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A Trinitarian Ontology of Persons in Society
Abstract
Orthodox Christians, Rahner declares, are ‘almost mere monotheists’, isolating the dogma of the Trinity from any personal relevance to their lives. The doctrine of the Trinity appears in the Church's creeds, prayers, rites, and hymns, but the faithful must often wait till Trinity Sunday to hear the significance of the Trinity for their identity as Christians. Likely, they will hear imperatives without indicatives, moral mandates devoid of ontological grounding in God's grace. No wonder that the laity often ignore the triune God whom they confess and praise in Church amid their life and work in society.
... Thus, humans find their true being in relation to God and to others. On the basis of a trinitarian ontology of persons, Speidell (1994, following the thought of Gunton, 1991) Secondly, for the Eastern Christian, unity is to be found in diversity. Even the Absolute exists, not in uniform singularity, but in Trinitarian dynamic diversity, or as St. ...
... Gregory Palamas (1296-1359 A.D.) stated "God is indivisibly divided and united divisibly" (Sinkewicz, 1988, ch. 81, p. 179). Thus, Eastern Christianity would be equally opposed to integration models which emphasize conformity and ignore diversity, and to separationist models which overemphasize differences and divisions at the expense of relation (Speidell, 1994). Eastern Christian models of community thus allow for heterogeneity. ...
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Saskatchewan, 2003. Includes bibliographical references.
This article is part of an international research group, CODE, to address the inadequacies of the dominant community development theories and models. This is an attempt to deal with personal responsibility for development from a theological perspective. The limitations of the modernisation theory and secular theories such as Sen's expansion of choices are pointed out as hegemonic or amorphous. Personhood as the root of personal responsibility forms the point of convergence for perceived opposites such as being and doing, individual and community, and receiver and giver. Important themes such as reciprocity, perichoresis, creation and vocation as found in relational theology form the basis of a contribution by theology to community development.
The question that this article addresses is the role of personhood in development in post-Apartheid South Africa. Modernisation and Dependency theories have not been successful in the development of South Africa over the past two decades. The gap between rich and poor has widened and South Africa was on the verge of being declared junk status. An approach that considers personhood from an African perspective can lead to more effective development. Effective development that is less dependent and exploitative can emerge from theological markers such as the Trinitarian God, relationship with the other and vulnerability.
The question that this article addresses is the role of personhood in development in post-Apartheid South Africa. Modernisation and Dependency theories are critically engaged and the limitations pointed out. The gap between the rich and poor has widened and south Africa was on the verge to be delcared junk status. An appraoch that considers personhood from an African perspective can lead to more effective and sustainable development. Effective development that is less dependent and exploitative can emerge from theological markers such as the Trinitarian God, relationships with the other and vulnerability.
This article attempts to make a contribution to the discourse of missiology by engaging critically with the much debated studies of theology and development. The two widely used definitions of development are analysed to point out commonalities and weaknesses. A theology of relationality is then introduced with reference to the Trinity, relationships and personhood. Some pointers then emerged to form a more integral understanding of development. I then make some connections between human and
social development and the Trinity and perichoresis and to point out the missiological and ecclesiological implications for the mission of the church.
Perichoresis (perichoresis, circumincessio) is a theological term which describes the ‘necessary being-in-one-another or circumincession of the three divine Persons of the Trinity because of the single divine essence, the eternal procession of the Son from the Father and of the Spirit from the Father and (through) the Son, and the fact that the three Persons are distinguished solely by the relations of opposition between them.’ This term was popularized in the eighth century by John of Damascus who, in his De fide orthodoxa, said the three Persons of the Trinity ‘are made one not so as to commingle, but so as to cleave to each other, and they have their being in each other [kai ten en allelais perichoresin] without any coalescence or commingling.’ This important theological term, which Karl Barth rightly regarded 'as the one important form of the dialectic required to complete the concept of ‘three-in-oneness’ ‘from the side of the unity of the divine essence’ and ‘from the side of the original relations,’ has suffered in some recent theology from its appropriation to describe relationality apart from mutually shared being. For example, in his influential social doctrine of the Trinity, Jürgen Moltmann emphasizes the ‘relational, perichoretically consummated life processes’ of the three Persons who ‘cannot and must not be reduced to three modes of being of one and the same divine subject,’ whose unity ‘cannot and must not be seen in a general concept of divine substance.’
If it is the case, as John Macmurray suggests, that ‘any way of life implies a philosophy’, or further, that ‘there is a necessary relation between philosophy and social practice’, then an essential dimension of the task of the philosophical theologian must be to engage with the philosophy inherent in and underlying the social practice manifest in the society in which he or she operates. This would imply that the theologian should work in cooperation and in dialogue with the sociologist. But it is clear from theological literature that this course rarely appeals to the theologian who would rather not risk the charge of being unequally yoked with those inhabiting other domains or of deserting his academic or spiritual ‘kingdom’ in pursuit of what is often seen to be the fashionable or the popular!
- Torrance