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Theological Forum Issue

Vol. XXVII, No. 1 & 2, July 1999

 

Created in the Image of God

 

BEING CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF THE TRIUNE GOD: THE TRINITY AND HUMAN PERSONHOOD


Robert Vosloo

1. INTRODUCTION


In the current academic, church and public discourse in South Africa one finds an increasing interest in questions dealing with moral matters. This conversation must be seen against the backdrop of the serious concern about the so-called morality crisis in our society. In the light of, for instance, escalating crime, corruption, social apathy and the lack of care for the environment, serious thinking and talking, as well as the necessary action, indeed seems to be imperative. It is therefore not surprising that issues dealing with moral (trans)formation have come to the fore, not only within the broader global ethical discourse, but also within the specific context of the South African society.

Talk about these issues cannot, however, be separated from certain anthropological questions. As the moral philosopher Charles Taylor reminded us: "Selfhood and the good, or in another way selfhood and morality, turn out to be inextricably intertwined themes" (1989:3). How we think about human personhood determines in a decisive way our evaluation of the moral predicament, as well as what we see as possible solutions for the problem. Although we do not often explicitly mention our views on human personhood when we discuss moral matters, its influence is apparent on even our most refined arguments. In the light of this, conscious attempts to reflect on the ethical implications of our view(s) of human personhood seem to be of paramount importance. If one furthermore believes, with John Calvin, that our knowledge of humankind and our knowledge of God correlate, this implies that the conversation on moral transformation is also a theological conversation. A person's theological (or a-theological or anti-theological) viewpoints are thus defining for one's perspective on the moral life.

Within the Christian tradition no other notion has been more influential with regard to what it means to be human, than the idea that humankind is created in the image of God. Although this expression does not occur often in Scripture, there is near consensus among theologians that it is of vital importance for theological anthropology. Although affirming the importance of this central doctrine, this article points to the importance of a Trinitarian framework for reflecting on the notion of being created in the image of God. This is done by taking a glance at the recent renaissance in Trinitarian theology. From this a few insights are drawn regarding our "picture" of God. These insights pave the way for a notion of the self that is very different from the modern, autonomous, detached self, as well as the so-called post-modern "self". In a brief final section a few remarks are made regarding some possible ethical implications of the suggested ideas.



2. CHRISTOLOGICAL AND TRINITARIAN INTERMEDIATE STEPS

The locus classicus for the idea that human beings are created in the image of God, is Gen 1:26,27. Here we read: "Then God said, `Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air ... So God created man in his own image, male and female he created them." The English Reformed theologian, Colin Gunton has rightly noted that there are two chief ways in which this passage is generally used in theological anthropology. The first is to focus on the "male and female" and to follow Karl Barth's creative and controversial route according to which our imaging consists therein that we are male and female in relationship.1

The second reading concentrates on the broader context, and points to the dominion of the human race over the rest of the created order. Although there are much to be said for both of these views, Gunton makes the important observation that there are certain Christological and Trinitarian2 intermediate steps to be taken before these readings can find their rightful place.

In the New Testament the words "image" and "likeness" are both reordered to Christ. In Christ we see the true image of God, as well as the source of human renewal (see Col 1:15; Rom 8:29). Although the image of God is distorted through sin, humans are "in Christ" renewed or restored in God's image. This Christological focus points to a Trinitarian framework. Christ comes from the Father through the Spirit and in due time gives that same Spirit as the way by which the creation can return to the Father. As Gunton puts it: "The representative bearer of the image becomes, as the channel of the Spirit, the vehicle of the renewal of the image of those who enter into relation with him" (1992:101).

This Trinitarian focus makes it possible to see that to be created in the image of God implies that in human relatedness, like between male and female, we find a finite echo of the relatedness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, "to be in the image of God is to be called to a relatedness-in-otherness that echoes the eternal relatedness-in-otherness of Father, Son and Spirit" (Gunton 1992:101). With this in mind, a picture of the human person as created in the image of the Triune God emerges that is very different than that of the individualist or collectivist self.3

Thus the emphasis that being created in the image of God does not consist in that a certain timeless faculty, like reason or freedom or creativity, reflects this image, but rather that our being human consists in our relatedness. This relatedness takes form in a double orientation. We are persons in the first place in so far as we are in the right relationship to God. This relation to God takes shape through the Son and the Spirit. The second focus, flowing from the first, is the "horizontal" orientation which sees our humanness as being constituted in relationship with other human beings and the rest of creation. This relatedness is an embodied relatedness and must not be viewed in any dualistic sense.

