Trinity and Creation

From these premises, we (both in this analysis and as a theological enterprise as a whole) can begin to unpack the implications of a deeper relation between God as Trinity and His creative work. The rest of this analysis will focus on a few choice conclusions concerning the way in which creation can be understood as integral to the self-definition of God as Trinity within a variety of theological subjects, and the way in which these conclusions are not only fruitful, but fecund conceptually and point toward a path forward in genuine Trinitarian theology.

First and foremost, reconsideration of the relationship between God as Trinity and creation fundamentally reframes our understanding of the incarnate and resurrected Christ. It seem in circumventing the reality that the incarnation emphasizes the significance of the collision and union of eternality and temporality in consideration of the nature of God. This is somewhat of a departure from the Augustian and Thomistic model which tended to place a duality between material and immaterial, temporality and eternality.²³ Rather than resorting to dualistic understanding of the hypostatic union, seeing Christ as a unified expression of God in his threefoldness sets the stage for a renewed Christocentric anthropology and furthermore, a Christocentric ontology/ metaphysics—this for both Trinity and creation. Second, in so doing, we must reconsider our soteriology and eschatology: salvation and creation cannot be seen divorced from one another. Creation and redemption exist in continuity. This has profound effects on our personal understanding of the life of faith, and (in our contemporary situation) may help to avoid the insidious threat of gnosticism which is intrinsic to the material-immaterial dualism prevalent in Western thought. This likewise brings theology into conversation with modern naturalism and the physical sciences rather than being in opposition to a 21st century cosmology. If the Son is the Logos of the father, and is drawing all of creation into himself (i.e. creation is being made into his image) than one could suggest that creation is intended to exist in the same relationship to the Father as the Son is in relationship to the Father. This understanding is consistent with the scriptural witness and lends itself to a cohesive understanding of the canon: the apotheosis theology of Paul in union with the Johannine Logos theology.²⁴

Lastly, these academic disciplines that were traditionally limited to theology are reconciled with more modern existential and phenomenological concerns (among their relationship to the naturalistic disciplines of psychology and sociology) by opening the discussion to relevant ontological and relational implications of Trinitarianism (and Trinitarian Christology in particular). We see this departure from an Aristotelian framework for substance as far back as Bonaventure who diverts from traditional ontological considerations and redefines essence as relational in light of the metaphysical reality of the Triune God.²⁵ While Rahner is apprehensive to fully embrace this speculative premise, theologians like Edwards and Christophe Schwöbel have sought not only to wrestle with it in the context of Trinitarian ontology, but extrapolate from it to its moral, anthropological and sociological implications.²⁶ Edwards, for example, writes: The church is called to be a communion which lives from and represents the trinitarian communion. It is to be "a sign and instrument... of communion with God and of unity among all people." This commits the church to effective witness in word and deed to the work of justice and peace. This theology of God calls the church to a prophetic critique of sexism, racism and all forms of domination and servility in social and political life.²⁷

For Schwöbel, all of the categories discussed—incarnation, resurrection, soteriology, eschatology, ontology and relationality—come to head with a properly Christocentric Trinitarian theology especially as interfaces with the theoretical consideration of the mode integration between creation and the Triune God. Within the goals of this analysis, its relevance lies with the implication that the penetrating reality of incarnation has for our understanding of the integral nature of creation to the threefold Being of God: our being-in-relation to Christ and vice versa, fundamentally grounds us, as humans, in the dynamic life of the Trinity (both the economic and the immanent) and therefore reshapes our bases for subjects like morality and ecology by the light of the mutually loving self-communicative Goodness that is the Threefold relationality of God.

In conclusion, as noted previously, these conclusions are not without obstacles and potentially problematic implications. Part of a fruitful and honest path forward is addressing these conflicts. However, in light of the work of those such as Edwards and Rahner, much of the resistance appears within the context of the perennial paradoxes of theology without giving heed to the way in which this Trinitarian ecotheology may be equipped to overcome problems by presenting a fresh context in which to approach and embrace them in the midst of the deep mystery of God. Hunt writes, "Edwards [...] is more concerned for felt meaning and existential relevance in the mediation of the Christian faith; he is not primarily concerned with cognitive meaning and its logical and theoretical refinements."²⁸ I might be willing to concede that Edwards fails to carry his Trintarian formulations to their furthest conceptual and philosophical conclusions. However, this does not mean that considering the Trinity from the vantage point of its existential relevance makes it any less veracious or fruitful for "logical or theoretical refinements." On the contrary, it may be "existential relevance" (in this area among any other) that indicates the crucial need for deeper "logical and theoretical refinement." Particularly if we are willing to acknowledge the profundity of those 20th century thinkers like Paul Tillich who place particular concern on the social import of the theological enterprise in a given time and space.

A more comprehensive development of the integral nature of creation to the being of the Triune God, should lead us into the difficult theoretical implications of this line of thought rather than avoid them. Creation is integral to self-definition of God as Trinity—nuanced approaches to the reality of these relations bear particular fruitfulness and fecundity in a wide variety of theological disciplines especially as they are capable of reframing questions of theodicy, pen(en)theism, and the mysteries of God in general. Despite the ability to address more modern existential and phenomenological concerns, it is particularly telling that these lines of thought are not modern inventions, but can be traced back through Rahner and Edwards, to Bonaventure and as early as Psuedo-Dionysius. If it is at all possible that renewing Trinitarian thought along these lines could benefit the deep divisions in the church, and reinvigorate conversation between theology and philosophy—the religious and secular respectively—then the reasons for its deeper unpacking and explication are poignantly evident.