FEBRUARY 2006 - ISSUE 6 - ISSN 1448 - 6326

Theos, Cosmos, and Anthropos: Trinity, Incarnation, and Creation within the Framework of Raimon Panikkar’s Cosmotheandric Vision.[1]   Rohan Curnow

 

Abstract

This article is an exploration of Raimon Panikkar’s notion of human time-consciousness.[2]  Accordingly, the focus of this article is the triune God, the cosmos, and humanity’s position within it.  The first section below outlines the hermeneutic perspective of this article, the framework developed by Raimon Panikkar.  Thence, in the second tranche, the theological significance of this schema is explored using the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation.  Some of these connexions are elaborated upon in the conclusion to this article.

Stages in Human Consciousness and the Cosmotheandric Vision

Raimon Panikkar writes in The Cosmotheandric Experience: “I am offering a synthesis which not only remains open but which allows and even calls for differing interpretations”.[3]  Panikkar’s work is relevant to this article because it provides an approach to the question of how humanity has, over time, viewed its relationship with the divine and the cosmos.  It is—with respect to God, humanity and the cosmos—an outline of three fundamental attitudes apparent in the unfolding of human consciousness.  The synthesis Panikkar writes of is his perception of “the Threefold Structure of Human Time-Consciousness”.[4]  This structure consists of the following moments: (a) ecumenic or nonhistorical, (b) economic or historical, and (c) catholic (universal) or transhistorical.[5]  It must be stressed that these three moments of consciousness “exist in most any [sic] given situation ... it is at once a question of emphasis ... and of boundaries”.[6]  They represent three ways of being human, “Because consciousness defines Man”.[7]  The moments of awareness are not to be understood simply in an historical, evolutionary manner, but as levels of pervading individual and cultural awareness.

The Ecumenic Moment

In periods where the ecumenic moment dominates, we find “Man of Nature”.[8]  That is, in the ecumenic moment of consciousness, “Nature, Man and the divine are still amorphously mixed and only vaguely differentiated”.[9]  It existed extensively as the dominant moment up until the invention and the spread of writing.[10]  In ecumenic or nonhistorical consciousness, time is anthropocosmic; the distinction between Man and nature is not yet made.[11]  Mankind is conscious of nature, but does not separate itself from her.  Man still shares the world with the gods.  The gods have not been banished or made transcendent; nature is mysterious and divine;[12] the idea of a “collective enterprise different from what nature does or separated from the rhythms of the cosmos makes no sense to pre-historical Man”.[13]  Man relates to nature, fellow human beings, and the gods in much the same way.  Life is an active struggle, lived in the now, not postponed until the future.  Resources are used for the moment and not acquired as a means for political domination in the future.[14]  All reality struggles together; there is only a limited delineation among God, nature and Man—and certainly no schism between the three realities.  Delineation and classification, however, are the focus of the economic moment.

The Economic Moment

The economic moment, or the historical consciousness of humanity, is characterised by the rational-scientific “thrust toward the future ... our destiny is (in) the future”.[15]  In the economic moment, a discipline must be rational to retain credibility; theology, ethics and the natural sciences are all subjected to the criterion of reason.  Reason comes to be identified with the spirit,[16] yet even spiritual fulfilment is something for the future.  The thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, read in a particular manner, can provide an example of spiritual fulfilment being projected onto the future;[17] the omega point is the goal of the cosmos.[18]   Within the historical consciousness, there is a conviction that people can be united with God only outside of space-time.  As God is no longer immanent, union with God is not possible during an earthly lifetime.  Hope must always be directed toward a future beyond this life and this earth; the deliverance of humanity from mundane surrounds is only possible when humanity can become fully transcendent.  And it is only when humanity is fully transcendent, that it can be united with a God believed to be transcendent only.

For historical consciousness, time is linear.  It can thus be divided, recorded and conquered.  The method of argument by logical induction is typical of such consciousness: what is known now can be projected onto the future, what is true now is true for eternity.

According to the historical consciousness, everything can be categorised.  The scientific ‘divide and conquer’ mentality implies that the natural world is quantifiable, and thus utilisable.  Transcendence becomes the goal of the economic moment; time, space, land, power, all have to be transcended.[19]  Nature is seen not as a partner in the struggle, but as something against which humanity struggles.  Francis Bacon’s claim that nature is to be understood and then defeated is symptomatic of the economic moment.  God is banished from the cosmos and relegated to the position of watchmaker.  “God has left the world to the strivings of Men”.[20]  The notion of divine immanence is understood to be inversely related to divine transcendence.  As God cannot be seen or empirically verified, God cannot be immanent, and nature becomes barren, subject to the dominance of Man.  Thus God-world dualism thrives during the economic moment of historical consciousness.[21]

