Retrieving Nicaea The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine by Anatolios, Khaled [Baker,2011]

by Unknown Author

Retrieving Nicaea The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine by Anatolios, Khaled. Published by Baker,2011, Hardcover

Genres: Theology, History, Church History, Christian, Christianity, Religion, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published August 1, 2011

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Reviews

[Jack Hayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I struggle to review this book because I'm not too familiar with the source material Anatolios refers to—something he assumes you know. One of the most complex and dense books I have read in a while.

Overall, Anatolios is trying to argue that homioouis is a hermeneutic rather than just an abstract term. Anatolios critiques modern interpretations that flatten their soteriological concerns into post-Augustinian categories. Arius, for instance, is better understood as articulating a negative theology that relies on ontological contrast (unbegotten/begotten) to preserve divine uniqueness. Though, in the end, Anatolios shows how this theology narrows the scope of salvation.

Athanasius is presented through the lens of an Origenian epistemology: the knowledge of God is the goal of salvation, and this is made possible not by speculation but by God's self-bestowal in the Word. The emphasis on elasticity of language around divinity, and on Christ’s divinity as “for us,” is crucial—and challenges modern tendencies to collapse Christology into categories of either divinity or humanity.

Gregory of Nyssa, is portrayed not as offering propositional clarity, but as providing a framework for how we speak of God without enclosing divine essence in language. The emphasis on infinite perfection and participation over Platonic unity is particularly well done.

Augustine’s De Trinitate is handled sympathetically but not uncritically. Anatolios focuses on Augustine’s psychological analogy and epistemology—not as anthropocentric, but as a deeply kenotic movement of memory, understanding, and love toward divine self-disclosure. The interplay of signs, creation, and Trinity here is tightly argued. This chapter was particularly illuminating.

The book ends with the conclusion: Trinitarian theology isn’t about comprehending God, but about re-learning how to speak about God in a way that reflects both Scripture’s rhetoric and the church’s communion. That means embracing God’s incommensurability, not circumventing it.

92% God is Trinitarian

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very very good. The author writes quite perspicuously, and frames his thesis as a reconception of the movement and dialectic of the fourth century trinitarian debates. He wants to reconceive in two categories, namely, Unity of being and unity of will. He is convincing and his argumentation, selective in his use of Gregory, Augustine, and Athanasius, yet outlines all of the aforesaid in his introductory methodology which ultimately makes for an extremely readable, accessible, and cogent book that should be welcomed by theologians and laymen alike.

Anatolios should go on the shelf right next to constructions of similar genre in the likes of Lewis Ayers, Brian Daley, and Michel Barnes.

[Jose Ovalle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense and difficult but really good. Maybe not the first book I would recommend on the events that led to the Nicene Creed’s writing but this is definitely the most exhaustive treatment of the matter I’ve ever read

[Zack Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant.
Trinitarian doctrine was codified as systematic expression of what the church has always believed from the Scriptures, according to how the church has always responded in worship. The necessity of fourth century systemization was occasioned by the appearance of novel heresies. Trinitarianism is basic to the church’s soteriology, eschatology, doxology, and all the other -ologies.
Christian doctrine is Trinitarian doctrine; Trinitarian doctrine is Christian doctrine.

[Evan Leister · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent review of thinking about these topics. Way more academic than my current interests allow but I'm very happy I read this.

[Noah Lykins · Rating 5 out of 5]

107 - “A helpful way to synthesize the argument… is to focus on the trinitarian-christological-anthropological nexus that forms the guiding motif of the work: only the One who is true Image can renew humanity's being according to the image (kat' eikona). The trinitarian ground of this nexus is the immediate relation (though we do not find the later technical vocabulary of "relation" in this treatise) whereby the Son is Image of the Father. The soteriological consequence of this immediacy is that the Son is uniquely able to grant direct and immediate access to the Father. The statement that humanity was created according to the Image is simultaneously anthropological and christological: to be created according to the Image is to be granted a participation in the one who is the true and full Image of the Father. When humanity lost its stability, which depended on remaining in the state of being according to the Image, the incarnate Word repaired the image of God in humanity by reuniting it with his own divine imaging of the Father. Jesus Christ is therefore both eternal divine Image and restored human image.”

