DISCUSSION ON TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY.

VATICAN CONGREGATION FOR THE CLERGY.

29 JANUARY 2002

Manila, Philippines

Fr. Catalino G. Arévalo, S.J.

When Pope John Paul II promulgated the apostolic exhortation "Ecclesia in Asia" at New Delhi (India) towards the end of the year 1999, he voiced the hope that the Third Millenium would be "the Asian millenium". It would thus be the primary task of the Church in Asia to proclaim Jesus Christ to the nearly four billion Asians who have not encountered Jesus in any effective way, nor heard his message about the Father of all humankind, and the Spirit whom Father and Son send forth to draw all peoples to their eternal homeland.

Thus the primary concern of Asian theologians in the realm of trinitarian doctrine and theology would be to proclaim this central mystery of our faith within our Asian context, so deeply marked as it is by the great religious traditions of the East: Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism. We can begin with the reflection that since every true religion is a search for God; that the sincere and earnest search for God must in truth be guided by God himself in his providence, God whom we believe is one and triune. Ad Gentes #3 (Vatican II) teaches that religious initiatives which make up the earnest seeking for God are "valid pedagogical approaches" toward the true God who is the trinitarian God. These approaches must contain elements – the vestigia Trinitatis or "hints of the tripersonal God" which, in some way "move towards" the fuller revelation God will, in his own time, give about himself, his own nature and his plan for humanity’s salvation. Especially after the Second Vatican Council, Catholic theology has sought out with deeper interest those elements in other religious traditions which, in God’s plan, will lead to the fuller revelation of the One Triune God made known to us by Jesus Christ. The notion of "preparation" has been much used by the magisterium after Vatican II, indicating the semina Verbi, sown by the Spirit in the rites, thought and cultures, which are meant (so the magisterium has held) to mature in Christ (Redemptoris missio, #29). In the past, it was with considerably hasty readiness that "errors and falsehoods" were seen in other religious traditions (i.e. in non-Christian religions). Now theological discernment seeks with reverence, attentiveness and a more eirenic spirit to discover those things which "the Spirit sows in the non-Christian religions" -- seeds implanted by the Holy Spirit which Pope John Paul II says, take on "the role of preparatio evangelica." (ibid.) Many theologians find a good number of such elements in the religions of India. Recent studies on religious thinkers like Brahmabandhab Upadhyay (early 19th century), Henri Le Saux (known as Swami Abishiktananda), Bede Griffiths and Raimundo Pannikar (of our own time) describe with sympathy their diverse approaches to the Trinity, which almost always pass through the experience in depth of the Advaita. Regarding Buddhism: again, many Christian scholars find "hints of the trinity" in its teachings: e.g., the formula of the triratna, the teaching of the "three bodies" of Buddha, the theory of the "three ages" of salvation in Mahayana Buddhism, and some Buddhist psychological triads (three principles) in Buddhist spirituality. These scholars ask: are these to be regarded as true "hints", true preparation in Buddhist thought for the revelation of the Trinity? – Here it will suffice to say (it seems) that it may be possible through sustained, deepened and persevering dialogue among Christians and Buddhists to discover or work out new categories of thought and expression which may validly transmit the authentic trinitarian mystery revealed to us in Christian doctrine and thought.

In Islam we encounter a wholly unconditional "yes" to the one and only God who is Allah, an absolute and militant "no" to the Christian Trinity. This unyielding Islamic monotheism, it is asked, can it open itself to a genuine dialogue with trinitarian teaching? Those who have in fact engaged in dialogue believe that there is hope, by the grace of God, specially if Christians and Muslims, following what the Holy Father affirms in Redemptoris missio #57, engage in a sincere "dialogue of life". This means that followers of diverse religions, living side by side, give witness in their daily relationships to the spiritual values they cherish from their faith, and if side by side they strive collaboratively to build a society of greater justice, and brotherly solidarity.

