Towards a trinitarian worldview

Picking up from this post here's some more from Lesslie Newbigin's 1978 book The Open Secret. By the time of its writing Newbigin had become convinced that his earlier focus on the church as the central agent of Christian mission was inadequate, and must be replaced by an approach to missionary efforts grounded in the triune nature of God. Instead of being merely an add-on to the gospel, the doctrine of the Trinity is "the necessary starting point of preaching" to a pagan or pantheistic society. This will be hard to do, however, if those that send the missionaries have themselves lost a grasp on its centrality. Newbigin saw this happening in the West/Christendom.

It has been said that the question of the Trinity is the one theological question that has been really settled. It would, I think, be nearer to the truth to say that the Nicene formula has been so devoutly hallowed that it is effectively put out of circulation. It has been treated like the talent which was buried for safekeeping rather than risked in the commerce of discussion. The church continues to repeat the trinitarian formula but—unless I am greatly mistaken—the ordinary Christian in the Western world who hears or reads the word 'God' does not immediately and inevitably think of the Triune Being—Father, Son, and Spirit. He thinks of a supreme monad.

I'll plead guilty here. It's easy to slip into ways of thinking and talking about God that don't do justice to his Triune nature. I've become more aware of this recently as it relates to prayer. It takes some intentionality to pray in a way that expresses something of the perfect unity in diversity of the Godhead, that takes account of the personal and relational nature of the Trinity. Is my worship explicitly trinitarian? If not, I risk worshiping something other than the Christian God revealed in scripture. The doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery beyond full human comprehension, but according to Newbigin it offers a basis for practical, down-to-earth wisdom. In other words it's the key to knowing.

If as I have argued, we are forced to answer the question of authority by the words 'In the name of Jesus'; and if we then have to answer the question: 'Who is Jesus?', we shall only be able to answer that question in terms which embody the trinitarian faith. Like the earliest Christians we shall have to expand our first answer so that it runs, 'In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.' And this means that, like them, we shall be offering a model for understanding human life—a model which cannot be verified by reference to axioms of our culture but which is offered on the authority of revelation and with the claim that it does provide the possibility of a practical wisdom to grasp and deal with human life as it really is.

Quotes from Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian: a Reader, edited by Paul Weston (p. 91)