The second reading of the meaning of the image points to humankind's dominion over the rest of creation. The human calling in this regard is to enable creation to praise it's maker. To be in the image is, following the `Trinitarian pattern', to be called to represent God to the creation and the creation to God. To put it differently, humans are located cosmologically to be stewards of God's earth.

To summarize: when the notion of humans being created in the image of God is placed within a Trinitarian framework, we see the emergence of the emphasis on relatedness, as well as the closely-linked emphasis on human's responsibility for the rest of creation.



3. THE RENAISSANCE IN TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY

In an introductory article to a collection of essays entitled Persons, Divine and Human the editors Christoph Schwöbel and Colin Gunton write: "The question is not primarily how reflection on human personality can offer grounds for the affirmation of divine personality, but rather how the insights concerning the character of divine personhood can be creatively applied to elucidate the understanding of human personhood" (1991:13).

The question, whether God creates humans in his image or whether humans create gods in their image, is well-known in theology. Without denying the power of human beings to project certain ideals or values onto the character of God, it seems to be theologically sound to think about personhood, the church, morality, etc. not merely in terms of psychological, philosophical and sociological categories, but from within our perspective of the character of God (what we know of this is, of course, due to our communal wrestling with Scripture). How we picture God indeed does determine our perspective of ourselves, other human beings and the rest of creation. With this in mind, it may be worthwhile to take note of the recent renaissance in Trinitarian theology and to bring this into conversation with the idea that humans who are created in the image of God are called to reflect something of the character of our Creator.

In an oft-quoted passage the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner points to the fact that many Christians, notwithstanding their exact profession of the Trinity, are in their practical life almost mere monotheists: "We must be willing to admit that, should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged. . . . One has the feeling that, for the catechism of head and heart (as contrasted with the printed catechism), the Christian idea of the incarnation would not have changed at all if there were no Trinity" (1997:10,11). The Protestant theologian Jürgen Moltmann makes a similar point when he writes: "Many people view the doctrine of the Trinity as a speculation for theological specialists, which has nothing to do with real life" (1993:1).

Indeed it has been the case that the doctrine of the Trinity has not always occupied its rightful place at the center of theological reflection and church life.4

It is, therefore, not surprising that certain theologians mourn over "the exile of the Trinity" and make passionate appeals for a return to the "Trinitarian homeland" (Forte 1989:3,4).

While it is certainly true that there has, especially over the last few centuries, been a massive neglect of the doctrine of the Trinity, it is also true that, whatever the reasons may be,5

there has been a remarkable upsurge in Trinitarian studies over the last few decades. Mainly under the influence of Karl Barth and Karl Rahner (the two progenitors of Trinitarian theology in the 20th century) a wealth of books and articles have appeared that in one way or another try to rethink the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity.6

So much so that it has become possible to speak of the revival or renaissance of Trinitarian theology.7

In a recent study in Trinitarian theology David Cunningham even writes: "Indeed, so prevalent have such studies become that the phenomenon begins to look not so much like a renaissance as a bandwagon. Once threatened by its relative scarcity in modern theology, the doctrine now seems more likely to be obscured by an overabundance of theologians clustered around it" (1998:19).


4. THE CHARACTER OF THE TRIUNE GOD

The large and diverse group of theologians - from a wide variety of theological traditions - currently engaged in some kind of Trinitarian theology, makes it difficult to give any kind of thorough overview of this development. There does seem, however, to be a few insights that are often highlighted regarding the character of the Triune God and which hold much promise for, among other things, our perspective on what it means to be truly human. For our purposes here, we are going to call attention to three (closely-related) aspects, namely a) God as a self-giving God b) God as an other-receiving God and c) God as a God-in-communion.


a) The self-giving God

One of the things that the Bible reveals to us about God's character is that the God of Israel, Jesus and the Church is a giving God. God gives the promise of God's care and presence. God gives grace and forgiveness. Although we sometimes feel that what God gives us, is not what we want or that, what we want, God does not give us, we can know that what God gives is sufficient, because God not only gives his blessings, but Godself. Herein lies the excess of God's gifting character. This is the strange economy of God.

God gives Godself to humankind by becoming human in Christ. God gives God's Spirit in us to help us live the Christian life and console us. The God of Scriptures can thus rightly be depicted as a self-giving God and to talk of this God is to invoke Trinitarian language.

The Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf gives the important reminder that the value of the doctrine of the Trinity is not merely about "fluid identities," "plurality-in-unity" or "one-and-many." Although the doctrine of the Trinity holds real promise for the important task to reflect on the relationship of identity and otherness, this talk "will be helpful only of they are `gilded' by being dipped in the narratives of divine self-donation" (1998:412). While one might want to use other language in this regard, the point is nevertheless important. Without this focus on God's self-giving or self-donation, trinitarian discourse remains at a certain level of abstraction that does not touch the heart of what the life-giving narratives of Scripture reveals about the character of God.

In the well-known first verse of Romans 12, we hear the call to give our bodies as living sacrifices. It is important, however, to hear this apparent hard call while "seeing" the character of the God to whom we must give the totality of our life. The verse makes it clear that the call to give ourselves as living sacrifices is done in view of God's mercy. The previous chapters of Romans highlight the abundant way in which God gives Godself to us. Thus, before we can give ourselves to God and others, we need to see what God gives, and learn to receive it. For Christians to be empowered to live "giving" lives, it is, therefore, first and foremost, important to see the self- less love with which God gives Godself to humankind in the crucified Christ. In other words, to talk about the self-giving God is to re-narrate the story of the Cross.8

 

Scripture also bears testimony to the fact that God gives us the Spirit of Christ, which enables us to live "giving lives" that in one way or another mirror the self-giving God. It can even be said that through the Spirit we become "gifted" participants in the life of the Triune God.

In Trinitarian studies one often finds reference to the self-giving character of the inter-trinitarian relationships between Father, Son and Spirit. This "gifting" is not enclosed within the immanent Trinity. While the relationship between the immanent and the economic Trinity is certainly very complex, it is true that we cannot separate God's character in eternity from the economy of salvation. The self-giving is not merely limited to the life within the God, but "overflows" to creation. From this a picture emerges of a God rich in love, compassion and goodness. The Triune God is, to use the title of Stephen Webb's book, "the gifting God".


b) The other-receiving God

In the loving inter-Trinitarian relationship between Father, Son and Spirit, as well as in the overflow of this love towards creation, one sees God's openness towards otherness. The Triune God is a hospitable and welcoming God.9

This hospitality is portrayed throughout Scripture, most notably in the psalms that portray God as a generous host and in parables like that of the prodigal son and the great banquet. The Triune God is therefore not an enclosed circle, but an inviting openness with room for the whole of creation. As Moltmann states: "The Trinitarian relationship of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is so wide that the whole of creation can find space, time and freedom in it" (1993:109).

We see this openness of God towards otherness, once again, most clearly when we turn our gaze to the Cross. Here we see God's willingness to embrace creation in a truthful and compassionate way. Therefore, the Cross is not merely the symbol of humankind's inhospitality to God in its midst, but also the testimony to the fact that God nevertheless kept the arms open to enable reconciliation and embrace.

One of the features of God's hospitality is its universal character. It is a loving openness for all people and the whole of creation. This openness of God shows a special face with regard to those who have experienced exclusion at the hand of others.

Throughout Scripture we hear the call to hospitality. Paul urges the Christians to practice hospitality (Rom 12:13) and the author of Hebrews makes the call to show hospitality to strangers, because by so doing people have entertained angels without knowing it (Heb. 13:2). This call to hospitality, also, and especially, towards strangers, is grounded in the fact that, to open ourselves for others, is to be open for transcendence. It is to be open for God and God's unexpected blessings. Our hospitality, however, finds its deepest foundation in the fact that God is a hospitable God and has shown hospitality towards us. One can say that even God's judgement is part of his hospitable love - it is a call to return to the Divine embrace.


c) God-in-communion

Writing on the sacrifice of Jesus, Geoffrey Wainwright notes that, for Christians, "this sacrifice stands at the heart of the communion between humanity and God; it may even correspond, within the sphere of time, to the eternal perichoresis by which, according to highly developed Trinitarian theology, the divine persons empty themselves into each other and receive each other's fullness" (1980:23).

This suggestion that there is some type of correspondence between the heart of communion between God and humankind, and the life of rich communion within the Godhead, often leads to an embrace of the patristic notion of perichoresis. While the word perichoresis is hard to translate, the words probably most used in English are interpenetration or coinherence. Perichoresis is the "passing into one another" of the Divine persons (Placher 1994:71).10

Although this notion was probably first used in Christology,11

its strongest application was to point to the ontological interdependence, reciprocity and interpenetration of the three persons of the Trinity. God's eternal being did not involve an absolute simplicity, but a unity deriving from a dynamic plurality of persons (Gunton 1993:152). This suggests that the image which God reveals to us is not one of eternal solitude, but of eternal communion. As Robert Wilken has argued in his essay Not a Solitary God: The Triune God of the Bible, plurality with respect to God had impressed itself on Christian thinkers from the very beginning (1993:68).

