Radical Monotheism and the Trinity

Prof. Dr. Christoph Schwöbel , Plankengasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg

I. Criticising monotheism

Monotheism has in recent years come under increasing dispute. Apart from its purely descriptive use the term cannot be mentioned without immediately evoking a number of negative connotations. The criticism of monotheism comes from various quarters, ranging from philosophy, political science and history to more specifically theological reflection.1 Although motivated by very diverse considerations and offered with the aim of promoting often incompatible interests, one can nevertheless perceive a certain convergence of respects in which the justifiability of monotheism is called into question. Before considering the implications of this criticism for the theological analysis and evaluation of the concept of monotheism, I shall present some of the aspects of the current critique of monotheism which seem to require special attention. In 1979, the German philosopher Odo Marquard published a paper with the title ‘In Praise of Polytheism’ (‘Lob des Polytheismus’) which draws together some of the characteristic aspects of the philosophical criticism of monotheism and indicates a number of elements that seem to underlie the current love affair of much of contemporary philosophy with polytheism.2 Marquard starts Ϫ inadvertently developing a parallel to the lecture David Lodge’s notorious Professor Maurice Zapp hawks around the small world of the international conference circuit3 Ϫ by raising doubts concerning striptease.4 He means, of course, the myth that myths have to be demythologised in order to reveal the naked truth. Myths, life-structuring stories that adapt the truth to the reality and practice of our lives, are for Marquard anthropologically indispensable: nar- rare necesse est.5 Human beings are story-telling beings. The anthropological necessity to structure our lives by telling stories does not mean that any myth is as good as any other. There are healthy myths and myths that can seriously damage our well being. Marquard’s thesis is that monomythism is dangerous, whereas polymythism is good for you.6 Our present situation is, in his view, dominated by the most

1 For an overview cf. Claude Geffre´/Jean Pierre Jossua (eds.) Concilium (D) 1985. H. 1. 2 Odo Marquard, ‘Lob des Polytheismus. Über Monomythie und Polymythie’, in: Abschied vom Prinzipiellen. Philosophische Studien (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981) 91Ϫ116. 3 David Lodge, Small World. An Academic Romance (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985) 24 ff. 4 Marquard, ‘Lob des Polytheismus’, 92Ϫ97. 5 Ibid., 95. 6 Cf. Ibid 98.

NZSTh, 43. Bd., S. 54Ϫ74 Ą Walter de Gruyter 2001 Radical Monotheism and the Trinity 55 successful monomyth of the modern era: the myth of the inevitable world-historical progress towards freedom, represented by major strands of modern philosophy of history as a progress of revolutionary emancipation. This modern monomyth, which is characterised by centralisation and depluralisation of the many stories in the one history, represents for Marquard the second eclipse of polymythism which was made possible by the first eclipse of polymythism, the dissolution of polytheism through Christian monotheism. Christian monotheism is in Marquard’s view the transcendental (which means here: historical) condition for the possibility of modern monomythism. The one God of Christian salvation history by his very singularity denies the plurality of the gods. He eliminates the many stories of the many gods and replaces them by the one history of the one true God, and by this the world is effectively demythologized.7 When the intellectual developments from Nominalism to the Enlighten- ment undermined the plausibility of Christian monotheism, this vacancy is soon filled by the secular monomyth of history as an inevitably pro- gressive process of emancipation. In Marquard’s view, the end of monotheism also opens up the possibility for a demystified polytheism; this has three characteristics: the dis- tribution of power in the political realm, which is celebrated by Marquard as the secular return of the many gods8; the affirmation of the individual that results from the protest against the God of monotheism or the rule of the modern monomyth, which are both interpreted as a radical threat to the possibility of human freedom9; and a new enlight- ened and demystified plurality of life-structuring stories. The second significant form of the criticism of monotheism is the one that was first introduced by Erik Peterson in his treatise Der Mono-

7 ‘Das Ende des Polytheismus ist der Monotheismus; er ist das erste Ende der Polymythie: er ist eine ganz besonders transzendentale Ϫ nämlich historische Ϫ Bedingung der Möglich- keit der Monomythie. Im Monotheismus negiert der eine Gott Ϫ eben durch seine Einzig- keit die vielen Götter. Damit liquidiert er zugleich die vielen Geschichten dieser vielen Götter zugunsten der einzigen Geschichte, die nottut: der Heilsgeschichte; er entmythologi- siert die Welt.’ Ibid., 100. 8 ‘Der moderne- profane, innerweltliche Ϫ Aggregatszustand des Polytheismus ist die politische Gewaltenteilung: sie ist aufgeklärter Ϫ säkularisierter Ϫ Polytheismus.’ Ibid., 107. 9 ‘Das Individuum entsteht gegen den Monotheismus. Solange Ϫ im Polytheismus Ϫ viele Götter mächtig waren, hatte der Einzelne Ϫ wo er nicht durch politische Monopolgewalt bedroht war Ϫ ohne viel Aufhebens seinen Spielraum dadurch, daß er jedem Gott gegen- über immer gerade durch den Dienst für einen anderen entschuldigt und somit temporär unerreichbar sein konnte … Sobald aber Ϫ im Monotheismus Ϫ nur mehr ein einziger Gott regiert mit einem einzigen Heilsplan, muß der Mensch in dessen totalen Dienst treten und total parieren; da muß er sich ausdrücklich als Einzelner konstituieren und sich die Innerlichkeit erschaffen, um hier standzuhalten … Darum hat nicht der Polytheismus den Einzelnen erfunden: er brauchte es nicht, weil noch kein Monotheismus da war, der den Einzelnen extrem bedrohte … Darum konnte erst nachmonotheistisch der Einzelne offen hervortreten und Ϫ unter der Bedingung des säkularisierten Polytheismus der Gewaltentei- lung Ϫ erst modern die wirkliche Freiheit haben, ein Individuum zu sein.’ Ibid., 108. 56 Christoph Schwöbel theismus als politisches Problem in 1935 which has since then become a classic of the critique of political theology.10 In his book, Peterson investi- gated the connection between the development of a cosmological and theological theory of monotheism and the emergence of a political theology which justified the imperial rule in the Roman empire by exploiting the analogy with the divine monarchia. From its historical sources in Aristotle11 and Philo12, Peterson carefully traces the steps that, in his view, led to the interpretation of monotheism as the basic principle of a political theology. For Peterson it is the doubtful achievement of Eusebius to have developed a political theology that rests on the assumption of a correspondence between theological monotheism and political monarchy.13 This monotheistic political theology which in Peterson’s view lies at the heart of the Arian controversy comes to an end in the formulation of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity by the Cappadocians.14 Peterson refers to a passage from the Third Theolological Oration by Gregory Nazianzen as the locus classicus of trinitarian critique of a montheistic political theology. Nazianzen writes: ‘The three most ancient opinions concerning God are Anarchia, Polyarchia, and Mon- archia. The first two are the sport of the children of Hellas, and may they continue to be so. For Anarchy is a thing without order; and the Rule of the Many is factious, and thus anar- chical, and thus disorderly. For both these tend to the same thing, namely disorder; and this to dissolution, for disorder is the first step to dissolution. But Monarchy is that which we hold in honour. It is, however, a Monarchy that is not limited to one Person, for it is possible for Unity if at Variance with itself to come into a condition of plurality; but one which made of an equality of Nature and a Union of mind, and an identity of motion, and a convergence of its elements to unity Ϫ a thing which is impossible to the created nature Ϫ so that though numerically distinct there is no severance of essence. Therefore Unity having from all eternity arrived by motion at Duality, found its rest in Trinity. This is what we mean by Father and Son and Holy Ghost.’15

