Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 87:2 (Fall 2025)
Article: Trinitarian Perspectives Applied To God’s Sovereignty And Human Responsibility
Author: Vern Sheridan Poythress

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Trinitarian Perspectives Applied To God’s Sovereignty And Human Responsibility

Vern S. Poythress

Vern S. Poythress is Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Biblical Interpretation, and Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary.

The harmony between divine sovereignty and human responsibility can be illuminated by using a triad of perspectives that reflect the Trinity.

The trinitarian character of God has derivative reflections in the way that God governs the world. Kenneth L. Pike’s triad of perspectives on theorizing is one such reflection. It consists in the particle view, the wave view, and the field view, reflecting the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, respectively. Applying these three perspectives to God’s rule over the world results in attending to God’s rule (1) over each particular event, (2) over causal connections between events, and (3) over relations of one event to unrealized possibilities and other events at other times and places. Particular events, causal connections, and relations to other possible events are all significant, and all are necessarily present as aspects of meaning. This simultaneous presence holds true for God’s control over the world through his speech. Derivatively, it also holds true for human decision-making and human speech. Human responsibility is a function of particular acts, in causal sequences, in relation to unrealized possibilities. Omitting one of these three aspects leads to the evaporation of meaning.

The harmony between divine sovereignty and human responsibility can be illuminated by using a triad of perspectives that reflect the Trinity.

I. Pike’s Triad For Theorizing

The triad consists in three “views” that Kenneth Pike described as he reflected on the ways in which research and theory-making take place in linguistics.1 The

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three are the particle view, the wave view, and the field view.2 Together, they are called the “triad for theorizing.”3 The particle view treats pieces of language as broken down into stable, distinct, integrated units—particles. The wave view treats pieces of language as flowing into one another, in time and sometimes also conceptually. The field view treats pieces of languages as systems of relations. We can rename them the static perspective (particle), the dynamic perspective (wave), and the relational perspective (field). (See Figure 1 and Table 1.)

Figure 1. Three Views on Language: Particle, Wave, and Field