TCE 508R: Theology I

Dr. Chelle Stearns

Research Paper
2 December 2014

Colin Gunton and the Trinity

While the doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly stated in Scripture, the search to

understand how God is described has shaped the formation of this doctrine, particularly

during the early centuries of Church history. That God can be simultaneously One, and

yet expressed as Three, defies mathematical logic, and yet this is the assumption within

the biblical record. Colin Gunton notes that the Church did not discover a new God, but

understood the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in a new way. God had been

revealed in the Son, the human Jesus of Nazareth, “who was everywhere present in the

pages” of the Hebrew Scriptures, “as was the Spirit of God who brought them to the

Father through Jesus.”1 Colin Gunton’s contribution to the historical conversation

regarding the Trinity will be explored, noting his emphasis on the writings of the

Cappadocian Fathers, and what this reveals about the relational nature of God’s being.

Colin Gunton eschewed originality in his approach to Trinitarian theology, as

noted by Christoph Schwöbel, who wrote how his “theological work was therefore

consciously conducted on the basis of scriptural exegesis and by constantly referring

back to the creeds of the Church…”2 so as to ensure “that it is the real God we

worship.”3 Gunton draws from the writings of the Irenaeus and the Cappadocian

1
Colin Gunton, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Essays Toward a Fully Trinitarian Theology
(London: T & T Clark, 2003), 7.
2
Christoph Schwöbel. “The Shape of Colin Gunton’s Theology. On the Way Towards a Fully
Trinitarian Theology,” in The Theology of Colin Gunton, ed. Lincoln Harvey (London: T & T Clark
International, 2010), 182.
3
Gunton, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 4.

1
Fathers for his development of the idea of the Trinity, contrasting their work from the

Augustinian perspective. Gunton is also influenced by the significant work Karl Barth

accomplished in reviving Trinitarian theology in the 20th century, and Gunton’s writings

are often connected with Eastern Orthodox writer, John Zizioulas.

The initial explorations into the doctrine of the Trinity began in the 2 nd century as

pastors and church leaders sought to make sense of how the Gospels and the gathered

writings of the Apostle Paul had continuity with the Old Testament record. Dr. Chelle

Stearns speaks to how they searched for plurality in “God’s relational shape and divine

agency,” noting descriptions of divine manifestations such as “Word, Wisdom, or

Spirit.”4 With the divinity of Jesus being established at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE,

and that of the Spirit at the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381 CE,

the doctrine of Trinity held the belief “in one true God, the acknowledgment that Jesus is

Lord, (and) the experience of the indwelling Holy Spirit.”5 The creeds developed at

these councils were based upon the Trinitarian terminology developed by the

Cappadocian Fathers and Athanasius.

Gunton notes that the doctrine of the Trinity has suffered from neglect,

particularly in response to the rationality of the 17th and 18th centuries, with the result

that it was reduced to a “piece of abstract theorizing, perhaps necessary as a test of

Christian belief, but of little further interest.”6 Studying the Trinity was pushed to an

esoteric corner, the stuff of math geeks and philosophers. In addition, Gunton finds

4
Chelle Stearns, “Intro to the Trinity,” lecture delivered for Constructing the Theological Mosaic:
God, Humanity, Christ at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, September 30, 2014, 2.
5
Stanley Grenz, Created for Community: Connecting Christian Belief with Christian Living (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996), 42-43.
6
Gunton, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 6.