10 Erik Peterson, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem (Leipzig: Hegner 1935) auch in: Ders. Theologische Traktate (München: Kösel, 1951), now published as Vol. 1 of E. Petersen, Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. by Barabara Nichtweiß (Würzburg: Echter, 1994) 23Ϫ83. 11 The main evidence in Aristotle is the conclusion of Metaphysics book XII with its criticism of the rule of the many (polykoirania): ‘One shall be Lord!’ which expresses Aristotle’s criticism of the pluralism of Speusippos and of Plato’s dualism. Peterson calls that with Werner Jaeger the ‘strict monarchism’ of Aristotle (ibid., 25), although Aristotle does not employ the word monarchia. 12 Philo who explicitly employs the word monarchia extends it from the monarchia of God in Israel to the whole kosmos (cf. De spec. leg.I12Ϫ31). 13 Peterson summarises Eusebius’ teaching in the following way: ‘Die drei Begriffe: Imperium Romanum, Friede und Montheismus, sind also unauflöslich miteinander verknüpft. Aber ein viertes Moment tritt dann noch hinzu: die Monarchie des Römischen Kaisers. Der eine Monarch auf Erden Ϫ und das ist für Euseb nur Konstantin Ϫ korrespondiert dem einen göttlichen Moanarchen im Himmel.’ (Ibid., 51) 14 Ibid., 57. 15 Or. III, 2, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed, by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace 2nd series, Vol. VII, 301. Radical Monotheism and the Trinity 57

The insistence that the divine monarchy as the monarchy of the triune God has no analogy in the realm of creation destroyed the theological foundation of the political theology of the Arian court theologians.16 In its original context at the beginning of the NS-regime, Peterson’s treatise was far more than a historical study. It was intended as a general critique of all forms of political theology, including those which had at that time appeared in Germany and in which Peterson saw the re-emergence of a pattern that had already been rendered obsolete by the Cappa- docians.17 At the same time he also emphasised the wider implications of this critique of monotheism for theology in the modern era. Peterson writes in his preface that ‘monotheism’ is all that the Enlightenment has retained from Christian faith in God and that this form of belief is as questionable in its theological content as it is in its political implications.18 The third type of criticism of monotheism is exemplified in Jürgen Moltmann’s The Trinity and the Kingdom of God. This criticism of monotheism is explicitly trinitarian. Compared to the other two forms it is more comprehensive, though not necessarily more precise. Moltmann concentrates on the connection between monotheism and the concept of monarchia. Monotheistic monarchianism which for Moltmann reflects the inner logic of ‘strict monotheism’ is in his view an ‘uncommonly seductive religious-political ideology’19 that presents ‘the severest inner danger’20 for the Christian church and its proclamation. Moltmann traces the dangers which he sees implied in a monotheism that is interpreted monarchically in two areas: in theology proper and in the realms of politics and the church. The principal danger for the Christian conception of God can be summarised by Moltmann in the thesis: ‘Strict Monotheism obliges us to think of God without Christ, and consequently to think of

16 Peterson writes: ‘Mit diesen Ausführungen ist der Monotheismus als politisches Problem theologisch erledigt … Damit war theologisch die Bindung der christlichen Verkündigung an das Imperium Romanum gelöst worden.’ (Ibid., 58) 17 Peterson hints at the contemporary political background in his last footnote (Ibid., 81 n. 168): ‘Der Begriff der “politischen Theologie” ist m. W. von Carl Schmitt, Politische Theologie, München 1922, in die Literatur eingeführt worden. Seine damaligen kurzen Ausführungen waren nicht systematisch gehalten. Wir haben hier den Versuch gemacht, an einem konkreten Beispiel die theologische Unmöglichkeit einer “politischen Theologie” zu erweisen.’ 18 ‘Die europäische Aufklärung hat von dem christlichen Gottesglauben nur den “Mono- theismus” übriggelassen, der in seinem theologischen Gehalt ebenso fragwürdig ist wie in seinen politischen Konsequenzen. Für den Christen kann es politisches Handeln nur unter Voraussetzung des Glaubens an den dreieinigen Gott geben.’ (Ibid., 24) 19 Jürgen Moltmann, Trinität und Reich Gottes (3. Aufl. München: Kaiser 1994), 146: ‘Es sei schon hier darauf hingewiesen, daß dieser monotheistische Monarchismus eine ungemein verführerische religiös-politische Ideologie war und ist.’ 20 Ibid., 147. 58 Christoph Schwöbel

Christ without God.’21 This danger is not only illustrated by the two complementary monotheistic heresies of the early church: Arianism and Modalism. More surprisingly, Moltmann sees the same danger also illustrated in the thought of two modern theologians who are commonly considered as having done more than others for the reconstitution of trinitarian thought in Christian theology: Karl Barth and Karl Rahner. Barth’s reinterpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity along the lines of an idealist conception of subjectivity demonstrates for Moltmann his in- complete liberation from monarchical monotheism. Rahner’s theology is criticised as a form of ‘idealist modalism’22 in which the insights of trinitarian theology are reduced to the quasi-trinitarian structure of reflexivity in the absolute subject. For Moltmann, the interpretation of God in terms of monarchical monotheism has overlaid essential elements of an authentically Christian understanding of God, such as the passion of God in his receptivity to the fate of his creatures and in his suffering, the notion of the history of the Son, and the idea of the outpouring of the Spirit, i. e. the glorification of God in which everything participates. This monotheistic distortion of the Christian conception of God corresponds to the monarchical distortions in political life which reach their final stage in European absolut- ism,23 and to the distortions of the community of the church in which community is replaced by an authoritarian hierarchy. Only a radically trinitarian critique of monotheism, Moltmann claims, opens up the perspective of freedom in the Kingdom of God which reflects the glory of the triune God.24 When we compare these critical interpretations of monotheism, we can see a number of similarities between conceptions which are radically divided with respect to the antidote they would recommend to counteract the influence of monotheism. Monotheism is not treated as a concept that is exclusively connected to the affirmation of one and only one God in contrast to a plurality of deities. What is attacked is a syndrome of monotheism in which the affirmation of one and only one God is combined with a specific understanding of the nature of God and his action; this, in turn, is seen as the basis of a distinctive view of wordly reality and of the status and destiny of humankind in this reality. One common element in these criticisms is that a monotheistic understanding of God is said to ideological constructions in which the suppression of human freedom is connected with the justification of unjust power structures. Viewed from this perspective, Monotheism appears as a radical threat to human freedom in all its aspects. Its primary function seems to be to provide the

21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., 165. 23 Cf. ibid., 208Ϫ217. 24 Cf. ibid., 217Ϫ220. Radical Monotheism and the Trinity 59 legitimising theory for forms of social organisation in which freedom is suppressed and community is distorted by hierarchical and authoritarian forms of social life.

