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From Being to Love: Reconceiving the Trinity in Light of Jean-Luc Marion's Phenomenological Shift
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2014
Abstract
This article uses the work of Jean-Luc Marion, emphasizing his shift from Being to Love as an analogue for God, to make a parallel shift from Person to Love in Trinitarian theology, thereby addressing some of the issues raised by the social trinitarians. The article then focuses on the work of Catherine Mowry LaCugna as particularly congruent with the shift suggested by Marion, but adds to LaCugna's work a conception of the immanent Trinity that is grounded in Marion's phenomenological shift. Conceiving of God as the unoriginate source of Love that is revealed in Word and enacted in Spirit allows one to understand personhood and community, not in and through the relationships between the Trinitarian Persons, but in and through Love incarnate in the human person of Jesus Christ, and Love enacted in the Spirit present in the community, forming it into the Body of Christ.
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References
1 Kilby, Karen, “Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity,” New Blackfriars 81 (2000): 432–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 432. Kilby highlights Jürgen Moltmann's work, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, as the beginning of this movement (432–33). Among those she designates as social trinitarians are Leonardo Boff and John Zizioulas (344 n. 3). Her primary focus, however, is on Moltmann and on Colin Gunton.
2 Grenz, Stanley, Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 117–18Google Scholar. In the chapter in which he makes this observation, entitled “The Triumph of Relationality,” Grenz presents the work of Leonardo Boff and Catherine Mowry LaCugna, among others.
3 See Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti, The Trinity: Global Perspectives (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 115–22Google Scholar, particularly nn. 122 and 123 on Moltmann; and 286–91, particularly n. 99 on Boff.
4 Kärkkäinen, The Trinity, 115 nn. 122, 123.
5 The early Spirit-filled community is described in Acts and the Letters. For example, Acts 2:42–47 and Acts 4:32–35 emphasize an egalitarian community whose members share resources equally among themselves.
6 For example, see Moltmann, Jürgen, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, trans. Kohl, Margaret (London: SCM, 1981), 174–76Google Scholar; Boff, Leonardo, Trinity and Society, trans. Burns, Paul (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), 138–39Google Scholar.
7 For an excellent ecclesiological description of the relationship of the Trinity to the church as Body of Christ, albeit one that depends on a social analogy of the Trinity via Zizioulas and Volf, see Sarot, Marcel, “Trinity and Church: Trinitarian Perspectives on the Identity of the Christian Community,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12 (2010): 33–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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9 Molnar, Paul, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity: In Dialogue with Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2002)Google Scholar; Grenz, Rediscovering the Triune God, 147–62; Baik, Chung-Hyun, The Holy Trinity—God for God and God for Us: Seven Positions on the Immanent-Economic Trinity Relation in Contemporary Trinitarian Theology (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011)Google Scholar; Marmion, Declan and Van Nieuwenhove, Rik, An Introduction to the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)Google Scholar, esp. 24–27.
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11 Ibid. 124. See also Gresham, John, “The Social Model of the Trinity and Its Critics,” Scottish Journal of Theology 46 (1993): 328–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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13 Ibid., 18.
14 For an excellent argument against using the Trinity to understand human persons, see Kathryn Tanner, “Social Trinitarianism and Its Critics,” in Maspero and Woźniak, Rethinking Trinitarian Theology, 368–86; see esp. 378–80.
15 Note that some social trinitarians can be outright tritheists (e.g., Richard Swinburne), whereas those who propose a social analogy of the Trinity are doing so analogously, and thus while there is a danger of tritheism in the analogy, would not claim to be tritheists.
16 Note that both terms are problematic. “Latin” refers to the legacy of Augustine, and scholars such as Michel Barnes and Sarah Coakley would point out that the distinction between Augustine and the Cappadocians is not as clear-cut as some would have you believe. See Barnes, “Rereading Augustine's Theology of the Trinity,” in The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, ed. Davis, Stephen, Kendall, Daniel, and O'Collins, Gerald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 145–77Google Scholar; Coakley, “‘Persons’ in the ‘Social’ Doctrine of the Trinity: A Critique of Current Analytic Discussion,” ibid., 123–44. “Monotheistic” implies that the other theories are not “monotheistic,” and most who propose a social analogy of the Trinity would claim to be monotheistic.
17 LaCugna, God for Us, 243. See LaCugna, “The Relational God: Aquinas and Beyond,” Theological Studies 46 (1985): 647–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and LaCugna, “Philosophers and Theologians on the Trinity,” Modern Theology 2, no. 3 (1986): 169–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Marion, Jean-Luc, God without Being: Hors-Texte, trans. Carlson, Thomas, 2nd ed. (1991; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, xxii.
19 Ibid., 14.
20 Ibid., 28.
21 Ibid., 30.
22 Ibid., 10–11.
23 Ibid., 238 n. 2, citing Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie I, sec. 101, in Husserliana, vols. 3–5, ed. Biemel, Walter (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1950)Google Scholar, 3:254.
