The Trinity

13 Mar, 2014 230 Christianity

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Trinity. The idea that God is a single entity, but one known in three distinct forms - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - has been a central belief for most Christians since the earliest years of the religion. The doctrine was often controversial in the early years of the Church, until clarified by the Council of Nicaea in the late 4th century. Later thinkers including St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas recognised that this religious mystery posed profound theological questions, such as whether the three persons of the Trinity always acted together, and whether they were of equal status. The Trinity’s influence on Christian thought and practice is considerable, although it is interpreted in different ways by different Christian traditions.

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Guests

  • Janet Soskice 4 episodes
    Professor of Philosophical Theology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Jesus College
  • Martin Palmer 22 episodes
    Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education, and Culture
  • The Reverend Graham Ward No other episodes
    Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford and a Canon of Christ Church

Reading list

  • The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies
    Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter (eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2010) Google Books →
  • Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology
    Lewis Ayres (Oxford University Press, 2006) Google Books →
  • The Way to Nicaea: Formation of Christian Theology Vol 1
    John Behre (St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2001) Google Books →
  • The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity
    Gilles Emery and Matthew Levering (eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2011)
  • The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology
    Susan Frank Parsons (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2002) Google Books →
  • The Complete English Poems
    George Herbert (Penguin Classics, 2004) Google Books →
  • Revelations of Divine Love
    Julian of Norwich (Penguin Classics, 1998) Google Books →
  • Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe
    Ben Quash and Michael Ward (eds.) (SPCK, 2007) Google Books →
  • Hymn of the Universe
    Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (HarperPerennial, 1976) Google Books →
  • After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity
    Miroslav Volf (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1998) Google Books →
  • Christ and Culture
    Graham Ward (Wiley-Blackwell, 2005) Google Books →

Related episodes

Programme ID: b03xgl3m

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03xgl3m

Auto-category: 230 (Christianity)

Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello. One of the beliefs that sets Christianity apart from all other faiths is known as the doctrine of the Trinity.