At first glance, topology and theology have nothing to do with each other. Theology, on one hand, is "the rational discussion of God" (from the Greek words "theos" meaning God, and "logia" meaning study of, or reasoned discourse about). Topology, on the other hand, is the study of geometric properties and spatial relations between various kinds of objects in space, and the way in which constituent parts are interrelated or arranged. So, theology seems to deal with an Ultimate Reality beyond our world, while topology deals with spatial relations within our world. Nothing could be more different. It is like comparing apples to oranges, or Infinite Being to mere beings.
And yet, one of the fundamental areas of inquiry of theology is what the PLACE of God is in our worldview, and how God RELATES to this world of space and time. And these are fundamentally topological questions! In fact, topology has a great deal to say about the ontological structure of the universe. Ontology is the study of being, by which we seek to understand the nature of existence, the essence and properties of beings, and the relations between beings. Thus, ontological structure refers to the properties and aspects of reality that define the limits of what is possible in our reality. It's like creating a blueprint of your house to find out what is possible for home remodeling. And a blueprint is an expression of topology: It defines the spatial relationship between all the structures in the house, to map out the possibilities for what the house can become.
And thus, ironically, theology becomes an exercise in topology, as we explore the shape of the Divine relationship with the cosmos, and how the Infinite Being can relate, in space and time, to the finite beings that inhabit the cosmos. The models of theological topology are countless, and come from every conceivable starting point. And yet, there are certain pervasive patterns that seem to occur over and over again, in countless permutations, across religions and cultures. One of these pervasive patterns is that there is One Eternal Indivisible Source that gives rise to all reality, and yet that Source seems to relate to the created order in Three distinct ways or modes of relation.
For instance, from the perspective of Comparative Religion, there are many views of Ultimate Reality that have a kind of three-in-oneness to them: Whether it is Brahman manifested as Creator-Savior-Destroyer in Hinduism, or the Divine Self of the Upanishads experienced as Sat-Chit-Ananda (existence-consciousness-bliss), or the Three Forms of the Buddha nature in the Trikaya, or or the Emanations of God in Jewish and Sufi mysticism. In the History of Western Philosophy, we can find three-dimensional visions of Ultimate Reality in Platonism's threefold transcendent Ideal of Truth-Goodness-Beauty, or Plotinus' One-Mind-World Soul, or Hegel's dialectic of the Absolute realizing itself in History through the process of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis. Many worldviews derived from both mystical experience and philosophical reflection tend to see that Ultimate Reality fundamentally relates to our reality in a threefold way.
In Christianity this idea that Divine Reality is somehow threefold or "three dimensional" is made explicit in the idea of the "Trinity" or "Threefold Unity" of God as Father, Son, and Spirit. But even here, there is much debate over whether the Triune nature of God is just God as God "appears" in salvation History (the so-called "economic Trinity") or whether God is intrinsically, eternally, Three Relations in One Divine Self apart from any created world (the so-called "immanent Trinity"). Furthermore, for those that see the "Immanent Trinity" as a description of who God is in Godself, there is further debate: Is the "threeness" within Godself best understood as a community of individual Selves or Persons, each with personal self-awareness? Or is the "threeness" better accounted for as intersubjective relations within Godself, much as how human persons have internal conversations and relations within our own consciousness?
One mediating viewpoint that tries to find a "third way" between both the economic and immanent Trinitarian views, and which also tries to explain why so many Religious and Philosophical views of the Ultimate have a kind of three-in-oneness, is this: An Eternal, Infinite, Non-Contingent Ultimate Reality must necessarily be viewed as Triune from the standpoint of any temporal, finite, contingent reality.
Let me explain: "God" is our shorthand for "The Ultimate Reality which grounds and gives rise to the reality we experience". As such, "God" is both an existential phenomenon that many people experience, and an explanatory hypothesis that seeks to give the final reason why we exist. Many people have an experience of intense, universal Love or Beauty or Truth or Justice which takes them out of themselves, and helps them transcend their own egos. They often take these experiences as clues to the way the world "really is" beyond appearances and illusions. And that leads to seeking an explanatory hypothesis for these intense spiritual experiences.
The ultimate explanatory hypothesis for the world is a hypothesis which comprehensively covers, and gives a reason for, every fundamental aspect of the reality we inhabit. Thus, a concept of God which covers more aspects of reality is fundamentally preferable to a concept of God which is less comprehensive. Thus, the search for the Ultimate Explanation for all of reality pushes us beyond all finite, contingent, unnecessary beings to the infinite, non-contingent, utterly necessary Being which causes all beings to be. And because of the ontological structure of the reality we live in, humans across cultures and history intuitively trend toward describing this Ultimate Reality in distinctively Triune ways.
