It behoves me to write because there is a burning in my soul for a rational yet mystical Trinitarian theology. I am not the first to write on such matters. I take a que from Newton to say I stand on the shoulders of giants who far outclass me in learning and intelligence. My role here is to find in their words a certain synthesis of viewpoints that will aid me and others like me in their search for, and ascent to, the Logos that is the centre of all things. My primary audience is the Christian perennialist, while also seeking the attention of other philosophically inclined Christians and fellow perennialists of other faiths.
I believe most of us do agree that there is no account of the Trinity that confines it. It is beyond our reasoning and rationalizations. But I also hope we believe that Trinitarian theologies do reveal the Trinity, and show us rays of the boundless light beyond all words. In the words of another Christian perennialist, “a Mystery necessarily eludes the net of discursive formulation. None of these perspectives can capture the Truth on its own” [1], and yet “a mystery is something of God” [2], revealing as much as it hides. The veil of Isis reveals the presence of Isis, and yet it hides her ever more deeply. The energies are manifest, the essence is not, yet God is both. It is in this view of things that I write another attempt on a Trinitarian theology, keeping in mind that past attempts were not fruitless, and capture something of the mystery. This present attempt will make use of the symbolic metaphysics of Frithjof Schuon [3], along with the Neoplatonic cosmology of Proclus [4], and the Logos Christology of Maximus[5], with insights from Origen [6]. To this backbone we add insights from a variety of other authors and theologians in our quest for clarity. I pray that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ guide my words with the inspiration of his Holy Spirit. Amen.
Non-Hypostatic Hypostasis
“The Father is made of none; neither created, nor begotten.” – Athanasian Creed
It is fitting we begin as the Trinitarian formula begins. We confess an uncreated Father from whom comes all things. What has been revealed of the Father to me is as follows:
The Father is that which the Neoplatonists have called “the One”, the “anarchic” cause of all things. This is not a “negative anarchy” of Sin, but a “positive anarchy” precisely in the sense of “having no prior arche” [7]. The Father has no principle from which He proceeds. To even say “Father” is not to ascribe to him a form, namely that of an intelligible idea named “Father”. It is to denote priority. It is a secondary concern to note the devotional implications of a term, even if such considerations are not less weighty. In doing this sort of theoretical philosophy we need to be as exact as we can without losing the substance to words.
In the original metaphysics that Christianity shares, it is the Father that is the unity of the Godhead. Despite the disrepute this “Monarchy of the Father” has fallen into in recent decades, I still believe this is the best way to understand the Trinity in terms of actual hypostases rather than the many Triads that also reveal the mystery in their own ways, such as the Hindu Triad SatChitAnanda[8] and its western equivalents, without necessarily translating to hypostases. The Father, as absolutely prior, is not a proper cause in the sense of a “One” from which many proceeds. The Unity of the Father is “Non-dual”, that is, “not two”[9]. The Father is indeed “No thing”. In being “No thing”, the Father, or the One, is indeed the source of all things[10]. This is the perfect Kenosis of the Father. According to the Athanasian creed, He is defined, as a hypostasis, solely in the negative. He is not begotten, and does not proceed from any prior principle. It is thus I was given the name “Non-hypostatic Hypostasis” to denote (as well as not denote) the ineffable Father. It is a contradictory name meant to reveal itself in contradiction, for it is only beyond opposites that the “unknowing”, the “divine darkness”, is grasped in ungraspableness. We can, following Proclus, distinguish certain “properties of the Father” that can help in our understanding, although how we can grasp what is ungraspable will be explained further down this exposition.
There is a distinction between “the First” and the “First God”. “The First” is “the neuter One Itself or autotheos, “God Itself,”[11] while the “First God”…
“refers in its overt masculinity to the aspect or element of Limit in each deity, as at 30. 2 where deities get to einai theoi, their “being Gods” from the First God (masc.). Each God, that is, gets his or her being-God from the Limit-phase of their own entity. Accordingly I suggest that a better translation of ho prôtos theos would be “primary Deity,” as the state of (any) deity prior to the analysis and synthesis of potencies that attends the illumination of Being”[12]
Adjusted for Christian Monotheism, we can say that there is a distinction between Essence – autotheos, the God as simply God – and Hypostasis, i.e. the God as the “Father”, the Source of the hypostasis of the God as manifest God (Son and Spirit). There is a possible concern to be raised about this. Is the Father divided? Have we unwittingly introduced real duality into unity? Have we made the divine nature a universal that is instantiated? I believe the answers to these – which is simply no – can be seen by clarifying the distinction:
“But what is the difference between the contribution made to a deity by autotheos and by ho prôtos theos? When Proclus explains the contributions of the three supra-essential principles to the Mixture, or radical Being, the third moment of the first intelligible triad (III 9. 37. 23-8), he explains that from God (i.e. autotheos) it receives participation in ineffable unity (henôseôs arrêtou) and the wholeness of its subsistence (tês holês hupostaseôs), while from Limit (i.e. ho prôtos theos) it receives its hyparxis, its monoeides and its stable character (monimon idiotêta).” [13]
“Limit” or the “First God” is not other than autotheos. They refer to the Non-Dual God. Neither is the gift by both “aspects” given separately as individual things. Autotheos gives ineffable unity, while “Limit” or ho prôtos theos gives “hyparxis”, meaning the existence of the God. But, for Proclus, the existence of the God is unitive, it is Non-dual unity itself considered in another manner. It is thus that The Father gives ineffable unity (the prerogative of autotheos) by giving its hyparxis or existence (the prerogative of Limit). Remember that the Father is perfectly kenotic. He holds “nothing” to Himself, not even Himself. Thus, the gift of the Father, which is Himself, is the gift of His name, because Limit as gifted is the Idiotês of the God, which “is expressed most directly in the name of the God”. Proclus thus meets native Jewish and Christian theology of the Name. God shares his nature as One God (autotheos) by sharing his Name (Limit giving Idiotês as God’s nature shared), the name that binds all creation together. The Father’s unity is thereby preserved by this clarification, and his hypostases revealed by his veiling. The Father gives it all, and in doing so is “Father”, but in giving it all, with nothing to Himself, He is never known without intermediary. As source of all things, he is none of them. All things abide in Him by Him not being anything, for there is no separate “Father” we can have as an object of intelligence apart from who he gives it all to, His Son, the One in whom all these distinctions reveal and yet eternally hide the Father.
