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Theological Research ■ volume 2 (2014) number 1 ■ p. 31–52
: http://dx.doi.org/./thr.
G M
Pontical University of the Holy Cross, Rome
ife as elation:
lassical etaphysics
and rinitarian ntology
A
Life is atheological and metaphysical problem, because it constitutes the apex
of the realm of being. e Aristotelian Unmoved Mover was identied with
Life as the act of thinking. Christian doctrine arms that God is triune just as
Life, but here identied both with Logos and Love. e ontology of the First
Principle is dierent in Classical metaphysics and in Trinitarian theology. e
question discussed in the paper is how this dierence aects the understand-
ing of the relationship between God and the world. Having recourse to the
theological framework developed by the Cappadocian Fathers in the discus-
sions that lead to the formulation of the Trinitarian dogma in the 4th century,
free and mutual relation is presented as the key concept that was used in theol-
ogy to overcome the limitations of the metaphysics of the time and to extend
it in order to develop anew ontology that is an ontology of life. Trinitarian
ontology may also aid our understanding of created life, because it is not sim-
ply meta-physics, i.e. adescription of man and God according to the category
of necessity, but is ana-physics: life is understood from above with suitable cat-
egories for free beings.
K
Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, omas Aquinas, metaphysics and trinitarian
theology
Giulio Maspero
32
And all other realities will appear immaterial and unnecessary, save this
one: father, son and love. In that instant, gazing at the simplest of re-
alities, we shall all say: was it not perhaps possible to decipher this long
ago? Has it not been ever-present at the foundation of all that is?
(Karol Wojtyla, Rays of Fatherhood)
I
J. Daniélou wrote, “e real metaphysical questions are those which
reveal the limits of metaphysics.” Life does, in fact, seem to be one of
these very questions that poses achallenge for human thought. Cer-
tainly religion has always been connected to life and its limits, which
refer to the sacred dimension: one thinks, for example, of the religious
value of the beginning, the end, and the transmission of life found in
every ancient culture. e phenomenological perception of the nite-
ness of one’s own life and the necessity for asource that is identied
with the fullness of life itself begs for God.
In this paper we analyze the relationship between life and the rst
principle, dealing with some fundamental factors in the development
of philosophical and theological thought, in an attempt to gather how
a Trinitarian revelation permits us to reach a new ontological con-
ception capable of overcoming some diculties that have emerged
throughout the course of history. e key to this transition has been
the discovery of the ontological value of the will and of relation.
e analysis begins with the Greek philosophical thought of Plato
and Aristotle, in order to then show how the Church Fathers in the
fourth century extended the concept of classical metaphysics, accord-
ing to amodel that was later xed in the synthesis of Aquinas in the
Medieval Period. e conclusion of this narrative is aproposal for an
ontological re-examination of the notion of life based on those catego-
ries developed within human thought by its reection on Trinitarian
revelation.
¹ J. Daniélou, Dieu et nous, Paris , p..
² For this particular work there have been many important discussions with pro-
fessor Ariberto Acerbi of the Pontical University of the Holy Cross (Rome) and with
professor Riccardo Chiaradonna of RomaTre University (Rome).
Life as Relation…
33
C M
In Plato’s ontological hierarchy Eros serves as an intermediary unit-
ing the universe. is mythical gure is clearly areference to life, in
all its immediate anthropological and religious resonances. Within the
context of the Symposium Eros is again tied to authentic life: it is, in
fact, dened as the tendency to engender and give birth to what is in the
beautiful in order to reach eternity.
e relation between ontology and life is therefore intrinsic to the
metaphysical understanding of reality. Generation and the tendency
towards fullness of life are included in the structure of being in all its
gradations. One may wonder if the connection between being and life
also applies to the zenith of the ontological spectrum. Clearly, the gen-
erative dimension cannot be extended to the perfect World of Forms,
but it is extremely interesting to nd Plato address life within this
realm.
In Laws he presents amagnicent line of reasoning that ends with
the pre-existence of the soul and its primacy over the body. Classify-
ing the dierent movements, he demonstrates how the chain of those
things that move and are moved must be preceded by something that
moves by itself, without receiving motion from others. And this is pre-
cisely what is identied with life and the soul.
is doctrine unfolds agenuine evolution in the theological thought
of Plato: while in Phaedo he represents the World of Forms in astatic
way, in Sophist, one of his last works immediately preceding Laws, this
vision of the World of Forms is modied, attributing movement, life,
soul, and intelligence to it (κίνησιν καὶ ζωὴν καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ φρόνησιν).
Certainly this dynamic is related to thinking, inasmuch as the Forms
are subject to knowing and being known. In this way, the maturity of
Platonic thought reveals aclose connection between life and the onto-
logical foundation.
is construction is perfected by Aristotle who, by means of the
metaphysical instrument of the act, comes to identify God with the
³ Cf. Plato, Symposium, e, –.
Plato, Symposium, .e; see also .ab.
Cf. Plato, Laws, .e.
Cf. Plato, Laws, .ce.
Cf. Plato, Sost, .e –.a.
Giulio Maspero
34
act of living and thinking. Similarly to Plato’s analysis, Aristotle, be-
ginning from the constant circular movement of primordial heaven,
returns to the necessity of some reality that may be the cause of this
motion. But the reality that moves because it is moved is recognized
as an intermediary (μέσον), which necessarily appeals to an ultimate
reality that moves without being moved (ἔστι τι ὃοὐ κινούμενον κινεῖ),
insofar as it is eternal, and simultaneously, substance and act (ἀΐδιον καὶ
οὐσία καὶ ἐνέργεια οὖσα).
e Prime Mover must be the nal cause of each and every thing.
