Theology

The faith, thought through.

Long-form articles on Christian doctrine: what the church actually confesses, where the words came from, and — just as carefully — what the explanations cannot do. Every quotation is from a named edition, and every analogy comes with the limit its own author set on it.

Article

Parts, each read on its own

13

Passages quoted in full

11

Sources, each with its edition

One doctrine at a time. Taken slowly.

Each article sets out a question, answers it from Scripture and the primary sources, and says plainly where the answer stops. They are long on purpose: these are subjects that go wrong when they are made short.

The Trinity one God, three persons

What does the church actually confess about the Trinity — and why does every explanation of it break?

The confession, in the words the creeds use. Why ice, water and steam and the man with three jobs are both the same third-century error. The analogies Augustine, Aquinas, the Cappadocians and C. S. Lewis did offer, each one placed beside the limit its own author wrote for it. And the two councils, fifty-six years apart, that drew the fences.

  • What the Trinity is One God. Three persons.
  • Why the usual pictures fail Ice, water, steam — and a man with three jobs.
  • The analogies of the great theologians Every picture came with its own warning.
  • Where the words came from Nicaea 325, Constantinople 381.

Four rules, kept throughout.

Primary sources, quoted and located

When Augustine or Aquinas or a council is quoted, the words are theirs, the translation is named, and the reference is exact enough to look up. Nothing is paraphrased and then put in quotation marks.

Scripture in modern English

All Bible quotations are the Berean Standard Bible, given to the public domain in 2023, and each one links to the same wording in this site’s reader.

Every analogy with its limit attached

An illustration is allowed to make one point. Wherever an article offers one, it also says, in the same place, what the picture cannot carry — usually in the words of the person who drew it.

Work still in copyright is described, not reproduced

Where a modern author’s argument matters, it is summarised in our own words and labelled as ours, with the book and chapter to read it in. The quotations on this site are from editions that are free for anyone to copy.

Named editions. Nothing taken on trust.

Every source quoted anywhere in this section, with its translator, its edition and its licence. Where this site holds the text, the link opens our copy; otherwise it opens the edition the words were read in.

Where these words come from

  • The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible Bible Hub · Berean Standard Bible, 2023 Quoted from this project’s copy of the edition named
  • The Athanasian Creed (Quicunque vult) Anonymous, Latin, 5th–6th century · The received English text, as this site holds it Quoted from this project’s copy of the edition named
  • The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, 381 The Second Ecumenical Council, Constantinople · The received English text, as this site holds it Quoted from this project’s copy of the edition named
  • The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes Philip Schaff, 1877 · Volumes 1 and 2, as this site holds them beside the creeds themselves Quoted from this project’s copy of the edition named
  • On the Trinity (De Trinitate) Augustine of Hippo, c. 400–428 · Translated by Arthur West Haddan, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, volume 3 Quoted from this project’s copy of the edition named
  • Summa Theologiae, First Part Thomas Aquinas, 1265–1274 · Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1920, second edition Quoted from the published edition linked
  • On the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto), and Letter 236 Basil of Caesarea, c. 375 · Translated by Blomfield Jackson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 8 Quoted from this project’s copy of the edition named
  • On “Not Three Gods”, to Ablabius Gregory of Nyssa, c. 380 · Translated by H. A. Wilson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 5 Quoted from this project’s copy of the edition named
  • Oration 31, the Fifth Theological Oration: On the Holy Spirit Gregory of Nazianzus, 380 · Translated by Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 7 Quoted from this project’s copy of the edition named
  • The Ecclesiastical History Socrates Scholasticus, c. 440 · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 2 Quoted from this project’s copy of the edition named
  • Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis, 1952 — chiefly Book IV, “Beyond Personality” · Not reproduced here: the book is still in copyright, so it is described and cited In copyright — described and cited, never reproduced

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