Monthly Archives: September 2008

The Trinity as Entelechy?

Posted by on September 30, 2008 10 comments

In the last post I noted Bulgakov’s suggestive idea that the church be understood as an entelechy, a reality that carries its end within itself and as such never “achieves” its end in a static sense, since perpetual “becoming” towards this end is part of its own definition.

This notion also seems a fruitful description of the life the Trinity. If we conceptualize the Trinity as entelechic we are able to understand the being of God as completely and eternally actualized in itself and as always on its way, always in becoming towards perfection–a perfection that lies within the Trinity itself, but which always lies ungrasped, circulating as gift between the persons of the Trinity. This seems to make sense of the biblical narrative of Jesus in a profound way. The Scriptures portray Christ’s resurrection as definitive of his very being–if Christ is not raised, this God simply is not, as Robert Jenson says–however, if Christ’s being is defined by resurrection, does this not mean that God in some sense “depends” on creation to be God?

Not if we understand God’s being entelechically, which would allow us to say (along with Eberhard Jüngel) that God’s being-in-becoming is simply the definition of how God is God. Thus posting becoming, movement, newness, in the divine life does not require us to posit a transmogrification in the being of God in which God changes from one thing into something else or is extrinsically determined. Rather, God’s trinitarian being carries its eschatological fullness within itself while simultaneously always moving towards it as God’s own future.

The Church as Entelechy

Posted by on September 30, 2008 17 comments

In The Bride of The Lamb, Sergius Bulgakov argues that the church itself should be undestood as the fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation, but in a particular sense. The church is an entelechy, a term that takes its derivation from Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Therein Aristotle defines an entelechy (from en+telos) as a reality that has its own end within itself and as such is constantly in a state of becoming that is, by definition, unending, for if an entelechy were to acheive its end in a static sense it would cease to exist.

Bulgakov applies this to the church. The church is within itself the eschatological fulfillment of redemption, but it is always and ever in the process of becoming this reality. Here we have a fruitful concept, not only for thinking of the church in the present age as always en via, but also for a mode of thinking about the age to come. If the people of God are defined by there entelechic mode of being in which they are always dynamically becoming that which they are without ever acomplishing this identity in a static sense (which would be a contradiction), then we are now able to conceptualize eternity, not as a sort of fiat accompli, but rather as an ever-moving restfulness, an ever-peaceful exhilaration which never comes to an end and eternally grows more exciting.

Eucharist, Eschatology, and World in the Ecclesiology of Bulgakov

Posted by on September 30, 2008 3 comments

My own installment of the 2008 Bulgakov Blog Conference has just been posted over at Land of Unlikeness. I have re-posted it here, but please direct all comments to TOU to support the discussion over there. My thanks to Dan for all his hard work of organizing and patience with us contributors. Here is my post engaging Bulgakov’s ecclesiology.

Sergei Bulgakov is unique among Orthodox theologians, Russian and otherwise for all manner of reasons, not the least of which involves his distinctive ecclesiology. Bulgakov’s The Bride of the Lamb provides perhaps the most innovative work in Orthodox ecclesiology in the twentieth century. In what follows, I will attempt to make a provisional exploration into the fabric of Bulgakov’s ecclesiology looking particularly at a constellation of coordinates that are operative in the shape of his thought. I hope to explore the way in which Bulgakov’s ecclesiological thought is a dynamic theological articulation, which circulates between the nodal points of the Eucharist, eschatology, and the world. Bulgakov’s ecclesiology is, through and through informed by a dynamic conceptual interplay between these three major foci. My aim in this essay is limited simply to the observance of some of these dynamics. I hope that in so doing I will illuminate some of the key contributions of Bulgakov to the ecumenical task of exploring the nature of the church and its place in the shape of redemption.

It should be noted at the outset that I am no expert on Bulgakov and those more knowledgeable about his thought than I will certainly be in a good position to correct any imbalances and misapprehensions in what follows. In the interest of space and focus, I am here taking my cues from two of Bulgakov’s works alone, his shorter dogmatic treatises, The Holy Grail and the Eucharist and his massive treatment of ecclesiology, The Bride of the Lamb. In both of these works Bulgakov binds together an integrated view of the redemption, originating in the Christic self-oblation of the Lamb.

