The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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What does the doctrine of the trinity have to do with metaphysics? I incline to answer, "Not very much."

To speak of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not so much to express a concept of God as to utter the name of God, given the Christian revelation  --  somewhat in the way in which to speak of Jesus is not so much to express a concept as to utter a name.

But if this is correct, the dogmas of the triune nature of God and of the divine-human person of Jesus Christ can and should be understood as extended ways of naming God.

July 1986; rev. 1 September 2003

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