The Trinity: An Introduction to Catholic Doctrine on the Triune God by Gilles Emery, O.P. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 319 language of fatherhood as the foundational mode of priestly charity and care seems to avoid the whole spiritual significance of the decisively revealed fatherhood of God. Badly enacted vertical hierarchy is not best addressed by supplanting it with another mode of relation. This requires a much more detailed discussion than is possible here. Husbands are indeed more than a “needed accessory” to childbearing (89). Fatherhood is poorly appreciated, and badly in need of support and renewal. A crisis in the male vocation always goes hand in hand with a crisis in the female vocation. Several authors in this volume appeal to language, when convenient, of an older feminism: “The prevailing (largely male) attitude that productive work is incompatible with pregnancy, childbirth, and attentive nurturing” (19); the “unkempt contours of female fertility must be scoured away by a masculine, mechanizing ideology” (110); “women and girls internalize the war against their bodies by accepting the dominant, masculine utilitarian calculus as determining their value” (107). Catholic writers and feminists seem to have common ground in this language. But while Scripture sees a clear evidence of sin in the tendency of man to dominate woman, we should be wary of Marxist paradigms of class warfare between the sexes. These essays are most effective when they speak with clear argument, sound statistics, and clear pastoral concern for the well-being of women and families. This volume is a welcome contribution to an important and timely conversation precisely when it speaks with such a voice. PAIGE HOCHSCHILD Mount Saint Mary’s University Emmitsburg, Maryland The Trinity: An Introduction to Catholic Doctrine on the Triune God. By GILLES EMERY, O.P. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011. Pp. 248. $24.95 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8132-1864-9. Gilles Emery, O.P., has authored an excellent introduction to the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity. At the very outset, Emery establishes the foundational Catholic principle of his book: “Trinitarian faith is distinct from experiences that begin by observing nature, or studying cultural phenomena, or that start from argument or human introspection. It rests exclusively on the gift that God makes when he enables believers to know him in faith” (1). Emery writes in a clear and lucid style, such that undergraduates would find his book enjoyable to read. Even though it is an introduction it is not simply the retelling of an oft-told tale, rather it is imaginative, insightful, and nuanced. What makes for this study’s freshness is Emery’s masterful and creative weaving together of Sacred Scripture, the Fathers of the Church (both Eastern and Western), the liturgy, The Catechism of BOOK REVIEWS 320 the Catholic Church, and, obviously, Thomas Aquinas. Because of all of the above, Emery’s treatment of the doctrine of the Trinity enhances the reader’s understanding of the Trinity and so strengthens and deepens his or her faith. Emery’s book is divided into six chapters. In the first chapter he delineates how the liturgy and Scripture give access to the Trinitarian faith. In so doing this chapter establishes the revelational basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. The second chapter examines more thoroughly the manner in which the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit reveal themselves and how the scriptural testimony speaks both of their unity/equality and distinctiveness. This is a marvelous chapter, for Emery clearly demonstrates that the later doctrinal development of the Trinity is thoroughly founded upon and springs from biblical revelation. The doctrine of the Trinity is not foreign to the scriptural text, but something to which the scriptural text gives birth. Chapter 3 studies the confessions of Trinitarian faith, beginning with the New Testament and ending with the Creed of Nicea and Constantinople. While Emery is known as an excellent Thomist, in this chapter he manifests his thorough grasp of the Fathers from both the East and the West. With ease he intertwines insights from Irenaeus,the Cappadocians, Athanasius, Ambrose, and Augustine. Moreover, his theological commentary on the Creed of Nicea and Constantinople is not only articulate but eloquent. Undergraduate students, especially, will come to grasp, from Emery’s presentation, the theological importance and doctrinal significance...