Book Write-Up: The Trinity and Martin Luther, by Christine Helmer

Christine Helmer. The Trinity and Martin Luther: Revised Edition. Lexham, 2017. See here to purchase the book.

Christine Helmer teaches religious studies at Northwestern University. She has a Ph.D. from Yale University.

As the title indicates, this book is about Martin Luther’s view on the Trinity. Helmer attempts to refute previous scholarly ideas about this. These ideas have posited that Luther was a subordinationist, a modalist, a tritheist, or in some way different from medievalists. Helmer, in contrast, proposes that Luther was classically orthodox. Because Luther never actually wrote a treatise about the Trinity, Helmer consults various sources, including hymns, sermons, and Luther’s academic disputations against non-Trinitarians and the view that the Trinity had ecclesiastical but not biblical authority.

There are two aspects to Luther’s understanding of the Trinity that I gleaned from this book. First, Luther maintained that there were serious limitations on the ability of human rationality to understand God, particularly the Trinity. Luther did not dispense entirely with reason, for he utilized it in academic disputations, but he held that what humans know about the Trinity is the result of revelation from God: the Holy Spirit, through the Bible and the preached word, testifies to the Trinity. Helmer contends that, on this point, Luther largely overlapped with medieval thinkers. Second, Luther emphasized the relationships within the Trinity. When God speaks to God’s son in the Book of Psalms, Luther interprets that as the Father speaking to God the Son, who became Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit observes. Love exists among the three members of the Trinity. The three members of the Trinity also relate to each other within the economic Trinity, which concerns God’s salvation of human beings. Christ intercedes for believers, who, by being in Christ, are incorporated into the loving fellowship that exists within the Trinity.

To be honest, I cannot say that there was much in this book that piqued my interest. There was an occasional detail that did so, such as Luther’s justification for academic disputation against those who reject the truth, which differs from Christ’s meek treatment of people who wavered in the truth. The book is very abstract, and whatever I did understand in it struck me as rather obvious. I was wondering if my problem was the subject matter, since Trinitarian disputes do strike me as abstract technicalities that people are willing to die over, as if something about God’s character is at stake. But I am reading another book on the Trinity, and I actually enjoy it on account of the intriguing questions that it engages.

My impression is subjective, and others may appreciate the book more. While there was not much chemistry between me and Helmer’s book, I respect that she explored this subject in a fresh way and made a significant contribution to scholarship.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. My review is honest.