It is highly desirable because it is pure act and pure thought. Hence, it
does not communicate movement in that it is moved, as is true of the
rest of reality, but because it is attractive as far as it is loved and desired
(κινεῖ δὴ ὡς ἐρώμενον͵ κινούμενα δὲ τἆλλα κινεῖ). e use of the verb
ἐράω is extremely signicant, because it calls to mind the Platonic re-
ection on Eros.
Aristotle arrives at the apex of his reection in the moment he pres-
ents the Prime Mover as life, similar to that which for human beings is,
though for abrief time, the most elevated:
If, then, the happiness God always enjoys is as great as that which we
enjoy sometimes, it is marvelous; and if it is greater, this is still more
marvelous. Nevertheless it is so. Moreover, life belongs to God (καὶ ζωὴ
δέ γε ὑπάρχει). For the actuality of thought is life (γὰρ νοῦ ἐνέργεια
ζωή), and God is that actuality; and the essential actuality of God is life
most good and eternal (ἐνέργεια δὲ ἡκαθ αὑτὴν ἐκείνου ζωὴ ἀρίστη
καὶ ἀΐδιος). We hold, then, that God is aliving being, eternal, most
good (φαμὲν δὴ τὸν θεὸν εἶναι ζῷον ἀΐδιον ἄριστον); and therefore life
and acontinuous eternal existence belong to God; for that is what God
(ὁ θεός) is.
is passage contains striking beauty: E.Berti appropriately under-
scores the fact that only at the end of the argument is the name of God
Beyond the Laws, Plato asimilar construction in Lysis, where he demonstrates
the existence of aFirst Friend (πρῶτον φίλον), from whom descends every friendship
and attraction (Cf. Plato, Lysis, .d).
Aristotle, Metaphysics, XII, :.a.–.
¹ Aristotle, Metaphysics, .b.–.
¹¹ Aristotle, Metaphysics, .b.–.
Life as Relation…
35
(ὁ θεός) introduced. It ought to be stressed how Aristotle tries to lead
human contemplation to that act which is divine life. e theological
claim is of enormous signicance, so much as to constitute, perhaps,
the extreme limit to which one can elevate human reason deprived
of revelation. e beauty of intellectual contemplation allows one to
reach God who is alive inasmuch as he thinks, identifying himself with
thought itself. In this way, Aristotelian ontology is presented as an on-
tology of life that is an ontology of thought.
Simultaneously, this apex also represents alimit, because the full-
ness of life is identied with the necessary dimension, which explicitly
excludes relation and the will. Aristotle’s God is pure act and therefore
can desire nothing and cannot relate to anything: simply put, insofar
as he is absolute, God is not concerned with the concrete individual.
Life is always interpreted according to the dynamic of necessity. At the
same time the identication of the rst principle with life and thought
is placed at the base of every ulterior metaphysical reection of reality.
us, summarizing the contributions of Greek reections concern-
ing God and life, one can say that:
¹² Cf. E.Berti, “Per iviventi l’essere èil vivere” (Aristotle, De anima .b.), in:
M.Sánchez Sorondo (ed.), La vita, Roma , p..
¹³ Cf. E.Berti, “Per iviventi l’essere èil vivere”..., p..
¹ Enrico Berti instead maintains that the Aristotelian rst mover is aperson,
understood in the sense of the subject that is capable of intending and desiring within
Roman law. e attribution of the will would be demonstrated by the fact that for
the rst principle the act is pleasure (ἡδονή), from which one would deduce the pres-
ence of will (Cf. E.Berti, Attualità dell’eredità di Aristotele, PATH () p.–).
Here there seems to be an interpretation of intellectual pleasure as will that cannot be
completely shared because it applies to the rst principle the category of ὄρεξις, which
Aristotle strictly uses in anthropological contexts. As well known, psychological theory
of Aristotle represents asignicant progress with respect to Plato (Cf. A.Bausola, La
libertà, Brescia , pp.–). Nevertheless, the application of the analysis of pleasure
and desire to the rst principle was not developed by Aristotle and seems impossible
to identify it with pure act. It also seems improper to attribute personality to the Aris-
totelian rst principle by virtue of the identication of traditional Greek deities with
the various movers: the gods themselves, in fact, are none other than mythological
personications of natural forces, that pertain to the realm of necessity. It seems anach-
ronistic to read Aristotle’s texts with an ontological conception of the person and the
will. e same could be said for the platonic demiurge or every other ancient, mythical
personication of the divine.
¹ We refer to the armations of Giovanni Reale in G.Reale, Metasica di
Aristotele, Milano , p.cxxiv.
Giulio Maspero
36
Both Plato and Aristotle start from ametaphysical conception consti-
tuted by acontinuous ontological scale that combines the world and its
rst principle in asingle order.
Plato is perfected by Aristotle: the former, at the end of his work, in-
troduces life and thought in the theory of Forms and Ideas, the latter
identies the Prime Mover as the act of life and thought.
Both conrm thought as the ultimate metaphysical dimension of the
rst principle’s life.
Greek metaphysics pulls together, therefore, the connection be-
tween being and life at the level of the rst principle, identifying the
fullness of life with thought. e intelligible, in fact, does not pass away,
but survives within the material and phenomenological dimension. But
this thought is strictly related to the necessary causal connections that
rule the cosmos and are extended to the single ontological order that
includes the rst principle and the world.