One attractive feature of the idea of perichoresis is that it holds the promise to serve as a way to preserve both unity and plurality, identity and otherness, the three and the many. In Moltmann's words: "The doctrine of the perichoresis links together in a brilliant way the threeness and the unity, without reducing the threeness to the unity, or dissolving the unity in the threeness" (1993:175).

Another reason why this notion is attractive is its dynamic character. It implies movement in time and space. It grasps the circulatory character of the eternal divine life. Some theologians even translate it as "the divine dance," linking it to the Greek word that means "to dance around."12

The movement within the Godhead, however, is not merely within an enclosed circle. No, it is an outward movement. Gunton sums it up well: "Perichoresis implies an ordered but free inter-relational self-formation: God is not simply shapeless, a negatively conceived monad, but eternal interpersonal life. There is a richness and space in the divine life, in itself and as turning outwards in the creation of the dynamic universe that is relational order in space and time" (1993:164).

While this notion of perichoresis can certainly be overburdened, it does seem to hold promise in a manner that does not necessarily downplay the importance of God's dealing with humankind through the economy of salvation, as suggested by the above idea of outward movement. The richness of love within God is shared with creation, and creation is enabled by the Spirit to partake in the divine love through the mediation of the crucified, resurrected and exalted Christ.



5. THE PICTURE OF THE TRIUNE GOD AND HUMAN SELFHOOD

By referring to the image of God as a self-giving God, an other- receiving God and a God-in-communion, it is not implied that this "picture" of God is drawn in a speculative sense from God's inner life in a way that is divorced from God's dealing with humankind through the economy of salvation. It is through the economy of salvation that we see most clearly the reflection of God's communal character and God's eternal self-giving and hospitable love. Furthermore, the above exercise in "picturing" God does not want to imply that this picture of God serves merely as a model for our moral life. It is so that the metaphors and images of God as portrayed to us in Scripture fund our imagination in such a sense that they have a deep impact on our views of moral matters and our own embodied morality. The relationship between ethics and imagination (or "seeing" and the moral life) is indeed filled with promise (as well as problems), but it is important to note that these images do not merely serve the task of funding our moral imaginations. The Christian life is not merely about creatively finding analogies between God's character and ours. To state our claim more boldly: we do not only see the image of God, we are the image of God. Through the Holy Spirit we participate in the mystery of the Triune God and this participation (that was made possible by the reconciliatory work of Christ) enables us to live as image-bearers of the Triune God.13

This pneumatological grounding of the Christian life points to our ontological status as human beings. The Triune God is thus not merely the model for the Christian moral life, but also its source.

With this in mind, we can return to our question regarding the relationship between the Triune God (the God-in-communion that lovingly and freely gives and receives) and human personhood and make a few cursory remarks.a. A critique against certain notions of the self

Our first remark is that the picture that Scripture (and the way it was read and interpreted within the Christian tradition and community) portrays of the Triune God serves an iconoclastic function against certain notions of the self. If human beings are created in the image of the Triune God, and if this suggests relatedness,14

it does not seem difficult to envisage a notion of the self that is at odds with the modern notion of the individualist self. It can even be argued that the disappearance of some kind of social notion of the Trinity has open the door further for the destructive and possessive individualism that besets modern life.

During the last few centuries we saw the emergence of the modern self. It is not easy to trace the genesis of the modern view(s) of selfhood15, but certain values like autonomy, individuality, rationality, detachment and freedom (understood in a certain sense) became characteristic of the modern self.16

Whereas it can certainly be argued that these values can play a positive role, it does seem to be the case that society has suffered at the hands of the modern self. Given the wide-spread critique against the project of the Enlightenment, it is not surprising that the notion of the modern, rational, detached self has come under severe criticism.17

Given the current morality crisis, we indeed ought to ask questions regarding this picture of the self. Has it not resulted in a hyperindividualism that threatens moral formation? Is detachment really a value that is needed, given the social apathy that characterizes many communities? Has not this modern self evolved into "economic man" (homo oeconomicus) that builds on the assumption that the human being is a profit, utility and pleasure maximiser, thus lending respectability to uninhibited greed, corruption and crime (Nürnberger 1996:219)?

