Abstract

In the latter half of the twentieth century, in the wake of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics, there has been something of a revival of trinitarian theology. Because the doctrine of the Trinity is traditionally held to be the Christian doctrine of God, the waxing and waning of scholarly interest in it commands our attention as something touching upon the very foundations of the Christian faith. On the whole, however, the present revival has not been a simple return to the classical articulations of trinitarian dogma. Rather, the contemporary attempts at reappropriation have introduced modifications in method and substance which are in tension with much of the tradition of trinitarian theology. Some of the most influential contemporary writers, having espoused various forms of economic trinitarianism and social analogies, have utterly broken with Western tradition as it has been shaped by Thomas Aquinas. The so-called "psychological analogy" introduced by Augustine and transformed by Aquinas into a metaphysical analysis represents an attempt to speak analogically of the triune God in a way that is not limited by the sensible and imaginable. This study shows how the move from psychological to metaphysical analysis allows Thomas to deal comprehensively with the exigencies of the dogma, making him a most valuable resource for current talk about the Trinity. The primary focus of this work is the trinitarian thought of Thomas as it is articulated in the prima pars of the Summa Theologiae. By attending not only to the substance, but also to the structure of his treatise on the Trinity, this study attempts to demonstrate that Thomas most adequately answers those questions and concerns that have given rise to the contemporary alternatives to his trinitarian thought