Copernicus removed the earth from the centre of the cosmos, yet humanity remained at the centre.[22]  Man is the centre of the cosmos and humanisms abound.[23]  God is gone, or dead, as Nietzsche claimed.  All that remains is the rational anthropos.  The economic moment of human consciousness is the moment of anthropocentrism.[24]

The economic moment is exemplified in the philosophy of Plato.  Martha Nussbaum writes that, for Plato, “The need of human beings for philosophy is … deeply connected with their exposure to … the element of human existence that humans do not control … the elimination of this exposure is a primary task of the philosophical art”.[25]  The supreme discipline of philosophy is the tool through which the uncontrollable events of the world can be tamed by humanity.  Plato’s Protagoras is devoted to explicating what Plato believes to be the inversely proportional relationship between techne (craft, art or science) and tuche (element of human existence not controlled by humans).[26]  Plato believes that science can and should remove contingency from human life.[27]  All that exists can be known and should be controlled by humanity.  This is a clear expression of Panikkar’s second moment of human time-consciousness.

Panikkar notes that there is an ecological interlude annexed to the economic moment.[28]  It is an interlude in which the desire to know everything is still present, but into this knowledge falls an awareness of the interconnectedness of all things.  In the ecological interlude, Man becomes aware that if the life of the earth is threatened, humanity is also threatened.  However, such ecological sensitivity may prove more dangerous than no awareness at all.  Ecological sensitivity “arises when Man begins to discover that Nature is not just infinite passivity and that this planet is a limited vessel”.[29]  This knowledge typically results in a “tactical change: now our exploitation must be milder and more reasonable” as “only treated in this way is the earth going to yield her fruits”.[30] The conclusions of enlightened anthropocentrism remain true to form: our behaviour ought change because the earth must continue to provide resources for the benefit of humanity.  Thus it is a love of humanity’s own interests that motivates ecological awareness.

For an integrated vision of reality, humanity’s intoxication with its own importance will not suffice.  Unless humanity realises it is a part of the cosmos, ecology[31] as a discipline seeking to protect the environment will fail in its aims. An integrated vision of reality is the outcome of what Panikkar calls the catholic or transhistorical moment of human consciousness.

The Catholic Moment

The catholic moment of human consciousness “maintain[s] the distinctions of the second moment without forfeiting the unity of the first”.[32]  It is at a higher turn of the spiral, where humanity does not regress to the first moment, but reawakens to the awareness of the pervading presence of unity.[33]  Panikkar calls this experience of reality as differentiated but unbroken “the cosmotheandric intuition,”[34] that is, the realisation that “reality cannot be reduced to a single principle,” and that reality itself has a fundamentally tripartite structure—freedom/transcendence, consciousness and matter/energy.[35]

Rather than simply remembering the past as the nonhistorical consciousness is compelled to do, and rather than projecting the past onto the future as is the wont of the historical consciousness, the transhistorical consciousness lives the future and the past in terms of the present.[36]  All things are intrinsically inter-related.  Transhistorical consciousness is aware that a union with God within space-time is possible.

The wisdom of mystics is ratified by the catholic moment.  What is true for transhistorical consciousness is to be found in every instant of time, not by an act of the intellect, but by acknowledging the limits of rationality.  As Rahner writes, meaning for humanity is, in its fullness, incomprehensible.[37]

In the transhistorical consciousness, hierarchies collapse, everything becomes itself, everything is linked and all of creation has a specific role to play in the cosmos.  Humans could not exist without vegetation, yet humans themselves cannot fulfil the role of plant life.  Everything must be allowed to be itself most fully.  In the transhistorical consciousness the divine dimension of nature is rediscovered, while humanity, made in the image of God, is seen not to eclipse the rest of creation.  The catholic moment—which Panikkar refers to as “mystical awareness,”—relies on the insights of the ecumenic and economic moments.[38]  Unity and particularity are unified in the catholic moment, offering an holistic form of cultural awareness.

Time-Consciousness and a Christian Understanding of History

A Christian scholar reading the above analysis of human time-consciousness may hesitate to accept the concept of the catholic moment of time-consciousness.  If understood in a linear fashion, the catholic moment may appear to compromise the traditional Christian understanding of time in which, post-Pentecost, nothing other than the return of the Christ is anticipated as a possible new stage in the development of the cosmos.  However, purely linear understandings themselves are characteristic of the second moment of time-consciousness, and Panikkar wishes to promote the ability to transcend such understandings.  It must be stressed that the moments “are three modes of consciousness which are neither mutually exclusive nor dialectically opposed, but kairologically related”.[39]  In the fullness of time, not at any time in particular, within individuals as well as within cultures as a whole, humanity will become more aware of the divine in all things, awakening to the cosmotheandric experience.