For instance, in the four dimensions of spacetime, the most comprehensive non-contingent Source for all reality must necessarily be spatially related to the universe as:
(a) Immanent within the cosmos as the Ground of Being which upholds all finite beings; while also (b) Transcendent beyond the cosmos, unbound by the constraints and categories of a finite cosmos; while also (c) Personal and concretely involved with every particular thing, and related to each particular event and person and location in the cosmos. These are used frequently in both theological and metaphysical claims of the Divine relation to the world. I'm trying to figure out what these terms might mean in relation to spacetime. Roughly, immanence would be the contents of the ENTIRE Set of all possible X, Y, Z, and Time coordinates in a four dimensional universe. Transcendence would be the Set itself (or rather, the Set of all things that does not contain itself), which cannot be contained by ANY of the coordinates. And local (or particular) would be each individual set of coordinates, encountered one at a time (as well as each particular function or equation that links a set of coordinates together).
This is because "God" is the maximally comprehensive Reality which entails the logical relations of:
(a) Whole (Every thing), (b) None (No thing), and (c) Part (Some thing). God comprehends and includes all of these logical relations, since immanence embraces "all" things, transcendence is outside of all things as "no thing", and Personality entails relating to "some" things particularly. God thus relates to us in "everything", as "no-thing", and through "some things". With the basic triad of "all-some-none", I admit to practicing Aristotelian logic in most everyday uses of language and issues of epistemology. And while Bertrand Russell’s “Barber” and the “Set of all sets that does not include itself” takes us to the limits of what non-contradictory language can say, I do not think it introduces a new logical relation into the nature of reality. At the end of the day, I don’t think self-refuting ideas, or logically impossible entities, are real things in any world, and thus not part of reality, and thus not part of the analysis I propose here. It seems to me that self-refuting things are not "real" at all, but a kind of ephemera or linguistic illusion arising from our meta-cognitive ability to think about our own thoughts and symbolic systems.
And this seems to tie loosely into how we categorize different modes of being in terms of is-ought-could (similar to "modes" in modal logic):
(a) What is: All actually existing reality, the totality of the world of facts; and (b) What should be: Reality which does not "exist" at all, but the ideal which "insists" that certain possibilities ought to be actualized rather than others; and (c) What could be: The unique potential for becoming found in any particular event or set of circumstances. God is the Ground of all reality, beyond being and non-being, from which all actuality, all potentiality, and all value flows forth.
And finally, this seems to tie in with different modes of presence made possible by three dimensional spatial topology:
(a) The Feminine mode of presence: The immanent relation which surrounds, and envelopes, and embraces the other; and (b) The Masculine mode of presence: The transcendent relation which penetrates into the other from the outside, to come into it from beyond; and (c) The Reflective mode of presence: The personal relation which exists alongside, mirroring and relating and interacting, but not "entering into" or "enveloped by". The other modes of presence are ways of dissolving identity and attaining union with "the other". But the reflective mode of presence respects the other AS other, mirroring and reflecting the other in all its distinctiveness and particularity without dissolving it. This mode of presence is to appreciate the other in all of its peculiar wonder and queer beauty, even as it remains peculiar and queer to that which it reflects.
Thus a maximally comprehensive Ultimate Reality will be seen from the standpoint of any finite reality as having Three inseparable dimensions or relations which fundamentally express the Divine Unity. The Divine will interact with the contingent world in three modes, as (a) The Divine Feminine: The Immanent Being that upholds all beings; (b) The Divine Masculine: The Transcendent Good that gives all things value; and (c) The Divine Person: The Infinite Potential that relates to, and provides the ground and possibility for, all finite things.
In Christianity, this Divine relationality becomes reified and personified in (a) God the Spirit, who is the Divine Feminine, immanent in the cosmos, filling the Universe and upholding the Being of all beings; (b) God the Father, who is the Divine Masculine, transcendent to the cosmos, who loves and values all things and yearns for their full flourishing; and (c) God the Son, who is the Divine Personification, personally present in each space, as the Logos or Message or Self-Communication of God, who leads us into full communion with Godself. Of course, how Christians came to embrace this view is precisely the opposite of much of the picture I paint here. Christians did not begin with a dispassionate analysis of the ontological structure of being (as I have here) only to then arrive at a doctrine of the Trinity.
