The following speculations do not pretend to state a complete doctrine of the Trinity, though they do state decisive parts of one. The first section is an account of what is, in my view, the function of a Trinity-doctrine, and will to some extent repeat work also published elsewhere. The second section is an interpretation of the trinitarian word ‘hypostasis’, that tries to display the conceptual revolution made by the traditional trinitarian assertion of ‘three hypostases of God’. The third considers the oneness of God, by analysing a famous argument of Gregory of Nyssa. And the fourth draws some further conclusions.

Irenaeus is the first systematic theologian of the Christian church. He earned this distinction by organising his exposition of the articles of faith around one central idea: that of Christ as the Second Adam and Perfecter of human nature. Interpreters of his Recapitulation (anakephalaiosis) doctrine routinely note that Christ's work brings two different benefits to the human race. First, humanity is restored to its status before the fall of Adam, thereby abolishing sin and its effects. Second, it is elevated or perfected to a higher form of being than that of the originally created human nature.

At the outset it is important to define the way in which some important terminology will be used in the arguments that follow: Theology in Asia is the theological reflection of Asian based or Asian oriented thinkers, for whom being in Asia does not determine the form or style of their theological activity.

We do not possess a large amount of information about the worship of Christians in the early days of the church and most of what we do comes from First Corinthians. In it Paul answers various questions raised by the Corinthians, among them one about spiritual gifts. We ought probably to envisage a small group meeting in a house (cf. 1 Cor. 16.19; there would have been a number of such ‘house-churches’ in Corinth). In these meetings the Christians present made various contributions to the worship according to their abilities, or, more correctly, their spiritual gifts, charismata.