The Good God: Enjoying Father, Son and Spirit
The Good God: Enjoying Father, Son and Spirit
By Michael Reeves,
Paternoster, 2012
ISBN: 978-1842277447
Reviewed by Andy Goodliff
Within the theological academy books on the doctrine of the trinity there is no end. The understanding of God as triune is a central concern for all contemporary theology. Reeves’ audience goes beyond the important intellectual exercise of the theological scholarship, to the edification of the church.
This short book, only a hundred pages and so, wants to say why it matters that we say God is trinity. To sideline or ignore the doctrine is to leave the church open to believing in a god other than the God and Father of our Jesus.
Reeves wants to display the beauty of the triune God – his conversation partner throughout the book is the American theologian of the 18th century, Jonathan Edwards – in who God is, why God creates (the Father), how God saves (the Son) and God sanctifies (the Spirit).
Reeves suggests (rightly I think) that the new atheists are right in proclaiming that God is dead, the god of the new atheists (and too much Christianity) is not the God of scripture, the God who is Father, Son and Spirit. The book is then an apologetic as well as a means of educating the church.
This is a good little book that seeks to offer the church an introduction to seeing God as triune. It is biblical (as you would expect form the head of theology for UCCF) and engages with the theological tradition of the early church fathers and reformed theology (Calvin, Owen, Edwards, Barth). It is readable and challenging and I would recommend to the church minister and member, alongside Robin Parry’s
Worshipping Trinity, as a way into enjoying and celebrating the triune God of Christian faith.
The Revd Andy Goodliff is minister of Belle Vue Baptist Church, Southend on Sea
Baptist Times, 05/12/2013