Rather, Christians began with a concrete experience of a loving God over all creation (Our Father in Heaven), known in a Savior who embodies God's Love (Jesus the Messiah), and experienced through a Divine Energy who empowered them to live in the Messiah's Love (the Holy Spirit). From their reflection on how they related to these Three Persons AS the One God of Israel, Christians gradually arrived at the "most comprehensive explanatory hypothesis" of the Trinity. And over time, this Threefold concept of God took into itself the philosophical dimensions implied here. And to be honest, this is also precisely how the philosophy of the Trinity has developed within me as well. The philosophical breadth of the Trinity as an explanatory hypothesis for the totality of reality only became apparent after I had grasped God's threefold Love as an existential phenomenon, and accepted the Biblical account of how this Love was experienced by Christians through Jesus via his Spirit.
This brings us back to the question: Is this Trinity merely how God chooses to appear to us, but not necessarily what God is in Godself (the "economic" interpretation)? Or is this Trinity what God is eternally in Godself beyond all worlds (the "immanent" interpretation)? Or is this Trinity how the infinite, non-contingent God MUST appear to any finite, contingent world, due to the ontological structure of reality, even though God is one Divine Self?
On one hand, it is a difficult and even dangerous thing to assert with confidence what God is, in Godself, beyond all worlds. As some ancient rabbis said, "We know what God commands, but not what God is". So, great theological humility is needed before an Ultimate Reality so vast and mysterious. But at the same time, we want to uphold the basic faithfulness and truthfulness of God. A Good God would not reveal Godself in History in such a way as to be fundamentally different from who God "really is". Thus, we also affirm Karl Rahner's rule that "The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity". Or, at the very least, the economic Trinity of God acting in History reveals something of who God really is, to the extent that we can grasp that revelation and communicate it in adequate language. We may amend Rahner's rule to say this: The Immanent Trinity is a true reflection of the Economic Trinity such that, whatever else God is in Godself, this will correspond to the Trinitarian revelation of God. God may be more than, and greater than, what is revealed in the Trinity, but God cannot be less than, or worse than, that Trinitarian revelation.
So, I think it is fair to say that Ultimate Reality really is Triune when viewed from the perspective of any finite reality. God really is eternal Love, an intercommunion of Lover-Love-and-Loving, as Father-Son-and-Spirit, who creates all worlds as an expression and overflow of that Love. God does not keep Infinite Love within Godself, but delights to make countless worlds of finite creatures to share Love with. And then God necessarily relates to that finite cosmos as transcendent-immanent-particular, in everything-nothing-something, through value-potentiality-actuality, known as masculine-feminine-personal, while God creates-redeems-transforms all persons in all realities. Any Infinite God who creates a finite creation will necessarily be Triune in relation to that creation. The only way God could possibly be otherwise would be to not create at all. And because God is Love, God has eternally determined Godself not to be a mere unity devoid of Triune relationality. God is Trinity, always and eternally, as an expression of who God really is.
And so we turn to the question of how the Three Persons or Relations within Godself should be best understood. Theologian and Philosopher Keith Ward makes the point that the Biblical language used to describe these Relations of "Father-Son-Spirit" do not represent them as autonomous individual Persons who relate to one another externally. Rather, they interpenetrate each other as they live within each other (cf. the Orthodox doctrine of "perichoresis"). As Ward succinctly puts it: "The Spirit lives ‘in’ the disciples (John 14.17), whereas persons do not normally live in one another." [Ward, Keith. Christ and the Cosmos (p. 41)] One one hand, we are dealing with a Divine Reality that is personal, and relates to the cosmos with thought, affection, and volition. On the other hand, we are dealing with a Divine Reality that transcends personhood as we normally think of it.
I think Ward is right to move beyond a naive and modern sense of Person as a "distinct individual self". For clearly, in natural language separate selves exist distinct from each other, not IN or WITHIN each other (as Trinitarian Bible passages and doctrines of perichoresis imply). For instance, I and my wife and my children are separate persons precisely because we do not live within each other. If I said that I exist in my wife and kids, and my family exists in me, I would either be speaking symbolically, or be literally deluded. But that is because I am a finite being bound by the topology of myself in three dimensions. If, however, we are speaking of an Infinite Reality that transcends dimensionality itself, things get more complicated.