II. A Dissenting Voice: H. Richard Niebuhr’s Radical Monotheism

Agreement in the rejection of monotheism between these different types of criticism cannot disguise the fact that the proposed alternatives are completely diverse, if not incompatible. The agreement in the radical criticism of monotheism appears more than sufficient to exclude the concept of ‘monotheism’ from the range of justifiable and acceptable key- notions for the constructive task of modern theology entirely. There is, however, one dissenting voice in the chorus condemning monotheism in modern theology. It is H. Richard Niebuhr’s essay Radical Monotheism and Western Culture that was first published in 1958.25 In this study, Niebuhr surveys a wide range of phenomena in the West from different forms of individual self-understanding to forms of social organisation, church structures and cultural spheres. The key question for Niebuhr’s analysis is: what kind of faith is exemplified in these phenomena? Accord- ing to Niebuhr faith, which is for the purpose of this analysis deliberately defined in theologically neutral manner as ‘dependence on a value-centre’ and ‘loyalty to a cause’26, is encountered in the West in the three basic forms of henotheism, polytheism and monotheism. Henotheism charac- terically represented in nationalism Ϫ is described as a social faith which has one object among many actual and possible objects of faith. Because of this ‘quasi-universal’ particularity, its social correlate is a ‘closed society’27. When the ‘relative unification of life’28 temporarily achieved by henotheism breaks down, the second type of faith appears on the stage: polytheistic pluralism where ‘an unintegrated, diffuse self-system depends for its meaning on many centres and gives its partial loyalties to many interests’: ‘When the half-gods go the minimal gods arrive.’29 Niebuhr contrasts these two types of faith with ‘radical monotheism’ where the value centre and cause for faith is Being Itself. He writes: ‘As faith, it is reliance on the source of all being for the significance of the

25 H. Richard Niebuhr, Radical Monotheism and Western Culture. With Supplementary Essays (London: Faber, 1950). 26 Ibid., 24. 27 Niebuhr borrows this term from Henri Bergson’s The Two Sources of Morality and Reli- gion, 1932. He adds, however, that Bergson’s claim that the religion of humanity is the religion of an ‘open society’ seems ‘highly questionable’ (Niebuhr, Radical Monotheism, 25, n. 1). 28 Ibid., 28. 29 Ibid., 29 and 28. 60 Christoph Schwöbel self and all that exists. It is the awareness that because I am, I am valued, and because you are, you are beloved, and because whatever is has being, therefore it is worthy of love.’30 This monotheism is radical, because Being Itself is its value-centre and this, in turn, is the warrant for its ontological and soteriological universality. Theologically speaking, radical monotheism is characterised by the identification of God the creator and the God of grace. This radical faith, defined as ‘the concrete expression in a total human life of radical trust in the One and of universal loyalty to the realm of being’31 becomes incarnate and is revealed in the history of Israel with the effect that all human relations are transformed into covenant-relations characterised by the radical obligation of promise-making and promise-keeping. The true incarnation of ‘radical faith’ is Jesus Christ who is therefore acclaimed as the Son of God in the Christian community. Niebuhr says of Jesus: ’The word of God as God’s oath of fidelity becomes flesh in him in the sense that he was a man who single- mindedly accepted the assurance that the Lord of heaven and earth was wholly faithful to him and to all creatures, and who in response gave wholeheartedly loyalty to the realm of all being’.32 The incarnation constitutes the self-disclosure of God as the First Person in which God estab- lishes the personal truth of his faithfulness as the necessary correlate to all the impersonal truths we hold. Insofar as this revelation discloses the ultimate ground of being and value as personal it is the condition for the constitution of integrated selfhood in human persons as the response to God as the First Person. Integrated selfhood results in a faith that compre- hends all roles and relations in which the self exists.33 From this perspective of radical monotheism Niebuhr offers his critical and constructive account of Western religion. He shows how the radical apprehension of God as the source of all being and value transforms religious experience and practice, and he indicates in which respects West- ern Christianity experiences the temptation of reverting to a henotheistic form of social faith, as, for instance, in exclusively church-centred or Christ-centred religion.34 Niebuhr expands this criticism into a far-reach- ing critique of political life and social organisation in Western societies. He argues that a radically monotheistic faith is the critical principle of the demythologisation of all claims to absolute authority and allegiance

30 Ibid., 32. 31 Ibid., 40. 32 Ibid., 42. 33 Niebuhr describes this integrative function of radical faith in the following way: ‘Radical faith is either expressed by the self in all its roles and relations, or it is not expressed at all. It is either revealed to and incarnate in the total human life or it does not exist. If it is present it manifests itself in religion as well as elsewhere. But in religion as in other human actions monotheistic faith is in constant conflict with our natural henotheism and our despairing polytheism.’ (Ibid., 48) 34 Cf. ibid., 58 ff. Radical Monotheism and the Trinity 61 on the part of penultimate authorities. Niebuhr defends the thesis that only a faith that is shaped by radical monotheism can constitute and preserve proper human freedom and community since they are dependent on integrated selfhood as the response to the revelation of the First Per- son. Henotheistic faith makes the person subservient to the particular cause of a social faith and in pluralistic polytheism the self is diffused by being directed from many centres. When one compares Niebuhr’s programme of radical monotheism with the reflections of the critics of monotheism, one has to be surprised how much common ground they seem to share. Even with Marquard’s openly polytheistic proposal Niebuhr is united in emphasising the importance of preserving individual freedom against alienating social faiths. Perhaps more significantly, Niebuhr’s monotheistic criticism of church and society seems to be largely identical with that of the trinitarian critics of monotheism and seems to be motivated by similar interests: relativizing absolute claims made by penultimate authorities and preserving human freedom from all attempts to bring human persons under the alienating rule of finite authorities are standard arguments of both conceptions.35 Even criticizing illegitimate analogies between the divine rule and the earthly rulers seems to be an inherent part of both conceptions. We seem to be faced with the alternative of either opting for the trinitarian critique of monotheism to substantiate our criticism of alienating political theologies and the sacrifice of personal freedom and authentic community on the altar of penultimate authorities, or of choosing Niebuhr’s conception of radical monotheism in order to achieve the same aim. Should we accept such a choice? The argument I am attempting to develop is intended to show that we should not: the trinitarian critique of political theologies offered by Peterson and Moltmann works only if it is based on a monotheistic trinitarianism and Niebuhr’s radical monotheism can only function as a critical and constructive principle in Western civilisation if it is conceived as a trinitarian monotheism.

