THE SHARING OF NAMES: OF GODS AND A TRINITY

In my previously posted essay on Schuon’s Trinitarian theology, I made many somewhat dense statements concerning the nature of the three “non-peculiar persons” that are “One” infinite reality. Apart from teasing out some of that logic, I want to show how this plays out in the context of God as presented in Scripture. Note that I am not a proponent of Sola Scriptura, and so this line of thinking might be alien to your usual ways of understanding Scripture. I believe in the unity of philosophical speculation and scriptural interpretation. In truth, they are often one and the same thing. So, here, we are going to “speculate”, that is to “try to see” (“speculare” — To look), using Schuon’s “intuitive” synthetic theology, and Proclean categories, some of the meanings scripture shows us in its images.

An extremely important point in the essay that shows up time and again is that, paradoxically, the “apophatic”, whereby you deny God attributes, is infact the greatest “cataphatic”, the affirmation of his attributes. It is silence that contains all sound. It is space that contains all matter, and indeed it is because of space matter can exist at all. It is a “cause” of matter, in the sense that it can explain matter, at least partially. Yet, space is not matter, and silence is not sound. It is infact the negation of matter that we get space, and in the negation of sound that you get silence. This is an analogy for “the void”, which is one of God’s names. “Ein Sof”, “Ungrund”, “The One”. These describe the highest reality that contains all things and yet is none of them. It contains them as itself and yet gives them all. God is “No-thing”. This “One” cannot be “one thing”, since that would make it multiple (it is one AND a thing), hence it is said that the One “neither is, not is one”. This is an explanation of Advaita, “Non-duality”, in the Hindu Tradition. This is so because all things have limits, they are “this” and not “that”, and so to negate them is to negate their limits. Things die when they turn into another thing. Bodies become soil, or another body (when eaten). This is the function of Shiva. Negation is his power, but it is an indirectly positive power, for what happens when the limits of all things are negated? What happens when the negative (a limit) is negated? What is “- x -?”:

“limitation presents the character of a veritable negation; to set a limit is ·to deny to that which is limited everything that this limit excludes, and consequently the negation of a limit is properly the negation of a negation, that is to say, logically, and even mathematically, an affirmation, so that in reality the negation of all limit is equivalent to total and absolute affirmation. That which has no limits is that of which nothing can be denied, and is therefore what contains everything, that outside of which there is nothing”[1]

Because it is no-thing, the One gives all things[2]. How does it do this? Precisely through the giving of a limit and an infinity. Limit is the principle that makes a thing “One”, in (limited) imitation of the One. Infinity, or as I used it in the essay, “Unlimited”, is that which makes a thing “many”. Both are, in truth, “types” of unity that is the One. For example, humanity is one, and yet there are many humans who instantiate that “One humanity”, they are themselves “ones”. In good fashion, I also argued that “Limit” is not itself limited, and Unlimited is not itself an Unlimited thing. Since they “manifest” the One in limited and unlimited things, they are principles and not directly their instantiations. The apophatic principle applies here also: By denying them particular identities with their instantiations, we indirectly give them all that is real about their instantiations. Limit is, as itself, all limited things through the power of the Infinity that makes them many things. And both Limit and Unlimited manifest that One that is, frankly, not a thing, or the two aforementioned principles that manifest its reality.

We can then say several things about the One, Limit, and Unlimited:

1. They are not beings, and hence are not subject to true multiplicity (especially the multiplicity and complexity entailed by the distinction between essence and existence)
2. The One is neither Limit nor Unlimited.
3. The One is beyond Limit and Unlimited.
4. The One therefore “contains” Limit and Unlimited.
5. Therefore, The One “is” Limit and Unlimited.
6. Limited and Unlimited manifest the One.
7. Limited and Unlimited manifest the One only through things that manifest their duality.
8. The One is absolutely prior.
9. Limit is discontinuous from the One by it being a principle of limit and hence discontinuity.
10. Limit is continuous with the One by virtue of its unity with Unlimited and not by its own principle.
11. Unlimited is continuous with the One by its own principle.
12. Unlimited is discontinuous with the One by virtue of its unity with Limit.

The above twelve points are not a formal argument. I don’t want to pretend to follow “classical” Aristotelian logic here. We are following what we may call “ the logic of the east “, which takes advantage of the relativity of reality, of its blurry edges and “unitive heights”. I also want to distinguish here between “difference” and “multiplicity”. Multiplicity belongs to essences and limited things, difference is more fundamental.

If you haven’t noticed yet, the Triad expanded on above can be used to explain the Trinity. This was the premise and conclusion of my essay. The One is absolutely prior, “innascible”, in Trinitarian terms, “unbegotten” and “unproceeding”, the “attributes” belonging to the Father. Limit is, by its own principle, discontinuous from the One, and yet it is from the One, linked to it by Unlimited. This can be a way of explaining the Christian understanding of the Son’s “begetting”. Unlimited is, by its own principle, continuous with the One (and Limit, by implication) and yet discountinous by virtue of Limit, who it is united to. This can explain the Spirit’s “procession’. Their link is that nature of “non-dual” unity, which is “hooked” to the One, a “hook” which can explain the “Monarchian Trinity” understanding that was popular in the early church.

