C H A P T E R 3 0

T H E T R I N I T Y , C R E A T I O N , AND C H R I S T I A N A N T H R O P O L O G Y

RISTO S A A R I N E N

Th e relationship between the Trinity and creation belongs to the broader dogmatic framework o f Gods interaction with the world. The following discussion focuses on the­ological anthropology, leaving out other important issues regarding the broader frame­work, for instance, the nature o f revelation, divine attributes, and theological ontology. First, some traditional views of the human being as an image o f God are outlined. Then the analogical relationships between the triune God and creation are discussed, focusing on the problem of avoiding anthropomorphism. In the third section some contemporary accounts are evaluated from the perspective of Trinitarian anthropology.

I m a g e a n d L i k e n e s s

The creation o f human beings to the ‘image and likeness’ (Gen. 1:26) of God has, since patristic times, prompted theological discussion on the relationship between God and human beings. Although sin has, according to Catholic doctrine, deformed the divine likeness of humans, Christian anthropology states that the basic theological definition o f human being as an image o f God has not been completely destroyed by sin. Even when it is maintained that the divine image in us is lost due to sin, the authors normally also presume that some other level or aspect o f this ‘being an image’ is preserved (Gaudium et spes no. 22; Crouzel 1980). Therefore, created human beings continue to reflect aspects of their Creator and they continue to have the dignity of being a person. But this doctrine does not necessarily imply that the image o f God in the human being is recognized as a Trinitarian image. Some theologians, most notably Augustine (1991), develop a psychological Trinitarian imagery, whereas others, for instance, the authors of The Catechism o f the Catholic Church (§§356-68,370), discuss the normative doctrine of image without Trinitarian differentiation, noting that ‘in no way is God a man’s image’.

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Eastern theology in particular attempts to define the relationship between God and created human nature through employing a consistent distinction between image and likeness. In terms of this distinction, our being an image reflects our human nature, whereas the attribute o f likeness refers to a category of perfection which is accomplished by grace or other supernatural reality. This distinction is present already in Irenaeus, Clemens o f Alexandria, and Origen. In Greek theology it is often connected with the dynamics of deification, in which the likeness to God grows gradually in the process of salvation. In Christian initiation and subsequent progress o f Christian life, human nature as image is thus complemented with the increasing presence o f divine likeness. The goal o f salvific process, theosis or deification, thus comprises the Christians being as both image and perfect likeness. Likeness does not mean, however, identity with God (Crouzel 1980; Saarinen 2002; Christensen and Wittung 2007).

Although western theology sometimes employs the distinction between image and likeness (similitude>) and can affirm the ideal o f theosis, it does not normally focus on this distinction as a major theme of Christian progress and salvation. This historical observation has provoked debate regarding the different relationship between God and creation in eastern and western theology. It has been suggested that while the eastern theology operates with the concept o f Platonic participation in God, the western theol­ogy prefers to speak of God s interaction with the world in terms of efficient causality (Hallonsten 2007:286). This might, however, be an oversimplification, as the individual Church Fathers in East and West apply the ideas of causation and participation in differ­ent and complementary ways.

At the same time it is heuristically fruitful to treat the eastern and western discussions separately. The western discussion normally presupposes a fundamental difference between God and creation; this fundamental difference is not overcome by means of participation and Christian progress, but the concept of analogy as well as elaborate lin­guistic reflections are needed in order to formulate God’s interaction with creation. Although the final goal and fulfilment o f this interaction may also in the West be con­ceived as a participation in God, the elaboration of this fundamental difference employs technical vocabularies which stem from the western institutions of rational learning and education.

Augustine’s discussion o f the so-called psychological Trinity in books V III-X V of his De Trinitate (1991) exemplifies this intellectual tendency o f western theology. As it is treated in more detail elsewhere in this volume, we outline it only in so far as it is relevant for our theme. Because this discussion also appears, in a somewhat abridged and modified fashion, in Peter Lombard’s Sentences (Peter Lombard 1971: Bk. 1, dist. 3, ch. 2), for centuries it had a formative significance for the Latin reflection on Christian anthropology. In Book VIII, Augustine establishes an ontological link between God and human self with the concepts o f goodness and truth. The highest level o f human inner self, the mind (mens), contains an image o f the Trinity. When the human mind knows itself and loves itself, a triad o f mind, self-knowledge and self-love emerges in which the three constituents are coequal, mutually related but unconfused.

4 1 6 R IS T O SA A RIN EN

This triad does not refer to the different faculties of the human soul in its totality, but the mind also contains lower cognitive and affective functions. Augustine further teaches that when the mind does not consider itself, but another, it becomes memory. Likewise, the concepts of understanding and will are so called with reference to another (Augustine, De Trinitate X.11.18). Given this, there are two Trinitarian images in the human mind: while the mind as created and the natural image of God remembers, understands, and loves itself, the final and perfect image of God consists in the mind’s remembering, understanding, and loving another, namely God. The emergence of this final image is a lifelong process o f grace working in humans. When Augustine describes this final perfection he refers to Gen. 1:26 and 1 Jn 3:2: ‘We shall be like him because we shall see him as he is’ (Augustine, De Trinitate XIV.12.15 and XIV.19.25). After this conclu­sion, however, Augustine warns in Book XV that the mental image of the Trinity remains enigmatic and mysterious; its dissimilarity and unlikeness to the original should also be remembered.