III. Three Contexts of Interpreting Monotheism

Whenever one is faced with such an alternative one begins to suspect that the proposed alternative presents us with a false dilemma pointing to misapprehensions concerning the nature of the problem and to inade- quacies in our attempts at conceptualising it. In this particular case the difficulties seem to arise from the initial contrast of ‘monotheism’ and

35 This is surprising since Niebuhr’s radical monotheism is at best implicitly trinitarian and operates with a rather modalistic economic Trinity. Cf. for a critical discussion K. M. Hamilton, ‘Trinitarianism Disregarded. The Theologial Orientation of H. R. Nie- buhr and Cyril C. Robinson’, in: Encounter 23 (1962), 343Ϫ352. 62 Christoph Schwöbel the Trinity by the trinitarian critics of monotheism. Is it really the case that monotheism and trinitarian theology have to be seen as mutually exclusive theological conceptions when the theological criteria they offer for the assessment of forms of social organisation in politics and the church seem to be largely identical? In order to answer this question I shall first look a little closer at the concept of monotheism, before inquir- ing how the monotheistic principle and trinitarian reflection were related in the history of Christian theology. The history of the term ‘monotheism’ provides little help for the clarification of the concept.36 Apparently the term was first used by the Cambridge Platonist H. More in 1660 in order to distinguish Christian belief in one God more precisely from superficially similar non-Christian forms of belief, namely pantheism, of which he says that ‘this kind of monotheism of the heathens is as rank atheisme as their polytheisme was proved before’. It is quite ironic that the next evidence for a program- matic use of the term comes from one of H. St. John Viscount Boling- broke’s philosophical works which is characterised by his sharp opposition to Christian Platonism. The title of the work is ‘… some further reflections On the Rise and Progress of Monotheisme, That first or great Principle of natural Theology, or First Philosophy’. Here the term ‘monotheism’ is used for the designation of belief in ‘one supreme self-existent Being’ as the ‘first intelligent cause of all things’.37 Hume’s use of the term in the Natural History of Religion probably inspired Kant to mention it when he discusses the a priori necessity of conceiving the supreme being as one.38 Hegel departs from the by then established use of the term in opposition to polytheism by contrasting it to pantheism. Josiah Royce later restored the original semantic opposition of monotheism and polytheism, arguing that pantheism could in some versions be understood as a form of monotheism. These findings do little more than illustrate the inconclusive character of any attempt at referring to a received normative concept of monotheism in order to resolve our dilemma. The negative

36 For a comprehensive treatment of the history of the concept cf. R. Hülsewiesche, ‘Mono- theismus’ in: Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie Vol. 6 (Basel/Stuttgart: Schwabe, 1984), cols. 142Ϫ146. 37 Cf. Hülsewiesche, col. 147. 38 Kant mentions the concept of monotheism in the transcendental dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason where he discusses the warrants of speculative reason to infer the existence of a highest being which can only be conceived as one and as necessary. He writes: ‘Diese höchste Ursache halten wir denn für schlechthin notwendig, weil es schlechterdings notwendig finden, bis zu ihr hinaufzusteigen, und keinen Grund, über sie hinauszugehen. Daher sehen wir bei allen Völkern durch ihre blindeste Vielgötterei doch einige Funken des Monotheismus hindurchschimmern, wozu nicht Nachdenken und tiefe Spekulation, sondern nur ein nach und nach versädlich gewordener Gang des gemeinen Verstandes geführt.’ (KrV B 618) If we take this argument seriously, monotheism does not tell us very much about the nature of the Divine, but a good deal about the ‘natural course’ of common rational sense to conceive of a highest being. Radical Monotheism and the Trinity 63 result of this brief excursion into terminological archaeology does, of course, not mean that neither the phenomenon nor the concept of monotheism existed before the term was invented. It does mean, however, that we have to choose another approach, if we want to clarify our present dilemma. Before considering one possible way out of the dilemma, I should like to make two preliminary remarks. For every analysis of monotheism, it would, first of all, seem to be important that the principle of monotheism expressed in prescriptive language precedes the concept of monotheism and constitutes important restraints for the use of the concept. This principle is most clearly exemplified in the first commandment: ‘You shall have no other god to set against me’. (Ex 20,3) It is characteristically prefaced by a divine self- introduction which sets the commandment in the context of God’s action and its effects for his people: ‘I am the Yahwe, your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery’. (Ex 20,2) This prescriptive principle constitutes the concept of the one God that is expressed in the term monotheism. The second preliminary remark that has to be made is that the conception of God that is expressed in the concept of monotheism entails a comprehensive understanding of reality in which the being of God, the status and structure of the world and the nature and destiny of humanity form complementary aspects of this specific world-view. It is this specific characteristic of the concept which Ϫ although it is not explicitly analysed Ϫ underlies the attempt to criticise or to justify monotheism from its implications and consequences in politics and community organisation. Only if these implications are made explicit, can we be confident to have arrived at a structurally complete description of monotheism. I want to suggest that the concept of monotheism can best be analysed by relating it to three contexts, each of which points to important and specifically related elements in a developed conception of monotheism. a) The first context is the one where monotheism is defined over against polytheism. There, the understanding of monotheism is determined by the conflict of the one God with the many gods. The superiority of the one God is contrasted with the inferiority of the many gods, and this superiority is defined in terms of the relation of the one God to the world and to humankind. Belief in the one God implies a conception of the attributes of the one God which shape his relation to reality in such a way that it can supersede the relations of the many gods to reality. It is important to note that the emphasis on the singularity of God is cosmological or ontological as well as soteriological. This understanding of the one God is by no means an exclusively theoretical concern. Its unifying appeal is just as important in the context of worship and ethics. Conse- quently, the one God is seen as the one who alone is to be worshipped and as the one who determines the norms, values and virtues for human 64 Christoph Schwöbel action. This unifying tendency is at least potentially universalist. Where such a monotheistic faith encounters polytheistic faiths the principle that different people or groups of people can worship different gods or that different deities regulate different aspects of reality is challenged and such a practice is criticised as idolatry. In this sense a monotheistic faith implies an atheistic attitude concerning the existence of other particular gods. The view of the world which corresponds to the monotheistic understanding of God in this context is one where the world can be understood as a unified whole, because of its relation to the one God. The unity of the one God guarantees the unity of the world. The world is therefore not understood as a plurality of different aspects each of which is determined by a specific deity. Nor is the interpretation of reality conceived as the specific interpretation of one group of believers constituted by their specific relationship to one particular deity which is not valid for others. The understanding of the world as a unity constituted by its relationship to the one God is claimed to be universal and valid for all human beings whether they accept it or not. In a similar way the conception of what it means to be human is shaped by the monotheistic principle. Human beings are integrated beings, because their whole being is universally dependent on the one God who determines all aspects of human existence. The ambiguity of the understanding of monotheism in this context consists in the permanent threat of reverting to some form of henotheism, because the one God who is the centre of the monotheistic view of reality is not acknowledged by all people. This threat can be actualised in two forms. In henotheistic particularism belief in the one God is restricted to the social group which consciously acknowledges this God so that the monotheistic principle loses its universality. In henotheistic syncretism the one God is understood as the high god who rules over the different deities in the divine realm and is the supreme but not exclusive focus of worship. b) The conception of monotheism in the second context is aimed at counteracting the threat of a modification of monotheism to henotheism by developing the implications of faith in one God in the context of philosophical reflection. The one God is interpreted as the ultimate ground of being and that by definition excludes henotheistic particularism as well as henotheistic syncretism. The unity of God is interpreted in ontological terms and the ontological uniqueness of the one God is developed in terms of a philosophical theology. It is here that the traditional conception of the divine attributes has its place, since they attempt to determine the different respects in which the being of the one God has to be interpreted as the ultimate ground of being and the exemplification of the plenitude of value. This ontological determination of the being of God secures the status of the one God as one that implies universality and exclusiveness. Radical Monotheism and the Trinity 65

