The Trinity and the Nature of Love | Fr. Christopher Rengers | Ignatius Insight
The Trinity and the Nature of Love | Fr. Christopher Rengers | From the November 2007 issue of
Homiletic & Pastoral Review
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2007/crenger_trinityhpr_nov07.asp
It is only through revelation that we have come to know that God is one and three. To
understand the doctrine completely is beyond human ability. But to explore the
Holy Trinity by appealing to reason and human experience is very worthwhile.
In fact,
the Trinity, as the struggles of the first centuries of Christianity show, must
be discussed in order to define who Jesus is and why Mary may be called Mother
of God. Our most common Christian gesture and the words that go with it in the
Sign of the Cross turn our thoughts to the Trinity. This simple practice
presents us with contrasting mysteries, bringing together suffering, mortal
human nature and unchangeable, eternal divine nature. The tracing of the cross
points to painful death while the words point to the source of all life, the
Holy Trinity.
Prayerful
contemplation, discussion and exploration have a continuing purpose. The
fullness of all life, creativity and power that is in the Trinity provides ever-expanding
horizons for contemplation, thought and incorporation in helpful, practical
ways into human life. Two "explorers" almost a millennium apart offer
viewpoints of unique interest. They are the little-known Richard of St. Victor
and our present Holy Father, Benedict XVI. The latter's work An Introduction to
Christianity [1] appeared originally in German in 1968, and is not magisterial teaching. It is
rather the product of a profound philosopher and theologian. It delves into the
ultimate nature of reality in the Trinity and the ultimate meaning of person.
The chapter
"Belief in the Triune God" makes a helpful comparison between the nature of
matter as now conceived in physics and the nature of substance and relation in
the Trinity. The phrase quoted to explain the structure of matter as "parcels
of waves" brings the comparison into focus.
The phrase
is open to criticism in regard to physics, "but it remains an exciting simile
for the actualitas divina, for the fact that God is absolutely 'in act' (and not 'in
potency'), and for the idea that the densest being—God—can subsist
only in a multitude of relations, which are not substances but simply 'waves,'
and therein form a perfect unity and also the fullness of being" (p. 175).
The
position of the observer has much to do with what he will discover. The
question the observer asks will have an effect on the answer. The physicist
doesn't approach everything as though it had to be matter. Nor does he approach
everything as though it had to be motion. He looks at the total reality from
two viewpoints. One is that things are made of matter, the second that
everything is arranged according to motion or "waves." It is necessary to think
in complementarities, whether in physics or in the theology and philosophy of
the Trinity.
So in
approaching the Trinity we consider it according to substance and according to
relationship. The two together taken complementarily will give the complete
reality that is the Holy Trinity. The relatededness cannot be considered as an
accident of the substance. Putting the two together expresses the reality that
is defined as one God and three divine Persons. "Not only unity is divine;
plurality, too, is something primordial and has its inner ground in God
himself. ...It corresponds to the creative fullness of God, who himself stands
above plurality and unity, encompassing both" (pp. 178-179).
Faith enters into the observer's viewpoint
What is
said so far concerns chiefly the area of logic and philosophy. But the
Christian has a re-enforced position. It comes from the gift of faith. The
Christian too is an observer, but his vantage point brings in the powerful beam
of faith to shine on the total reality of the Holy Trinity.
Pascal's
famous argument of the wager is highly praised. The argument has "an almost
uncanny clarity and an acuteness verging on the unbearable" (p. 176). The man
of no faith is, after a series of questioning, finally driven into the corner
of accepting or rejecting belief. The punch line is in the final advice to a
man of no faith: "You want to cure yourself of unbelief and you ask for a
remedy? Take a lesson from those who were earlier racked by doubts like
yourself.... Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed,
by taking holy water, by having Masses said and so on. This will bring you
quite naturally to believe and will stupefy you." Stupefy is here explained as
returning to the openness of a child, not hindered by pride of intellect. "On
this basis, Brunschvieg can say in Pascal's sense, 'Nothing is in more
conformity with reason than the disavowal of reason'" (pp. 176-177).
What
does "person" mean?