It has been argued that being created in the image of God does not reside in some timeless faculty like reason, but in a certain kind of relatedness, that patterns the relatedness within the life of the Triune God, and between this God and creation. Given this emphasis it becomes difficult to maintain the picture of the modern self and the values it espouses. Ellen Charry puts it well: "The modern self is discouraged from supporting social and political life, for these necessarily place limits on the self and demand compromise, self-restraint, and even self-sacrifice that are no longer supported by the culture. Freedom, self-sufficiency, and an expectation of happiness render it anomic, amoral, asocial, and alone" (Moltmann et al 1998:104).18

But what about the so-called post-modern self? It is true that the post-modern "self" takes historical situatedness and social-constructedness more seriously than was the case with the modern self. There is furthermore a greater realism about the power-structures involved in truth-claims and the imposed role-performances within society. Nevertheless, Anthony Thiselton rightly notes: "(A)n adequate account of the self and of personhood cannot stop with its situatedness in some instantaneous moment within the processes of shifting flux. Selfhood discovers its identity and personhood within a larger purposeful narrative which allows room for agency, responsibility and hope" (1995: ix). Complete suspicion in the possibility of such a larger purposeful narrative breeds uncertainty, insecurity and anxiety. Drawing on the work of David Harvey, Thiselton comments that "the post-modern self lives daily with fragmentation, indeterminacy, and intense distrust of all universal and or `totalizing' discourses. Insecurity, in turn, invites a defensiveness, a letting down of shutters, and an increasing preoccupation with self-protection, self-interest, and desire for power and the recovery of control. The post-modern self is thus predisposed to assume a stance of readiness for conflict" (1995:130,131).

All of this seems to portray a different picture of selfhood than that of the hospitable self. The hospitable, "perichoretic" self is a be-gifted participant in the life of the Triune God that finds his/her deepest security and hope in the promises of the God that makes communion possible.19

 

b. "The economy of the gift"

It has been stated that the Triune God is a hospitable God that gives and receives. In his recent book Self and Salvation: Being Transformed, David Ford writes (drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas): "Hospitality combines and distinguishes enjoyment and responsibility, it allows for the notes of abundance, celebration and even extravagance and excess ... It helps to imagine an ethic of gentleness" (1999:44). The "hospitable self" is a responsible self, but it is also a self that knows about abundant and generous giving.20

The deepest reason being that we are pneumatologically grounded in the Giver, that is the source of all gifts. The picture of the hospitable self forms a stark contrast to that of "economic man." It operates from a different logic. In an essay entitled The Logic of Jesus, the Logic of God, Paul Ricoeur captures something of this logic of hospitable generosity. He contrasts the human logic of equality, of equivalence, with another logic. This other logic, the logic of God, is one of excess and superabundance. Towards the end of his fine essay Ricoeur writes: "The law of exchange is not eternal. Ethnology tells us of an economy of gift more ancient than that of exchange; it tells us of festive events on which human beings competed against one another with their generosity and munificence. Is not our task at national level, and even more at international level, to bring about the economy of the gift within a modern context" (1995:283, italics mine).

To bring about the economy of the gift in a modern context. Should this not be the challenge and joy especially for those who know about the strange economy of God and have received the economy of salvation? In a society that hungers for a revaluation of values, the need is high for persons who embody the economy of the gift by giving in such a way that others can receive without regret.


c. Identity and otherness

The idea of a "perichoretic, hospitable self" challenges both the isolation from the neighbor (the individualist self), as well as the collective self's loss of particularity. It opens the door for a picture of the self that is open for otherness without forfeiting particularity and identity, while on the other hand claims identity in a way that is open to difference and otherness. One of the challenges facing our world, and also South African society, is a responsible dealing with the problem of identity and otherness. In contrast with liberalism, it seems important not to collapse the moral life into "an identity of non-identity," while it also seems important, in contrast with totalitarianism, not to emphasize my/our identity in such a way that it becomes an enclosed identity. By locating both identity and otherness within the character of the Triune God we can find the resources to rethink both notions (identity and otherness) in faithful, creative and responsible ways. The emphasis on the tri-unity of God and human participation in the mystery of the Triune God, does not mean that distinctiveness within Godself is lost, or that the clear distinction between Creator and creature is abandoned. It does, however, challenge our imaginations not to think in mutually exclusive terms with regard to the one and the many, unity and plurality, identity and otherness.