Augustine’s elaboration of the psychological Trinity reveals an intellectual striving for

theological understanding. God is fundamentally different from creation, but a thor­

ough analysis of the inner structure of the hum an m ind reveals Trinitarian structures.

The end result of this analysis is not, however, radically different from Greek theology, as

Augustine also sees the perfection to consist in a participation in God and in increasing

likeness to God. In this process of growing participation, the mental image turns away

from itself and begins to remember, understand, and love God. On the one hand,

Augustine conceives this process as knowing, recognizing, and seeing, either from a

m irror or face to face. But it is also a process of restoration, growing conformity to God,

and receiving of divine gifts. The intellectual emphasis does not rule out the ontological

process but rather supports and illuminates it. The emerging ‘super-image’ is likeness

to the Trinitarian God.

Although the mental image cannot be used for the closer explanation of Trinitarian

persons, Augustine’s psychological Trinity in many ways focuses on the primacy of per­

sons. As m em ory and mind, the first person is the source of everything else; as knowl­

edge and understanding, the second person is born from the first; as love, the third

person connects the first with the second, enabling coherent external action. As the

three instances are not faculties but simply represent the m ind in its different activities,

the essence or nature of the m ind is not to be discussed apart from its three

representations.

The relationship between essence and persons was discussed in the fourth Lateran Council (1215) in which Joachim de Fiore’s view was condemned. This condemnation formulates some classical principles regarding the similarity between the Creator and creation, reiterating the cautions expressed by Augustine in Book XV o f De Trinitate. Joachim opposed Peter Lombard’s view, according to which the divine essence neither generates nor is generated nor proceeds, being thus distinct from all three persons. For Joachim, Lombard’s view adds a fourth agent into divinity. The council confirmed Peter Lombards teaching, concluding that the divine nature is not a fourth agent but

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the three persons together and each one o f them separately (Tanner and Alberigo 1990:231-2).

This decision is important already in itself, since it contributes to the alleged western development in which the unity of divine nature in some sense precedes the Trinitarian persons (Hennessy 2007). For our topic, the condemnation o f Joachim is also significant for other reasons. Joachim had argued that the ecumenical prayer o f Jesus in Jn 17:22, ‘that they may be one, as we are one, denies the postulate of additional essence. If the Father and the Son are one in the same sense as the faithful are one, then the unity at stake here is one among persons. It cannot be understood‘in the sense o f a single reality which is common to all’.

The council, however, decided that Jn 17:22 should not be read in this manner. The faithful constitute ‘a union o f love in grace’, whereas the Father and the Son form ‘a unity o f identity in nature’. In this manner the analogy from God to created reality is no strict correspondence: the divine unity of persons is significantly different from the ecclesiastical unity in the created reality. To point this out, the council formulates its famous hermeneutical rule: ‘For between creator and creature there can be noted no likeness (similitudo) so great that a greater dissimilarity (dissimilitude>) cannot be seen between them’.

The decisions of 1215 have been contested from various angles. Martin Luther, for instance, claimed that one should affirm the sentence ‘the essence generates’ in order to avoid the problematic separation of essence from persons (Helmer 1999:107-113). Although the condemnation does not address Augustine’s psychological Trinity, it can also be argued that the hermeneutical rule weakens Augustine’s argument in De Trinitate. A third angle concerns the general relationship between God and creation. If even Trinitarian analogies stated in a biblical text need to be read with a view to the dissimilarity rather than likeness, then most attempts to argue that a created structure reflects Trinitarian realities are to be regarded with suspicion. At the same time, the likeness between Creator and created reason postulated in the decisions of 1215 remains a real analogy, as Benedict XVI emphasizes in his recent Regensburg lecture (Benedict XVI: 2006).

The Council o f Florence (1441) continued to emphasize the priority o f divine essence, saying that in God and divine persons ‘everything is one where the differ­ence o f a relation does not prevent this’ (Tanner and Alberigo 1990: 570-1). Given this unity, the possibility to establish created Trinitarian analogies on the basis o f divine persons becomes more difficult. Medieval Trinitarian theology is character­ized by the scholastic attempts to formulate specific rules o f Trinitarian speech. These rules often focus on the differences between Trinitarian speech and ordinary, Aristotelian syllogistics (Karkkainen 2007). The uniqueness o f the Trinity is thus emphasized, while analogies with creation are downgraded. The nature o f Trinitarian language and its ability to shed light on the divine mystery has, however, remained a vital discussion topic o f western dogmatics. In contemporary discussions this has again become a topic of interest between eastern and western Trinitarian theologians.