If you also have not noticed yet, the “Trinity” described here is not one god in particular, but the very essence of Godhood in three “impersonal persons”. No god’s name is mentioned. This is often the cue for some to mention that the Christian God is personal, over and against abstract philosophical gods. But, I would say that they have missed the point. The first principle mentioned in this essay applies: By denying the One, Limit, and Unlimited any particular personal attributes, we indirectly attribute it all personality. For those who know of Advaita, the Ultimate reality is also named “Self”. Not, as you may think, as sinful egoic self-centredness, but in the sense of the very “essence” of personhood, which is communal. There is no person without persons, and their unity is in personhood. Personhood names that “impersonal” unity of One, Limit, and Unlimited. Each God is a person, a person “beyond being”, gifted by the One, through Limit and Unlimited, to beings, while remaining in themselves beyond beings. They are the divine names. Fully God and yet different “Lords”[3]. This is where Proclean henads come in. Proclus posits the Gods as “beyond being”. One may read his philosophy as putting them “between” the One and the first beings. But, because of the nature of the One and his Limit/Infinity, one could say that the Gods have no prior, for the One is all the Gods. Limit is all the Gods, Unlimited is all the Gods. The One is the absolutely prior “void” that gives all things, and all persons. In doing this, the One IS all things and all persons. Limit and Unlimited are the means by which this gift is given, and because of this are themselves receptors of that gift. This is why “The One” can be a cipher for any God. The Jewish Philo identified “The God” with YHWH, Plotinus sometimes called it “Zeus”[4]. Egyptian theology might call her “Isis”. “Brahman” is a particular God as well as all the Gods. To paraphrase and reconfigure a statement by Edward Butler, the One (as well as Limit and Unlimited, in their respective ways) is the principle of unity by which the absolutely simple Gods, who are persons beyond being, subsist, and yet the One is not one “person” in the sense of that which self-instantiates. However, it is a “person”, but only through the Gods themselves. You don’t worship “Limit”, you worship the God that Limit is. By affirming the God, you affirm Limit directly. The Gods are fully The One. They are fully Limit. They are fully Unlimited. The One, through Limit/Unlimited, is the “void” where the Gods fully are, where they relate to their own selves Trinitarianly.

This is where it ties directly into Scripture, for Elohim said “Let US make”. It could refer to the Trinity. It could also refer to divine council theology. But, it can also be interpreted in the fully polytheist sense as explained above, a polytheist sense secured in a Trinitarianism that does not condemn or replace monotheism. All perspectives are valid in this framework, since this preserves both the original writers and later developments. Indeed the perspectives contain each other.

More interestingly, we can see how God can place his name in an “angel” and how this angel can be identified with Christ. Considering that the outward sign in question is an image of realities beyond being, the inferences taken are not arbitrary. It can also explain why Jesus can be YHWH along with the Father and Spirit. The Father is YHWH innascible and unbegotten (The One). The Son is YHWH begotten (Limit). The Spirit is YHWH proceeding (Unlimited). YHWH the God among others is also the infinite God. Polytheism (that of the original writers of Scripture) meets the later monotheism in an authentic classical theism.

This polytheism is not that which acknowledges many YHWHs. There is One YHWH. YHWH Unbegotten is, strictly, only named through the begotten, as an indirect affirmation by negation (begotten). It indicates the Void. YHWH Begotten and YHWH proceeding manifest the unbegotten, and traditionally it is this begotten that is named YHWH, since it is the instantiation of what is truly nameless. The name that signifies the God is One, therefore the God is One, yet the “persons”, which in this case are not “singularities” or individuals, are three. There’s a fine line here. There are “persons”, as in “individuals”, as in “gods”. They are singularities that contain one another, such that naming one is calling on all, but the Gods are still different. There are many divine names. The divine names are the One, but the divine names are not arbitrarily interchangeable. The “Trinity” is not one of these divine names, nor is it one of the Gods. It signifies the “relationship” in the God itself that undergirds the reality of all Gods, that is, innascibility, begottenness, and procession. The first indicates by non-indication, the “negatively positive” principle of the Void that gives the Gods. The second indicates the Gods as discontinuously instantiated and different singularites, united in encompassing one another without confusion. The third indicates their continuous unity as Gods, and hence their non-dual unity with the Void. These three are “non-individual persons”, distinct yet united and simple, instantiated in every God as One God, and only One God, The God. That point is crucial, because I am not saying here that there is a God behind every God, another individual or three individuals in another individual. I’m distinguishing here between two different “types” of persons. One “horizontal” (the Gods, as eternal singularities) and one “vertical” (the One and every God that is three non-individual “persons”). To privilege the former is polytheism, to privilege the latter is monotheism (and here, privilege is not negation of the other. Polytheists still know of the Void). The latter may not even be trinitarian, if the “internal relations” are not expanded on in that particular manner, as seen in Kaballist theology, which is why I simply said “Monotheism”.

For the Trinitarian, the dogma is preserved. For the perennialist Christian, the transcendent unity of religions is demonstrated without denying the faith. For the perennialist of any religion, a glimpse at how a possible perennialist theology would manifest in their religious contexts is given.

Hail Mary, and praise her Son, the revealer of the Triune God.

[1] Rene Guenon, The Multiple States of the Being (Sophia Perennis, 2004).

[2] Jordan Daniel Wood, ‘The Father’s Kenosis: A Defense of Bonaventure on Intra-Trinitarian Acts’, Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology, 30.1 (2021), 3–31 < https://doi.org/10.1177/1063851220953363&gt;.

[3] Naida Muslić, ‘The Salvation Through Love’ < https://www.orphicinscendence.com/post/the-salvation-through-love&gt; [accessed 13 June 2021].

[4] Algis Uzdavinys and Jay Bregman, The Heart of Plotinus: The Essential Enneads (The Perennial Philosophy), ed. by Algis Uzdavinys (World Wisdom, 2009).

Originally published at http://theosymmetry.wordpress.com on June 26, 2021.