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A Fresh Look at the Doctrine of Christ, Essential for Modern
Theological Work Christology was the central doctrine articulated
by the early church councils, and it remains the subject of
vigorous theological investigation today. The study of the doctrine
of Christ is a field of broad ecumenical convergence, inviting
theologians from all denominational settings to fruitful
collaborative exploration. In the contemporary setting, it is
especially crucial for theologians to investigate the scriptural
witness afresh, to retrieve classical criteria and categories from
the tradition, and to consider the generative pressure of
soteriology for Christology proper. The first annual Los Angeles
Theology Conference sought to make a positive contribution to
contemporary dogmatics in intentional engagement with the Christian
tradition. Christology, Ancient and Modern brings together
conference proceedings, surveying the field and articulating the
sources, norms, and criteria for constructive theological work in
Christology.
Katherine Sonderegger follows her monumental volume on the doctrine
of God with this second entry of her Systematic Theology, which
explores the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Locating her analysis
first in the Hebrew Scriptures, Sonderegger examines the
thrice-holy God that is proclaimed to Isaiah in the sanctuary and
manifested in the sacrifice of the temple. The book of Leviticus,
read in conversation with Exodus, unfolds the doctrine of the
Trinity under the character of holiness. In the One God, Trinity
speaks of the life, movement, and self-offering of God, who is the
eternal procession of goodness and light. In Israel's sacrificial
covenant, the Triune God is perfect self-offering: the eternal
descent of the Father of Lights is the offering who is Son,
eternally received and hallowed in the one who is Spirit. Anchoring
the theology of the Trinity in Israel's Scriptures in this way
elevates the processions over the persons, exploring the mystery of
the Divine Life as holy, rational, and good. The Divine Persons,
named in the New Testament, cannot be defined but may be glimpsed
in the notion of perfection, a complete and perfect infinite set.
In all these ways, the Holy Trinity may be praised as the deep
reality of the life of God.
The mystery of Almighty God is most properly an explication of the
oneness of God, tying the faith of the church to the bedrock of
Israel's confession of the lord of the covenant, the lord of our
Lord Jesus Christ. The doctrine of divine attributes, then, is set
out as a reflection on Holy Scripture: the One God as omnipresent,
omnipotent, and omniscient, and all these as expressions of the
Love who is God. Systematic theology must make bold claims about
its knowledge and service of this One lord: the Invisible God must
be seen and known in the visible. In this way, God and God's
relation to creation are distinguished-but not separated-from
Christology, the doctrine of perfections from redemption. The lord
God will be seen as compatible with creatures, and the divine
perfections express formally distinct and unique relations to the
world. This systematic theology, then, begins from the treatise De
Deo Uno and develops the dogma of the Trinity as an expression of
divine unicity, on which will depend creation, Christology, and
ecclesiology. In the end, the transcendent beauty who is God can be
known only in worship and praise.
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