New Trinitarian Ontologies, Volume I - Paperback

by John Milbank (Editor), Ryan Haecker (Editor), Jd Lyonhart (Editor)

The Holy Trinity is the oldest idea of Christian hope. The study of being or ontology was once regarded as a seminal preparation for the study of God as the creative cause of all being in theology. Yet due to a series of theological mistakes, metaphysics came to be separated from the Trinity before God came to be conceived as the supreme being of all beings in general metaphysics, natural theology, and modern ontology. The analytic and continental philosophical traditions have since tended to treat the Trinity as, at best, superfluous, and, at worst, redundant to modern formal ontologies. Yet the postmodern collapse of all such formal ontologies has prepared the path for a renewed study of metaphysics or ontology that shares in participation with the Trinity. New Trinitarian Ontologies names a creative response to this pivotal collapse of modern formal ontologies. If ontology cannot contain but rather more radically points to God, and if all nature thus tends towards the supernatural, the angelic, and the metaphysical, then we should renew the study of the metaphysics or ontology of the Trinity. This volume represents a collection of responses to this challenge of rendering ontology in a Trinitarian style.

Author Biography

John Milbank is emeritus professor of religion, politics, and ethics at the University of Nottingham, where he is the president of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy.


Ryan Haecker is assistant professor of theology at the University of Austin. He is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a member of the European Academy of Religions, and serves on the editorial board of the journal Religions.



JD Lyonhart (jdlyonhart.com) is associate professor of Christianity & philosophy at the University of Jamestown, a fellow at the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism at Cambridge University, and co-host of the Spiritually Incorrect Podcast.