While reading the book Encountering Jesus--Encountering Judaism I came across a dialog between Lapide (Jewish) and Rahner (Catholic) on the doctrine of the Trinity. Two very respected scholars and theologians. The following are quotes from the chapter "Three Gods or a Triune God?"
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| Pinchas Lapide |
Lapide, "it rightly says in the Bible, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," for it concerns three various experiences of God..." pg. 31
Rahner, "as if we could know and explain anything about the inner life of God. God does not communicate his inner life to us through mere speech in sentences, but rather through his authentic turning to us in grace and incarnation." pg. 32
Lapide, "What must confuse many Jews is the abandoning of the letter "u" by the dogmaticians. In the early church fathers it was still called triunitas, whereby the unity is placed in the foreground. Trinity, on the other hand, purely speaking, sounds like tri-theism or even like a heavenly triumvirate." pg. 32, 33
Rahner, "the word person, when applied to the Trinity, gives rise today to almost insurmountable misunderstandings that are not at all contained in the actual dogmatic formulation...one cannot speak dogmatically of three various persons in the Trinity in the modern sense of "person," that is, of a single, unique center of free action...unfortunately very many people today understand the doctrine of the three divine persons in the sense of a modern concept of person and then they are tri-theists, even if they don't want to be." pg. 34
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| Karl Rahner |
Rahner, "I have proposed to speak of three modes of subsistence in the doctrine of the Trinity..." pg. 35
Lapide, "would it not be simpler to remain for the present with the three various dimensions of the experience of God that characterize the faith of our patriarchs?" pg. 35
Rahner, "there are three most fundamental experiences of the one God: Father, Son (Word), Holy Spirit...this one and the same God is in himself threefold...therefore the economic Trinity and the immanent Trinity are the same for me." pg. 35
Lapide, "The prophets warn us repeatedly about the manufacturing of images of God: "To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?" (Is. 40:18) It often appears almost as if Wittgenstein was right when he said, that about which we do not know, we should keep silent." pg. 36
Rahner, "No, I am not in agreement with Wittgenstein. Christian theology is simply speech about the incomprehensible God, about which one must speak..." pg. 36
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