The conception of monotheism in this context implies an understanding of the world in which the being of the world is seen as totally dependent on God as the ultimate ground of being. This ontological dependence is the ground of the unity of reality and it determines the ontological status of the world as that of contingent being. This implies that the being of the world is characterised by the logical complements of the attributes in which God’s being as the ultimate ground of all being is expressed and that the realisation of value in the world is at best a deriva- tion from the divine plenitude. The understanding of human nature in this context is shaped by the ontological distinction between the ground of being and that which depends on this ground of being for its existence. Human beings participate in the contingent status of worldly being. The specific distinction of human beings in this realm is, however, that they can become aware of their ontological dependence, that they can relate to their ontological ground, and that they can make this relation the foundation of their relation to the world. The ambiguity of monotheism in the context of philosophical reflection can be seen in that the ontological distinction between God and the world can be conceived in such a way that it calls their relationship into question. At this point some of the classical dilemmas of philosophical theology appear. How can a timeless and immutable God relate to a temporal world that is characterised by change? How can the One defined as absolute unity relate to the relational diversity of the Many? These difficulties can be summarised in the question: How can the ultimate ground of being be conceived as being-in-relation? c) The third context of reflection on the monotheistic principle is explicitly trinitarian. Here the monotheistic emphasis is focused on the unity of God in his hypostatic relationality. The monotheistic principle safeguards the trinitarian understanding of God from being interpreted in a tri-theistic way. In this sense it is the condition of the possibility of ascribing the divine work appropriated to the Father, the Son and the Spirit in the divine economy not to separate agents while retaining the trinitarian description of God’s triune action. This implies that the in- ternal relatedness of creation, redemption and salvation can be conceived as the work of the triune God that is not to be distributed to three deities, while the being of the one Godhead can at the same time be seen as constituted in a specific trinitarian relatedness. In this context relational unity and hypostatic relationality have to be seen as corollaries. The view of the world that corresponds to this view of the relational unity of the Trinity is such that this world can be understood as a relational structure which is constituted in its different aspects through its relation to the triune God. The world not only depends for its being on God’s creative relation to what he has created, it is also shaped by the 66 Christoph Schwöbel incarnation of the Son and the inspiration of the Spirit, so that insight and certainty concerning the relationship of God, the world and humanity is made possible. The view of what it means to be human is also characterised by the unity in relationship which determines the understanding of God and the world. Human beings are seen as relational beings whose relations to themselves and to the world are constituted by their relationship to the triune God. The inherent ambiguity of the monotheistic emphasis on the unity of the triune God is that it has to be conceptualised in such a way that neither the hypostatic relationality nor the relational unity are, in effect, jeopardised. When we try to develop the concept of monotheism in these three contexts, it can become evident that ‘monotheism’ is not a simple one- dimensional concept. Rather, the primary assertion of the singularity of God over against a plurality of gods seems to necessitate reflection on the unity and ontological uniqueness of this one God. And these considerations which result in a conception of God whose ontological status re- quires the ascription of specific metaphysical and moral attributes raise new questions leading to the problems of unity and relation that lie at the heart of trinitarian reflection. The interrelation between the understanding of monotheism in the three contexts also illustrates that monotheism and the Trinity cannot be understood as mutually exclusive theological conceptions that lead to incompatible views of reality. On the contrary, the doctrine of the Trinity presupposes the understanding of God that can be developed in the context of debate with polytheism and in connection with philosophical reflection on the unity and uniqueness of God. On the other hand, one could argue that reflection on the unity of God as the ground of being in philosophical theology ultimately leads to questions that are at least structurally similar to those addressed in trinitarian thought.

