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The Doctrine of the Trinity in a Changed Cultural Situation

The Doctrine of the Trinity in a Changed Cultural Situation. The Changed Cultural Situation. The Latin and Scholastic formulation of the Doctrine of the Trinity has dominated theology for many centuries - even up to the early part of the 20th century.

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The Doctrine of the Trinity in a Changed Cultural Situation

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  1. The Doctrine of the Trinity in a Changed Cultural Situation

  2. The Changed Cultural Situation • The Latin and Scholastic formulation of the Doctrine of the Trinity has dominated theology for many centuries - even up to the early part of the 20th century. • Changes in society and culture have taken place and these have affected our understanding of the Trinity:

  3. Crisis of reason. Critique at a purely rational approach to reality and truth. Not just thru logos (understanding) but pathos (feeling) - not just thru the HEAD but also the HEART • The new emphasis on subjectivity: valuing PERCEPTION, HUMAN PERSON • HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS - history as a category for understanding life & society • (The emergence of the Feminist Movement that questions the male domination in all areas of life) Thus, the need to rethink the doctrine of the Trinity to make it more meaningful and acceptable to the contemporary person.

  4. Approaches to Trinitarian Theology • Doxological - theologians are satisfied with what they find in the NT and liturgical tradition. For fear of speculation divorced from the history of salvation, they refuse to go beyond what the founding texts relate. They end in doxology, in praise and liturgical celebration of the three divine persons.

  5. Historicist - theologians confine themselves strictly to the revelation of the trinity in history, which they see as God's process. For some theologians the one and only God become Trinity in the process of penetrating into creation [process theology?]. So in history a process is started whereby there is a trinification of the one God by reason of his free decision to communicate himself to creatures, as happens in Jesus. The Trinity would not be eternal, but would itself demonstrate an evolving history of God. We call this approach "historicist" because it absolutizes history to such an extent that it projects new realities on to the very mystery of God. It seems to break with the tradition of faith (expressly condemned by the SCDF).

  6. dialectical - theologians attempt to find the fundamental meaning of the presence of the Trinity in history and of history in the Trinity. They are dealing with a mystery of salvation, communicated not to satisfy our curiosity but to make us in the image of God. Common to all these tendencies is the view that reflection on the trinity always has to start from the economic trinity, that is, from the revelation of the mystery as it appears in the Christian scriptures. Revelation is made through narrative rather than through formal reflection.

  7. God's self-revelation is of the real God, and since God is revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, this means that God is really Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can therefore formulate the basic axiom: The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity and the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity. This identification takes place in the incarnation and the coming of the Spirit.

  8. Various Tendencies Christian theology working from the common background of the economic trinity as starting point displays various tendencies: • Continuing and enriching the classical understanding of Person in light of modern contributions to the notion of person. • Looking for alternatives to the concept of Person. • A new starting point: the community and social aspect of the Trinity • Another new starting point: the trans-sexist theology of the maternal Father & the paternal Mother.

  9. Development in the Understanding of Person • The classic Latin definition of person as formulated by Boethius (d. 524): individual substance of a rational nature. Aquinas defined person as subsistent relation. • Since the Enlightenment person has been understood psychologically rather than ontologically as an individual conscious subject. • The modern notion of person is basically that of being-in-relationship; a person is a subject existing as a center of autonomy, gifted with consciousness and freedom.

  10. Using the modern notion of person (as center of individual consciousness and freedom) can lead to Tritheism. To say that there are three persons in one God may mean that there are three centers of consciousness and three "I thinks" in God. • This can be avoided by stressing the relational aspect of "person" - the complete openness of a person to another. A person is more than an individual: a person is relation. The intersubjective relationship is therefore highlighted. (I-thou-We) • Even though the term person can only be applied to God analogically, person indicates relationship, freedom, mystery, the capacity to love and know, the capacity to be loved and known. God is someone rather than something. God's being is therefore structured as a communion of persons.

  11. Alternatives to the Concept of Person • Because the use of the modern notion of person can lead to tritheism, there have been suggestions to substitute this with another appropriate term. • Karl Barth suggested substituting it with modes of coming to be or manner of being. • Rahner proposed distinct mode of subsistence. This means that there is one divine consciousness which exists in a threefold way. • Both phrases attempt to recapture some of the original meaning of hypostasis, especially the idea that each of the three persons are not just different persons but is a person in a different way. Although these recommendations are theologically precise, they are difficult to understand for non-specialists and is not suitable for preaching.

  12. Barth's & Rahner's position may be misinterpreted as a modern modalism. • But this is not true because Rahner posits a correspondence between the economic trinity & the immanent trinity which Sabellius, the ancient proponent of modalism failed to do. • Nevertheless, their alternative concepts were not acceptable because these were too abstract and impersonal.

