Date of Award

8-2008

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Department

Seminary

Abstract

To fulfill its missional imperative, the 21st Century, Western Church must engage a postmodem culture. To facilitate such engagement the following manuscript will relate Trinitarian theology to postmodem philosophy by using a Trinitarian grammar known as multiperspectivalism. In particular, multiperspectivalism will be used to integrate Trinitarian theology with the three loci of postmodem philosophy: non-foundational epistemology, socially constructive linguistics, and holistic relational ontology. As these various loci imply, postmodemism is characterized by a movement toward relationality in epistemology, linguistics, and ontology. It is precisely this emphasis on relationality that produces the resonance between postmodem philosophy and Trinitarian theology.

After outlining this integrative approach in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 will provide an extended discussion of the Biblical basis and historical development of Trinitarian theology. Chapter 3 will then introduce the Trinitarian grammar known as multiperspectivalism. According to multiperspectivalism, the divine perichoresis gives rise to a perichoretic interplay of three philosophical perspectives: existential perspective (subject); situational perspective (object), and normative perspective (law). Since these three perspectives continually arise within the diverse contexts of epistemology, linguistics, and ontology, multiperspectivalism emerges as a Trinitarian grammar capable of analyzing and synthesizing philosophical problems in tenns of a structured threeness of subjectivity, objectivity, and nonnativity. Through the use of this grammar, Trinitarian theology will first be explicated for each of the philosophical loci in Chapters 4-6 (analysis), and then the loci themselves will be arranged within a multiperspectival framework in Chapter 7 to yield a triad of triads (synthesis). The result will be a postmodem Trinitarian philosophy that relates the heart of Christian theology to the heart of postmodemity, thereby achieving an inter-contextualization.

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