My thesis in this paper is when speaking strictly as a systematic theologian that his deepest-lying commitments where the doctrine of the Trinity are concerned come to expression. God is conversation. With that conclusion (constructed with the help of statements found in Luther’s Large Catechism), Schwöbel folds the Johannine imagery of eternal begetting and spiration into an eternal event of divine speaking which includes believers, the Church and the world. In so doing, he also introduces an element of “reciprocity” and even “generosity” into the eternal processions which they never possessed when treated in abstraction from the economy of the triune God. But Schwöbel was always a dogmatic theologian before he was a systematic theologian. And he was also a theologian of culture, interested in challenges of religious pluralism and theology and science debates. In these two arenas and in dogmatics as well, Schwöbel was a bridge-builder – which led him to be affirm elements of the classical tradition which were at odds with his highly generative systematic model. Such inconsistencies are here identified and explained.