T O
Christian thought made Greek metaphysical thought its own, but at
the same time required modication. e encounter with God urges
one to wonder what this being is that speaks and acts in history.
And this is ametaphysical question, as is the question what Jesus
i s. e Cross itself shows that those who crucied Christ understood
that this new rabbi claimed to be God: the very cause of the Cross was
the answer to such ametaphysical question. In this sense, the use of
metaphysics was imposed by the search for the meaning of Scripture.
Yet, the necessity of uniting the question of what to the question
of who emerged. e rst Christian thinkers were forced to face the
paradox of receiving the answer before the question. At this point one
may open to the fact that Jesus is one with the Father (see John :)
though he is also distinct from Him, because in addition to the di-
mension of essence comes the dimension of the person. However, this
demands an extension of classical metaphysics, which always relegated
the who to the accidental and phenomenal level.
Already in the Old Testament one observes this insuciency, be-
cause God is shown as having awill and entering into relations in away
that exceeded the limits of classical philosophy, born from areection
Life as Relation…
37
on the cosmos and necessity of nature. One could no longer nd amere
cosmic and necessary foundation of what is beyond physical reality
(μετὰ τὰ φυσικὰ). In fact, the Creator reveals himself over and beyond
nature, giving origin to all things out of nothing, for the sake of love,
and is in ever-present contact with human beings. is entering into
arelationship with God pushes itself, then, to the extreme point of the
Incarnation. So, with the revelation of the New Testament one dis-
covers that God not only has relation, but also is identied as three
Persons all uniquely themselves within their reciprocal relations. In the
same way one discovers that God thinks not only of himself, but also
thinks about and loves everything in existence, human beings in par-
ticular who are created in His image and likeness. Finally, the God of
the New Testament is not only seen to have awill, awill of love, as in
the Old Covenant, but is identied with the will itself, as it is stated
that “God is Love” ( John :).
e history of the development of Trinitarian doctrine can be revis-
ited precisely as the slow and laborious self-development of this new
ontology, no longer merely ametaphysical theory. Access to being and
its foundation can now be given only in the relationship and the gift
that God oers to humanity. With respect to the Greeks, the identi-
cation of the divine life with thought alone had to be revised: the Greek
ontological scale, in fact, implied that the rst principle could have
been known from the bottom up by means of human reasoning. God’s
relation to the world was anecessary causal relationship that could be
traced by the mind of philosophers all the way up to the various levels
of being. e Creator God of the Bible could still be known in this
way, although only aposteriori, insofar as this God is the origin and end
of the cosmos. However, within his own personal dimension he could
only be known by way of his self-revelation. e journey is merely the
freedom of love with which He discloses his immanence. In order to
know God, not only thought but also the will becomes essential: the
will of God who gives himself and the will of the man who opens him-
self to this gift. e distance between the creature and the Creator can
be traversed only if the Creator himself desires it and then opens him-
self to the creature. So the concept of the logos is re-examined and ex-
tended in apersonal sense: while the Greek logos is identied precisely
with the necessary causal link that connects the dierent levels of that
single ontological scale intended to be between God and the world, the
Christian Logos is the gift of the Father –the free and personal Word
Giulio Maspero
38
in the New Testament is indeed the Word, the Person of the eternal
Son. To think of the triune God becomes impossible except from the
starting point of Christ, from the Logos made esh.
us, the transition to this new ontology can be identied in the
formulation of anew thought not solely based on alogos ut ratio, that
is alogos understood as anecessary causal link, but as athought that
is born out of the logos ut relatio, that is, from the thought of the Son
whose being is apurely ontological relation with the Father. Initially,
the Trinitarian theology of the third century was inuenced by the
metaphysical conception of the logos, nding it dicult to express the
complete identity of nature and dignity between the Father and the
Son. e identication of the second Person with the eternal Logos, the
thought of God, always refers to the creation and the causal link with
it, because in the philosophical tradition the Logos assumed the func-
tion of ontological mediation that united in anecessary way the various
planes of being. But this implied an ontological dierence with respect
to the rst Person, in such away as to induce asubordination (at least
verbal) of the Son to the Father. e Son ran the risk of being identied
with the Platonic Eros or one of the Aristotelian intermediate movers,
by inuence of the graduated Neo-Platonic theology.
is diculty was not overcome until the fourth century, with the
thought of Athanasius and later the Cappadocians. In this context, the
relation between God and the world was no longer expressed through
the ontological mediation of the Logos, but with the new instrument of
the theology of nature: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were
identied with the single, eternal, and uncreated nature, while all other
existing natures were recognized as ontologically dependent on this
rst nature. Between God and the world opened an innite gap, which
could not be overcome by any degree of ontological intermediary. is
allowed for the expression of the creative and redemptive act in terms
of love and freedom, placing the divine will in the rst order and rec-
ognizing its ontological density. Hence, an ontology arose that had to
acknowledge the relation and the will within the rst principle. e
concept of life also had to adjust accordingly.
¹ Cf. G.Maspero, Patristic Trinitarian Ontology, in: G.Maspero, R.J.Wozniak
(eds.), Rethinking Trinitarian eology: Disputed Questions And Contemporary Issues in
Trinitarian eology, London–New York .
Life as Relation…
39
G N
e novelty of this idea is quite clear in the theology of Gregory of Nyssa.
