Love requires a third

I greatly enjoyed hearing Bishop Kallistos of Diocletia speak recently at St. Mark’s Coptic Church, one of Truro’s local partners in ministry.  While there I picked up a CD of a teaching series he did on The Trinity.  We want to keep this blog going this summer during the time off.  Thus, I would like to share with you a few insights from Bishop Kallistos, since they connect so readily to what we are learning from the Theology of the Body. 

By now we have become familiar with John Paul II’s way of following Jesus’ cue to look back at “the beginning” to see what it means for us to be made in the image and likeness of God.   Understanding rightly something so basic has enormous practical implications for how we live in the world today.  This is especially true for the right ordering of human love in all of its dimensions. 

We have learned from the Theology of the Body the intimate relation between human beings and God, the former being in however incomplete a way the image bearers of the latter.  And of course we cannot begin to comprehend human love unless we know that God is in a mysterious way a community-of-persons-in-love, a tri-unity of Father, Son, and Spirit. 

Bishop Kallistos has a gift of being able to articulate the trinitarian mysteries very clearly, and I have managed to find a text of his basic teaching, called “The Human Person as an Icon of the Trinity”, available from this link in text form.  It is important to keep in mind that the mystery of One God in Three Persons is a revealed teaching, one that all of the Church Fathers knew that our minds can never fully comprehend in its fullness.  Thus, it is perhaps best approached through worship and prayer as we experience the mystery of Father, Son, and Spirit personally--Batter my heart, three-person'd God, as poet John Donne put it (the full sonnet is at this link.)

Bp. Kallistos expands considerably the standard (Western) Augustinian model of the Trinity as persons-in-love, with the Father and the Son in mutual love and the Spirit as the bond of love between them.  You heard this viewpoint articulated by Christopher West when he was at Truro teaching about the Theology of the Body.  Yet, the Orthodox have often criticized this picture as making the Spirit too impersonal (although Augustine did not mean or intend this).  Bishop Kallistos draws on the  insights of the medieval theologian Richard of St. Victor (a 12th century Scot at the famous St. Victor school outside Paris, died 1173).  Richard expands on Augustine, saying the perfection of mutual love requires a third person to share the love with--thus God as love must be a trinity of persons, not just a single person in self-love, or even a duality of two in mutual love.  A third is required for full sharing of love, for the love of the two is not full unless it is shared it with another.  I had not heard Richard's original synthesis before.  It seems to be stimulating much modern interest, not the least between the Catholics and the Orthodox, with potential to aid the healing of their ancient division over the nature of the Trinity.  There is even a new book out with a first time English translation of Richard's On the Trinity, available at this link.

Here is what Bp. Kallistos has to say about Richard’s views:

To exist in its plenitude, love needs to be not only „mutual‟ but „shared‟. The closed circle of mutual love between two persons still falls short of the perfection of love; in order that the perfection of love may exist, the two must share their mutual love with a third. „Perfect love casts out fear‟ (1John 4:18); love in its perfection is unselfish, without jealousy, without fear of a rival. Where love is perfect, then, the lover not only loves the beloved as a second self, but wishes the beloved to have the further joy of loving the third, jointly with the lover, and of being jointly loved by that third. „The sharing of love cannot exist among any less than three persons [. . .]. Shared love is properly said to exist when a third person is loved by two persons harmoniously and in community, and the affection of the two persons is fused into one affection by the flame of love for a third.‟ In the case of God, this „third‟ with whom the other two share their mutual love is the Holy Spirit, whom Richard terms condilectus, the co-beloved‟.

John Paul II of course expounds on the fruit of love resulting in a "third" in the context of Genesis 4: the child is a fruit of spousal love.  But we can also think of how our lives are enriched by the love of others that extend beyond the scope of husband and wife, or even our families.  Theology is practical—it impacts our daily living!

Bp. Kallistos' gives a very full and deep exposition of the meaning for human beings of their being made in the image of the God of love who is a Trinity of Persons.  While there is a lot of technical theological language (the Fathers found it necessary for precision in articulating the mysteries), it helps to expand the themes we have been getting from the Theology of the Body, and shows the power and beauty of the truth about God and human beings revealed in the Scriptural story centered on Jesus.  This kind of Trinitarian thinking rooted in the Fathers was very much in the background of John Paul II as he developed his Theology of the Body.  The context of marriage and sexuality is best understood in this broader setting, which impacts everyone, not just the married or those seeking marriage.

Each of us can profitably read and re-read Bp. Kallistos' article in the above link.  It has much in it that bears reflection. The first part is more technical and historical, whereas the last part is quite relevant to our times.  Interestingly, Bp. Kallistos brings in Father Zossima's story of the onion that Julie posted about a while back.  Clinging to love is a sure way to lose it; sharing it is the only way to keep it.  Praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!