Critique of Stephen Seamands’ Ministry in the Image of God
Trinitarian Ministry Stephen Seamands proffers a Trinitarian description of Christian Ministry as the ministry of Jesus Christ, the Son, to the Father, through the Holy Spirit, for the sake of the church and the world. The author seems to presume that many in the Christian faith have not adequately observed or applied the doctrine of the Trinity significantly in the vocation of ministry. It is with this perception that he postulates a Trinitarian approach of ministry that emphasizes communion with God shaping our language about God to shape our heart so we might share in the life of God. In arriving at his conclusions, Seamands uses well-grounded Scriptural foundations, along with a descriptive of the Icon of the Holy Trinity painted in 1425 by a Russian Monk, Andrei Rublev, including the historical significance that is traced back to the Enlightenment, and the findings of renowned theologians beginning with Karl Barth. The preponderance of evidence provided supports the author’s contention that the grammar of the Christian faith and life is rooted in the doctrine of the Trinity having created the current Trinitarian renaissance. There are three foundational points in this theological approach that provide comprehension for that which seems beyond understanding --- God in one being; God in three persons. First, the main idea is centered on joining with Christ in the continuing ministry that substantiates the
Fee completes his writings with his own conclusion: “The Spirit must be reinstated into the Trinity, where he has never been excluded in our creeds and liturgies, but has been practically excluded from the experienced life of the church.” Moreover, he argues that the very nature of the Triune God, as being three yet one, must become the character of the church both in its oneness and in its function, by the very application of the Spirit’s threefold work of the Trinity. Without this experience, the witness of the churches to the Resurrection today will remain generally ineffective in comparison with the witness of the early Christians, though they lived in a culture very similar to ours. As the title of Fee’s book emphasizes, we are meant to find God’s Spirit empowering for us in the present era while at the same time awaiting the consummation of Christ’s final return.
Over the centuries, Christianity has organised its beliefs into a systematic theology that draws from its sacred writing and tradition. While the main beliefs of Christianity are shared by all Christian variants, there are degrees of different in the interpretation of these beliefs and how they are lived out in everyday life. This can be seen in the important of sacred text, principle belief of the concept of salvation in John 3:16, principle belief of divine and humanity in ‘John 1:14’, principle belief of resurrection in ‘Mark 16:1-8’, principle belief of revelation in ‘1 corinthians14:6’, and beliefs through the Trinity in ‘2 Corinthians 13:14’. This essay will explain the important of the sacred text and the principal beliefs of Christianity.
At the center of the Christian faith is a mystery. This mystery has everything to do with the identity of God, the nature of Christian community, the salvation history and our understanding of Christology. This is the mystery of the Trinity – how is the Godhead fully three persons, and yet one nature? Theophilus was the first to name the ‘triad’ nature of God in his letter To Autolycus in 170 A.D. Tertullian was the first to offer terminology to describe this mystery in Against Praxeas claiming “the Trinity” involved three ‘persons’ of one substance. This theology emerged from the Biblical witness, even though scripture offers no doctrine of the Trinity itself. Even more so, the development of the doctrine of the Trinity grew from the early church’s worship, witness and corporate experience. When faced with a mystery, heresies can’t help but emerge. Docetism and Arianism, Adoptionism and Monarchianism, Nestorianism and Monophysitism are just a few of the heresies that emerged in attempts to explain away the mystery. And yet, theologians from the second century to the twenty-first century are faced with the challenge of witnessing to this mystery in both the theologia and the oikonomia of the Trinity. The church experiences the economic Trinity as new believers are drawn into Trinitarian community through an ongoing
God the Son is revealed in the Christian Scriptures. God the Spirit is revealed in the Church. The Trinitarian doctrine states that there are three co-eternal, equal persons in God, which is the notion of unity within community. The Trinitarian doctrine was further developed and defined at the councils of Nicaea in 325 CE and Constantinople in 381 CE. God was always trinity, however gradually this reality became known through revelation. Jesus calls God and speaks of the spirit which indicates a plurality in God. The difficulty is reconciling the concept of monotheism with the notion of God existing as three persons. The divine essence is common to all three, however the three persons have attributes or properties which distinguished them eg Fatherhood, sonship and sanctifying power. Once essence means that the actions (creation, redemption, sanctification) are attributable to all. Mutual relations is the concept that the terms Father and Son are not titles but expressions of a relationship and thus all three persons are co-equal
This book calls the church to rethink and modify its practices, by providing a middle path between the emerging church and the conservative that aims to benefit all. There are major shift happening in the Western Church that has people talking. The problem is that churches fail to follow a mission-centered approach. Chester and Timmis have found that in order to refocus the churches
Throughout this semester I have learned many of the different christian doctrines. Many of them were challenged and also accepted in my weekend trip throughout Saint Louis. I think one of the most important topics that was discussed during my weekend was the consideration of the Trinity. In the Christian thought the word “trinity” is a term used to talk about the Christian doctrine that God exists as a unity of three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three of the staple thoughts include; God is three person; each person is divine; there is only one God. In their relations to one another, they are stated to be on in all else, co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial. With these three thoughts about the Trinity you also must remember that Christianity is a monotheistic religion.