Given the challenge of pluralism, this vision helps us to claim our identity, but to realize that our deepest identity is, due to our status in God, an identity that is open to otherness. This implies a certain element of courage and risk. It implies vulnerability and possible loss of control. But it implies also that we open ourselves to reclaim our identity, as well as to experience God's grace bestowed on us through the otherness of the other.


d. Justice and worship

The Triune God is the self-giving God. God gives people more than their due. God gives mercy where people deserve judgement. This is what Luther called the strange justice of God. As people created in the image of this God we are to mirror something of this "strange justice."

The Triune God is the other-receiving God. God is a God that shows an openness to the whole of Creation. A sad reality within Christianity is that Christians have often excluded what God has accepted. This we must confess. We must also receive the forgiveness that enables us to reflect something of the same wideness and generosity of God's mercy.

The Triune God is the God-in-communion. This God is not a solitary God. To use William Placher's words: "God is not an isolated, single monarch whose only purpose is to rule. God is a community of equals united in mutual love" (Placher 1994:73). Elizabeth Johnson writes that the notion of perichoresis serves as a prophetic challenge to human relations that subordinate and marginalized, "the symbol of the Triune God summons the church to be a community of sisters and brothers in kinship with the earth, equal partners in mutual relationship, sent to bring the world into this divine dance" (1997:309).

Although one must be careful not to project one's own image of an ideal society onto the character of the Triune God, it is nevertheless so that the vision of the God-in-communion challenges the unjust power-structures that causes so much pain and agony in our world. Through the work of God's Spirit we, furthermore, receive the gifts necessary to live just and peaceful lives. All this points to the fact that the emphasis on hospitality does not exclude the possibility of justice.

It has been noticed in passing that one of the dangers in Trinitarian theology is a blurring of the distinction between the Triune Creator and the creature that has been created in the image of this God. The best way to prevent this is to point to the fact that the true hospitable self is a worshiping self. Worship is the place where our vision of God comes into focus. It is through worship that we are enabled best to "see" something of the character of the Triune God, as well as our responsibility as creatures. Communion with God through glorifying God enables the transformation of human character according to God's own character (see 2 Cor 3:18; also Wainwright 1980:17). This enables us to become what we are as people being created in the image of the Triune God.


End Notes:

1

In another essay on this theme, entitled The Human Creation: Towards a Renewal of the Doctrine of the Imago Dei, Gunton calls attention to two weaknesses in Barth's approach. The first is the tendency to be binitarian: a Father-Son duality is reflected rather than a theology of communion. This does not mean, however, that Barth does not develop an illuminating account of communion elsewhere. The second weak tendency is, according to Gunton, a tendency to anthropocentrism. Barth underplays the way in which Genesis brings the non-human creation into the covenant (1991:115,116).

2

It is important not to pose a Christological and Trinitarian focus over against each other. Claiming a Trinitarian framework does not mean that one cannot affirm a statement like: "Just as we cannot understand the creation apart from Christ, so we fail even more completely to understand human being apart form Christ, and particularly apart from Christ crucified" (Gunton 1998:196).


3 It can be argued that the modern individualist and collectivist selves are mirror images of each other. In both cases there is a loss of genuine personhood. In the case of modern individualism the many disappear into the one, and in the case of collectivism the one disappears into the many. A proper relationship between the universal and the particular is not maintained (see Gunton 1991:90).
4

Friedrich Schleiermacher, arguably the most influential theologian of the 19th century, for instance, relegated the doctrine of the Trinity to a few pages towards the end of his magisterial Glaubenslehre. He was convinced that the doctrine had little practical value.

5

The revival in Trinitarian theology certainly has something to do with the radical shifts in our cultural situation. Given the questioning of some of the basic assumptions of the Enlightenment, for instance the emphasis on individuality and rationality, it seems as if a certain methodological space is created to reflect on the doctrine of the Trinity in creative ways. Another concomitant reason is the promise that Trinitarian theology holds for a rethinking of the dialectic of identity and otherness, of oneness and difference. David Cunningham sums this up when he writes that the doctrine of the Trinity "calls into question our assumption that the categories of oneness and difference are incommensurable, incompatible, or even necessarily in tension with each other. The doctrine is thus an implicit critique of the dominant philosophical tradition of the West, in which `otherness' is associated primarily with fragmentation and revolt" (1998:8). Robert Jenson also rightly points to the fact that Christianity's loss of status as the established religion of the West, and the resulting pluralism, makes the doctrine of the Trinity extremely important in order to identify our God. Commenting on the situation in the Western world he writes: "In the foreseeable future the life of the Western world will be very like that of the declining Mediterranean antiquity in which trinitarian language was first createdpresenting a different divine offering on every street corner. For Christian discourse to be intelligible, we shall have to accept our place of one item of this pluralism and make clearfirst and principally to ourselveswhich god we mean, before we venture on his reality or characteristics. Therefore the Western church must now either renew its trinitarian consciousness or experience increasing impotence and confusion" (1982:ix).