128 - “Neither the council fathers of Nicaea nor Athanasius himself were working with any determinate technical sense of ousia or homoousios. Moreover, they were not attempting to signify the divine essence by directly invoking an objective referent, whether the being of God or some creaturely analogue. The meaning of homoousios thus resides not in its inherent capacity to invoke an objective referent on its own, but rather in its assigned function of regulating how scriptural language as a whole refers to God and Christ. To say this is not to deny that the doctrine, in thus regulating scriptural language, successfully refers to God. In Athanasius's understanding, such reference succeeds when the Nicene homoousios is understood to regulate the reference of the whole nexus of scriptural paradeigmata in the direction of the radical ontological correlativity of Father and Son.”

151 - “Moreover, the reflex to reduce a historical doctrinal position to a single primary insight or belief betrays a persistent disinclination to see the inherently systematic character of the Christian worldview that the trinitarian debates exemplified and developed. We should presuppose, rather, that any account of the Christian message would strive to present both God's character and the character of Christian salvation and Christ's role in it. Admittedly, that kind of coherence might often be lacking in particular cases. But when we do find connections between different doctrines in an individual theological position, it is more helpful, as a matter of principle, to note the intelligibility of these relations than to reduce the whole network of connections to one governing idea.”

166 - “Gregory's rejection of Eunomius's basic metaphysical presumptions that unity can only be monism and that difference denotes opposition thus refers concretely to scriptural language about God. The divine attributions are genuinely different and distinctly meaningful. They represent a coherent and harmonious complexity:
"The meaning of each of the terms attributed to the divine nature is such that, even though it has a distinct significance of its own, it implies no opposition to the term associated with it. What opposition is there, for instance, between 'incorporeal' and 'just, even though the words do not coincide in meaning; and what hostility is there between goodness and invisibility?" At the same time, Gregory is clear that the epistemological validity of the multiplicity of divine names does not consist in directly mirroring differentiation within the divine essence. The divine essence is itself simple, but its infinite depths and riches can only be grasped by human creatures through complex predication.”

205 - “Like the Father and the Son, the Spirit is perfect in his goodness and power, as well as other attributes of the divine nature, and so shares in the simplicity of the divine essence. Consequently, Gregory rejects as blasphemous Eunomius's conception of the Spirit as "subordinate" to Father and Son. If the Spirit's possession of goodness is not substantial and perfect, then he will be always in need of goodness and not the dispenser of goodness. In that case, the invocation of the Spirit in baptism could not effect the regeneration that comes from participation in divine goodness.”

212 - “But, of course, hypostasis-ousia language and other terms denoting unity and distinction did not make it possible to believe that God is triune nor even to concretely conceptualize that belief. They were simply a posteriori logical-linguistic maneuvers that followed upon the belief concerning Father, Son, and Spirit that each is fully God and together they are one God. Linguistic frameworks demarcating unity and distinction are not the inner shrine of the meaning of trinitarian doctrine but a set of logical regulators that safeguard the contents of that meaning. The proper signification of hypostasis-ousia and kindred language is not to be found in its references to abstract logical categories of unity and difference but in its connections with the scriptural, liturgical, and soteriological conceptions and performances of how Father, Son, and Spirit are each fully God and together one God.”

230 - “is not some inert object that can be passively spied on and encompassed by a creaturely knowing but an active subject who can only be encountered in relation to his own self-presencing. Given the definition of " the divine nature" as the " subject" (hypokeimenon) that underlies this active self-presencing, the claim to know the divine nature would amount to the claim that one can transcend or in some way go behind the effected self-presencing of God and reach to the very innermost cause of that effect.”

230 - “Gregory pointedly remarks that the transformation that comes from a willing reception of the grace of the sacrament is not only something interior and consisting of an exalted spiritual state but needs to be manifested and recognizable in social relations. The person who shows no outward signs of conversion and assimilation to the divine life has not appropriated the grace of the sacrament: "Those who are wronged, defrauded, and deprived of their property observe, for their part, no change when a man like this is baptized.. Make it clear who your Father is.” (Cat. or 40)”

285 - “Participation in the interrelations of Father, Son, and Spirit, is simultaneously the goal and the means of Christian sacramental life.”