This excludes the possibility of understanding Panikkar in a ‘millennarian’[40] sense.  Whether as a cargo cult, or as a three-stage history, millennarian thought postpones any form of fulfilment until the ‘fullness of the future’, which it claims is imminent.  For millennarists, it is impossible to find ultimate meaning in the universe as it now exists.  Millennarists delay indefinitely the finding of any means to better the status of this world, opting either to wait for the new age or to engage in radical campaigns to precipitate the end of history.[41]  Panikkar, however, is writing of the hope of improving this world now, through changes in people and societies.

Trinity, Incarnation and Cosmos

In this section of this article, it is posited that an understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity can proffer a world-view that is congruent with modern cosmology—unified and holistic—yet is still able to assert the significance of each part of creation.  That is, the Trinity grounds a cosmology that reconciles with Panikkar’s catholic moment of time-awareness.  Raimon Panikkar, in The Trinity and the Religious Experience of Man, suggests that the Holy Trinity can be understood as God above, through, and in all.[42]  Following this approach, it can be asserted that the doctrine of the Trinity can challenge God-world dualism because of the manner in which divine transcendence and divine immanence are attributed to the Persons of the Trinity.  In addition to this more traditional challenge to God-world dualism—an artefact of the second moment of time-awareness—possible theological consequences of the work of the holistic biologist Rupert Sheldrake are explored.  These consequences relate closely to the doctrine of the Incarnation.  It is further explored how a Trinitarian understanding of creation can lead to a vision of the cosmos that does not hold Man to be the acme of creation.  In other words, the doctrine of the Trinity implies a cosmology that is non-anthropocentric.  A Trinitarian cosmology is held to be consonant with the cosmology of Panikkar’s third moment of human time-consciousness, namely, one that presents a cosmos based upon relationality and unity in difference: a unified vision of the God-world relationship and a non-anthropocentric perspective of the cosmos.

Trinity and Relation: Difference in Unity

The notion of a unified and interrelated cosmos has a solid basis in the Christian theological tradition.  For Edwards, the Christian basis of an understanding of reality as both differentiated and unbroken is derived from an understanding of God as Trinity.  As Edwards writes, “Once the nature of God is understood as relational, then this suggests that the fundamental nature of all reality is relational”.[43]  An understanding of God as Trinity allows reality to be seen as differentiated, yet still unified.

Relation is possible only when difference is genuine—relationships signal difference.  Some mystical monistic traditions suggest that particularity is either a falsehood, or is somehow less ‘real’ than the underlying whole.  In a monistic cosmos, without authentic differentiation among the parts of creation, and without any actual distinction between creator and creature, there is no real possibility of either relation or communion.  It is in this manner that an understanding of the Trinity is able to provide an alternative to monism.  For unity and relation, and therefore difference, are central to any understanding of the nature of the Holy Trinity.

The doctrine of the Trinity highlights both unity and otherness.  Elizabeth Johnson writes of “the mystery of distinction that ... abides in relationship at the heart of God”.[44]  Johnson is acutely aware that, within the Trinity, the integrity of the other remains thoroughly preserved without compromising unity.  This is clear in both the traditional understanding of Trinitarian doctrine and in contemporary interpretations of that doctrine.

A precise understanding of the relationality and oneness of God is present in the Scholastic understanding of the Holy Trinity.  Within the Trinity, Scholastic theology discerns: one nature; two processions; three persons; four relationships; and, five notions.[45]  For Catherine Mowry LaCugna such expressions of Trinitarian doctrine do little to illuminate the mystery: to the 5-4-3-2-1 formula she adds Bernard Lonergan’s quip, “And zero comprehension”.[46]  It is not the purpose of the 5-4-3-2-1 mnemonic device, however, to draw out the implications and scope of the doctrine of the Trinity.  What the formulation does do is to express the Christian belief that the divine Persons are differentiated and yet still remain of a single nature.

A contemporary understanding of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity also assures the legitimacy of the affirmation that God is one and yet differentiated.[47]  According to Mark McIntosh, “The unity of the Trinity is infinite unity; it does not need to convert what is other to the same in order to embrace the other”.[48]  Referring to Simone Weil’s thought, McIntosh continues:

God is constituted by the unity that holds the Trinitarian persons together and equally by the outgoing love of that very unity—which allows the Trinitarian persons to be truly other to each other, to be other in a kind of infinite act of ‘othering’.[49]

For McIntosh, God is God because of both the unity that binds the persons of the Trinity, and the outgoing love that defines the persons of the Trinity.  For love to be love it must be given—directed outward—toward that which is other.  Concurrently, the love given by the three persons is not three kinds of love, but one love—it is always given absolutely.  In God, there is never anything not given, there is no remainder from love, there is true oneness.

