Gregory of Nyssa and the Social Analogy of the Trinity

GREGORY OF NYSSA AND THE SOCIAL ANALOGY OF THE TRINITY IN 1948 DONALD BAILLIE described the contemporary social analogy of the Trinity as "hltra-Cappadocian," suggesting that such Anglican versions of it as Leonard Hodgson's constitute "one-sided" developments of the Cappadocian three-man analogy.1 Baillie does acknowledge, of course, that the Cappadocian fathers compared the Trinity to a human trio. He is further aware that twentieth century Anglican trinitarians have often pointed to the Cappadocians, particularly to Gregory of Nyssa, as precedent. But Baillie judges these contemporary theories to err in drawing a central conclusion from such a comparison, namely, that three "persons " in God mean-either for the Cappadocians or for usthree personalities, three centers of consciousness. The Cappadocians themselves, on Baillie's reading, are more circumspect. By their doctrines of intratrinitarian perichoresis (mutual enveloping, or interpenetration) , identity of trinitarian works ad extra, identity of essence, and divine simplicity, 1 Donald M. Baillie, God Was in Christ: An Essay on Incarnation and Atonement (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948), pp. 137, 140, 144. By "social analogy," or, alternatively, " strong trinitarianism," I mean any theory in which (1) Father, Son, and Spirit are conceived as persons in a full sense of "person" i.e., as distinct centen of love, will, knowledge, and purposeful action (all of which require consciousness) and (2) who are conceived as related to each other in some central ways analogous to, even if sublimely surpassing, relations among the members of a society of three human persons. Ironically, though his concept of God broadly meets these criteria, Hodgson himself rejected " social analogy" as a description of his own view, preferring an oddly inappropriate analogy of a single person as the organic union of three activities. Leonard Hodgson " The Doctrine of the Trinity," Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 5 (1954): 49-55; The Doctrine of the Trinity, Croall Lectures, 1942-1943 (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1943), pp. 85-87. 325 326 CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, JR. they carefully qualify their trinitarian theory and skirt the dangers of tritheism latent in it. Their use of "modes of existence " as one expression for the three in God further shows their caution and balance. They never go so far as to suggest " that the Persons are three distinct personalities in a ' social ' unity of even the highest kind." 2 In weighing contemporary Anglican theories Baillie thus finds them Cappadocian in only a lopsided and imbalanced way. They must in fa.ct be assessed as ultra-Cappa.docian: they fail to qualify the statement that God is three persons with the equally important statement that he is the one modally existing " infinite and universal Person." The result in Baillie's judgment is a distortion, a onesidedness, "an oversimplification of a mystery, or an overrationalization of a paradox." 8 Baillie's question of historical precedent for strong trinitarianism has lately become acute. Recently a number of books and articles have appeared in which the social analogy is stated with the help of concepts and methods from analytic philosophy,4 or from phenomenology and sociology of knowledge ,5 or, especially, from socio-political theory.6 The latter of 2 Baillie, God Was in Christ, pp. 141-42. a Ibid., p. 144. 4 William Hasker," Tri-Unity," Journal of Religion 50 (1970): 1-32. 5 Joseph A. Bracken, "The Holy Trinity as a Community of Divine Persons ," Heythrop Joumal 15 (1974): 166-82, 257-70; What Are They Baying About the Trinity? (New York: Paulist Press, 1979). 6 Juan Luis Segundo, Our Idea of God, trans. John Drury, A Theology for Artisans of a New Humanity, vol. 3 (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1974); Jan M. Lochman, "The Trinity and Human Life," Theology 78 (1975) ; 173-83; Geevarghese Mar Osthatios, Theology of a Classless Society (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1980); Jiirgen Moltmann, The Triinity and the Kiingdom: The Doctrine of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (San Francisco : Harper and Row, Publishers, 1980) . See also Daniel L. Migliore, Called to Freedom: Liberation Theology and the Future of Christian Doc· trine (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1980), pp. 72-79; Thomas D. Parker, "The Political Meaning of the Doctrine of the Trinity: Some Theses," The...