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Zizioulas: The Trinity and Ecumenism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Thomas Weinandy OFM Cap
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‘Being as communion’ is a phrase that evokes the name of only one person, that of Bishop John D. Zizioulas. It is first and foremost within the context of the Trinity that Zizioulas elaborates his understanding of this concept. Moreover, from his trinitarian understanding of ‘being as communion’ Zizioulas has also elucidated a distinctive understanding of creation, Christology, Christian anthropology, ecclesiology, the Eucharist and eschatology. In so doing Zizioulas has made significant and insightful contributions to Christian theology. I cannot comment on the whole of Zizioulas’ thought in so short an essay, but I would like to examine briefly the topic that interests me the most — the Trinity. I want to highlight the strengths of Zizioulas’ conception of the Trinity as well as to note those aspects that I believe demand greater clarity. In attempting to clarify the ambiguities I will also offer a few suggestions as to how Zizioulas’ trinitarian thought might be further enriched. In the light of all of the above I will conclude by offering some thoughts on advancing ecumenical relations among Eastern and Western theologians.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 83 , Issue 979 , September 2002 , pp. 407 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 See Zizioulas, J.D., ‘The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity: The Significance for the Cappadocian Contribution’, Trinitarian Theology Today, ed. Schwöbel, C. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), pp. 45–49Google Scholar. Even though Tertullian in the West argued against Sabellianism and spoke of tres personae. Zizioulas holds that he and the subsequent Western tradition never fully extricated themselves from Sabellianism. See Being as Communion (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985), pp. 36–37.

2 Being as Communion, p. 36.

3 See Trinitarian Theology Today, p. 47.

4 Being as Communion, p. 39.

5 Being as Communion, p. 39.

6 See Being as Communion, p. 88; Trinitarian Theology Today, pp. 46 and 52; and ‘On Being a Person. Towards on Ontology of Personhood’, Persons, Divine and Human, eds. Schwobel, C. and Gunton, C. E. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), p. 40Google Scholar.

7 Being as Communion, pp. 40–41.

8 Being as Communion, p. 42.

9 Persons, Divine and Human, p. 42. See also Being as Communion, p. 41 and Trinitarian Theology Today, p. 51.

10 Trinitarian Theology Today, pp. 54–55.

11 Persons, Divine and Human, p. 40. See also p. 40, fn 13.

12 Being as Communion, p. 44.

13 Trinitarian Theology Today, p. 59. See also Persons, Divine and Human, p. 39.

14 Trinitarian Theology Today, p. 50.

15 Persons, Divine and Human, p. 42.

16 On Zizioulas’ theology of the Eucharist see Being as Communion, pp 143–69.

17 On the irreducible uniqueness of the person, see Persons, Divine and Human, pp. 33–46.

18 See Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 28, 2.

19 In an analogous manner, I did not freely choose to be Tom Weinandy. However, because I am Tom Weinandy, and thus a human person, I can freely choose to affirm who I am and so freely live out who I am.

20 While Zizioulas holds that the concept of ‘cause’ is one of the great insights of Cappadocian trinitarian thought, I am not entirely pleased with it. ‘Cause’ seems to imply that the one who causes exists prior to that which is caused and equally that the one who causes is of a different nature from what is caused. Now one could say that within God such implications do not apply. Nonetheless, I would prefer the term ‘principle’. While the Father is the principle from which the Son and Spirit proceed, yet his being the principle does not carry with it the notions of prior existence or difference of nature.

21 Gregory of Nazianzus wrote that ‘the difference of manifestation, if I may so express myself, or rather of their mutual relations one to another, has caused the difference of their names’ (Oratio, 31, 9). See Augustine, De Trinitate, 6:6, 9, 11, 14 and 7, 7–9, and Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 29, 4 and I, 40, 1–2.

22 The fact that Augustine and Aquinas define the persons of the Trinity by their relations to one another nullifies Zizioulas criticism that they are focused primarily on God's substantial impersonal oneness and not upon the relationships among the three persons.

23 However, I was recently reading B. Bobrinskoy's The Mystery of the Trinity (Crestwood: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1999) where he mentions Augustine eighteen times and almost always within a positive and favourable context.

24 See Barnes, M.R., ‘Rereading Augustine's Theology of the Trinity’, The Trinity, eds. Davis, S., Kendall, D., O'Collins, G. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 145‐76Google Scholar; Hill, E., The Mystery of the Trinity (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1985), p. 115Google Scholar; de Margerie, B., The Christian Trinity in History (Petersham: St. Bede's Publications, 1982), pp. 162‐3Google Scholar; and Weinandy, T., The Father's Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), p. 56Google Scholar.

25 Here I am especially thinking of H. Crouzel, J. Daniélou, H. de Lubac, and H.U. von Balthasar.

26 This exemplified very well in Athanasius’ and Hilary's friendship and in their mutual defence of Nicaea and the full divinity of the Son.