2
fault in Augustine’s tendency to think in terms of the Platonic duality of mind and matter,

leads to God being described as an “eternal mind,”7 and the emphasis upon the unity of

God over the plurality of the Godhead that set the stage, in the Western church, for a

form of Modalism.8 This led to including, “an unknown substance supporting the three

persons rather than being constituted by their relatedness,”9 as if the true essence of

God was like a fourth member of the Godhead. In addition, the issue of the “One and

the Many” comes into focus for Gunton. With Augustine, the emphasis upon the “One”

led to an individualism that has had disastrous consequences, while in modern times,

the pendulum has shifted in the opposite direction, with the “Many” revolting against the

authoritarian singularity of God, leaving humanity without a frame of reference. 10

In addition, the Trinity has often taken on a “patrocentric” slant,11 where the

Father is viewed as sufficient to provide all one needed to know about who or what God

was like, or that the Father, alone, is truly God, and the Son and Spirit are “subordinate

realities.”12 If one compares the typical stained glass windows within Western and

Eastern churches, the dichotomy becomes apparent. John Colwell notes that, in

Western churches, the Father is often prominently displayed, high on a throne, with the

Son down below and the Spirit floating as a dove, while with Eastern icons,
7
Colin Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997), 43
8
Modalism, also called Sabellianism, is the unorthodox belief that God is one person who has
revealed himself in three forms or modes in contrast to the Trinitarian doctrine where God is one being
eternally existing in three persons, and was condemned by Tertullian. Theopedia, s.v. “Modalism,”
retrieved from http://www.theopedia.com/Modalism.
9
Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, 43.
10
Brad Green, ““Colin Gunton and the Failure of Augustine,” International Journal of Systematic
Theology (9), no. 3, July 2007, 330-331.
11
Najeeb G. Awad, “Personhood as Particularity: John Zizioulas, Colin Gunton, and the
Trinitarian Theology of Personhood,” Journal of Reformed Theology 4, No. 1, 2010, 18.
12
Colin Gunton, The Christian Faith (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 181.

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“distinguishing the Father, Son, and Spirit necessitates the following of less than

obvious clues.”13 This has caused the doctrine of the Trinity to function as an

“appendix”14 rather than the primary way to understand God.

Why is the Trinity such a necessary doctrine to consider? The first is that it

concerns how one can “adequately speak of God.”15 In order to love someone, one has

to get to know the beloved. Gunton refers to Irenaeus’ notion of how God creates and

redeems “through his two hands, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”16 Gunton notes that this

more than a “crude” metaphor, but that one’s hands are an extension of the self. If God

is concerned enough to have engaged in the creation and redemption of both the

spiritual and material world with God’s full Trinitarian Being, then “what we do with our

bodies in relation to one another and in relation to our world” bears great significance. 17

Along with Irenaeus, Gunton also noted how Basil of Caesarea connected personal

holiness and transformation with a strong Trinitarian view. The Trinity speaks to how

humanity is to live in the world created by God.

Gunton develops his Trinitarian perspective by noting that God is revealed in the

actions of Jesus and the mediation of the Holy Spirit. This speaks to the economy of

the Trinity, or the manner in which God directs the household of creation. 18 Gunton
13
John Colwell, "A Conversation Overheard: Reflecting on the Trinitarian Grammar of Intimacy
and Substance." Evangelical Quarterly 86, no. 1 (January 2014): 73.
14
Kevin Vanhoozer, “The Triune God of the Gospel” in The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical
Theology, Timothy Larsen and Daniel J. Trier, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 26.
15
Stephen R. Holmes. “Towards the Analogia Personae et Relationis: Developments in Gunton’s
Trinitarian Thinking,” in The Theology of Colin Gunton, Lincoln Harvey, ed. (London: T&T Clark, 2010),
42.
16
Gunton, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 10.
17
Ibid., 11.
18
Gunton, The Christian Faith, 180.

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argues that if what has been revealed is truly God “present to the world,” then it is God

in actuality who has come, and not some manifestation “filtered by human experience”

“whose internal structuring may be different.” 19,20 This centers on the immanence of

God, and has implication for being able to trust that God is reliable. Fermer notes the

similarity to Karl Rahner’s dictum: “The Trinity of the economy of salvation is the

immanent Trinity and vice versa,” but argues that this reduces the freedom,

transcendence, and sovereignty of God.21 This is to say that the infinite God is far

more than what has been revealed to finite humanity. This would not have been a

surprise to Gunton as he did not believe that the revealed Trinitarian communion was

“exhaustively constitutive of the being of God.”22 Gunton might respond, first, by saying

that speculation about the “inner being” of God apart from God’s actions leads to

irrelevance.23 In addition, Gunton would agree with Barth in emphasizing the freedom of

God – that the graciousness of God is revealed in that “the giving of himself (is) a free,

un-necessitated act.”24 The point is that what is revealed of God, what can be known, is

trustworthy as describing the actual, eternal God.