It can also be mentioned that the greater ecumenical theological dialogue between Western Christianity and the Orthodox tradition in the latter part of the twentieth century played no minor role in opening new (or rather old, but neglected) avenues of thought.

6

A helpful reference in this regard is Geoffrey Wainwright's article The Ecumenical Rediscovery of the Trinity (1998). Wainwright points to the ground-breaking work of the Protestant theologian Karl Barth, the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner and the Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky. A diverse and influential group of theologians has over the last few decades further contributed to the conversation on the doctrine of the Trinity. Among Roman Catholics the studies of Walter Kasper, Bruno Forte and Catherine Mowry LaCugna are noted. Among the Lutherans there are the studies of Eberhard Jüngel, Robert Jenson and Wolfhart Pannenberg. Among Anglicans there is the philosophical study of David Brown and among the Reformed there is the influential work of Jürgen Moltmann, as well as the studies of T.F. Torrance and Colin Gunton. The orthodox theologian John Zizioulas's work, especially Being as Communion, has played a major role in recent discussions on the doctrine of the Trinity. With regard to ethics, the work of L. Gregory Jones aims at providing a trinitarian account of the moral life, while the Croatian Pentecostalist Miroslav Volf has written a major treatise relating the doctrine of the Trinity to ecclesiology. Wainwright's own work can also be mentioned. His book Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine and Life is trinitarian through and through and in his article The Doctrine of the Trinity: Where the Church Stands or Falls he has helpfully highlighted certain pitfalls for Trinitarian theology.

Among a "new wave" of Trinitarian studies one can mention John Thompson's Modern Trinitarian Perspectives, David Cunningham's These Three Are One: The Practice of Trinitarian Theology and Philip Butin's Calvin-study Revelation, Redemption & Response: Calvin's Trinitarian Understanding of the Divine-Human Relationship. There is even a reader entitled The Trinity, Classic and Contemporary Readings (edited by Lewis Ayres).

7 I think that one can agree with Christoph Schwöbel (1995:12) that it is a good choice of words to speak of the revival or renaissance of Trinitarian theology. It is not about restoration or a revolutionary new departure. It is not a novel way of doing theology. Rather it aims at learning from the tradition in order to meet the challenges of the new situation in a creative way.
8

Jürgen Moltmann puts it this way: "God is love. That means God is self-giving. It means he exists for us: on the cross. To put it in Trinitarian termsthe Father lets his Son sacrifice himself through the Spirit" (1993:83). He summarizes the Trinitarian character of God's self-giving as follows:

 

 

 

9

This idea that the Triune God, the God-in-communion, is a hospitable God, is wonderfully portrayed in the well-known icon of the 15th century Russian artist Andrei Rublev. It is sometimes entitled "Old Testament Trinity". In an article Trinity: To Let the Symbol Sing Again Elizabeth Johnson reflects Rublev's icon: "What the image suggests is that the mystery of God is not a self-contained or closed divine society but a communion in relationship. Moreover, its portrayal of the figures evokes the idea that this divine communion is lovingly open to the world, seeking to nourish it. As you contemplate, you begin intuitively to grasp that you are invited into this circle... This is a depiction of a trinitarian God capable of immense hospitality who calls the world to join the feast" (1997:299). For a inspiring meditation on Rublev's icon, see Ciobotea and Lazareth (Limouris 1990).

10

LaCugna (1991:271) puts it this way: "Perichoresis means being-in-one-another, permeation without confusion ... (T)o be a divine person is to be by nature in relation to other persons. Each divine person is irresistibly drawn to the other, taking his/her existence from the other, containing the other in him/herself, while at the same time pouring self out into the other".

11

Placher (1994:70) points to the fact that Gregory of Nazianzus was probably the first to use the concept of perichoresis, although he used it for the interpenetration of the human and divine nature of Christ. In the sixth century the concept was used in a text called Pseudo-Cyril, but it was John of Damascus who was the first to develop it more fully.

