Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:41:45.241Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pantheism, Trinitarian Theism and the Idea of Unity: Reflections on the Christian Concept of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Douglas Hedley
Douglas Hedley
Affiliation:
Institut für Systematische Theologie, Fakultät der Evangelischen Theologie, Ludwigs-Maximillians-Universität München, 80799 München, Germany
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Modern analytic philosophy of religion has become increasingly interested in the dogmatic substances of Christian theology. I argue that the doctrine of the Trinity provides an instance of the importance of dogmatic formulation for an appreciation of the philosophical aspect of the Christian concept of God. The starting point of mydiscussion is the recent defence of pantheism by Michael Levine, and his discussion of Neoplatonist and German Idealist models of deity. Both metaphysical theism and the alleged Neoplatonic metaphysical genealogy of pantheism are considered with particular reference to St Augustine's account of creation in the Confessions. Just as it is impossible to distinguish the purely philosophical from the purely dogmatic concept of God, one cannot give an adequate modern account of theism without a rigorous and sensitive treatment of the historical models. The issue of pantheism shows how a misunderstanding of the meaning of concept of ‘unity’ can distort our view of theism as a model of deity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , March 1996 , pp. 61 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Lloyd, Gerson, God and Greek Philosophy: Studies in the Early History of Natural Theology (London: Routledge, 1994).Google Scholar

2 Coleridge, S. T.Collected Notes (London: Routledge, 1961), 11, 2332.Google Scholar

3 See my article ‘Coleridge's Speculative Mysticism’, Heythrop Journal, 10 1994, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 421–439.Google Scholar

4 Beierwaltes, W., ‘Der Kommentar zum “Liber de Causis” als Neuplatonisches Element in der Philosophie der Thomas von Aquin’, in: Philosophische Rundschau 11, Jahrgang, 1963.Google Scholar See further Beierwaltes, : Plotin uber Ewigkeit und Zeit (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1969), pp. 17 ff.Google Scholar

5 McFarland, , Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition (Oxford: OUP, 1969), pp. 266 ff.Google Scholar

6 Beierwaltes, , Platonismus und Idealismus (Frankfurt: Klostermann), pp. 67–82; 154–187.Google Scholar

7 Zeller was a pupil of the Tubingen Hegelian F. C. Baur.

8 In support of his view of the ‘pantheist tradition’, McFarland, writes: ‘we may invoke the authority of Eduard Zeller's great scholarship…’ Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition, p. 352.Google Scholar

9 See my ‘Was Coleridge a Romantic?’, Wordsworth Circle 22:1, 1, 1991.Google Scholar

10 Eduard, Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Leipzig, 1920–1923).Google Scholar

11 De hebdomadibus. Cf. Henry, Chadwick, Boethius (Oxford: OUP, 1992), pp. 203–223.Google Scholar

12 I owe this point to Michael Ayers of Wadham College, Oxford.

13 Kristeller, P. O., ‘Stoic and Neoplatonic Sources of Spinoza's Ethics’, in History of European Ideas, vol. 5. no. 1, 1984, pp. 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On Descartes see Lennon, Thomas M., The Battle of the Gods and the Giants. (Princeton UP: Princeton, 1993);CrossRefGoogle Scholar also Mathews, Gareth B., Thought's Ego (Cornell UP: Ithaca, 1992).Google Scholar

14 John, Rist, ‘Plotinus and Moral Obligation’ in The Significance of Neoplatonism. (Norfolk: Old Dominion, 1976), ed. Harris, R. Baine, pp. 217–233.Google Scholar

15 Levine sees pantheism as denying the separateness of God from the world and denying the need to establish a right relationship with God. Pantheism p. 358. Hence he should exclude the Platonists from the pantheist camp.

16 I am thinking in particular of Schelling's Freiheitschrift of 1809.

17 Freiheitschrift 379/380 ‘Denn our Personliches kann Personliches heilen, und Gott muβ Mensch werden, damit der Mensch wieder zu Gott komme.’ For Hegel see Vorlesung uber die Philosophie der Religion, 111 (Hamburg: Meiner, 1966) p. 57,Google Scholar ‘Gott ist Geist…d.i. Subjektivitat, unendliche Personlichkeit.’ See Wagner, F.Der Gedanke der Personlichkeit Gottes bei Fichte und Hegel (Gutersloh: Mohn, 1971).Google Scholar

18 Beierwaltes, , Platonismus und Idealismus 9–37.Google Scholar

19 Beierwaltes, , Platonismus und Idealismus 5–9.Google Scholar

20 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London: Everyman, 1993), 11, p. 300–301.Google Scholar

21 Cf. Ilona, Opelt, ‘Christianisierung Heidnischer Etymologien’, Jahrbuch. f. Antike und Christentum 2, 1959. 70–79.Google Scholar

