Social trinity

Social Trinity is an interpretation of the Christian doctrine of the trinity. Its central idea is that the trinity consists of three persons whose unity consists of a loving relationship. Karen Kilby, [http://www.theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/papers/Kilby_TrinNBnew.doc Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with the Social Doctrine of the Trinity] , First Published in "New Blackfriars" October 2000, URL accessed 12 January 2007.]

This teaching is especially associated by modern theologians (Karl Rahner, Jürgen Moltmann, and others with various emphases and distinctives) Fact|date=February 2007, with the Cappadocian Fathers, who can be said to have developed it both positively and negatively. The Fathers explain the Trinity as three individualities in one indivisible being, while at the same time emphatically asserting that Christian community is an analogy Fact|date=February 2007, or as the Eastern Orthodox typically say, "an icon", of God's love, and a mutual participation in an ethical life that is comparable to God, but only analogous to God's being. The newer theologians may stress, controversially [The Trinity, p 37, Christopher Alan Hall, Roger E. Olson, 2002, Wm. B. EerdmansPublishing, ISBN 0802848273 "... we must exercise great care in asserting that the Cappadocians strongly affirmed the reality of a “social Trinity,” simply because what we mean by “social” on the human level breaks down when speaking of the divine persons."] , "Being as communion" (John Zizioulas), as a mode of relation found in God's very subsistence to which human relations can and ought to be conformed.Fact|date=February 2007

Positively, the traditional teaching emphasizes that God is an inherently social being. [Theology for the Community of God, pg 76, Stanley J. Grenz, Wm. B. EerdmansPublishing, 2000, ISBN 0802847552: "At the heart of Christian understanding is the declaration that God is triune - Father Son and Spirit. This means that in his eternal essence the one God is a social reality, the social Trinity. Because God is the social Trinity, a plurality in unity"] . Human unity approaches conformity to the image of God's unity through self-giving, empathy, adoration for one another, etc.. Such love is a fitting ethical likeness to God - but is in stark contrast to God's unity of being. [ [http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-05/Npnf2-05-09.htm "Against Eunomius"] , esp. 2.12, Gregory of Nyssa, at CCEL]

Negatively, the orthodox conception refutes the adoptionism which some attribute to the Anomoeans (an "Arian" sect) and other anti-trinitarians, which reduce the conception of the unity of God with Christ to a purely ethical concept, strictly comparable to a human relationship between two (or three) individuals. In contrast, the basis for human relationship pointed to by the Cappadocian Fathers (as they are interpreted by advocates of the "social trinity" Fact|date=February 2007) is within God as such, not in God in relation to another that is not God. [ [http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-07/Npnf2-07-42.htm "Orations"] , 27-32 "The theological orations", Gregory Nazianzen, at CCEL]

The Concept of three 'Persons' in Social Trinity

As in almost all orthodox versions of the trinity, the term 'person' is used to identify what the 'three' is. Social trinity argues that the three persons are each distinct persons, e.g. by suggesting that they have distinct centers of consciousnessFact|date=February 2007.

Many proponents of Social Trinity criticise modern individualism, suggesting that individual is not over against other persons. On the contrary, say these proponents, a person's identity and self are deeply constituted by their relationships, such that a person could not be the same person were it not for the relationship - the relationship, in some sense at least, precedes the person rather than the person preceding the relationship.Fact|date=February 2007

Two theological keys to the idea of person found in the "social trinity" are, the trinitarian concept of perichoresis (associated most strongly with Saint John of Damascus), and the Christological doctrine of "two wills in one person" (which was central to Maximus the Confessor's defense of orthodoxy). Fact|date=February 2007

The Concept of one 'being' in Social Trinity

As in almost all orthodox versions of the doctrine of the trinity, the term 'being' is used to identify the 'one' in the trinity. Social trinity argues that this one being comes to exist as a result of a loving relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit. This relationship is in some respects like human relationships, but in many respects it promotes a greater unity. They often understand the idea of perichoresis of the persons of the trinity as providing at least part of this greater unity.

Social and Political Consequences of the Social Trinity

This conception of God has had consequences for how many of its proponents understand the nature of human society or politics.Fact|date=February 2007

See also

*Trinity
*Perichoresis

Notes