The first thing to be noted in approaching this endeavor is found in Bulgakov’s treatment of “The Holy Grail.” Herein, Bulgakov engages in a form of inquiry that is rightly described by the translator as “mystical lyricism” (The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, p. 9). Here Bulgakov attempts a “dogmatic exegesis” of John 19:34 which recounts Christ’s side being pierced by the spear of Longinus and the blood and water flowing forth from the wound. Bulgakov recounts the standard legends of the Holy Grail, which culminate in the Arthurian poems of the Middle Ages, but then goes on to theologically reimagine the idea of the Holy Grail from a radically different point of view. According to Bulgakov, the Holy Grail is not a chalice, which caught the blood and water from Christ’s side, but rather is the world itself into which Christ’s shed blood and water flowed.

The blood and water that flowed from Christ’s side on the cross of course represent Baptismal water and Eucharistic blood in Bulgakov’s view. However, he makes a radical point of distinction here. There is a crucial difference between Christ’s poured-out blood and water and the elements of the Eucharist and the waters of Baptism shared in in the church. The differentiation is not a substantial one, but a differentiation of mode. For Bulgakov, “the blood and water that came out of His side were not Eucharistic in intent” (The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, p. 33). What is crucial for Bulgakov is that the blood and water which poured from the wound of Christ, though identical to the Baptismal and Eucharistic elements substantially, is different in that it is not offered to the faithful for communion, but rather is poured out into the substance of the world as such (see The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, pp. 34ff). The blood and water that are poured out into the Holy Grail, the world, are not given “for the communion of the faithful but for the sanctification and transfiguration of the world” (The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, p. 34).

Here is Bulgakov’s key point, the Eucharistic and Baptismal elements, Christ’s blood and water are poured out on the cross and remain in the world. Bulgakov insists that this outpouring of Christ’s wound on the cross indelibly alters the fabric of the world, binding it forever to Christ, sanctifying it and preparing it for its final transfiguration at the parousia. For Bulgakov the very metabolism of the world, its cosmological fabric is transmuted by the flowing forth of Christ’s water and blood into it. There is a real sense for Bulgakov that Christ’s own human substance remains diffused into the world through his self-oblation. The world, in Christ’s outpouring is “Christified”, permanently bound to Christ, united with him and impelled on by this union towards its eschatological transfiguration by the Spirit. Indeed, for Bulgakov it is the fact of Christ’s blood and water pouring into the heart of the world that even makes it possible for the earth to sustain, to bear the Pentecostal coming of the Spirit whose eschatological epiphany is recounted in radically apocalyptic terms. The biblical images of the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood in the day of the Lord (cf. Joel 2:28-32; Acts 2:17-31) are the manifestation of this pneumatological intensity, which the world can only endure on the basis of its Christic reconstitution through being transfigured into the Holy Grail. (see The Bride of the Lamb, pp. 419-421)

In short, for Bulgakov, Christ’s passion and resurrection radically transfigures the reality of the world in a distinctively eschatological and Eucharistic manner. The world is, in a sense Eucharisticized and Baptized by the blood and water of Christ’s body in a manner that inclines it to, and sets it on the path toward its eschatological destiny. Christ imparts his divine humanity to the world itself, allowing his blood and water to remain in the earth. In so doing he binds himself to the world, making it a place upon which his presence can rest in its epiphanic, eschatological fullness. “This blood and water made the world a place of the presence of Christ’s power, prepared the world for its future transfiguration, for the meeting with Christ come in glory” (The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, p. 44). Thus, for Bulgakov, “the reception and the sending down of the Holy Spirit into the world depend upon the Incarnation, upon the profound, radical transformation of the world’s natural being”. Only thereby does “the world become capable of bearing the Pentecost, of receiving the fire of the Holy Spirit without being consumed by it.” (The Bride of the Lamb, p. 419).