24 Ibid., 29.
25 Ibid., 19.
26 Ibid., 19–20. See also Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon, trans. Lewis, Stephen E. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 97–101Google Scholar.
27 Marion, God without Being, 22.
28 Ibid., 46.
29 Ibid., 47.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid. See also Erotic Phenomenon, 71–73.
32 Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, 72.
33 Marion, God without Being, 48.
34 Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, 4. See also Marion, Prolegomena to Charity, trans. Lewis, Stephen, Perspectives in Continental Philosophy (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002)Google Scholar, 71ff.
35 Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, 10.
36 Marion, God without Being, 73–75. Note that Marion no longer includes Aquinas among those who perpetuate an ontotheology (though he does include many interpreters of Aquinas in this critique). He shifted his position on Aquinas in part because of critiques made by John Milbank. For Marion's adjusted position, see his article “Saint Thomas d'Aquin et l'onto-théologie,” Revue Thomiste 95 (1995): 31–66Google Scholar; see also Marion, “Thomas Aquinas and Onto-theo-logy,” in Mystics: Presence and Aporia, ed. Kessler, Michael and Sheppard, Christian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 38–74Google Scholar. This article is also included in the second edition of the English translation of God without Being, 199–236. For articles discussing this shift and the dialogue with John Milbank, see Westphal, Merold, “The Importance of Overcoming Metaphysics for the Life of Faith,” Modern Theology 23 (2007): 253–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hankey, Wayne, “Theoria versus Poesis: Neoplatonism and Trinitarian Difference in Aquinas, John Milbank, Jean-Luc Marion and John Zizioulas,” Modern Theology 15 (1999): 387–415CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 Marion, God without Being, 80.
38 Ibid., 88.
39 Ibid., 89.
40 Ibid., 86.
41 Ibid., 92–93.
42 Marion's translation, “God chose the ignoble things of this world [agenē, ignobilia says the Vulgate] and the contemptible things, and also the non-beings, in order to annul the beings (kai ta mē onta, hina ta onta katargēsē),” in God without Being, 89.
43 Marion, God without Being, 95.
44 Ibid., 136. See also Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, 5–6, 193.
45 Marion, God without Being, 136.
46 Ibid., 136–37.
47 Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, 6.
48 Ibid., 21. Marion begins his reflections with the necessity of being loved, asking the question, “Does anybody love me?” (20), but then moves to the question, “Can I love first?” (71ff.), thus defining the essence of humanity as to be loved, but more importantly, to love.
49 Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, 22–23.
50 Marion, God Without Being, 105–6.
51 Marion, Prolegomena to Charity, 125.
52 Ibid., 125.
53 Ibid., 133.
54 Marion, God without Being, 30.
55 Ibid.
56 Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, 83. Marion calls this phenomenon the erotic reduction. For the correlation with mystical theology, see 149–50. For an explanation of what Marion calls the “crossing of gazes” in love, see Prolegomena to Charity, 86–91, 164–68.
57 The inspiration for this model of Trinity comes from the idea of triune consciousness using the concepts of affect, cognition, and volition; see Russell, Heidi, The Heart of Rahner (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2009)Google Scholar. A similar phenomenological approach to the concept of Trinity can be found in Kelly, Anthony, The Trinity of Love: A Theology of the Christian God (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989)Google Scholar. See also Doran, Robert, “The Starting Point of Systematic Theology,” Theological Studies 67 (2006): 750–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Doran, “Addressing the Four-Point Hypothesis,” Theological Studies 68 (2007): 674–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
58 Marion, God without Being, xxvi.
59 Bonaventure, The Soul's Journey into God, VI, 1–3; The Tree of Life, 47, in Bonaventure: The Soul's Journey into God, The Tree of Life, The Life of Saint Francis, trans. and intro. Cousins, Ewert, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1978)Google Scholar. In the introduction, Cousins notes: “Bonaventure begins his speculative Trinitarian theology with the Father as the fountain-source of divine fecundity. For Bonaventure the Father is fountain-fulness, fontalis plenitudo, in whom the divinity is fecund, dynamic, self-expressive” (24–25). Cousins cites Commentarius in I, II, III, IV librum Sententiarum, I Sent., d. 27, p. 1, a. un., q. 2 (I, 468–74); cf. I Sent., d. 11, a. un., q. 2 (I, 214–16).
60 Marion, God without Being, 23.
61 Ibid., 24.
62 Ibid., 47–48.
63 “Individuality” is being used here in the sense of a lack of interconnectedness, not in the sense of one's uniqueness. A word of caution is necessary here in line with concerns of feminist theology, that the idea of giving up selfhood for others, particularly in relationships of love, has been a concept that has been used to disempower women. However, understanding God as Love should enable us to have a healthier understanding of love in our own human relationships where it is not used as a power dynamic. As Karl Rahner notes in his axiom on human freedom, surrender to God/Love has a relationship of direct proportion to human freedom. Thus the more one gives oneself to this Love that is God and lets go of a clinging to individual existence, the more one becomes oneself, the truly unique individual in relationship one was created to be.
