Nel libro “Is Jesus God?”, Richard Swinburne esplora il perché esistano tre persone divine. A prima vista la cosa appare controintuitiva.
Rendere conto del Dio-Padre è semplice, tanto è vero che ad esso credono anche ebrei e musulmani.
… But Christianity claims that there are three divine persons who depend totally on each other and act together as one ‘personal being’…
Cerchiamo di ragionare in astratto immaginandoci Dio-Padre da solo, e ricordiamoci che dalla sua definizione discende che è un amante perfetto:
… A loving person needs someone to love; and perfect love is love of an equal, totally mutual love, which is what is involved in a perfect marriage …
A questo scopo…
… Father will bring into existence another divine person with whom to share his rule of the universe. Following tradition, let us call that other person ‘God the Son’… if the Father only began to cause the existence of the Son at some moment of time, say a trillion trillion years ago, that would be too late… At each moment of everlasting time the Father must always cause the Son to exist, and so always keep the Son in being… Although the Father is the (eternal) cause of the Son’s existence, and the Son is not the cause of the Father’s existence, they will in a certain sense be mutually dependent on each other… Hence the Father would not exist at all unless he caused the Son to exist…
Veniamo ora alla ratio della terza persona…
… A twosome can be selfish. A marriage in which husband and wife are interested only in each other and do not seek to spread the love they have for each other is a deficient marriage… The love of the Father for the Son must include a wish to cooperate with the Son in further total sharing with an equal; and hence the need for a third member of the Trinity, whom, following tradition, we may call the Holy Spirit… A universe in which there was only sharing and not cooperation in further sharing would have been a deficient universe… anyone who really loves someone will seek the good of that person by finding some third person for him to love and be loved by… Hence the Trinity must have always existed…Although the Father and the Son caused the Spirit to exist, and not vice versa, all are (in a sense) mutually dependent for the same reason as before…
Dal fatto che non possano esistere tre esseri onnipotenti discende la perfezione del loro coordinamento, pur nelle diverse sfere di competenza.
E’ grazie al perfetto coordinamento delle tre persone che diventa possibile parlare di un unico essere articolato su tre persone:
… But how could there be more than one divine person? Clearly there could be three persons who are each essentially omniscient, perfectly free (and so perfectly good), and eternal. But how could all of them be essentially omnipotent as well?… The only way in which conflict can be avoided is if each of the three persons see themselves as having at any one time different spheres of activity, because it would be bad for them to act outside their sphere of activity. Then each could be omnipotent, but there would be no conflict because in virtue of their perfect goodness…But what could determine which divine person had which sphere of activity? Persons caused to exist by another person have obligations to the person who caused them. So the Father, being perfectly good, will seek to avoid any conflict by laying down for each divine person his sphere of activity… But what could determine which divine person had which sphere of activity? Persons caused to exist by another person have obligations to the person who caused them. So the Father, being perfectly good, will seek to avoid any conflict by laying down for each divine person his sphere of activity… he is not caused to exist by anything else… But since the perfect goodness of the Father requires the other two divine persons to exist just as inevitably as the Father exists, they are what I will call ‘metaphysically necessary’… All three members of the Trinity are metaphysically necessary persons, but the Father alone is ontologically necessary…
Cosa distingue le tre persone?
… If the Son and Spirit are to be beings of the same kind as the Father, they must also lack thisness. So what makes each of them the particular divine person he is must be some further property; and there are obvious relational properties which will do this job. The Father is the Father because he has the essential property of not being caused to exist by anything else (that is, being ontologically necessary). The Son is the Son because he has the essential property of being caused to exist by an uncaused divine person acting alone. The Spirit is the Spirit because he is caused to exist by an uncaused divine person in cooperation with a divine person who is caused to exist by the uncaused divine person acting alone…
Perché solo tre?
… adding a fourth would not provide a new kind of good state… But then any fourth divine person would not exist necessarily, even in the sense of metaphysical necessity…
Notare che la dottrina, per quanto complicata, non pregiudica la semplicità dell’ipotesi teista poiché tutto discende senza ulteriori assunti rispetto a quelli semplici di partenza:
… the hypothesis that there is a Trinity is not more complicated than the hypothesis of theism for the great simplicity of which I argued in Chapter 1. A simple hypothesis is no less simple for having complicated consequences… They form a totally integrated divine society, the Trinity, which acts as one coordinated whole. This can itself be said to be…
Perché di fronte a tre persone divine non parliamo di politeismo?
… because in the way described it is a society rather than one person, I shall call it a ‘personal being’, and for the rest of this book I shall use the word ‘God’ as the name of this being… In this sense there is ‘one God’. So (in a derivative sense) whatever any divine person is and does, God is and does…
La dottrina della Trinità puo’ essere raccontata in modo semplice: 1) una persona che ama veramente, ama nel modo più nobile 2) l’amore più nobile è quello tra eguali, 3) un amore vero diffonde amore intorno a sé.
In fondo il matrimonio sintetizza abbastanza bene i concetti sottostanti alla Trinità: suggella l’amore più nobile, quello tra eguali (troppo facile amare la mamma, o il figlio). Un matrimonio riuscito desta ammirazione e voglia di imitare amando a nostra volta. Senza dire dei figli: un frutto dell’amore che produce altro amore.
Ma adesso che abbiamo speculato a tavolino, andiamo a vedere cosa dice la dottrina cristiana nel “Credo” niceano in merito alla natura di Dio. Dice forse qualcosa che si avvicina alle nostre conclusioni teoriche?
Il Dio cristiano è effettivamente trinitario e ogni persona ha la sua sfera di competenza…
… The Creed also indicates, as I have suggested that we should expect, that the three members of the Trinity have at any time different spheres of activity. It speaks of God the Father who is ‘maker of Heaven and earth, and of all things both seen and unseen’…
Al figlio spetta l’esecuzione delle opere…
… He made everything ‘through the Son’; that is, the way in which he causes things to exist is by directing the Son to cause them to exist…
E’ questo aspetto del Dio (il Figlio) che si incarna e si fa uomo…
… The Son ‘became incarnate’ and lived on earth, and will ‘come again in glory to judge the living and the dead’…
Registriamo quindi una corrispondenza tra teoria e dottrina.
Ricapitolando, la teoria della Trinità sembra complicata ma in fondo si basa su due intuizioni abbastanza semplici e facili da sottoscrivere: 1) l’amore più nobile è quello tra eguali e 2) l’amore autentico si effonde nell’ambiente in cui è presente…
… The argument which I have given in this chapter for the necessity of God being a Trinity may seem a very sophisticated one. But it depends on two very simple moral intuitions: that perfect love requires total sharing with an equal and requires cooperating in spreading that love further, so that anyone you love has someone else to love and be loved by…