Within orthodox Christianity, God is understood to be Trinitarian, both three and one.  From a Christian viewpoint, therefore, existence is understood to be rooted in an ultimate reality that is both infinite unity and authentic difference.

Trinity and the God-world Relationship

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity suggests a cosmology which might be termed panentheistic;[50] “God dwells in his creation, and his creation in him”.[51]  Trinitarian thinking is able to stress such a cosmology because of the differing roles played by the Persons of the Trinity.  Panikkar evokes the Trinitarian imagery of Ephesians 4:6: God above all; God through all; and God in all.[52]  God above all, the Source, allows the transcendence of God to be asserted.  God through all, the Son, is God bound so tightly with creation that, through the Incarnation, God becomes part of the creation.  God in all, the Holy Spirit, enables a stress upon God’s immanence to be articulated.  Kathryn Tanner writes: “The Christian theologian ... needs to radicalise claims about God’s transcendence and involvement with the world if the two are to work for rather than against one another”.[53]  Below it is suggested how the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, itself the radical claim that ‘three are one’, may accommodate such claims.

The Father is God above all.  According to Panikkar, “The Father has no being,”[54] God is beyond being.  That God transcends the order he created has always been a central feature of Christian theology.  Of the Father, in post-Nicene Greek theology, Catherine LaCugna notes that he is “the unoriginate origin, source, and principle of Godhead (fons et origo divinitatis)”.[55]  God the Father’s transcendence is so complete that patripassianism is understood as a heresy: the Father does not suffer.[56]  Of the Father Marius Victorinus writes:

It is the One without existence, without substance, without knowledge—for it is above all that—infinite, invisible, wholly indiscernible for every other, both for those within it and those which are after it, even those which come from it; for it alone is distinguished and defined only by its own existence, not by act so that its own constitution and self-knowledge are not something different from it; ... without form, lacking all forms, and yet not being that form itself by which all things are formed.[57]

Simply, Panikkar notes: “The source of being is not being.  If it were, how could it be its source?”[58]  The Father’s transcendence is taken by Christians as axiomatic.

The Son is God through all of creation.  An understanding of the Son as being through creation is closely tied to spirituality.  For Mark McIntosh, “The very structure of Christian spirituality points to all that Christians are trying to say about God when they confess the doctrine of the Trinity”.[59] That is to say:

Christian ‘spirituality’ is really the communal pattern of life by which Jesus’ followers are drawn ever more deeply into his [Jesus’] own ‘encounter with the other;’ spirituality, in other words, is the activity of being led by the Spirit into Christ’s relationship with the Father.[60]

McIntosh is suggesting a particular spirituality in which the Son is the paradigm for humanity’s mode of relation with ultimate reality.

Those who adopt a position of God-world dualism must account for the significance of the Incarnation, for, as incarnate, the Son became part of the world.  Furthermore, the Son did not cease to be present in the universe after he ascended into heaven.  As Panikkar observes, “The ‘incarnation’ of God [does not] mean exclusive ‘hominisation’ in a single individual ... the entire reality is committed to the same unique adventure”.[61]  This point is also brought out in McIntosh’s definition of “the communal pattern of life,” according to which Jesus’ followers are being “led by the Spirit into Christ’s relationship with the Father”.[62]  Christian spirituality includes more than a single individual in the adventure of the Incarnation.[63]  As McIntosh expresses it, the “consummation of [one’s] personal identity is to become free of all that prevents [one] from sharing by adoption and grace in the eternal Sonship”.[64]  It is by sharing Christ’s relationship with the Father that humankind can participate in the love and life of God.  “Nobody comes to the Father except through me [the Son]” (Jn 14:6).

With this pattern of the Christian life in mind, we may find that a useful conceptual tool for interpreting the concept of ‘sharing in the eternal Sonship’ is provided by the scientist Rupert Sheldrake.[65]  Sheldrake has developed the concept of ‘formative causation’ to explain the method by which organisms are organised.[66]  An understanding of the significance of Christ as presented by McIntosh, read in the light of the hypothesis of formative causation developed by Sheldrake, helps to illustrate how an understanding of the Incarnation can challenge a dualistic notion of the God-world relationship.

