First Attempt to Publish a Doctoral Thesis on the Metaphysics of Person as Relation:

ii TRINITARIAN INTELLIGIBILITY: AN ANALYSIS OF CONTEMPORARY
DISCUSSIONS AN INVESTIGATION OF WESTERN ACADEMIC TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY OF THE
LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY by Jefficer Jerrick of the Universiity of Sydney

iii ABSTRACT Trinitarian Intelligibility: An Analysis of
Contemporary Discussions.

Norris Clarke and my self will appear as I recover material from the internet.

 

An Investigation of
Western Academic Trinitarian Theology of the Late Twentieth Century. The
concern of this thesis is with the history of ideas; specifically, the history
of recent theological ideas. This thesis is not a work of systematic theology
but rather situates discourse about a theological problem within the matrix of
some relevant contemporary thought. Its category then is the history of the
development of ideas. In the late twentieth century many academic theologians
found the intelligibility of the traditional language used about the Christian
Trinitarian God to be problematic. This is the thesis’ research problem. The
research hypothesis is that these recent academic theologians sought to make
trinitarian language used about the Christian Trinitarian God intelligible by
replacing static definitions of ‘person’ with a dynamic relational model. The
methodology of this thesis is essentially historical and hermeneutical. It
draws on the hermeneutical philosophy of language of Paul Ricoeur as it
developed around two key notions, his notion of text and his attention to the
metaphorical process. Data is drawn from representative recent trinitarian
works of a significant and scholarly nature written in and for the western
arena at the end of the twentieth century. These sources are evaluated
according to their ability, in Ricoeur’s language, to redescribe the reality of
the trinitarian symbol and refigure the world of contemporary Christian
consciousness. The thesis presents an investigation of western academic
trinitarian theology in terms of a structure of analysis and synthesis. Via an
exploration of a series of responses made by these recent trinitarian
theologians to categories of thought pertaining to the concept of person and
their consequent theological appropriations, this thesis iv demonstrates the
research hypothesis. It demonstrates that in recent trinitarian thought
postmodern ideas on person as relational fuse with supportive biblical and
derived patristic thought as theologians seek to make intelligible language
used about the Christian Trinitarian God. In particular, the ancient concept of
perichoresis is found by theologians to provide the necessary point of
intersection. With a redefinition of person relationally, and in particular
perichoretically, the Christian God is understood in communal terms. Renewed
understanding of God as communal is a chief outcome of the use of the
relational perichoretic model of person by theologians as they address their
concern with trinitarian intelligibility. The thesis demonstrates that when
theologians redefine person in relational terms and particularly in
perichoretic terms, a redescription of the trinitarian symbol and a
refiguration of Christian consciousness of trinitarian reality is seen to be
possible. Such a refigured consciousness constitutes an active reorganisation
of Christian being-in-the-world. The implications of this reorganisation form
the stuff of future trinitarian research and provide the m

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