Augustine and the Cappadocians--Frienemies or BFFs?: Contemporary Trinitarianism part three*

* Apologies about the title, I got too much sun today.

Common among the declension narratives is the division between Eastern and Western, Greek and Latin, Augustine and the Cappadocian's and their respective methodologies and material formulations of trinitarian doctrine, often with Augustine's supposed methodological fascination with the unity of God over triplicity taken as axiomatic for the western tradition as a whole and hence reinforces ones ability to read Augustine against the Cappadocians, who represent “Eastern” Trinitarianism, which then again reinforces the East/West division, and so on. If Augustine, in this scheme, is often read as a Descartes before his time, then often the Cappadocians by this same method are Social Trinitarians before their time. This division did not merely "appear" in modern scholars' works independently of one another. Rather according to Michel Rene Barne's now famous essay “Augustine in Contemporary Trinitarian Theology" pp. 237-50 in Theological Studies 56 (1995) this division is the "invention" of 19th century scholarship following a mutated form of Theodore de Regnon's famous "thesis" on the different methodologies of Eastern and Western trinitarianism. To cite the popular understanding of the methodological division, we can cite Stanley Grenz The Named God and the Question of Being: Towards a Trinitarian Theo-Ontology p.320: “Latin thinkers supposedly proceed from general nature to concrete person (and see the latter as a mode of the former) and in so doing accord priority to the divine unity, whereas Greek theologians moved from person to nature (under the assumption that the latter is the content of the former) and thereby initially emphasize the plurality of divine persons.” There is, as David Bentley Hart notes, a minimal truth to the way this is characteristically formulated, but it is more myth than reality, and "has served little purpose in recent years but to feed Eastern polemic and Western insecurity, and to distort the tradition that both share.” (Beauty of the Infinite p.169-170). This has also led to the fascination with what one "starts with" in delineating our doctrine of God: Unity or Trinity? (This will receive more treatment in the next post, but keep it in mind here that it is a tool developed only recently, and really, when applied to Patristics, only has the ability to confuse).

Yet ironically as both Barnes ("De Regnon Reconsidered" in Augustinian Studies 26 (1995) pp.51-79) and Ayres (Nicaea and Its Legacy pp.302-304) argue not only is this thesis ultimately an extremely misleading device to read 4th century trinitarianism through, but it doesnt even get de Regnon's actual thesis right. Partially due to the fact that de Regnon's Etudes have yet to be translated from their native French into English, few have interacted explicitly with his work and so the caricature persists. As a matter of fact de Regnon was not so much dividing East against West as he was marking an epochal shift between "Patristic" and "Scholastic" paradigms, though this division became mutated and replicated as the oft repeated East vs West methodologies noted above. Barnes thus writes “The rhetorical voice of such reconstructive narratives is one of comprehensiveness, but the ‘historical method’ supporting the narratives is in fact reductive. Stories of increasing scope are told on the basis of diminishing experience and evidence” ("Augustine in Contemporary Trinitarian Theology," 248-9) Barnes characterizes this as a result of modern systematicians apparent penchant for categories of polar opposition, but notes that for many reasons it is simply inadequate to read either Augustine or the Cappadocians. Specifically with reference to Augustine's De Trinitate, Barnes notes that contemporary treatments tend to be insufficient for three reasons: (1) little attention is given to the polemical context (Augustine was in fact, like the Cappadocians, still dealing with those proclaiming allegiance to the Homoian party in Milan) (2) little attention is paid to the fact that Augustine builds his arguments on exegetical series (3) few are aware of the previous use of many important Scriptural passages for earlier Trinitarian theology (cf. 247).

Ayres (Nicaea and Its Legacy pp.273-343, 364-383) adds to this list with his robust analysis of what can be termed generally "pro-Nicene" theology (which is a category containing both Augustine and the Cappadocians as exemplars) which outlines their many shared methodologies, presuppositions, and exegetical and theological habits. This places Augustine and the Cappadocians, despite their many very real differences, much closer together than is commonly assumed. Both, for example, argue strongly for God's absolute simplicity (i.e. non-composition); both use what we would label "psychological analogies" for the Trinity; both use and exegete scripture in similar fashions; both have similar ideas of how Trinitarian theology, scriptural exegesis, and contemplation are not merely matters of proposition but shape and purify the believer, and so on. The importance of this is, in the words of Daniel Treier and David Lauber write in their intro to Trinitarian Theology For the Church p.14: "If the textbook distinctions between East and West or criticisms of the medieval West are overdrawn, then our reading of the modern eclipse of trinitarian theology may need some revisions as well."

