By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
On the Trinity
In at least some of my previous reflections on the relation between economic and immanent trinity, I have argued, in effect, that God as the ground and object of faith is the God of the economic trinity, even as God as the eminent subject and object of love is the God of the immanent trinity (cf., e.g., "On the Meaning of 'Ground' and 'Object''': 3). But this, clearly, is not well expressed, especially if it is true that the distinction between economic and immanent trinity is not the same as, or does not simply parallel, the distinction between the meaning of God for us and the structure of God in itself.
The real distinction between the economic and the immanent trinity turns on the distinction between our God (explicitly: our God as Christians, and implicitly: our God as human [or rational] beings) and any creature's God -- although even the God of any creature is viewed from the standpoint of our God, in the sense that even talk about the immanent trinity is talk about the meaning of God for us and is therefore for the sake of bringing about -- directly or indirectly -- the decision of faith.
15 December 1978; rev. 1 September 2003
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