IV. The Christian Understanding of God and the Principle of Monotheism

Christian faith has from the beginning been characterised by a universal missionary claim with regard to a God who is identified by referring to particular temporal events. In the Hebrew Scriptures God can be identified by the divine name and by an identifying description. We see the same pattern when the much-respected better half of Rumpole of the Old Bailey can be identified by her Christian name and by the awe-inspir- ing formula ‘she who must be obeyed’. We have already cited one of Israel’s central formulae of divine self-introduction where both name and Radical Monotheism and the Trinity 67 identifying description are combined: ‘I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery’ (Ex 20:2). In the New Testament this way of identifying God was retained (e. g. Acts 3:13) and new identifying descriptions were added. One of the most important is the identification of God as ‘the God who raised Jesus from the dead’ (Rom 4:24). The connection between these two forms of identification is emphasised by the way in which they are both bracketed by new expressions that were soon transformed from title-terms to proper names. The one who brought Israel out of the land of Egypt is called by Jesus ‘Father’ which makes him who is raised by the same God ‘the Son’. In the apostolic situation of the absence of the earthly Jesus these modes of identification are linked with a new mode of identification ‘in the Spirit’ which refers to the inclusive eschatological future of the events that served as temporal identifying descriptions for the Father and the Son and so to the self-presentation of the Father and the Son in the Spirit. In the Hebrew Scriptures we also find another way of identifying God which is different from the use of the proper name or from identifying descriptions with reference to salvific events in the history of Israel. This is the identification of God which is dominant in the Wisdom litera- ture and which is developed in the different expressions of belief in creation. It is the identification of God as the one who is the ground of being and salvific order in the world. This identification does not refer to specific historical events, but to the metaphysical and moral structure of the world and God as its everlasting ground and end. Without the interaction of these two forms of identifying God, the development of Israel’s faith, the emergence of eschatological hope and apocalyptic expectation could not be explained. In the New Testament we find the same pattern of interaction between the particular temporal and the universal ontological identification of God. In the same chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans where God is characterised as the one who raised Jesus from the dead, he is also identified as the one who ‘makes the dead live and calls into being things that are not’ (4:17). It is this combination of the particular economic identification and the universal ontological identification of God that made it possible that Christian faith applied the monotheistic principle to the God who was acclaimed as the Father, the Son and the Spirit. When Christian faith entered the stage of history it encountered polytheism in two very different forms, both equally threatening for an authentic Christian understanding of God. The first was the encounter with the gods of the Roman Empire in the context of the process of the spreading of the Christian message from its origin in Palestine. The challenge did not consist in the temptation to allocate a place for the God of Christian proclamation in the Roman pantheon. Rather, it presented the possibility of restricting the claims of Christian faith in such a way that its understanding of God could be accommodated as an example of par- 68 Christoph Schwöbel ticularist henotheism, which was in the Roman Empire the accepted strategy for dealing with monotheistic faiths like Judaism. Confronted with this challenge, the growing Christian church insisted on the monotheistic universality of its claims which had determined the character of Christian faith as a missionary faith from the very beginning. The second challenge was encountered in Gnosticism. This was far more serious, since it seemed to presuppose a christocentric notion of salvation which appeared to be much more congenial to the Christian message. In the face of the gnostic teachings it proved necessary to extend the notion of the unity of God in such a way that it implied the unity of the creator and the saviour as well the universality of the proclamation of salvation in the church. In Irenaeus’ theology this is achieved by a historical conception of the divine economy which connects creation, redemption and salvation as related aspects of the unitary work of the Father, Son and Spirit. This presents an anti-dualistic radicalisation of the monotheistic principle. No realm of reality is excluded from the all- encompassing activity of God the Father who acts through his hands, the Son and the Spirit.39 A different strategy is employed in the theology of the early Apolo- gists who attempted a similar expansion of the Christian conception of God not by developing the notion of a comprehensive history of salvation, but by appropriating the philosophical theology of their time. The polytheism which they attacked was not primarily the mythological polytheism of the Roman gods or the cosmological polytheism of gnostic spec- ulation, but the metaphysical polytheism of platonic pluralism. The achievement of the Apologists has to be seen in the development of a metaphysical conception of God which could present Christian faith as a coherent and comprehensive view of reality. God has to be seen as the ground of being on whom every aspect of reality relies for its existence and meaning. They nevertheless avoided the dilemma of an ontology which develops the distinction between God as the ground of being and the world to an unbridgeable gulf by describing the Logos as the principle of relation between God and the world. Their subordinationist Logos- theology is the result of the attempt of formulating a monotheistic ontology that does not exclude relation.40 This introduced the notion that

39 Adv. haer. IV, 7, 4; 20, 1. 40 This is well captured with reference to the problem of polytheism and monotheism by Karlmann Beyschlag in his Grundriß der Dogmengeschichte Vol. I (Darmstadt: Wis- senschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1982): Es ‘trat neben den einen persönlichen Gott des jüdisch-christlichen Monotheismus eine zweite, metaphysisch zunächst kaum unterzu- bringende Personalität, d. h. aber, es erhob sich “pluralistisch-monotheistische Problem” der Eingottheit: der eine Gott in zwei Wesenheiten. Was die Ansätze zu seiner Lösung betrifft, so bleiben sie einstweilen recht schwankend: Auf der einen Seite legen die Apolo- geten den größten Wert auf die Tatsache, daß durch den präexistenten Hervorgang des Logos-Sohnes keine Abtrennung vom Vater oder gar Minderung des väterlichen Wesens eingetreten sei (vgl. z. B. Tatian, Orat. 5, 1.). Gottes Wesen ist nach Theophilus (Autol.II, Radical Monotheism and the Trinity 69 ontological monotheism is compatible with the assumption of more than one hypostasis in the Godhead in its origenistic form. This proved to be one of the most influential theoretical concepts for the development of the doctrine of the Trinity. In Modalism, the alternative to Logos-theology, the relations of God to the world and humanity become purely contingent and transitory relations which have no equivalent in the divine being itself. Modalism consistently emphasised the ontological characterisation of God as the ground of being while turning his economic identification as Father, Son and Spirit into transitory forms of appearance of the divine unity. It was therefore challenged by Tertullian with a conception of the being of God which integrated relatedness into the being of God.41 This important attempt was, however, vitiated by the subordinationism that introduced ontological gradation into God’s being. From the perspective of the monotheistic principle this had to seem unsatisfactory and created the demand for a further clarification as to how differentiation and relatedness that seemed to be required by the temporal identification of God could be reconciled with the unity of God as the ground of being. This clarification was provoked as the response to Arianism where for the first time an abstract monotheism is presented as the correct con- ceptualisation of Christian faith.42 In Arianism we find a conception of God in which the transcendence of God is emphasised in such a degree that all relations of God to the world become external to his being. This, in turn, made it necessary that God’s relation to the world and to humanity had to be mediated through a creature of quasi-divine status. This, however, implied, as Athanasius was quick to point out, that God cannot really be seen as the author of salvation so that this realm tends to be excluded from God’s being. It demonstrates that abstract monotheism, far from presenting a radical version of monotheism, is, in fact a depoten- tiated monotheistic faith since it implicitly challenges the comprehensiveness of God’s relation to the world and to humanity. The direction into which Nicaea pointed seemed to be the attempt to show that God’s relation to the world and humankind in creation, redemption and salvation is grounded in God’s being itself without introducing an ontological gradation.

