Medieval Trinitarian Thought from Aquinas to Ockham

by Russell L. Friedman

Overview

How can the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be distinct and yet identical? Prompted by the doctrine of the divine Trinity, this question sparked centuries of lively debate. In the current context of renewed interest in Trinitarian theology, Russell L. Friedman provides the first survey of the scholastic discussion of the Trinity in the 100-year period stretching from Thomas Aquinas' earliest works to William Ockham's death. Tracing two central issues - the attempt to explain how the three persons are distinct from each other but identical as God, and the application to the Trinity of a 'psychological model', on which the Son is a mental word or concept, and the Holy Spirit is love - this volume offers a broad overview of Trinitarian thought in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, along with focused studies of the Trinitarian ideas of many of the period's most important theologians.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780511739064
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/21/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	725 KB

About the Author

Russell L. Friedman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The Trinity and the Aristotelian categories: different ways of explaining identity and distinction; 2. The Trinity and human psychology: 'In the Beginning Was the Word'; 3. The Trinity and metaphysics: the formal distinction, divine simplicity, and the psychological model; 4. The Trinity, divine simplicity, and fideism - or: was Gilson right about the fourteenth century after all?; Appendix. Major elements in Franciscan and Dominican Trinitarian theologies; Bibliography of primary sources; Annotated bibliography of selected secondary literature; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"… a welcome addition to academic discourse exploring medieval theologians’ understanding … clear and concise when dealing with complex ideas and intricate arguments … includes an appendix … The book delivers a detailed exposition of the different ways the two schools of thought approach the construction of the doctrine of the Trinity and the roles which ‘the psychological model’, ‘opposed relation’ and the interplay of faith and reason have in the development of these constructions … the reader is provided with a detailed analysis of these different ‘takes’ on Trinitarian doctrine."
Paul M. Collins, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology

From the Publisher