The Logos of Hypostasis
“The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created; but begotten.” – Athanasian Creed
The gift of Father to Son is also the transfer of all intelligible titles of God to the Son. The Name comes with names. Thus Isaiah calls Christ “Everlasting Father”, for it is through the Son as “cause” and therefore “Father” of all he causes, that we know his principle. In gifting the Son all things in the manner of gifting the ineffable unity of nature and name of God, the Son is likewise the God. For Christians, the Name, which we call YHWH, is shared between the Trinity, not piecemeal, but perfectly. The Name is manifest in the Word of the Father Beyond Being. This Word is the Schuonian Being and the Proclean Radical Being or Intelligible Being. This is the first proper hypostasis. The hypostasis that reveals all others, and from which we name all others. It is in the Son that we see the Father through the illumination of the Spirit. Thus we call the Father hypostasis through the Son as hypostasis, and we call the Spirit through the same method, but somewhat “in reverse”.
What can we say about Intelligible Being? According to Schuon it is the “summit of relativity”[14]. This means that, because the Father is “not a thing”, His kenosis is “non-directional” or “anarchic”, He gifts it all to the Son, who is indeed the true “centre” that unites the created and uncreated. This is one meaning of “Logos”: Centre. It is that around which all others arrange themselves. Thus, the centre is everything it centres in the mode of a “cause”.
You see a peculiar logic developing here. Because the Father is no-thing, the Son is Everything. The Son is the most direct cause of everything because he has all that belongs to the ineffable Father. This is why this Logos is called “the Personal God” by Schuon. He is the first “face” of God, His first manifestation in our direction.
The Father as such is unknowable. We do not pray to the One directly. We pray to the One’s manifestations. Prayers have direction. They manifest the prerogative of intellect: they are reversions on their cause. Since the One, or “Father”, isn’t a proper “cause” because it is “no-thing”, “anarchic”, the “cause” we do “revert” to in prayer is that which is in turn turned in our direction, that is, the Logos. This is the root of the Christian practice of worshipping the Logos. We worship the Logos because the Logos is the God objectified. There is no other way to worship. Thou cannot find the ineffable One. Even mentioning the ineffable One is me calling the Logos, since it is a name referring to an object, which is ultimately the Logos, the “objectified God”. We can only refer to the Father in Contradiction and Opposition, for “if one seeks to grasp It, It withdraws. If one seeks to think It, It seals the understanding. It shatters him who knows It.”[15] Let the reader understand.
It is here that another perspective on “Ecumenism” is centred in manifestation, for anyone who confesses the name of their God confesses the Logos, for in objectifying the God in prayer, worship, praise, or any piety, they refer to the Logos, who is manifest in and as all being, and who is sad by the Christian to have “incarnated” in and as Jesus of Nazareth. The One God the Monotheists confess is always the ineffable manifest in the worded name, and no one worships without the name, for the name is the named, and yet, not the named. Father and Son are God, and yet, the Son is not God as such but God as manifest; in Christian language, begotten. Thus in every confession of the ineffable God there is a silent affirmation of the Logos that is the name we just confessed. In saying our God is not begotten we confess the word “unbegotten”, who is begotten. Again, the ineffable must be known in the impossible centre of opposition and contradiction. Let the hearer listen.
It is from this Logos that all else proceeds. But what is the manner of this procession? We begin with this: It is the centre as centred that produces the periphery and the very notion of distance and relation. In the begetting of the Son, Creation springs forth. This is the Son’s Kenosis. A true centre is invisible as such, revealed only indirectly by what it centres, thus the Son’s divine hypostasis as Logos is only revealed by its manifestation in and as creation. The Son, like the Father, “vanishes”, and creation springs forth. Like the Father, this “vanishing” is not “ceasing” to exist, but simply “kenosis”, and ultimately a “veiling”, for the Son is only known in his condescension. This “kenosis” is also the Son’s unity with the Father. The Father’s unity with the Son is in his infinite gift of self to the Son, a gift that paradoxically retains the Father’s unity as “no thing”; and the Son’s unity with the Father is the Father’s establishment of his very existence, an existence that is a “vanishing” in order to pour creation forth. Just as the Son’s identity as God is centred in the Father’s self-gift, so to creation’s identity as the body of the Son is centred on the Son’s infinite Kenosis. Thus, we can say several things about the Son’s mode of causation and procession.