What Bulgakov here presents is a vision of redemption that is at once apocalyptic and Eucharistic (see The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, p. 45). In Christ’s passion the world is constituted anew as the place of his presence, on which his Spirit rests, impelling the world towards it eschatological future, the transfiguration of creaturely reality in the union of the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem (see The Bride of the Lamb, p. 522-524). The whole shape of the world, constituted by Christ’s blood and water is Eucharistic. It is this construction of the world in and through Christ’s blood and water that make the coming transfiguration of the world into a cosmic redemption rather than a cosmic holocaust. Christ’s suffusion of the world with his very humanity renders the world a place capable of bearing the weight of the divine glory even as it transfigures the world in a purgative cleansing fire. The world is destined to “undergo a catastrophic trancensus: on the one hand, it will perish in a cosmic fire; on the other hand, it will be transformed inwardly.” (The Bride of the Lamb, p. 417) Thus, the Christic outpouring of Christ’s humanity into the fabric of the world is what renders possible the Pneumatic mission of the Spirit to renew and transfigure. “It is precisely the Holy Spirit who accomplishes the transfiguration of the universe: the energy of the Holy Spirit destroys the sinful, imperfect old world and creates a new world, with the renewal of all creation. This is the power of the Fire that burns, melts, transmutes, illuminates, and transfigures.” (The Bride of the Lamb, p. 421)

For Bulgakov this dynamic vision of the redemption of the world, which is at once Trinitarian, Eucharistic, and apocalyptic is grounded in the ecclesial reality which exists in the world, seen preeminently through the sacramental life. It is the church that is the center of God’s eschatological outpouring of purgative, transfiguring grace, which proclaims and anticipates the eschatological destiny of the redemption, the marriage supper of the Lamb. Bulgakov’s ecclesiological vision is thoroughgoingly cosmic in scope, seeing in the Eucharistic life of the church the future of the world, which was pre-accomplished in Christ’s kenotic outpouring of his humanity into the world, constituting it as the Holy Grail, the chalice of God’s grace, transfigured by the fire of the Spirit and offered up to the Father as a divine sacrifice of praise.

These observations, of course, do not sink very deep into the riches of Bulgakov’s ecclesiology, most notably they fail to explore the connection between Bulgakov’s configuration of eschatology, Eucharist, and world and his Sophiology, which begs exploration and analysis. That is a task I leave to others and to ensuing conversation.

The Beatific Vision as Meta-History

Posted by on September 30, 2008 4 comments

Against notions of the final state as a sort of timeless tranquility, or contemplative stillness, Sergius Bulgakov portrays the final reconciliation as the beginning of a new journey, an endlessly energetic pilgrimage deeper into the mystery of God. History does not cease but transcends itself as it is transfigured into “meta-history.” The life of humanity rendered fully alive by the consummation of salvation “does not know immobility; this is only the sign of the beginning of meta-history, which has its own ‘ages of ages,’ inaccessible to our present knowledge. Meta-history continues in the future age, which is not static, but a new life.”

The beatific vision, then is not a state of silence, an ocean of motionless bliss, but an ever-traversing journey into the uncharted and uncontainable fullness of God’s trinitarian being. As such, the beatific vision is not so much a resolution as the beginning of the first true adventure. C.S. Lewis grasps this wonderfully well in his conclusion The Last Battle: “All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

To borrow Moltmann’s memorable phrasing: “In the End, the Beginning.”

One Realm of Christ-Reality: Bonhoeffer and Bulgakov

Posted by on September 29, 2008 8 comments

Bonhoeffer and Bulgakov offer two similarly Christological construals of the world as the tabernacle of God’s presence and action. What I find alluring about both of them is that they portray the way in which God’s action is “at home” in the world, bringing it to completion and perfection without positing some sort of “natural” divine seed in nature qua nature.

“There are not two realities, but only one reality, and that is God’s reality revealed in Christ in the reality of the world. Partaking in Christ, we stand at the same time in the reality of God and in the reality of the world. The reality of Christ embraces the reality of the world in itself. The world has no reality of its own independent of God’s revelation in Christ. It is a denial of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ to wish to be ‘Christian’ without being ‘worldly,’ or to which to be worldly without seeing and recognizing the world in Christ. Hence, there are not two realms, but only the one realm of the Christ-reality,  in which the reality of God and the reality of the world are united.”

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 58.

