Relations in the Trinitarian Reality: Two approaches

The Greek model of the Trinity, based on the Theological Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus, treats the Trinitarian relations as connections between the Father and the two other persons: the Son and the Holy Spirit. The two relations have to be heteronymous, and have to be interpreted from the extreme realistic position. The Latin Trinitarian model, based on Boethius’ De Trinitate, treats relations as three subsistent persons. The relations have to be unidirectional: from the Father to the Son, and from both of them to the Holy Spirit. Both models are adequate and effective, but incompatible. One of the consequences of this incompatibility is the problem of filioque: the introduction of an additional relation of procession into the Greek model as well as the exclusion of this relation from the Latin model result in the inadequacy of the models. From the point of view of the complementability of a model, the Greek model allows introduction of new elements, while the Latin model does not. The soteriological consequences are such that the Greek model welcomes a human person to establish a unique relation with the person of the Father, which leads to the theosis of a creature. The Latin model requires the saving relation to be established with the whole Trinity, and theosis is not supported

Communal and Institutional Trust: Authority in Religion and Politics

Linda Zagzebski’s book on epistemic authority is an impressive and stimulating treatment of an important topic. 1 I admire the way she manages to combine imagination, originality and argumentative control. Her work has the further considerable merit of bringing analytic thinking and abstract theory to bear upon areas of concrete human concern, such as the attitudes one should have towards moral and religious authority. The book is stimulating in a way good philosophy should be -- provoking both disagreement and emulation. I agree with much of what she says, and have been instructed by it, but it will be of more interest and relevance here if I concentrate upon areas of disagreement. Perhaps they are better seen as areas, at least some of them, where her emphases suggest a position that seems to me untenable, but that she may not really intend. In that event, I will be happy to have provoked a clarification or the dispelling of my misunderstanding. My focus will be upon problems in her account of communal authority and autonomy, especially with respect to religious and political authority. Here my worry is that she places too much trust in trust and not enough in what I call selective mistrust

Ethics and politics of Great Moravia of the 9th century

The author studies the role of Christianity in two forms of 9th century political ethics in the history of Great Moravia, represented by the Great Moravian rulers Rastislav and Svatopluk. Rastislav’s conception predominantly uses the pre-Erasmian model of political ethics based on the pursuit of welfare for the country and its inhabitants by achieving the clerical-political independence of Great Moravia from the Frankish kingdom and, moreover, by utilising Christianity for the advancement of culture, education, literature, law and legality, as well as by spreading Christian ethics and morality in the form of the Christian code of ethics expressed in ethicallegal documents. Svatopluk’s political conception was a prototype of Machiavellian political ethics, according to which one is, in the interest of the country and its power and fame, allowed to be a lion and/or a fox. Svatopluk abused Christianity in the name of achieving his power-oriented goals. Great Moravia outlived Rastislav; it did not, however, outlive Svatopluk, as, shortly after his death, it broke up and ceased to exist. The author came to the conclusion that Rastislav’s conception was more viable, as its cultural heritage lives on in the form of works by Constantine and Methodius

3. The Church\u27s Bid for Worldwide Leadership

The Church in the West had made the claim that it could and would bring all men into subjection to godliness, and that in so doing it would create a universal Christian society. Because of the great influence wielded in medieval society by the feudal nobles, the Church was particularly interested in directing their activities to what it considered to be useful ends. Accordingly, as we have already seen, it gave a religious coloration to knighthood and preached that knights should fight only in such just causes as defending the helpless and protecting the innocent. About the year 1000, synods in different parts of France began to proclaim what they called the Peace of God, which was an attempt to put such things as churches, peasants, and cattle beyond the range of feudal warfare. They also tried to establish the Truce of God, by which certain days of the week and seasons of the year (such as Advent and Lent) were to be free of fighting. These efforts met with indifferent success. [excerpt

A Modern Look at Social Trinitarianism

This paper attempts to show through the modern literature that Social Trinitarianism (ST) is a more plausible explanation of the Trinity than Latin Trinitarianism (LT). It will look at ST\u27s solution to Trinitarian procession and LT\u27s likeness to modalism. It will focus on essays written in response to Keith Ward’s Christ and the Cosmos and shall offer a new way to speak of the Trinity through the combining of the methodology proposed by H. E. Barber and Richard Swinburne’s view of necessity and procession