The Steel Behind the Cutting Edge

A while back I mentioned a book on the doctrine of the Trinity that I was interested in reading called The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything, by Fred Sanders.

I saw a blog post by Justin Taylor on Friday entitled How Emphatic Evangelicalism Becomes Reductionist Evangelicalism which had quotes from that book.  Justin's point is that emphasis of certain cardinal points of Christian Theology for simplicity's sake,without an understanding of the complete Biblical background, can be unintentionally misleading. In his words,  "emphasis,.. can quickly become reductionism." Then he uses the doctrine of the Trinity as an example of his point.

The relevant quotes from Sanders' book are:

When emphatic evangelicalism degenerates into reductionist evangelicalism, it is always because it has lost touch with the all-encompassing truth of its Trinitarian theology....

...What is needed is not a change of emphasis but a restoration of the background, of the big picture from which the emphasized elements have been selected....

...A blade is not all cutting edge. In fact, the cutting edge is the smallest part of the knife. The rest of the knife is the heavy heft of the broad, flat sides and the handle. Considered all by itself, the cutting edge is vanishingly small—a geometric concept instead of a useable object. Isolated from the great storehouse of all Christian truth, reductionist evangelicalism is a vanishingly small thing. It came from emphatic evangelicalism, and it must return to being emphatic evangelicalism or vanish to nothing....

...[The doctrine of the Trinity] constitutes the hefty, solid steel behind the cutting edge. We do not need to use the T-word in evangelism or proclaim everything about the threeness and oneness of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in every sermon. But the Trinity belongs to the necessary presuppositions of the gospel.

                  From pp. 15-19 of The Deep Things of God.

Now I really want to read this book!