The Trinity: Insights from the Mystics (review)

What can the mystics teach us about the Trinity? Anne Hunt, who is faculty dean of theology and philosophy at Australian Catholic University, examines eight major figures in the Western tradition with this question in mind: William of St. Thierry, Hildegard of Bingen, Bonaventure, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and Elizabeth of the Trinity. As she points out, these figures were steeped in doctrinal formulations as well as iconographic and metaphorical expressions of the Trinity. To examine their insights into the Trinity as "a locus theologicus, a source and a resource for theological reflection" (ix) offers rich rewards.

The book is chronologically organized, with a chapter on each mystic. The mystic's life and writings are introduced, followed by a close study of their teaching on the Trinity. Hunt has carefully assembled and analyzed the relevant texts, so that we gain a clear outline of each figure's treatment of the Trinity and where to find the references to the Trinity in their writings. This alone makes the book a useful resource.

Of greater interest, though, are the themes to which Hunt draws our attention, as they recur through this historical analysis. She notes that Trinitarian theology is primarily approached through a conversation with anthropology, concerning what it means to be created in the 'image of God.' In this tradition, questions of the Trinity are intensified and brought home by an interior analysis of how we participate in the Trinitarian life, being made in its image. Within the soul's relationship with God, the Trinity is known by means of a deep appropriation of self-understanding. Augustine's psychological analogies for the Trinity lie behind this development, but Hunt notes significant departures from Augustine. For instance, William of St. Thierry gives new emphasis to the experiential knowing of God as Trinity in se (beyond the level of analogies) while Bonaventure adopts Dionysius's view of the self-diffusion of the good, instead of intellectual emanation, to understand the generation of the second person (drawing on Richard of St. Victor).

This anthropological approach to the Trinity locates the mystics' insights within the broad area of human transformation. Particularly in the phenomenon of union with God, questions of the processions and relations of the Trinity are dealt with in terms of the dynamics of the soul's relationship to God. Some prefer to focus on the Trinity ad intra, in its internal life (William of St. Thierry, Bonaventure, Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross), while others appropriate the work of the Trinity ad extra in order to speak of it (Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich). But as Hunt indicates, there is a deliberate tendency among these mystics to blur the distinction between the life of the Trinity ad intra and ad extra—between the immanent and economic Trinity. Once the Trinity has been penetrated by the soul from within, there is little to distinguish between the Trinity's internal life and its external life in creation. For Meister Eckhart, for instance, the inner life of the Trinity is mapped onto the soul's inner life—the Son is born in the soul just as the Son is given birth by the Father in eternity—and this directly motivates the soul's life in the world.

While other mystics are more cautious than Eckhart about the distinction between the human soul and God, all here share this central emphasis on the in terpenetration of the soul and the Trinity in union. What is the theological significance of this move? Hunt is both revealing and begs further questions. She shows the contribution of each mystic on a number of Trinitarian themes. But how might this change our understanding of the Trinity, or speak to the debates of theologians today? Well qualified to tell us, Hunt does not choose to develop her thoughts on this matter. The study remains at the level of analysis and summary rather than making an argument...