- II –

In the time available to us we cannot enumerate even all the better-known attempts at a contemporary "reconceptualization" of the Trinity from within the Christian churches. We will (grosso modo) follow the classification of these approaches given us by the Dominican theologian, Fr. William Hill, in his book, The Three-Personed God. Since the task assigned is to line-up what are considered "erroneous" theological approaches, we will describe positions which are, at least as we see them, not in keeping with orthodox Catholic teaching. 1. The God of Liberalism: the Trinity of Religious Symbolism. Many liberal Protestants, following on Paul Tillich, would hold that the Trinity as a doctrine is merely a mental construct expressing symbolically the self-transcending movement of religious consciousness in its encounter with Christ. Thus the Trinity is a Christian symbol, useful but not indispensable to faith. 2. Neo-Modal Trinitarianism: the Uni-personal God of Three Eternal Modes of Being. Theologians like John Macquarrie, using Heideggerian language of existential ontology, hold that God is at once Primordial Being (Father), Expressive Being (Son) and Unitive Being (Spirit). These three are not temporal modes of being, but simultaneous and permanent ones. The trinitarian formula seeks to express the identity in God of the stability of being with the dynamism of becoming. God is conceived of as the energeia or pure process mysteriously grounding the coming into historical existence of finite beings and their appearance on the horizon of consciousness. Such divine being in its absoluteness is at once primordial, expressive and unitive: these are its eternal dimensions or eternal modes. Hill speaks of "modalism in the dress of existential theology." This provides for no real distinctions of persons within God. 3. Neo-Economic Trinitarianism: the Eternal God of History. It is in this area where most has been attempted wherever contemporary Christian theologians have wrestled with "reconceptualization" of trinitarian thought. The Trinity, we are told, is not so much a doctrine based on historical events attributable to God, but in itself the underlying structure of history. God is not eternal in the sense of timelessness, but intrinsically historical in his very divinity. The structure of that historicity manifests a certain "threefoldness", grasped philosophically in the triadic language of Hegelian dialectic, and religiously in the trinitarian language of believers. If the Trinity expresses a differentiation within God, this is one which is not fully intelligible in itself, apart from the differentiation which occurs historically. Some theologians would hold a position like this (e.g. Gordon Kaufman). The Trinity, as doctrine, is a merely human creation, a "threefoldness" in our knowledge of the God we meet in Revelation. The Trinity is a way in which we structure our knowledge of the God of revelation, who is transcendent and historical. But God is not trinitary in his transcendence or his very divineness, but only in his being "bound-up" with the world. God’s transcendence is a historical; we cannot therefore say anything about it. But his immanence is achieved, realized, in a wholly historical way. God emerges out of his ineffable transcendence into his abiding presence, in a threefold way, within history. God, relating historically to our human history, "economizes" himself in a way that can be expressed in the human doctrine of the trinity. The Trinity is not a structure of God’s eternal being, but of his being-in-revelation. It is within this "Neo-economic Trinitarianism" (that some of their critics hold) the trinitarian teaching of the Protestant theologians like Jürgen Moltmann and Eberhard Jungel may be classified. Within the ranks of Catholic theologians, there has been a move in this direction: Piet Schoonenberg is considered under this heading. In Schoonenberg’s theses of the Trinity, there is a clear affirmation of the immanent Trinity -- God is a Trinity in himself, yes. But God becomes a Trinity; this occurs only out of his involvement in history. But there must be some eternal structure within divinity which is the precondition for this to happen. But only within history, mediated by humans as historical beings, does this eternal triadic structure take on personal form. 4. Lastly there is the God of Creative Becoming, the God of Panentheism. This is the recent and very distinct theological school of Process Theism, which has as its source the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead and which counts strong following in North American academic circles. Process theology has a dipolar God: God has a primordial nature and a consequent nature. God stands outside the order of time in one dimension of his being, while simultaneously he is dependent upon it for achieving actuality in another dimension. This dipolar God is thus "atrinitarian." The doctrine of the Trinity has been (it is said) a primitive and rather inept way of symbolizing in the Bible and in the early Creeds the dyadic structure of God who is at once absolute and relative. Process thought finds the doctrine of the Trinity more a source of confusion for theology than a help, "a mystification rather than a clarification of Christian belief." (John B. Cobb) 5. The German Jesuit Karl Rahner has been by turns accused of Neo-Modalism ("the Thomist Trinity after Kant") and of Neo-Economic Trinitarianism. Rahner writes these formulae: "No adequate distinction can be made between the Trinity and the doctrine of the economy of salvation." And, "The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and the immanent Trinity is the Economic Trinity." (In his presentation of the theology of the Trinity in Mysterium salutis.) Those who have evaluated Rahner’s thought with attention and placed it within his overall theological project find it ultimately quite orthodox and "an impressive recouping of the salvational import of Trinitarian doctrine." 6. Perhaps of greatest interest in all this area has been Jürgen Moltmann’s trinitarian theology, which sees the Trinity as "event of the Cross". "We must see the Trinity as event, the event of the cross, and then think of it as history open to the eschatological." – God makes Jesus to be his divine Son in delivering him over to death, in which act God makes death to be a phenomenon within himself, freely choosing this to be the mode of his being. At the same time, in this event, God achieves his own identity precisely as Father (in the trinitarian sense). The "spirit" of this sacrifice goes out from the Father and the Son and becomes determinative of the eschatological future. The "spirit", in so far as it is at once divine and distinct from the Father and the Son, constitutes God’s identity as Holy Spirit. Moltmann’s theology negates the notion of God as immutable. For God concretely wills to enter into the heart of his creation and undergo suffering, a suffering that is the price of love. Unless the lover opens himself to the beloved so as to be "passively affected" by the beloved, there is no authentic love. Thus suffering affects the Father, and is taken up by the Father into the godhead. – Moltmann’s influence on all Christian theology of our time has been large, and even among Catholic theologians and preachers who may disagree with many of his Hegelian presuppositions, his impact has been considerable.