainly the author owes us a more adequate account of why he is so dimissive of such an influential position as Wittgenstein's on many of the issues addressed in this book.
Marshall (fatefully in my view) choses instead to rely on the work of Donald Davidson in order to avoid the pitfalls of realism and anti-realism.

Another major oversight in Marshall's approach is his entire avoidance of Alasdair MacIntyre's devastating criticisms of Davidson's views on radical interpretation, on which Marshall hangs so much of his hopes about truth and meaning. Moreover, the fact that Marshall entirely skips the perspectives of MacIntyre and Charles Taylor regarding historicism and its inherent critique of the epistemological project (not to mention MacIntyre's Thomistic account of truth) seriously weakens the force and plausibility of the overall arguement of an otherwise lovely book.

Certainly one must make choices in order to give focus to such a monumental task as the one Marshall has set for himself, however it is unfortunate that this book is written within such a philosophically circumscribed perspective, namely that of a certain brand of questionable analytic philosophy.
There really is so much to like about this book and so much to disagree with, particularly if you have sensibilities along the lines mentioned above. However, if you buy into the terms of the sort of analytic philosophy that is on display here in this book then you will enjoy this work. If you do not then you will be dissatisfied with Marshall's account of these matters. In either case it will be challenging and great fun to think through these issues with the author.