he says i'm a crack head

so...here's the thing. i like the idea of school, but the reality of writing finals is not nearly so fun. i'm just getting going on a paper about the social trinitarian doctrine of jurgen moltmann. i don't know if its because i have to read him in translation (from german), or if he really is just heideggarian-like in his writing, but sheesh! i mean, i tell myself just to read the page, and it all goes haywire.

let me be more productive. his project is to think about how the trinity can be relevent to christians. so...he wants to think about the persons of the trinity as model of human relationality and communion (koinonia). he argues that our monotheism is modeled on monarchy and then when augustine started with the unity of god and moved to the trinity of god, he got us in the west off on the wrong foot. now, that is an argument imbeddd in the 19th century d'regnon paradigm that, unbeknownst and unintended by d'regnon, kind of maligns the West and the East, drawing too thick of lines. but, augustine does start from unitiy and argue to three. moltmann thinks that inevitably limits the human capacity for threeness. so, he wants to assert what he sees as the Eastern way of thinking and argue from threeness to unity. in this thinking, then, humans are challenged to community in modeling divine unity.

he reads the new testament as the history of jesus and the holy spirit as active in the world. the three of them enact love in the world. and it seems like part of moltmann's argument is that if love is in the world via the trinity, then humans have the tools necessary to enact this.

that seems very nice. but would gregory of nyssa or augustine even recognize what he writes as the trinity? maybe not. but who cares? well, sarah coakley does.

okay. clearly, more thinking is necessary. more later. k.