Because of this, it seems to me that Trinitarian persons should be seen as Relations WITHIN the Divine Self, intersubjective movements intrinsic to the self awareness of God. Much like how a person has an inner dialogue and back and forth within themselves. With the exception that our intersubjective relations are temporary and usually situationally based, and sometimes the result of division or sickness within oneself. The intersubjective Relations within Godself are unceasingly eternal and in complete harmony.
However, we must note that both the models of "Individual Persons" and "Intersubjective Relations" both fall short of complete comprehension of the Trinity's inner life. For all finite experiences are just analogies, and finite language is bound to our dimensional constraints, such that the Divine experience of Godself transcends our best symbolic systems to describe it. As an example: The Buddha tells a parable about the moon. He says that when we point to the moon, we must be sure not to confuse our fingers with the moon we are pointing at. By this he means that we should not confuse our limited words with the Ultimate Reality which cannot be contained by words, but can only be pointed at. We have language adequate enough to point to the Trinity of God in basic ways, but beyond a certain point, we lose the ability to be precise. And thus, we must not confuse our words to describe the Trinity, with the Triune God which they are describing, who transcends all of our symbolic systems and linguistic maps of Reality.
Yet, some explanations are better than others. The totality of reality arising from a Personal Source seems a more comprehensive explanation than the cosmos arising from a merely impersonal "causeless cause". And the Trinitarian description of that Personal Source seems to be a more comprehensive explanation than a merely Unitarian one. Further explaining God as three individual Persons in one Reality is more comprehensive than Tritheism (where there are three Infinite Gods), or Modalism (where God puts on successive masks over time) or Subordinationism (where the Three are progressively less Divine as they emanate from each other). And further clarifying these Three Persons as Intersubjective Relations within Godself seems to be a more comprehensive explanation than seeing them as Three separate Individual Selves united by a Divine Will. But I will admit that language begins to break down at this point, and we are left with more or less probable descriptions, rather than absolutely certain definitions.
But this at last brings us to a final question about theological topology. And it is a question that I do not have the conceptual capacity or linguistic symbols to ask adequately, much less answer. And that is this: The philosophical analysis of the necessity of a Triune Divine explanation presented here presupposes a finite, contingent universe that exists in four dimensions (the spatial dimensions of length x height x depth + time). I believe that the same analysis would hold in a universe of two spatial dimensions (a "flatland" of length x height). The topology of two dimensions would still imply relations such as immanent-transcendent-personal, is-ought-could, and feminine-masculine-reflective.
BUT if we hypothesize a universe of five or more spatial dimensions, does this threefold analysis of spatial relations, logical relations, modes of being, and modes of presence still hold? If there is a more complex dimensional topology, are there other more complex ways that relations of space, logic, being, and presence could work?
For instance, if we had more dimensions, would it be possible to find other ways to be present with/in each other beyond the feminine, masculine, and reflective modes of presence?
If higher dimensions allow different relations of space, logic, being, and presence, then would Ultimate Reality be experienced in a Fourfold way by a finite reality with five dimensions, or as Fivefold from a six dimensional reality? Then it could be possible that God would appear as a Quaternity or a Pentaunity from the perspective of another kind of finite universe. Or, do the same kinds of comprehensive relations of Ultimate Reality to finite reality hold in any finite reality with any amount of dimensions? I simply do not know the answer to that question.
But what I do know is that, in whatever kind of reality we live in, the most comprehensive description of Ultimate Reality will always be the one that most comprehensively explains God AS Love, and describes how God relates IN Love to the topology of that cosmos. And with that, we turn to a prayer to that Infinite Love, asking God to further reveal and unveil Godself to us:
Lord God, you are the origin of all creation and in the depth of your being lies the source of all that is. You are the supreme good, the fulfilment of every worthwhile desire, inexhaustible in beauty and excellence. Yet because you have taken humanity to yourself in Jesus, we thank you that we can call you ‘Abba’, Father, sharing your nature and relating to you in a fully personal and loving way.
Lord Jesus Christ, you are the pattern of all creation and of what humanity is meant to be. Make yourself known to us in the breaking of bread, in our inmost selves and in the faces of those we encounter from day to day. Live in us, as we seek to live in you, and enable us to see you in all things, and all things in you.
Lord, Holy Spirit, you are the creative force that moves the stars, that guides towards the truth and inspires minds and hearts in thought, feeling and action. You are the inner companion who journeys with us and shapes us in the image of Christ. Be present with us, uniting us to the divine life so that we may come to know and love God ever more fully.