“The whole world is the Holy Grail, for it recived into itself and contains Christ’s precious blood and water [John 19:34]. The whole world is the chalice of Christ’s blood and water; the whole world partook of them in communion in the hour of Christ’s death. And the whole world hides the blood and water within itself. A drop of Christ’s blood dripped upon Adam’s head and redeemed Adam, but also all the blood and water of Christ that flowed forth into the world santified the world. This blood and water made the world a place of the presence of Christ’s power, prepared the world for its future transfiguration, for the meeting with Christ come in glory.”

– Sergius Bulgakov, The Holy Grail and the Eucharist (Hudson, NY: Lindsfarne, 1997), 44.

What do others think of these sorts of Christological construals of the world, revelation, and eschatology?

The 2008 Bulgakov Blog Conference

Posted by on September 29, 2008 Comments Off

Readers should head over to The Land of Unlikeness where the much-awaited Bulgakov Blog Conference has kicked off today with Cynthia Nielson’s supremely helpful introduction to Bulgakov. My own contribution will be coming up tomorrow and there are a large selection of other great contributors and topics to come. Make sure to check it out.

Cynicism and Hope

Posted by on September 29, 2008 2 comments

Yet another forthcoming book from Wipf and Stock that I think is worthy of mention is Cynicism and Hope: Reclaiming Democracy in a Postdemocratic Society. It is collection of essays dealing with the dynamics of a properly tempered cynicism in relation to the current political culture. Some of the particularly notable essays come from Peter Dula, who deals especially with his experiences working with the Mennonite Central Committee in Iraq. Here is one of the particularly memorable quotes:

What is theology? Say that theology calls us to remember the eschaton, to remember that the end times are not on their way, but began at Golgotha 2,000 years ago. Say that theology means negotiating the edges between celebrating the already and mourning the not yet and confessing that we rarely know which is which and still less know whether to mourn or celebrate that ignorance. Say that theology means wondering if the church is a 2,000-year-old dance before the empty tomb or a 2,000-year-old funeral at the foot of the cross. Say that doing theology means recovering a sense of the world as pervasively shot through with grace and beauty, and hoping that looks like a garden in bloom, but fearing it looks like the lawn outside Peter and Paul Chaldean Catholic Church [littered with the bodies of bombing victims]. Say that inhabiting those tensions is called discipleship.

Another splendid essay in the volume is D. Stephen Long’s “Democracy and Mammon in Christian Perspective: Foundations of a Nonreactive Politics.” He makes the superb argument that the church’s politics must, if they are to be theologically faithful, be fundamentally nonreactive, nonprotesting. Christian politics must take their logic and direction nor from something outside itself against which it responds, rather it must emerge from a vision which is precisely not a reaction against other politics and realities. Here’s a quote from Long:

But we cannot build a politics simply by reacting against this evil without reproducing in our political life the logic of the subjugating power of money. What we need are political bonds grounded in a common truth and goodness that show a nonfascist way of living with each other. This would have to be a nonreactive politics. It is not something we create as a form of opposition, but something we voluntarily affirm without assuming that our will produces it. Its affirmation has to be at the same time a reception of something other than our own assertion. This is why the vision of the catholic, or universal, church remains so important—not because it is an alternative politics, but because it is a true and good politics that does not need to react against other politics in order to have unity. It offers dogma as a matter of credit: it imagines a future we do not yet fully know. But it claims that that future meets us now in the present from its originating source in our past.

I’ll certainly alert you all when the book is out. It is definitely worthy of attention from any and all of those who are interested in theologically thick engagements with politics and culture.

On Taking Liturgy Seriously

Posted by on September 28, 2008 12 comments

Sergius Bulgakov delivers an exhortation that most Christians probably need to hear, especially those of us in the West whose only experiences of culture and sociality, ecclesial or otherwise bear deep vestiges of artificiality and triviality. Too few of us even know how to think about our participation in gathered worship as an event actually occurring within the economy of God’s salvation of the world, whether we come from a high church background or not. Here is Bulgakov’s timely remark:

