I’m reading Kevin Giles’ What on Earth is the Church? An Exploration in New Testament Theology (InterVarsity Press, 1995) for the third or fourth time now. I think it is one of the best places to begin serious biblical-theological inquiry on ecclesiology—especially with ‘emerging church’ concerns in mind.
Giles was the first theologian who pointed me to a Greek Orthodox theologian by the name of John D. Zizioulas, who wrote *Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church* (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993). I’ve since seen this work cited a number of times in recent studies of ecclesiology (by Van Gelder, Jinkins, Fairburn, et al.) and have finally gotten curious enough to chase it down and read it first-hand.
Plunging into the thought world of Eastern Orthodoxy does not come easily for this Midwestern U.S. evangelical, but I’m finding Zizioulas to be one of the most profound and illuminating writers on Trinitarian ecclesiology (which seems to be a major trend in contemporary theology, especially given what I see in Moltmann, Volf, et al.).
Has anyone read Zizioulas out there? I’d be interested in your thoughts/impressions as I continue my own reading. Perhaps a Ziz-group my form.
Phil Harrold Winebrenner Theological Seminary
Tell us about it
Phil, to my shame I haven’t read either author. If you don’t find anyone on this forum who has, you might want to post a summary of what you think Giles and Zizioulas have to say to the emerging church. How do they help us live out, think out, and communicate the gospel in a postmodern context?
Giles-Zizioulas
What grabs Giles’ attention, toward the end of his exegetical study of ecclesia, is the venerable Eastern/Greek model of the Trinity that has tended to emphasize the co-eternal and co-equal communion (koinonia) of the three divine persons. This as opposed to the West’s (both Catholic and Protestant) tendency toward a hierarchical/economic understanding. The implications can be quite profound, especially in the arena of ecclesiology— where, at least ideally, we are to express certain aspects of God’s divine nature as incarnated in the person and work of Jesus Christ— not so much in terms of hierarchy but koinonia.
The Greeks have much to say on this and that is why Zizioulas, in particular, is so interesting (and inspiring) to read. I am just now trying to ‘inwardly digest’ Ziz. on the Trinitarian implications regarding freedom, especially the ontological freedom associated with personhood. Seems this might address a recurring concern in Emerging Church circles, where there is a desire to ‘self-actualize’ (our cultural zeitgeist) as persons-in-relation rather than autonomous individuals. At the same time, authenticity also appears as a concern— how to be ‘authentic’ (without wearing a mask) while, at the same time, immersed in the give-and-take (or, as the Eastern Church would stress, reciprocal love) of Christian community.
Apparently, Eastern Christianity has labored over this set of issues far more than we have in Western Christianity. Hence, my interest.
I’m not yet at a point where I can spell out what an Eastern perspective means in concrete/pragmatic terms. All I can say at this point is that reading about the nature of God and implications of that nature in ecclesial terms from an Eastern perspective is invigorating. It may not yield some radically new idea/conviction, but I’m approaching familiar aspects of my Christian belief from a very different perspective and that, in itself, may make the whole inquiry worthwhile. God is a bit less domesticated by those familiar patterns than he was before.
More later, perhaps, as I continue my journey eastward…
to be and to be in relation
The work of John Zizioulas has been a major contribution to theological debate on the doctrine of the Trinity. He rediscovers the Cappadocian Father’s important belief that ‘to be and to be in relational are identical’ - that is we cannot speak of God the Father without also speaking of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; perhaps even stronger than that: ontologically, there is no Father without the Son and the Spirit. ‘Being in communion’ is instrinsic to being a person. Therefore the doctrine of the Trinity (especially the Eastern doctrine) is helpful to us as we look to overcome the individuality of our culture: to be made in the image of God is to be made in the image of the triune God. I believe we must get to grips with the doctrine of the trinity and its implications in our churches, we must find ways of taking the rediscovery of the doctrine of the trinity in the academic world into the way we think about God, personhood, church in our local churches. Books like Nicky Gumbel’s short one on the trinity will not do!!!!