His reection on the Trinity develops at the end of the Arian crisis, con-
taining his central point in the interpretation of the God from God for-
mula derived from Nicea. His reply to Eunomius required arenement
of conceptual instruments, atrue and proper extension of metaphysics
and classical gnoseology. e Nicean formula was understood, Arianism
aside, as aconrmation of the subordination of the Son with respect to
the Father, because the being from someone implied not being original
and therefore being metaphysically inferior. e central point was there-
fore to identify the ontological value of generation. e Christian rst
principle is Trinitarian and contains in itself not only the life of thought,
but also the life communicated in atotal way from the Father to the Son
in generation. eir relation is not merely acausal connection in which
the Second necessarily depends on the First as the eect of the cause:
the Father does not generate the Son merely giving him some thing, but
gives him all of Himself. For this the Son is one with the Father. e Fa-
ther, then, generates the Son in the total gift of that full and eternal Life
that is the very being of God. And the Son is the perfect image of the
Father precisely in the re-giving of Himself to the Father, in such away
that the Father is Father in the Son and the Son is Son in the Father in
their mutual relation of pure, reciprocal, and absolute gift.
e being from is revisited from the perspective of absolute life that
gives and generates, alife that is reciprocal relation. Being in classical
metaphysics, that in its absolute form cannot admit prepositions (gram-
matical signs of relations), must be reformulated in an ontology that in-
cludes the relations themselves within the rst principle. As an example
of this, Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra Eunomium III might be of some help.
e work was nished between and , immediately after the Coun-
cil of Constantinople and presents the theological questions treated as
the correct hermeneutics of the Nicene True God from true God (θεὸν
ἀληθινὸν τὸν ἐκ τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ θεοῦ). For Eunomius, in fact, generation
¹ Cf. J. I. Ruiz Aldaz, article Contra Eunomium III, in: L. F. Mateo-Seco,
G.Maspero, e Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa, Leuven , pp.–.
¹ e Nicene formula in Contra Eunomium III appears explicitly in ,, (GNO
II, ,) and in ,,– (GNO II, ,–), in this case accompanied by light from light
(φῶς ἐκ φωτός͵ θεὸς ἀληθινὸς ἐκ θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ).
Giulio Maspero
40
implied asubstantial dierence, through which the generated substance
could not be the same substance as that not generated. From this per-
spective the procession was read as proof of the subordination.
Gregory, then, presents the rst principle as possessing some imma-
nence, an in-side. It is precisely this dimension, expressed by the prepo-
sition in, that obliges one to claim the substantial identity between the
rst two divine Persons, because, as is written in John :, the Son is in
the bosom of the Father:
e Father is principle (ἀρχή) of all things. But it is proclaimed that
the Son is also in this principle (ἐν τῇ ἀρχῇ ταύτῃ), since he is by nature
that which the principle is. In fact, God is principle and the Word that
is in the (rst) principle (ἐν τῇ ἀρχῇ) is God.
If the second Person is inside the rst, it cannot then be something
else with respect to that Person. In this way the Son is not Himself
adierent ontological principle with respect to the Father and cannot
be understood as an eect, but is entirely in the original ἀρχή. Hence,
the Son identies Himself with Life, and with all other divine attri-
butes, just like the Father is God precisely because He identies Him-
self with Life:
Godhead is essentially Life (αὐτοζωή), and the Begotten God is God
and Life, and Truth and every conceivable thing that is sublime and
God-betting.
is means that the second Person of the Trinity is Life from Life
with respect to the rst Person. is formula is used by Gregory explic-
itly in Contra Eunomium III, together with Light from Light and God
from God. e expressions of the Nicene Symbol are then read in light
of the claim that the true Life is that of the Father and the Son, that is,
true Life includes generation.
¹ Cf. Contra Eunomium III, ,: GNO II, ,–,.
² Contra Eunomium III, ,,–: GNO II, , –.
²¹ Contra Eunomium III, ,,–: GNO II, ,–.
²² Cf. Contra Eunomium III, ,,–,: GNO II, , –. One can also see
asimilar context: Contra Eunomium I, ,,–: GNO I, ,–,.
²³ is is in stark contrast with how the platonic Eros is viewed and within
the entirety of the Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic traditions, that always understand
Life as Relation…
41
is statement would not be possible without introducing anew
ontology and modifying the Greek metaphysics on one essential point,
the point that Eunomius denies by citing relation and generation as
proof of subordination. Gregory’s basis for the position he takes is
Scripture, specically the exegesis of John’s prologue, where the Evan-
gelist writes:
that the Word was God, and was Light, and was Life (Cf. John :–),
not merely being in the beginning and with God and in the bosom of
the Father, in such away that by this kind of qualication the Lord is
deprived of being in the strict sense. By saying that he was God, he cuts
o every way round for those whose minds are running into wicked-
ness, and furthermore, even more important, he proves the evil intent
of our opponents. For if they claim that being in something (τὸ ἔν τινι
εἶναι) is asign of not strictly being, they surely agree that the Father
also strictly is not, since they learn from the Gospel that as the Son is in
the Father, so too the Father is in the Son, according to what the Lord
says (John :). To say that the Father is in the Son, is the same as
saying that the Son is in the bosom of the Father.