64 For an accessible and abbreviated summary of LaCugna's position, see LaCugna, “The Practical Trinity,” Christian Century 109, no. 22 (July 15–22, 1992): 678–82Google Scholar.
65 Haight, Roger, Review Symposium of God for Us, Horizons 20 (1993): 131CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
66 Ibid.
67 LaCugna, God for Us, 243.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid., 244–45.
70 LaCugna, “The Relational God,” 654.
71 LaCugna, God for Us, 305.
72 Ibid., 14.
73 Ibid., 246.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid., 221.
76 Ibid., 223.
77 Ibid., 1. On Jesus as the revelation of what it means to be person, see 292–96; on the Holy Spirit as the principle of communion, see 296–300.
78 For a description of the key factors of what it means to be “person” for LaCugna based on the understanding of “person” given by the Trinity, see God for Us, 288–92.
79 God for Us, 15.
80 Ibid., 296.
81 Ibid., 299. Miroslav Volf takes a similar approach to the concerns of postmodernism; see Volf, “The Trinity Is Our Social Program: The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Shape of Social Engagement,” Modern Theology 14 (1998): 403–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The social analogy of the Trinity becomes a means of protecting the identity of the other in the face of the totalizing effect of the metanarrative (408). Volf does argue, however, that we should not model our relationships on God's Trinitarian love, which is a reciprocal love, but rather on God's love for the world, which is “deeply flawed” and “suffused with enmity” (413).
82 LaCugna, God for Us, 250.
83 Ibid., 247.
84 Note that LaCugna does acknowledge this phenomenological understanding of person in her critique of Barth and Rahner (God for Us, 251) and in her section on John MacMurray (251ff.). The problem with LaCugna's use of MacMurray is that he is talking about God as personal in that God acts, not God as three personal others or three agents of action. In this sense, MacMurray's conception of God fits better with the image put forth in this article, where the Son and Spirit disclose God as Love revealed and enacted in the economy. See also Russell, The Heart of Rahner.
85 There are theological debates about whether the “persona” or “hypostasis” of Jesus is divine or human, and the Council of Constantinople would seem to affirm that the “person,” the bearer of the divine and human nature, is divine, but one must again recognize that the word persona that is being used in these debates does not carry the meaning of a psychological center of consciousness and freedom that the word conveys today. The early councils strongly argue that Jesus had to have a fully human will and center of action; thus the connotations of the word “person” today are what the councils affirm of Jesus’ humanity. When I use “person” in reference to Jesus, I am referring to Jesus as a human being in the Rahnerian sense that in the person of Jesus we see one whose human nature as the capax Dei is perfectly fulfilled, thus enabling us to see the essence of what it means to be human, and in that sense to be a human person, one whose potential is fulfilled in that it is grounded in God as Love and becomes the manifestation of that love in the world.
86 LaCugna, God for Us, 292.
87 Marion, God without Being, 104.
88 Levinas, Emmanuel, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. Lingis, Alphonso, Philosophical Series Book 24 (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969)Google Scholar.
89 Marion, God without Being, 104.
90 Marion, Prolegomena to Charity, 75.
91 Kärkkäinen, The Trinity, 187–93. While Kärkkäinen notes the ambiguity in LaCugna's position, the many times that she states that there is a role for theologia in protecting the mystery of God, and that God cannot be reduced to our experience of God, he nonetheless concludes, “In sum, it seems to me that the end result of LaCugna's program is the collapse of the immanent Trinity into the economic” (191). For other critiques of this point in LaCugna's work, see note 9 above.
92 See note 9 above, in particular, Molnar, Divine Freedom.
93 LaCugna, God for Us, 219; LaCugna cites Schoonenberg, Piet, “Trinity—The Consummated Covenant: Theses on the Doctrine of the Trinitarian God,” Studies in Religion 5 (1975–76): 114CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
94 Marion, God without Being, 47; Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, 71–73.
95 LaCugna, God for Us, 247.
96 Ibid.
97 Ibid., 261.
98 Zizioulas, John, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985)Google Scholar, 46 (emphasis in original); quoted in LaCugna, God for Us, 261.
99 LaCugna, God for Us, 265; see also 301, 303.
100 LaCugna, God for Us, 309–10 n. 75. Note that death and suicide are also important topics for Marion in both The Erotic Phenomenon and Prolegomena to Charity.
101 LaCugna, God for Us, 310 n. 75.
102 Ibid., 289.
103 Ibid., 302.
104 See Kilby, Karen, “Is an Apophatic Trinitarianism Possible?,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12 (2010): 65–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
105 LaCugna, God for Us, 323.
106 Ibid., 324.