Getting to grips with a more trinitarian theology from the likes of John Zizioulas and Colin Gunton revolutionized the way I think about everything, it makes theology exciting. I strongly recommend you read Zizioulas and Gunton. On the doctrine of the trinity and freedom see Paul Molnar’s recent book ‘Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity’ (T & T Clark, 2001).
Trinity and community
I am impressed by this sort of enthusiasm for the trinity, but would anyone object if I raised a small voice of scepticism at this point? Andy, you say that ‘to be made in the image of God is to be made in the image of the triune God’ and make this a means of overcoming the individualism of our culture. This sort of analogy seems to lie at the heart of much of the renewed interest in trinitarian theology in the emerging church. I write as something of an ignoramus, but I don’t entirely follow the logic. The trinity is a model of internal relationality. To be made in the image of God, therefore, according to this analogy, would imply not that we are naturally in relation to other individuals but that we exhibit an internal relationality between three ‘persons’ - comparable to the relationship that exists between Father, Son and Spirit. Otherwise, we would have to say something like: we are in community with other individuals just as God is in community with other gods.
persons and individuals
Obviously any analogy between human sociality and divine sociality will break down at some point, but perhaps a social trinitarian would respond to your comment, Andrew, by challenging your sentence that contains “we are naturally in relation to other individuals …” and “internal relationality between three ‘persons’…” By discussing “individuals” at the human level versus “persons” at the divine level, the force of the analogy, for whatever it’s worth, is lost. The human person (NOT individual) relates to other human persons in a similar manner that the divine person relates to the other divine persons (Perichoresis or interpenetration or mutual indwelling). This is a challenge to the very notion of a human “individual” with its atomistic associations. Miroslav Volf discusses this beautifully in After Our Likeness and Exclusion and Embrace, in which he develops a notion of human personality which is characterized by openness to being inhabited by the personalities of others. This challenges any notion of internal versus external relationality. I suppose some biblical warrant for the analogy would be “I pray that they may be one as we are one.”
we too are sometimes one
hi steve,
when you say “This is a challenge to the very notion of a human “individual” with its atomistic associations”, i feel moved to paint a little picture.
i think that it is easy to see community or co-life in our human realm : take for example the mother-foetus dyad : not one individual really, actually two persons in deep relation.
and what about twins : who can say that they are really separate individuals ? they live out their lives together more so than other siblings do. they share mental, emotional, physical lives. siamese twins are constrained together in an ever closer orbit.
symbiosis is a great thing to reflect on : the blind man and his guide dog; the human digestive tract with its billions of bacterial helpers; the director/actor relationship… those small fish that eat the debris in shark’s teeth, so ensuring the shark’s dental health…the flower that feeds and is fertilised by the hummingbird…
when i was younger i thought that maybe god had other persons, other personalities, currently hidden, that he would show us. there are many facets of his character that come out in the bible, sometimes seeming to show many different personalities. maybe these shards of the whole crystal refract light in ways that we would see as one when we see them all together.
i know that i have adapted and adopted certain traits and mannerisms and accents and sayings and thoughts and beliefs from the people close around me. the closer we are, the better we can live each other’s existence, and truly live in common.
jo.
further thoughts on being and relation
Andrew, the best thing I can do is refer you to and recommend reading Zizioulas and Gunton (Gunton I think is the easier to read, see his The Promise of Trinitarian Theology; The One, the Three and the Many; Father, Son & Holy Spirit).
The second best thing is to try and explain what I think they are trying to say. What Zizioulas and Gunton want to argue is that the language of ‘person’ is fundamentally and ontologically relational language, whereas the language of the individual is a ‘non-relational creed, which teaches I do no need my neighbour in order to be myself (Gunton). Against this they argue, from the doctrine of the Trinity, that:
Zizioulas writes:
Gunton uses the language of ‘relation’ and ‘other’. So when we think of persons we think in terms of relations: Father, Son and Spirit: these relations are constitutive of being and of being particular persons, i.e. the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. I am not my Father, but my relationship to him is essential to who I am. But equally important is to be a person is to be related as an other. We are unique and particular: ‘everything is what is and not another thing’ (Bishop Butler). So we relate as something other and so there relations are free relations. Where the world champions the individual (man is an island) and also conformity (coca-cola’s mission is we all drink coca-cola), ‘the triune God is a God in whom the one is not played against the many (individualism), nor the many against the one (homogeneity)’ instead ‘God is one who has his being in communion.
ope that makes it a little clearer, there is much more to say, but this is already a long reply.
