Ladies and Gentlemen: My Thesis.

I have (finally) completed my Thesis.  I completed a double Masters' program (M.Div. Theological Studies, Th.M. Historical Theology) which allows one "giant" thesis to be written to cover both graduate degrees, rather than two smaller papers.  If you are interested in reading it, here it is: A Forgetfulness, Which Appears as Memory: The Invention of 'Classical Theism', The De Regnón Paradigm, and the Place of Augustine in Contemporary Trinitarian Historiography

The Abstract runs as follows:

Synopses of the decline and reascension of Trinitarian theology abound, but their prevalence is often only matched by their superficiality.  In this paper I argue that historiographical "readings" of Trinitarian theological history are not extrinsic to many contemporary Trinitarian projects, but often ballast and serve as implicit or explicit justification for constructive moves made.  Following recent research (sometimes called "Third Wave" Trinitarianism) a question must be asked: if traditional interpretations of figures like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas are faulty in certain respects, just how did these readings become plausible?  As a response I argue that certain shifts in traditional terminology in post-nominalist lines of Augustinian and Thomistic tradition are being improperly "read-back" into the Bishop of Hippo Regius, and the Angelic Doctor themselves, producing the caricatured portraits of them so routinely lambasted in contemporary Trinitarianism.  I argue in addition that if these histories of the Trinity's decline turn out to be deficient, the concomitant constructive moves in theology predicated on overcoming categories like "Western Trinitarianism," "Classical Theism," "Substance metaphysics," "Psychological analogies," (etc. ...) likewise become suspect precisely to the degree they want to sharply distinguish themselves from these caricatured aspects of the tradition. 

Why this paper?  For what its worth this paper in many ways tells the story of my extended stay in seminary.  In my undergrad, as with many classmates (and oh so-many others), I became swiftly enamored with the so-called "Renaissance" in Trinitarian theology.  I attempted to read everything I could get my hands on--all the major names: Barth, Moltmann, Rahner, Jüngel, Pannenberg, Boff, Volf, LaCugna, Zizioulas, Gunton, Jenson, Torrance, etc. ...

One of the curious features of these works that has (until recently) received little comment--but one that I immensely enjoyed--was the historiographical readings of the tradition regarding the logic, development, and ultimate decline (and so 20th century reascension) of Trinitarian theology.  These histories were not merely the display of antiques, for the slaking of historical curiosity or the display of learning.  Rather these histories were integral to the move made in the later, constructive movements of the given project.  I loved the historical aspects--watching as LaCugna demonstrated how Nicene and post-Nicene Christianity severed theologia and oikonomia, as Jüngel demonstrated how God exploded under the philosophical weight of the doctrine of Simplicity in the modern era, how Rahner pointed to Aquinas' separation of the treatises On the One God and On the Triune God, how Moltmann displayed the increasing lack of centrality that the cross of Christ played, how it evaded its interpreters...

In reading these works, and others, one got the sense that they absorbed much of the historical tradition--the Fathers, the Medievalists, the Reformers--by proxy.  I was soon disabused of this notion.

The first class I took after undergrad in my first year of the M.Div. program was "Patristic Theology" taught by Dr. Jon Robertson, who attained his Ph.D. in Patristics at Oxford under the watchful eye of Thomas Weinandy (with the interaction of several notable classmates, incidentally, which included Khaled Anatolios, Luigi Gioia, and Morwenna Ludlow who have also been quite influential on me).  My first paper was on the notion of the "Immanent Trinity" in Latin pro-Nicene tradition (so Lactantius, Novatian, Tertullian ... ).  Many of the tropes (as Lewis Ayres puts it) of 20th century trinitarianism fed my paper: LaCugna's disparagement of Nicene and post-Nicene tradition, Zizioulas and Gunton's thesis of Augustine's Trinitarian anemia, and on and on.

I got absolutely shredded with red ink.

"I see you have read a lot.  You should probably take the same time to read the early Christians on their own terms."

Yikes.

Those words, which now read much more playful than they originally did, now that I have come to know Dr. Robertson over the years, set me, for what its worth, on my present course: many of the criticisms, and indeed, the ressourcement, of the Father's, labor under caricature.  Given that none of the modern authors I cited above are stupid (indeed: they are all geniuses): what on earth happened to make these caricatured readings plausible?  And indeed, since it seemed the historical narrations of the tradition were not extrinsic to the concerns of the systematic-constructive nature of the various contemporary projects, just what happens when these histories that seem to ballast certain conclusion were shown to be false?

I was lucky enough that Dr. Robertson, and my own classmate Patrick, shared my consternation of the disconnect between modern Systematic Theologians and the historical tradition they presumed to comment upon.  We were, inchoately, participating in what Sarah Coakley has broadly named Third Wave Trinitarianism.  They thus patiently engaged and aided me in what became my obsessive (though possibly unanswerable) quest to find just what exactly had occurred to explain such a disconnect.  There were many myths standing between us and the Fathers.

I may not have found a satisfactory answer.  But my thesis was the first great attempt I could muster.