“YOU HAVE REVEALED YOUR GLORY”
THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY

The 2012 Pluscarden Pentecost Lectures – given by Professor Lewis Ayres,
Bede Professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Durham

29th – 31st May 2012 at Pluscarden Abbey

1. Tuesday 29th May at 2.45 pm
Seeing Glory: the Mystery Revealed

2. Wednesday 30th May at 10.15 am
The Spirit of Him who Raised Jesus: Naming the Divine Three

3. Wednesday 30th May at 2.45 pm
The True Sacrifice: Salvation in Trinitarian Perspective

4. Thursday 31st May at 10.15 am
”By the Word of the Lord”

Each year the Abbot and Community of Pluscarden Abbey sponsor a series of four lectures by an invited Theologian on an aspect of Catholic Theology. Previous Lecturers have included Professor John Haldane, Fr Aidan Nichols OP, Fr Thomas Weinandy OFM Cap, Fr Anthony Meredith SJ, Fr Paul McPartlan and Fr Tom Herbst OFM. The Lectures are held on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday after Pentecost in St Scholastica’s Retreat House at the Abbey. They are open to all who wish to attend and are free. Limited accommodation is available at the Abbey and those who wish to stay should book as soon as possible. There are also many places to stay in the Elgin area: contact the local tourist office: 01343 542666.

 

The Lecturer

Lewis Ayres is Bede Professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Durham.  He studied Classics at St. Andrews and Theology at Oxford.  He is a specialist in early Christian theology and especially the theology of the Trinity.  He taught in Ireland and in the US until 2009.  He has published a number of books, most recently Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge, 2010), and is currently writing a book on early Christian exegesis and its modern re-appropriation, as well as co-editing with his wife Medi Ann Volpe The Oxford Handbook to Catholic Theology.

The core of his research has been Trinitarian theology in Augustine and in the Greek writers of the fourth century. On this theme he has published a number of articles. Other publications include: Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford, 2004/6); Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, co-edited with Andrew Louth & Frances Young (Cambridge 2004); The Mystery of the Holy Trinity in the Fathers of the Church, co-edited with Vincent Twomey (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007).

 

The Lectures: “You Have Revealed Your Glory”: The Mystery of the Trinity

Introduction

Christianity offers a Trinitarian vision of the world created and redeemed.  To live as a Christian is to live a life that is and is being incorporated into the divine life of the Trinity.   Yet the doctrine of the Trinity is often also taken to be a complex abstraction of concern only to those with too much time on their hands.  In many parishes it is the subject of only one (often confused and confusing) sermon a year!  In these lectures I will offer four meditations on Biblical texts that draw us toward the heart of the Trinitarian mystery.

My goal is to offer an introduction to the theology of the Trinity that shows how deeply it shapes the most basic formulae of Christian belief and understanding of our sacramental life.  It is, I hope, particularly appropriate to reflect on these themes in what is, in some senses, the high point of the Church’s year.  From Holy Week and Easter, through to Pentecost and then the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, the Church’s liturgical texts constantly remind us that we are redeemed by the Father who works always through Son and Spirit. I hope, then to do little more than draw out what should be constantly before our eyes!

Lecture 1: Seeing Glory: The Mystery Revealed

The first lecture focuses initially on John 1 and explores the manner in which the Word becoming (visible) flesh revealed God, and yet revealed God as mysterious.  I will also use John 14 to explore what it means to speak of us seeing God “in faith”.  The dynamic of a mystery that is made visible without ceasing to be mystery provides the point of departure for us to explore the character of all our thinking about an existence in God.

Lecture 2: The Spirit of Him Who Raised Jesus: Naming the Divine Three

The second lecture will focus on Romans 8, although a number of other texts will also be incorporated.  The initial goal of this lecture will be to show how Paul speaks to us of Father, Son and Spirit in a manner that is the foundation for all our attempts to speak of the one God as Father, Son and Spirit.

Lecture 3: The True Sacrifice: Salvation in Trinitarian Perspective

In the third lecture I turn to the mystery of the Cross and the Church by exploring the nature of the sacrifice that Christ offers.  My exegesis here consciously draws on the manner in which St Augustine interprets 1 Cor 12, Phil 2, some key Psalms and Hebrews to show how the body of Christ, united to him by the Spirit, is that which is offered by Christ on the altar, and how thus we are drawn into the redemptive act that occurs on the cross and in the very life of God.

Lecture 4: “By the Word of the Lord”

The last lecture will consider how we should understand the creation in Trinitarian perspective, and how understanding the creation as existing in Word and Spirit then helps us think toward the Trinity.