The first is that the Son’s causation is Kenotic. It is not paradigmatic in the manner of Form to image of form. The reason the Son gives is simply a “superabundance of Goodness”[16]. The Good that pour from Father to Son also pours forth from the Son to creation in a manner that is also the Son’s return of all things to God, for in “vanishing”, the Son, who is everything, is united, without ceasing to exist, with the Father, who is “no thing”, thus the head of creation is Christ, and the head of Christ is God, and the Father is all in all.
The second is that the Son’s causation is hypostatic. The causation of the Son is the unity of all things as the hypostases they are, prior to their definition by whole and part, form and instantiation of form. Prior to any differentiation between things, there is their unity as one thing, an individual. The principles of principles in this regard is the Father, but the first manifestation of this principle as principle that will manifest is the Logos, the intelligible being, the God as manifest in irreducible singularity of Being. For Proclus…
“…beings participate, not only in ontic classes, but also in divine series; and it is only through participation in such a series that a being has real subsistence as an individual rather than as instantiating form. Two modes of reversion are thus possible for individual beings: one by way of form, which is mediated by the whole of Being, the other by way of theurgic sunthemata and reversion upon the tutelary deity.”[17]
Thus, although individuals participate in forms, these forms are only still intermediaries of a prior unity that constitute these individuals, that is, unities, prior to any differentiation by, and participation in, form.
These two truths are where Proclus meets Maximus:
“Maximus’s identification of God the Logos with the creaturely logoi must mean that the Word is somehow both one and many, yet in such a way that it transcends the logic of Neoplatonic procession. He speaks of the Word’s “procession” into all beings, as we saw. But this cannot be taken to imply either [1] that this procession somehow diminishes the Word (making the Word-logos no longer the One), so that the identity of Logos and logoi comes only “by derivation,” or [2] that the very Word is not really identical to creaturely logoi after all (as Plotinus’s One is not Intellect’s logos). No, this “procession” of One Word to manifold world is at once a vertical and a horizontal one. It is a vertical descent and yet remains the same hypostasis. It is a horizontal multiplication and yet no inner perfection of any hypostasis.
So the logoi name the procession of the Word from One to many as the very difference, definition, unity, potency, and existence of the many. This is not straightforward Neoplatonic procession. The logoi are not related to the Logos as exempla to Exemplar, nor are they themselves simply exemplars for lower, more qualified participants (though they are that too). The Word’s protological procession as many logoi is the very condition for the possibility of participation itself, the very condition for exemplarity to get underway. They are that “by which” creatures participate perfections, or, to use Maximian conceit, participate divine energies. Indeed they establish both the participated (divine activities) and the participants (each thing’s logos), and therefore establish the very dynamism and entire continuum of participatory metaphysics.” [18]
In terms of Proclus, the gifting of hypostatic unity by the Logos of Intelligible Being is the very condition by which the other processes within Being – e.g. procession and reversion, exemplarity and paradigmatic casuasion, etc – can occur at all, for nothing can be if it is not one. Thus, in a devotional context, the individuality (logoi) of the person that “reverts” on the God is the God themself, as manifested Logos and non-manifest Unity. The individual is established in and as the God prior to any manifestation in the lower reaches of the chain of Being, and thus the procession and reversion of the limited and manifest individual person is rooted in the rootedness of the person’s individuality in the God. Thus, the Kenosis of the Son in individuals is the Son giving Himself to be these individuals. Here, Proclus and Maximus agree: Creation is incarnation. But what is the mechanism of this Kenosis after the establishment of hypostatic unity? If the Son pours out the name – because this is the only way the Logos is the logoi, the kenosis of unity is the pouring forth of the name that units the Godhead – who or what is the medium by which this incarnation – simultaneous with his very being as Son – takes place?