  13. The Social/Communitarian Image of the Trinity • There have been early attempts to view the trinity from a social/communitarian perspective. Richard St. Victor employed the social doctrine of God based on the biblical affirmation that God is love. Augustine, searching for the vestigium trinitatis, did the same when he proposed that God is the highest good or supreme love. • In recent years, theologians have tried to seek the vestigium trinitatis in the sphere of God's creation, namely the social image of God in human community. Thus, human society holds a vestigium trinitatis (traces of the trinity) since the trinity is a divine society.

  14. Scheeben scketched out the idea of the Trinity as the supreme society, the model for any seeking participation and equality. Tayman and Moltmann developed Scheeben's idea further. • According to Tyman, society results from the unity of a multiciplicity of individuals and actions. The interaction among all produces justice and well-being. This serves an analogy with the one being of God whose divine Persons act in common and on their own behalf to produce eternal communion and infinite equality. The trinity serves as the model for an integrated society.

  15. Moltmann argues that being a person means being in relation. The Trinity is the divine community of persons in relation. He picks up the classical concept of perichoresis. The being of persons is their relationships. The persons in the Trinity are so intimately linked with one another mutually indwell in one another. Thus, the Trinity is the divine koinonia rather than a divine substance. • Thus the community & social aspect of the Trinity is clearly brought out. Unity & diversity shade into communion in God, springing from God's association with what is not-God but what comes through community & perichoresis to share in the mystery of the Trinity.

  16. Trinity understood as a communion of Persons lays the foundation for a society of brothers & sisters, of equals, in which dialogue & consensus are the basic constituents of living together in both world & the Church.

  17. Trans-sexist Trinitarian Theology • The feminist movement has been instrumental in advancing the rights of women and criticizing male dominance not only in society but also in religion. • Many feminists today find difficulty in holding on to the image of God as Father and Son. They think that this is inherently sexist and patriarchal. This promotes a social world based on hierarchy and the inequality between men and women. They regard the personification of God as Father as the foremost symbol of patriarchy.

  18. Thus, some feminist theologians have attempted to banish any reference to God as Father from the liturgy and theology. • There are also attempts to substitute the trinitarian language of Father-Son-Holy Spirit with Creator-Redeemer-Sanctifier. • However, this may not be advantageous as it appears. According to Scriptures, God creates through the Son (Col 1:16, Heb 11:3, Jn 1:1-3) and by the Spirit; God redeems through Christ.

  19. It is impossible to banish reference to God as Father since this term is part of the data of revelation, faith and tradition. In the NT Jesus addressed God as Abba. Throughout the centuries God has often been addressed as Father in the liturgy and this forms part of our creed. • However, this does not mean that God is male. On the level of strict theological understanding, God the Father is trans-sexual, the term Father referring only to the source of life from which everything derives and to which everything tends.

  20. What theologians can insist is that the use of Father and Son in the Trinity is trans-sexist. It does not define God's gender (male). It is a metaphor. • Mary Daly suggest that we should understand God less as a substance and more as a process. God would mean living, the eternal return including the coming into being of the whole of creation, a creation that, instead of being subject to the supreme Being, would share the divine living. This God could be expressed by the symbols of either Father or Mother, or by a combination of the properties of both: God as maternal Father and paternal mother.

  21. Christian tradition has hinted at such formulations: • The Council of Toledo (657) spoke of "The Father’s womb" in which the Son is conceived and from which he is born. • The same should apply to the Son. who should not be understood in sexist terms, but inclusively as the final and full revelation of the original source; this can be both masculine and feminine. • In the same way, the Holy Spirit can be expressed in trans-sexist language. In biblical description it is allied to the feminine dimensions of life (Ruah is feminine in Hebrew): creation, animation, consolation, comforting.

  22. It must be stressed that this is not just a matter of introducing feminine figuration into the trinity (Mother instead of Father, Daughter instead of Son) but of working out the feminine dimension of the whole mystery of the Trinity and of each of the divine Persons. • God seen as communion and co-existence can be both masculine and feminine.

  23. In sum trinitarian theology need not be looked upon as inherently sexist and patriarchal. Indeed trinitarian doctrine articulates a vision of God in which there is neither hierarchy and inequality, only relationships based on love, mutuality, self-giving and self-receiving, freedom and communion. These values are the leitmotif of theological feminism. The God who exists as an eternal communion of love is a surer foundation for authentic koinonia of the body of Christ in which there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, male or female.

  24. Next Friday (February 13)Missiology Conference:MIC Cursillo Retreat House8:00 -11:30

  25. Feb. 20: Creative Group Reportin The Trinity: Perichoretic Communion of the Three Divine Persons • Boff, Trinity & Society, 123-148

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