In order to approach Gunton’s understanding of the nature of the Trinity, the

concept of God being One, yet Three, it is important to go to his sources: the

19
Ibid., 184.
20
Gunton, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 44.
21
Richard M. Fermer, “The Limits of Trinitarian Theology as a Methodological Paradigm:
‘Between the Trinity and hell there lies no other choice’ (Vladimir Lossky)." Neue Zeitschrift Für
Systematische Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 41, no. 2 (1999): 174-175.
22
Awad, “Personhood as Particularity,” 17.
23
Gunton, The Christian Faith, 185.
24
Gunton, Being and Becoming: The Doctrine of God in Charles Hartshorne and Karl Barth
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 147.

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Cappadocian Fathers. As has been noted, Gunton was not all that crazy about

Augustine’s legacy, and, along with Karl Barth (to some degree), sought to restore the

Cappadocian perspective into the tradition of the Western Church.25 The Cappadocian

Fathers intentionally narrowed the terms hypostasis (person or personhood) and ousia

(substance) to state that God was “distinct in unity,” that they were particular persons

bound within a loving union.26 In Gunton’s view, the Cappadocian Fathers understood

the being of God to be in communion, eternally “established in mutual relations of

persons…”27 and that each member’s identity as a person necessitates the other

members. Basil of Caesarea wrote:

But the communion and the distinction apprehended in Them are, in

a certain sense, ineffable and inconceivable, the continuity of nature being
never rent asunder by the distinction of the hypostases, nor the notes of
proper distinction confounded in the community of essence.28

Basil describes the Trinity as an unbreakable relationship of distinct persons who have

a shared substantial, core essence.

At this point, some clarification needs to be made regarding the concept of being

a person in order to illustrate how the members of the Trinity are inextricably connected

while remaining distinct. Gunton is adamant that the idea of a person being a solitary or

static being is false, and derives (in part) from Descartes’ emphasis on the centrality of
25
Stephen Mittwede, “A Résumé of Selected Pneumatological Perspectives of Three Defenders
of Traditional Trinitarian Theology – Karl Barth, Colin Gunton, and Max Turner.” Didaskalia 23 (Fall 2012):
78.
26
Chelle Stearns, “Perichoresis and Personhood,” lecture delivered for Constructing the
Theological Mosaic: God, Humanity, Christ at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, October
7, 2014, 1-2.
27
Robert W. Jenson, “A Decision Tree of Colin Gunton’s Thinking.” In The Theology of Colin
Gunton. Lincoln Harvey, ed. (London: T & T Clark International, 2010), 12.
28
Basil of Caesarea, “Letter 38,” trans. Blomfield Jackson, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
Second Series, Vol. 8. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature
Publishing Co., 1895), 38.4. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Retrieved from
http://www.newadvent.org/ fathers/3202038.htm.

6
the mind that made relationships secondary.29 In fact, “to define the person as an

individual is to lose both the person and individual.”30 Gunton quotes Scottish

philosopher John Macmurray, saying, “as persons we are only what we are in relation to

other persons,”31 which connects with Gunton’s assertion that one’s ontological reality is

grounded upon personhood that is formed, dynamically within communion. God is not a

static entity. Based on this concept of God existing as “persons-in-relation,” Gunton

would agree with Zizioulas’ argument that the Father, Son, and Spirit cannot “be

conceived apart from the rest” within the indivisible union of the Trinity. 32 This is in

contrast to Augustine, who wrote, “The Father is called person in respect to himself, not

in relation to the Son or the Holy Spirit.”33 It is beautiful how particularity, rather than

being an obstacle or threat to union, is necessary for relationship, and is actually

enhanced by it. He writes, “The Father, Son and Spirit are persons because they

enable each other to be truly what the other is: they neither assert at the expense of,

nor lose themselves in the being of, the others.”34 There is no coercion within the Trinity

