Michael Knowles: the Politics of the Trinity 2

The Politics of the Trinity Michael Knowles

‘A New Vision of Reality’

Bede Griffiths, the English Benedictine monk who lived the Christian monastic life within the Hindu and Buddhist culture of India, wrote:

“In the Christian mystical understanding each person is unique. Each is a unique expression of God, a unique expression of the divine, and each is in all and all are in each. There is total transparency. All are one in God and one in each other. But we are not lost in this oneness; we are found in our total being. ‘He who will lose his life will find it’ (Mt.10.29). When we lose ourselves totally in that abyss of love, we find ourselves. Perhaps the fundamental difference is this: that the heart of Christian mysticism is a mystery of love, whereas both in Hinduism and in Buddhism it is primarily a transformation of consciousness. Brahman is saccidananda, being, consciousness and bliss. It is not specifically love. Love is included and was marvellously developed as bhakti but this is not so central either in Hinduism and in Buddhism, whereas the essence of the Christian experience is an experience of love, not primarily of consciousness or of knowledge, though these of course are included and love is self-communication. The nature of love is such that we become persons by loving. We have the capacity to transcend ourselves in love, to go out of ourselves and to experience one another in love, and grow as we communicate in love. It is all a matter of interpersonal relationship. In this understanding the basic need of human existence is growth in interpersonal relationships, in love, and that is so basic that we are called into being by love. The love which is given to mother, father, husband, wife, children and friends, all this is simply a created manifestation of a love which created us in the beginning and is drawing us to itself. All created love is a manifestation of the uncreated love from which we come and to which we are moving. In this we do not lose ourselves, just as in a human relationship of love you do not lose yourself. If you love someone you become one with him or her and they become one with you, but you do not cease to be yourself. If that happened, it would no longer be love. So it is a communion of love, an experience of oneness in love, and that is the end and the meaning of life.

This interrelationship in love is a reflection of the life of the Godhead, where the Father and the Son give themselves totally in love and are united in the Spirit in an unfathomable unity. So the interpersonal relationships within the Trinity are the model and examplar of all interpersonal relationships on earth and ultimately of all relationships in the whole creation…Everything is interdependent and inter-related on a physical level, on the psychological level, and finally on the spiritual level; and the Trinity, as far as can be expressed in words, is the examplar of all relationships and the unity of all being in love”.

From ‘A New Vision of Reality –Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and Christian Faith’ edited by Felicity Edwards. Fount (HarperCollins Publishers) 1989. pages 253-254.