Lord, Holy Trinity, creator, redeemer and sanctifier, the origin, pattern and power working in and through this universe, known to us as loving Father, crucified and risen Lord, and inspiring Spirit, we worship and adore you. You are supreme truth, beauty and goodness, and you draw us to yourself as we move from darkness towards the light. Help us to live in trustful dependence upon the Father, rejoicing in the loving presence of Jesus Christ, and united in companionship with your Spirit. May we grow in the Spirit, so that we may die to the egoistic self, and our true selves may be raised and hidden with Christ in God.
(Prayer from: Keith Ward. The Mystery of Christ. SPCK.)
And thus, ironically, theology becomes an exercise in topology, as we explore the shape of the Divine relationship with the cosmos, and how the Infinite Being can relate, in space and time, to the finite beings that inhabit the cosmos. The models of theological topology are countless, and come from every conceivable starting point. And yet, there are certain pervasive patterns that seem to occur over and over again, in countless permutations, across religions and cultures. One of these pervasive patterns is that there is One Eternal Indivisible Source that gives rise to all reality, and yet that Source seems to relate to the created order in Three distinct ways or modes of relation.
For instance, from the perspective of Comparative Religion, there are many views of Ultimate Reality that have a kind of three-in-oneness to them: Whether it is Brahman manifested as Creator-Savior-Destroyer in Hinduism, or the Divine Self of the Upanishads experienced as Sat-Chit-Ananda (existence-consciousness-bliss), or the Three Forms of the Buddha nature in the Trikaya, or or the Emanations of God in Jewish and Sufi mysticism. In the History of Western Philosophy, we can find three-dimensional visions of Ultimate Reality in Platonism's threefold transcendent Ideal of Truth-Goodness-Beauty, or Plotinus' One-Mind-World Soul, or Hegel's dialectic of the Absolute realizing itself in History through the process of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis. Many worldviews derived from both mystical experience and philosophical reflection tend to see that Ultimate Reality fundamentally relates to our reality in a threefold way.
In Christianity this idea that Divine Reality is somehow threefold or "three dimensional" is made explicit in the idea of the "Trinity" or "Threefold Unity" of God as Father, Son, and Spirit. But even here, there is much debate over whether the Triune nature of God is just God as God "appears" in salvation History (the so-called "economic Trinity") or whether God is intrinsically, eternally, Three Relations in One Divine Self apart from any created world (the so-called "immanent Trinity"). Furthermore, for those that see the "Immanent Trinity" as a description of who God is in Godself, there is further debate: Is the "threeness" within Godself best understood as a community of individual Selves or Persons, each with personal self-awareness? Or is the "threeness" better accounted for as intersubjective relations within Godself, much as how human persons have internal conversations and relations within our own consciousness?
One mediating viewpoint that tries to find a "third way" between both the economic and immanent Trinitarian views, and which also tries to explain why so many Religious and Philosophical views of the Ultimate have a kind of three-in-oneness, is this: An Eternal, Infinite, Non-Contingent Ultimate Reality must necessarily be viewed as Triune from the standpoint of any temporal, finite, contingent reality.
Let me explain: "God" is our shorthand for "The Ultimate Reality which grounds and gives rise to the reality we experience". As such, "God" is both an existential phenomenon that many people experience, and an explanatory hypothesis that seeks to give the final reason why we exist. Many people have an experience of intense, universal Love or Beauty or Truth or Justice which takes them out of themselves, and helps them transcend their own egos. They often take these experiences as clues to the way the world "really is" beyond appearances and illusions. And that leads to seeking an explanatory hypothesis for these intense spiritual experiences.
The ultimate explanatory hypothesis for the world is a hypothesis which comprehensively covers, and gives a reason for, every fundamental aspect of the reality we inhabit. Thus, a concept of God which covers more aspects of reality is fundamentally preferable to a concept of God which is less comprehensive. Thus, the search for the Ultimate Explanation for all of reality pushes us beyond all finite, contingent, unnecessary beings to the infinite, non-contingent, utterly necessary Being which causes all beings to be. And because of the ontological structure of the reality we live in, humans across cultures and history intuitively trend toward describing this Ultimate Reality in distinctively Triune ways.
