I have a confession to make: I am a student of theology who dislikes reading about the doctrine of the Trinity. When reading Tertullian for my dissertation I usually sprinted through his work on the Trinity. I have read a lot of Karl Barth, but I have not read a lot of Barth on the Trinity. David Bentley Hart's Beauty of the Infinite opens its dogmatic part with a chapter on the Trinity. It was the last chapter I read, and even then I only half-read it at best.
Perhaps the Trinity is like Guinness or coffee or a Terrence Malick film: appreciation for it is earned through hard work, and even then appreciation is not guaranteed. But rather than put the work in, I begin with the conclusion that nobody who writes about the Trinity knows what they are writing about. Don't get me wrong: I presuppose the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity as best I can. But I'm happy to take it as mystery pointing to a mystery and then move on to other things that make for better reading.
Since this can't go on forever, is there any writing on the Trinity that will make me not want to skip over all those other writings on the Trinity?
John Owen's 'Communion with the Triune God' did that for me. He does a good job of not separating thinking of God as trinity from worshipping God as trinity.
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