We can see this in two key areas, the first more egregious than the second: so-called "Social Trinitarianism," on the one hand, and the now famous work of John Zizioulas and the precedent he has set for our utilization of Patristic theology for contemporary systematic theology on the other. Social Trinitarianism, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the attempt to envision the Trinity as a divine communion of persons (so far so good, right?) which then, through series of deductions or exegesis of scripture with this in mind, or through philosophical inquiry using this "model" an ideal society or church is meant to be established on the basis of our "imaging" of the harmonious Trinitarian relationships. Aside from the fact that this is often a case of what Ted Peter's in God as Trinity calls a heavy handed "case of the tail wagging the dog" (in that Trinitarian social programs, much like the first so-called quest for the Historical Jesus, often reproduce their own image in what they are looking for), my point here is not so much to critique Social Trinitarianism or analyze its merits (that would require a post of its own). It is, rather, to demonstrate how some of its tenets and conclusions come from the very "placing" of east and west, Augustine and the Cappadocians and the corresponding declension narrative (usually with the Cappadocian's playing the hero, the part of the villain of course, is Augustine and Latin theology), and thus how important it is for Systematic theologians to also be very attentive Historical theologians.

In the last post I already noted a few projects which have attempted to resituate Augustine and pry him loose from the trajectories many paint which regard the Bishop of Hippo as a proto-Cartesian, who is quite focused on the individual, thinking self. As Rowan Williams in his article "The Paradoxes of Self-Knowledge in the De Trinitate," in Collectanea Augustiniana. Augustine: Presbyter Factus Sum, eds. J. T. Lienhard, E. G. Muller, and R. J. Teske 121-134 puts it, one does not find "this" particular Augustine in Augustine's writings at all: the self is a multivalent and dynamic movement which receives itself from elsewhere. Indeed this is the context which one must presumably read the "psychological" analogies of the Trinity as well (keeping in mind Augustine's own frequent admission of their inadequacy): namely that the Trinity is a dynamic interplay of giving and receiving. Despite his emphasis on unity (which, as Ayres notes, was a common pro-Nicene trait, not something unique to Augustine as opposed to the Cappadocians) the "psychological" analogy cannot displace the three into the one, because the "One", much like the Augustinian self, is not, except in the series of its displacements: in, say, the movement of memory, intellect, and love.

Thus when Social Trinitarians want to find historical proponents of their position they often turn to the Cappadocian's in order to bolster their ranks. Yet this move is slightly odd. If Ayres is correct, and Augustine and the Cappadocian's can be read closer together than the traditional bifurcation allows, then one would expect corresponding empirical verification--in other words we would expect the Cappadocians would end up, in close readings of their works, not being such willing participants in this particular modern theological endeavor. Aside from many who simply are at odds with the Social Trinitarianism program (e.g. Kathryn Tanner's fairly damning essay in The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology simply labeled "Trinity" which I, frankly, find a necessary article to deal with for anyone doing Trinitarian theology or Brian Leftows humorously titled "Anti-Social Trinitarianism" in The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium pp.203-250) many modern scholars have found just such difficulties in the Cappadocians (keeping in mind this post is mainly a way for me to collate many sources into one spot, so I will for now pass over lengthy exegesis of any given piece).

As one of the best we can cite Sarah Coakley “’Persons,’ in the ‘Social’ Doctrine of the Trinity: A Critique of Current Analytic Discussion,” in The Trinity: An Interdiscplinary Symposium pp.123-144 who, utilizing Gregory of Nyssa as her main dialogue partner, indicates the multiplicity of images, metaphors, and symbols that Nyssa uses to illustrate the Trinity (among them are many psychological analogies) and that, in fact, despite the claims of many like Volf and Moltmann, Nyssa in fact never uses the analogy of three people in communion, which is a common misreading of his illustration in Ad Ablabium: On Why There Are Not Three Gods (for an extended discussion of this see also Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy p.344-363 which is a lengthy unpacking of this text of Nyssa's). In fact, humorously, Coakley ends up noting that Nyssa was much more fond of the label prosopon for the persons than hypostasis, despite the how it is commonly represented as the sacred term. Others like Mark Husbands and his unsubtly titled "The Trinity is Not Our Social Program: Volf, Gregory of Nyssa, and Barth" in Trinitarian Theology for the Church pp.120-141 find the same problems and attempt to demonstrate how these problems carry over into material theological conclusions such as those of Volf.