In the rst place, Gregory accepts as ahypothesis Eunomius’ claim
that the being accompanied by prepositions, that is relative being,
would indicate ametaphysical inferiority. He opposes this with the fact
that John does not merely say that the Logos was in relation to the
Father, as prepositions would express, but claims that Logos is God,
Light and Life in an absolute sense, adding nothing more. is would
indicate that Eunomius’ objection is unfounded. e reply does not
end here, but follows with an attack on the metaphysical premise itself,
checkmating his opponent. In fact, if being in relation were to exclude
absolute being, then not even the Father would be God in an absolute
way, because in John : it is written that the Father is in the Son.
e expression “being in something” (τὸ ἔν τινι εἶναι) has fundamental
value in classical metaphysics, because it indicates accidental being that
must inhere in some substance and cannot subsist on its own.
is ontological extension also manifests itself in the reexamination
of the role of the will. Regarding the Greek tendency to equate will
generation as degeneration.
² Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium III, ,,–,: GNO II, ,–,.
Giulio Maspero
42
and desire to thought, as is evident in Plato’s Symposium and in Socratic
ethics, Gregory of Nyssa inverts this relation and places the will itself in
the ἀρχή to explain the relation between the Father and the Son:
e Father wanted something, and the Son who is in the Father, had
the same will as the Father, or better yet, he himself has become the
Will of the Father.
e being of the Son is the doing of the Father’s will, “wanting”
to be from Him, that is, accepting and completely giving back the di-
vine being to the First Person in an eternal exchange of reciprocal gift
through which each Person is God not alone, but in relation with the
two other Persons.
A A
e discovery of the ontological value of relation and will allows for
the re-examination of the identication of life and being, in such away
as to place freedom and love as the foundation of being itself. e es-
sential step for the development of Trinitarian doctrine in the fourth
century was the distinction between two dierent ontological levels:
that of the world and that of the Trinity. Classical metaphysics was
developed from the point of view of the former, but now, because of
Revelation, anew ontological plane can be accessed by human knowl-
edge, albeit only in part. is plane is characterized by the possibility
of perfect identity between the single substance and three divine Per-
sons, amodality that is impossible to achieve on acreaturely level. e
“giving Life” in divinis does not imply losing it: rather, being consists
precisely in the giving of oneself.
is new outcome had to have an eect on the ontological com-
prehension of creation as well, and more specically for what con-
cerns human beings created in the image and likeness of the Creator
(Gen :). Clearly, the distance between the two ontologies remains
necessarily absolute, but what had been discovered as the perfection
of divine being could not exist in an equivocal way in creation as im-
perfection. For example, being in relation realizes itself in an absolute
² Idem, Contra Eunomium II,,, –: GNO I, , –.
Life as Relation…
43
and perfect way in God, and therefore cannot correspond in human
beings to something that is not aperfection. Rather, the perfection
of the human being must pass precisely through his or her own rela-
tions, and through communion. e same can be said for some of the
virtues that were not recognized as such by pagan ethics, like humil-
ity, whose ultimate foundation is the Trinitarian being one in the other.
Lastly, the will becomes discovered in all its ontological depth that al-
lows for the real union between lover and beloved. Here the dierence
between knowing and wanting is emphasized: while one might know
bad things without becoming bad himself, wanting implies atrans-
formation of the one who wants in the act of wanting, by which one
actually becomes that which he desires. From this breakthrough the
entire ontology of love is born.
All this was made manifest, then, in the identication of divine life
not only with the act of thinking, but now also with that of wanting
(or desiring). It is precisely this distinction between the two ontologies
that permits Augustine to develop his psychological analogy. is does
not consist in the projection of an anthropology within divine imma-
nence, but rather recognizes in the being of God Himself, disclosed by
Revelation, the ultimate source of an anthropological element that an-
cient philosophy was unable to fully appreciate. Specically, in describ-
ing the triad memory, intelligence and will in human beings, Augustine
demonstrates how these might be asingle life:
Since, then, these three, memory, understanding, will, are not three li-
ves, but one life; nor three minds, but one mind; it follows certainly that
neither are they three substances, but one substance. Since memory,
which is called life, and mind, and substance, is so called in respect to
itself; but it is called memory, relative to something. And Ishould say
the same also of understanding and of will, since they are called under-
standing and will relatively to something; but each in respect to itself is
life, and mind, and essence. And hence these three are one, in that they
are one life, one mind, one essence; and whatever else they are severally
called in respect to themselves, they are called also together, not plural-
ly, but in the singular number. But they are three, in that wherein they
are mutually referred to each other.
² Augustine, e Trinity, X,,.
Giulio Maspero
44
Immediately after presenting life of the human spirit as a unity
within atrinity, Augustine traces all of this back to the Trinity itself as
the foundation of being. In this way all the components of the new
ontology emerge: relation and the addition of the will alongside the
intellect, from which the former can be distinguished only in arela-
tional sense.
e psychological analogy then reveals itself as aconsequence of
the new ontology elaborated to present the distinction in the one and
triune God not substantially, but relationally. In this way the theology
of the Logos of the rst three centuries can be read as an incomplete
psychological analogy, that little by little perfected itself according to
the continuous deepening of the orthodox theological comprehension
of life at the human level and in God, parallel to the development of
this new ontology.
After the passing of centuries, in the Golden Age of Scholasticism,
Aquinas comes to the formulation of the psychological analogy in the
context of an extensive theological system with particular coherence.
