Trinity and ontology: towards a theology of being as space in Colin Gunton

This thesis proposes that Gunton's work on ontology is best understood if they are supported by a reconsideration of the concept of space that is used by him but is not as fully worked out in his work as much as other terms such as "relation" and "otherness." It develops with the arguments that Gunton's ontology has an element that can be best understood with the help of the concept of space (chapter 1); that most problems attributed to Gunton by his critics are problems resulting from their particular approaches, rather than residing in Gunton's work itself (chapter 2 and 3); that Gunton's use of the Cappadocians is truer to the thrust of their works than his critics' (chapter 4); that "spatiality" will better serve Gunton's purpose as his third transcendental than "relationality" (chapter 5); that the notion of "the three" which is not fully accounted in Gunton corresponds well with the notion of "spatiality" being suggested in this study, the latter encompassing both relation and otherness and the former encompassing both the one and the many (chapter 6); that the "one" language used of God in the Bible is better understood in an nominal than a numerical sense, corresponding to the notion of "the three" discussed in the previous chapter (chapter 7); and that the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the God of the NT in that they are "God" or "One" (God of all) who is both one and many, both general and particular, both given and shaped, rather than the former representing the oneness or unity of God and the latter the threeness or diversity of God, with the conclusion that the ontology of being as space is more fundamental and so more widely applicable than the ontology of being as communion of persons (chapter 8).