As far as a
human being is concerned, a person is an individual, rational, responsible
substance. Relationship to others is something added. Our usual concept of
"person" is anthropological. This concept, of course, makes
difficulties when thinking of the divine "Persons." In them "person" is not an
individual substance, but is a co-element of their total reality. The apt
phrase, parcels of waves, to express the structure of matter as a grouping of certain motions or
"waves," helps in grasping this fact. In God the substance and the "waves," or
relatedness, are both necessary on an equal basis for conveying the proper
notion of the total reality that is God, three and one, the Holy Trinity.
The
relationship "stands beside the substance as an equally primordial form of
being....The 'three Persons' who exist in God are the reality of word and love in
their attachment to each other. They are not substances, personalities in the
modern sense, but the relatedness whose pure actuality ('parcel of waves'!)
does not impair the unity of the highest being but fills it out" (p. 183).
"St. Augustine once enshrined this idea in the following
formula: He is not called Father in reference to himself but only in relation
to the Son; seen by himself he is simply God. Here the decisive point comes
beautifully to light. 'Father' is purely a concept of relationship. Only in
being for the other is he Father. In his own being in himself he is simply God.
Person is the pure relation of being related, nothing else. Relationship is not
something extra added to the person, as it is with us; it only exists at all as
relatedness. (p. 183)
"Let us listen once again to St. Augustine: In God there are
no accidents, only substance and relation. Therein lies concealed a revolution
in man's view of the world: the sole dominion of thinking in terms of substance
is ended; relation is discovered as an equally valid primordial mode of reality"
(p. 184).
Trinity
doctrine is most practical
It has been
said that saints and great contemplatives end up giving more and more attention
to the Holy Trinity. This does not mean that they are up in the ozone of a spirituality
detached from ordinary human life. It means the contrary. To understand that
relatedness does not destroy but adds to unity, and indeed is necessary for
perfect unity, has practical conclusions for human life. Fullness of human life
too flows from relatedness, and will be more pleasing and perfect the more the
person's self-giving and other-receiving proceed from love.
In the
Trinity self-giving and other-receiving is of course perfect and so unity is
perfect. But Jesus has called all his followers to imitate that oneness. In his
sublime prayer at the Last Supper (John 17), he prayed first for the Apostles
and then specifically for all they would in turn invite to follow him: "Yet not
for these only do I pray, but for those who through their word are to believe
in me, that all may be one, even as thou, Father, in me and in thee; that they
may also be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me"
(20-21).
Before his
priestly prayer Jesus had made clear that the great demand for unity made on
them could be fulfilled only by the coming of the Third Person of the Trinity.
Jesus would send him. But again, even the Advocate who would teach all truth,
call to mind all that Jesus had said, and tell them what they were not yet strong
enough to hear, would be acting in a "from" and "toward" mode. "Many things yet
I have to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of
truth has come, he will teach you all the truth. For he will not speak on his
own authority, but whatever he will hear, he will speak, and the things that
are to come he will declare to you" (John 16:12-13).
The first
relatedness Jesus calls for is with him. This has great meaning for ecumenical
efforts. "To John, being a Christian means being like the Son, becoming a son;
that is, not standing on one's own and in oneself, but living completely open
in the 'from' and 'toward'" (p. 187). The reflections on the Trinity have shown
us "that Christian unity is first of all unity with Christ, which becomes
possible where insistence on one's own individuality ceases and is replaced by
pure unreserved being 'from' and 'for'" (p. 187).
The
concluding sentence of the chapter on the Trinity sums up: "Just when we seem
to have reaching the extreme limit of theory, the extreme of practicality comes
into view: talking about God discloses what man is; the most paradoxical
approach is at the same time the most illuminating and helpful one" (p. 190).
Richard
of St. Victor
St.
Bonaventure places Richard of St. Victor among the masters of contemplation. Dante
salutes him as "in contemplation more than human." Little is known of his early
life. He came perhaps from Scotland and entered the Abbey of St. Victor on the
bank of the Seine outside the walls of Paris in the early 1150s. During the
last decade and a half of his life he was first sub-prior and then prior of the
monastery till his death in 1173.
His hope as
prior to teach a solid mystical theology as the interior basis for good
community relations provides reason enough for Richard's writing on the
Trinity. Moreover, the Canons recited daily the Athanasian Creed, which is a
detailed profession of faith in the Holy Trinity.