Hypostatic Non-Hypostasis
“The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten; but proceeding.” – Athanasian Creed
Recall that, in establishing a centre, all that is potentially centred is also derivatively established. In a very real sense, the Centre-Logos “gives” the “space” of manifestation by its establishment, which is also its Kenosis. It is this “space” that indirectly reveals and ultimately “incarnates” the Logos. One might call it the “womb” of creation. As “womb” it is a “whole”, and this corresponds to the second manifestation from the overflowing fullness of the Logos: Intelligible Life. If Intelligible Being or the ultimate Logos is the cause of “ones”, the unity of hypostasis prior to determination by anything else, including form, then Intelligible Life is the Logos responsible for “wholes”. One might say it corresponds to the need for “continuum” in being. It is indeed the principle that constitutes the “linkages” of all beings. Therefore this manifestation of the God is responsible for things such as Life, Time and Eternity, Spatiality, etc., those things which “contain” and “connect” otherwise different things. Ultimately it is that which “connects” to Unity. In relation to the Logos of hypostasis it is the Power of that Logos to give itself as Being to the many, but it is also a manifestation of the God, an hypostasis in its own right. It fulfils the role granted to pneuma in a certain ancient physics, and so it is fitting for the first manifestation of what Christians call the “Holy Spirit”. It would be more correct to say it is the principle that manifests as pneuma, but the former sense is still valid. Strengthening this identification is simply the symbol of the “womb”. It is known that the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit is rooted in ancient Pre-Judaic mythologies of a Goddess [19], a myth whose equivalent is still present in Philo [20]. It is the Spirit that is the medium of God’s manifestation in the world. As Feminine She is “womb”, “Mother” of the Son in creation. How this is so is found in the merger of the roles of Son and Spirit in Scripture and certain early Church Fathers.
The way to begin to understand this is to realize that, because the Spirit is the “pneuma” that inhabits all things, the “connector” of all things to each other and to the highest Logos that is the Son, all things are “made” of Spirit. This is related to the role of Intelligible Life. It is that which is the measure of Being[21]. To be more symbolic, Intelligible life is like the radii of a circle that measures all the periphery from the centre, which in this case is the first Logos, Intelligible Being or Logos of Hypostasis; and the first “periphery” measured is Intelligible Intellect, “the “only-begotten” (monogenes) Animal Itself of the Timaeus,”[22] that is the paradigm the Demiurge contemplates to create the world of mutability.
These three, Being, Life, Intellect – a permutation of the Intelligible Triad – can be found in the Islamic Neoplatonism used by Schuon, as the Pen, the Tablet, and the written words on the tablet respectively[23]. The Pen is the One that pours into the Whole and manifests/measures the All. This what Intelligible Intellect is the principle of, it is the principle of Allness posterior to wholeness[24]. Subsequently, Schuon calls the Throne the first manifestation of the words on the Tablet, and equates this Throne to Intellect. This is consistent with his pneumatology, and assumes something one may have noticed in this section: the fact that what we call the Spirit is also Logos[25].
This is where Schuon’s correspondences come to shine. The three closely related terms for the Holy Spirit as Intellect for Schuon are Ar Ruh (the Spirit), An Nur (The Light), and Al Arsh (The Throne). In Schuon’s words:
“Ar-Rūḥ is most often figured as a 'centre', a 'ray', a 'descent', a 'presence' or 'immanence', while the nature of An-Nür can be rendered by an expression such as 'Divine Substance', with all the reservations imposed by the use of such a term; as for Al-'Arsh, it has more an aspect of 'totality' and of 'intégration'; it is the 'circumference of which Ar-Rüh will be the 'centre' and An-Nür the 'matter'.”[26]
Schuon considered all these as having corresponding referents throughout the chain of being, consistent with his epistemology. Thus, in transposing this into Proclean cosmology, Al Arsh (the Throne) as “totality” can correspond either to Intelligible Intellect as the first totality and cause of all others, or it can correspond to other manifestations of totality, such as the whole intellectual triad caused paradigmatically by Intelligible Intellect, or the symbolic equivalent elsewhere. Proclus, like Schuon acknowledged the fractal nature of reality and so are not limited by considerations of particular manifestations even if they consider them important.
An-Nur (the Light) symbolizes what should correspond with Intelligible Life as well as Intelligible Intellect, because as “divine substance” it corresponds to the “Light” that unites beings with Intelligible Being, but as “matter”, it corresponds to the passive nature of Intelligible Intellect in relation to Intelligible Being as that which is “measured”.
Ar-Ruh (The Spirit) has two symbolic cluster of associations. There is Ar-Ruh as a “ray” or “descent”, consistent with Intelligible Life, and there is Ar-Ruh as “centre”, “presence”, and “immanence”, consistent with Intelligible Intellect. The reason for not associating it with the first Logos of Intelligible Being is because of where Schuon places the Spirit. He always places the Spirit at the centre of “Heaven”, the realm of the Platonic forms and the intellects that instantiate them. It is thus not the centre of manifestation as such, but the centre of the Intellect posterior to Being, whether it is as Intelligible intellect or its further manifestation in the intellectual triad (Intellectual Being, Intellectual Life, Intellectual Intellect) as opposed to the Intelligible triad we have been considering (Intelligible Being, Intelligible Life, Intelligible Intellect).