Saint Augustine, one of the best scholars of the early church, portrayed the Trinity as practically identical to the three sections of an individual: personality, soul, and will. They are three unmistakable viewpoints, yet they are conjoined and together constitute one bound together individual. The purpose of this research paper is to further emphasize, highlight, and defend St. Augustine’s conclusion that the Holy Trinity is one God existing in three persons according to the meeting at the Council of Nicea 325.
In The Call to Personhood, Alistair McFadyen attempts to construct an image of the person as an individual but in social terms, as it were cutting a path between individualist and collectivist anthropologies to from a new framework. In the first two chapters, McFadyen sets a theological framework for understanding that the creation and redemption of man requires a relational understanding of man. In the first chapter, McFadyen does this by grounding the 'personhood ' of man in the Christian doctrine of Imago Dei and the trinity. While his framework for the trinity is the Latin Trinity he argues that each person of the trinity is only a Person through relation. The relationship is dialogical and each ‘person’ is a subject of communication. Created in the image of the Trinitarian God humans are thus in dialogue with God and in dialogue with each other, specifically as male and female. The fallen state of humanity marks the rejection of the offer of dialogue partnership with God and thus with each other. The second chapter builds on this by focusing on the recreation of the individual into the image and likeness of Christ through the call of discipleship. The individual is called out of their context and their repentance represents their re-orientation towards Jesus. Yet, the decision of the individual to forsake their present relatedness is not a self-centring as it is a response and an "incorporation into a different relation and relational context" (49).
In conversation with Daniel Migliore give an account of what it means to confess that God is triune. Give care to an explication of “economic and immanent trinity,” and perichoresis.
This easy begins with the writer speaking to a “three-personed God” (I believe that means the father, son, and holy spirit). He uses
The Trinity consists of God, the Father, Jesus, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit. The Christian faith recognizes there is one God and He is one with His Son, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The purpose of this essay is to describe the interrelationship of the three persons of the Trinity. This will include the concepts of the economic trinity, the essential trinity and the social trinity.
A major shift in Trinitarian theology also occurred through his development of a “reciprocal relational Trinitarianism.” This shift in “Trinitarian views of personhood, relationality and sociality among the Persons of the Trinity”
The Trinity is a doctrine that has and will continue to bring much controversy to the Christian faith. Yet it is important to understand that a practical approach to this topic can be very important. Having a full understanding of the Trinity is vital to the life of a Christian. The distinct, yet interwoven aspects of God’s character will affect every aspect of a believer’s life.
Mary Ann Fatula’s The Triune God of Christian Faith provides for the reader the inner life of God as well as insight into the human reality. Fatula’s writing draws the devotional discussion of the Trinity as the present-day effect of the Trinitarian faith is called to support attempts to articulate and live the Trinitarian mystery. The Trinity in a human’s life is the content of our definition of our human meaning and for an infinite gift: love. Each of us has a desire for achieving meaning, for love, and for wholeness. Fatula in her book develops the study of the divine ‘persons’ and states the importance of understanding what it is to be truly a ‘person’ of both human and divine potential.
The first fundamental claims of the Catholic intellectual tradition tackles and answers this question of what is our relationship with God. It mentions that all human beings exist in a relation to a triune God which is also known as the Trinity. This Trinity is known as one God in three