Systematic Theology (2 vols.)

by Katherine Sonderegger

Publisher:

Fortress Press

, 2015–2020

Overview

The mystery of Almighty God is most properly an explication of the oneness of God, tying the faith of the church to the bedrock of Israel’s confession of the lord of the covenant, the lord of our Lord Jesus Christ. The doctrine of divine attributes, then, is set out as a reflection on Holy Scripture: the One God as omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient, and all these as expressions of the Love who is God. Systematic theology must make bold claims about its knowledge and service of this One lord: the Invisible God must be seen and known in the visible. In this way, God and God’s relation to creation are distinguished—but not separated—from Christology, the doctrine of perfections from redemption. The lord God will be seen as compatible with creatures, and the divine perfections express formally distinct and unique relations to the world.

This systematic theology, then, begins from the treatise De Deo Uno and develops the dogma of the Trinity as an expression of divine unicity, on which will depend creation, Christology, and ecclesiology. In the end, the transcendent beauty who is God can be known only in worship and praise.

Katherine Sonderegger follows her monumental volume on the doctrine of God with this second entry of her Systematic Theology, which explores the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Locating her analysis first in the Hebrew Scriptures, Sonderegger examines the thrice-holy God that is proclaimed to Isaiah in the sanctuary and manifested in the sacrifice of the temple. The book of Leviticus, read in conversation with Exodus, unfolds the doctrine of the Trinity under the character of holiness. In the One God, Trinity speaks of the life, movement, and self-offering of God, who is the eternal procession of goodness and light. In Israel’s sacrificial covenant, the Triune God is perfect self-offering: the eternal descent of the Father of Lights is the offering who is Son, eternally received and hallowed in the one who is Spirit. Anchoring the theology of the Trinity in Israel's Scriptures in this way elevates the processions over the persons, exploring the mystery of the Divine Life as holy, rational, and good. The Divine Persons, named in the New Testament, cannot be defined but may be glimpsed in the notion of perfection, a complete and perfect infinite set. In all these ways, the Holy Trinity may be praised as the deep reality of the life of God.

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Key Features

• Addresses the traditional systematic questions about the doctrine of God
• Explores the doctrine of the Holy Trinity beginning with the Hebrew Scriptures
• Covers themes including sacrifice, holiness, and the temple
• Investigates the attributes of the Triune God as seen in Scripture

Praise for Systematic Theology

“Katherine Sonderegger continues to believe in and trust the intellectual coherence of Christian doctrine in its deepest claims. Here she continues her daring work of rethinking the mystery of the Trinity and shows us how to go about a fresh articulation of that claim. While she is intimate with Thomas, Barth, and Tillich, she does her own hard work and invites the reader to join her in that hard work. She upholds the deep claims of that doctrine and shows how they matter to the practice of the church. She refuses both the dumbed-down casualness of domesticated faith and reductionist confessionalism that is easy and safe. Her book is a welcome witness for confident faith that has no interest in accommodation to the whims of the day. Her book will have a durable life in the company of the great thinkers of the church; it will also give courage in a time when the gospel is so urgently required and so easily distorted. Much thanks to her!

—Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Seminary

Katherine Sonderegger’s magnificent second volume of systematics on the doctrine of the Trinity marches against all current theological fashion and provides an impenitent defense both of the fundamental unity of God (as witnessed throughout the Scriptures) and of the church’s necessary speculation about God’s eternal Trinitarian ‘processions’ and ‘persons.’ This will offend not only the ‘social Trinitarians’ who have dominated the theological scene for some decades but also those who now deny, in riposte, that we can say anything at all about God’s ontological makeup. This is a bold and exhilarating text—poetic, profound, and richly demanding spiritually.

—Sarah Coakley, Cambridge University

Katherine Sonderegger is one of the freshest and most distinctive voices in contemporary systematic theology, bringing together Scripture and Trinitarian dogmatics in unpredictable ways. She is learned, robust, lyrical, challenging. Her writing not only stimulates the mind, it also stirs the spirit and touches the heart.

—Walter Moberly, Durham University