The Forgotten Trinity Summary

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In the article “The Forgotten Trinity”, a segment of Colin E. Gunton’s book Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he targets a problem with the practice of the Trinity in the Church today. Gunton believes that the church has strayed from the essential tradition that it ought to follow- a culture solidified on not just one person of the trinity but all three. He makes this view clear with lines such as “Once upon a time we were a deeply Trinitarian culture”(4), and with questions such as “Is the worship of the Church truly informed by Trinitarian categories?”(5) Gunton’s aim is to clarify the God that Christians worship: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Gunton believes that a proper perspective on the Trinity is vital to the structure of the Church because the Trinity establishes God as a God of love and …show more content…

As Gunton states, “In God the three persons are such that they receive from and give to each other their unique personality”(16). It is through this relationship, this sharing of personality, that their love is expressed. By the means of Jesus and the Holy Spirit humanity gains access to this love. Gunton states that Jesus’ role to humanity is as God’s hand of salvation. In other words, by dying on the cross, Jesus delivered humanity into a state of being able to experience God’s love. By having this connection, humanity is able to delve deeper in relation with the Father. John 14:6 says, “No one comes to the Father except through me”(NIV). Jesus had to die so that the Holy Spirit could come, as explained later in verse 16, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever”(NIV). Due to humanity’s access to the Father being through both the Holy Spirit and Jesus, the importance of worshiping the Trinity in its entirety is raised significantly. Thus the Church cannot afford to undercut any one of these

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