Others, for example, are somewhat aghast at the rampage that the term perichoresis is stomping across the landscape, due to no small part because perichoresis can be, in this narrative of East and West, be turned against a "unity by substance" so that we now have a "dynamic unity of persons" (which is of course, quite catchy to our ears). For example both Moltmann and Volf (as cited in the last post) attempt to do this. However Randall E Otto, “The Use and Abuse of Perichoresis in Recent Theology,” in the Scottish Journal of Theology 54 (2001): 366-84 and Karen Kilby, “Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity,” New Blackfriars 81 (2000) both argue that the turning of perichoresis against a unity of "essence" is improper not least of which (and most important for our current purposes) because the turning relational unity against essential unity is a playing-out of the narrative trope of de Regnon's supposed "East-West" division, now merely at the level of constructive systematic theology. But this presents a misreading then of the original concept, which did not play essential and relational unity as opposites or contradictories, but components of a single theological idea. As Pannenberg puts it elsewhere, the difficulty of reconciling perichoresis turned against a unity of ousia (essence) is difficult because perichoresis originally presupposed that very unity and was then merely describing its inner logic. This is not to say such a "turning-against" is impossible, but that it often produces poor exegesis, and repoduces cliched historical divisions where none, or different ones, exist.

Interestingly several of the problems that some scholars find with Social Trinitarianism's claims to the Cappadocians also are launched at Zizioulas' very famous interaction the the three theologians (and, to a limited extent, Amphilochius of Eikonium). For example Lúcian Turescu, “’Person’ versus ‘Individual,’ and Other Modern Misreadings of Gregory of Nyssa” in Modern Theology 18, no.4 (Oct 2002) and John G. F. Wilks, “The Trinitarian Ontology of John Zizioulas,” Vox Evangelica 25 (1995) both accuse Zizioulas of perhaps finding too much of himself in his 4th century forebearers, perhaps reproducing them in his image. Some of the same critiques that go against the Social trinitarians go against Zizioulas, so it is needless to rehash them within a post of this length. Two things, I think, should be said. The first is that we should say with Miroslav Volf, regardless of the authenticity of the pedigree of Zizioulas’ theology, we should take it and accept or reject it on its own merits, rather than merely for its formal and material similarities to its Patristic origins (After Our Likeness p.75).

The second point is that, in my opinion the main area where Zizioulas goes astray is not in his exegesis of the Cappadocians per se. Most of the difference stem from emphasis and, as I have been arguing, historical and genealogical placement. The difference between Zizioulas' reading and the conclusion of some scholar’s like Ayres regarding what the Cappadocians really taught seems to reside less in their particular expositions of Cappadocian Trinitarianism than it does that Ayres is adamant that the Augustine can be read with the Cappadocians, while Zizioulas—following Lossky (who as Barnes notes follows quite closely de Regnon's thesis)—quite adamantly represents the Cappadocians as doing something different from Augustine and the Western legacy generally. Both readings lead to placing particular emphasis on different areas. For example Zizioulas sees in the Cappadocians (against Augustine) a stress not on substance but on persons (hypostasis) whereas Augustine’s “ousiocentric” theology undermines the priority of the person for ontology, and thus makes communion impossible (as person is ultimately secondary to impersonal substance). Ayres, on the other hand, would say, like it was mentioned above and in the prior post, that both unity and diversity are emphasized in both the Cappadocians and Augustine (e.g. Nicaea and its Legacy p.278ff, which emphasizes that for all pro-Nicene theology, Cappadocians and Augustine included, the “first and the most fundamental shared strategy is a style of reflecting on the paradox of the irreducible unity of the three irreducible divine persons. Pro-Nicenes reflect on this mystery…always bearing in mind the absolute distinction between God as the only true simple [i.e. non-composite] reality, and creation.”), hence displacing Zizioulas’ emphasis on the Cappadocian “personalism” somewhat by mitigating the substance/person (Augustinian/Cappadocian) binary that sharpens Zizioulas thesis.