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The question of the proper starting point, the “first principles,” is one to which theology, and every discipline it encompasses, must continually return. Without being firmly grounded on its proper foundation, the vast body of reflection developed within theology risks collapsing into dust. It is not simply that the first principles are elementary stages, transcended by higher realms of esoteric reflection, but that they also provide the necessary orientation or perspective within which the more abstract discussion takes place and is to be understood. It is clear that the Christian faith is first and foremost faith in the lordship and divinity of the crucified and exalted Christ, yet the implications of this fact for how we understand and construe Christian doctrine are rarely considered. The analysis of this dimension offered in this article might seem unnecessarily laborious and extensive, but the scope and importance of its implications merit such a venture.

Trinity and Incarnation—Axes of the Christian Faith?

The dictum that “conclusions without the arguments that lead to them are at best ambiguous” might seem obvious, but its implications are rarely taken up. An example of this is the way in which Trinitarian theology, debated so vigorously during the fourth century on grounds already prepared during the first three, is often reduced to shorthand formulae, such as the “three hypostases and one ousia” of “the consubstantial Trinity.” The reflection that lies behind such phrases is immense, yet it is often glossed over. Indeed, the very familiarity of such phrases results in their being detached from the debates that resulted in them and divorced from the content that they seek to encapsulate. These “facts of dogma” are assumed as a given, and so Trinitarian theology concerns itself with reflecting on how the one God can simultaneously be three eternally distinct persons, without the plurality destroying the unity or the unity undermining the reality of the distinctions. In its textbook form, such theology begins with what can be known and said of this God—that he is one, the uncreated origin of all creation, love, goodness and so on; and then proceeds to the analysis how this same God is three—how the persons of the Trinity are related, their different characteristics and relationships. Having explained this “immanent” trinitarian theology, describing the being of such a God as it is in itself, the next step is to relate this Trinity to the activity of revelation, the economy of salvation recorded in Scripture, the “economic” dimension of trinitarian theology. But now, because of the position already established, it is simply assumed, beginning with Augustine, that the theophanies described in the Old Testament were not uniquely manifestations of the Son and Word of God, but of any of the three, or the Trinity itself, the one Lord God, as Augustine put it. Finally it is claimed, first by Peter Lombard, though it is still a common presupposition, that while it was the Son who became man, as Jesus Christ, it was nevertheless possible, and still is, for the Father and the Spirit also to be incarnate. Trinitarian theology is made into realm unto itself, requiring subsequent reflection on “the Incarnation” of one of the three divine persons: Triadology followed by Christology. In this perspective, the Trinity and the Incarnation are taken as being the linchpins of Christian theology—Christian faith is “Trinitarian” and “incarnational.” This has become an unquestioned premise for most twentieth-century theology.

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