In the Disputed Questions on Divine Power, recovering the outline of
the Greek analysis of the movement, he reconnects the procession of
the Son and the Spirit to the claim that God is alive. In the body of
the rst article of the tenth question, he draws the line between two
kinds of operations: those that emanate from the agent to adierent
object or the external realm and are common both to living and non-
living things, and those operations which are immanent and proper
only to living beings. e analysis moves from Aristotelian psychology
to arm that immanent operations are not asign of imperfection, but
rather characterize the act of aperfect being. In fact, Life would consist
of the capacity to move oneself, according to all that Plato claimed.
Aquinas, however, completely detaches himself from the Greek analy-
sis when he adds the immanent operation of love that proceeds from
the lover to the word that proceeds from he who speaks. God is said to
be living precisely because He possesses the immanent operations of
the intellect and will, without which he would not be perfect. In fact,
with regard to immanent operations Aquinas writes:
We attribute another kind of operation to God insofar as we speak of
him as understanding and willing. For he would not be perfect if he
² Cf. Augustine, e Trinity, X,,.
Life as Relation…
45
did not exist in an act of understanding and willing. In this way we
acknowledge him to be aLiving Being.
So, for Aquinas to say that God is Life is the same as saying that
God is triune, because the Life most ontologically elevated, the source
of every other life, is that which consists of two processions. e divine
Persons are numbered to be three, among themselves distinct but iden-
tical to asingle substance, precisely because God is intellect and will, in
such away that the two immanent processions relationally dierentiate
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Aquinas, at the end of the corpus in
question, explicitly reconnects himself to the Greek theology devel-
oped in the fourth century in order to respond to the Arians, whose
theology would imply aGod dead and void of intelligence.
In this rst article of the tenth question, Aquinas develops the
thought of Augustine, who was very clear in warning that the psy-
chological analogy could not be understood as an explanation of the
Trinity, making explicit note of the identity between the claim that
God is living and that God is triune. is has become possible precise-
ly because the history of salvation has revealed the divine act in history
as pure gift, from which proceeds the value of the will and relation. e
descending Judeo-Christian model, derived from the establishment of
God’s love as the source of human life, supplants the ascending Greek
model that is based on geometric and necessary proportion. e ab-
solute disproportion of the gift received by the divine will replaces
ontological necessity. is implies that the will and love are read in
the light of an absolute gift and no longer in the Greek terms of desire
and attraction.
² omas Aquinas, Disputed Questions Concerning Divine Power, q. , a. , co.
² Augustine, e Trinity, XV,,;,;,.
³ is point reconnects to the apophatic dimension of theology, that character-
izes the pinnacle of thought from the Cappadocians until Aquinas through the me-
diation of Pseudo-Dionysius: the role of the will within creation introduces, in fact,
a discontinuity in the necessary chain of causes, whereby the same transcendence
freely operates as the direct principle cause irreducible to the other. In this way, hu-
man thought can no longer trace back to penetrate the being of God, but not taking
as astarting point the divine act in history, to arrive at the personal dimension starting
from the connection between being and act. In this way, the same apophaticism marks
the limit of philosophical reection, which cannot penetrate the strictly Trinitarian
dimension.
Giulio Maspero
46
All of this leads one to think that the psychological analogy is
never at risk of being interpreted as some kind of projection on the
basis of human categories in God, insofar as the historical analysis
suggests that this full recognition of the ontological statute of the will
might be the fruit of Revelation, and concretely from the discovery of
God as the Trinity. At the same time, the development of Trinitarian
thought from Augustine to Aquinas shows how the identication of
God and Life is accomplished in the armation of the Trinitarian
dimension, tied to the comprehension of the ontological density of
the will and relation.
A M
A sentence from Etienne Gilson, that has attracted the attention of
Y.Congar, J.Daniélou, and G.Lafont, seems perfect to conclude this
journey: “Metaphysical theories grow old because of their physics.”
is shows that metaphysics is necessarily connected to that physics
starting from which one pursues the ontological foundation of reality.
Classical metaphysics has succeeded in drawing together areection
on God and life, identifying, in the work of Aristotle, life itself with
thought. Tracing the various causal links, the human being reaches
arst principle that is a universal and necessary thought. e limit
of this endeavor is the capacity to give value to the concrete and the
individual. e same Greek tragedy gives evidence to the diculty of
preserving the life of the individual in the face of universal value.
e development of the Trinitarian doctrine, from the fourth centu-
ry until Aquinas, demonstrates how Christian thought has had to push
the boundaries of the classical metaphysical concept, to make sense of
the one and triune God who is relation and enters into relation. Rev-
elation has provided access to anew ontology that characterizes the
rst principle alone and sets it apart from the ontology of creation. e
Aristotelian rst mover and the world belonged to asingle metaphysi-
cal order that philosophical thought could explore. On the contrary,
one can only know the ontology of God through that which has been
revealed. So one discovers the value of the will and relation, deeply
³¹ “C’est par leur physique que les métaphysiques viellissent,” quoted in G.La-
font, Peut-on connaitre Dieu en Jésus-Christ?, Paris , p..
Life as Relation…
47
connected to each other: the distinction between the necessary Greek
causal connection and Christian relation is properly given by freedom
and the reciprocity that characterizes the latter within the new onto-
logical conception.
e Trinitarian doctrine can then be dened as ana-physics, which
is an extension of meta-physics: while the Greeks sought an ontological
foundation starting with physical and cosmic reality, viz. out of neces-
sity, Christian thought must describe an ontology that is not simply
beyond (meta-) the physical realities, but is above (ana-) them. is
ontology nds its foundation above, not below. It is precisely this ana-
physics that allows for atreatment of life that is able to take into account
the fact of relation and freedom.
e phenomenon of life in this way stresses the limits of classical
metaphysics, because it has been developed from the point of view of
acosmos where the individual does not have absolute worth, but only
the universal enjoys ontological priority. In this sense, the single basis
of life can be the thinking thought of the First Mover, that moves all
things as anecessary cause, but has relation to nothing. It is alife that
is purely intellectual and not in any way relational, alife that knows
nothing of the gift or will.
