PARTICIPATIO
KIERKEGAARD AND THE TRINITARIAN GRAMMAR OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
Murray Rae, PhD Professor of Theology and Religion, University of Otago murray.rae@otago.ac.nz
Abstract: Although the writings of Søren Kierkegaard contain few explicit references to the Trinity and no discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity as such, his writings are profoundly dependent nevertheless on an orthodox Christian understanding of the triune nature of God. That is especially evident in his account of how we are brought into relationship with God, and is made explicit in the form of his prayers which are often addressed to Father, Son and Spirit.
Thomas F. Torrance, whose theological concerns this journal seeks to advance, was a trinitarian theologian. He was utterly committed to speaking of God only as the communion of persons, Father, Son and Spirit, because this is who God has revealed himself to be in Jesus Christ. To speak otherwise of God is to place at risk the church’s confession that the God who is the Creator of all things has made himself known, has acted in Christ and through the Spirit to reconcile the world to himself, and calls us to live in faithful covenant relationship with him. “The doctrine of the Trinity,” Torrance writes, “gives expression to the fact that through his selfrevelation in the incarnation God has opened himself to us in such a way that we may know him in the inner relations of his divine Being and have communion with
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