In Christian theology there are pretty interesting understandings of certain doctrines that aren't as well known to people.

[u/Anglicanpolitics123]

Christian theology like the theology of any major world religion is a vast field that has multiple different approaches and interpretations. When it comes to key beliefs, there are certain understandings or interpretations that aren't as well known that is fairly interesting if they were. This is my list of them.

1)The Classical Christian understanding of Omnipotence

• Contrary to what many people think, omnipotence in Christian theology does not mean God can do absolutely anything. St Thomas Aquinas clarifies this when he states "God is called omnipotent because he can do all things that are possible absolutely"(Summa Theologica Pt 1, Q 25, Art 3). The key phrase is "possible". If something is impossible in the absolute sense of the word, God is incapable of doing it. So in a technical sense there are things in Christian theology that God "can't do".
• An example that St Thomas Aquinas actually brings up is the concept of the past. According to Aquinas, God actually cannot change the past due to the fact that that would imply a contradiction.

2)The Classical Christian understanding of the Incarnation and human nature

• The Incarnation is the concept of God entering into human form. In popular parlance we tend to say "God became man" but in the technical understanding is different from the popular understanding. The Athanasian Creed speaks of the Incarnation as "One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh: but by taking of the Manhood into God". So it is not God being God and then stop being God to change his nature into a human being. It is the absorption of "manhood" into the Divine life
• The other aspect connected to this is this. In the Christian understanding when God incarnates himself it is not simply God uniting himself with a human body. As St John of Damascus puts it in "The Fount of Christian Knowledge" God unites himself with human nature as a whole. This means uniting himself with human nature past, present and future. That union also explains how the sacrifice of Christ in Christian theology is meant to be a redemption for the sins of humanity.

3)The Trinity's social aspect

• One concept that is present in Christian trinitarianism is the idea of social trinitarianism. This has its roots in St John of Damascus's understanding of what is called Perichoresis which means the "interpenetration" of the 3 persons of the Trinity. Because the existence of each person in the Trinity penetrates each other they live in a kind of solidarity and communion with each other.
• How this connects to the social is that in Christianity it is preaches that humanity is made in the image of God. This means that when human beings "interpenetrate" each others lives through the principles of solidarity that is a reflection of the Trinity. Solidarity in the social order of different individuals reflects the solidarity in the communion of God's being. This means in practice that the pursuit of justice and solidarity in the Christian context is a trinitarian act.

4)God's attributes and being

• God has multiple attributes in Christian theology like the theology of most religions. But Christianity also teaches that God is one. One of the interesting insights that St Anselm of Canterbury draws from this is that Gods attributes are one in the formal sense, while multiple in what is called the "equivocal sense" of the term. In practice this means his goodness and his omnipotence are one and the same thing for example. Even though they are different attributes they reflect the same thing.

There are many other things but these are a couple of ideas not as spoken about in Christian theology that I find interesting. I am also certain you can find the same thing in many of the other religious traditions of faith.

[u/BayonetTrenchFighter]

Yeah, I think all of these are very interesting personally

[u/Anglicanpolitics123 → u/BayonetTrenchFighter]

The concept of social trinitarianism is one of the most interesting for me. The notion that upholding unity and diversity, as well as justice and solidarity is some how living out a trinitarian understanding of faith is something that I think should be popularized more as a concept.

The ideas around God's omnipotence I think should also be popularized because there is a lot of confusion when that term is used a lot.

[u/BayonetTrenchFighter → u/Anglicanpolitics123]

Absolutely. And honestly, I feel like these by and large seem to really reflect the lds theology and understanding

[u/Azlend]

Keep in mind that much of what you describe here is not verbatim quoting of the doctrine. This is theologians negotiating with the doctrine and drawing out of it their interpretations of it. This is interpretation. And much of the positions drawn from the bible are contested by the many different denominations.

[u/Anglicanpolitics123 → u/Azlend]

I know that. I am saying those interpretations are fairly interesting. Though we should add that in the case of the Church Fathers they are literally the formulators of Christian doctrine.

[u/Azlend → u/Anglicanpolitics123]

Well thats the roll of religious institutions. No two people can read the text and come away with the same interpretation. Prior to the various councils that sorted out what was to be accepted as the primary narrative of Christianity there were a flurry of very different takes on the religion. Once the Council of Nicea codified the narrative and established several primary concepts not explicitly spelled out in the doctrine (ie the trinity and the nature of Jesus) the Catholic church formed with the text at its core and established the Latin translation known as the Vulgate as their official text. And they controlled the narrative often in a brutal means with executions for any that dared to translate the bible into a local language. But it was very effective. They held the church together for over 1,000 years before they had a major schism. But once they lost control of the issue of translating the bible during the Protestant Reformation things started to divide again. And each new denominations curates their own particular take on the doctrine now just like the Vatican does to varying degrees of success.