Me, Stanley Hauerwas, and the Puzzlement of the Trinity

Since I pointed you to Ben Myers' Faith and Theology blog you may have seen that they have been discussing the Trinity over there. Also, a few days ago Ben posted a quote on education by Stanley Hauerwas, one of the most influential theologians alive today. Finally, we've been talking a bit about Tillich on this blog. All of this--Hauerwas, the Trinity, and Tillich--reminded me of an incident here at ACU a few years back.

ACU was hosting a conference on theology and the academy and two very good friends of mine, Paul Morris and Fred Aquino, were doing a talk on Paul Tillich and Albert Einstein. Paul is a theoretical physicist and Fred is a systematic theologian. Their talk concerned the conversation between faith and science through the lens of a correspondence about God and God's existence that took place between Tillich and Einstein.

Needless to say, if you know Tillich and Einstein, the two were able to find some common ground about their conceptions of God. Paul and Fred used this rapprochement as a talking point to note that science and religion can have fruitful exchanges between them. I think we can all agree that this was an excellent point to make. Science and religion don't have to fight.

However, during the Q&A right after the talk this older guy across the room raises his hand and says something like this:

"But Tillich was mistaken. Tillich didn't take into account the Trinity. Thus, Tillich should be ignored, theologically speaking."

And I start thinking, "The Trinity? Who is this nut job? The Trinity? I mean, there is a good chance God doesn't exist. Further, there is no convincing means to determine how many gods--should they exist--there are. There could be 1 or 1,000. How could you possibly know? And this joker is going to interject a comment about the Trinity--a wildly controversial and far from clear doctrine (see Faith and Theology)--into a science versus religion conversation? Has this guy lost his marbles?"

Well, I find out later from Fred (after I ask my "Who is the nut job talking about the Trinity?" question) that that nut job just so happened to be one of the most influential theologians in the world today. One Stanley Hauerwas.

Don't get me wrong. I love the doctrine (idea? symbol? notion? schema? myth?) of the Trinity. If God is love from all eternity then God has to be ontologically communal, right? So I get it. I like the idea.

But Tillich didn't make a mistake. Hauerwas did. Tillich was trying to talk to everyone, scientist and Christian. His might have been a fool's errand, but I think it was a legitimate attempt. But the doctrine of the Trinity, as powerful as it is, isn't trying to talk to everyone. It's a shibboleth for an insider conversation. Which is fine, but to utter that shibboleth in a room full of scientists trying hard to take religion seriously is, well, a mistake.