One might say Ar-Ruh is the most universal of the three names, but the very multifariousness of the names and roles of the Spirit is anticipated in the “multitudinous” nature of the Spirit in Scripture. Although the Logos is implied to have several manifestations, these manifestations are never “flat”. That is, every manifestation of the Logos is, phenomenologically, the only Logos. There is never a Logos beside it. This is because of what Logos is meant to be. But Spirit, the Spirit is a Multitude or Multitude-leaning from the beginning. The “One-Many” of the Son is not exactly the “One-Many” of the Spirit, although they are related:
“The Man in the midst of the lamps was the central part of the one, composite lamp, rather than a distinct figure surrounded by seven freestanding lamps as often depicted. The seven-branched lamp as a whole was the presence of the LORD with his people, the seven spirits before the throne (1.4) who were all present in the Anointed One. 'The spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD' is how Isaiah had expressed the idea of the Spirit as a sevenfold presence (Isa. 11.2). Even though the Spirit of the LORD is described as a separate entity, it was nevertheless part of the seven. It was one and seven, just as the Man was part of the lamps.”[27]
The Spirit is also closely related to Wisdom:
“The Wisdom of Solomon has more information about her. Solomon sought her as his bride (9:2), she gave him immortality (8:13), she sat by the throne of the Lord in heaven (9:10), and she was also known as the Holy Spirit (9:17). Most remarkable of all is the summary of the early history: Wisdom had protected Adam and guided Noah, strengthened Abraham and delivered Joseph. It was Wisdom, not the Lord, who led Israel out of Egypt. Here, then, was a writer from the end of the second temple period who could describe the God of Israel as male and female.
Philo, too, used images of the Lady, and not all of them are drawn from texts such as Ben Sira and Wisdom. Philo knew of a divine couple who had been parents of the king, and he adapted this image to describe the creation (On Drunkenness 30).13 God was `the husband of Wisdom' (Cherubim 49), and the Logos was the son of `Wisdom his mother, through whom [fem.] the universe came into being'(Flight 109). Wisdom was `the first born mother of all things' (On Gen. IV 97). He presented the story of the patriarchs and their wives as a complex allegory, in which the wife of each patriarch in turn was Wisdom. Sarah was the motherless Wisdom (On Gen. IV 145), Rebecca was also Wisdom (On Gen. IV 146), so he sees the matriarchs as Wisdom, the eternal wife and mother, perhaps an echo of the ancient Wisdom who has been both mother and consort of the ancient kings. `Your sons shall marry you' had been Isaiah's promise to Jerusalem (Isa 62:5), and the mother of the Messiah in Revelation was also the Bride of the Lamb. Philo described both Wisdom and Logos in the same way: `The heavenly Wisdom is of many names . . . beginning and image and vision of God' (All Int 1.43). There is a similar picture of Wisdom in the fragments of Jewish liturgy embedded in the Apostolic Constitutions: God is the Father of Wisdom (7.35.10) and it was to Wisdom God spoke when he said `Let us make man after our image' (7.34.6).” [28]
The confusion for Christians lies in the fact that it is Jesus we primarily associate with Wisdom, as seen in several passages in the New Testament. But the more disturbing truth is, the roles of Christ and the Holy Spirit merge a lot in Scripture. For example, the “Angel of the Presence” that appeared to Moses in the Bush, subsequently on Sinai, and then in the Cloud of fire; to Abraham as three men, to Joshua, and various others, is also associated with and called “the Holy Spirit”, not insignificantly by Justin Martyr[29]. Yet, it is this “Angel” that is also called Logos by the same man, and several others. For example, the Paraclete, often equated with the Holy Spirit, is often tied with Jesus Christ in Scripture:
“In his farewell discourse on the eve of Passover according to John’s calendar, Jesus described his role leading his new people on their Exodus. Many of the themes of Deuteronomy – Moses’ farewell discourse - occur also in John 13--17, but Jesus teaches his disciples that he is the LORD himself leading his people. He is the LORD and the angel of the LORD. He had come into the world as the Logos incarnate, and was about to return whence he had come. In his place, and after he had departed, the Paraclete would come. John represents accurately what must have been Jesus’ teaching about his future presence with them as the Paraclete: coming from the Father at Jesus’ request, remaining with the disciples and teaching them, bearing witness against the world and showing that the world had been wrong in its judgement. Westcott observed of John 16.7: ‘The departure of Christ was in itself a necessary condition for the coming of the Spirit to men. The withdrawal of his limited bodily Presence necessarily prepared the way for the recognition of the universal Presence.’ But the Christians also expected the LORD Jesus to be revealed from heaven ‘with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our LORD Jesus’ (2 Thess.1.7-8). It was the delay in this return from heaven that caused the problems which John addressed in his gospel. The Parousia, he showed, had already happened with the return of the LORD at Easter and coming of the Paraclete.” [30]
The only objection I find tenable is this, although I think the solution is elegant:
“One problem may be ‘he will give you another Paraclete to be with you for ever’ (John 14.16). Unless Jesus delivered these teachings in Greek, which is unlikely, the word would have been ’aḥēr, another, which is very easily confused with ’aḥar, afterwards. There was a similar confusion when Revelation was put into Greek, resulting in a whole series of mighty angels when in fact some instances of ‘another’ should be read as ‘afterwards’ (e.g. Rev.7.2; 10.1; 18.1). This gives not several mighty angels, but several appearances one after another of one mighty angel, the Angel of the LORD, whom John called the Paraclete. The Sinai Syriac text was aware of this problem, and renders the verse ‘He will give you Another, the Paraclete’, but such a change does not accord with Jesus’ words that he himself would return.”[31]
Thus:
“John did describe a few resurrection appearances, but his main emphasis was on the coming of the Paraclete, the implication being that this was how Jesus would return and remain with his disciples. Thus Brown concluded: ‘Virtually everything that has been said about the Paraclete has been said elsewhere in the Gospel about Jesus.’”[32]
The “Angel of the Presence”, the “sharer of the throne”, “Metatron”, is both Logos and Spirit. This only makes sense if we let go of our tendencies to view the Trinitarian mystery as concerning three absolute individuals of the same type with different properties sharing an abstracted essence. Although this is an aspect of the mystery – you see it in Schuon’s “horizontal trinities” – it is not the most direct aspect of the mystery that concerns the incarnation and the cosmos it occurred in. Such a conception is more “tritheistic” if these individuals conceived as such are truly hypostases of the same “type” with different properties, which is fine for esoteric purposes – some find the Hindu Trimurti instructive for them – but it is, again, not exactly fitting for the world of the New Testament or the early centuries of the church.