“Our liturgies are not theatrical productions, devoid of the power of reality and containing on an ideal remembrance. No! They are real events for us. In these events we are contemporaries of Christ’s earthly life, which enters into our very own life. Christ’s earthly life did not take place only for the small number of people who saw hum with fleshly eyes. It also takes place for all of Christ’s humankind in the church (‘blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed’ [John 20:29]).” (“The Holy Grail,” p. 50-51)

Out of the Last Adam’s Side

Posted by on September 28, 2008 13 comments

In his essay, “The Holy Grail,” Sergius Bulgakov makes a fascinating observation about John 19:34 about the blood and water flowing out of Jesus’ side when pierced by the spear of Longinus on the cross. Bulgakov notes that what flows out of the wound in Jesus’ side are the sacramental gifts of God to the church, baptismal water and eucharistic blood.

Out of the side of the First Adam in the Genesis narrative was created Eve, the bride and perfection of created co-humanity. Out of the side of the Last Adam flowed the life-creating gifts of the bride of Christ, the glorious inhabitant of the City of God. The creation and transfiguration of humanity alike are grounded the wounded flesh of Adams, the first leading to death and the last to endless life.

Perichoresis and Hospitality

Posted by on September 27, 2008 1 comment

Clearly the trinitarian concept of perichoresis is often misunderstood, misused, and misapplied. In line with what I’ve suggested before, I would argue that perichoresis as best understood as a quality that inheres in the inter-trinitarian relations and which we know on the basis of the shape of divine action in the world. In other words, perichoresis describes the dynamic of the the mutual interiority of the three divine persons which we discover in the course of the trinitarian economy of creation and revelation. When God acts in the world through Christ and the Spirit, all of our encounters with triune persons contain and reveal all three persons. Thus, when we are embraced by the Son we are embraced by the Father and Spirit who dwell in the Son. Likewise when we are adopted by the Spirit we are united with Christ in his relationship to the Father by virtue of the Spirit’s indwelling of the persons of the Father and Son.

What does this mean for our understanding of divine action? If God always acts as triune and if God’s triune action manifests the mutual indwelling that inheres in the being of God, what does that mean for how we understand the nature of divine action? I suggest that the dynamic of divine revelation in the economy of salvation suggests that God’s action, always qualified by the perichoretic relations of the Father, Son, and Spirit bears the supreme characteristic of hospitality. The Father, Son, and Spirit all exist in a state of pure actuality in which all three persons indwell one another, in effect making “room” within themselves for the other to such a degree that the Trinity can meaningfully be described as both one subject and three subjects. The earthly manifestation of the trinitarian perichoresis is seen most clearly in the radical deference and disposability of the divine persons towards one another. The Son does nothing on his own authority, but receives all things from the Father. The Father judges no one but has handed over all judgment to the Son. The Spirit does not speak of his own accord, but speaks all the is given to him to speak by the Father and Son. 

What we observe in the revelation of God as Trinity is a radical actuality of space-making in which the assertion of the distinct person is always withheld for the sake of manifesting the reality of the others. This, I suggest is the earthly-historical mode of the divine perichoresis. Translated into the life of the world, the divine mutual indwelling of the Father, Son, and Spirit takes the form of of mutual deference, of hospitality. It is precisely into these spaces of deference and hospitality that we are inducted into our adoption by the Spirit into union with Christ. Our salvation involves nothing other than our thankful reception of divine hospitality. And the radical claim of trinitarian theology is that God’s divine act of hospitality towards us is identical with God’s own way of being God.

Stanley Hauerwas as Johannine Theologian

Posted by on September 26, 2008 4 comments

The Johannine corpus is centered on two key theological themes: radical adherence and allegiance to Christ and mutual love within the community of God’s followers (“And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another” (1 John 3:23). For John radical Christocentrism and radical community are the two touchstones of fundamental Christian commitment and conviction. These convictions supersede and eclipse any other priority that might be placed upon the church by “the world.”

Interestingly enough, the marks of the Johannine corpus are good descriptors of the theological project of Stanley Hauerwas. Hauerwas’s whole project is centered on calling the church to radical allegiance to Christ over-against other loyalties and stimulating the church towards nurturing a vital common life as a community. As such, we could understand Hauerwas as a fundamentally Johannine theologian.