Prima facie, it may appear that an understanding of the Incarnation would only be able to challenge the belief that humanity and divinity are mutually exclusive realities.  Thomas Berry argues against anthropocentrism, and points to the limits of anthropocentrism.  He notes that to pursue the needs of the human community as a discrete entity is to pursue illusory ends:

There is no such thing as ‘human community’ without the earth and the soil and the air and the water and all the living forms.  Without these, humans do not exist.  There is, therefore, no separate human community.  Humans are woven into this larger community.  The large community is the sacred community.[67]

Humanity is part of the world.  We are composed, in part, of matter.  In Aquinas’ terminology, we are an enfleshed soul.  Being surrounded by matter is not testament to some state of temporary exile from our true condition.  We are not merely on the earth, but are also of and from the earth.  And this will, in some sense, always be as Rahner’s musings on the Ascension indicate: “we Christians are … the most sublime of materialists”.[68]  If, when incarnate, God became fully and truly human, then concurrently, God became fully and truly part of the world.  The intimate relationship of humanity and divinity necessarily connotes the intimate relationship of the universe and divinity.  This must be kept in mind in reading the reflections based on Sheldrake that follow.

Formative causation, according to Sheldrake, relies upon the notions of ‘morphic resonance’ and ‘morphic fields’.[69]  A morphic field is “a field within and around ... a form of organisation, such as an atom ... animal ... pattern of instinctive behaviour ... element of culture ... ecosystem ... or galaxy” which organises the structure and pattern of activity of the form of organisation.[70]  Morphic fields are shaped and stabilised by morphic resonance.[71]  Morphic resonance is “the influence of previous structures of activity on subsequent similar structures of activity organised by morphic fields”.[72]  Formative causation, claims Sheldrake, is the hypothesis that “organisms or morphic units at all levels of complexity are organised by morphic fields, which are themselves influenced and stabilised by morphic resonance from all previous similar morphic units”.[73]  Sheldrake is suggesting a system which, although unable to explain the coming into being of any particular morphic field, is capable of explaining the effect of units in history upon current samples.  Although formative causation theoretically applies to any form of organisation, the relevance of the hypothesis to the present discussion is with reference to humankind.

The explicit connection of the hypothesis of formative causation with the Christian world-view is not Sheldrake’s own.  It can be argued, however, that his theory can be applied to good effect within a Christian framework.  In this sense, the goal and task of the Christian could be conceived as ‘tuning in’ to the ‘field’ reshaped by Christ.

In his hypothesis, Sheldrake posits that morphic fields and morphic resonance operate within the cosmos such that, once a specific unit has achieved something, it becomes easier, indeed possible, for that accomplishment to be duplicated.  According to Sheldrake’s theory, it could be proposed that, if one believes in the Incarnation—Christ as fully divine and fully human—then one accepts that 2000 years ago, with Jesus, the human morphic field was extended and became able to accommodate divinity.[74]  Indeed, post-Incarnation, the entire universe bears testimony to this fact.[75]  The morphic field to which the human mind is attuned, and which it influences, has been permanently altered by the birth, life, and death of Jesus the Christ.  Thus, when Mary conceived Jesus she could also be understood to have conceived the morphic field of theanthropia;[76] in Jesus of Nazareth’s death and resurrection, the morphic field of theanthropia was born.  Because of the existence of Jesus Christ, it is now possible for consciousness in the universe to share in Christ’s relationship with the Father.  This field has been reinforced over the last two millennia by the actions and lives of the saints—living within the field of theanthropia.

As St Paul writes, “In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5).  Christians seek, whilst remaining absolutely dependent upon the grace of the Father, to align their own minds with the mind of the Christ, which is present in our day in the morphic field of theanthropia.  Indeed Christians are destined “for adoption as [the Father’s] children, through Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:5).  In this fashion it becomes possible for humanity to dwell in the being of God, and for God to dwell within humanity: Christ is in the being of the Father and humanity in the Son and the Son in humanity (see Jn 14:20).[77]

This does not suggest that, by a law-like process, humanity is forced to Christ and the Father without its consent.[78]  Humanity does not automatically participate in the field of theanthropia.  The Holy Spirit is always required to lead humanity to Christ.  It is the Spirit who offers the grace of the Father to humanity.  John O’Donnell phrases it thus: “The Holy Spirit offers the divine life, won by the Son, to men and women” and “the Spirit awaits the free response of the creature and adapts himself to the limits of creaturely freedom”.[79]  Formative causation is not contrary to the reality of divine freedom.  Nothing can explain the appearance of any morphic field for the very first time; a creative ‘jump’ is required that is “inevitably mysterious”.[80]  Although Sheldrake does not posit a direct connection between formative causation and Christian doctrine, he does note—suggestively—that formative causation is consistent with “causal efficacy of the conscious self, and the existence of … creative agencies immanent within nature, and the reality of a transcendent source of the universe”.[81]