Instead, we need to view the mystery, most aptly represented by the Trinitarian formula, as the mystery of God’s Kenosis into Himself and simultaneously into and as us. It is a “symbolon” of this mystery, and as “symbolon”, it applies to as many levels and perspectives of the chain of being as required. Thus, we follow Schuon’s and Proclus’ lead in this practice, and unite ourselves with the ancient roots of trinitarian theology, where Wisdom is mother and consort of Logos. An appropriate interpretation of this mystery is easily transposable in Proclean terms, to wit:
The Logos (Intelligible Being) pours forth into the “womb” of his “wife” (Intelligible Life) and produces the Logos of Intelligible Intellect, which in turn is also “feminine” in relationship with Intelligible Being, since it is infact the Living Creature, a name it shares with the fused throne and cherubim superstructure that Ezekiel saw the Lord sitting on. That Throne is also associated with and somehow is the Spirit. Interestingly, this throne is associate with the Blessed virgin, because Solomon’s throne was associated with the Goddess Wisdom. This cluster of associations ties prophetic temple visions with Sufi mystical visions and Christian theology of the Spirit and the Virgin, as well as Logos theology. It is because of this that we can say that the trinitarian mystery is multifaceted and the formula applies in several places at once. Thus, Intellect is Logos and Spirit. Logos in relating to all else that proceeds from it and it centres, Spirit in binding all things to the first Logos. We can see here the roots of Islamic Theology in naming Christ “the Spirit of God” as well as “Word of God”, for Christ is in one sense, the Word of the Personal God (Intelligible Being) even if the latter is also a “word” of the Non-Dual God. It is that Personal God that is the object of Worship, for reasons stated earlier. Because of this, the “symbolon” of the name of God, say, Allah, is in fact the conceptual Logos from the “mouth” of Intelligible Being, which is still unspeakable. What is symbolon for one (the worshipped name of Allah) is not for the other (the person and name of Jesus Christ, both of which are symbolon because all things are “symbolon”[33]). What is constant is the sharing of the name, for this descent, the name, manifest and hidden in names, is constant and ineffable in its omnipresent immanence as that which binds all things. It is from this multitudinous nature of “Spirit” that I call the Spirit the Hypostatic Non-hypostasis, that is, the many hypostases that is not absolutely one and not absolutely many, the perfect description of a “whole”, the province of the first manifestation of Spirit, Intelligible life[34].
The Multitude that is the Christian God
“Elohim is One” – Deuteronomy 6:4
We can now describe the completion of the Cosmos, which is incarnation, as in fact the infinite completion of the Trinitarian mystery, in these terms:
In the absolute Kenosis of the Father, the Son, as the first Logos, is begotten. This infinite gift of self that is also the paradoxical affirmation of self is an inflow of superabundant Goodness that the Son receives perfectly in and as Himself. In his “centering” of his identity as Logos, the whole Cosmos is birthed. This is in fact the outpouring of the Spirit, which is His Spirit. In the very begetting of the Son begins the simultaneous procession of the Spirit. This outpouring is the beginning of the world as differentiated. The identity of the God is poured forth, hidden yet revealed, in the very structure of the Cosmos. Thus, everything is “made” of Spirit, all things are particular determinations of Nous in its self-knowing. Everything that exists is also its own knowledge of existence, and this “Spirit” links creation to its Logos. It is because of this that Origen says that the Spirit “sanctifies”, because he is the link to sanctification itself, the Logos. While Intelligible Being is the first Logos, Intelligible Life is the first manifestation of the Spirit, a hypostasis in its own right, and as the arche of all “measures”, its procession is already a reversion, one that manifests in the constitution of Intelligible Intellect. He is the God that leads to God and reveals God. Thus the Spirit is rightly worshipped as God.
If the Father is creator in the sense of causing all things in and as His Son, and the Son is the creator as He whom is the Unity of all things in Kenosis, the Spirit is the very “medium” of Kenosis, without whom the creation is not complete, and even non-existent. In acting as that which “measures”, the Spirit is infact the “womb” of the word in all the senses of the term. With the Blessed Virgin as an Icon, we can say that, it is within the Spirit that creation is contained, and it is from the Spirit that the “body” of creation is formed, and thus redeemed. Thus, we can call Christ a “life-giving Spirit”, “the Paraclete”, “Wisdom”, because He is at once, Spirit according to constitution and unitive role, but Logos according to unitive identity. Spirit is Logos of Logos, thus he proceeds through the Son from the Father’s superabundant Goodness.