For instance, in the four dimensions of spacetime, the most comprehensive non-contingent Source for all reality must necessarily be spatially related to the universe as:
(a) Immanent within the cosmos as the Ground of Being which upholds all finite beings; while also (b) Transcendent beyond the cosmos, unbound by the constraints and categories of a finite cosmos; while also (c) Personal and concretely involved with every particular thing, and related to each particular event and person and location in the cosmos. These are used frequently in both theological and metaphysical claims of the Divine relation to the world. I'm trying to figure out what these terms might mean in relation to spacetime. Roughly, immanence would be the contents of the ENTIRE Set of all possible X, Y, Z, and Time coordinates in a four dimensional universe. Transcendence would be the Set itself (or rather, the Set of all things that does not contain itself), which cannot be contained by ANY of the coordinates. And local (or particular) would be each individual set of coordinates, encountered one at a time (as well as each particular function or equation that links a set of coordinates together).
This is because "God" is the maximally comprehensive Reality which entails the logical relations of:
(a) Whole (Every thing), (b) None (No thing), and (c) Part (Some thing). God comprehends and includes all of these logical relations, since immanence embraces "all" things, transcendence is outside of all things as "no thing", and Personality entails relating to "some" things particularly. God thus relates to us in "everything", as "no-thing", and through "some things". With the basic triad of "all-some-none", I admit to practicing Aristotelian logic in most everyday uses of language and issues of epistemology. And while Bertrand Russell’s “Barber” and the “Set of all sets that does not include itself” takes us to the limits of what non-contradictory language can say, I do not think it introduces a new logical relation into the nature of reality. At the end of the day, I don’t think self-refuting ideas, or logically impossible entities, are real things in any world, and thus not part of reality, and thus not part of the analysis I propose here. It seems to me that self-refuting things are not "real" at all, but a kind of ephemera or linguistic illusion arising from our meta-cognitive ability to think about our own thoughts and symbolic systems.
And this seems to tie loosely into how we categorize different modes of being in terms of is-ought-could (similar to "modes" in modal logic):
(a) What is: All actually existing reality, the totality of the world of facts; and (b) What should be: Reality which does not "exist" at all, but the ideal which "insists" that certain possibilities ought to be actualized rather than others; and (c) What could be: The unique potential for becoming found in any particular event or set of circumstances. God is the Ground of all reality, beyond being and non-being, from which all actuality, all potentiality, and all value flows forth.
And finally, this seems to tie in with different modes of presence made possible by three dimensional spatial topology:
(a) The Feminine mode of presence: The immanent relation which surrounds, and envelopes, and embraces the other; and (b) The Masculine mode of presence: The transcendent relation which penetrates into the other from the outside, to come into it from beyond; and (c) The Reflective mode of presence: The personal relation which exists alongside, mirroring and relating and interacting, but not "entering into" or "enveloped by". The other modes of presence are ways of dissolving identity and attaining union with "the other". But the reflective mode of presence respects the other AS other, mirroring and reflecting the other in all its distinctiveness and particularity without dissolving it. This mode of presence is to appreciate the other in all of its peculiar wonder and queer beauty, even as it remains peculiar and queer to that which it reflects.
Thus a maximally comprehensive Ultimate Reality will be seen from the standpoint of any finite reality as having Three inseparable dimensions or relations which fundamentally express the Divine Unity. The Divine will interact with the contingent world in three modes, as (a) The Divine Feminine: The Immanent Being that upholds all beings; (b) The Divine Masculine: The Transcendent Good that gives all things value; and (c) The Divine Person: The Infinite Potential that relates to, and provides the ground and possibility for, all finite things.
In Christianity, this Divine relationality becomes reified and personified in (a) God the Spirit, who is the Divine Feminine, immanent in the cosmos, filling the Universe and upholding the Being of all beings; (b) God the Father, who is the Divine Masculine, transcendent to the cosmos, who loves and values all things and yearns for their full flourishing; and (c) God the Son, who is the Divine Personification, personally present in each space, as the Logos or Message or Self-Communication of God, who leads us into full communion with Godself. Of course, how Christians came to embrace this view is precisely the opposite of much of the picture I paint here. Christians did not begin with a dispassionate analysis of the ontological structure of being (as I have here) only to then arrive at a doctrine of the Trinity.
Rather, Christians began with a concrete experience of a loving God over all creation (Our Father in Heaven), known in a Savior who embodies God's Love (Jesus the Messiah), and experienced through a Divine Energy who empowered them to live in the Messiah's Love (the Holy Spirit). From their reflection on how they related to these Three Persons AS the One God of Israel, Christians gradually arrived at the "most comprehensive explanatory hypothesis" of the Trinity. And over time, this Threefold concept of God took into itself the philosophical dimensions implied here. And to be honest, this is also precisely how the philosophy of the Trinity has developed within me as well. The philosophical breadth of the Trinity as an explanatory hypothesis for the totality of reality only became apparent after I had grasped God's threefold Love as an existential phenomenon, and accepted the Biblical account of how this Love was experienced by Christians through Jesus via his Spirit.