What the concept of theanthropia does suggest is that, because of the Incarnation, the universe has been modified such that the deification of humanity is now possible.  The notion of theanthropia asserts that God and humanity, and ipso facto, God and the world, are so closely involved with each other that to conceive of the two separately would be incoherent.[82]

God the Holy Spirit is God in all of creation.  God’s immanence in the cosmos is not confined to the life-history of Jesus of Nazareth.  The Holy Spirit is God immanent in the entirety of space-time.  God is more immanent to the creature than the creature is to itself.[83]  To deny the immanence of God is to deny the reality of the Holy Spirit.  Denis Edwards writes that “the Spirit is the Life-Giver, the Interior Presence of the Divine, the Power of Self-Transcendence, the Ecstatic Gift of Communion, who enables creatures to exist and enables evolutionary emergence to occur”.[84]  Edwards stresses God’s immanence by noting that the Father and the Son’s ecstasy are directed to what is God’s other, the creature.[85]  In this vein also, José Comblin writes that “the Holy Spirit is sent to the entire universe and since creation has been transforming it”.[86]  The Holy Spirit is understood to fill the universe with the life of God.  Leonardo Boff believes that “the Spirit has made the cosmos a temple, the scene of the Spirit’s action and manifestation”.[87]  Because God revealed himself to humanity as the triune God, humanity has the knowledge that God is present in his Spirit to the entire creation.

Even in his fullest immanence God remains truly transcendent: “Wherever the Spirit is, there are the other Persons in the divine Communion that is the being of God ... the Spirit always unites creatures in Christ, in communion with the one who is the Fountain Fullness from which all things come”.[88]

From the perspective of what Panikkar calls transhistorical consciousness—his third, catholic moment—neither immanence nor transcendence is superior.  As Panikkar elucidates in a description of cosmotheandric spirituality: “If I climb the highest mountain, I’ll find God there, but likewise if I penetrate the depths of an apophatic Godhead I shall find the World there ... in neither case have I left the heart of Man”.[89]  Panikkar is again highlighting the fact that reality is irreducible in its trinitarian structure.  God and the world cannot be severed from each other.  This is not to deny that creation was a free act in which matter and space-time had their genesis.  Rather, Panikkar is asserting that

a theist can certainly think of a God who does not require the existence of any creatures in order to be real, but this ‘God’ does not exist because the actual God, the God that in fact exists, is God with creatures.  That God ‘can be’ (without creatures) is a phenomenological feature of God, not an ontological statement about ‘him’.[90]

As Nicholas of Cusa observes, “Divinity is in all things in such a way that all things are in divinity”.[91]  The Father transcends creation, existing ‘above all’ being.  The Son is God ‘through all’ of creation, so that creation may know its source.  The Holy Spirit is God immanent ‘in all’ creation, building the cosmos, offering grace, and ready to lead creation through Christ to the Father.  The doctrine of the Holy Trinity thus shows itself to be incompatible with God-world dualism.

Trinity and Anthropocentrism

Apart from God-world dualism, as noted above, anthropocentrism is also an artefact of the second moment of time awareness.  Anthropocentrism, whether it is scientific or religious in origin, gives “an exaggerated impression of human significance” and “concentrates valuation so intensely on our species that intrinsic importance is drained away from the rest of nature”.[92]  Reflecting on the doctrine of the trinity may also help to combat this tendency.  The Christian theological tradition long ago developed the idea that God’s triunity is perceptible in creation.  The concept that creation contains vestigia trinitatis, or ‘marks of the Trinity’, was developed systematically by St Augustine.[93]  Augustine writes that “the whole united Trinity is revealed to us in its works,”[94] and “as we direct our gaze at the creator by understanding the things that are made, we should recognise the Trinity, whose mark appears in creation in a way that is fitting”.[95]

How the Trinity is observed to be present in creation differs according to the perspective of any particular observer.  For Augustine, it is principally the human mind that offers an image, albeit an imperfect one, of the triune God.[96]  St Bonaventure,[97] John Calvin,[98] and Johannes Kepler,[99] however, consider the entire cosmos to show forth the image of God.[100]  Edwards cites Bonaventure: “The First Principle created this perceptible world as a means of self-revelation so that, like a mirror (speculum) or a footprint (vestigium), it might lead the human being to love and praise God the artisan”.[101]  Calvin writes that “in the whole architecture of His world God has given us clear evidence of His eternal wisdom, goodness and power … He shows himself to us in some measure in his work.  The world is therefore rightly called the mirror of his divinity”.[102]  Kepler “saw in the visible universe the symbolic image of the Trinity”.[103]  Indeed, for Kepler, God’s purpose in creation “was to create the most beautiful and perfect world that would reflect the divine image”.[104]