22 The locus classicus of contemplative creation is Plotinus, 111, 8 (30). See Deck, J. N., Nature, Contemplation and the One (Toronto: Toronto UP, 1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Heinrich, Dorrie, ‘Emanation. Ein unphilosophisches Wort im spatantiken Denken’, in Platonica Minora (Munchen: Wilhelm Fink, 1976), pp. 70–88.Google Scholar

24 ‘How then does the One make what it does not have?’ v. 3, 15 (49). Plotinus is quoted as follows: V. 3, 15 (49) means the fifteenth line in the third treatise in the fifth group (Ennead means a group of ‘nine’ treatises) according to Porphyry's edition, and the treatise is the forty ninth in (Porphyry's chronological order. The English translation is always Armstrong, A. H. in Plotinus (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard, 1966–1988).Google Scholar I follow Armstrong in speaking of ‘treatise’ rather than ‘Ennead’; to refer to the individual treatises as ‘Enneads’ is a misnomer.

25 Proclus, Elements of Theology. ed. Dodds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963)Google Scholar prop. 7. For as it gives the product existence, it must furnish also the power proper for that existence. Plotinus, VI 7 (38), 18 ff ‘…as long as there is anything higher than that which is present to it, it naturally goes on upwards, lifted by the giver of its love.’ Armstrong notes here: This is the clearest statement by Plotinus of something implicit in his whole system, that our desire to return to the Good is given by the Good.’ Plotinus, VII, p. 157.

26 Benz, E., Marius Victorinus und die Entwicklung der abendlandischen Willensmetaphysik (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1932).Google Scholar See also John, Rist, ‘Emanation and Necessity’ in Plotinus: The Road to Reality (Cambridge: CUP, 1967), pp. 66–83.Google Scholar

27 Taylor, A. E., ‘Theism’ in Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, ed., Hastings, J. (Edinburgh, 1921 ff), XII, pp. 261 ff.Google Scholar

28 Beierwaltes, , Identitat und Differenz (Frankfurt: Klosterman, 1980), p. 95, n. 39.Google Scholar

29 Of course, the (Neo) Platonist acceptance of the eternity of the world constitutes a massive difference between Platonist and Christian since this removes the possibility of a Christian teleology. Yet the issue of the eternity of the world and the issue of the emanation of the lower from the higher can be quite intelligibly divided as logically separate ideas. To posit an affinity between Christian and pagan on the issue of emanation does not mean that Christian Platonists affirmed the eternity of the world.

30 I am being slightly loose in my terminology. Plotinus tends to avoid speaking of the One as divine. Rist, J.M. ‘Theos and the One in some texts of Plotinus’ Medieval Studies, 24 (1962), 169–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Beierwaltes, , Denken des Einen (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1985), pp. 64 ff.Google Scholar

32 Colin Gunton's insistence that Augustine's view of creation is barely informed by Trinitarian categories seems to me very puzzling. See The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (Edinburgh: T. T. Clark, 1991), pp. 31–57.Google Scholar Interestingly, Gunton also refers approvingly to McFarland's highly eccentric opus magnum: Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition.

33 Atherton, J. Patrick, ‘The Neoplatonic “One” and the Trinitarian APΞH in The Significance of Neoplatonism (Norfolk: Old Dominion, 1976), pp. 173–185.Google Scholar

34 Ricken, F., ‘Nikaia als Krisis des altchristlichen Platonismus’ Theologie und Philosophie, Ph. 44, 1969; 321–342Google Scholar and ‘Zur Rezeption der platonischen Ontologie bei Eusebios von Kaisareia, Areios und Athanasios’, in Theologie und Philosophie 53, 1978, 321–352.Google Scholar

35 Allen, Michael J. B., ‘Marsilio Ficino on Plato, the Neoplatonists and the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity’ Renaissance Quarterly 37 (1984), 555–84.Google Scholar

36 On the noetic triad see Edwards, M. J., ‘Porphyry and the Intelligible Triad’, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, CX (1990, 14–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Priestley, J., Theological and Miscellaneous Works (London, 1782, rep. New York: Kraus, 1972), vi, p. 199 f.Google Scholar

38 von Harnack, A., Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1990), III, p. 779 ff.Google Scholar

39 Contra Priestley and Harnack see De Vogel, C. J., ‘Platonism and Christianity: A Mere Antagonism or a Profound Common Ground?’ Vigiliae Christianae 39 (1985), 1–62;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMeierjing, E. P., ‘God Cosmos History Christian and Neoplatonic Views on Divine Revelation’ Vigiliae Christianae 28, 248–276;Google Scholar SRL Clark, , From Athens to Jerusalem (Oxford: OUP, 1984).Google Scholar

40 I have been deeply influenced in this essay by Professor Werner Beierwaltes at Munich. I would also like to thank Dr Mark Edwards for comments on a version of this paper read at Christ Church, Oxford in February 1995, and Professor Jan Rohls of Munich and Professor Philip Clayton of the Sonoma State University for stimulus and much talk about God.