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The Historic Doctrine of the Trinity: Difference between revisions
→The word "person" is not a perfect descriptor
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==The word "person" is not a perfect descriptor== | ==The word "person" is not a perfect descriptor== | ||
Theologians recognize that the word "person", particularly in its current meaning in the English language does create problems. | Theologians recognize that the word "person", particularly in its current meaning in the English language, does create problems. | ||
:Both [Karl] Barth and [Karl] Rahner held that “person” (from Lat. persona), the traditional term in the so-called Western church for the divine Three, had become seriously misleading. While originally designating a theater mask and then a role and hence an identity, in contemporary usage “person” (→ Self) had come to denote a subjective center of consciousness. With that understanding of “person,” the claim that God is three persons stands in grave danger of degenerating into tritheism. Barth proposed as an alternative the phrase “mode of being” (Seinsweise); Rahner proposed “mode of subsisting” (Subsistenzweise).<ref>Erwin Fahlbusch and Geoffrey William Bromiley, vol. 5, The Encyclopedia of Christianity, 547 (Grand Rapids, MI; Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill, 2008).</ref> | :Both [Karl] Barth and [Karl] Rahner held that “person” (from Lat. persona), the traditional term in the so-called Western church for the divine Three, had become seriously misleading. While originally designating a theater mask and then a role and hence an identity, in contemporary usage “person” (→ Self) had come to denote a subjective center of consciousness. With that understanding of “person,” the claim that God is three persons stands in grave danger of degenerating into tritheism. Barth proposed as an alternative the phrase “mode of being” (Seinsweise); Rahner proposed “mode of subsisting” (Subsistenzweise).<ref>Erwin Fahlbusch and Geoffrey William Bromiley, vol. 5, The Encyclopedia of Christianity, 547 (Grand Rapids, MI; Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill, 2008).</ref> | ||