That Augustine, Bonaventure, Calvin, and Kepler see God’s image in varying phenomena points to the cosmos and humanity as different images of the same God.  Indeed, it is fitting that the image of the infinite God is conveyed in many different modes.[105]  It remains for humanity to “on the one hand … distinguish between the world that we see and the God whose image it is, and, on the other hand, [be aware that] there must be a similarity or analogy between the image and the God representing himself therein”.[106]

It may be possible to discern images of the Trinity which are not literally threefold.  We know of God’s triunity because of divine revelation, not because of observation.  Augustine, Bonaventure, and Kepler perceived the image of God as itself tripartite.  Yet as Edwards has noted, it is because of God’s Trinitarian nature that communion is the fundamental ontological category.[107]  God’s image thus need not be recognised in creation only when a suitable triad is located, but God’s image is visible wherever there exists a reality grounded in communion, that is, in Edward’s words, “Being-in-relation”.[108]

A central feature of the Trinitarian doctrine is the equality among Persons.  “The Three are radically equal to one another; none is in a position of superiority over the others ... all imply one another, so that none of them can be understood in a position of primacy over the others”.[109]  Such equality is necessary if communion and not substance is the nature of the Trinity.  If one Person were superior, that Person would be the ‘locus of divinity’.  Equality among Persons ensures that the divine life is defined by mutual giving, not by the substance of divinity.

The biosphere can thus be an image of the Trinity, not because of any literal triad, but because of the nature of the relationships within it.  Although nothing in the cosmos could ever perfectly mirror the communion that is the Trinity, the biosphere is nonetheless a reality radically defined by interrelatedness.  Cunningham speaks of “individuality defined by ... mutual participation,”[110] a claim that is true both of God, and of the interaction of species within the biosphere.  If a single species is accorded primacy to such a degree that the needs of other species are disregarded, then the unity and integrity of the entire biosphere may be compromised.  The biosphere relies upon the existence of a diverse number of species; to threaten diversity or difference is to threaten the whole.  Each species is particular and important—to threaten one may well jeopardise what God plans in the evolution of the cosmos.  Indeed, how many species contributed to the evolution of Homo erectus?

Humanity can never fully comprehend the mystery of the economic Trinity, nor the dynamic of the immanent Trinity.[111]  Similarly, God’s plan for the evolution of the universe remains beyond the grasp of humanity.  We may never understand what role a particular species may play in the evolution of the cosmos.  Would a visitor to earth one and a half million years ago have predicted that the bipedal ape roaming some areas of the small blue planet was an ancestor of the Son of God incarnate?

Each function performed by a species in sustaining the biosphere is particular.  Within the biosphere, each species points to the existence of, and is in part defined by, its very dependence upon another.  For example, only species with chlorophyll can perform photosynthesis, yet without such species, the delicate balance of the biosphere would be forfeit—humanity along with all other species could not exist.  To emphasise the importance of a single component of creation over any other part is unwarranted.  Human existence relies firmly and absolutely upon the non-human creation, animate and inanimate.  Indeed as each person of the Trinity can be understood as pointing outward to the other two members of the divine communion, each member of creation points to everything else in the cosmos.  Just as it is with the persons of the Trinity, so too each part of the creation has a specific mission to fulfil.  Thus both anthropocentrism and even an un-Trinitarian christocentrism are called into question when reality is viewed from a Trinitarian perspective.  It is with humanity on earth as it is too with Christ in the Trinity: each is unique within the relations by which they are constituted, but not superior to them.  Creation is, in the words Cunningham uses to describe God, “Relation without remainder”.[112]

Conclusions

The ability to understand reality as differentiated and unbroken, in Christian thought is mandated by the traditional understanding of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.  That God is known to be of one nature, and still be three Persons, provides a vision of the universe in which reality is both infinite unity and actual distinction.  God-world dualism is thus alien to a Trinitarian understanding of the universe.  The Father is forever transcendent, the Son is throughout the cosmos, and the Spirit “reaches the depths of everything” (1 Cor 2:11).  The complexion of the biosphere—balance and interrelatedness—enables the image of a God of mutual relations to be visible within creation.  Each species is created by God for a purpose known only to God.  The very structure of the Holy Trinity guards against anthropocentrism.  Understanding the Trinity reinforces our understanding that “Man is only Man with the sky above, the earth below, and his fellow beings all around”.[113]

Raimon Panikkar believes that humanity is now faced with the task of charting a course between the “Scylla of dualism and the Charybdis of monism”.[114]  For Christians, it has been shown in chapter four, that an understanding of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is able to assist in such a task.  Whilst ensuring a distinctly Christian concept of reality, the doctrine of the Trinity is understandable in such a manner as to contest the validity of both anthropocentrism and God-world dualism.  This challenge is made while remaining firmly open to the insights of science, in that a universe created by a triune God is profound in its unity, yet permeated by interrelation.  The doctrine of the Holy Trinity aids in preventing the slide toward monism, as illustrated in chapter four, whilst at the same time avoiding the pitfall of dualism and the anthropocentrism found in some Christian understandings of creation.

