This hefty new addition to the Oxford Handbook series is edited by two Thomist scholars: Gilles Emery OP of the University of Fribourg and Matthew Levering of the University of Dayton. They have assembled a large and distinguished group of essayists to contribute to this seven-part volume. Parts I–IV are a chronological survey, starting with essays on scripture, moving to the early church and medieval appropriations, and finishing with a group of essays stretching from the European Reformation to the twentieth century. Part V addresses trinitarian dogmatics, Part VI treats various intersections between the Trinity and the Christian life and Part VII discusses appeals to the Trinity in ecumenical and interfaith dialogues. A bibliography follows each essay, and there is a helpful index to the volume as a whole. While there are some solid essays on Eastern and contemporary Orthodox trinitarianism, the focus is Western, with Catholic (often Dominican) voices predominating.
The editors see the Handbook as a contribution to the ‘ongoing enquiry’ that characterises trinitarian thought today. Within the limits set by the editors’ framework and the interests of the scholars invited to contribute, the Handbook is a valuable reference work, providing a trustworthy guide to central topics in trinitarian theology and central figures such as Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Augustine, Aquinas, Rahner, Barth and von Balthasar. While there is always some unevenness in a multi-authored work, the majority of the essays are judicious and well-written. The editors sought to strike a balance between doing justice to the ‘diversification of points of view’ within contemporary trinitarian thought and offering ‘a coherent ensemble’. The result is not ‘a theologically neutral encyclopedia’, as if such a thing were possible, but rather a collection of essays by a range of scholars who nonetheless ‘generally agree in working out their Trinitarian theology in relation to the Nicene faith’ (pp. 4–5). In my judgement, the volume tilts towards coherence rather than diversification. The editors have chosen to go deep but narrow. What the volume does, it does well, but there are also significant omissions.
The concentrated attention to historical studies reflects the editors’ perception that creative appropriation of early church and medieval sources has been central to the fruitfulness of contemporary trinitarian theology. The Handbook's prolonged attention to the medieval period is particularly striking. For example, the emergence and coalescence of Franciscan and Dominican trinitarian theology is treated in two strong chapters written by Joseph Wawrykow and Russell Friedman. However the omissions in this section are also noteworthy. Why, in a Handbook which pays special attention to the medieval period and contains a chapter on the Trinity and the visual arts, is Hildegard of Bingen not so much as mentioned? Why does Julian of Norwich appear only in the section on the Christian life (in a beautifully written essay by Amy Laura Hall) and not at all in the chapter on late medieval trinitarianism? In general the essays on the Eastern Church do a better job of going beyond a bare ‘history of doctrine’ approach to the Trinity, taking into account hymnody, iconography and relations with other religious communities.
Women's voices in general and Western feminist voices in particular are given short shrift in this volume. Nonna Verna Harrison's essay on the Trinity and feminism sets out Orthodox apophaticism regarding Father and Son language, but her focus is on original theological intention, rather than the results of theological reception. Ironically, a fascinating essay on Christian visual arts by François Bœspflug in the same section of the Handbook shows how, by the late Middle Ages in the West, ‘it became normal to depict the Father as a man’, often as king or pope (p. 482). Clearly, for many Christians, masculinity and divinity have become inextricably linked, but nowhere in the volume is the slightest discomfort registered about male language for God.
It is estimated that one in eight of all Christians today are Pentecostal, and theological battles currently rage between ‘oneness’ and trinitarian factions. Astoundingly, the Handbook makes no mention of Pentecostalism at all, not even in Bruce Marshall's essay on trinitarian pneumatology. Nor is any notice taken of African theological voices, in a time when a significant number of African Independent Churches are articulating the need for trinitarian doctrine. This again reflects a certain narrowness of vision about the life of Christian faith and what is deserving of serious theological treatment.
Yet the editors view theological articulation as an always unfinished business, and they extend a generous invitation to readers in their concluding essay to come away from the Handbook with renewed commitment to ‘the vocation of Trinitarian theology, that is, to the contemplation of the mystery of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in order to better proclaim and live the mystery of faith today’ (p. 605). The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity makes a significant contribution to that vocation.
