Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #643110 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-01
• Released on: 2007-01-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Customer Reviews

A Global Trinity
At the beginning of the third millennium, few events in contemporary theology are as exciting as the rise to prominence of the doctrine of Trinity. Adding to the growing literature in this renaissance, Veli-Matti Karkkainen, a Finnish theologian teaching at Fuller Theological Seminary, has written a magisterial and ground breaking volume which offers "a critical theological dialogue and assessment of the state of Trinitarian theology of the third millennium in light of biblical and historical tradition and ever-expanding global theological enterprise." (xix) What makes this comprehensive study truly unique is the author's genuine attempt to offer a fair and balanced exposition as well as critical dialogue with contemporary Trinitarian theologies from five different global contexts.

The book is divided into five major parts consisting of 27 chapters. After briefly examining the biblical roots and historical growth of the doctrine of Trinity in parts 1 and 2, no less than eighteen contemporary Trinitarian views are discussed in parts 3 and 4 from both Western and non-Western perspectives. The five representative European theologians discussed are Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, John Zizoulas, Jurgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg. The seven American theologians include Robert Jenson, Catherine M. LaCugna, Elizabeth Johnson, Millard j. Erickson, S. Mark Heim, Ninian Smart and Steven Konstantine. And the six non-Western Trinitarian views represented are those of Leonard Boff and Justo Gonzalez (Latin American), Jung Young Lee and Raimundo Panikkar (Asian), and C. Nyamiti and A. O. Ogbonnaya (African).

The last part of the book consists of a single but helpful chapter in which the author assesses key contributions and insights emerging out of the global conversation and possible direction that Trinitarian discourse might take in the future. Global, ecumenical, and dialogical, there is no other text on Trinity that presently compares with this break-taking and comprehensive study.