Against Being Holistic

Posted by on September 25, 2008 30 comments

Some of my favorite theologians to read are grand synthesizers who are capable of building conceptual systems of theology that are very beautiful things indeed to explore, linger, and wander about in. Two that come immediately to mind are Hans Urs von Balthasar and Thomas Torrance. Balthasar in particular is one of the greatest examples of holisitic thinkers. His thought is one of the grandest intellectual projects in all of theological history encompassing the breadth of Western philosophy, theology, and literature.

What I find most alluring about Balthasar is the degree to which his theology offers and answer to virtually everything. Balthasar’s system is able to incorporate almost any objection, perspective, insight, or particularity. It accounts for almost everything in advance. This is what makes is beautiful, impressive, and alluring. And I think it may be his greatest weakness.

I am becoming more and more convinced that there is a sort of inadvertent quest for totality at work in the thought of many theologians who put forth such aesthetic, holistic projects. David Bentley Hart strikes me as another recent example. There is a sort of Promethean longing in many theological projects for a holistic metadiscourse that is able to seamlessly situate both contesting perspectives and complimentary insights, accounting for them in advance from within. The attempt to be holistic and comprehensive in theology often mask a covert desire for conceptual neatness and security.

This is not to say that I am not impressed with or have no sympathies for these projects. They are, in fact some of the greatest pieces of theology I have read. The problem I have, or at least the lingering question I have about them concerns the degree to which they strive for a sort of premature closure that shuts out the possibility of being unsettled and disturbed by what may be discovered in the course of the theological task. The questions are all too often settled in advance. This is the haunting problem of such metatheologies. Beneath the gothic arches of these beautiful systems lurk the ghosts of forgotten voices, neglected witnesses, elusive protests subtly silenced. The quest for a holistic theology, then, is something that is suspect. To what degree does our longing for a holistic theology mask a sort of methodological Constantinianism that grasps after conceptual closure and wants to foreclose the possibility of dissonance and dislocation?

Too often I fear that theologians’ agendae are centered more on the desire to rule out disruptive difference that to cultivate the sort of Christic dispositions that would enable us to welcome such disruptions as divine gifts. The theologians’ task is not, then, to construct holistic systems that are able to situate and account for all contesting voices and challenges. Rather, the theological task is to call the church to the kenotic posture of self-dispossessive openness to the Word of God in Christ which always lies beyond us, welcoming us in the insecurity of promise, trust, and hope–the en via life of the pilgrims.

The Perichoretic Church

Posted by on September 25, 2008 8 comments

Regarding the proper use of perichoresis to describe the unity of the church, Miroslav Volf strike just the right balance (against those who would paint him as a simplistic social trinitarian). He claims that “It is not the mutual perichoriesis of human beings, but the indwelling of the Spirit common to everyone that makes the church into a communion corresponding to the Trinity, a communion in which personhood and sociality are equiprimal” (After Our Likeness, 213).

What makes the church an image of the divine perichoresis of the Trinity is not that human beings qua human being interpenetrate one another in a way analogous to the trinitarian relations. Rather it is that the church, as the community indwelt by the triune God through the Spirit’s presence in each believer and in the Eucharist, brings about a pneumatic union of all ecclesial persons in the event of the church’s gathering. Because the same Holy Spirit indwells all Christians, all Christians are unified “in the Spirit”, being knitted together at the utmost level of intimacy and closeness. The church is a perichoretic community for this reason and this reason only.

A Further Note on Perichoresis

Posted by on September 25, 2008 1 comment

Many of the advocates for social trinitarianism point to its ethical and political implications. If human relationality is supposed to image divine trinitarian relationality, then clearly there are a great many ethical implications from this about community, social justice, etc. Moltmann in particular typifies this sort of claim.

Moreover, the claim for the robustness of this sort of trinitarian ethic tends to be grounded in the concept of perichoresis. If God’s inter-trinitarian relations are a dynamic event of interpenetration and mutual indwelling, clearly our relations with one another must manifest the same sort of mutual interiority and intimacy.