Above, the Incarnation was interpreted in the light of Rupert Sheldrake’s hypothesis of formative causation and Mark McIntosh’s understanding of spiritual life in the Trinity.  This understanding of the Incarnation may also hold significant consequences for an understanding of human action in the world.  That is to say, Sheldrake’s work may hold implications for a spiritually based moral stance.  This is so particularly with respect to the notion of habit, which Sheldrake discusses in his book The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature.A virtue is a habit of good behaviour.[115]  Good habits make the virtues manifest.  Our past helps us form habits, good and bad.  Our past affects us in this way because “we are more similar to ourselves in the past than we are to anyone else; we are subject to a highly specific self-resonance from our own previous states”.[116]  Humans have more in common with their ‘old self’ than with anything else in the universe.  A virtuous person may find virtue progressively easier for the very reason that as time passes, the weight of past actions accumulate and affect the decisions he or she makes in the future.  In the words of the moral theologian James Keenan, “We become what we do”.[117]

In this fashion, the notion of formative causation may be relevant for studies of morality.  Our own resonance helps to shape the life we lead.  If we consider theanthropia and human action within theanthropia, resonance from an individual has a very significant effect upon the actions he or she is likely to perform in the future.[118]  Each virtuous act performed by an individual contributes to both an individual’s self-resonance, and to theanthropia, helping to contextualise Christian virtue for both the individual concerned and the whole of humanity.  That is, all previously performed acts of virtue, individual and collective, accumulate to shape theanthropia.  If a person is to develop Christian virtues, he or she must exercise free will and choose to emulate the life of Christ.  But at all times it must be recalled that a virtuous act is never performed without the grace of God.  With each act performed a person can contribute to, and be aided by, the already existing field of theanthropia.[119]

It is within this framework, that David Cunningham’s concept of Trinitarian virtues can be set.  In his book These Three Are One: The Practice of Trinitarian Theology, Cunningham developed an understanding of the Trinitarian virtues in terms of what he calls polyphony, participation, and particularity.[120]  These Trinitarian virtues can be given an ecological nuance.

Of polyphony, he writes, “Its chief attribute is simultaneous, non-excluding difference: that is, more than one note is played at a time, and none of these notes is so dominant that it renders another mute”.[121]  Cunningham continues, “Polyphony could theoretically be either ‘harmonious’ or ‘dissonant’”.[122]  So too within creation: the needs of species sometimes conflict, but the value of each species remains.  This is an immutable value because each species is created by, and lives in, an infinite God.  Because the Trinitarian virtue is polyphony rather than harmony, the inherent value of each species is asserted.

Participation, Cunningham’s second Trinitarian virtue, is a virtue that thwarts attempts to understand anything as a discrete entity detached from everything else.  This virtue suggests that all reality inter-participates in such a manner that any attempt to understand anything as independent will fail.[123]  In an ecological sense, this virtue encourages humanity to awaken to the profound way in which our lives, collectively and on a smaller scale, both rely upon and affect the lives of other species and members of species.

Thirdly, particularity is the virtue that stresses the importance of each member of creation to the whole.  The essence of particularity is that everything has a role to play.  This virtue can remind humanity that, despite interrelatedness and unity, there is a particular task, ordained by God, that each species, and each member of a species, is to perform.  As manifested in an ecological sense, humanity would seek not to disrupt unspoilt ecosystems, and would strive to establish an environment conducive to polyphony and participation in modified ecosystems.

These virtues, in the light of the concept of theanthropia, could be extensively developed.  Understanding the Trinity in this manner would then suggest a moral theology that is capable of developing an ecological focus.  If we broaden the scope of the Trinitarian challenge to anthropocentrism and God-world dualism, then the development of a Trinitarian theology of ecology that is grounded upon active co-operation with the Holy Spirit in the biosphere may well result.  Truly, the work of Cunningham, McIntosh, and Sheldrake may suggest a new way in which the doctrine of the Trinity might allow the completeness of the third moment of human time-awareness to emerge as action in the world.  As Panikkar notes, however, what remains “is for us to spell it out in our own lives”.[124].

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