By Schubert Ogden
Scanned PDF Version of this Document
How is the Christian understanding of God as triune properly interpreted?
...
2. The words "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" are properly interpreted as the Christian name for God, "God" being itself a name for strictly ultimate reality, analogously to the way in which "Jesus" is the Christian name for Christ, "Christ" itself being a name for the meaning of strictly ultimate reality for us, as distinct from its structure in itself. Just as to confess that Jesus is the Christ is to imply that the meaning of God for us designated by the name "Christ" is the meaning made explicit in a decisive way through Jesus, so to confess that the trillle triune God is strictly ultimate reality is to imply that strictly ultimate reality – -- immanently in itself as well as economically in its relations to us – -- is the strictly ultimate reality decisively re-presented through Jesus as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
...