Abstract

The concept of the 'person' is a crucial component in the development of Western thought, however, no idea is more replete with definitional difficulty. This thesis, recognizing the insufficient or incomplete treatment of the theological concept of 'person', proposes a thorough historical evaluation of trinitarian personhood in three critical paradigm-shifts within which one can measure the philosophico-theological development or regression of the topic. ;The Cappadocians posited the mutual indwelling of the divine hypostaseis in what was to be defined as a perichoretic relation which was to find a strongly reserved adumbration in the Augustine's view of the place of relations in defining divine persons. In the Medieval period, Victorine assessments of caritas consummata and its relational implications met the benign nemesis of Boethian-based Thomism and the scholastic category of 'subsistent relations'. In modernity, Heribert Muhlen's phenomenological approach to the Triunity has partially countered the residual modalisms of Barth and Rahner. ;Each of these "watershed" distillations considers the cogency of divine relationality in defining triune personhood. To properly interpret the trinitology of the chosen periods requires clarification of biblical data, epistemological presuppositions, linguistic and ecclesial backgrounds and theological implications. The intricacies and the risks of relating divine personhood with the distinct individual attributes normally entailed in the idea of 'person' are recognized by both sides of these pivotal historical interchanges. ;It is evident that in the progression of dogma a definition of personhood as persons in relationship has often been neglected or castigated for supposed tritheistic implications, especially in the Western theological tradition. The propensity in modern theology to submit to ephemeral psychological or philosophical interpretations pertaining to personhood rather than testing their adequacy against the wisdom of past formulations is a denial of this crucial complementary strain of thought, which views divine persons, and thus human persons, in relation as the key to a more complete conception of the mystery of the Godhead