– each member freely gives and receives from the other, and is glorified in these

interactions. Gunton adds that all three members of the Trinity initiate action of their

own volition, “truly and autonomously,” without sacrificing “unity of action and of

29
Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, 84.
30
Ibid., 85.
31
Ibid., 88.
32
John Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church,
Paul McPartlan, ed. (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 159.
33
Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, 95.
34
Gunton, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 16.

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revelation.”35 The failure to appreciate the significance of how personhood is

connected, strengthened, and shaped by being in relationship is part of the root of

Western individualism and loneliness.

In addition, by noting the mutual relationship, Gunton argues that the

Cappadocian Fathers sought to avoid the error of viewing any member of the Trinity as

being superior. Colwell notes the hesitancy on the part of Gregory Nazianzus to use the

term, “origin,” for the God the Father “lest (he) should make Him the Origin of Inferiors,

and thus insult Him by precedencies of honour (sic)… for in the Consubstantial Persons

there is nothing greater or less in point of Substance.”36 In this, Gunton parts ways with

Zizioulas notion that the Father is the origin, or basis, of the Trinity as this creates a

form of subordination within the Trinity. Rather, “all three persons are together the

cause of the communion in which they exist in relations of mutual reciprocal

constitution.”37 The descriptions of Father as “Unbegotten,” Son as “Begotten, and

Spirit as “Breathed-out One” do not correspond in the same fashion for created beings;

they are unique in that they are divine. What does find correspondence is that they are

persons-in-relation; God is not a solitary being, and neither are human beings.

The relational dynamic that exists within the Trinity leads, then, to the concept of

perichoresis. This concept describes the “coinherence or interpenetration”38 of the

Trinity, allowing “the individuality of the persons to be maintained, while insisting that

each person shares in the life of the other two.”39 Catherine LaCugna describes this with
35
Gunton, the Christian Faith, 181.
36
Colwell, “A Conversation Overheard,” 67.
37
Cited by Awad, Personhood as Particularity, 18.
38
Stearns, “Perichoresis and Personhood,” 5.
39
Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 325.

8
the analogy of a room lit by multiple lamps; the light permeates one another into

“undifferentiated light.” 40 She adds, though, that the analogy falls short because it does

not convey “the dynamic and creative energy (and) mutual and reciprocal permeation of

each person with and in and through and by the other persons.”41 Perichoresis

describes the way the Father, Son, and Spirit can have hold both particularity and

union, and reveals the freedom within the Trinity to give and receive love, to be inter-

dependent without losing a sense of self.

One last aspect of Trinitarian theology that Gunton speaks to is how the Trinity

relates with creation. The question arises as to how God, who is omnipresent, can

maintain distinction both within Godself and from material universe. Gunton, drawing

from Barth, notes that God possess both space and time, and can therefore create

space within Godself that is free in its particularity. Gunton quotes Barth, saying that

God possesses space “as the being who is completely present in the spatiality that

belongs to Him.”42 This means that God is free “not only in his relations with the world,

but free to set the creature free to be itself (in) a form appropriate to its matter.” 43 In

short, God can create space for something to exist other than God just as God can

exist, as a Triune being, within the space of particular persons-in-relation. This

differentiation allows for the transcendence of God, and avoids a pantheistic notion that

everything is part of God.

40
Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (New York:
HarperCollins, 1991), 271
41
LaCugna, God For Us, 271.
42
Gunton, “The Triune God and the Freedom of the Creature,” in Karl Barth: Centenary Essays,
edited by S.W. Sykes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 48.
43
Gunton, “The Triune God and the Freedom of the Creature, 49.

