Nuances of the Trinity

Dear Editor,

I was slightly surprised to see, in Matthew Mason’s article on love in your July issue, the definition of the Holy Spirit as the mutual love of the Father and the Son, (‘… the Father loves the Son … and the Son loves the Father. This love proceeds eternally from Father and Son as the Spirit …’).

Your letters page is not, perhaps, the place to finalise the Evangelical understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity; and I have no pretensions to any expertise equal to that of your theologian in residence. Nevertheless, your readers might like to be aware that this formula, which derives from Augustine, is by no means universally accepted.