On the genealogy of orthodoxy : A response to Thomas Joseph White's The Trinity

[Extract]
This is a book of whose fundamental purpose I approve. I take that fundamental purpose to be not only a defense of St. Thomas Aquinas's Trinitarian theology as a rational and persuasive articulation of the biblical witness and as a still persuasive engagement with the philosophical questions that classical Trinitarian theology delivers to us, but also a thoroughgoing exploration of why classical Trinitarian theology thrives only with a deep attention to divine transcendence, simplicity, and aseity. From beginning to end—from the initial chapters which focus on ways in which the Scriptures speak of God, to the final chapters' questioning of some persistent emphases in modern Trinitarian theology—we see the flowering of reflection on the God who contains all but is uncontained (to speak in second-century terms). "Persuasive" is an important adjective here; throughout, Fr. Thomas Joseph provides us with an exercise as much in apologetics as in dogmatics. But I sense that "apologetic" here seems to involve the production of a rational account that removes objections and provides reasons that may stimulate assent; to the character of appropriate apology I will return.

© The Thomist