This brings us back to the question: Is this Trinity merely how God chooses to appear to us, but not necessarily what God is in Godself (the "economic" interpretation)? Or is this Trinity what God is eternally in Godself beyond all worlds (the "immanent" interpretation)? Or is this Trinity how the infinite, non-contingent God MUST appear to any finite, contingent world, due to the ontological structure of reality, even though God is one Divine Self?
On one hand, it is a difficult and even dangerous thing to assert with confidence what God is, in Godself, beyond all worlds. As some ancient rabbis said, "We know what God commands, but not what God is". So, great theological humility is needed before an Ultimate Reality so vast and mysterious. But at the same time, we want to uphold the basic faithfulness and truthfulness of God. A Good God would not reveal Godself in History in such a way as to be fundamentally different from who God "really is". Thus, we also affirm Karl Rahner's rule that "The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity". Or, at the very least, the economic Trinity of God acting in History reveals something of who God really is, to the extent that we can grasp that revelation and communicate it in adequate language. We may amend Rahner's rule to say this: The Immanent Trinity is a true reflection of the Economic Trinity such that, whatever else God is in Godself, this will correspond to the Trinitarian revelation of God. God may be more than, and greater than, what is revealed in the Trinity, but God cannot be less than, or worse than, that Trinitarian revelation.
So, I think it is fair to say that Ultimate Reality really is Triune when viewed from the perspective of any finite reality. God really is eternal Love, an intercommunion of Lover-Love-and-Loving, as Father-Son-and-Spirit, who creates all worlds as an expression and overflow of that Love. God does not keep Infinite Love within Godself, but delights to make countless worlds of finite creatures to share Love with. And then God necessarily relates to that finite cosmos as transcendent-immanent-particular, in everything-nothing-something, through value-potentiality-actuality, known as masculine-feminine-personal, while God creates-redeems-transforms all persons in all realities. Any Infinite God who creates a finite creation will necessarily be Triune in relation to that creation. The only way God could possibly be otherwise would be to not create at all. And because God is Love, God has eternally determined Godself not to be a mere unity devoid of Triune relationality. God is Trinity, always and eternally, as an expression of who God really is.
And so we turn to the question of how the Three Persons or Relations within Godself should be best understood. Theologian and Philosopher Keith Ward makes the point that the Biblical language used to describe these Relations of "Father-Son-Spirit" do not represent them as autonomous individual Persons who relate to one another externally. Rather, they interpenetrate each other as they live within each other (cf. the Orthodox doctrine of "perichoresis"). As Ward succinctly puts it: "The Spirit lives ‘in’ the disciples (John 14.17), whereas persons do not normally live in one another." [Ward, Keith. Christ and the Cosmos (p. 41)] One one hand, we are dealing with a Divine Reality that is personal, and relates to the cosmos with thought, affection, and volition. On the other hand, we are dealing with a Divine Reality that transcends personhood as we normally think of it.
I think Ward is right to move beyond a naive and modern sense of Person as a "distinct individual self". For clearly, in natural language separate selves exist distinct from each other, not IN or WITHIN each other (as Trinitarian Bible passages and doctrines of perichoresis imply). For instance, I and my wife and my children are separate persons precisely because we do not live within each other. If I said that I exist in my wife and kids, and my family exists in me, I would either be speaking symbolically, or be literally deluded. But that is because I am a finite being bound by the topology of myself in three dimensions. If, however, we are speaking of an Infinite Reality that transcends dimensionality itself, things get more complicated.
Because of this, it seems to me that Trinitarian persons should be seen as Relations WITHIN the Divine Self, intersubjective movements intrinsic to the self awareness of God. Much like how a person has an inner dialogue and back and forth within themselves. With the exception that our intersubjective relations are temporary and usually situationally based, and sometimes the result of division or sickness within oneself. The intersubjective Relations within Godself are unceasingly eternal and in complete harmony.