10) lediglich aus dem göttlichen Innen getreten … Damit ist die monotheistische Unbe- dingtheit Gottes zumindest vorstellungsmäßig gewahrt. Aber andererseits ist der Logos, zumal bei Justin, seit dem Moment seines Hervortretens aus dem Vater nun doch ein ‘zweiter Gott’ (Dial. 56, 4), der als Gott dem Vater subordiniert zu denken ist.’ (Ibid., 114 f.) 41 Tertullian’s formula that the three are distinguished ‘non statu, sed gradu’ (Prax. 2) enabled him to see the unitas of God in the trinitas and vice versa. 42 Cf. the extensive treatment in R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988). 70 Christoph Schwöbel

The greatness of the Cappadocians’ solution to the trinitarian problem lies in the fact that they suggested a conceptual integration of God’s economic identifiability as Father, Son and Spirit and his universal ontological characterisation through the divine essence characterised as either incomprehensibility43 or as infinite44. By seeing God’s economic relations to the world as grounded in the eternal relationality of the three hy- postaseis they interpreted the coequal hypostatic relatedness as the condition for the possibility of God’s relationship to the world and to humanity. Through their interpretation of the ontological status of the common divine ousia as the unity, though not uniformity, of divine activity, they succeeded in binding God’s unity, his ontological distinction as the ground of being and his eternal hypostatic relatedness as the condition for his economic relations to creation together in one conceptual frame- work. In this way they offered a conceptuality for reconciling the monotheistic principle with the trinitarian logic of Christian discourse about God. By interpreting the notion of relation as constitutive for divine unity they resolved the conflicts between God’s unity and his relatedness. The result is a conception of the relational unity of Father, Son and Spirit that neither compromised the ontological distinction between God and the world nor their relation in creation, redemption and salvation. This solution denied both the subordinationist ontological gradation in the divine being and the possibility of an effective representation of God in the created realm. And this new understanding of the ontological uniqueness of God, demanded by the radical interpretation of the monotheistic principle, challenged the theological legitimacy of the political theologies based on the representation of the divine rule in the earthly ruler. In contrast to Petersen it seems more plausible that it is not the anti-monotheistic emphasis of the Cappadonians that proved to be destructive for the political theology of Arianism, but their more radical, i. e. consistently trinitarian, interpretation of monotheism. The result of the process of the interaction of the principle of monotheism with the Christian conception of God makes it clear that this is a process of mutual qualification in which the monotheistic principle acted as the catalyst for the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity. At the same time trinitarian reflection demanded a consistent radicalisation of the notion of monotheism through the stages of an anti-polytheistic and anti-gnostic understanding of the divine economy, the ontological concep- tualisation of faith in God and the radical critique of an abstract monotheism. The result is a relational trinitarian monotheism which alone can claim the comprehensiveness that is demanded by the notion of the relational unity of God.

43 Gregory of Nazianz or. 28, 10. 44 Gregory of Nyssa Contra Eunomium I, 368 f. Radical Monotheism and the Trinity 71

V. Towards a Trinitarian Monotheism

It is one of the problematical aspects of the history of Christian theology that the Cappadocians’ achievement in reconciling monotheistic and trinitarian thought has not exercised the formative influence that its theological significance deserved. In spite of, or perhaps Ϫ as Colin Gun- ton has argued in an important paper45 Ϫ because of Augustine, the mainstream of Western theology has not sufficiently continued to build on the foundations laid by the outcome of the doctrinal development of the early Church. The uneasy coexistence of the treatises De Deo Uno and De Deo Trino in Christian dogmatics documents this as much as the problematical relationship of natural and revealed theology, in spite of the tremendous efforts of medieval theologians to develop the theo-logical tools for the semantics and syntactics of a monotheistic trinitarian theology. When the link between the cognitio Dei naturalis and the cognitio Dei supernaturalis vel revelata was broken in the Enlightenment, a pre-trinitarian conception of monotheism was reintroduced into the conception of God which immediately reproduced almost all of the mod- els of determining the divine unity that had been found insuffient in the early history of the church, from subordinationism to modalism. It is, of course, this less than radical understanding of monotheism which the trinitarian critics of monotheism see as their primary target. Nevertheless there seem to be good reasons for not yielding to the temptation of severing the connection between monotheism and the Trin- ity that had been so laboriously forged in the doctrinal debates of the first four centuries. A Christian theology that claims to be trinitarian should not lightly give up the restraints for understanding the status of God that are imposed on the development of the understanding of God by the monotheistic emphasis. The principle of monotheism that leads in the process of reflection from the assertion of the singularity of God to the unity of God and so to the ontological uniqueness of God as the ground of being, is one of the safeguards for a realist Christian understanding of reality that can be stated in genuine truth-claims. Once the principle of monotheism is surrendered, it is all too easy to accept the alternative of a sceptical, perspectivist or constructivist anti-realism, that modern polytheists like Marquard advertise as the successor to monotheism. This is a particularly strong temptation in societies that have long accepted henotheistic particularism or henotheistic syncretism as the dominant type of the interpretation of reality. Yet, the monotheistic principle does not only safeguard the status of Christian belief in God, it also seems necessary for achieving coherence

45 Colin E. Gunton, ‘Augustine, the Trinity and the Theological Crisis of the West’, in: The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (2nd ed. Edinburgh: T & T Clark 1997), 30Ϫ55. 72 Christoph Schwöbel in the exposition of a Christian trinitarian theology. It safeguards the status of God as the ground of being against all well-meaning attempts to emphasise the involvement of God in the fate of his creatures at the expense of the ontological status of God. As Moltmann’s theology illustrates, this is of specific importance in the discussion of the problem of divine passibility. It does not have to be stressed that these questions do not just concern the intricacies of Christian dogmatics but the general plausibility of a Christian understanding of reality. Furthermore, as our brief sketch of the interaction of the monotheistic principle and trinitarian reflection was intended to show, it is precisely the monotheistic emphasis on the ontological uniqueness of God that challenges the possibility of an earthly representation of the divine ruler that constitutes the basic axiom of all political theologies. In stressing the ontological distinction between God and all penultimate authorities which received its cru- cial expression in the exclusion of subordinationism, the monotheistically conceived doctrine of the Trinity protects rather than endangers the freedom of the human creatures and challenges the distortion of human community by quasi-divine hierarchical claims. While this stresses the critical function of the doctrine of the Trinity for conceiving a human society in which human freedom is not denied by the claims of an authority modelled on the image of a single divine ruler Ϫ on earth as it is in heaven Ϫ its constructive role remains still largely unexplored. The most significant contribution to such a constructive exploration has been made by Colin Gunton in the work with the suggestive title The One, the Three and the Many.46 After a succinct analysis of those aspects of the culture of modernity which can only be understood by modernity’s denial of the trinitarian God and the replace- ment of God as the ground of being, meaning and truth by other deities, Gunton investigates the way in which the understanding of God as Trinity can help to find ways of conceiving human sociality which are not trapped in the alternative of either individualism or collectivism, in which personal particularity and freedom are not endangered by the demands made by society and community and relatedness is not sacrificed on the altar of autonomy. Rather than projecting the descriptions of the trinitarian being of God directly unto the ideal of a human society, thereby repeating the logic of projection rightly rejected by the Cappadocian critique of the monotheistic political theologies of their day, Gunton asks in what way the doctrine of the Trinity generates transcendentals which allow us to grasp the structure of created being by attempting to make its relations to the being of the triune creator transparent. From this perspective Gunton criticises the classical Parmenidean approach to treat the