Trinitarian Community and Zizioulas
I was so glad to find this thread of comments, if only to make me feel less weird in being enthralled by reading an Orthodox professor of theology from Glasgow! (Being an Edinburgher, this is enough to create much self-doubt!)
I was pointed to Zizioulas by a presbyterian friend, with whom I was discussing the concept of church as community being a reflection of the Trinity into the earth, in all its non-hierarchical, interdependent, other-loving glory. I was particularly inspired by Zizioulas’ concept of God’s being as bound up with His intra-trinitarian relationship. It has really made me think more about church as an icon of God’s ‘sweet society’, which He wants to reproduce through His people here and now. I have found the book needs to be read meditatively and reflectively; yesterday,for example, reading his insights on the eschatological aspect of the eucharist was enough to send me scurrying along to our local Episcopal friends’ morning communion to participate in the ‘memory of the future’, as Z puts it, in the present, a wonderful expression of anamnesis .(Being As Communion, ch5.1 p180) I shall follow this thread with interest.
Interpretation and reflection
OK, this has helped me understand things better, but I still have some reservations.
1. The distinction between ‘individuals’ and ‘persons’ makes a lot of sense (and I love josiebelle’s picture-painting), but in what way is it supported by the trinitarian model? To what extent does the trinitarian model provide a practical basis for human community? I wonder if the godhead isn’t simply too opaque and esoteric to provide anything more than a highly abstract and generalized starting point for reflection on real human society.
2. Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17:11 seems a rather flimsy basis for an analogy between divine and human community that posits the openness of human personality to be inhabited by the personalities of others. The Father is said to be in Jesus and Jesus speaks of himself as being in the disciples, but there is nothing about the disciples being in one another, inhabiting one another. Is Jesus really asking anything more here than that the disciples as a group should continue in the same relationship to the Father that he himself has?
3. As a model for human community the trinity has at least one significant drawback: it is an enclosed, static model; it doesn’t allow for the forming, breaking and mending of relationships; it doesn’t allow for openness to outsiders.
4. Andy quotes Zizioulas : ‘Here is an ontology derived from the being of God’. Well, I can understand that if it means that we were created fundamentally to be persons in relation to others – that seems to me to be an excellent insight. But if this is strictly a trinitarian derivation, why is this not more clearly articulated in the Bible? One might ask whether other models of being in community, which have better claims to being biblical, don’t actually make the same point? For example, one dominant model is that of a community ruled by a king – ideally ruled by God represented by a davidic ruler as ‘son of God’. That model entails a wide range of assumptions about how people should relate to each other and to God; and it is generally recognized that Hebrew society was much more ‘corporate’ in its sense of identity and responsibilities. Arguably the dominant NT model for community is that of a people as ‘body’ or ‘temple’ filled with the Spirit of God. This also has implications for the nature of personhood: Paul’s theology of the charismata presupposes a far-reaching interdependence (cf. Eph.4:16).
I suppose my basic concern here is that we risk imposing something on scripture that isn’t really there or that is at best only latent. Still, it seems to me that the emerging church has a lot to gain by exploring a wider spectrum of Christian traditions, not least as a way of deepening our often facile evangelical theological heritage. But we have two different tasks here: the ongoing interpretation of Scripture and an ongoing reflection upon the results of that interpretation in the light of experience, history, culture, etc. (I think it is interesting that Colin says that Zizioulas’ work needs to be read ‘meditatively and reflectively’). The doctrine of the trinity has a rather peculiar status in our theology as a post-biblical ‘clarification’ – for want of a better word. We exercise less exegetical rigour and allow ourselves greater creativity in our exposition of the trinity than we do, say, with the doctrine of justification by faith. It seems to me that the sort of analogical arguments under discussion in this thread have the same peculiar status. Providing we understand this, this line of enquiry is potentially very rewarding.
