The Trinity and the canonical process

Abstract

This article brings Brevard Childs’s thesis concerning the nature of Scripture into dialogue with Karl Barth’s doctrine of revelation. It does so by reducing Childs’s thesis to its constituent building blocks in order to understand its logical structure and then comparing this structure to Barth’s understanding of the trinitarian pattern of God’s self-manifestation. The purpose is two-fold. On the one hand, it hopes to further understanding of Childs’s canonical approach by highlighting the centrality of the concept of “reality” to his understanding of the “canonical process.” On the other hand it hopes to contribute to the ongoing task of Christian hermeneutical reflection by illustrating the manner in which a doctrine of God and historical-critical speculation can be mutually illuminating.