If the fall is the “trapping” of Spirit in ignorance, manifest in flesh, the redemption is the freeing of Spirit in true knowledge. Thus we are to have “celestial bodies”. Although the Spirit as such in the highest manifestation is bodiless, its self-limitation is simply body. Perfect redeemed bodies are bodies of Spirit, a kenosis of Spirit that is not the bondage of flesh. This is our partaking in the Trinitarian life. By partaking of the Spirit, we partake in Christ’s body, which is a Kenosis of Spirit. This partaking means we become Spirit, and in so doing become Christ, to whom Spirit belongs by the sharing of the Divine Name. This is the manner in which the Logoi of hypostasis are the Logos of Hypostasis; in every individual that is a kenosis of Spirit, the full Christ is revealed in a unique way that opens itself to every other individual. Thus, the universal Salvation is in fact the eternal completion of the Trinitarian mystery: The Father, begetting the Son, in the unity of the complete procession and ultimate kenosis of the Spirit that completes the Kenosis of them all and us all, for “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20).
[1] James S. Cutsinger, ‘All and None’, Anamnēsis, 2015 <https://www.cutsinger.net/interpretations-of-the-trinity/> [accessed 18 January 2022].
[2] Frithjof Schuon and James S. Cutsinger, The Fullness of God: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity, World Wisdom, 2017 <https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1rfss2f.13>.
[3] “Schuon’s epistemology—which may be termed Platonic in a broad sense—sees the act of understanding as presupposing a prior knowledge of the object that is understood, whereby concepts and terms are only occasional means of actualization. In other words, one can know only that which one already knows, often without knowing that one knows it. It follows from the premise of this epistemology that understanding does not, and cannot, depend upon a literal grasp of conceptual terms. Meanings, of course, are immanent to a text, but they can be accessed, as the case may be, with minimal support from the text. The text is a symbol and not merely a discursive repository.” - Patrick Laude, Keys to the Beyond: Frithjof Schuon’s Cross-Traditional Language of Transcendence (SUNY Series in Western Esoteric Traditions) (SUNY Press, 2020).
[4] See Edward Butler, ‘The Metaphysics of Polytheism in Proclus’ (New School University, 2003). <https://henadology.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/dissertation-copy.pdf>. This interpretation of Proclus is “polytheistic” in the sense that Butler sees the One as a placeholder for the Henads in their singular uniqueness i.e. the One is each Henad. The reason I chose this interpretation is its consonance with Christian theology if one of its implications is made use of appropriately, which is that, existentially, every Henad is the only Henad, with all other Henads hidden in it. We can make use of this fact for a provisional monotheism, by which I mean we can simply limit ourself to the perspective of One Henad in its existential Uniqueness. What follows from this is remarkably congruant with Monotheist theology, including Monarchian Christian Trinitarian theology, as well as its roots in pre-Judaic biblical religion and certain streams of late antique Judaism
[5] Jordan Daniel Wood, ‘Creation Is Incarnation: The Metaphysical Peculiarity Of The Logoi In Maximus Confessor’, Modern Theology, 7177 (2017) <https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12382>. Maximus’ “Logos of Hypostasis” converges with some of Proclus’ understanding of the first Logos, at least according to Butler, as we will see later on.
[6] Origen and John Behr, Origen: On First Principles (Oxford University Press, 2017). <http://www.worldcat.org/title/on-first-principles/oclc/1018394721&referer=brief_results>. Origen's Monarchian Trinity converges with some of Schuon's ideas, and his Pneumatology, limited though it is, will have a place in this essay.
[7] “The First act is anarchic. This peculiar metaphysical feature has an equally peculiar epistemological counterpart: “the First [cause] alone defies description; this is so only because there is no cause above it through which it may be known.” The First seems to be nothing because it possesses nothing determined by a prior intelligible principle. Hence the First’s act only establishes the intelligible principle; it does not follow it.” - Jordan Daniel Wood, ‘The Father’s Kenosis: A Defense of Bonaventure on Intra-Trinitarian Acts’, Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology, 30.1 (2021), 3–31 <https://doi.org/10.1177/1063851220953363>.
[8] David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, 2013 <https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.51-3784>.
[9] “…one must be careful not to forget that Christian Trinitarianism is not unlike Hindu advaitism. The Vedantist teaches that the Supreme Reality is “not two”, which is not quite the same thing after all as saying that it is merely “one”. Similarly, the Christian teaches that God is “three”, but this doesn’t mean He is not also “one”! What it does mean is that the unity of divinity is “dynamic” in character, as attested by the doctrine of perichoresis (the Greek term) or circumincessio (the Latin equivalent), whereby the Persons are said to share in the common essence or substance of divinity precisely by interpenetrating and “giving way” to each other. Perfect tawhīd for the Christian is thus a matter of henosis (“union” in Greek), not hen (arithmetical “oneness”).” - James S. Cutsinger, ‘Worshiping the Father in Spirit and Truth’, 2007 <https://www.cutsinger.net/worshiping-the-father-in-spirit-and-truth/> [accessed 18 January 2022].
