(I know it’s bad wording but its hard to convey this without going into heresy.)
Heuchler,
I couldn’t agree with you more. Pinning down the Trinity is like picking your way through a minefield. If you over-emphasize One God, you are in danger of religious racism; and if you articulate the three persons of the Trinity too distinctively, you get called a Sabellian modalist heretic.
Christ (the Supreme Being) knows the Father (Deity Absolute) personally. They, along with their glorified Spirit, are what we might call, for the sake of analogy, the executive committee that is the Trinity Absolute.
From the fact that the members of this committee are absolute metaphysical coordinates defining the creation, and the fact that they could never possibly disagree rationally about basic moral values; we can be assured that the creation won’t fall apart. Because their shared interest in the creation (heaven, earth, and all that is) binds the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, they are all co-creators of co-equal freewill personality and fellowship dignity.
The interaction of the less serious characteristics of these three characters of the Trinity was thought by Augustine and Aquinas to be like a procession or perichoresis - like a merry-go-round or dance of loving interpenetration, in which they become perfectly unified, while remaining three more-or-less distinct persons. Less distinct when we try to envision them, but more distinct to each other when they enjoy fellowship together.
I recognize that each religion makes absolute truth claims, but I maintain there are three absolutes of creation united in the Trinity. The psychology of each world religion reflects one of these absolutes (or their combinations and permutations). My book demonstrates this in more detail, but for example:
Moslems (and Jews) are focussed on the first person - the Deity Absolute Primogenitor - in all his austere existential majesty, and they deny he has any Sons or Associates. However, Muslims acknowledge that Muhammad has a special relationship with Allah, and there are certain Archangels (e.g. Michael and Gabriel) who are, if not associates, then ambassadors of the Absolute.
Christians and some Hindus worship the existential Absolute Father through the experiential Universe Absolute Supreme Son - the material incarnation of God, whom I argue will return immanently, in some sort of gestalt of the consciousness of all humans - Christ eventually returning to earth as the Supreme Being of all humankind - Jesus glorified.
Some Hindus and Buddhists are enthralled by the vision of the first person (source) and second person (universe synthesis), consummated in a Synthesis of source and synthesis - the third person - the ultimate existential/experiential Unconditioned Absolute Spirit of All That Is, was, and will be.
Zen Buddhists seem to be looking for a merging of their consciousness with All That Is - which in their terms is sometimes called the “emptiness” of Nirvana. My own personal predilection is for Christ, but I ask myself, what is the difference between my preference for “participating” in the Supreme, and Zen “merging” with the Ultimate, or for that matter, the Moslem and Jewish preference for “communing” with the Deity Absolute alone.
By the way, I’m not just making this up. There is a whole chapter on the Spirit of All That Is at the end of my book, paraphrasing in their own words, the Seth Books by Jane Roberts and her husband Robert Butts. Briefly, materialists believe that reality creates consciousness, but Seth shows that it is also the other way around - consciousness creates reality. This would be just another example of the synthesis of thesis and antithesis, except that when you see past the “contradiction” or “difference” between reality and consciousness, you see that they may well be compatible in a consummation that closes the circle of creation - the Trinity.
I am not claiming a single, unified God from all these religions, but I am suggesting a freewill union of world religions reflecting the Trinity of One multi-dimensional God. This only seems to be a contradiction, but like the persons of the Trinity, world religions are ultimately compatible, differing only in respect to their relationship in the Trinity of One God. Again, the key is the truth of both sides of great antinomies, and this is fully discussed and authoritatively documented throughout my book, which has substantial passages quoting and explaining the metaphysics of Plato, Plotinus, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and many other great philosophers. Again, the basic idea is that the absolute contradiction between thesis and antithesis may be resolved in synthesis. In terms of world religions this synthesis is not the spirit of the one, nor the spirit of the other, but a third absolute - the Spirit of Synthesis - the Consummator.
You might object that absolute religious differences can never be “absolutely” resolved. Then I would argue that they can at least be “sufficiently” overcome by consummation and inclusion in the Trinity Absolute. My book is a constructive interpretation, not just of religions, but of the metaphysics of everything. Trinity is the one philosophical inevitability, because it is the only adequate metaphysical vehicle of creation and of the psychology of the threefold human soul.
What do you think of my claim that Trinity is the basis of metaphysics? (see p.5 of the Preview)
Do you have anything to say about Immanuel Kant’s definitions of God, Trinity, and Soul? (see p.11 of Preview)
Samuel Stuart Maynes
www.trinityabsolute.com
