Remember the Trinity or Why We Need to do all our Theology in Greek

I'm hip. I'm hip because I'm sitting in Milkboy Cafe listening to live music and looking smart because I am writing on my laptop while other are playing. Me, in the coffee shop, live music, and writing - it exudes hipness.

That is beside the point.

I just finished reading, "The Love Commandments: An Opening for Christian-Muslim Dialogue?" by Daniel L. Migliore, an article in the most current issue of Theology Today. In this article Migliore is considering the Muslim document A Common Word which is calling Christians, Jews and Muslims to have a serious theological dialogue (not a pansy dialogue where we all just agree to disagree, to tolerate each other and to say that we are all nice, but exactly the kind of dialogue that Hauerwas was speaking about - see my previous post). Migliore makes some very good points about dialogue, and the consideration of the love commandments (a la' Barth) and I recommend the article, but what struck my theological imagination was the Trinitarian bog that often mires the conversation between Christians and Muslims.

Apparently, the Trinity is a big issue between Muslims (who are strong believers of the oneness of God) and Christians (who also are strong believers of the oneness of God). It is no big surprise that many Muslims see the Trinity as a move away from the oneness of God. Migliore briefly reviews Kung, Rahner and Rowen Williams consideration of the Trinity for the sake of pluralistic dialogue. When reading through the three, my memory returned to my Church history class when we wrestled with the early Christian understanding of the Trinity. I was thinking of Athanasius, of Tertullian, of the Alexandrian and of the school of Antioch. I was thinking of the Cappadocian understanding of the Trinity (eastern) and an Augustistian understanding of the Trinity (western). I was specifically thinking of the Greek terms of ousia, homoiousios and homoousios - look them up.

Here is my point. I have accepted the mystery of the Trinity as a central point of my Christian faith (sorry Kung) and often fall into the mystery when folks ask me about it. "Pastor, what is the Trinity?" Shrugging shoulders, "I donno, a mystery I guess." Pastor then slinks away.
Yet for the sake of dialogue (and for the sake of self understanding) we should be able to at least attempt an articulation of the mystery of the Trinity. Hence our return to the patristics, and especially to the Greek language. They seem to have a good mystery of the language that makes possible a clear explanation. So, lets learn our Greek, practice our Greek and do our theology in Greek as often as possible. Except, of course, for blogs - those are exempt.