REVIEW OF TRINITY AND SOCIETY AUTHOR: LEONARDO BOFF

TABLE OF CONTENT


INTRODUCTION


PROBLEMATIC


ARGUMENTATION


CRITICAL APPRECIATION




INTRODUCTION

Form all indication, the Christian faith is highly rooted in the Triune God. Theology itself spins around this reality. This mystery of the Holy Trinity is the most fundamental of our faith. On it everything else depends and from it everything else derives. Hence the Church’s constant concern to safeguard the revealed truth that God is One in nature and Three in Persons. Theologians of different calibers have spent enough thought in their effort to generate substantial explanations to this mystery. It is in this relation that Leonardo Boff reflects on the Christian God (Holy Trinity) in relation to society.

PROBLEMATIC

There is already an ongoing problem of explaining and understanding the doctrine of the Holy Trinity – how is God one and at the same time three persons? Leonard Boff sets out in this Trinitarian theological adventure to address the doctrinal issue of the unity in diversity of the Triune God – the question of God being three in one unity. Thus, looking at the whole of the biblical and historical traditions concerning the doctrines of Christ and the Trinity, this book surveys the main biblical and patristic evidence for the Christian confession of one God in three persons. It attempts to do justice to the diversity in unity of the Godhead.

ARGUMENTATION

There is a kind of reversible dynamics between Boff’s use of Trinity and society. He uses the society to explain the notion of the Trinity, and then presents the relation within the Trinity as that to which human society is called to – perfect society of the triune God. Boff is emphatic in his view that community is intrinsically part of the three. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are unity since “only person are intrinsically open to others, exist with others and re one for one another”. This communion is the expression of love and life. (). Boff discovers this unity of the three in the prayer of Jesus, “may they be one in us…that they may be one as we are one” (Jn. 17:21-22). He also stresses that Jesus made God the Father visible in the world by doing those things which the Jews believed that only God has the power to do. Hence, they are correct to say that he made himself God’s equal (Jn. 5:5). Then, the Holy Spirit is reveled in the action of Jesus. This is evident in his liberation of the people.

Then, Boff moves at the societal level to argue that the misunderstanding of the mystery of the Trinity has its root in the disunited society. Since in the human society the father is one who has knowledge and power and has makes the decisions, paternalism is model for relationship in the family ad in society at large. In other sense, many inclined to the leader, Jesus of Nazareth. They adopt his heroic style of relating horizontally with humanity. Boff calls this religion of the son. Finally, the charismatic methods which pitch their tent with issues relating to the Holy Spirit maintain a relation with the inner self, thus, religion of the Holy Spirit. In this way the society transposes these conceptions into the trinity.

The author leads us into history to demonstrate that part of the difficulties involved in the question of the notation of the trinity has link to the Judaic, Greek and modern traditions inherited by Christianity. Historically, Christianity evolved from Judaism, passed through Greek culture and revolves in a modern (scientific) world. All these, according to Boff, have impact on the Christian view of the Trinity.

The author maintains that the three divine persons are integrated into one another. A unity formed by the essential openness of person to another. In relation to this, the author asserts that all human beings move in a triple dimension: of transcendence, immanence and transparence. Thus, through transcendences, The Three reach to their origin, through immanence, they meet themselves (the Son becomes the Father’s revelation), then through transparence, we seek to unite transcendence and immanence. ()

Boff concords with Moltmann’s view in “The Trinity and the Kingdom”, when he (Boff) argues that true and relevant Trinitarian faith has to commence not with the oneness, but with the threeness of God; not with theistic speculation about God as the solitary One, but with openness to the self-revelation of God as a society of three divine persons. In this relation, they are what they are in their co-existence, co-relatedness, and self-surrender to each other. Coherently, the community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not just the truth about God; it is also the prototype of human community which those who intend to improve society have always dreamt, the model for any just, egalitarian social organization. Furthermore, it is implied then that if we begin with the self-revelation of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, according to Boff, we come to know the true God whose inner being (immanent Trinity) as well as outward activity (economic Trinity) is the unity of communion. This understanding of God brings us to conception of human society in the image of God that on every sphere is marked by unity in diversity, individuality realized in relatedness, community that includes rather than excludes, mutual giving and receiving that rejects all domination and control. Through this, Boff suggests how a social doctrine of the Trinity enables us to overcome the conflict between individualistic capitalism and collectivistic socialism, oppressor and oppressed, male and female, church authorities and church members.


CRITICAL APPRECIATION

Boff must have taken a critical examination of the issue at stake, observed the problems posited by decision of the Nicene council and the theological inputs of theologians before him; then he decided to adopt this approach to address the question of the Trinitarian God in relation of society.

If we are to ascribe Trinitarian linked concepts to other theologians like Augustine is known for hypostasis, Aquinas talks about perichoresis, Karl Rahner is associated with God’s self-communication, Boff should or is known for social Trinity. Boff discovered the problem solitary Trinity which is the tendency of alienating the Father, Son and Holy Spirit from being in communion as in united or relational. This is why be introduced the concept of society as analogical means of explaining the relationship within the triune God.

Considering the fact that The Trinity is the hallmark of theology and stratum of Christian faith, this book offers a detailed historical and theological description of one of the central and most distinctive doctrines of the Christian Faith – the triune nature of God. Tracing its development from the first days of Christianity through the Medieval and Reformation Ages and into the Modern Age, special attention is given to early church controversies and church fathers as well as to its twentieth-century renaissance.
The richness of Boff’s Trinitarian thesis in this book may be as a result of accumulation of several theological terms already used by his predecessors and giving them more explanatory touch. However, here also lies the lacuna in his thought. The use of these many concepts makes his adventure into the mystery of the Trinity much complicated such that the work is meant basically for theologians.

In this Trinitarian thesis, Boff demonstrates how the Holy Trinity is, among other things, the image of the perfect society and the image of the church in its ideality – not a hierarchy of power, but a community of diverse gifts and functions. More still, the most interesting dimension of Boff’s thesis is where he suggests how a social doctrine of the Trinity can enable us to overcome the conflict between individualistic capitalism and collectivistic socialism, oppressor and oppressed, male and female, church authorities (hierarchy) and church members, and even division between Western and Eastern Churches. This can be a significant vehicle for mobilizing ecumenism.

CONCLUSION

Whether we understand it or not, no matter the volume of ink theology spends on the question, the point remains that the reality of the holy trinity is independent of and transcends every doctrine. The three divine persons have always been present in the history of humanity. Thus, this reality is not just something expressed in doctrines or in human phrases. At this juncture, it may be said to be a fact, only after this is it doctrine about this fact. We can talk about the evolution of an understanding of the Trinity in history, which achieved its climax in the New Testament.