290 - “A dominant strain in modern theology, going back to Melanchthon's famous dictum, "To know Christ is to know his benefits, tends to reduce the primacy of Christ to functional, soteriological categories. It has become a prevalent form of theological piety to reduce the "real meaning" of any theological system to its soteri-ology. However, it should give us pause that Nicene theology tended to be emphatic about restricting the christological pro nobis to Christ's humanity. To properly construe the primacy of Christ is not simply to know his benefits "for us" but to know his glory, for whose sake creation itself exists (cf. Col. 1:16). Retrieving the Nicene account of the primacy of Christ involves extending the range of soteriology into doxology. Of course, ultimately, even the glory of Christ is "for us" inasmuch as its content is a love that is freely shared with creation.”

[Matt Koser · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t know if I would have made it far into this book if it wasn’t assigned for a class…. With that being said (and despite only 3 stars) it was an incredible book!

It’s difficult to sum it up and the impact it had on me, but basically, the author 1) describes the systematic scope of the doctrine of the Trinity by looking at 3 theologians: Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine 2) he pushes for a retrieval of it—the Trinity isn’t just a pocket of Christian doctrine, it’s the foundation of doctrine.

I’m looking forward to diving deeper into this topic! Definitely recommend this book if you can muster up enough focus to make it through it!

Content: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Style: ⭐️⭐️
Understandability: ⭐️⭐️

[Joel Wentz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is, as others have noted, quite dense. I was expecting more of an historical overview, but this actually feels a bit more like a systematic theology. He dives deep into the weeds of theological concepts (Christology, homoousios, incarnation, etc.), and takes great pains to interpret the way certain church fathers understood and articulated these concepts as they were forging historic orthodoxy. Anotolios doesn't shy away from the deeper issues at stake, which is one of the great strengths of the book, but also may put it out of reach for many people who are not acquainted with the discussions of the 4th century.

That said, this is one of the richest texts when it comes to understanding Nicene theology! One of the strongest chapters in the book is his account of the debates that raged between theologians who proposed a "unity of will" between Christ and God, versus those who proposed a "unity of being." He helpfully explicates why exactly this distinction was so crucial, and how all parties derived their theology from scripture. This greatly nuances the way we currently grasp the thinking of someone like Arius, who has come to be known as an arch-heretic.

Much more could be said, but this is one of the most-helpful single volume works on patristic theology, and I give it the highest of recommendations with the caveat of the dense, philosophical style. John Behr's trilogy on the formation of Christian theology is easier to read, and may be a better starting point for the uninitiated, but this is outstanding stuff.

[Samuel G. Parkison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very dense. Very rewarding. Anatolios does the hard work of tracing the development of Nicene theology on Nicene's own (variegated) terms. The clear and balanced approach of these church fathers is incredibly refreshing. While reading this work, I most appreciated about their approach to theology (1) the functional humility that accompanies a clear Creator-distinction (and the epistemological implication that exhaustive knowledge of the Trinity is impossible for finite creatures, but true knowledge of the Trinity is possible for those made in the image of--and self-revealed to by--the Trinity), (2) the emphasis on receiving the revelation of the Trinity the way the Trinity self-reveals: Triune mission (i.e., we know anything we know about the nature of the Trinity by virtue of the Triune God acting to create, speak, incarnate, fill, save, etc. We know who God is because of what God says and does, not because we can have direct access to "godness" and can render a judgment about whether or not God fits such a criteria), and (3) the intermingling of Trinitarianism, Christology, soteriology, pneumetology, and eschetology (i.e., we know God to be Triune because of the mediation--soteriological AND epistemological--of the incarnate Son, who incarnated by the Spirit in order to unite himself to fallen mankind, redeem him, and adopt him into Triune love through the Spirit).

Much more can be said, but these points alone are fodder for everlasting meditation.

[Chris Little · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is quite a book, even though I am certain my comprehension of it is far from complete. In other words: be ready for technical detail and argument.

My summary of the aim of Retrieving Nicaea is that Anatolios wants his readers to engage with fourth century Trinitarian theological grammar, rather than to memorise theological terminology. The why of the orthodox position (ontological unity between divine persons Father, Son, and Spirit) is his interest.

To get there, he starts with an overview before diving into three deeper specific studies: Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine. The overview itself is amazingly helpful. This overview divides the approaches to divine unity into two: unity of will (such as Arius), and unity of being (the Nicaean position). Both start with the supremacy of Christ but take different paths to express this, with major consequences. I am sure the three detailed studies also will continue to be influential amongst serious researchers, too - you know, those who understand all Anatolios says!

Read slowly, because that seems to only way to understand it. But do read it as part of developing a better understanding of the history and interpretation of Trinitiarian theology.

