The Trinity: Prototype of Real Existence or Danger to Political Wellbeing? Tanner, Volf, and Yannaras in Conversation

Jonathan Cole

doi:10.3390/rel12110998

Abstract

Kathryn Tanner maintains that political theologies based on the Trinity are not only unsound, but potentially dangerous. Her primary concern is that the Trinity, by definition, cannot serve as a “model” for human socio-political organization. Miroslav Volf, while sharing Tanner’s sense that Trinitarian political theologies are fraught, nevertheless, maintains that the Trinity can serve as a “vision” for human socio-political relations, albeit not as a “program”. This article brings Tanner and Volf into conversation with Eastern Orthodox philosopher-theologian Christos Yannaras, whose Trinitarian political theology regards the Trinity as the “prototype” or “archetype” of a mode of existence in which humans can participate by transcending their natures, with the aim of realizing truth. This article argues that Yannaras offers a novel way of conceptualizing Trinitarian political theology which escapes Tanner and Volf’s criticisms, on the one hand, and offers Social Trinitarianism a fresh and fertile perspective that could advance its discourse.

Highlights

The Danger of Trinitarian Political TheologiesKathryn Tanner, in her chapter on the Trinity in the Blackwell Companion to PoliticalTheology, avows that “figuring out the socio-political lessons conveyed by the Trinity is a task fraught with complexities and perils” (Tanner 2004, p. 321)
Yannaras’ construal of the Trinity as an archetypical mode of existence in which humans can potentially participate leaves the specific principles and policies of human political organization open to an exercise of human judgment, as we indicated above
It further offers a different way to conceptualize the relationship between the Trinity and human socio-political existence, which is to think in terms of existential modes and divine “prototypes” and “archetypes,” rather than models and programs

Summary

Introduction

Kathryn Tanner, in her chapter on the Trinity in the Blackwell Companion to Political. Tanner identified two Christian beliefs which in her view can be duly reconstituted in such a way that promotes progressive social change These are God’s transcendence and universal providential agency The task of political theology, as she conceives it, is to identify and reconstitute historical theological doctrines with the she conceives it, is to identify and reconstitute historical theological doctrines with the potential to promote progressive social change, and the Trinity is not such a doctrine.

According

Is Yannaras’ Trinitarian Political Theology Dangerous?

Conclusions