46 Colin E. Gunton, The One, the Three and the Many. God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity. The 1992 Bampton Lectures (Cambridge: C. U. P., 1993). Radical Monotheism and the Trinity 73

One as transcendental, thereby downgrading the many Ϫ an approach the traces of which can be found in Thomas Aquinas Ϫ as insufficiently trinitarian without immediately opting for the elevation of the many over the one which seems to be the link between polytheism and some versions of what has been called the ‘social theory of the Trinity’.47 At the same time, Gunton distinguishes between the Trinity as idea and as transcendental, insisting that even if we understand the Trinity with Coleridge as ‘idea idearum’ it is not be understood as a transcendental but as generat- ing transcendentals.48 These transcendentals Ϫ Gunton specifies ‘per- ichoresis’, ‘substantiality’ and ‘sociality or relationality’ Ϫ are rooted in the relational unity of the trinitarian persons in communion, but they are actualised in relation to creation in the divine economy so that the one- ness-in-relation which God is constitutes the many-in-relation which is creation. If one can speak of an analogy between God and the world it is an analogia transcendentalis49 which is realised in the economy of creation and salvation. ‘In the case of God, the transcendentals are functions of the eternal and free relations of the persons, each of whom has, in inseparable relation to the others, his particular manner of being and acting. This does not mean that we have a privatze view into the being of God, but that the general characteristics of God’s eternal being, as persons in relation, communion, may be known from what he has done and does in the actions that we call the economy of salvation. In turn, the doctrine of God derived from the economy enables us to see that the creation bears in different ways the marks of its making, so that the transcendentals qualify people and things, too, in a way appropriate to what they are. In sum, the transcendentals are functions of the finitely free relations of persons and of the contingent relations of things.’50 On these presuppositions it can be shown that holding fast to the connection between monotheism and the Trinity is a necessary require- ment for preserving a radical understanding of monotheism. If the integration of unity and relation is neglected, monotheism is bound to revert to an abstract monotheism that cannot be distinguished from henotheism.

47 Cf. the section on ‘The One as transcendental’ in Gunton, 136Ϫ141. 48 ‘We should notice that there is a distinction to be drawn between idea and transcendental … The Trinity is not a transcendental, in the sense of being a mark of all being. Rather, it must be maintained that the doctrine of the Trinity is in the first instance a way of characterizing the being of God, that is, of saying something of the kind of being that God is. It is thus idea rather than transcendental, for it is a making known of something of the character of the source of all being, goodness and beauty that the doctrine of the Trinity is important. But although it is not transcendental, not a mark of all being, it yet generates transcendentals, ways of looking at universal features of the world of which we are part and in which we live. The expectation is that if the triune God is the source of all being, meaning and truth we must suppose that all being will in some way reflect the being of the one who made it and holds it in being.’ (Gunton, 144 f.) 49 Cf. on this concept my article ‘Human Being as Relational Being. Twelve Theses for a Christian Anthropology, in: Chr. Schwöbel and C. E. Gunton, Persons Ϫ Divine and Human (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2nd. ed. 1999), 141Ϫ170. 50 Gunton, The One, the Three and the Many, 230. 74 Christoph Schwöbel

Far from undermining the concept of monotheism the doctrine of the Trinity secures a radical monotheism that can claim ontological universality and not only the quasi-universal particularity of a social faith or tribal religion. Niebuhr’s programme of a radical monotheism can only fulfil its task if it is based on a consistently trinitarian monotheism in which the economic relations of God to the world can be understood as grounded in God’s everlasting immanent relationality. In this sense it has to be maintained that the trinitarian structure of Christian monotheism safeguards the universal comprehensiveness as well as the ontological status of belief in one God. The task that these considerations would suggest for contemporary theological reflection can be summarised in the two-fold thesis: Only a radically monotheistic theology can be a proper trinitarian theology, and only a proper trinitarian theology can be a radically monotheistic theology.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Dieser Aufsatz beginnt mit einer Gegenüberstellung der philosophischen (O. Mar- quard), dogmengeschichtlichen (E. Peterson) und dogmatischen (J. Moltmann) Kritik am Mo- notheismus mit der Konzeption des »radikalen Monotheismus«, die von H. Richard Niebuhr entwickelt wurde. Die Kritik am Monotheismus konzentriert sich auf den Zusammenhang zwischen dem Gottesbild und dem Verständnis menschlicher Gesellschaft, also auf genau diejenigen Punkte, die für Niebuhr den radikalen Monotheismus begründen. Wie ist ein Weg aus dieser Aporie zu finden? In diesem Aufsatz wird vorgeschlagen, den Begriff des Mono- theismus in drei aufeinander aufbauenden Kontexten zu bestimmen: im Gegenüber zum Poly- theismus, der in der Einzigkeit und Einheit Gottes die Einheit der Welt begründet sieht und den Menschen durch die Beziehung auf den einen Gott als integriertes Wesen zu verstehen lehrt; im Zusammenhang philosophischer Reflexion, in dem durch die Interpretation des einen Gottes als Grund des Seins und Fülle aller Werte, der den Monotheismus vor dem Zerfall in henotheistischen Partikularismus oder henotheistischen Synkretismus bewahrt und der die ontologische Einheit der Welt als kontingentes Seiendes im Gegenüber zu Gott betont und den Menschen durch die Abhängigkeit von diesem Grund des Seins im Dasein und in der Erkenntnis definiert sieht; und schließlich im Kontext trinitarischer Reflexion, in dem Einheit und Beziehung in Gott so zusammengedacht werden, daß die relationale Einheit der Trinität als Grund der relationalen Struktur der Welt und menschliches Dasein als Sein-in- Beziehung zu verstehen ist, in dem die Beziehung des Menschen zur Welt und zu sich selbst in der Beziehung zu Gott begründet verstanden wird. Diese grundsätzliche Reflexion wird dann auf die frühe Denkgeschichte des Christentums angewandt, indem gezeigt wird, wie das Ϫ zunächst präskriptiv zu verstehende Ϫ monotheistische Prinzip die Ausbildung des trinitarischen Gottesverständnisses gegenüber den Alternativen des Modalismus und des Sub- ordinatianismus beeinflußt hat. In dem so entwickelten trinitarischen Monotheismus ist die Möglichkeit begründet, die getrennten Traktate »De Deo Uno« und »De Deo Trino« neu zu intergrieren. Ausgehend von Colin Guntons These, die Beziehung Gottes zur Welt durch die in den Beziehungen der trinitarischen Personen in ihrer relationalen Einheit und relationalen Identität konstituierten Transzendentalien zu bestimmen, durch die Personsein und Gemein- schaft, Freiheit und Beziehung vermittelt werden, wird die These begründet: Nur eine radikal monotheistische Theologie kann eine angemessen trinitarische Theologie sein, und nur eine angemessene trinitarische Theologie kann eine radikal monontheistische Theologie sein.