There is one big problem with this sort of argument. Interpenetration is not by any means a necessarily good thing. Any feminist theologian worth their salt will tell you that “penetration” can be pretty violent and dehumanizing. Mutual indwelling is not, in and of itself, a good thing at all. Lives that are closely knit together to such a degree that they can meaningfully be called “interpenetrating” may or may not be good lives. Human relations are morally defined, not by the fact that they are dynamic and interpenetrating, but by the sort of ends to which our relations with one another is directed, and the quality of life together that is fostered in and through our relations with each other. What matters is not primarily that we advocate for a form of human life that is “interpentrating”, but rather that we accurately describe the quality of relations that are appropriate to the gospel, namely lives of self-giving love, gift, deference, and thoroughgoingly mutual subordination.

We don’t need a concept of perichoresis to tell us that all of us are indwelt, shaped, and formed by our relations with others. That is plainly obvious in all human cultures. What we need is not a blank advocation for a view of human persons as mutually interior to one another–we are that way whether we like it or not–rather, we need to advocate for properly shaped social relations as defined by the agapaeic ethics of Scripture. Merely establishing that “we are all connected” establishes nothing but that which everyone, particularly those who are suffering, already know.

Revisiting Perichoresis

Posted by on September 25, 2008 16 comments

The language of perichoresis, bearing a long pedigree in trinitarian theology, has fallen on hard times of late. Part of this is certainly due to the way in which the concept has been over-used in many recent works in trinitarian theology. Colin Gunton has offered perhaps the most sophisticated use of perichoresis in attempting to construct a trinitarian theology of creation and redemption. Gunton argues that, not only can perichoresis be used analogically to describe the nature of human personal relations one to another,but can in fact be understood trancendentally as a mark of all created being. Gunton argues, on the basis of sort of perichoretic metaphysic that “reality is on all levels ‘perichoretic’, a dynamism of relatedness.” (The One, the Three, and the Many, 165.)

Gunton is unique among contemporary theologians in that he has built an entire project in theological ontology on the basis of understanding perichoresis as a transcendental mark of being. This has brought him plenty of criticism, primarily focusing on the claim that perichoresis, properly understood only describes God’s own immanent reality as Trinity. We cannot simply “read” the divine dynamic of perichoretic unity from God onto created relationality.

I think, however, that the criticisms of projects like Gunton’s which use perichoresis as a sort of trancendental miss the mark. The problem is not that Gunton illegitimately extends a divine concept to human relationality. To presuppose that divine qualities are inherently opposed to created being is to make a fundamental theological mistake, namely that the divine attributes are simply the negations of the human. There is no prima facie reason why the dynamic of perichoresis could not be legitimately applied in an analogical manner to describe human patterns of relationship simply because it is an attribute of the triune God.

The real problem with Gunton’s account is the way he seeks to deploy the language of perichoresis, not the fact that he seeks to use such language. The problem is that Gunton sees the point of connection between the divine interanimation and interpenetration and human relationality in a transcendental mark of being common to both God and creation. In short, what makes Gunton’s project problematic is not that it uses perichoresis, it is that it utilizes the analogia entis to establish a general category of “perichoreticness” to describe creation and divinity (p. 141).

We would do better to understand perichoresis as a quality of divine action than as a transcendental mark of being as such. What is helpful about this conceptuality is that it grounds our understanding of perichoresis and its implications for how we understand redeemed human sociality in God’s action extra nos. God’s economic action in the world manifests the characteristics of the divine interpenetration and interanimation of the divine persons. When God acts in the world, God’s actions have the shape of perichoresis: spaciousness, hospitality, structural openness, superabundant gift-giving. Because God is eternally a communion of persons who exist in a perfect actuality of making space within themselves for one another, God’s action in the world manifests the same shape. Thus, it is appropriate to describe the ecclesial communion of the church as a perichoresis, not because it is a transcendental mark of being, but because the church exists by virtue of God’s divine act of constituting it. The church manifests the shape of the divine perichoresis because the church is the dwelling place of the trinitarian persons, not because of any sort of transcendental human sociality.

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with talking about the church’s unity as being perichoretic (in line with Jesus’ language in John 17:21ff). What is crucial is that such descriptions of the church’s status as the earthly-historical analogate of the trinitarian perichoresis be grounded in God’s triune act of constituting the church as a radical novum in the world of fallen communality.

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