Triune Well-Being - by Jacqueline Service (Hardcover)

About the Book

Synthesizing trajectories across Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant theologies, Service explores the constitutive factors for an ontology of Triune well-being. Not merely of theoretical interest, the book presses a new trinitarian theology of 'kenotic-enrichment' as essential, ...

Book Synopsis

That God is the perfection of all-blessed abundance, and the source and context for creation's well-being, tends merely to be assumed in theology. Yet, how does God enact all-blessedness and actualize God's own abundantly enriched life? And how might such a reality be relevant to human well-being? Addressing these questions in Triune Well-Being: The Kenotic-Enrichment of the Eternal Trinity, Jacqueline Service traces the dynamics of Divine well-being through Scripture, Christian metaphysics, and a synthesis of Orthodox (Bulgakov), Catholic (Von Balthasar), and Protestant (Pannenberg) Trinitarian theologies to argue that God's "all-blessed" life, the glory of well-being, is symbiotic with triune self-giving (kenosis); a concept identified as "kenotic-enrichment" or "enriching-kenosis." Such a trinitarian exploration not only offers a fresh perspective on the contested topic of kenosis but goes to the heart of a doctrine of God that implicates the possibility of the well-being of all life.

Review Quotes

Carrying out a remarkable thought project with remarkable thoroughness, Service undertakes to confess God's all-blessedness as a reality that is dynamic and perichoretic. She proposes a novel category, divine self-enrichment, and then gladly accepts the challenging task of expounding this new proposal entirely within the classical guidelines of aseity, simplicity, perfection, fullness, and immutability. The result is real progress toward an important goal.

Jacqueline Service has taken a term--Self-Enrichment--that carries the scent of modernist narcissism and self-indulgence and reformulated it to do stunning work in thinking the triune life of God and our participation in that life. Service weaves a glorious vision of enrichment through several theologians and offers us a beautiful portrait of life guided by God's own project of flourishing in and with the creation. This is a wonderful piece of theological reflection.

Jacqueline Service offers a scholarly and innovative account of the dynamics of the trinitarian doctrine of God. At its heart is the notion of divine enrichment as a basis for the well-being and development of human life. The reader is offered a compelling and radical vision of divine kenosis as the way of fullness and perfection of God's life. Service breaks new ground in this original and carefully researched inquiry into the doctrine of God.

Through the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, Christian theology claims that creation is gift. Whilst observing the protocols of classical Christian teaching concerning God's simplicity and aseity, Jacqueline Service extends the theme of gift and receipt to a Trinitarian theology of God's eternal and dynamic self-enrichment. This is a profound meditation with significant implications for human self-understanding and well-being.

Within the strictures of classical theism, here is a carefully argued systematic ontology of divine self-enjoyment. It is a deep dive into the inner life of God discussed as perichoresis. The offering is a theory of God's self-enjoyment through the giving and receiving of the divine nature among the three trinitarian persons that encourage, uphold, and sustain each other. Many more riches await the trained reader. She does not stir trinitarian waters but sails on a calm lake with new sails hoisted high.

About the Author

Jacqueline Service is lecturer of systematic theology at St Mark's National Theological Centre and Associate Head of School in the School of Theology at Charles Sturt University, Australia.