Christian thought, on the other hand, has had to gather the onto-
logical priority not only of thought, but also of the will, with respect to
the cosmos: the world is wanted and loved by God. e ultimate reason
is love, and therefore freedom.
ese categories of relation, gift and love may also be utilized
within the ambit of creation to develop an ontology that seeks after
the foundation of being starting from those realities that are essential
to the human being. is is, in fact, the image and likeness of the
Creator and the ontological structure of the human being must bear
the sign of those perfections that are uncovered through ana-physics.
For example, if God’s immanence can only be known through free
self-revealing, this would allow one to gather the existence of an ana-
logical dimension of self revelation in the knowledge of the personal
immanence of the human being, leading one then to recognize the
value of revelation and faith on apurely human level, regardless of
faith. According to the Greeks, faith was merely an inferior mode
of knowing, to be followed solely when science was impossible. But
now, faith and the opening of oneself become the highest vertices of
knowledge, insofar as they are personal.
Giulio Maspero
48
A similar ontology could be dened, then, as meta-anthropics, be-
cause it seeks the ontological foundation not claiming anecessary or
xed cosmos as aprototype. Rather, it takes o from freedom, relation,
and gift. From μετὰ τὰ φυσικά one would pass to μετὰ τὰ ἀνθρωπικά.
is does not negate nor undermine metaphysics. e human being
does not cease to be physical or obey the necessary laws of the cosmos.
But the proper categories of true life, that is, of thought and love, as-
sume anew value for each and every human being. ey are ontologi-
cally capable of providing afoundation for morality and are not merely
aprioristic and voluntaristic. From this perspective, measureless love,
even giving one’s life for an enemy, does not represent aloss but again
in that Being properly consists in relation.
Even physics is re-examined, starting from the notion of gift and
every thing is recognized as the word of God, aword of love. e
meaning of all reality becomes the Son and the Gift. is opens the
way to anew ontological dimension that recognizes not only the nec-
essary cause, but also the free cause. e one and triune God need
not be autarkic to maintain His primacy, but is God precisely in His
absolute openness to relation. In the Greek world desire was seen
as deprivation, and therefore could not be attributed to God; in the
Christian world desire is the desire of self-donation and therefore
supremely divine.
is new conception of the divine changes the way to read the
nite world: precisely because created ontology subsists in the rela-
tion with what is not created, its niteness is relation to an innite
Creator. e creaturely limit becomes an opening to the innite in
the relational cross-reference to God who gives Himself, creating
without losing anything of Himself and without confusing Himself
with His creation. e relational ontology makes it possible to com-
prehend how God would have no need of “protecting Himself,” but
can be absolutely transcendent, also making Himself truly present in
the world.
From this perspective relation should not be understood accord-
ing to the classical metaphysical model, where it takes on the role of
an accident, but starts from its new ontological dimension revealed
by God. e life of human beings can only be fully understood from
above: and gazing vertically from the Trinity towards human beings
one may nd the instruments that would then permit us to understand
human beings horizontally in all their value. Within God, relation is
Life as Relation…
49
characterized by absolute freedom of the mutual and divine self-gift,
without that kind of necessity typical of the causal eects in creation.
Relation in God is not thought alone but also will. For this reason the
two processions follow adouble “movement” of ow and reow paral-
lel to that of intellect and will. e knower in amovement of attraction
grasps the known, and the lover is united to the beloved in an ecstatic
movement. is is how the Father generates the Son, his Logos, and
this generation is inseparable from spiration by which the Lover and
the Loved –that is, the Generator and the Generated –are united in
Love: the Holy Spirit.
It is amatter, therefore, of grasping how father, son and love could
be terms of truly ontological value, since the same Ipsum Esse Subsistens
is Father, Son and Love. For theological imagery, then, at the created
level, liation and paternity cannot be read as mere accidents, but pos-
sess unique ontological density. rough this liation the essence of
human beings can be re-examined. In the same way, interpersonal re-
lations can be re-examined not strictly from amoral or psychological
perspective, but from the very same being. Sociology also follows this
path when it demands anew metaphysical conception that could rec-
ognize the familial reality.
is insucient vision of the world based solely on essentialist
metaphysics is also noticeable in contemporary science. e mecha-
nistic rationalism of classic mechanics went into crisis in view of the
radical, relational dimension brought to light by the discovery of chaos:
understanding the evolution of aminimally complex system, in fact,
requires that account be taken of the interactions of objects that are
on opposite sides of the planet. Further still, quantum mechanics has
³² Cf. J. Zizioulas, Trinitarian Freedom: is God Free in Trinitarian Life?, in:
G.Maspero, R.J.Wozniak (eds.), Rethinking Trinitarian eology: Disputed Questions
And Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian eology, London–New York , s. –.
³³ From this ontological point of view one could recognize the metaphysical
value of the phenomenological analysis of the human psyche that, from the time of
S.Freud onwards, identies the wounds of human liation as the source of pathology:
Cf. G.Maspero, Remarks on the Relevance of Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian Doctrine for
the Epistemological Perspective of th Century Psychoanalysis, European Journal of Sci-
ence and eology () pp.–.