12

Elizabeth Johnson, for instance, finds the analogy between perichoresis and the cognate word for choreography evocative (1997:308,309). Although admitting that the philological warrant is scant, Catherine Mowry LaCugna also finds the metaphor of the divine dance effective. She writes: "There are neither leaders not followers in the divine dance, only and eternal movement of reciprocal giving and receiving, giving again and receiving again" (1991:272). Cunningham (1998:180) views the image of the divine dance as helpful in the sense that it suggests order and symmetry in the midst of diversity, but nevertheless sees it as not a wholly happy image. The idea of a divine dance conveys for him too much the picture that there are three separate entities or individual agents that dance. This is not in line with his own emphasis that God is the relationships that God has.

13

This participation is not, however, an individualistic affair. As body of Christ we reflect the image of God, and in this sense the church is created after God's likeness. Some theologians even speak of the church as an icon of the Trinity (see Volf 1998a).

14

It must be said, however, that the important thing is not merely relatedness, but a certain kind of relatedness. The idea of relatedness serves as a critique against the notion of the isolated self, but the whole idea that to be a self is to be a self-in-relation, has become a bit of a truism within modern discourse. The point is not that we are selves-in-relation, but that these relations reflect the ability to give and receive lovingly and freely. The Christian self is not merely a self-with-others, but also a self-for-others (to use Bonhoeffer's famous phrase). This for-others can even sometimes entail that we be a self- against-others.

15

For such an attempt, see Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989).

16

The emergence of the modern self rests on the assumptions of the Enlightenment. The heart of the moral project of the Enlightenment - with Immanuel Kant as the most influential exponent - was the attempt to create an ethic that does not rest on tradition, religious conviction or ecclesial authority. Thus, the posing of the view that there are certain universally valid ethical principles that can be discerned by using our rational capacities. The moral agent actually needs to free him- or herself from the constraints of particularity (like religious conviction) in order to make an "objective" moral judgement. There autonomy and freedom (viewed in a certain manner) became key values within the modern ethical paradigm. The "law" that guides one in one's actions does not come from outside the moral person, but is located within the rationality of the acting subject. Responsible ethical action, therefore, consists in being free from external authorities that can taint the moral judgement with subjectivity. Detachment and even alienation become praiseworthy virtues. The rational modern self is, therefore, an autonomous, rational and detached subject.


17

The well known writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch gives a rhetorically forceful description and critique of the dominant modern view of selfhood (from Kant to existentialism and analytical philosophy) when she writes: "How recognizable, how familiar to us, is the man so beautifully portrayed in the Grundlegung, who confronted even with Christ, turns away to consider the judgement of his own conscience and to hear the voice of his own reason. Stripped of the exiguous metaphysical background which Kant was prepared to allow him, this man is with us still, free, independent, lonely, powerful, rational, responsible, brave, the hero of many novels and books in moral philosophy. The raison d'être of this attractive but misleading creature is not far to seek. He is the offspring of the age of science, confidently rational and yet increasingly aware of his alienation from the material universe which his discoveries reveal ... In fact, Kant's man had already received a glorious incarnation nearly a century earlier in the work of Milton: his proper name is Lucifer" (1970:80).

For two very interesting critiques of the modern self, that draws on such diverse sources as Aristotle and Luther respectively, see Alasdair MacIntyre (1984) and Eberhard Jüngel (1995).

18

Jürgen Moltmann makes a similar point when he states that for middle-class liberalism, freedom means lordship. "Everyone finds in the other person a competitor in the struggle for power and possession. Everyone is for everyone else merely the limitation of his own freedom. Everyone is free in himself, but no one shares in the other" (1993:215). Over against such a subtle form of lordship, Moltmann see true freedom as being born out of community, love and solidarity.

19

Thiselton's astute observation with regard to the modern and post-modern self is worth quoting: "Perhaps the self of modernity had been right to hope, but wrong on the basis on which it built hope. Perhaps the post-modern self had been right to despair if will-to-power exhausted the content of all reality, but wrong in its assumption that this exhausted all that might be called `real'" (1995:161).

 

20

This idea of the hospitable self shows a resemblance to the notion of "an overabundant I" that Charles Marsh develops in his excellent study Reclaiming Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Marsh interprets Bonhoeffer's view of selfhood Christologically: "The overabundant self is the person transformed by the God whose own love has overflowed, is overflowing, and always will overflow in the giving of the Son to save humanity" (1994:150).

His own proposal regarding personhood, flowing from Bonhoeffer's thought, is more Trinitarian: "Just as God's love cannot be contained in the immanence of his self-relations but overflows to humanity in the loving event of the Son, so the love of Christ overflows the new being of the self. The structure of being a self is transformed; love is that event in which an I no longer exists for itself but exists in connection to another person on the way to becoming a we, and in this sense the I becomes truly an I" (1994:155,156).


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