[10] “In Plotinus we first discover the direct correlation of the One’s nothingness to its primal fecundity in generating all things. Despoiled of content, its giving comes from no-thing and its nothingness grounds its giving: “It is because there is nothing in it that all things come from it: in order that being may exist, the One is not being (οὐκ ὄν), but the generator of being.” - Jordan Daniel Wood, ‘The Father’s Kenosis: A Defense of Bonaventure on Intra-Trinitarian Acts’, Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology, 30.1 (2021), 3–31 <https://doi.org/10.1177/1063851220953363>.
[11] Butler.
[12] Butler.
[13] Butler.
[14] “To speak of projection is to speak of polarization: the Infinite-at the degree of Māyā or, more precisely, at the summit of Relativity, projects the Absolute and thus produces the image, and from the moment there is image—this is the Logos—there is polarization, that is to say refraction of the Light which in itself is indivisible.” - Frithjof Schuon, From the Divine to the Human: A New Translation with Selected Letters (Writings of Frithjof Schuon) (World Wisdom, 2013). This precise process of producing an “image” is described perfectly by Butler in his exposition of Proclus’ Intelligible Being as the God creating his ontic double.
[15] Frithjof Schuon, Gillian Harris, and Angela Schwartz, ‘Primordial Meditation’.
[16] Butler.
[17] Butler.
[18] Wood, ‘Creation Is Incarnation: The Metaphysical Peculiarity Of The Logoi In Maximus Confessor’.
[19] Margaret Barker, ‘Wisdom: The Queen of Heaven’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 55.2 (2002), 141–59 <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930602000224>.
[20] Barker, ‘Wisdom: The Queen of Heaven’.
[21] Butler.
[22] Butler.
[23] “According to a teaching (hadith) of the Prophet, 'the first of the things Allah created that is to say: the first unmanifested Reality in the Divine tendency to manifestation, or the first Divine self-determination with a view to creation) is the Pen (Qalam) which He created of Light (Nur),… Then He created the Tablet (Law, or Lawh al-mahfuz, the "guarded Tablet"'), and it is made of white pearl, and its surfaces are of red rubies; its length is equal to the distance which is between the sky and the earth, and its width stretches from the East to the West' (it embraces all the possibilities of Manifestation)… and Allah commanded the Pen: Write! And the Pen replied: Lord, what shall I write? He said: Transcribe My Science of My Creation; all that will exist until the Day of the Resurrection (the totality of the possibilities of manifestation included in the Divine Omniscience.) - Frithjof Schuon, Dimensions of Islam, 1985.
[24] “As the paradigm, intelligible intellect displays three closely related characteristics: totality, uniqueness, and organicity.” - Butler. This use of “totality” in Proclus exactly matches Schuon’s use. It is the prerogative of Intellect in both of them, as we will see in the explanation that follows.
[25] “It is the "Spirit of God", the celestial Logos, which polarizes into Archangels and inspires the Prophets.” - Frithjof Schuon, ‘Universal Eschatology’, 6–14.
[26] Schuon, Dimensions of Islam.
[27] Margaret Barker, The Revelation of Jesus Christ: Which God Gave to Him to Show to His Servants What Must Soon Take Place (Revelation 1.1) (T&T Clark, 2000).
[28] Barker, ‘Wisdom: The Queen of Heaven’.
[29] “I shall give you another testimony, my friends, from the Scriptures, that God begot before all creatures a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos; and on another occasion He calls Himself Captain, when He appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nave (Nun).” From ‘CHURCH FATHERS: Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters 55-68 (Justin Martyr)’ <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01285.htm> [accessed 28 March 2021].
[30] Margaret Barker, ‘The Paraclete’, The Temple in Text and Tradition, 2014 <http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/TheParaclete2014.pdf> [accessed 18 January 2022].
[31] Barker, ‘The Paraclete’.
[32] Barker, ‘The Paraclete’.
[33] “…in the Neoplatonic view, all manifested reality consists of different modes of divine speech, or different levels of a revelation which operates with a system of signs and symbols that simultaneously manifest and conceal the One” - Algis Uzdavinys, Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity (Angelico Press, Sophia Perennis, 2014).
[34] Intelligible Life corresponds to the “Unlimited” phase of the basic Proclean intelligible triad (Limit, Unlimited, Mixture). Hence, it is named the “power” of the first Logos, just as Unlimited is the power of Limit. It is Power that mediates the unbegotten ineffable God (Father) and the Logos, but this Power is not a hypostasis separate from the Father, but the Father Himself considered from the perspective of his Power, a perspective that is only seen in the Son’s own “Power” and not itself indicating a real duality in God. It would not be correct to say the Spirit, as a hypostasis, precedes the first Logos, since the Power of the Father as such is not a separate hypostasis. It is correct to say that the Power of the Father precedes the Son insofar as it is indistinguishable from the Father Himself. The manner of the Spirit’s unitive function between the hypostases is not as a middle term in this schema.