However, we must note that both the models of "Individual Persons" and "Intersubjective Relations" both fall short of complete comprehension of the Trinity's inner life. For all finite experiences are just analogies, and finite language is bound to our dimensional constraints, such that the Divine experience of Godself transcends our best symbolic systems to describe it. As an example: The Buddha tells a parable about the moon. He says that when we point to the moon, we must be sure not to confuse our fingers with the moon we are pointing at. By this he means that we should not confuse our limited words with the Ultimate Reality which cannot be contained by words, but can only be pointed at. We have language adequate enough to point to the Trinity of God in basic ways, but beyond a certain point, we lose the ability to be precise. And thus, we must not confuse our words to describe the Trinity, with the Triune God which they are describing, who transcends all of our symbolic systems and linguistic maps of Reality.
Yet, some explanations are better than others. The totality of reality arising from a Personal Source seems a more comprehensive explanation than the cosmos arising from a merely impersonal "causeless cause". And the Trinitarian description of that Personal Source seems to be a more comprehensive explanation than a merely Unitarian one. Further explaining God as three individual Persons in one Reality is more comprehensive than Tritheism (where there are three Infinite Gods), or Modalism (where God puts on successive masks over time) or Subordinationism (where the Three are progressively less Divine as they emanate from each other). And further clarifying these Three Persons as Intersubjective Relations within Godself seems to be a more comprehensive explanation than seeing them as Three separate Individual Selves united by a Divine Will. But I will admit that language begins to break down at this point, and we are left with more or less probable descriptions, rather than absolutely certain definitions.
But this at last brings us to a final question about theological topology. And it is a question that I do not have the conceptual capacity or linguistic symbols to ask adequately, much less answer. And that is this: The philosophical analysis of the necessity of a Triune Divine explanation presented here presupposes a finite, contingent universe that exists in four dimensions (the spatial dimensions of length x height x depth + time). I believe that the same analysis would hold in a universe of two spatial dimensions (a "flatland" of length x height). The topology of two dimensions would still imply relations such as immanent-transcendent-personal, is-ought-could, and feminine-masculine-reflective.
BUT if we hypothesize a universe of five or more spatial dimensions, does this threefold analysis of spatial relations, logical relations, modes of being, and modes of presence still hold? If there is a more complex dimensional topology, are there other more complex ways that relations of space, logic, being, and presence could work?
For instance, if we had more dimensions, would it be possible to find other ways to be present with/in each other beyond the feminine, masculine, and reflective modes of presence?
If higher dimensions allow different relations of space, logic, being, and presence, then would Ultimate Reality be experienced in a Fourfold way by a finite reality with five dimensions, or as Fivefold from a six dimensional reality? Then it could be possible that God would appear as a Quaternity or a Pentaunity from the perspective of another kind of finite universe. Or, do the same kinds of comprehensive relations of Ultimate Reality to finite reality hold in any finite reality with any amount of dimensions? I simply do not know the answer to that question.
But what I do know is that, in whatever kind of reality we live in, the most comprehensive description of Ultimate Reality will always be the one that most comprehensively explains God AS Love, and describes how God relates IN Love to the topology of that cosmos. And with that, we turn to a prayer to that Infinite Love, asking God to further reveal and unveil Godself to us:
Lord God, you are the origin of all creation and in the depth of your being lies the source of all that is. You are the supreme good, the fulfilment of every worthwhile desire, inexhaustible in beauty and excellence. Yet because you have taken humanity to yourself in Jesus, we thank you that we can call you ‘Abba’, Father, sharing your nature and relating to you in a fully personal and loving way.
Lord Jesus Christ, you are the pattern of all creation and of what humanity is meant to be. Make yourself known to us in the breaking of bread, in our inmost selves and in the faces of those we encounter from day to day. Live in us, as we seek to live in you, and enable us to see you in all things, and all things in you.
Lord, Holy Spirit, you are the creative force that moves the stars, that guides towards the truth and inspires minds and hearts in thought, feeling and action. You are the inner companion who journeys with us and shapes us in the image of Christ. Be present with us, uniting us to the divine life so that we may come to know and love God ever more fully.
Lord, Holy Trinity, creator, redeemer and sanctifier, the origin, pattern and power working in and through this universe, known to us as loving Father, crucified and risen Lord, and inspiring Spirit, we worship and adore you. You are supreme truth, beauty and goodness, and you draw us to yourself as we move from darkness towards the light. Help us to live in trustful dependence upon the Father, rejoicing in the loving presence of Jesus Christ, and united in companionship with your Spirit. May we grow in the Spirit, so that we may die to the egoistic self, and our true selves may be raised and hidden with Christ in God.
(Prayer from: Keith Ward. The Mystery of Christ. SPCK.)
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