Abstract

Is language about God meaningful? Is it true? These questions are qualified by Christians in terms of the tradition of trinitarian worship and doctrine. Is trinitarian language meaningful? Is it true? According to this tradition, "God is three divine Persons in one divine substance." What does it mean for Christians to claim that this sentence is "meaningful" and "true"? How do Christians use the concepts embedded in this sentence to live and die toward God? Is this language still useful in liturgy, doctrine, and theology today? How is it related to biblical language and the language of worship? Should it be retired in favor of alternatives proposed by Barth, Macquarrie, Jenson, and Ricoeur? Chapter I states the problems and alternatives for trinitarian language today beginning with O'Leary's deconstruction of the doctrine. ;The inquiry then approaches these issues from three methodological alternatives. Chapter II explains and criticizes the liturgical turn in contemporary theology as it bears upon trinitarian worship and language, focussing on the works of Wainwright, Hardy, Ford, and Jennings. Chapter III explores doctrine as the grammar of faith's language. It explains and criticizes the cultural-linguistic turn in postliberal theology taken by Lindbeck, especially as it relates to his rule theory of doctrine and "a performative-propositional theological theory of religious truth." The conceptual and anthropological background beliefs of cultural-linguisticism are explored in the writings of the later Wittgenstein. Chapter IV explores Ricoeur's philosophy as a rhetoric for the language of faith and theology. It develops his hermeneutic-phenomenological turn toward the polyphony of biblical language and his theory of doctrine as conceptual discourse. Chapter V is a case study in theological dialectic. It brings the postliberal theology of Frei and the cultural-linguistic philosophy of Stout into critical conversation with the hermeneutical-political theology of Ricoeur. ;Chapter VI summarizes the outcome of this conversation and its implications for the future of trinitarian doctrine. The traditional language of divine Persons and substance is found to be meaningful and true, yet surpassable. The concepts remain useful today in lieu of winsome alternatives, yet require explication to eliminate misunderstanding