In This Name: the Doctrine of the Trinity in Contemporary Theology by Claude Welch (review)

582 BOOK REVIEWS accuracy but with a poet's verve, allowing his prose to catch the full sweep and fire of a thesis which set in the language of the schools could have been impressive but unimaginably dull. He did not present a paper at the star-studded Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion but each chapter of his little book is immeasurably more significant than anything that appears in Freedom and Authority. Christian Liberty is, indeed. a penetrating, though unintentional, commentary on that recent symposium of modern thought, for it draws the elaborate hypotheses and syntheses of Freedom and Authority into the clear upper air where supernatural wisdom is allowed to illumine reality. It gives witness to the fact that there is truly an "imbalance," a tension, in human affairs, a te.11sion heightened by the almost fanatical resistance of nature to supernature. "We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God . . . even unto now." There is a dialectic in history, too, the dialectic of the Cross, reconcilians ima summis. DoMINIC RovER, O.P. 1'ale University New Haven, Conn. In This Name: the Doctrine of the Trinity in Contemporary Theology. By CLAUDE WELCH. New York: Scribner, 1952. Pp. 326 with index. $3.50. The author, professor of theology in Yale Divinity School, in his preface calls attention to the fact that the doctrine of the Trinity, after a long period of neglect in Liberal Protestant theological circles, is once again coming to the forefront of discussion. Consequently he feels it opportune to " bring together into a single focus the widely divergent lines of thought represented in the contemporary theological scene." Beginning with a sketch of Protestant nineteenth and early twentiethcentury theology on the Trinity, the author proceeds to expose and criticize the Trinitarian views of a large and representative number of modern Protestant theologians, ranging from those who reject or who at least doubt the importance of the doctrine, like Baillie, McGift'ert, Macintosh, Tennant, etc., to those who accord it an important role in their theological system, e. g. Hodgson, Lowry, Brunner, Thornton, Barth, etc. Since, of the latter group, Barth is pre-eminent in his desire to re-instate the Trinity at the apex of the Christian system and relate all other doctrines to this central belief, the lion's share of the discussion deservedly centers about him. In addition, Dr. Welch devotes a few pages to the Trinitarianism of Protestant Fundamentalists, with which he couples (not entirely unjustly) the Trinitarianism of the Catholic Church. BOOK REVIEWS The book, however, is not merely reportorial. The extensive discussion and criticism of contemporary Trinitarianism are actually an introduction to the author's own lengthy attempt at a " systematic reformulation " and " reconstruction " of the dogma. Nicene theologians will scarcely applaud the result. None of them, be he Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant, could read Dr. Welch's solution without considering it a startlingly unsystematic destruction of the dogma. Indeed, Dr. Welch, in my judgment, can claim the distinction (rare by now) of having formulated a new Trinitarian heresy, since he teaches that God is one divine person in three eternally (and therefore, presumably, really) distinct modes of existence. Neque confundentes personas, neque substantiam separantes: the ancient heresiarchs were content to disobey either one or the other member of this injunction; Dr. Welch manages simultaneously to disavow them both. He feels compelled to cease believing that there are three persons in God becauf