[G Sutherland · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction to the Trinitarian theology of the Fathers, primarily through the perspectives of Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine. One of the merits of this work is Anatolios' careful attention to the wider biblical and theological domains within which these thinkers developed their understanding of the Trinity, including in his account the connection of Trinitarian theology to their anthropological and soteriological questions.

[Andrew Talbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books on the Trinity in two decades. He outlines the thought of Gregory, Athanasius, and Augustine and discusses trinitarian theology along the lines of unity of being and unity of will. He reminds readers that the trinitarian doctrine was a matter of salvation, not peripheral speculation.

[Ben Smitthimedhin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense but worthwhile. Book is well-written and systematized enough to be sensible. It took me over halfway through the book to understand what Anatolios was doing, but it was the concluding chapter, clearly stating the implications/practicalities of Trinitarian doctrine, that won me over.

[Emily Yoder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good, very helpful, very thorough book (despite some tendency to write in circles). Also if hypothetically you are trying to condense the whole book into a 20-page double-spaced summary for a class assignment, you will have a hard time

[Lukas Stock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Challenging read. Convincing nuancing and tracing of organic trajectories in the tradition of Trinitarian theology rather than convenient but artificial categories placed upon texts in retrospect.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good. Also really hard to read. But some of that is bc it is really good

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an excellent book with well-researched content, but the language was too elevated for my tastes even though I'm used to reading academic texts. Despite that, it was worth the effort.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing work that is neither purely historical nor purely systematic theology, just be warned: it is the opposite of what one would call an accessible text.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

persuasively powerful

Read this book an eye opener I found out how little I knew about the Trinity Should be required reading for all preachers

[Amy Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anatolios's aim is to bring the historical theological and systematic into conversation. This involves a "retrieval" that leaps right over the oft assumed boundary of "what it meant then" and "what it means now." He focuses on two principles that he argues are fundamental to the historical development of trinitarian doctrine and that make it particularly coincident with systematic concerns: the primacy of Christ, as it applies to the whole Christian narrative, but especially with regard to divine transcendence, and, secondly, a theological epistemology that makes no claim to comprehend the being of God but at the same time functions to relate our being and our knowing in relationship to God. Anatolios offers both a survey of modern reception of trinitarian doctrine and a historical survey to ground more a more detailed consideration of the early Christian debates.

A key strength of Anatolios's work is the way he deals with the question of how the all of the nuance and fracturing that occurred in this intra-conversation (all claimed to be "trinitarian") eventually boiled down to the "Arians" versus the "Orthodox." This, of course, was largely due to our reading of later Athanasius and others who would cast the debate in this way. This was not just a bout of name-calling, however. Anatolios proposes two categories, those who spoke of the Trinity as a unity of will and those who spoke of the Trinity as a unity of being. These distinctions are not hard and fast and there are certainly those who synthesize the two. The categories work and it sets Anatolios up well for the core of his work on Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine. Set against the historical backdrop and a larger narrative demarcated by these paradigms of unity, the retrieval of the focus on the primacy of Christ and theological epistemology succeeds in complicating the received categories of Nicaea and demonstrating its relevance for current systematic considerations.

[G Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very helpful book. Worth reading (and studying). Shows how vitally important a proper Christology is in developing an "orthodox" Trinitarianism... and why the perichoretic relationships DO indeed matter. Handles Athanasius quite well as he does Gregory of Nyssa. He is also fair with Augustine too, though I perhaps would be more critical of his understanding of the Trinity. Wish he would have engaged the other two Capadocians, but I understand that this would have make a much larger, denser and possibly more confusing work. All in all, very accessible though - at least to the discerning and persistent laymen... good too for students of formal and historical theology too. Quite a helpful volume overall... really. Serves as a much needed gap filler on the subject at least in English and in he West. Worthy of supplementing this volume would be John Behr's works on the subject (The Way to Nicea and the set _The Nicene Faith_) See my notes on Behr elsewhere. Also worth reading would be Ayers, Chadwick, Hanson, Louth and last but not least Young and Teal.

[Michael Philliber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent piece on three major theological giants from the earlier years of Christianity.

[Adam DeVille, Ph.D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deeply learned, carefully written work by one of the leading patrologists of our time. It's not for the uninitiated, but if you have patience with it, it pays rich dividends.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important contribution to the understanding, development, and recovery of classical Nicene theology. Requires a long-term commitment unless you're a speed-reader.