Richard's Book Three of the Trinity [2] is unique, however, in that it
appeals to human reason to establish the necessity of three persons in God. The
basis for this necessity is the perfection of love. Made in the image and
likeness of God, a human being knows that love is necessary for happiness.
Through twenty-seven
short chapters (pp. 371-397) Richard looks at every angle of the meaning of
love and how it has to include relatedness. God could not be an absolutely
alone person and be infinitely perfect, good, happy or powerful.
"Where there is fullness of all goodness, true and
supreme charity cannot be lacking, for nothing is better than charity; nothing
is more perfect than charity. However no one is properly said to have charity
on the basis of his own private love for himself. And so it is necessary for
love to be directed toward another for it to be charity. Therefore, where a
plurality of persons is lacking, charity cannot exist." (p. 374)
After he
has established that in God there must be a plurality, Richard of St. Victor
goes on to say that the plurality must be more than two persons.
"It is necessary that each of those loved supremely and
loving supremely should search with equal desire for someone who would be
mutually loved and with equal concord willingly possess him. Thus you see how
the perfection of charity requires a Trinity of persons, without which it is
wholly unable to subsist in the integrity of its fullness. Thus, just as
integral charity cannot be lacking, so also true Trinity cannot be lacking
where everything that is, is altogether perfect. Therefore there is not only a
duality but also true Trinity in true unity and true unity in true Trinity."
(p. 385)
Richard
a valuable guide
Richard of
St. Victor was both an administrator and a teacher. He spoke often to the
Canons in his monastery, preached to them and counseled them in private. Grover
Zinn, the translator of Richard, sums up Richard's contribution in his work on
the Trinity:
"In the supreme source of life, the Creator, one finds full
personhood understood in terms of union and individuality; of loving, being
loved and sharing love. Such a pattern suggests that in the imago Dei that is man, the reflection of this
life should lead to a renewed appreciation of charity as a love lived in
community with others, involving interpersonal sharing of the deepest kind."
(p. 48)
It is not
hard to see how meditation on the Trinity can strengthen the whole fabric of
human relationships. It can help in the family, in a monastery or convent, in
governmental bodies, in business, in any situation where cooperation is called
for. You are most your true self, you are your best self, not when standing
alone, but when aware of the primordial nature of relatedness in regard to
unity. A true Christian, united with Christ, and aware from deep meditation
that Christ and the Father are one, will be a person who strives humbly for
unity. He knows that good human relatedness is a faint reflection of the
relatedness that is essential in the divine unity.
The unique
explorations of the two masters above, writing 800 years apart, arrive at the
same conclusion. We might sum it up by saying that the nature of God includes a
built-in relatedness. The medieval writer finds this result by examining the
demands of perfect love, the modern writer by allowing his studies a double
vantage point suggested by the demands of modern physics.
One simple,
practical result from considering their thoughts about the Trinity, personhood
and love, would be to make the Sign of the Cross in a thoughtful and deliberate
manner. For priests this has application also in giving blessings, whether at
the end of Mass or at other times. In this simple sign an amazing amount of
mystery lies hidden. It deserves more perfection than an indefinite wave of the
hand. (Perhaps a flashback to the idea of "parcels of waves" may help.) For it
recalls at once the perfect sacrifice of Christ and the perfection of love that
demands plurality in the Trinity.
ENDNOTES:
[1] Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, An Introduction to
Christianity (English, 1990 & 2004, Ignatius Press, San
Francisco).
[2] Richard of St.
Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, The Mystical Ark, Book Three of the Trinity (Paulist Press, New York, Ramsey,
Toronto, 1979), pp. xvii & 425.
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Reverend Christopher Rengers, O.F.M. Cap., is in retirement at St. Augustine Friary in Pittsburgh,
Penn. He continues to cooperate with the Workers of St. Joseph and the Queen of
the Americas Guild in their endeavors to foster devotion to St. Joseph, Our
Lady of Guadalupe and the Blessed Sacrament. His Marian books, Mary of the
Americas and The Youngest Prophet,
have been updated lately to include the canonization of St. Juan Diego and the
beatification of Jacinta and Francisco of Fatima.
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