³ One may see an extremely interesting analysis in P.Donati, Relational Socio-
logy. ANew Paradigm for the Social Sciences, London–New York , pp.–.
Giulio Maspero
50
proven this relational structure: When one enters into the dimensions
of the studied phenomena, the very interaction of the measurement
placed in act from the knowing subject modies the known object. In-
stead of arepresentation based on objects as dierent essences, one
must introduce aconception of reality as relations.
is relational dimension grows as we approach the phenomenon
of life, where the complexity becomes essential to quantitatively an-
alyze the phenomenon. Biological organicity is really an integrated
form of relatedness. But this process stops in the face of human life
characterized by freedom. e organic relation is, in fact, still marked
by necessity and the will is not brought into play. Life highlights the
category of relation in the description of reality and at the same time
shows the insuciency of the category of relation understood solely as
anecessary interaction when we approach human life. is category of
relation developed by Trinitarian theology proves to be quite valuable,
even for those who do not share aperspective of faith. is contribu-
tion allows us to understand the value of the mutual and free relation
as the essence of man.
C
e phenomenon of life has a profound religious signicance that
points to its relationship with the rst principle. Classical metaphysics
approached it from the bottom up, by the search of afoundation to the
physical realities of the cosmos. Life has been identied with thought
and necessary causality as such. In this approach, however, the univer-
sal alone fails to take into account the individual and the person. is
raises the diculty of studying life in this metaphysical perspective.
Trinitarian doctrine developed by the Church Fathers of the fourth
century can be recognized as atrue and real ontology that oers thought
and conceptual tools capable of giving an account of life at the properly
human level, because they proceed from freedom. It is, therefore, not
³ is point has been noted by J.Ratzinger in : Cf. J.Ratzinger, Introduction
to Christianity, San Francisco , pp.–.
³ For an introduction of these two scientic theories markedly aware of the sen-
sitiveness manifested here, see P.Musso, Science and the Idea of Reason, Milano–Udine
, pp.–, –.
Life as Relation…
51
ametaphysic, but an ana-physic. Starting from the relation of free and
mutual gift in God, one can then descend to man to dene his life not
simply from the organic perspective. Very briey, one could say that
the conquest of Greek metaphysics is the denition of life not only
through self-movement, but also through the capacity of thought, the
theoretical activity: starting from being alive because one moves, changes
to being alive because one reasons. is is an important gain, but will be
completed later thanks to Christian revelation when being alive because
one reasons is completed by being alive because one reasons and loves.
It is important to stress that this approach does not promote rela-
tion over substance: the ontology developed in the th century by the
Fathers of the Church in order to give an appropriate formulation to
the Trinitarian doctrine assigning the same fundamental role to both
the former and the latter.
Moving from top to bottom, starting from this ontology discovered
by Trinitarian revelation, concepts and tools are found that may be ap-
plied also by those who do not share the faith to develop an ontology
that would not only be metaphysical, but could also be metanthropi-
cal, because it can account for those traits that are essential to human
life: freedom and love. If the anthropological instance in times past
has been expressed in an anti-metaphysical sense, perhaps it is because
there was no development of such an ontology.
erefore, the Christian solution to the question about life and death
is not only areference to thought and universal truth, as in Greece, but
is love: true life is being for another and in the other for love.
B
Aristotle, Metaphysics.
Augustine, e Trinity.
Ayres L., (Mis)Adventures in Trinitarian Ontologies, in: J.Polkinghorne (ed.),
e Trinity and an Entangled World, Cambridge , pp.–.
Bausola A., La libertà, Brescia .
³ is approach seems to overcome L. Ayres’ critical remarks to relational
ontologies in L.Ayres, (Mis)Adventures in Trinitarian Ontologies, in: J.Polkinghorne
(ed.), e Trinity and an Entangled World, Cambridge , pp.–.
Giulio Maspero
52
Berti E., “Per iviventi l’essere è il vivere” (Aristotle, De anima .b.), in:
M.Sánchez Sorondo (ed.), La vita, Roma , p..
Berti E., Attualità dell’eredità di Aristotele, PATH () p.–.
Daniélou J., Dieu et nous, Paris .
Donati P., Relational Sociology. ANew Paradigm for the Social Sciences, London–
New York .
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Lafont G., Peut-on connaitre Dieu en Jésus-Christ?, Paris .
Maspero G., Patristic Trinitarian Ontology, in: G.Maspero, R. J. Wozniak
(eds.), Rethinking Trinitarian eology: Disputed Questions And Contempo-
rary Issues in Trinitarian eology, London–New York .
Maspero G., Remarks on the Relevance of Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian Doctrine
for the Epistemological Perspective of th Century Psychoanalysis, European
Journal of Science and eology () p.–.
Musso P., Science and the Idea of Reason, Milano–Udine .
Plato, Laws.
Plato, Sost.
Plato, Symposium.
Ratzinger J., Introduction to Christianity, San Francisco .
Reale G., Metasica di Aristotele, Milano .
Ruiz Aldaz J.I., article Contra Eunomium III, in: L.F.Mateo-Seco, G.Maspe-
ro (eds.), e Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa, Leuven , pp.–.
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Zizioulas J., Trinitarian Freedom: is God Free in Trinitarian Life?, in: G.Maspe-
ro, R.J.Wozniak (eds.), Rethinking Trinitarian eology: Disputed Questions
And Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian eology, London–New York .