9
 Gunton’s contribution to Trinitarian theology is immense. Gunton paints a picture

of a God who is personal, relational, loving, and self-giving. He shows that the doctrine

of the Trinity does not belong in the realm of esoteric study, akin to debating the number

of angels that can fit on the tip of a needle. Rather, engaging with the mystery and

wonder of the Trinity challenges the assumption that it is within the individual’s right to

self-realization or independence that freedom can be experienced. Instead, the idea

that one is most truly themselves within the context of mutual reciprocity, of freely giving

and receiving, of being oriented towards the other rather than the self, invites

imagination for the possibility for true freedom within the structure of intimacy and

communion. Blessed be the ties that bind.

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 Bibliography

Awad, Najeeb G. “Personhood as Particularity: John Zizioulas, Colin Gunton, and the
Trinitarian Theology of Personhood.” Journal of Reformed Theology 4, no. 1,
2010: 1-22.

Basil of Caesarea. “Letter 38,” translated by Blomfield Jackson. In Nicene and Post-
Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 8, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry
Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895. Revised and
edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Retrieved from
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202038.htm.

Colwell, John E. "A Conversation Overheard: Reflecting on the Trinitarian Grammar of

Intimacy and Substance." Evangelical Quarterly 86, no. 1, January 2014: 63-76.

Green, Brad. “Colin Gunton and the Failure of Augustine.” International Journal of
Systematic Theology (9), no. 3, July 2007: 328-341.

Grenz, Stanley. Created for Community: Connecting Christian Belief with Christian
Living. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996.

Gunton, Colin. Being and Becoming: The Doctrine of God in Charles Hartshorne and
Karl Barth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

---- The Christian Faith. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002.

---- Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Essays Toward a Fully Trinitarian Theology. London:
T & T Clark, 2003.

---- The One, The Three, and The Many: God, Creation and the Culture of
Modernity. Cambridge University Press, 1993.

---- The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, 2nd edition. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997.

---- “The Triune God and the Freedom of the Creature.” In Karl Barth: Centenary
Essays, edited by S.W. Sykes, 46-68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989.

Holmes, Stephen R. “Towards the Analogia Personae et Relationis: Developments in

Gunton’s Trinitarian Thinking.” In The Theology of Colin Gunton, edited by
Lincoln Harvey, 32-48. London: T & T Clark, 2010.

Fermer, Richard M. “The Limits of Trinitarian Theology as a Methodological Paradigm:

‘Between the Trinity and hell there lies no other choice’ (Vladimir Lossky)." Neue
Zeitschrift Für Systematische Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 41, no. 2,
1999: 158-186.

11
Jenson, Robert W. “A Decision Tree of Colin Gunton’s Thinking.” In The Theology of
Colin Gunton, edited by Lincoln Harvey, 8-16. London: T & T Clark International,
2010.

LaCugna, Catherine Mowry. God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life. New York:
HarperCollins, 1991.

McGrath, Alister. Christian Theology: An Introduction, 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.

Mittwede, Steven. “A Résumé of Selected Pneumatological Perspectives of Three

Defenders of Traditional Trinitarian Theology – Karl Barth, Colin Gunton, and
Max Turner.” Didaskalia 23, Fall 2012, 69-85.

Schwöbel, Christoph. “The Shape of Colin Gunton’s Theology. On the Way Towards a
Fully Trinitarian Theology.” In The Theology of Colin Gunton, edited by Lincoln
Harvey, 182-208. London: T & T Clark International, 2010.

Stearns, Chelle. “Intro to the Trinity.” Lecture delivered for Constructing the Theological
Mosaic: God, Humanity, Christ at The Seattle School of Theology and
Psychology, September 30, 2014.

---- “Perichoresis and Personhood.” Lecture delivered for Constructing the

Theological Mosaic: God, Humanity, Christ at The Seattle School of Theology
and Psychology, October 7, 2014.

Vanhoozer, Kevin. “The Triune God of the Gospel.” In The Cambridge Companion to
Evangelical Theology, edited by Timothy Larsen and Daniel J. Treier, 17-34.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Zizioulas, John D. Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the
Church. Paul McPartlan, ed. London: T & T Clark, 2006.

12