Introduction

Abstract

Abstract Like many of my generation, in my undergraduate studies I took a course on the Trinity that left me puzzled as to what conceivable relevance this topic could have for the rest of theology (apart, perhaps, from that of the Incarnation) or for the challenge of the Christian life. With hindsight it is not difficult to see that this was because the tract on the Trinity was separated from that on the One God and because it focused exclusively on the immanent Trinity (the Godhead considered “in itself,” apart from the economy of salvation). This situation, repeated all over the world, led in the sixties to the quiet dropping of the Trinity as a topic of study in theological curricula almost everywhere. Only now is the trend being reversed. This change is not just a matter of fad or fashion. It is occurring because of a growing perception and appreciation of the fact that salvation itself, the very gift of the spiritual life, has a trinitarian (and also ecclesial) structure, that is, it is God (the Father’s) salvation mediated to the Church by Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot understand salvation, spirituality, Christian living in the world without understanding at least something of the Trinity.