Please feel free to pursue it as far as you wish, keeping in mind the particular needs of the emerging church. I suggest we keep the discussion in the theory of emerging church forum for now. It can always be transferred to a dedicated forum later if necessary.
re to Andrew
#1: if humanity is created in the image of god, it is important to reflect theologically on the nature of god’s relationality as a model for human relationality. The Christian theological tradition has always done this, whether in the form of analogy of being or Barth’s analogy of faith, which views human personality as analogically derived from god’s personality, not vice versa. If the nature of god is too opaque and abstract to inform how we live our lives with one another, then we’ve got much deeper problems than these specific issues.
#3: The social trinitarian model challenges any concept of god that sees god as static and enclosed, with no openness to outsiders. That sounds like Greek metaphysical onto-theology, not the God of Jesus. Moltmann’s The Crucified God is excellent in this regard, as is Volf’s work.
#4: The social trinitarian model, as put forth by Moltmann and Volf, also challenge hierarchical models of god and society. A kingship model of society and a hierarchical model of god too easily endorses arbitrary social hierarchies and inequalities. This has huge potential ramifications for contemporary ecclesiology and is very relevant for emergent church discussions. It relates to how leadership in the church is exercised, how decisions are made, how leaders are appointed, etc.
In terms of the risks associated with imposing ideas on biblical sources, I think this is a complicated topic and you’re right to raise it. But I think a clear distinction needs to be made between the task of biblical interpretation and the task of theology. A theologian is not the same as a biblical scholar, even though both roles are related. But theological discourse, and reflection on god, humanity, and the cosmos is not limited to biblical interpretation. Not all theology is (indeed most of theology is NOT) exegesis.
Models for community
My point had to do specifically with the notion of the trinity, not the nature of God in general terms. Admittedly I approach this from the perspective of fussy, nit-picking biblical interpretation (more below), but while there are many ways in which the Bible draws quite clear analogies and conclusions from the nature of God, I struggle to think of any that I would want to call ‘trinitarian’. Even John 17 has to do essentially with the relation of the disciples to the Father rather than to one another. Mostly we are taught to behave towards one another as God or Christ has behaved <i>towards us</i> (I’m thinking of Phil.2, for example). Do we find the argument anywhere: love one another as the Father loves the Son or as the Son loves the Spirit?
As a model for human community the trinity is static in the sense that the pattern of relationships never changes: it does not help us, therefore, as far as I can see, with an important dimension to human community, namely its fluidity, variability. Nor does it help us deal with the failings of human community: there is no forgiveness within the trinity. It is enclosed in the sense no other ‘person’ can be brought into the community of the godhead, whereas human communities are constantly having to deal with strangers, foreigners. This is not, in as far as it goes, a critique of the trinitarian view of God, or a recommendation of one form of the model over another; but it is a comment on its limitations as a model for human community. I would have thought that the closest we come to a human equivalent to the trinity is marriage, in which two become one flesh to the exclusion of others, but this only serves to emphasize the uniqueness of the trinity as a ‘community’ of persons.
The concern about hierarchy is legitimate, but to acknowledge Christ as king should in principle subvert human authority structures. Even then, I rather think that hierarchy and the exercise of power are, in some form or other, inescapable aspects of human community - except perhaps in very limited and small-scale situations. I’m not sure hierarchy as such is so inimical to the work of God. I would suggest that the problem with leadership has less to do with hierarchy than with honesty, integrity, transparency, trust, etc. We will always find ways to abuse social structures, whether hierarchical or egalitarian, in the pursuit of self-interest. Arguably what we need is a way to live with hierarchy and inequality, not an idealistic alternative to them - just as Paul gave the early church a way to live Christlike lives within an unjust patriarchal slave economy.
This is a very important issue and really worth a separate discussion. But surely the challenge here for the emerging church is not simply to demarcate these different tasks but to learn how to reintegrate them. Don’t both the theologians and the exegetes need to backtrack to where their paths diverged and try to find a way of travelling together - or at least within shouting distance of each other? The doctrine of the trinity and derivative ideas such as social trinitarianism might be good subjects for an experiment in a collaboration between biblical scholars and theologians.